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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Make the Charitable Assumption
Leaders are often surprised by what they learn when asking others to explain their behavior in a considerate way. Family, medical, and other issues often clarify why people do what they do. Nothing feels worse to a leader than when they come down hard on a team member and later learn the colleague was experiencing…
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Thank You for Your Candor
Thanking people for their candidness before responding is a habit of great leaders. People who are thanked for being candid often respond to the encouragement by doing more of it. Some leaders even thank people for their frankness in advance, before they begin discussing an issue. This sets an expectation that candor matters more than…
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How Resilient Is Your Team?
When a team member needs to be comforted, encouraged, challenged or confronted, great teams don’t wait for the leader to interject and address the issue. They are empowered and expected to do it. Over time, the peer-like quality of everyone on the team takes hold and creates the foundation for resilience. When the marketplace throws…
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Replace Improvement Decisions With Hard-and-Fast Rules
Some things can always be better. Good leaders never lose their focus on continually improving the ingredients that make teams and team members better. The team culture, team member skills, meeting effectiveness, and workstream processes are just some of the areas that should always be getting better. The same is true for making themselves better.…
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Writing the Last Scene First
By working backward from a highly defined last chapter, the strategy for going forward to achieve it comes into sharper focus. It becomes easier to align actions and initiatives with the desired outcomes. Figuring out the many investments and steps required to achieve the end state in its entirety makes the strategy more robust and…
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What Are You Amazed By?
Too many leaders are no longer looking for amazing things. They’re not seeking that sense of wonder. In the process, they miss a huge opportunity to show others what it truly means to be optimistic. Leaders don’t find what they aren’t looking for. What has amazed you lately? If the answer is nothing, perhaps you…
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What Makes an Experience Special?
Good leaders are in the business of creating special experiences for others. In order to support, challenge, and reward others, leaders design experiences that propel people forward. The best leaders are always thinking of new experiences from which to springboard learning for others. Making experiences special is what great leaders do. The question is: What…
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Are You Unknowingly Addicted to Hedges and Disclaimers?
Listen to yourself in meetings, discussions, and conversations, both in the workplace and at home. How often do you use hedges and disclaimers before you state your opinion? If you’ve trained yourself to overuse them, just recognizing this reality will allow you to slowly make a change. If it’s not a problem for you, keep…
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The Challenge for Aging Leaders and Thinkers
The Challenge for Aging Leaders and Thinkers. Through discipline, rigorous routines, collaborations, and steadfast persistence, productivity can be as strong in the later years as it was in the early years. The key is to maintain a focus on how many opportunities and challenges they pursue. If the shots on goal don’t decrease, neither will…
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Tackling What Is Most Urgent First
When the tasks and assignments pile up, leaders can become overwhelmed. A multitude of things to do can paralyze even the most productive leaders. When the problems and tasks are so plentiful that leaders don’t know where to start, they often shut down and pretend they just need a little room to breathe before starting.…