Assume Best Intentions

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A young woman is waiting in a busy airport. She has some time to kill so she buys a little bag of cookies and sits down with her book to read. Pretty soon a young man comes and sits beside her and starts reading a magazine. They keep to themselves and after a couple minutes he reaches into the bag between them and takes a cookie.

She can’t believe it. But she’s too astonished to say anything. So she takes a cookie and keeps reading her book. Time goes by and she keeps reading and eating her cookies. But every couple minutes this strange guy keep reaching in the bag and taking a cookie until there’s only one left. Then he takes the last cookie, breaks it in two and offers her half. She can’t believe his guy! She stands up, and without a word to him, walks away and boards her flight.

Sitting in her seat on the plane she takes a deep breath to calm down. Then she reaches into her purse to get her book and finds the bag of cookies she bought earlier.

The moral of course is to be careful with our assumptions. Or better, always assume the best intentions of others.

Whatever anybody says or does, assume positive intent. You will be amazed at how your whole approach to a person or problem becomes very different.
– Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of Pepsi

To sharpen your ability to assume the best intentions of others, try these few things each day:

  • Practice mindful listening: Waiting to talk isn’t listening. You’ve had these conversations. You say something and instead of acknowledgement or affirmation you get back a completely different agenda because the other person was simply waiting for their turn to talk. Listen, then reiterate back in your own words. It will deepen the conversation, and the relationship. The other person is likely to say, “Yes, exactly!”
  • Focus on behaviors, not people: Instead of describing a person as (abrasive, fun, mean, weird, interesting…), describe their behavior. People are complex, and the days are filled with stresses and joys. To yourself and to others, describe the behavior of others, instead of belittling them with stereotypes. Moods change.
  • Honor differences and disagreements: We often having meaningless small talk conversations because they are easy. We all show up in the world with our own history, predispositions, and beliefs. And we know if we express those ideas we might create conflict and disagreement. It’s OK. There’s a difference between disagreeing and offending. When we set our defaults to listen and understand, we are more likely to honor and learn from the differences between us.

Sounds simple enough, but there is often a big gap between what we know to be the best thing to do, and actually doing it. Remember to assume the best in others. It can make a world of difference.

Change starts one small act at a time. Try our course Small Acts of Leadership to build action into your life every single day.

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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, my 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.

Kindness is the Killer App

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I recently interviewed Gene Klein, 87-year old holocaust survivor, born in Czechoslovakia in 1928. In our interview as he vividly recounted the horrors of the experience, the only time he became emotional and tearful was when he was consumed with gratitude and recollected small acts of kindness – a guard who gave him portions of food, inmates who gave him hope, or a German engineer who protected him briefly from hard labor.

Kindness can be one of the most powerful and enduring gestures we can make to others. I’ll never forget feeling lost and alone at summer camp and a young counselor invited me to sit on his bunk and read Jaws with him. I’m certain that wherever he is in the world, he has no recollection of it. But I do.

Kindness is a hard-wired part of the human identity. Researcher Dr. Michael Tomasello, who studies human behavior, demonstrated that infants and toddlers instinctively show concern and compassion for those in need or distress. In their study, they took 56 two-year-olds and broke them into three groups. All groups witnessed an adult drop an object, and struggle to pick it up.

One group of toddlers was allowed to intervene and try to help the adult. Toddlers in another group were held back from helping by their parents. The third group watched as another adult stepped in to help. The group that showed the highest distress and concern was the group that was restrained and not permitted to help. Over ninety percent of those toddlers who were permitted to help, attempted to.

Another thing: kindness is contagious. It turns out both positive and negative behaviors are contagious. Bullying begets bullying. Teasing begets teasing. But Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler have been studying community behaviors and found that positive prosocial behaviors spread much more rapidly than negative behaviors.

Not only that, researcher David Buss studied 10,000 people in 37 countries to figure out the most powerful attractor for those looking for a mate. Money? Yes, somewhat. Beauty? Yes, it matters – more to men than women. Intelligence? Yes, right up there at #2.

