Ron’s Short Review: Debunking the myth that creativity is somehow related to genius and comes to you in a flash. It doesn’t. Like anything else, it takes hard work, dedication and commitment. Ashton gives some great practical advice and stories.
Knowing something is different than knowing the name of something.
Shane Parrish of Farnam Street Blog spoke of this concept from Richard Feynman, the Nobel winning Physicist.
Feynman said that his technique would ensure that he understood something better than everyone else. It helped him learn everything deeper and faster.
In a previous post we talked about Step 1: Teach it to a child. Feynman’s second step is Review
Step 2: Review
In step one, you will inevitably encounter gaps in your knowledge where you’re forgetting something important, are not able to explain it, or simply have trouble connecting an important concept.
This is invaluable feedback because you’ve discovered the edge of your knowledge. Competence is knowing the limit of your abilities, and you’ve just identified one!
I want to key in on one word that Feynman uses here, feedback. This word has its beginnings in the early days of rocketry. When the scientist were developing the first rockets near the end of World War II, they discovered early they could develop a rocket with enough thrust to reach a target. Thrust was not the problem.
The problem was they couldn’t actually hit a target even tough they had enough thrust to reach the target. They then had to spend more brain power, money and time to develop a process they described by coining the word, feedback.
Thrust is not the issue in learning. What you need is feedback from other minds. It works best when you inquire expert minds and more importantly when you inquire novice minds. Experts will ask great questions but experts also make too many assumptions. Novice minds have no such assumptions and will often ask more intriguing and difficult questions.
Review in your own mind. Review with experts. Review with novice minds. The important part is to make no assumptions. I’m reminded of a saying that my high school physics teacher was fond of using, “Assume makes and ‘a**’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’.”
Reviewing means questioning all of your assumptions.
Elle Kaplan, the CEO & Founder of LexION Capital recently published an article titled “How To Use The Reading Habits of Billionaires To Radically Improve Your Intelligence and Success”
I’ll let Elle explain the science and research behind the correlation with intelligence and success but the two quotes that captured my interest were from Warren Buffett and Elon Musk. Old school, new school if you will.
“Read 500 pages every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.” —Warren Buffett
When asked how he learned how to build rockets, Elon Musk simply said “I read books.”
I can’t guarantee that reading books will turn you into a rocket scientist, but I do know it radically increases your knowledge and gives you great new frameworks and perspectives, helping you understand the world around you better. As far as the success part, I’m not sure but it does make you happier and science does show that if you’re happier, you are more successful (but that’s another blog post coming soon).
If you’ve been a reader of my blog, you know that I have a reading section with quick summaries of the books I’ve been reading. But like many things, it’s good to look back over the year and reflect on what you’ve covered and enjoy the accomplishment.
Besides the 20 novels, and other non-business non-fiction books that I’ve read this year, here is a recap of the business-related books read in 2016:
- Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions
- Think to Win: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Thinking
- The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning
- How Adam Smith Can Change your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness
- The Future Arrived Yesterday: the Rise of the Protean Corporation and What it Means for you
- The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More and Change the Way you Lead Forever
- Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help
- Teaming: How organizations learn, innovate and compete in the knowledge economy
- A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the age of Quick Fix
- The Drama Triangle and Break Free of the Drama Triangle
- Bo’s Lasting Lessons
- Presence, Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges
- Idiot Brain: What your head is really up to
- Life in half a second: How to achieve success before it’s too late
- The Management Myth: Debunking the modern business philosophy
- Designing Your Life: How to build a well-lived joyful life
One of the questions I’m often asked is “How do you think up such good questions?” (Another book you’ll find in previous years is A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas) People find power in the ability to ask good questions that spark new perspectives.
Actually, I don’t think up good questions. Good questions are a result of reading, thinking, contemplating and wondering, not spur of the moment ideas. Curiosity is a very powerful leadership technique. I find the more I read the more curiosity I seem to have.
Read more! It will likely increase your intelligence, it may increase your success and it will most assuredly increase your happiness (which we know scientifically will increase your intelligence and success!)
Ron’s Short Review: My generation had “What color is your parachute?” This is a great book for today’s creative, entrepreneurial environment. Figuring out where you want to head along the way and designing your life to enhance your possibilities. I can easily recommend this book.
One of my clients that I’ve worked with for many years asked me to get certified as an executive coach. Now I’ll leave the judgment of whether I’m a good or bad coach to others (more on that in a minute) but I’ve been functioning as an executive coach since before the concept became popular.
