by Jane Perdue | Be your best you
Have you ever wanted something to be soooooooo perfect that you ended up doing nothing?
Recently that’s been the situation with me and my blog. I know I need to write a post or two, yet day after day goes by and I write nothing. Zip. Nada. That’s an outcome that gives me two gremlins to wrestle with—not having any blog posts written AND feeling bad about myself.
Ugh.
I finally found relief after remembering some advice literary agent Rachelle Gardner had shared with me. “To be a better writer,” Rachelle said. “Sometimes you have to kill your darlings.” I had a darling to get rid of.
In writing, the phrase “kill your darlings” means removing something precious that doesn’t move the story along.
My “darling” was believing that everything I wrote had to be profound. That mindset wasn’t moving me anywhere and, in fact, put crazy pressure on me. Pressure that was self-imposed. Pressure that stemmed from believing something, then forging ahead, thinking but without really thinking.
Belief is when someone else does the thinking. ~Buckminster Fuller
A strongly-held belief is a strength. Yet sometimes that same belief can also become a weakness. If a belief has hardened into dogma, that is, believing our position is the only correct one, than we’re in trouble because we’re not thinking critically about our thinking.
My position that all my writing had to be profound is a perfect illustration of what Drs. Linda Elder and Richard Paul call the “inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked,” i.e., when critical thinking is absent.
What critical thinking …
“…is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way.” ~ Dr. Linda Elder
“…is thinking about one’s thinking in a manner designed to organize and clarify, raise the efficiency of, and recognize errors and biases in one’s own thinking. One uses critical thinking to improve one’s process of thinking.” ~ Kirby Carmichael
“…calls for a persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends.” ~ Edward M. Glaser, PhD
7 actions to take control of your thinking
Drs. Elder and Paul suggest doing seven things to assure we’re thinking critically. I used their actions to review my “unchecked” thought processes:
- Explore thoughts underlying feelings and feelings underlying thoughts. I believe my writing must always be profound and inspiring or I’ll feel like I have failed.
- Develop intellectual humility and suspend judgment. Isn’t the mindset of always writing something profound rather self-congratulatory when you stop to think about it?
- Develop intellectual perseverance. Why must my writing always be profound? Why can’t I write for fun, to educate or just to share?
- Clarify issues, conclusions, or beliefs. OK, Jane, reflect on what happens if a piece of writing isn’t profound. Can’t people learn just as well from something simple? Not everything has to be intense, earnest, and researched endlessly. In fact, not all writing needs to teach.
- Questioning deeply: raise and pursue root or significant questions. Why am I so insistent on depth and complexity?
- Examine or evaluate assumptions. I want to make a difference and help others do the same. I want the world to react first with kindness rather than rancor. That means change, which is complex and requires deep thinking. Sure it does, however inspiration and learning can spring from lightness, too. Not everything meaningful has to be forceful.
Give reasons, and evaluate evidence and alleged facts. Look at all the articles that take a light-hearted approach and are successful. Not everything has to be deep and full of meaning.
Their process worked. When I took the time (that and a sprinkling of self-reflection fuel the process) to think about my thoughts, I realized I was being arbitrary. I’m going to walk through those seven steps more often!
Too often we… enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. ~John F. Kennedy
What about you? Has your own thinking ever tripped you up? How did you manage the situation?
Image source: Pixabay
by William S. Wooditch | Be your best you
Maybe you’re stuck in a dead-end job. Maybe you’re living what seems to be an existence without direction. When life fails to meet expectations, it’s easy to throw up your hands or blame your woes on other people and circumstances beyond your control. But that leads nowhere. Ultimately, nothing will change until you realize you’re the CEO of your life.
If you’re not happy, it’s time to call a one-person board meeting about your performance and make some changes.
My accomplishments in life and in business came from engaging what I call the “Four Pillars” – physical, mental, spiritual and emotional energy – so all aspects of life work in harmony.
In order to grow each of these pillars in all areas of your life, you need to be resilient, adaptable, willing to risk intelligently and ready to do the things that make a difference in the lives of others.
Changing the path your life is on takes guts, belief, audacity, self-confidence, and a willingness to do so.
3 ways to take charge
Three ways to take charge of your life include:
- Don’t compare yourself to others.
Many people look to someone who is successful and gauge how they measure up to that person. But comparing yourself to others can lead to frustration, anger and disappointment, which is the opposite of harmony. Instead, be your own measuring stick. Work today to be better than you were yesterday, and vow to become even better tomorrow.
- Avoid the “I can’t” attitude.
People come up with lots of reasons to avoid taking risks and making changes. “I can’t do this.” “I don’t know enough.” “It’s too hard.” “I’m too old.” “I’m not experienced enough.” If such thoughts rule your decisions, fear wins out before the game even gets started. Ignore those doubts and concentrate on the reasons why you can accomplish your goals.
- Build your value through learning.
Every day provides an opportunity to learn something you can apply to maintain your status as the CEO of your life. Much of that you can do on your own. But also, look for mentors or allies who can assist you with the learning materials or knowledge that can help.
