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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Taming the Need to Control
Leaders who stand for excellence struggle with two competing desires. On the one hand, they want to guarantee excellent outcomes by controlling the smallest details and everything connected to them. In their desire to achieve the greatest outcome, they become dictators of control. On the other hand, the best of these leaders also know that…
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Turning Praise Into Encouragement
High-performing colleagues desire and deserve praise from their leaders. Team members feel appreciated and recognized for their work when they receive praise. While some people need more of it than others, no one outgrows the need to hear they are doing things well, especially from their leader. When it is specific, the impact of praise…
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Getting Candidates to Talk About Their Weaknesses
Assessing the true strengths and weaknesses of a prospective team candidate is never easy. The interview process often reveals a person who doesn’t show up as the same talent later. Projecting the best possible version of themselves is an art form most candidates are prepared for. But to select the best candidate, leaders must break…
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Skill and Will
When evaluating the reason for consistently poor performance by a given team member, leaders might be surprised at how often it comes down to these two foundational qualities. Without the skill and the will to succeed, team members will always struggle. Who on your team has the skill and the will? And who doesn’t? Make…
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Balancing Defense and Offense
When times get tough, leaders rethink and reimagine what is possible. Eliminating unneeded resources and cutting the fat out of the enterprise protect the organization from losses or demise. In good times, nonessential expenses rise and leaders expand resources looking for new opportunities. In lean times, managing expenses and cutting costs is the prudent course…
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Why Everything Depends on Setting the Right Priorities
Priorities are never the leader’s “day job” or what they are expected to do. Instead, they are the highest and best use of time right now. As such, they change frequently, sometimes not lasting for more than a few hours or a day or two. Despite how important they are, many leaders lack the discipline…
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Hand Signs Between Trusted Colleagues
Watch a professional baseball game and you’ll see the managers and coaches engaged in some very strange hand movements. They might touch their nose, swipe the bill of a cap, and then tug on their ear. To the uninitiated, coaches can appear to be swatting flies or scratching a hard-to-reach itch. But what is really…
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Are You My Fan?
Everyone knows what it means to be a fan because they are one. We all have a team, athlete, or performer for whom we think so highly that we relish cheering them on to success. So, what happens when a leader becomes a whole-hearted fan of their team members? What occurs when a team feels…
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Saving Up Criticism
The best leaders give team members constant feedback, positive and negative, in a particular order. Telling people what they did well before describing what they could do better gives feedback the critical balance necessary for others to act on it. If a leader can’t find positives to emphasize, it is a sign they lack objectivity…
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30 Million Words
Why do some children in kindergarten seem to have a leg up academically and socially? Studies since the 1980s have shown that one difference maker is how many words they have been exposed to during the first three years of their lives. Children with a decided intellectual edge have heard as many as 30 million…