by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 44 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Extreme Ownership
— From Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
The ultimate test for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, retired U.S. Navy SEALs and experts in building high-performance teams, say that there are only two types of leaders: effective and ineffective.
“Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not.” In our path through leadership, we can all be effective leaders, yet at times, we will be ineffective. Mistakes will be made and things will go wrong. However, as long as we keep in mind the principle of Extreme Ownership, we will be able to move forward along with our team and get another chance at being effective.
The principle behind Extreme Ownership is that “the leader is truly and ultimately responsible for everything… all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world.”
While this may be very simple, it certainly is not easy.
As leaders, applying Extreme Ownership requires humility and courage. We must check our ego at the door and always remember that, “it is all about the Team. The sum is far greater than the parts.” Note that team here is loosely defined to suit your particular case: it could be a small business team, a large corporate team, a sports team, a school team, a military team, a non-profit organization, a country, etc.
Extreme Ownership is about responsibility and ultimate accountability. It requires looking at all the details and making sure that everything is covered, checked, communicated, empowered, enabled, etc., for the team to be able to perform at its highest and best.
Team members that see Extreme Ownership in their leaders “emulate Extreme Ownership throughout the chain of command down to the most junior personnel. As a group they try to figure out how to fix their problems –instead of trying to figure out who or what to blame.” There is a sense of camaraderie and joint desire to fulfill the mission the best way possible.
Extreme Ownership, although it sounds wonderful, is not an easy prize. The leader can never take his/her eye off the goal, there is no time for the leader to coast along, and there is never a moment to rest (figuratively speaking).
Here’s an example of what owning everything means:
“When subordinates aren’t doing what they should, leaders that exercise Extreme Ownership cannot blame the subordinates. They must first look in the mirror at themselves. The leader bears full responsibility for explaining the strategic mission, developing the tactics, and securing the training and resources to enable the team to properly and successfully execute.
If an individual on the team is not performing at the level required for the team to succeed, the leader must train and mentor that underperformer. But if the underperformer continually fails to meet standards, then a leader who exercises Extreme Ownership must be loyal to the team and the mission above any individual. If underperformers cannot improve, the leader must make the tough call to terminate them and hire others who can get the job done. It is all on the leader.”
Think about this last sentence for a second: it is all on the leader. Extreme Ownership can feel overwhelming at first. But think again: doesn’t it give you a sense of relief that success is dependent on you and not on an outside factor that is out of your control? By adopting the Extreme Ownership mindset, you already have (or are resourceful enough to find) the resources to win, or pivot, or fix and move forward, or do whatever you need to do to ultimately succeed with your team. This changes everything (at least for me): overwhelm is gone and empowerment reigns supreme.
Cheers to your success in Extreme Ownership!
ACTION
TODAY: Think about the projects that you are working on now. What is going well? What is not? Take Extreme Ownership of your projects and the teams you lead, and focus your energy on figuring out what you need to do today (apply Extreme Pareto!) to equip and empower your team to succeed.
FUTURE: Adopt the Extreme Ownership mindset and combine it with Extreme Pareto. As you move along, determine what is the one thing that you need to be doing right then to move your team forward to succeed.
Know someone who’s leading a team and could benefit from Extreme Ownership? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 41 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Extreme Pareto
— From The ONE Thing: The surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan (watch the book trailer)
The to-do list is a magnificent tool and companion to our busy lives. Yet since the list can also serve as a catchall for minor, unimportant things, we feel the urge to get them done and cross them off—just because they were on our list. This leads to us being busy, but not necessarily productive: “busyness rarely takes care of business.”
But if we all have the same 24 hours in a day, how is it that some people seem to achieve much and get a lot of things done? What do they do differently? What do they know that we don’t? “Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.”
Enter the Pareto Principle. You may be familiar with this already: it’s the 80/20 rule. It states that, “a minority of causes, inputs, or effort [the 20 percent] usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs or rewards [the 80 percent].”
