Our daily Field Notes email is just the kind of jumpstart you need. A fast read. Maybe less than a minute. Because sometimes it just takes one insight to change the trajectory of the day.
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You Can’t Keep a Good Leader Down
More than 75 years have passed since Henry Ford made the idea of leadership rather simple: “The question of who ought to be boss is like asking who ought to be the tenor in the quartet. Obviously, the person who can sing tenor.” After the fact — once a decision has been reached, when the…
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Don’t Let Mistakes Become Decisions
Mistakes are a part of life and they happen with great frequency no matter how experienced we are. The good news is that making mistakes is an essential part of learning and achievement. Once we make a mistake, we have the chance to course correct and do better on the next attempt. Sometimes, unwittingly, we…
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Accountability and Responsibility Defined
When disappointed by his inability to draft the players he wanted, legendary NFL coach Bill Parcells once commented: “If they want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for the groceries.” Like Parcells, none of us wants to be held accountable unless we control the process and ingredients critical…
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Winning is the Learning Multiplier
We’ve all heard and agree with the maxim, “It’s not the best team that wins but the team that plays the best.” But what about the interplay between happiness and performance? Briefly contemplate these two statements: • “A happy team is a winning team.” • “A winning team is a happy team.” Do you resonate…
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The Life Leaders Have Chosen
Success as a leader has multiple components. A good number are challenges rarely experienced by those who don’t lead. That’s part of why leadership is sometimes described as lonely enterprise — particularly when the leader is facilitating the goals and performance of others. Few people can relate or identify to exactly what a leader goes…
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Leave Out the Gristle
What a leader doesn’t say often speaks much more loudly than what they do say. This is especially true when it comes to giving people direct feedback. Leaving out the empty and negative comments that provide no utility is a sign of a leader who understands the power of saying more by saying less. Take…
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Perhaps You Need a New McGuffin
Thanks to the filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, we know the recipe for many thrillers is something called a “McGuffin.” A McGuffin is an object or device that serves as a trigger for the plot. The McGuffin, often cloaked in mystique, is a motivating force for the storyline and the actors’ behavior. Objects like the Maltese Falcon,…
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Pair Candor With Curiosity
Admitting that you don’t know something signals self-confidence and sincerity to others. This acknowledgement is not the sign of weakness that so many leaders believe it to be. Only leaders who know very little would pretend to know everything all of the time. By acknowledging they don’t know something, a leader shows themselves to be…
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Think Circle Not Balance
As metaphors go, the idea of “work-life balance” suggests we face a tradeoff for which there is no perfect answer, only the promise of stability. Being “in balance” is what we strive for, although we implicitly know that equilibrium is hard to attain and even harder to sustain. The “work-life balance” metaphor has been around…
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Create Like Picasso
Just in case you’re feeling particularly productive this week, consider a comparison to Pablo Picasso. The Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, and ceramicist lived for a total of 33,380 days. Born in 1881, he became one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century. He died in 1973. Picasso was otherworldly productive. During his lifetime, he…