But the #1 characteristic desired around the world when looking for a long-term relationship was kindness and compassion to others. Reach out. Practice kindness every day. It will make you and everyone around you happier and healthier.

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SmallActs-3DShawn Hunter is President and Founder of Mindscaling, a company building powerful human and digital learning experiences based on the work of best-selling authors. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? Let’s talk.

Last summer, my 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. Grab a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.

Signs of an Impending Bozo Explosion

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It’s true that often those who are the most assertive in their own promotion and compensation get what they ask for. But their promotion doesn’t necessarily make them more effective leaders.

According to Jean Twenge, Ph.D., co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic, “People who are narcissistic want to be leaders. They don’t necessarily make better leaders, but they want to do it, so they’re more likely to end up in those positions.”

Often those recently appointed to a position of higher authority succumb to what’s known as the Power Poisoning Effect. It’s a term coined by researcher Deborah Gruenfeld to mean literally poisoned by power. In her research she found that those newly elevated to positions of power often exhibit these symptoms:

  • Give greater value to their own ideas and initiatives
  • Give lesser value to the ideas of those around them
  • Think that the rules no longer apply to them
  • Have greater difficulty controlling their own impulses

Sound like any corrupt politicians or exiled executives you know of?

Leadership that can’t be questioned ends up doing questionable things.
– Jon Acuff

It turns out that grandiose bosses who demand attention, take credit, possess little empathy, and belittle team members, are more likely to deliver worse results than leaders who support and nurture their teams. Unfortunately this same group of self-aggrandizing attention-seeking blowhards are also more likely to be paid more than their peers who seek advice, and give praise, support and resources to their team members.

That’s right, It’s an odd paradox to discover that the least effective and most toxic leaders are also the same ones who are financially rewarded the most. These are leaders and managers who often consistently refuse to hear negative feedback and build teams of stooges. It’s a sure sign of an impending Bozo Explosion.

In their study entitled “The detrimental effects of power on confidence, advice taking, and accuracy,” Kelly See and her colleagues discovered that those leaders who consistently ask for the opinion of those around them often do have less personal confidence in their own decision-making but are viewed by others as better leaders precisely because they ask for opinions. And because they ask for the advice of those around them, these leaders are more likely to make better decisions.

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Seek out, and work for, those leaders in the organization who actively ask for opinion or dissent, and then are willing to act on that advice even if it contradicts their own initial impulses.

The False Promise of Multitasking

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Young businesswoman sitting at a meeting, using mobilephone.

 

Leadership presence requires being present.
– Scott Eblin

Pressure to be more productive in today’s workplace was been escalating for years. And many of us have a false impression that by attempting to do many things at once, by multitasking, we are being more productive.

Car and Driver magazine wanted to figure out just how dangerous texting and driving can be, compared to drunk driving. So they rented an 11,800 foot airport runway in the middle of Michigan and put Jordan (22 years old) and Eddie (37) behind the wheel.

They rigged up a red light in the middle of the windshield to represent brake lights in front of the driver. A passenger had a little remote control to activate the light randomly and measure their response times. They tested the drivers at both 35mph and 70mph. The average reaction time while sober and paying attention was .54 seconds to start braking. Now they had a sober baseline.

Then they asked the drivers to pick up their smartphone and A) read funny quotes from Caddyshack and then B) text funny quotes from Caddyshack while driving. Reaction times varied of course, but all were worse than the undistracted versions of themselves. Some were considerably worse. Reaction times shown below in distance traveled:

  • Reading Caddyshack quotes: up to 188 feet before reacting
  • Texting Caddyshack quotes: up to 319 feet before reacting

Then they took a break and chilled out on the tarmac to get a good buzz on. They mixed up some vodka and OJ and goofed away an hour or so until the drivers blew a .08 on the breathalyzer. Then they repeated the test. Reaction travel distances shown below:

  • Driving with BAC of .08: add up to 7 feet (at 35 mph)
  • Driving with BAC of .08: add up to 17 feet (at 70 mph)

That’s right. It’s not even close. Reading or texting on your smartphone is way more impairing than driving drunk. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration puts the official estimate at 6x more dangerous than driving drunk. The Car and Driver experiment puts it at more like 16x.

