“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.” – Lao Tzu
On March 2 1962, Wilt “the Stilt” Chamberlain had the highest scoring NBA basketball game of all time. He scored 100 points in that game, a feat likely never to be repeated. Chamberlain was the number two highest average scoring player in history, behind Michael Jordan. He would have easily been number one, had it not been for his free throws.
Wilt Chamberlain was terrible at free throws. Terrible. He was so bad that the coach wouldn’t play him at the end of a close game, since the opposing team only needed to foul him, and send him to the free throw line, where he would surely miss.
Meanwhile, Chamberlain’s teammate on the Golden State Warriors, Rick Barry, was the most accurate free throw shooter in the league. By the time he retired, Barry was the most accurate free-throw shooter in NBA history, averaging 90.0 percent of his free-throw attempts. In his final season, Barry hit over 94% of his free throws. Rick Barry shot all of his free throws underhanded. That’s right, Barry shot “granny style.”
You might think since both Chamberlain and Barry were on the same team, Chamberlain would learn a thing or two about shooting free throws. Well, sort of. For a short period, Barry convinced, and taught, Chamberlain to shoot underhanded also. He improved his free throws remarkably. But it didn’t stick. Chamberlain said he couldn’t do it. He said he felt “like a sissy” shooting underhanded.
Read interviews with Rick Barry, and it’s pretty clear he never gave a damn what other people thought of how he shot the ball. In his mind, the point was to get the shot in, so he never cared what other people thought.
What other people think of us – or what we think other people think of us – means so much that we would often rather fall back on old habits, or abandon new thinking and new ideas, in favor of simply fitting in.
The difference between those who succeed, and those who sit comfortably in lackluster positions, is they are willing to fight the gravitational pull of mediocrity.
“The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.”
– John Stuart Mill
A study from Duke University back in 2006 revealed that over 40% of what we believe are conscious choices every day, are actually habits. Chamberlain just couldn’t make a habit out of shooting underhanded because he felt embarrassed by it. He was too concerned about what the world thought of him. He was the greatest basketball player of his era, and still he couldn’t get over what other people thought of how he shot free throws.
There is an important, and distinct, difference between trying, and failing, at something, and being a failure. The key difference is how we think about it.
Real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran lost nearly everything in her first failed marketing campaign. Bill Gates’s first company, Traf-O-Data, was a complete bomb. Milton Hershey’s famous company, Hershey’s, was actually the fourth candy company he founded, after the first three failed.
Failing at an effort is not the same as being a failure. The most important mindset shift is to think of our work as experimentation, not as either successes or failures, but instead simply experiments, which we can constantly improve upon. It’s the shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. And that reframing is a small act of leadership.
To learn more about turning failure into constant experimentation, and reinventing innovation, take a look at:
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, (Routledge) just released. You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.
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As one of the most revered coaches in American history, John Wooden, the “Wizard of Westwood,” coached his University of California basketball team to an unprecedented ten national championship titles in twelve years. This remarkable winning streak included an astonishing run of eighty-eight undefeated games in a row, and back-to-back 30–0 seasons.
If you had been lucky enough to play basketball for the great John Wooden in the 1960s and early 1970s, you would have been surprised on your first day of practice. Instead of the opportunity to show your passing, shooting, and dribbling skills in front of the esteemed coach, your first lesson at your first practice would have been to learn to put on your socks, and lace and tie your shoes, properly.
Describing the first practice of every season, Wooden would ask his players to take off their shoes and socks. Explaining that these were the most important pieces of equipment each player possessed on the court, Wooden taught his players how to carefully pull on each sock, making sure there were no wrinkles, particularly around the heel and toes, which might cause a blister.
Then, advising each player to hold his socks up firmly while lacing his shoes, he told the player to pull the laces securely from each eyelet, not simply yank the laces from the top. And always, always, double-knot the laces, Wooden said, having no tolerance for shoes that became untied during a practice or a game. Ever.
This is how the greatest basketball coach of all time started his first practice of each season. Leadership isn’t about how to put on your shoes and socks, but it is about doing little things that can lead to big impact. Small, consistent efforts, practiced over time, can yield big results for you, and the people around you.
Here are three of the biggest myths of leadership that simply are not true, yet are constantly shared and reiterated over and over.
Great Leaders Possess Great Confidence.
Stanford University is one of the greatest academic institutions in the world, and every year it produces some of the finest leaders. To get into Stanford requires not simply good grades, but also a record of demonstrating leadership, ingenuity, community service, and an aptitude for continuous learning.
Each year, Olivia Fox Cabane, who teaches at Stanford, asks her incoming group of freshman, “How many of you in here feel that you are the one mistake that the admissions committee made?” Each year, more than two-thirds of the students raise their hands.
Academy Award winner Jodie Foster told an interviewer on 60 Minutes she feared she would have to give her Oscar back after winning best actor award for her role in The Accused. “I thought it was a fluke,” she said in the interview.
