Making Mistakes

This week I’d like to refer you to a blog post that contains some good laughs and also some reassurance, which could come in handy this time in the academic year.  When you make mistakes – and we all do it – never believe that you can’t recover or that it’s the end of the world, even though the big ones feel that way sometimes.  You can’t accomplish anything of value or originality that doesn’t occasionally involve an “oops” or two.  Take a minute to read, “Why You Should Make More Mistakes,” and take another minute to click on the stories linked in the piece about famous people’s work flubs.  You will smile and you’ll also feel better about your own faux pas. 

The Golden Hour

It’s that time of the semester again, when academic lives heat up, work is probably calling, and personal events like graduations, recitals, and parties ramp up as well.  Stormy weather is typical in the spring and I’ve always thought it was apropos, given the often chaotic schedules that many have this time of year.  Now is the time to be extra vigilant of your time and productivity.  So how do you cope? 

One strategy is to pay close attention to what you do during that first hour of your work day.  Emergency medicine says that the first hour (or so) after a trauma is the most important to intervene to prevent worsening injury or death.  This is known as the golden hour.  What I’m suggesting is you implement your own golden hour, not to prevent death (yikes), but to encourage productivity and success.

Julie Morgenstern wrote a book called Never Check Email in the Morning (a work-life management book I recommend) and, while refraining from email all morning is probably not possible for most of us, what is possible is to delay checking email for an hour after you get to work.  (If your work culture simply won’t accommodate that – and by that I mean you would get fired or be professionally damaged -- an alternative is to scan email for absolutely critical stuff, spend a few minutes responding, and then turn it off for an hour.) Now, wait…I hear my fellow email addicts crying and gnashing your teeth. Before you tear your clothes and run in to the street to protest this madness I’m recommending, hear me out.  Email is hardly ever the source of high level or crisis information that simply must be addressed first thing.  Those things usually come in the form of a call or a text.  Email is great at getting you off task and distracted from what is critical, so it’s important to not think of email as “instant messaging” that requires that kind of immediacy. 

So what do you with that hour?  There are many ideas. Here are the best:

1. Work on the one thing that is necessary -- not preferable…necessary --  that you do that day.  What task or project would have the most impact on your work or would advance your goals?  What activity needs to be done so that you feel you actually got something accomplished that day?  Work on that.  I frequently end my day thinking about the next day’s first hour.  I write that activity down on a Post-It placed on my computer keyboard so that I see it first thing.  To earn extra “organization goddess/guru” points, you can even assemble all the materials you need to do for your activity and have them ready to go in your “first hour” file.
2. Do the hardest thing first.  Need to have a difficult conversation with someone?  Hate to look over your budget spreadsheets?  Whatever it is, get it done right away, so that it won’t be weighing on you through the rest of the day.
3. Feel empowered.  Some recommend that you use at least a few minutes of that hour to get inspired, because that will drive you, and possibly insulate you from other stressors, for the rest of the day.  

Other factors to support this golden hour, according to Ilya Pozin,  are to eliminate distractions, to eliminate multi-tasking, and use the phone instead of emails when conversation is what’s needed.  (How do you know when a call is better?  When the email string comes back twice or more.)

Then, after your golden hour has passed and you’ve completed or made progress on your task, open your door, turn on email, and let the day come in!

Have you used this strategy?  How did it go?  What other recommendations for maximizing this time do you have?

Leadership and Influence Summit

We are winding down another busy semester and so, to accommodate your ever-expanding list of things to do, I want to point you to a resource that allows for “bite sized” leadership moments.  I have used this resource myself.  It’s called the Leadership and Influence Summit and “it’s a free, on-demand, online event featuring instant access to video messages from over 30 leading authorities. Each speaker shares 6-20 minute recorded video messages on how to maximize leadership and influence effectiveness.”  You can access it as needed.  There are many videos and the good news is that the selection allows you to find something that interests you, but it can be a bit mystifying as to where to start.  I recommend the videos by Barry Posner (Truth about Leadership), Jim Kouzes (Leadership Challenge), and Bob Sutton (Good Boss, Bad Boss) as good places to start  All are engaging speakers who have important information to share.  You can access the Leadership and Influence Summit here.  You have to register but it’s free and there doesn’t seem to be any solicitation that follows your registration.  Enjoy!