Driving is second nature to most of us. It just requires paying attention and following the traffic rules. Obviously texting impairs that. But what about our work? Active listening, mental processing, creative engagement, and problem-solving all require much higher cognitive and collaborative participation. So, when we are texting and emailing while in meetings, or on conference calls, what’s our impairment level? 20x? 30x?

Or a better question might be “What’s the business opportunity loss when the people in my company are constantly distracted?”

It’s not news to anyone that multitasking is debilitating in many ways. The simple action of switching from one task to another is in itself, a cognitive drain. Not only that, simply attempting to multitask lowers your IQ performance to that of nearly an 8-year old.

And while 8-year olds are definitely creative, they are only creative when they’re paying attention.

Put the phone down and no one gets hurt.

Does your boss have a sense of humor?

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Did you ever walk in a room and forget why you walked in? I think that’s how dogs spend their lives.

– Sue Murphy

Forty years ago Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review, had been given six months to live. He’d been diagnosed with a painful, degenerative disease of the spine. Although Cousins was in constant agony and succumbing to paralysis, he checked himself out of the hospital (which he deemed “no place for sick people”) and moved into a hotel.

He began taking high doses of Vitamin C and prescribing himself a regular regimen of intense laughter. Watching Marx brothers videos and stacks of his favorite funny movies, he laughed and laughed every day. He discovered that the periods immediately following intense laughter had the strongest effect in easing his pain, and calming his mind.

He recovered from his illness and went on to write several books on the healing power of laughter.

Even though constant disruptive laughter is the bane of every elementary teacher, the benefits of laughter are now well known. It wasn’t always that way. In the mid-18th century, Lord Chesterfield, a public advisor on morality, proclaimed: “In my mind there is nothing so ill-bred as audible laughter.” In 1903, psychologist William McDougall wrote that situations which incite laughter are essentially unpleasant.

But we now know that laughter increases blood flow, reduces stress, decreases risk of heart attacks, and boosts your immune system. Even the insurance giant AIG ran TV ads proclaiming that laughing will add eight years to your life. And that information comes from their actuaries, who should know.

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’

– Dave Barry

In the workplace, fun environments rank higher in terms of reasons to stay with a job than money, gifts, and even recognition.

If you are a boss, or have a boss (which is everyone) who have the power to lead by example and set the workplace tone, you should know the killer advantages of creating a fun workplace:

Humor Builds Trust
Humor breaks through false pretenses, helps eliminates communication barriers, and creates an environment in which people feel more authentic and expressive in their ideas. The reason is that humor builds trust. In one study, people who measured high in terms of how often they initiated humor, and appreciated humor in social settings, were considered more trustworthy.

Humor Strengthens Leadership
Bosses who use humor as part of their leadership style are not only proven to build more cohesive teams, they are also perceived as better leaders and managers. Team members also report to their colleagues greater work satisfaction and higher approval ratings of managers who use humor in their interactions.

Humor Enhances Creative Thinking
Quite a few studies have demonstrated that laughter and humor not only enhances creative thinking by reducing the fear of expressing ideas publicly, but even improves memory and retention. If you want a more productive meeting, start with a joke. Not the teasing or ridiculing kind, but what researchers call “Affiliative Humor.” It’s the kind of joke that is non-threatening to any single member of the group, but instead works to demonstrate we are all coping together.

A final word of advice: There is a wrong kind of humor – a kind of humor that is divisive and destructive. It’s the kind of humor that is intentionally demeaning, derogatory, or rude.

For humor to have a positive, and powerful effect in our work, it needs to be inclusive, and remind the group of who we are, what we are doing, and how we do things.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

– Darynda Jones.

Keep laughing.

How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives

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How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
– Annie Dillard

Does this sound like you?