What this means is that 80 percent of our results will come from 20 percent of our focused efforts. Thus, “a to-do list becomes a success list when you apply Pareto’s Principle to it.” The idea is simple, take your to-do list and cull it down to the 20 percent of things that will yield the biggest results.
But why stop there? Gary Keller, author of The ONE Thing, encourages us to practice “Extreme Pareto” to get down to the one item on our to-do list that is the absolutely most essential to our success. He says, “Keep going. You can actually take 20 percent of the 20 percent of the 20 percent and continue until you get to the single most important thing! No matter the task, mission or goal. Big or small. Start with as large a list as you want, but develop the mindset that you will whittle your way from there to the critical few and not stop until you end with the essential ONE. The imperative ONE. The ONE Thing.”
“Sometimes it’s the first thing you do. Sometimes it’s the only thing you do. Regardless, doing the most important thing is always the most important thing.”
ACTION
TODAY: Take a look at your to-do list. Apply the Pareto Principle and focus on narrowing it down to the 20 percent of items that you need to get done. Then go extreme, keep applying the Pareto Principle to narrow it down, 20-percent-at-a-time, until you reach your ONE thing. Get that done before anything else, even if it’s the only thing you do all day.
FUTURE: Make a habit of applying Extreme Pareto when planning the week ahead of you by asking: “What’s the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?” Do that ONE Thing, and once you are done, ask again… and repeat. You’ll see that by focusing on the vital few you’ll be able to move forward more rapidly than if you spend your time and attention in the trivial many.
Know someone who’s spread too thin and could benefit from Extreme Pareto? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Networking, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 22 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Networking for non-networkers
– From Work It: Secrets for Success from the Boldest Women in Business by Carrie Kerpen
Why does networking evoke such dread? Probably because we picture ourselves in a room full of strangers, eating chicken satay from a stick, and talking about the weather to pass time. Yes, that scenario is absolutely dreadful.
But it doesn’t have to be.
Carrie Kerpen in her book Work It says, “There are different ways to network. Ditch the perception that it’s clunky or awkward and do it in a way that works for you.”
Further, Carrie shares some networking tips from “non-networkers” who have been successful at growing their network in a meaningful and beneficial way for all involved. What these non-networkers have in common is that they were all intentional in terms of the groups that they wanted to belong to or the contacts they wanted to target. However, this involves a disciplined approach: “don’t view networking as a nice-to-have,” but as an indispensable part of your professional career.
“Networking shouldn’t be something you do when you have extra time. It’s something that you have to prioritize.”
If you wait to start building a network when you need one, it’s too late, because relationships take time to nurture and grow. Plan now and plant the seeds for tomorrow.
While online and social media networking are wonderful tools, nothing substitutes for in-person networking when you can. The book mentions a research study on firefighters by Cornell University that showed “that firemen who eat meals together are better at their jobs. It turns out, eating together allowed for more conversation, which led to stronger connections, which led to greater team performance.”
A suggestion then, is to take your networking offline with those connections that you can nurture in person. If time is an issue (as it is for all of us), “dedicate two hours—just two hours in your week—to connecting with people offline. Have coffee, have a chat, go back to the watercooler. You’ll be amazed how much more connected your network actually becomes—your relationships will be stronger, as will your communication skills.”
One last thing that Carrie mentions—which is brilliant—is to invite people at a high level to connect with you (on the basis that they are someone whom you admire and respect, needless to say). Nowadays all your professional crushes have public profiles and are accessible somehow. “When reaching out to someone at a very high level, you want to establish a sincere personal connection and accept that it may or may not work out. By expecting nothing in return, you avoid disappointment and often end up being pleasantly surprised.”
On this last one, I can vouch for its effectiveness and for the most pleasant surprises it brings. Years ago I wanted to attend a conference with a steep high price that I couldn’t afford. I reached out to the organizer, asked if I could volunteer in exchange for a ticket, and not only did I get the ticket and enjoyed the conference, but also by virtue of volunteering I became friends with the conference organizer and his wonderful team, and they invited me back for the following year’s conference. Another time, I learned that one of my favorite thought leaders was going to be speaking at an event. I reached out to him, told him that I was going to attend the event and offered to drive him to the airport afterwards. He agreed. We had a wonderful conversation in the car on the way to the airport, and I became friends with someone whom I deeply admire and respect to this date.
