Field Notes

A Daily Dispatch from the Front Lines of Leadership.

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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When You Find Yourself Far Behind, Reset the Clock

Leaders can learn from seasoned athletic coaches when it comes to dealing with an abysmally poor initial performance. When teams get blown away and find themselves in a lopsided game, the best coaches take a pause (halftime) and reset the score to 0-0. They then encourage their team to fixate on winning the next phase of the game without thinking about the margin or overall score.

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Creating New Habits Requires a Daily Rhythm

Creating a new habit is never easy. It requires real discipline to adhere to a new routine. What isn’t obvious is how frequently the routine needs to be repeated before a habit is formed. New behaviors that don’t occur daily seldom become habits. The human brain is hard-wired to create new connections. When a behavior is repeated regularly, especially in the same environment, the brain gradually encodes it as a routine action

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What’s the Difference Between an A-Player and the B’s & C’s?

Leaders naturally discriminate between team members based on track record, reliability, and skill. Giving team members a letter grade to capture the difference between them is somewhat of a parlor game for leaders. They love to argue about how many A-players they have on the team and why others don’t make that grade. Every leader wants more A-players and fewer C-players. The question is: What specifically defines the difference?

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Micro-Goals Get Projects and People Back on Track

When team members focus on the smallest steps, the larger objective not only seems more achievable, but progress toward it continues.The best leaders know that the smallest goal can sometimes be the largest motivation.

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Enter your email for instant access to our Admired Leadership Field Notes special guide: Fanness™—An Idea That Will Change the Way You Motivate and Inspire Others.

Inspiring others is among the highest callings of great leaders. But could there be anything you don’t know, you haven’t heard, about how to motivate and inspire?

Could there really be a universal principle that the best leaders follow? A framework that you could follow too?

There is.

Everyone who signs up for Admired Leadership Field Notes will get instant access to our special guide that describes a powerful idea we call Fanness™ (including a special 20-minute video that really brings this idea to life).

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