I had been working with one executive for a few years when we had just finished a session with his top 40 leaders from around the world. As he and I were relaxing in his office after the session and sharing some of our experiences over the last couple of days he said to me “You’ve helped me build my leadership team to a level of performance that I didn’t know existed. And, you’ve helped me become a better leader than I could have imagined. And, you’ve helped us build a culture that I believe will survive this coming global shake-out that we’re beginning to see.”
Now, for a guy who preaches that the first element of great leadership is humility, I have to admit that I was overflowing with pride at that moment. Remember, the name of my company is Team Leadership Culture and he had just put his experience at the top of each of those categories. What else could he have said that would have been more flattering? Then he said something that absolutely shook my confidence. “But, your real value is …..” In that flash of a moment a shock went through my system because I had no idea what he was about to say next. He had just put my entire consulting practice framework, Team Leadership Culture, at the top of the list. What else could he say?
“But your real value is when we sit and talk like this.” I never thought that this time spent with leaders when we just sat and talked, shared, mentored, coached, learned together was of great value. This was before the time when “Executive Coach” was a common word in our language but I learned that evening how valuable this was. A CEO Executive Assistant once asked me “Are you selling drugs?” I laughed because I hoped it was meant in a humorous way and said “no, why do you ask?” She said “Because our CEO never grants more than one hour to anyone but when you show up he shuts off his entire afternoon and I just hear you in there laughing and talking. Are you selling drugs?”
So why did I need my Executive Coaching Certificate? It had been a corporate decision. All Executive Coaches must be certified! I did comply and while I did experience some value, my greater learning is that certification programs train you toward the norm. Certification means you have been trained to meet certain standards. It assumes there is a right way to approach coaching with systems, techniques and practices. I find that coaching is completely unique with each individual and doing things a standard way can only lead to standard results at best. When I asked the client that was pressing me to get certified if they had seen any difference between certified and non-certified coaches the answer was “no.” There are good and bad certified coaches, good and bad non-certified coaches.
My conclusion to all of this rambling is that leadership is developed not trained. Training by definition says to “teach a particular skill or type of behavior through practice and instruction over a period of time.” A second definition is to point or aim toward something. Leadership is dealing with the unknown. Management is dealing with the known. You can train managers when you know what to aim for but you must develop leaders.
Development by definition says to “grow or cause to grow and become more mature, advanced, or elaborate.” Leaders need to be developed. Mentor them, coach them, disciple them but don’t train them. Leaders developing leaders takes time, dedication and the building of trust. Are you a trainer or developer? Are you being trained or developed? Be/seek out that coach. Be/seek out that mentor. Grow!
Ron’s Short Review: Fantastic book that turns the noun “team” into the verb “teaming.” Great concept. Our corporations today need to be teaming on almost all fronts. It’s more than building great static teams (still needed). Teaming as an attitude is what creates the greater impact.
Ron’s Short Review: Of the two books on Strategic thinking/planning I read this month (See The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning) this one hit the nail on the head. Great guide for thinking through today’s ever-changing business climate.
Ron’s Short Review: I must admit that this was one of the few books that I couldn’t slog through. I don’t think it was the fault of the author it may be that it was written in 1994 and in today’s fast-paced, global business world I just didn’t find it relevant any more.
Ron’s Short Review: Fascinating story about how American industry responded to the needs of the UK, Russia and America at the beginning of WWII (and how the government nearly thwarted it). Fascinating read.
Ron’s Short Review: Yes, you probably need to be a Michigan football fan to fully appreciate the entire story. However, this may be one of the best stories I’ve seen about the need for a new leader to walk that tightrope that balances traditions and culture with the need for change.
Image source: Bob Miller, Creative Commons
I’ve never had much interest in Anthony Mahavorik, aka Tony Robbins. I don’t really have anything against the guy, it’s just that he never seemed real or genuine to me, but I do believe that he has been a keen observer of human nature to promote himself and his products so successfully. And one of his observations in particular intrigues me. His frame work of what he calls the six human needs. What’s interesting to me is that they are observed as pairs and when they get out of balance, they cause difficulties in people’s lives.
The six (in my words) are:
- Certainly—uncertainty
- Belonging—standing out
- Learning—teaching
Tony’s headings are slightly different and may have more meaning to you if you were to look them up. But let’s take a look at the balancing act.