If I could do it, you can too! Networking is best done in a way that fits you and in an environment where you can bring value to your new contacts. That way it becomes a win-win and forges real bonds.
ACTION
TODAY: Think of a goal you want to achieve. Make a list of the people and groups that can help you achieve it. Think of ways you can become involved. Think of ways in which you can offer help. Think of ways you can create value for them. Make an honest assessment of the time that you can devote to this endeavor. Once you’ve thought this through, then reach out to them. Remember that you’ll get out of it as much as you put into it, so be intentional with your time and your involvement, and make it worth your and their while.
BONUS ACTION FOR TODAY: Connect with me via email, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter! I would really love to connect with you, or simply touch base and catch up if we are already connected. I like to think of myself as a resource and would love to provide book recommendations (of course!), or ideas and resources to help you reach your goals. Really looking forward! 🙂
FUTURE: Repeat today’s action for the rest of your goals. Budget your time according to what’s most important to you, making time for both online and offline networking. Schedule the time for networking activities in your calendar and honor those activities.
P.S. – Another tip for great networking is to share valuable content that you think might be of interest to someone. How about sharing this post with friends and colleagues? You can do so via email, Facebook or Twitter. Thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Opportunity, Planning, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 27 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Little bets, big breakthroughs
— From Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries by Peter Sims
Amazon and Google, two of the biggest companies of our time, as well other successful enterprises (regardless of size), all have one thing in common: they embrace an experimental discovery mentality. They don’t know which ideas will be a big hit and which ones won’t, so they allow themselves to experiment and “learn and uncover opportunities as they go.”
Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon, often compares his company’s strategy of “developing ideas in new markets to ‘planting seeds’ or ‘going down blind alleys.’ […] Many efforts tend to be dead ends… but every once in a while, you go down an alley and it opens up to into this huge, broad avenue.”
In today’s business environment, long gone are the elaborate business plans in favor of lean and agile ones. The focus is on action, and this means actually “do[ing] things to discover what [companies/people] should do.” Little bets, then, are “concrete actions taken to discover, test and develop ideas that are achievable and affordable. […] The important thing to remember is that while prodigies are exceptionally rare, anyone can use little bets to unlock creative ideas.”
“Most successful entrepreneurs don’t begin with brilliant ideas—they discover them.”
Two advantages of the little bets approach are that:
- It lets us focus on what we can afford to loose, versus projecting or assuming the gains (this is called the affordable loss principle); and
- It makes us aware of the means we have and those we will need as the idea moves along.
The affordable loss principle involves failure. However, it doesn’t focus on failure as a negative and dead end, but as a means to an experiment. It’s the “error” part in trial-and-error. We’re not intentionally trying to fail; yet “in almost any attempt to create, failure, and often a good deal of it, is to be expected.”
With this in mind, trying out little bets as experimentation on new ideas and projects works. Why? Because we “will make important discoveries by being willing to be imperfect, especially at the initial stages of developing [our] ideas.” And as we move forward, iterating from the feedback we obtain, we will be able to build up to breakthroughs.
ACTION
TODAY: Take the time to figure out which one idea or project you have going on where you could put little bets to the test. Then decide which little bet you can start working on and what little means you need to make it happen.
FUTURE: Embrace the experimental discovery mentality in all you do, both professionally and personally. Include little bets so as to turn an initial idea or project into a great one by means of experimenting, iterating, refining and pivoting if necessary. Remember to move forward imperfectly. By doing this, you’ll be able to discover your best, breakthrough ideas and succeed with them.