Meryl Streep has been nominated for more Academy and Golden Globe awards than any other actor in history. She told the documentary film maker Ken Burns, “You think, ‘Why would anyone want to see me again in a movie? And I don’t know how to act anyway, so why am I doing this?”
Pressure often creates stress. In a typical stress response, heart rate and breathing increase, and blood vessels constrict. But those people who rise to challenges with the belief that stress is a positive opportunity have an opposite physiological response: the blood vessels open and relax as if they were in a state of elation or preparation for physical test.
Embracing adversity and challenge with a positive mindset is another way of saying that you trust yourself. It’s another gesture of confidence. And that confidence and resolve will make you much more resilient for whatever challenges arise. That’s the first secret of great leadership.
Middle Management is a Becoming Irrelevant
This myth has been propagated as recently as April, 2016 by Josh Bersin who writes:
One of the senior execs I talked with the other day told me “I don’t have time for mid-level managers any more. I can get the information I need to run my business through our digital information systems. If our leaders aren’t hands-on experts in their business areas, I don’t really need them.”
I disagree. Middle managers are the cultural lifeblood of organizations. They guide the mood of the organization, attract and retain top talent, and become the lens through which every employee sees the company. They also serve as an interpreting bridge between individual contributors and executives. If they are good, managers provide context, tone, and cultural glue.
In an interview with Tom DiDonato, Senior Vice President for Human Resources for Lear, a global technology and innovation company, he told me:
Ultimately, people view the company through the lens of the person they work for. They don’t say “I work for Company XYZ, and even though my boss, and their boss, aren’t role models for me, I really love the company.” I doubt you will ever hear that. . . . If you view your boss as a role model, you probably think really well of the company. I believe that to my core. That’s the one thing you don’t have to tweak. . . . Keep getting great leaders. Keep developing great leaders. Keep having those people in your company that others view as role models, and you’ll have that sustainable culture that attracts the kind of talent that everybody is vying for.
Leaders Can Always Recognize Wrongful Behavior
The term “deviance” has long been associated with behavior that is harmful, dangerous, or perhaps immoral, such as lying, cheating, stealing, and other dishonorable acts. But sometimes organizations slip into unethical behavior, and going against the norm in a positive way, through “positive deviance”, may be more honorable behavior.
“The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate,” – Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker
Earlier in 2016, the fallout from the Volkswagen deceit reached global proportions. The systemic deception by Volkswagen has been called the “diesel dupe.” As a BBC News article explains, Volkswagen was found to have installed a device that defeated emissions testing, effectively changing the performance results of the emissions tests on its diesel vehicles. This “defeat device” was actually a piece of software designed to recognize when the vehicle was undergoing emissions testing by recognizing test circumstances. VW has admitted to installing this device on eleven million cars worldwide.
Beyond the mechanics of the deceit and the politics of the scandal lies the question, “How could the people and the culture within Volkswagen have permitted this?” The device was too integrated and sophisticated to have been a mistake produced by lack of oversight, confusion, or even ineptitude. The device, and the deceit, had to be carefully engineered and intentional. But were the engineers working on the software truly aware that they were committing an unethical act?
Daniel Donovan, an information technology engineer in Auburn Hills, Michigan did recognize that Volkswagen was doing something very wrong, and he filed a lawsuit against Volkswagen after they terminated him for attempting to reveal the truth.
Diane Vaughan is a social scientist who coined the term “normalization of deviance” to describe the way organizational cultures can begin to drift morally and rationalize that drift over such a slow time horizon that they aren’t even aware of it themselves. Rather than being positive, this kind of deviance is destructive.
As she wrote about in her book The Challenger Launch Decision, Vaughan studied the infamous 1986 Challenger space shuttle explosion and discovered that faulty O-rings, linked to the disaster, were identified as fallible long before the disaster occurred, they were simply tolerated as an acceptable flaw in the design.
“No fundamental decision was made at NASA to do evil,” Vaughan wrote. “Rather, a series of seemingly harmless decisions were made that incrementally moved the space agency toward a catastrophic outcome.” The O-ring damage observed after each launch was normal. The culture had simply drifted to a state in which that condition was also considered acceptable.
In the NASA example, the existence of the damaged O-rings after each launch was deemed acceptable. It became an implicit, and accepted, rule that everyone simply tolerated and believed to be quite normal. But if we step back for a moment and study the situation, as Vaughan did in her analysis, that acceptance of damaged O-rings seems pretty crazy.
Only a day before the fatal launch of Space Shuttle Challenger, engineers Bob Ebeling and Roger Boisjoly strenuously argued to NASA officials that the O-rings could stiffen and fail to properly seal the joints of the booster rockets because of the cold January temperatures. These arguments were not persuasive to NASA officials because, after all, they had the original detailed engineering report stating that the risk was acceptable.
