Awhile back I wrote about boundary conditions and how when we expand our boundary conditions, we can find greater growth.
I am one that does not like to show too much emotion. All my life I have been steady, not too hot and not too cold. This has served me well in many things, but it has meant that I have a narrow range of emotions and it is limiting to me and impacts the way I connect with others.
In a recent class with leaders at Microsoft I pushed against my boundary conditions.
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The boom of AI has changed the way people all around us are seeing the world. This is not another thought about AI, and not even one about trusting AI but rather on the impact of speed and cost on making the progress we want to make as leaders.
I learned from Steven M.R. Covey a simple idea about trust that became real to me as I pondered the age of AI and the pace of innovation. The idea is that trust accelerates progress (and business) and there is a simple heuristic we can follow to assess the level of trust in our families, communities, teams, or organizations.
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Building and strengthening your own leadership and the leadership of others is not an easy task. It requires focus, intentionality, and most often a mindset shift.
The beginning of this mindset shift for me happened right after college. I was working for a serial entrepreneur who taught me about Don Clifton and the early days of positive psychology. He had the following research question after finding there were mountains of research studies about how to “fix” psychological challenges we all face in life.
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One of my favorite things to do is go on a walk with my wife and son during my lunch break right before we put my son down for a nap. On a recent walk he joined us on his scooter.
As he rode ahead of us, he would look back to make sure we were still there. The moment he started to look back his scooter began to drift. He felt the swerve, looked forward, adjusted himself and then almost immediately looked back only to drift again.
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Research done by Princeton psychologists Janine Willis and Alexander Todorov states that it takes no longer than 100 milliseconds to form an impression of a stranger from their face.
Within a tenth of a second we are making judgments and forming first impressions. We are judgment making machines.
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This week we delivered an event designed to help leaders dig deep into who they are, why they work and how they can use that as a filter for making decisions.
The experience is deeply impactful and for some life changing. One of the things I learned this week is about our orientation in leadership.
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At Microsoft we have implemented a habit called the “check in”. This habit consists of two primary questions “what am I feeling?” and “what might be distracting me?”
Often, we include a third question, but it always changes depending on the context and owner of the meeting.
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There is a tool that I use when I am trying to keep my mind open about something. It is especially useful in brainstorming sessions.
The tool is a simple question.
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My daughter plays soccer and she loves to play defense. She practices kicking hard so she can clear the ball out whenever it gets to her side of the field. Recently she played in a tournament where it was indoor soccer on a field not much larger than a tennis court.
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A tool is a device or implement used to carry out a particular function. To become a better leader, we must use tools (not physical but mental tools) to make progress in our life.
I want to share with you a simple tool called the 10-Day Experiment. It is so simple it is almost hard to call it a tool, but it goes like this.
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I teach and invite people to act. Proud husband, father and amateur pizzaiolo