Caution – remember to have fun!
While my advice is serious, I caution against turning self-improvement into a grim ordeal. Have some fun along the way. Life is to live, not to endure.
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Today’s guest “take charge” contributor is William S. Wooditch, author of Always Forward! The proceeds from his books sales are donated to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. Wooditch also is the founder, CEO and president of The Wooditch Group, a privately held risk management and insurance services firm.
Image source: Dreamstime
by Jane Perdue | Be your best you
This is a mash-up post! Part book review and part inspiration, both thanks to Whitney Johnson and her latest book, Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work. Be prepared to answer “yes” to Whitney’s question, “Are you ready to jump?”
One of the most insightful and telling exercises I do in my workshops with women leaders is asking them to list their personal strengths.
It’s amazing to see powerful women pause, either uncertain of what to list or fearful of appearing too brash and bold for knowing what they do well.
Whitney Johnson, author of Disrupt Yourself, defines a distinctive strength as “something that you do well that others within your sphere don’t.”
For anyone, regardless of gender, who is uncertain as to what they could identify as a personal strength, Whitney provides a thorough list of questions, all guaranteed to trigger thoughtful self-reflection.
If, at this moment, you’d be stumped in identifying your distinctive strengths, use Whitney’s six questions to spur your thinking.
6 questions to ask yourself to identify your strengths
- What skills have helped you survive?
- What makes you feel strong?
- What exasperates you about others?
- What made you different, even an oddball, as a child?
- What compliments do you shrug off?
- What are your hard-won skills?
Were you successful in determining some things you do well?
This personal development exercise is but one many available in Whitney’s book—and all apply to all genders. Her book outlines how to take the framework of disruptive innovation and apply it to our personal lives.
As she notes, “We are living in an era of accelerated disruption; no one is immune. If you want to be successful in unexpected ways, follow your own disruptive path. Dare to innovate. Do something astonishing. Disrupt yourself.”
Dare to innovate. Do something astonishing. Disrupt yourself. ~Whitney Johnson
For years, I liked the comfort zone of my corporate job. It made me feel secure. I knew I had a “place” and I knew where that place was. But eventually that comfort zone made me feel stuck.
For those who feel stuck and are unsure of how to chart a going forward path, Whitney’s principle of disruptive innovation applied to our personal selves is a smart—and practical—method to assure forward movement. Relevance and freedom, too.
As Whitney asks, “Are you ready to jump?”
Image credit before quote: morgueFile.com
by Whitney Johnson | Be your best you
Today’s guest contributor is Whitney Johnson, author of Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work, and Dare, Dream, Do. Additionally, she is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review. Learn more about Whitney at her website.
Whitney Johnson
Last week I arrived home from work to see my 8th grade son toiling away on a science fair project with his classmate Marc. As I observed their breezy back-and-forth, one at the computer, the other laying out the poster board, both fully engaged, no ego involved, I found myself taken back. In part, because as a parent, I’m always a little surprised when children do their homework without parental micro-management, but also because these two 8th graders made collaboration look like child’s play.
And yet that’s not always our experience in the office. Rather than the free-wheeling interchange of ideas and labor we anticipate — we’re grown-ups after all — working together is typically everything but easy.
Why is teamwork so difficult?
Because collaboration is actually a pretty risky business. Perhaps, like me, you are generally of the mindset that two heads are better than one. But because your ideas frequently get co-opted, there’s a risk-reward imbalance that makes you reluctant to engage. Or maybe you’ve reached out to a potential collaborator only to have your lack of expertise exploited. So, rather than ever again experiencing the one-two punch of ignorance and vulnerability, you’d prefer to soldier on alone. In both instances, the fundamental barrier to collaboration is a lack of trust.
How do we lay the groundwork for trust so that when we need to collaborate we can quickly slip into a workable partnership? Based on my experience, here are a few suggestions.
1. Start with simple exchanges where the cost of betrayal is low. A perfect example of this is Twitter. In this farmer’s market of ideas, we can place our 140-character wares on display, and begin to identify those who potentially see the world as we do. As we find ourselves repeatedly transacting with certain people, we may agree to co-author a blog post. This type of short-term alliance allows us to further test our working relationship, which might later lead to collaboration on an article, and so forth. All too often, however, we go from I like your tweets to Let’s write a book together. Certainly I have.
In the workplace, start simply. Share an idea. Ask for advice on a subject about which you know relatively little. Observe what happens. By starting with one-off transactions, we can gauge, at a very low cost, whether a potential collaborator will treat what we bring to the table, and what we don’t, with respect.
2. Remember that our collaborators are competent. Once we’ve worked on a few limited scope projects and hammered out the rules of engagement, it’s important to give authority to our collaborators. If we find we’re micromanaging, maybe we didn’t pick our partners as well as we thought, but maybe we’re going on the offensive because we feel vulnerable. If so, we need to just stop. Booker T. Washington wrote, “Few things help an individual more than to let him know that you trust him.” We picked these partners because we believed we could trust them, and when we micromanage, we’re saying loud and clear “I don’t trust you.”