The lesson is that the greatest leaders know what they don’t know, and seek out the truth from all corners of the organization.
Edited and excerpted from Small Acts of Leadership with permission from Taylor and Francis Group Publishing. Copyright 2016. ISBN-13: 978-1629561363
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, (Routledge) just released. You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.
Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better?
– Carol Dweck
Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can change our brain.
There is a scene in the new movie Dr. Strange in which a character describes how he healed an impossible injury through the strength of his own thinking. True, that’s a Marvel Comics movie, but growing research suggests this isn’t entirely fiction, and that it’s possible that the words we use not only affect those around us, but also affect our mind and body.
Joe Dispenza shattered several vertebrae after getting hit by a car while on his bicycle. As a chiropractor, he knew that the recommended solution of fusing vertebrae together would lead to a lifetime of limited mobility and pain. Instead, he thought his way to healing.
Nine months later, he was able to walk and function as well as he had before the accident, and he credits a large amount of that recovery to the power of his own mind.
Every time you learn something new, your mind physically and chemically changes.
– Joe Dispenza
Where we place our attention and focus defines who we are. The words we choose to speak, the thoughts we visit and revisit over and over in our mind reinforce those ideas and affect the words we choose to say out loud. Those words and ideas not only affect those around us, but they affect who we are and how we think about the world around us.
Feelings of unworthiness, or ineptitude, can creep into our consciousness. It’s easy to recognize those same thoughts over and over as we repeat and again reinforce them. Neuroplasticity is the term used to describe how the brain continues to reinvent itself, constantly changing over time depending on what we focus on, while older, unused pathways shrink and become abandoned, and new ones, with repetition and focus, emerge.
Not that long ago, many scientists believed that our brains were fixed, hard-wired, and unchanging. Not we know instead, that what we think about actually rewires our brain.
“Angry words send alarm messages through the brain, and they partially shut down the logic and reasoning centers located in the frontal lobes.”
– Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman
Our brain is an artifact of our past experiences and emotions. If we do the same routines, and spend our time with the same people, who push our same emotional buttons, we can not honestly expect anything to change. In order to truly change the way we think, and the way we interact with the world, we need to exercise new neural pathways in our brain.
To create new neural pathways requires that we envision a new and powerful future experience. Our minds will then begin to change, and form new neural pathways, to align with the envisioned future. And when we practice those envisioned outcomes regularly, our brain will begin to believe these dreams are not simply possibilities, but destiny.
Right now in Sao Paulo Brazil, the Walk Again project is using virtual reality therapy, working with paraplegic patients to help build new neural pathways which can reactivate dormant fibers in their spinal cord, and miraculously allow them to move and feel their extremities again for the first time in years.
Eight patients, each with a long-term spinal chord injury and no lower extremity sensation, performed 2000 hours of virtual reality brain training. Results varied with each patient, but for the most part they all went from a total absence of touch sensation to some capacity to sense pain, pressure and vibration. One patient has progressed to walking without the aid of a therapist, using only the aid of crutches and braces.
Try envisioning a better version of you and your world. Over time, your mind will begin to build the language and habits which will make it destiny.
To learn more about adopting a growth mindset, and reinventing your future, take a look at:
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, (Routledge) just released. You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.
https://shawnhunter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/look_at_this-540x237.jpg237540Shawn Hunterhttp://shawnhunter.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/logo.pngShawn Hunter2016-11-10 08:52:102018-04-03 07:48:39The Science of Controlling Your Own Destiny
Yes, you could lose your job for being inept, incompetent, missing deadlines and milestones, or simply failing to do the work. But you will not be fired for taking chances, and embracing risk and then accepting the responsibility that goes along with it. And if you are fired for taking an honest chance, with positive intention, and then owning the outcome, your boss is a coward, and your company is on the brink of irrelevance.
So most of us don’t take chances at work. Instead we take crap from management, accept workplace bullying, go along with idiotic ideas, follow unethical orders, hide our opinions, and mask our true identities. We even accept lower salaries. All because we fear losing our job, or because we are trying desperately to fit in.
Fifty years ago only experts worried about cigarettes, drunk driving, and wearing seat belts. The rest of the general public was more alarmed about nuclear attacks, Russian invasions, and asteroid impacts.
Today you are more likely to be struck by lightning (1 in 960,000) than you are of being killed in a terrorist attack (1 in 20 million). You are far more likely to be killed by your own furniture, or drown in your bathtub, than from a terrorist attack. And you are 200 times more likely to die in a car accident than a plane crash. We fear the wrong things.
Risk equals probability multiplied by consequence. In other words, smoking cigarettes or driving while texting is waaay more risky than worrying that you are going to be kidnapped and held for ransom. But risk is different than fear. Risk is quantifiable, it’s something you can calculate, while fear is perception.
The difference between risk and fear is, of course, control. When you are smoking or driving a car you are in control. When you imagine being attacked by a bear on vacation in Yellowstone Park (1 in 2.1 million), you have no control whatsoever. It’s a terrifying thought. It could stop you from taking a nice walk in the woods.