You rush around in the morning, get the kids off to school, and hustle to get to work on time. You commute twenty to forty minutes every day. You have your own cube, but it feels like assigned seating. There is stark overhead fluorescent lighting. You attend at least two meetings a day (sometimes more), both of which you didn’t need to attend, and could have been resolved in twenty minutes. But they drone on for an hour, only because they were scheduled to.

Your boss is well-intentioned, but he is so busy appeasing his own boss that your ideas are ignored. There’s no clear guiding vision that you can fathom, other than to fix problems, put out fires, and figure out how to charge the customer more. Meanwhile you watch your colleagues kiss your boss’ ass anyway to get ahead, and try to look more valuable.

Information comes late and loud. You frequently feel like you are the last person to learn about new initiatives. By the time you get the news, it’s presented to you as a “bag of snakes” and you are given a stack of responsibilities to get it on a “glide path” you didn’t know even existed at the beginning of the day.

You feel like half most of what you do is busy work. The emails keep piling up, and you keep hearing expressions like “do more with less.” You get meeting invitations you feel you can’t decline. So you keep working. In fact, if you are like most working Americans, you worked 365 hours last year in unpaid overtime, and didn’t take all of your vacation.

You are stressed. And you feel guilty because you haven’t taken time to exercise and deal with your stress. So you go for a run, and then feel guilty about taking time to exercise while the dishes pile up and the kids sit home and watch Netflix.

Or does this sound like you…

You work from home, coffee shops, or where ever you happen to be at the moment. You go in to the office when it matters to meet colleagues, not to punch a clock. You are invited to conference calls and kept in the loop, but attend only the ones relevant to your projects – the ones you are most interested in and can make the biggest impact.

You take time to sleep, and to exercise. Maybe you are the 5am boot-camp type, but you don’t have to be. You can go for a run at 11am if you want to. You just block that time. You also take time to volunteer at your child’s elementary school. You don’t hide that either. The idea never occurred to you.

You have a great relationship with your boss. You don’t dread interactions with her. Quite the opposite, you call her up anytime you have an idea to share, or need an opinion or support on a project. You always leave those interactions encouraged – even emboldened. She makes you feel like anything is possible. She generates energy in everyone around her.

Every time you sit in on a meeting with your boss, and your boss’ boss, they are constantly giving credit, and constantly giving the limelight, while meanwhile accepting accountability for anything that goes wrong. The COO asks, “We got a big customer win?” Your boss says, “Yes, but it wasn’t me. It was this team that made it happen.”

There’s no gossip, no trash-talking about management over beers on Friday. No fear of your job getting “bangalored” (outsourced to India). You live in a culture that is focused on outputs, not inputs – results, not volume of email noise.

You have friends at work. You do things with each other’s families for fun. You create quality products, and you know it. You take pride in your work, and your colleagues do too.

What’s the difference between these two stories?

The difference is the leadership. In life story #2 the leadership has flipped the culture. It’s a style of leadership that is generous of credit, inclusive of ideas, highly communicative, and purpose-driven. But these people also expect excellence, and have high expectations of the people in the company. And you understand this is a compliment. When remarkable people also expect remarkable results from you, that’s a compliment.

The people who lead companies in life track #2 are creating the biggest innovations, attracting the most sought-after talent, and driving the greatest value impact in the world.

Here’s the big idea: In these stories, who are the leaders? It’s you and me. We get to lead by example. Don’t tell me, “But my boss…” No, it starts with each one of us, and the attitude and action we take every day.

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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, my 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.

2 Small Things that Make the Biggest Difference

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Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul. – Douglas MacArthur

Imagine a race in which you don’t know where the course is, what you might be asked to do along the way, or even how long the race will last. Imagine that when you sign up for this race, you are told, immediately and repeatedly, to quit before you even start.

You are warned you might die. And even if you don’t die, you don’t have what it takes to finish anyway, so you shouldn’t bother showing up. The emails from the race director say “Stay home. You don’t have what it takes.”

The brochure reads:

A positive outlook on life is mandatory. Whiners and complainers need not to apply. This is not the race for you. Awards will be presented to those that finish. We don’t plan on handing out too much. No refunds.