Knowing Without Knowing: The Role of Intuition in Leadership

You walk into a house that is for sale and instantly know that it is right for your family.  A friend has a first date and tells you she has met the person she will marry and she is right.  How did you and your friend know?

Over the last few weeks, we’ve explored the role of thoughts and emotions in leadership and life, but there are many – Oprah, Einstein, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Colin Powell, Malcolm Gladwell -- who say that intuition is also an important part of good decisions and successful leadership.  Intuition is, according to Dale Myers, “the ability to aquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason.”  Intuition provides you with a way to gather information and make decisions that, when used correctly, supplements more objective data.  (Intuition can even be turned into a business, if it is particularly strong.)  To some, intuition can seem fanciful, or new age-y, but it is actually a scientific phenomenon that has been measured, studied, and located in the brain.

How do you recognize intuitive thinkers (other than by using your gut, that is)?  According to Dave Myers, some people are naturally wired to be intuitive and their traits include:

·         Using a limited set of analytical filters.  The more parameters you have for filtering information, the more complex your process will be but the less intuitive it will be. Intuition happens quickly.

·         Focusing on the big picture, instead of details. 

·         Being confident and focusing on the potential (as opposed to the risks) a decision.  Intuitive thinkers trust their instincts and don’t spend time worrying about the risks of their actions.  They are more interested in the potential of a situation.

·         Being good at instantly reading non-verbals, like body language.  This is the source of much of intuition: quick readings of information that is fleeting, like expressions.

Whether or not you fit these characteristics, how do you strengthen your intuition?

·         Use your intuition in areas you are experienced in. Intuition is better after you’ve had years of practice and experience in a particular area.  That knowledge gained through experience becomes unconscious and you are able to skip ahead to sound decisions.

·         Use specific techniques to improve intuition.  These include:

o   Journaling, which helps you see when your intuition was right in the past, thereby strengthening your confidence in it;

o   Engaging in creative activities more often, like painting or dancing, helps you access your non-analytical brain; and

o   Meditation or even siting in a quiet, still place for a few minutes helps you tune out distractions and focus on what your instinct is telling you. 

·         Practice using your intuition.  When waiting at a bank of elevators, try guessing which one will reach you first, or guessing who is calling on the phone before you pick up, and so on.  Try noting your first reaction to any given situation, such as guessing whether a waiter will provide good service before he speaks.  Then notice as time progresses whether you were correct. 

·         Understand its limits.  The problem with intuition – and why it should not be the sole source of information for major decisions – is that it is subject to our emotional states, as well as unconscious biases and prejudices, sometimes called “implicit associations.” (You can test yours here). We all carry these biases around unconsciously and intuition can tap into them against our will.  Intuition has great power.  Malcolm Gladwell notes two examples of this power in “Blink:  The Power of Thinking Without Thinking”:  Despite evidence in front of him, a firefighter instinctively tells his team to withdraw from a room seconds before the floor collapses, saving them from certain death in the fiery basement below.  On the other end of the spectrum, four police officers kill unarmed Amadou Diallo in New York City based on split-second gut reactions that he was a serial rapist suspect.  Not everyone will face life or death decisions, but the power of intuition should still be used wisely.

In the end, I believe Colin Powell gave the best advice on the use of intuition:  “Dig up all the information you can, then go with your instincts.  We all have a certain intuition, and the older we get, the more we trust it…I use my intellect to inform my instinct.  Then I use my instinct to test all this data.”

When have you followed your intuition and it turned out to be right?  Has it ever steered you wrong?