After September 11, 2001, 1.4 million people changed their travel plans to avoid flying, choosing to drive instead. Driving is far more dangerous. The decision to drive, instead of fly, caused an estimated 1,000 additional auto fatalities.
There’s a number of other criteria that also affect our perception of risk. Timing is a big one. When we believe that the risk is imminent, we perceive it as more dangerous, and longer term risks are viewed as more moderate. This explains why we postpone exercising and order another glass of wine. There’s no immediate risk, right? But habits build, and pretty soon the couch potato routine turns into very real health disabilities.
Familiarity is also one of our biggest barriers to attempting anything challenging and difficult. When we are familiar with the challenge, we view it as less risky. Yet statistically safe activities, which we have never done before, are viewed as terrifying.
Just last night our family watched a show about big, scary waterslides around the world. Waterslides are among the safest, and most controlled recreational environments, complete with professionals who are monitoring the entire experience. But as we saw in the TV show, time after time, people would balk at the last minute and refuse to participate in the waterslide.
Another consideration that halts our ability to accept risk is considering how reversible the consequences are. Losing your job is an irreversible experience, therefore we view the risk as higher.
All of these factors – familiarity, control, reversibility, and timing – contribute to our sense of risk and fear. However, here is one thing we know to be true. Great leadership, remarkable innovations, and outstanding service, begin with initiative, and embracing risk and the accountability that comes with it.
Initiative and conscientious risk-taking are the hallmarks of great team members and great companies. Yet, this learned behavior only happens when people feel psychologically safe at work. If you work in the kind of company that respects the psychological safety of teams, you are more likely to speak up, share ideas, ask for help, and take initiatives.
If you are a leader responsible for a team, you likely have deadlines and objectives for your team to accomplish. The best way to get team members to step up is to make them feel psychologically safe to take chances.
To learn more about adopting a learning mindset and driving innovation see:
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership is a Washington Post #5 Bestseller. You can order a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.
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“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”
– John Wooden
In 1974 Ronald Gallimore and Roland Tharp were psychology students on the campus of UCLA. On the other side of Westwood Boulevard, across from the academic side of campus is Pauley Pavilion, where John Wooden coached his UCLA Bruins basketball team. Gallimore and Tharp spent every afternoon of the 1974-1975 season on the other side of the street studying the habits of one of the greatest coaches of all time.
At the beginning of the 1974-1975 basketball season, John Wooden’s teams had won an astonishing 9 NCAA championships, including 7 in a row. During the season Gallimore and Tharp studied him, coach Wooden’s team won their 10th NCAA championship.
Over the course of the season, researchers Gallimore and Tharp recorded every word John Wooden said, and observed everything he did. These small acts of leadership apply to all aspects of building a successful career and life. Here’s what they found.
Use Every Minute
Afternoon practices were held from 3:29pm – 5:29pm every weekday afternoon, except holidays. The times were exact and unvarying. Each practice consisted of precisely timed exercises and drills, each drill with its own specific purpose. Wooden prepared practice plans for each session, which he wrote down on index cards and distributed to assistant coaches so everyone understood what was expected. A practice plan might read, for example, “3:30-3:40 Easy running floor length, change of pace and direction, one on one (cutter), one on one (dribbler). 3:40 – 3:45 five man rebounding and passing”
“I kept notes with the specifics of every minute of every hour of every practice we ever had at UCLA. When I planned a day’s practice, I looked back to see what we had done on the corresponding day the previous year and the year before that.” – John Wooden interview, 1997
Love him or not, Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the most successful and prolific writers, and business people alive. And he plans the first three hours of his day down to the minute. Actually, he claims “down to the second.” Yes, he takes time out to reflect, to exercise, to check out mentally and emotionally. You should too. But when he’s on, he maximizes every moment. Which also means single-tasking. Do one thing at a time.
Speed Up to Slow Down
One of Wooden’s signature drills was known as a “hustle.” The point of a hustle was to accelerate the drill and practice such that the players were right at the edge of their capability, just a split second from dropping the ball, or missing a pass.
The goal of a “hustle” is to speed up a practice drill incrementally to maintain accuracy, yet increase speed of play, through constant repetition. By preparing this way, when they played the actual game everything seemed in slow motion because everything they did in practice was so much faster. The players had much more time to react because the play felt much slower than what they were accustomed to.
Be Specific. Be Brief.
Over 65% of everything John Wooden uttered in practice was specifically what to do, and how to do it. Only 1.6% of his actions were to demonstrate how not to perform. Instead he almost exclusively focused on the proper way to execute each action. John Wooden had such a unique and specific pattern of correcting behavior, the researchers named it a “Wooden.”
A “Wooden” was a specific expression combination of scolding, correcting, and then instructing. For example, during play he would blow the whistle and say “I have been telling you for three years not to wind up when you pass the ball. Not like this. Like this! Pass from the chest!”
