Alhamdulillah, am grateful for the opportunity to join this training, which provided a nice jolt of motivation, multiple “a-ha!” moments, sparked lots of practical ideas and a newfound ambition to play our part in becoming drivers to make our organizations a better place.
Leaving the training, here are some takeaway thoughts:
1. Walk the talk - What’s Knowledge without action? Don’t just become content hoarders. “Information becomes KNOWLEDGE - personal, embodied, verified - only when we put it to use. You gain confidence in what you know only when you know that it works. Until you do, it’s just a theory” (Tiago Forte, “Building a Second Brain”) It’s only when we implement these stuff, try them out, that it becomes genuine piece of knowledge. And it’s only when we apply them consistently, make mistakes and learn from them, that we accumulate WISDOM.
2. Make time - We get it, everyone’s busy. We’re too busy reacting with day to day challenges. How are we supposed to find the time to implement this stuff? After all, some of these As Tim Ferriss said, i*f you “don’t have time”, you don’t have “priorities”*. If these frameworks and tools are important for us, we have to prioritize and make time.
3. It’s going to be Difficult. You will need courage - This will all seem intimidating: Consistently giving and seeking for feedback; learning to entrust our team, let go of our control to let them flourish, opening up and being vulnerable; coming to terms with how our “good intentions” might have accidentally sabotaged our team’s productivity and intellectual capacity. It’s scary stuff, and our tendency is to be overthinking it, until it paralyzes it from taking action. So we “not-so-accidentally” drown ourselves in the “busy”-ness of our work to give ourselves an excuse. We need COURAGE to step up.
And here’s the thing about courage, as Nelson Mandela said: “I learned that courage was not the ABSENCE of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who CONQUERS that fear”.
4. Be the leader your organization needs - Perhaps there are some of us who haven’t had good role models of a “great leader” in the past. Maybe we’ve never had a leader who instilled a good culture of feedback, and preferred isolating himself. Perhaps we’ve always had bosses who had poor psychological safety. Perhaps it’s difficult to imagine what it’s like to have a high-performing leader who ALSO implements psychological safety, when bosses seem so micromanaging and hawking your mistakes without setting clear goals and directions. Fine. We get it. Let’s cast that aside, and now that some of us are in the driver’s seat, let’s be the leader that our organization needs. Let’s be that role model that we’ve always wanted. Let’s aspire to leave behind a legacy of an inspired workforce.
5. You will be criticized: So learn to Fail fast - as a leader, any decision you make will have room to be misinterpreted and misunderstood. When you leave ideas open for the team to brainstorm and propose solutions, there will be some who think you are just “taichi” and not do any thinking. When you provide direction and guidance, there will be critics who will say you are micromanaging. When you challenge the team, there will always be naysayers who will say you are being unrealistically demanding.
Aristotle said something interesting: “there is only one way to avoid criticism: Do nothing, say nothing & BE nothing”
You can never please everyone, so don’t try. What you DO want to do is have the humility to listen and always be flexible for improvement.
To me, it boils down to this cycle:
Be clear in your intentions and goals, be transparent with the team what you are trying to achieve (don’t just keep those intentions to yourself), always practice active listening, seek feedback, pivot and re-adjust where you need to, then go back to step 1 with intentions.
6. Bonus: Apply them with your kids, too! - I’ve always been fascinated how parenting has so many similarities with leadership. Turns out that, all the tools, mindsets, and approaches of a successful leader at the workplace, are also the same tools, mindsets and approach of good parenting. From identifying (and capitalising) their strengths, to acting listening & providing psychological safety, to having a more mindful approach to giving and seeking feedback - so many useful tools that can also help make out the best in our little ones 😊
No comments:
Post a Comment