Someone working in that situation should have had the strength and presence to say, “Hold up a minute. We don’t do that. We don’t treat people like that. It’s not who we are.”
The United Airlines event yesterday was an attack on human dignity, the most basic of human needs. The people staffing that flight and gate could have averted the horrific scene of dragging someone from the plane by putting human respect and integrity before United’s business interests.
Human dignity is the basis of human rights, the basis of civility and social structure, the center of our identity, the foundation of who we are. China is outraged. We should all be appalled.
It wasn’t just the unfolding of the event itself, but also the way in which United Airlines defended the action in an internal statement to employees. The language in the statement is defensive, suggesting the event was “unfortunate”, while United employees “politely asked”, the passenger “refused.” The whole statement is defensive instead of apologetic. In part, it says:
Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked. After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate. We apologize for the overbook situation. Further details on the removed customer should be directed to authorities.
What saddens us the most is the motivation of United Airlines. After the gross incompetence of overbooking the flight, United made a business decision to prioritize their own crew over a paying customer. The rationale for removing several passengers was so a crew could be transported to service a flight out of Louisville to maintain their business operations.
Apparently since the crew on board didn’t have the leadership and emotional intelligence to change their decisions in the face of a growing human crisis, they called the Chicago police to remove the man for them. The official statement later wouldn’t address the incident directly, but instead directed people to the Chicago police for answers.
There were numerous other choices in that circumstance. United could have attempted to assign a different crew for the Louisville flight, offered higher incentives, delayed longer, etc. But most importantly, United employees on that plane and at that gate could have been trained by their leadership and reinforced by their company culture, to make discretionary decisions in the moment which respect the dignity of each and every person.
The definition of a steward is a person who looks after the passengers on a ship, aircraft, or train, and cares for their well-being. Stewardship is the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.
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/2017/04/human_dignity-540x259.jpg259540Shawn Hunterhttp://shawnhunter.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/logo.pngShawn Hunter2017-04-11 09:54:362018-04-05 14:29:50The United Airlines Crisis of Human Dignity
My sister is sick. It’s cancer, and it’s well along. It was hiding and gaining strength for some time before it showed itself. And it showed itself only a couple months ago.
She is doing all the right things. She is consulting doctors, reaching out to family and friends, undergoing painful surgery, working in rehab, and preparing for chemotherapy.
Yet as terrifying as this all could be, as anxiety-inducing, nerve-wracking, scary as hell as this all could be, she is calm. She is calm when the nurse asks her to sit up on the edge of the bed, when she knows the movement of her surgical wounds will ignite fire in her abdomen. She is calm as she waits in a wheelchair for an ambulatory team to arrive in a transport van. She is calm as the nausea prevents her from eating. She is calm when she greets friends and family. She is calm when they go. She is always grateful for the companionship.
I’ve flown down to Maryland a couple times to visit. I don’t really know what to do. I just show up, listen, drive her places, attend doctor meetings, listen to nurses talk about medications, buy her green smoothies and hope it helps.
For those around her this is a terrifying time, and yet she is a calming presence. It’s quite remarkable. She is teaching those who love her to remain calm, to focus, to be resilient, to persevere. To breathe.
I called yesterday and she told me what a nice view she has from her window. I called the day before and she told me how pleasant everyone at the rehab center was. Her voice never betrays any sense of fear, or anxiety, or foreboding. A couple weeks ago I asked her that question. I asked her if she was afraid of all of this, if she was scared.
She said no. She said whatever will happen, will happen. She is leading us. She is showing everyone around her not to freak out.
It is an act of love to be at the epicenter of a storm and yet tell everyone that things are going to be OK, that things are going to be all right, whatever may happen. When we are faced with adversity, and have the capacity to calm those around us, that is an powerful gift of generosity and caring.
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/2017/04/gift_of_calm-540x236.jpg236540Shawn Hunterhttp://shawnhunter.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/logo.pngShawn Hunter2017-04-04 10:53:242018-04-06 11:39:38Be the Calm in the Storm
It’s a chaotic, fast-changing time we live in. Automation, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, cyber-threats, business bots, and the internet of things. It would seem that in this age of hyper-accelerating technology, we would need the techie skills to match. Maybe, maybe not.
Recently Deloitte conducted a survey to understand the millennial generation and get their view on the future of business, productivity, and what millennials think of the emerging younger GenZ generation. It’s mostly good news.
Eight thousand millennials were surveyed from all over the world and it turns out millennials are pretty optimistic, particularly when it comes to job readiness for the emerging younger population. The advice of thirty-somethings to their younger generation emerging now doesn’t appear too different from advice from the past. From the study:
Learn as much as possible: Begin your career open-minded and be ready to learn from others.
Work hard: Do your best and do not be lazy.
Be patient: Take your time when entering the workforce and go step-by-step.
Be dedicated: Be committed to succeeding and persevering.
Be flexible: Be open and adaptable to change and try new things.
Sound familiar? Thomas Jefferson, Michelangelo, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. all gave similar advice at different times in history.
But the surprising discovery in the study regards the specific skills needed to perform at a high level in the future. According to millennials working today in the world, it’s not technical skills that are needed. Analytic skills, IT skills, programming, social media skills, even language skills, and a global mindset, all ranked below the importance of leadership, flexibility, creativity, communication, and professionalism in the workplace.