3. Don’t take advantage of our collaborators’ deficiencies. If we choose to work with someone because they can do what we can’t, the almost certain corollary is that we will do something well that they don’t. It was not too long ago that I believed people who couldn’t spell were dumb. Then I discovered that some people thought I was dumb because I have a poor sense of direction. Am I dumb? No, are people who don’t spell well dumb? No. It may be enticing, nonetheless, to begin to poke at our collaborator’s lack of knowledge in an area. But “the art of being wise,” said William James, “Is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
4. Give others their due, and expect yours in return. If we are collaborating in the context of work, cash payment is merely the baseline. If we really want to engender trust, we will give our collaborators credit for their contribution, acknowledging their solid execution, and especially their ideas. If rendered in public, and behind their back, even better. As Peter Drucker said, “The leaders who work most effectively, don’t think ‘I’, they think ‘we’…’we’ gets the credit. That is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.”
The old saying, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,” is often true. Yet most of t
he really important stuff we want to get done professionally and personally requires we enter into the risky business of collaboration. While barriers to collaboration are manifold, the underlying deterrent is lack of trust. When we’re willing to do the work of finding collaborators with whom we can entrust both our expertise, and lack thereof, we can create something much grander than we could have on our own — the reward will be more than worth the risk.
For additional resources on this topic, I recommend “The Tools of Cooperation and Change” and Nurturing Trust — Leveraging Knowledge.
Images courtesy of Whitney Johnson. This post is part of the HBR Insight Center Making Collaboration Work. Originally published on 6/7/2011 at https://hbr.org/2011/06/collaboration-is-risky-now-get.
by Brian Mohr | Be your best you
Today’s guest contributor is Brian Mohr, co-founder and managing partner for Y Scouts, a purpose-based leadership search firm that connects organizations with exceptional leaders. Previously, Brian worked as a talent strategist and in leadership management for major corporations, including P.F. Chang’s China Bistro and Jobing.com. He is a graduate of the Advanced Executive Program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
The corporate world is susceptible to fads.
Work-life balance, a push to properly prioritize work in relation to lifestyle, features the kind of fad-ish thinking that can lead gifted people down the wrong path. Think of those who love their job—for them, it’s not exactly “‘work” as they exercise their capabilities fully toward a goal that they believe in.
Finding the right fit—whether it’s an organization searching for leadership or it’s an individual seeking the right job—is more important than people realize.
The problem of work-life balance starts farther upstream. When the appropriate person is aligned with the appropriate goal, balance is natural.
A concept like work-life balance is a claim on how we should prioritize our lives, which, if believed, can be confusing. Individuals, organizations, and an organization’s employees, from bottom to top, can benefit from a more helpful perspective on work-life balance and how it must fit for each of us.
3 ways to find the right work-life balance fit for you
1) Don’t buy into the notion of the “work you” as being separate from the “real you.”
We spend 8.8 hours of each day working, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is the largest amount of time spent in any single activity. Sleeping is second at 7.6 hours. Work-life balance enforces a strange notion that you are essentially different on the clock than off the clock, which hurts both employers and employees. Who wants this divided personality? Why not be yourself while doing what’s important: providing for your well-being and that of your family? Costumes are for Halloween. Be authentic and not some impostor version of who you really are.
2) Not everyone is working for the weekend.
Rather than work-life balance, it’s more helpful to think of your role in a company or nonprofit as work-life symbiosis. Just do the math. Working nearly nine hours in a role that you do not like doesn’t stack up well with two days that quickly pass by—assuming you hate your job. How many years of your life do you want to waste not doing what would make you happier?
Most important of all is aligning the right people with the right role. This means aligning the purpose and values of an organization to the purpose and values of the right people. Everyone owes it to themselves to find the right organization.
3) Take a cue from your technology.
In today’s world, we simply cannot compartmentalize different areas of our lives like people used to. You can communicate with your spouse at any time and know people better through social media than through real-life interaction. And, for work, most of us carry our work around in our smartphones. If not text messages, then we get emails sent to our phones. Whether through our technology or the software running in our brains, we don’t simply turn off work when we leave the office.
We should drop the idea that “work” and “life” are somehow separate.
They’re not.
by Jane Perdue | Be your best you
Some days my inner critic is a supportive friend.
Ooh, but on other days, that little voice in my head is a vicious troll intent on derailing me.
After a long stint in corporate America, I returned to my childhood dream of writing. Recently I read several of my early blog posts and was absolutely horrified by what I’d written.
When I began my blog, I knew I had much to learn about writing, and those old posts were dreadful evidence of how little I knew.
While rereading them a second time (why do we torture ourselves like that??), my inner critic accelerated to warp speed, chastising me for every dangling participle, adverb, and run-on sentence.
Inner critics are pesky that way. At least mine is. (more…)
