Field notes
Field Notes
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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Retaining the Talents of ‘Ready Now’ Leaders.
As leaders and human resource professionals consider an organization’s succession plans, they often classify prospective promotees in three buckets: Ready in 3-5 Years, Ready in 1-2 Years, and Ready Now.
It’s not uncommon for some leaders to treat their teams as families. They ask everyone on the team to care, trust, respect, and support each other unconditionally, regardless of their performance or contribution.
People who develop and maintain professional relationships only to serve their own needs and purposes don’t fool anyone for very long. By prioritizing personal benefits over personal attachments and emotions, these utilitarian mercenaries don’t develop authentic or rich relationships with others. Instead, their relationships remain shallow, underdeveloped, and transactional.
Smart leaders and decision-makers have a fallback position for any strategic choice or decision they make. They choose not to finalize their decision or enter negotiations without it. That’s because a fallback position serves as a reference point against which they can judge the quality of offers, options, and choices. But the best advantage of a fallback position is the protection it provides. A good fallback position is a leadership safety net.
Although common wisdom suggests getting pumped up during competition can, at certain moments, positively affect performance, research confirms that competitive arousal has more downside than upside. Star athletes who frequently show the world what it looks like to get pumped up probably don’t want to hear that arousal more typically hurts performance than helps it. When performers of any kind become competitively aroused, they think poorly, often derailing whatever the best strategy is to accomplish their goals.
The best leaders create three distinct sets of tasks and priorities. Those that must be attended to today, those that need to be completed this week, and those that are weeks and months away.