FieldNotes
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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Shaking Hands and Other Gracious Acts
Leaders with signature strengths always have the option to use their gifts in ways that make others feel special. Sometimes those strengths are not skills or talents but status, relationships, influence or experience. When leaders go out of their way to marshal their intangible assets to make others feel important or special, they show themselves
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Fear Versus Promise When Communicating Major Change
Leaders are often surprised by how much the organization or team means to team members. For many highly committed colleagues engaged with the mission, work, and clients, the organization represents an inspired foundation from which they can excel and develop. The importance of the organization and what it truly means to them is monumental, even…
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Asking Team Members to Express What the Organization Means to Them
Leaders are often surprised by how much the organization or team means to team members. For many highly committed colleagues engaged with the mission, work, and clients, the organization represents an inspired foundation from which they can excel and develop. The importance of the organization and what it truly means to them is monumental, even if they
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Don’t Mistake a Pattern for a Habit
The habits people have will determine almost everything they achieve or fail to achieve in life. Creating new habits depends on repetition but goes a step further. Setting goals and inventing strategies for permanence is what forming habits is all about. Mistaking a pattern for a habit is why some behaviors don’t become everlasting. Make…
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Kedge Goals Help Leaders Get Ungrounded
When a sailboat runs aground, experienced sailors often deploy a “kedge anchor.” A smaller anchor, they row it into deeper water, drop it, and use their winches to pull themselves free. The kedge creates tension between where they are and where they need to be, while also providing leverage and movement. Leaders can become grounded…
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Consistency in the Customer Experience Creates Mediocrity
Great customer memories are a product of providers who go above and beyond, sometimes in the smallest of ways. Remembering a name and preference, searching for a best product recommendation to meet their needs, or following up to see how things worked, among many other details, are exceedingly difficult to bake into standard procedures. That’s…
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The Cheerful Pessimist
As the author Edward Abbey once said, “A pessimist is simply an optimist in full possession of the facts.” In reality, good leaders are three parts optimism and one part pessimism. In the words of legendary investor Charlie Munger, this makes them cheerful pessimists. A cheerful pessimist believes getting things done is never easy, and…
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Collecting Ambition
Leaders search for and revere ambitious people. The drive to achieve prized outcomes is an intangible that leaders can’t collect enough of. They know that without team members who possess a significant measure of ambition, achieving extraordinary team goals will be immensely more difficult. So, they select, encourage, and reward those who display the ambition…
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The Signs a Team is Waiting for a Decision or Strategy
As a rule, teams are always wanting and waiting for more clarity from those above. Knowing whatever clarity is potentially missing in their eyes is of critical importance to good leaders. In most cases, teams just need repetition of the existing strategy or goals so they can execute more effectively. But every once in a…
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Interpreting the Feedback to ‘Take a Step Up’
Leaders who offer this feedback do so because they believe the team member is ready for the challenge. They believe strongly in their skills and talents. So, they offer up this request as a motivation and recognition for their potential. The fact that they fail to describe what they mean is now beside the point.…