John Wooden also never, ever, gave grand lectures or locker room speeches. In fact, he rarely spoke for more than a few seconds at once. Typically he would speak for only about 4 seconds at a time.
Practices at UCLA were nonstop, electric, supercharged, intense, demanding . . . with Coach pacing the sidelines like a caged tiger, barking instructions, positive reinforcement, and maxims: “Be quick, but don’t hurry.”
– Bill Walton, former player for John Wooden and NCAA Player of the Year
Provide Solutions, Not Simply Evaluations.
Once I was coaching our U14 soccer team at a tournament against bigger, stronger opponents. We had the skill to compete, but our boys were intimidated by the size of the opposing team. At one point during the match I shouted from the sidelines, “Believe boys. Believe!” My intent was to inspire them to summon the strength of belief that they could win. Later my son came off the field and said, “Dad, it’s not helpful when you yell ‘Believe’. You need to tell us what to do.
My son was right. As Coach Wooden described in an interview, if his corrective strategies had been merely positive (“Good job”) or simply negative, (“That’s not the way”), then the player would be left with an evaluation of their performance, but not a solution going forward of how to correct their behavior, and improve their skill.
Elevate Individual Quality
Although formal practices started at 3:29pm, individual practice started at 3:00pm. At 3:00pm individual players were expected to arrive and work on specific things they were working on. Sometimes shooting, sometimes quickness and speed, sometimes dribbling, but each player had their own personal work-out tailored for them before the team practice.
“Every time I’m stumped with a business problem, it doesn’t matter what it is, the answer is always ‘increase the quality.’ Always. And that’s not very common in business.
– Yvon Chounaird, founder of Patagonia
This is an important message for aspiring leaders. Although only the strength of the entire team can execute on a vision, it’s the quality of effort of each and every individual, and the precision of their work, when combined with the collaboration with the entire team, which can help to achieve what one person alone can not.
To learn about how build a culture of continuous learning see:
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, (Bibliomotion) will be out in October, 2016. You can pre-order a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.
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Typewriters with ribbons, developed in the 1950s, were excellent at speeding up typists, but not so good at erasing their mistakes. Bette Nesmith Graham was a typist by day, and a painter by night. She wondered, “What if I could cover up my typing mistakes the same way I cover up my painting mistakes?”
She mixed up a batch of quick-drying white paint, and used it to wipe out her typing mistakes. Almost immediately, she was handing it out to everyone in the typist pool. That product later became Liquid Paper, which she sold for almost $50 million.
In 1965, Dwayne Douglas, a football coach at the University of Florida, watched his players run and sweat and drink gallons of water for hours in the hot Florida sunshine. Squinting into the sun, he wondered, “Why aren’t the players peeing more after the games?” He asked a kidney researcher at the university that question, who then developed a drink to replenish electrolytes. The result became Gatorade, named after the Florida Gaters.
In 1943, while on vacation in New Mexico, Edwin Land took a family portrait with his camera. His daughter asked immediately, “You took the picture. Can I see it now?” Which led Land to ask himself the question, “What if you could somehow have a darkroom inside a camera?” The answer to that question became the Polaroid Camera.
When you think about it, everything starts with a question. I have been collaborating for the past year with Marilee Adams, Ph.D., author of Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. She has poignant stories of how simple questions, when reframed, can change the course of history.
Consider the subtle question shift, from “How do we get ourselves to water?” to “How do we get water to us?” That question shift is the difference between nomadic cultures moving themselves to reach water, to civilizations using technology to bring water to the people. Roman aqueducts, irrigation and indoor plumbing are the cornerstones of modern infrastructure, and all an answer to the question, “How do we bring the water to us?”.
“A paradigm shift occurs when a question is asked inside the current paradigm that can only be answered outside it.” – Marliee Adams, Ph.D.
Here is an idea from the work of Eric Vogt and this colleagues, start by reframing questions from Either/Or to What If.
A powerful question will generate curiosity, stimulate reflection, invite possibility, and focus attention. A more powerful question will also stay with you much longer, and touch something deeper inside. Powerful questions such as, “What would you do if you were not afraid?” and “If you were dying, would you worry about this?” make us rethink our priorities, and give us courage and purpose.
In Germany there is often a professional called Director Grundsatzfragen, which translates to Director of Fundamental Questions. It’s their job to be asking questions that have the power to drive systemic innovation and change. To the most experienced, shaping better questions becomes a true art.
Einstein said much of his breakthrough thinking in Relativity came from wondering, “What would the universe look like if I were riding on the end of a light beam at the speed of light?” That might sound like a crazy question, but it’s also the kind of crazy question that brought about breakthrough thinking.
Start one small act at a time. Try our course Small Acts of Leadership to build action into your life every single day.
