FieldNotes
Our daily Field Notes email is just the kind of jumpstart you need. A fast read. Maybe less than a minute. Because sometimes it just takes one insight to change the trajectory of the day.
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The Trap of Work-Ethic Suspicion
No one you lead wakes up and says to themselves, “I can’t wait to disappoint my leader today.” Starting from the viewpoint that everyone is trying to do the best they can is a game-changer for leaders who set a high bar. It puts everyone at ease and allows leaders to objectively examine their role
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An Exercise to Strengthen Team Understanding
When teams gather to plan, the best leaders save some time for everyone to gain a deeper understanding of their teammates. A more in-depth understanding of who others really are helps teams to build trust and overcome petty disagreements. A team event that concludes without team members knowing just a little more about one another
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Time Is More Arbitrary Than We Think
How leaders punctuate time, for themselves and for those they lead, influences their potential for progress. Society tells us to situate our accomplishments in weeks, months, quarters, and years. Year-end reviews, quarterly reports, and weekly metrics all speak to the power of set periods to define what it means to be productive. These recurrent periods
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Pre-Decide Before a Situation Unravels
In the throes of the moment, when excitement, pressure, and scrutiny can blind our ability to make objective decisions, leaders often fail to make the difficult — and often unpopular — call to change direction. It is always easier to stay the course with an inferior strategy due to the noise and distraction of the
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Positively Violate Expectations
Our experience with leaders creates strong expectations as to what they will do, how they will do it, and where and when they will do it. We get very comfortable with the common choices leaders make and value the predictability we find in their consistency. When leaders do the unexpected, it shakes people up —
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Leave a Big Wake Behind You
When exceptional leaders finish their careers or move to another organization after a long tenure, they leave a big wake behind them. A lasting legacy is top of mind for leaders nearing an ending. They implicitly know this legacy will define both who they were, as well as how they will be remembered by the
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The Sunk Cost Fallacy Applies to People
Of the many biases leaders fall prey to, perhaps none is more common than the Sunk Cost Fallacy. This insidious error refers to the tendency for leaders to follow through on something if they have already invested a lot of time, energy, or money into it. They do this even when the cost-benefit is no
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Available Leaders Remove the Door Locks
Clichés are truths made less significant by too much repetition. In the realm of leadership, however, the light of some clichés never dims. One of those leadership clichés is the declaration: “My door is always open.” This expression suggests the leader is always available to talk and encourages openness from any direction. This open-door policy, as
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Masterful Work Permeates Culture
A master carpenter doesn’t use plywood for the back of a hardwood cabinet even though no one is going to see it. The carpenter will know, and doing it “right” matters because that is the mark of a master. This is the stamp of quality. Rare as it may be, this obsession with quality can
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How Not to Throw Colleagues Under the Bus
Throwing a colleague or peer under the bus, no matter how much they deserve it, is often political suicide in an organization or team. When we trash a colleague, we actually undermine our credibility in the eyes of others. As U.S. President Lyndon Johnson once exclaimed, “Never tell someone to go to hell unless you