That’s right. The strongest traits needed in the future to build innovation, and growing economies, are not technical skills, but human to human skills. Relationships drive progress in the world, not tech skills.
This is also good news for those of us who aspire to happiness and lifelong fulfillment. Harvard recently completed a study of over 75 years following the lives of 268 individuals from 1938 until now.
Through wars, marriages, career triumphs, personal tragedies, parenting, habits and daily behaviors, the Grant Foundation followed these people as they lived (and sometimes died) for 80 years. What they discovered is pretty simple.
They learned that the characteristics of a long, healthy and joyful life are strong relationships with other people, and resiliency through hardship. Religion, political opinions or sexual orientation made no difference. A happy childhood is helpful, but not necessary.
They learned that learning is a lifelong pursuit, and not restricted to childhood and adolescence. They learned that the habits you establish before 50 become predictive of mental and physical stability decades later, and the inevitability of a mid-life crisis is a myth popularized in the 70s.
According to the study, the strongest behavioral contributors of a joyful and successful life are the ability to create quality relationships with those around us, being altruistic with others, not taking oneself too seriously, finding joy in alternatives, and persevering through adversity.
Work on the strength of your relationships. It could be the most important thing you do, both for yourself and your community.
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.
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.
Your value to an organization is not in the hours you clock, the number of emails you flip, slide decks you build, and it’s certainly not in the air miles you punch to get in Zone 1 boarding.
Your value is in the creative energy and impact you bring to the table. The only way we can consistently and effectively bring our best ideas, and our greatest impact to work is if we believe our work matters, and if we believe our actions make a positive difference.
But it’s a stressful time right now. What with the election looming, it’s easy to get distracted and compulsively check the poll numbers (link not provided, check it later).
Over half of Americans are more stressed out now than a year ago. Fifty-two percent of Americans claim that the election is a “very or somewhat significant source of stress,” according to the American Psychological Association.
And when we are compulsively checking social media, we are creating yet more distracted anxiety, which in turn reduces our ability to think clearly, deeply, and coherently on our work. It’s a self-defeating downward spiral.
It’s well understood that high levels of chronic and acute stress impair our ability to think creatively, solve complex problems, and generate meaningful ideas. Stress is a response to a trigger, a circumstance, a rapidly changing environment, or a negative thought. How we react to these triggers can be the difference between positive or negative emotional states.
We can insulate ourselves against these stresses, and increase our effectiveness and impact. For example, public speaking is widely known to be one of the most stressful circumstances we encounter. It’s such a reliable way to induce stress that there is a test named after it called the Trier Social Stress Test.
Eighty-five people were asked to prepare a five minute speech on “why I would be a good candidate for an administrative assistant position at __________ university.” Then, they had to deliver their speech to a panel of stern, unwelcoming evaluators. And finally, if that wasn’t quite enough stress, participants were asked to count backwards from 2,083 by 13s for 5 min under harassing conditions. The evaluators would frown, and constantly ask them to go faster.
After the experience, researchers measured the saliva of participants for cortisol, and other stress markers. Those who were asked, prior to the test, to thoughtfully reflect on their own most important personal values, had lower levels of stress during, and after, the experience.
Lower stress also improves our creative impact. In another study, David Crewswell and his colleagues worked with seventy-three people between the ages of 18 and 34 and gave them a series of creative tests that go like this:
Read these three words: flake, mobile, cone. Now, think of a word that, when combined with all three, make a new word. The word “snow” works, because we can now create snow-flake, snow-mobile, and snow-cone. The task requires creative thinking. It requires a little focus and thoughtfulness, which is the kind of thinking we need every day in our work.
Before each small creative task, half of the group was asked to reflect on values most important to them such as family relationships, artistic ability, independence, religious values or other aspects of their life that they valued deeply. These reflections of self-affirmation had a stress-protective effect on their performance.
Every meeting we have, phone call we place, report we prepare, or presentation we deliver, is a performance opportunity. It’s an opportunity to bring our very best ideas, and impact to our work. When we take a moment to reflect on the values and relationships we hold dear to our identity, it reduces our stress, and increases our impact.
To learn more about adopting a growth mindset, and upping your game at work:
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/a_view_2-540x232.jpg232540Shawn Hunterhttp://shawnhunter.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/logo.pngShawn Hunter2016-11-03 09:53:422018-04-02 10:08:47You Can Reduce Election Stress and Up Your Game
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.
https://shawnhunter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/kalen-emsley-94118-unsplash-e1548363825204.jpg16672500Shawn Hunterhttp://shawnhunter.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/logo.pngShawn Hunter2016-10-24 09:35:062019-01-24 16:04:12Stop Being Afraid of Getting Fired
“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.
https://shawnhunter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/speedup_2-540x240.jpg240540Shawn Hunterhttp://shawnhunter.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/logo.pngShawn Hunter2016-09-26 12:48:502018-03-31 15:54:15Speed up to Slow Down. And Other Secrets of Great Coaches.
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
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.
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of 
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of 
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of 
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of 
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of 
Shawn Hunter is President and Founder of