Our company Mindscaling, is busy building powerful human and digital learning experiences for companies of all sizes. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I love to work with groups large and small. Let’s talk.
Last summer, our son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Buy a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.
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What are you thinking about when you are thinking about the things you have to do? What are you thinking about when you are thinking about obligation?
Now, what are you thinking about when you are thinking about the things you get to do? What are you thinking about when you are thinking about opportunity?
The difference between these two things is the difference between indifference on the one hand, and energy, power, creativity and excellence on the other. And it’s all in our mind, in how we see the world.
Obligation can creep into our work. If you are in sales, your boss wants to know how many meetings you booked, how many proposals you sent out, how many phone calls you made. If you are a developer, your boss wants to know how many bugs you fixed, how many lines of code you wrote. Whatever role you might be in, the nagging question is about how many deliverables did you ship, how many points did you put on the board, what you have to do.
That constant demand of obligation affects our outlook and our behavior. In your workplace, do you feel like people are judging and evaluating your behavior and actions? Or do you feel like they are honestly curious about your work, giving useful ideas, lifting you up?
Are your ideas encouraged or dismissed? And most of all, do people in the organization talk about who is the smartest, with the most power and budget, or do they talk about who is passionate, and doing really exciting work?
The difference between these two conflicting attitudes is our mindset. People have mindsets, and ways they see circumstances and opportunities. So do entire teams, and whole organizations. The habits of individuals will eventually make up the culture of the whole.
Turning a culture from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset can be done by changing the language we use and the habits we encourage.
We can learn everywhere, nearly all of the time, if we are open to it, and prepared. Books, movies, conversations, situations, schools, and focused research on the internet can all be valuable learning sources, but only if we are open and prepared for the unexpected, the surprising. Because when we recognize surprising events, or changes in circumstances, we develop new mental connections which incite active learning.
The way to build a company and culture that is alive with innovation, collaboration and energy, is by first creating a culture that encourages constant growth and learning.
Cultures of learning have three driving principles:
We can reach high learning standards when the culture provides rich and readily available experiences and resources
We are most successful when we are held responsible for our own learning and have autonomy to pursue our interests
Social interactions, and active practice, are fundamental to learning
While cultures of learning can transform the speed and agility of your business, it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes deliberate practice.
Most managers and leaders talk about deliverables and milestones and outputs. If you are a manager or leader in your organization, consider using language which creates an expectation that people take time and mental space for learning on a regular basis. That’s right, create an expectation that everyone learn a little something every day and then share what they learned.
If you encourage constant learning, you will have a much higher performing team in the long run, not just a stream of undifferentiated deliverables. Here’s a framework that will help guide people develop more intentional learning habits.
Schedule the time
For the most consistently creative and diligent people in the world, learning is a sacred time of day. Maybe it’s first thing in the morning. Maybe after exercise, maybe before breakfast, maybe after. People argue it lots of ways. The time of day isn’t necessarily that important when starting out. What’s important is the starting. Later, when the habit gets more ingrained, you can find out which particular times of day work best for you.
Make it easy
Minimize the amount of energy it takes to get started, remove all the hurdles to taking action that we can. If we want to start jogging more, we should lay our gear and our shoes by the bed before we go to sleep. That way, it will be right there staring at us in the morning. If we want to be better guitar players, start by taking the guitar out of the closet and tuning it up, and having it nearby. That way, it’s easier to put up and start playing when the mood strikes.
Prime your mind
Most of the writers, creators and constant learners I know keep a scratch pad handy. I use Evernote, but you can use anything to capture ideas throughout the day. Usually I write short fragments or expressions that mean only something to me. I’ll be in the grocery store, have a little insight, and then write a few words to recollect that moment later. Otherwise it’ll be gone.
Make teaching the goal
Aristotle once said, “Teaching is the highest form of learning.” In order to teach something thoughtfully, deliberately, and effectively, you have to understand it yourself. To have a deeper understanding of something, there is no substitute for research, writing, immersion, and practice of that idea. The very act of trying to write about something you don’t understand is itself an act of learning. Dan Pink is a celebrated public speaker, but I heard him once say that first and foremost, he considers himself a writer, because before he can speak coherently about anything he has to first understand it.
Become a fan
If you want to become better at anything, start as a fan. Follow, study, and friend anyone in that domain that you want to get better at. The first step to getting better is to be a fan of those who are better. And when you find someone who does what you want to do, what you aspire to? Stare at them, study their every move, their every brush stroke, their every breathe, because that’s how to break it down. Once you break down what you love, you can rebuild using those tools, but in your own voice.
Don’t try to make it perfect
“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”
– Anne Lamott, writer
Building a culture with a growth mindset is building success for the long term. After all, our work should be a journey to love and enjoy, not an obligation.