During the course of this “race” which has no finish line, you may be asked to dig up a tree stump with your bare hands and then drag it ten miles to the top of a mountain, where you will be greeted by someone who asks you to memorize poetry. You then drag the tree stump down the mountain six miles to somewhere and recite the lines. You get it wrong. You hike six miles back to memorize it until you get it right.

The 2013 version lasted three days. Less than 15% finished. Genius, talent and education are the least of the discerning factors.

Why do some people accomplish more than others of equal intelligence? This was the question Angela Duckworth and her colleagues posed when embarking on a study in 2004 to measure people’s level of “grit.” Surveying the available research regarding traits beyond intelligence that contribute to success, Duckworth and her colleagues found it lacking in the specific area regarding the influence of possessing this quality, which they defined as follows:

We define grit as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Grit entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress. The gritty individual approaches achievement as a marathon; his or her advantage is stamina.

Grit is the combination of two characteristics:

  1. consistency of task
  2. perseverance through adversity

The researchers initiated their own study to develop something they call the “Grit Scale.” After generating a series of questions intended to measure “grittiness,” (for example, “I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge,” “I finish whatever I begin”), the researchers set up a questionnaire on their website, www.authentichappiness.com. Their results reveal higher levels of grit correlate with higher levels of education. The results also showed that grit tends to increase with age. Those individuals with high levels of grit also tend to have fewer career changes. Yet more surprisingly, those identified as possessing high levels of grit often had high grades in school yet scored more poorly on Standard Achievement Tests, suggesting that, despite lower scholastic aptitude, their perseverance and tenacity yielded stronger overall academic results.

The study gets even more interesting when the researchers decided to apply their Grit Scale to the 2004 incoming class of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Just getting into West Point is famously difficult. Entrance requires a nomination from a member of Congress or from the Department of Army. Once accepted, each entering cadet is evaluated on the Whole Candidate Score, which takes into consideration school grade-point average, Scholastic Aptitude Test results, physical fitness, class rank, and evidence of demonstrated leadership ability.

This comprehensive evaluation process for those applying to the academy is necessary to help the academy predict not only the graduation rate, but also the likelihood that entering freshman will finish an arduous summer entrance session known as “Beast Barracks,” or more simply “Beast.” Nearly 100 percent of the freshman cadets also took the Grit Scale test in 2004, and its results proved to be a better predictor of whether or not a cadet would survive Beast Barracks than the military’s own sophisticated and complexly designed evaluation tests.

It is these two small simple things: perseverance and passion for long-term goals, plus a willingness to remain tenacious in the face of adversity that can make all the difference.

[photo: Bethany Hamilton photographed by Noah Hamilton]

Giving Leadership: Why Influence and Inclusion Matter More Than Ever

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Paul Hiltz, President of Mercy Healthcare, might be the toughest interview I’ve had recently. But for reasons you might not expect.

It’s not because he isn’t articulate. He is widely praised for his ability to clearly communicate a compelling vision of the future. His mind is sharp. His ideas are clear. His voice is calm and assuring.

It’s not because he’s too busy to talk to me. He answers all of his email personally and promptly, and gave me his personal cell phone number and encouraged me to call with any questions. I called him once without a scheduled meeting, and after we said hello he asked me if I had a couple minutes to talk. I called him, and he asked me if I had a few minutes to spare.

It’s not because he conceals key parts of his business which he can’t share. Not at all. Paul is known as constantly initiating projects of transparency, and building education campaigns to ensure that everyone clearly understands how the business works. He once hired financial consultants to conduct workshops to teach everyone how the healthcare business works.

And it’s not because he is inaccessible tied up in the boardroom, or in meetings. Quite the opposite. Paul spends almost the entirety of his time in the hallways, having lunch with patients, or families of patients. The staff describe him as constantly visible both in the hospital, and in the greater community.

