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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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.