To learn about how a learning mindset can change your life and your work see:
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab your own copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.
https://shawnhunter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/mi-pham-223464-unsplash-e1531227567521.jpg13332000Shawn Hunterhttp://shawnhunter.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/logo.pngShawn Hunter2016-08-29 07:31:332019-02-27 11:36:54What You *Have* to Do or What You *Get* to Do
In the 1950s, in rural Oklahoma, at a place called Robbers Cave, several researchers performed an experiment we would find unethical today. They invited twenty-two eleven-year-old boys to participate in a three week camp. The researchers advertised a wholesome summer camp experience. The experience they delivered was very different.
What the researchers actually did was to privately divide the boys into two groups of eleven each, and separate them for the first week so they had no contact, or knowledge, of the other group at all. Isolated, each group developed their own habits, expressions, favorite songs, and even their own group names, the Rattlers and the Eagles, which they painted on flags and T-shirts.
Then, after one week, the counselors informed each group of the existence of the other group. Their immediate reaction was to challenge the other group to sporting contests. The counselors arranged for Tug-of-War, baseball, a treasure hunt, and other sporting contests, and arranged for prizes to be rewarded to the winners.
The Rattlers spent the days leading up the baseball game joyous and confident that they would win. They carefully raked and managed the baseball field in preparation for the game, ultimately placing a “Keep Off” sign next to the field and placing a Rattlers sign near home base.
At the end of the first day, the Eagles had lost the Tug-of-War contest. On their way back to the cabins they noticed the Rattlers sign on the baseball field. They tore it down, stomped on it, and then burned it.
Well, the flag-burning incident started a whole ‘nuther level of battle as the camps took turns raiding the other groups’ cabins at night, stealing and vandalizing. They had food fights, and actual fights. Their animosity toward each other was real and vicious.
At breakfast on the last day of the tournament, the Rattlers sang “The enemy’s coming….” They described the Eagles as a “bunch of cussers,” “poor losers” and “bums.”
The boys who took part in this study back in the 1950s are in their 70s now, but in interviews they all have vivid recollections of the strong group cohesion of their own tribe, and the fierce animosity they held for the other group.
And it was all contrived by researchers. The dynamic of creating in-groups and out-groups was artificially constructed as a demonstration of intergroup conflict and in-group cooperation.
The interesting thing about in-group cohesion is that we almost always see our own in-group as more creative, intelligent, and diverse. And we see out-groups as more homogeneous, and less varied. This perception is amplified when opposing teams are in competitive situations.
When two opposing athletic teams, or product development teams, or sales teams, or companies in similar industries face off, we almost always think of our own in-group as more diverse, varied, flexible, and creative, and we think of the opposing team as all the same.
In one study, 90 sorority members all described their own sorority as having more dissimilar and unique members in their own group, than the other sororities. Basically, they believed that each of their own members were more special than members of other groups. It’s why we love our people. Our group is special.
So when your son does something stupid, and then rationalizes it by saying Joey did it first, you should not say, “So if Joey jumped off a cliff I suppose you would to?” Because he probably would.
Understand that other people in the world are not so different. We all have the same aspirations for health, safety, engaging and interesting work, a sense of purpose, and a sense of community. We may just have our own opinions on how to get there, and then align ourselves with others who think the same way.
Your best source for new ideas, inspiration and innovation is not going to come from asking the same people, from your same in-group, the same questions. Take a chance. Have lunch with someone new. Ask them about their work, their life. Just listen.
To learn more about building new relationships, and adopting a growth mindset see:
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, (Bibliomotion) will be out in October, 2016. You can pre-order a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.
https://shawnhunter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/adventure_begins-1-540x280.jpg280540Shawn Hunterhttp://shawnhunter.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/logo.pngShawn Hunter2016-08-22 10:25:162020-05-04 11:02:32Your New Idea Is Not Where You Think It Is
Here’s an idea that might be slowing you down. Do you ever think to yourself, “I can’t try that, it’s already been done before! I need to find something new to show, something that’s never been done before, something that has never been seen before.”
This is the inner voice trying to please others, trying to fit in, get invited to the party. The truth is that authenticity creates stronger human and emotional bonds. And while being authentically yourself is closer and easier to access, it is also sometimes more difficult to reveal. Authenticity is scary, but it’s ultimately the most honest and sincere way to connect with people in the world.
The myth about vulnerability and honesty is that it’s a sign of weakness. Quite the opposite.
Recently the elder, transgender, comedian Julia Scotti brought down the house on America’s Got Talent and received a standing ovation. Judge Howie Mandel gushed, “You’re funny, you’re talented, and you’re brave, and I am so glad we got to see you.” She was amazing by being unapologetically herself.
Contrast that with the America’s Got Talent routine of Gary Sladek and “Broadway” Jim. Their first appearance featured an astonishing feat of scaling a towering stack of carefully balanced chairs. The act was daring and human. They were invited back on the show.