Certainty—Uncertainty
I’ve watched people who have a great need for certainty in their lives. They’ve protected that need by always making the safe choice, never venturing out, even trying to control every aspect of their lives. The final results aren’t pretty. But those who tip the scales too far the other way to the uncertainty side seem to make more foolish decisions that threaten theirs and their family’s security. They always seem to be looking for the next big thing and are certain it’s right around the corner and nobody else can see it.
Belong—Stand Out
The need to belong and stand out is an interesting one to me because it’s a key balancing act in team building. One of the books on my shelf is titled, The I In Team. The point of the book is that we need to help each person on the team contribute in their own way. To stand out for a moment and really be appreciated by the other team members and yet, in the long-run it needs to be all about the team. The individual’s outstanding contribution must be seen as helping the team achieve its overall goal and be appreciated as such.
Learning—Teaching
Learning and teaching seems to be a deep and important one to me but maybe there’s a particular set for each of us that carries more weight than the others. But when people stop learning it seems to manifest itself in several ways. One seems to be the case of arrested development.
- No more changing.
- No more growing.
- No willingness to try new things, develop new talents, or tackle new challenges.
The ultimate result of this arrested development is death: physical, spiritual, or mental.
Teaching is sometimes a little more subtle and you do meet those people who declare they are not good teachers and you often have to agree. But they’re usually thinking about the classroom type teaching we experienced in high school or college which is just about the worst form of teaching there is (see A Thomas Jefferson Education). Observe those same people as they sit with a grandchild or someone that’s eager to know about their life experience. They turn into wonderful teachers and the sense of accomplishment and contribution is overwhelming. We all need to teach to experience fulfillment.
Balance, balance, balance. If things seem to be out of whack in your life, try examining it through Anthony Mahavorick’s framework and see if you can restore the balance.
Image source: Umberto Salvagnin, Creative Commons
Is there a surefire, can’t-fail approach to mentoring effectively in an organizational setting? Probably not. But that should not come as a surprise because, after all, we are talking about relationships between people. However, here are some ideas, principles, and goals that will help illumine your path to a satisfying and successful mentoring experience.
1. Be an encourager
Encouragement is one of the mentor’s most powerful tools for leading another person to higher levels of personal growth. The Greek word for encouragement means “coming alongside.” This means helping another person by being right there, offering whatever assistance is required.
All of us need encouragement—a word from somebody who believes in us, stands by us, and reassures us. Encouragement renews our courage, refreshes our spirits, and rekindles our hope. Encouragement goes beyond appreciation to affirmation; we appreciate what a person does, but we affirm who a person is. Affirmation does not insist on a particular level of performance, and it is not earned.
2. Be patient
Mentoring requires a good amount of patience from both parties. The endurance factor is quite important when the person with whom a mentor is working reacts with what might be considered a silly response (in words or actions). It takes patience to watch someone grow and develop into a better person. It takes patience to see missteps and not immediately go in and either change the behavior or solve the problem.
Thomas was the CFO of a large organization, and he took a new hire under his wing. Early on, the new hire, a COO of a smaller division of the same organization, made several mistakes. The CFO remained patient and diligent. They learned together and solved many of the issues. One of the methods used by the CFO was laughter. He never made the new hire feel inferior or guilty. He simply reflected on the COO’s actions, taking them for what they were and using them to create an open dialogue for training and learning.
3. Be trustworthy
As a mentor you must exhibit integrity. The person you are mentoring will be open and vulnerable only after watching you live a consistently ethical life. Trustworthiness means being reliable, faithful, and unfailing. Trustworthy leaders are honest and transparent, committed, dedicated, and keep promises and confidences. They also have the moral courage to do the right thing and to stand up for what they believe even when it is difficult to do so.
4. Be an opportunist
A good mentor is always searching for mentoring opportunities. The best mentoring happens in “teachable moments.” These impromptu opportunities to share insights and experiences require no formal agenda or time schedule, just a willingness on the leader’s part to be available and recognize moments when the other person needs help. This should flow naturally and not be contrived or forced. The protégé may not even realize that a “mentoring moment” has occurred.
Mentoring is a life-changing part of development. The goal is to coach and guide people through life transitions and structures, focusing on the “being” rather than the “doing.”
You need genuine concern, patience, and a great sense of humor, when mentoring an employee. But it’s worth the effort. People committed to growing together through thick and thin accomplish great things.