The real reason Paul is such a tough interview is because most of the time when I ask how he led a big process reinvention, or developed a remarkable financial turnaround, or constructed an entirely new service roll-out in the hospital, he tells me I should talk to this department head, or that nursing administrator, or the other communications director. Every time he tells me it was really their doing. Paul tells me, “She took the lead on that.” Or, “He made it happen. Talk to him.”

So I talk to them. I interview the people Paul points me to, and they all tell me the same thing. Yes, they were part of the equation, part of the team, but they all point back to Paul. It’s Paul’s leadership, they say.

They say everyone in the hospital is simply rallying around his clear vision of a comprehensive and high quality healthcare environment – a healthcare system fully integrated with the greater community. Everyone understands the goal, and everyone is committed to the mission. One of the doctors in the hospital system described Paul as “a healing leader” – a leader who is able to heal wounds of distrust, heal the lacerations of broken communication.

Welcome to a new style of open leadership – a leadership style that believes in:

  • influence not coercion
  • collaboration instead of individual heroism
  • treating employees they way we want customers treated
  • continuous, not episodic, habits of learning
  • giving, not taking, credit
  • assuming accountability, but giving autonomy
  • building inclusive, not homogeneous cultures

Paul Hiltz represents the epitome of a 21st century effective leader who guides not directs, influences not commands, and encourages instead of threatens. He has managed to galvanize the entire organization around a higher goal by constantly giving credit, and constantly giving the spotlight to someone else.

The 8 Sources of True Confidence

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Whether you think you can, or you can’t — you’re right.
– Henry Ford

Confidence. That elusive je ne sais quoi quality. It’s like art, you know it when you see it. You know it when you feel it. The thing is, confidence isn’t summoned on demand from the heavens. Confidence isn’t brought on by clenching your fists. Although you can strike a power pose and allow a burst of dopamine to create a burst of confidence, true and profound confidence comes from …

Preparation
One way you can step up on the field, on the stage, or at the meeting with strong confidence, is if you have done the work that will set you apart. Being prepared ranks as one of the highest confidence measures among professional athletes. Competence is almost always a strong predictor of confidence.

Visualizing Past (and Future) Performance
Recollecting past positive performances can give you a confidence advantage. When you take a moment to recollect a time in which you were previously successful, you’ll fuel a sense of confidence that you can repeat that success. Just as powerful is visualizing future success. Common among high performing professionals and athletes is visualizing the events unfolding in the most positive light. Wayne Rooney does this before every soccer match:

“Part of my preparation is I go and ask the kit man what color we’re wearing — if it’s red top, white shorts, white socks or black socks. Then I lie in bed the night before the game and visualize myself scoring goals or doing well. You’re trying to put yourself in that moment and trying to prepare yourself, to have a ‘memory’ before the game. I don’t know if you’d call it visualizing or dreaming, but I’ve always done it, my whole life… you need to visualize realistic things that are going to happen in a game.” (David Winner interview)

Great Coaching
There are many aspects to great coaches that can instill confidence, but the greatest coaches have the ability to be honest, specific and positive all at the same time. Honest, in that they don’t ignore the behavioral or performance weaknesses of the people they coach, but instead address weaknesses head on. Great coaches provide correctional advice that is both specific and positive.

For example, if you are practicing a presentation and constantly turn your back to the audience and read bullet points, your coach might say, “You know your content. Turn and face your audience and smile. They can read your bullet points on their own. Or even better, tell your audience a story that illustrates the bullet points on the slide.”

Innate Advantages
If your team is simply bigger, faster, and stronger, you will likely show up with more confidence. Just don’t let confidence become arrogance. If your firm simply has more capacity and resources than the competition, your team will likely enter the proposal negotiations with more confidence.

Social Support
First-time parents, exercise clubs, cooking classes, and OCD groups all get together for one purpose: to support each other through a specific change, or toward a specific goal. When you feel a little lost or unsupported, that’s a good time to reach out to those in your work or community who are experiencing the same pain point. You aren’t as unique as you think, and you can bet someone else is going through the same issue. Asking for help is the first sign of strength.