Their follow up appearance was an absurb and chaotic skit which involved them tumbling around a trampoline in goofy clown outfits. It was so bad, when they finished the audience sat quietly dumbfounded at their ridiculous antics. It was clear they were reaching for originality, and it fell flat because they were so obviously trying to be something they were not, trying to be someone else for the judges. In that instance, Gary and Jim were performing not for themselves, not to advance their act or their skill but instead performing simply for approval.
Here’s a secret: the greatest performers, writers, musicians, and artists create the work that they love, not the work that they think others will love.
I can honestly say that nothing is as uncomfortable, dangerous, and hurtful as believing that I’m standing on the outside of my life looking in and wondering what it would be like if I had the courage to show up and let myself be seen.
– Brené Brown
Our culture is shifting quietly away from identifying people as representative of a particular demographic, and instead respecting and appreciating the unique and varied experiences they may have had, shifting away from tolerance and acceptance and instead toward a culture of connection, shifting away from a sense of fair opportunity, and moving toward recognizing contribution to business impact.
And the best way to connect, and make an impact, is to share who you authentically are with the world.
To learn more about finding your authentic self, and adopting a growth mindset see:
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, (Bibliomotion) will be out in October, 2016. You can pre-order a copy now.
https://shawnhunter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/ballet_two-540x329.jpg329540Shawn Hunterhttp://shawnhunter.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/logo.pngShawn Hunter2016-07-19 12:58:512018-03-31 15:54:15Vulnerability Is Courage, Is Impact
Think of a time in your life when you were doing something new, and exciting, and fun. Maybe you were learning a musical instrument, trying a new sport, learning to paint, or even solving a sodoku puzzle. And then, after the thrill was gone, it got hard. It got difficult, and not easy, and not fun. What did you do? Did you quit? Did you press on?
Individuals adopt different types of mindset – sometimes a fixed mindset, and sometimes a growth mindset, which you can identify by their language and behavior. Those with a fixed mindset believe their skills and talents are locked in, immutable and unchanging. Those with a growth mindset believe that, with work and effort, they can grow and learn and develop.
I say sometimes, because both of these mindsets exist within us, at odds with one another all the time. The fixed mindset inside us whispers, “There’s still time to get out of here before someone notices I’m a failure,” or “I can always blame that guy if things go wrong,” or “See, I knew I couldn’t do it.”
The growth mindset within us replies, “True, but I think I can figure this out, or find someone who can help me.”
Here’s an extreme example of a growth mindset. On April 5, 2010, Dan McLaughlin quit his day job as a commercial photographer, and started a journey to become a professional golfer. He had never played golf in his life. Intrigued by the suggestion that 10,000 hours of deliberate and intentional practice could transform him into an elite player, he has set off on a quest to go pro. He’s at 4,000 hours now, has a trainer, a swing doctor, a chiropractor, and his handicap is down to 4. In his photo on twitter, he has “Persistence” written on his forearm.
Growth mindset people tend to work harder on identifying, and correcting, their mistakes. Fixed mindset people often cover, and hide, their mistakes. After all, if they can’t learn and get any better, why not hide their weaknesses?
“I think it’s really important for people to know that almost all of the great people that they admire, fabulously successful people, have had major, even monumental, setbacks that they’ve had to overcome. And that that is part of the human condition, it’s not part of being incompetent.”
– Carol Dweck, Ph.D., author of Mindset
Companies have mindsets too, and you can identify the mindset of an organization, or team, if you know what to look for.
People talk about how smart they are
When team members inside an organization start to talk about how smart someone is, or how talented someone is, look out. That language builds up heroic personalities – people who need to be called in to save the day. Have you ever been in a meeting, and the meeting can’t start because a certain someone hasn’t shown up yet? It’s that palpable feeling that nothing can happen until the hero arrives.
People get defensive about feedback
When you start to see people get defensive about hearing feedback, hiding their mistakes, or assigning blame, you may be in the midst of a bozo explosion. When you hear people object immediately with, “But that’s not true…” or “That’s going to be too much work”, you’re in a place where people believe in protecting their reputation, not growing their capabilities.
People dwell on failures instead of celebrating experiments
A sign of a growth mindset culture is a constant, urgent discussion about conducting, and studying, efforts like small experiments. Up until recently Facebook had a mantra of “move fast and break things,” which was an invitation to their engineers to rapidly prototype, ship, and then study the results. When you see a culture reciting folklore about taboo activities because of some past experience, you know you’re walking in an innovation wasteland.
Most of all, listen for language that describes people as passionate and enthusiastic, instead of brilliant, or gifted and talented.
To learn about how a learning mindset can change your life and your work see:
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, (Bibliomotion) will be out in October, 2016. You can pre-order a copy now.
https://shawnhunter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/get_dirty_take_chances-540x360.jpg360540Shawn Hunterhttp://shawnhunter.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/logo.pngShawn Hunter2016-07-02 10:09:252018-03-31 15:54:15How to Recognize the Mindset of Your Company
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building beautiful online learning courses based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, (Routledge) just released. You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.
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