Competitive Advantage
The sun is in their eyes, the field is tilted, their lane is full of gravel, or the competition simply has a crappy internet connection. Recognizing a competitive advantage is a valuable source of confidence. The key is you have to do the diligence to recognize the advantages you might have. This is when competitive sleuthing can be valuable to help you both recognize, and articulate clearly to the customer what your advantages are.

Self-awareness,
Contrary to the old wisdom of positive self-talk such as “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” using positive questions is much more powerful as a confidence booster. If instead you say to yourself, “Can I do this?” you will have to answer the question in your mind and be specific about how you will overcome the obstacle, win the debate, or conquer the challenge. Be both positive and explicit in your self-talk is much stronger than simply repeating “I think I can.”

Trust
Could be the biggest factor here in team settings. I once watched a dynamic, high trust youth soccer team crush a team of hand-picked all-stars. The all-stars been told that each of them was amazing, so they played like that. The kids passed the ball as little as possible and selfishly worked for their own glory. The other team was a team – a team that had built the strength, experience, and trust of each other over years of working together. They were never told that individually they were great. They had built their wins by always relying on each other.

Innovation Hack: Flip the Story

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Pay very close attention. Ready?

Three hikers finish a long hard day on the Appalachian Trail. They trudge into a small inexpensive hotel and ask for a room. The clerk at the counter tells them it’s $30. Great, they each pay $10 and walk down to their room.

The manager wanders in later and asks if there have been any guests. The clerk reports the three hikers and the manager inquires what they paid for the room. The clerk tells him $30, and the manager reminds him they are having a $25 special this evening. The manager instructs the clerk to provide a $5 refund.

The clerk asks the bellhop to return $5 to the hikers. While the bellhop is walking to the room with the refund, he thinks to himself, “I’ve been hauling bags all night and I haven’t had any tips! What are they going to do with $5? I’ll take $2 for myself!”

The bellhop arrives at the room, knocks on the door and returns $1 to each of the three hikers. Each hiker originally paid $10, then had $1 returned. So, they each paid what? Correct, $9.

9 x 3 = 27. 27 + 2 in the bellhop’s pocket = 29. What happened to the other dollar?

One step at a time. Yes, each hiker paid $9. Multiplied by 3 equals 27. 27 plus 2 for the bellhop equals 29. Brain freeze. How is this possible?

The solution often turns out to be more beautiful than the puzzle.
– Richard Dawkins

It’s a fun riddle because the more you persist in one direction in the story, the more it becomes unsolvable. It’s in the telling. If you fixate on each hiker paid $9, then add $2 for the bellhop it’s impossible. It’s really fun to tell this story to kids.

As my friend Jay explains the solution: tell the story in another direction. The three hikers paid $30, got 5 back, and gave 2 to the bellhop, which equals 27. So yes, including the tip they did each pay $9.

We can get wrapped up in the persistent narratives of our work and life every day. At work, at home, at school we build up a narrative bias in which we tell ourselves stories about how things are.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
– Albert Einstein

To break the narrative bias, try telling stories in a different way. For example, when you have to pitch an idea to your colleagues or your boss, first tell it one way, then try it again using completely different words and phrases. Then a third time, with completely different language again. Or when attempting to solve a problem in a group, ask each member to propose a different approach.

We have tried this in many different settings, trying to solve different types of problems, or pitch different ideas. I’ve discovered that not only do the ideas get better with each telling, but people hear them differently. Varying language will land differently on people. They will hear the story in novel ways when you change the language you use. And when you populate the team with people from different expertise and backgrounds, each will naturally have a unique interpretation to contribute.

After all, remember the story of the six blind men describing an elephant? The first one touches the elephant’s side and says, “It’s solid and tall like a WALL!” The second blind man feels the elephant’s trunk and declares, “Not at all. It’s much more like a giant SNAKE!” The third blind man reaches out to the elephant’s knee and states, “You are both wrong, this is much like a TREE!”

And each was partly right, and each was partly wrong.

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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.

In other news, 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.