Know someone who could use the little bets approach? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Leadership, Mindset, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 22 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Drop the Story
— From: Habit Changers: 81 Game-Changing Mantras to Mindfully Realize Your Goals by M. J. Ryan
The reason why first impressions are so important is because, in those first few seconds, the brain takes in the new information and gives it some meaning. M.J. Ryan, leading expert on change and human fulfillment, says that this meaning is built on information, stories, conclusions, and assumptions based on filters from the past.
“[Our brain] does this automatically, below our conscious awareness. Like everything else our brain does, this has an upside—we couldn’t function well if everything coming in were new to us… But there’s also a downside: our unconscious story can get in the way of our seeing the new information so we can respond in a fresh way.”
And right after the initial story we tell ourselves, comes in confirmation bias: “the tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with one’s existing beliefs.” (Britannica). This happens to everyone and in any situation, not just at the beginning of something.
So what can we do to think clearly and in an unbiased way?
Ryan suggests being aware that we need to “drop the story.” To illustrate this point, she tells a story of a client of hers whose sales “were tanking and he was convinced it was because he didn’t have the right person at the helm. Why? Because years ago he’d swapped the role out and sales had gone up.” Ryan asked him, “What would happen if you drop the story that your problem is caused by the sales leader?” To which he replied, “I’d have to look to other factors, like market forces.” Turns out that he discovered the real problem: “his products were not competitive anymore, and quickly made manufacturing adjustments to cut costs.”
Dropping the story, in any situation (whether personal or professional) brings a fresh approach to thinking. It allows us to depart from our unconscious assumptions, focus on other ways to look at the problems and find solutions.
ACTION
TODAY: Where are you stuck? What one issue has been in your mind that you can’t seem to find a solution for? State what you think your problem is, and then drop the story. Examine other angles and ask why 5 times to get to the root of the problem. Once you have correctly identified what it is, you will be able to move forward to solve it.
FUTURE: Keep this “drop the story” mantra in your toolbox. It will come in handy the next time you are trying to solve an issue. It works well by itself and is also a great complement to asking why 5 times.
Have a friend who is racking his brain about something? Please share this post and tell him to drop the story via email, Facebook or Twitter!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Time, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 28 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Prioritize your priority
— From Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
In his wonderful book, Essentialism, Greg McKeown eschews the idea that “you can have it all,” because it is a damaging myth. “It results in stressed people trying to cram yet more activities into their already overscheduled lives.” I can definitely relate.
The word priority (meaning “the very first or prior thing”) appeared in our language around the 1400s and continued that way, in singular, for centuries. “Only in the 1900s did we pluralise the term and start talking about priorities. Illogically, we reasoned that by changing the word we could bend reality. Somehow we would now be able to have multiple ‘first’ things.”
The problem with this approach is that we have many competing things, all of them appearing to be the most important, and as we try to juggle them all at once, we give our control away. “When we don’t purposefully and deliberately choose where to focus our energies and time, other people – our bosses, our colleagues, our clients, and even our families – will choose for us, and before long we’ll have lost sight of everything that is meaningful and important.”
“We can either make our choices deliberately or allow other people’s agendas to control our lives.”
The key, however, is to be cognizant that prioritizing our priority (I just had to write that!) doesn’t mean just saying no. It entails “purposefully, deliberately and strategically eliminating the non-essentials, and not just getting rid of the obvious time wasters, but cutting out some really good opportunities as well.” There are always going to be trade-offs, and some decisions will be very hard to make and require lots of careful thinking, especially when the opportunity in front is very attractive.
Ask yourself, “Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution towards my goal?” Remember that when an opportunity presents itself, it’s either “Hell, yeah!” or “NO.”
ACTION
Scales of Justice
TODAY: Figure out what is your one priority. A very simple way to do this is to compare the items on your current list of priorities one at a time, as if you were putting them on the scales of justice, to see which one weighs more. Say you have 4 priorities: A, B, C and D.
- Take A and B and compare them: which one is more important? Let’s say A. Keep A as your priority so far and park B aside.
- Now take C and compare it to A: which one is more important? Let’s say C. Keep C, as it has become your priority so far, and park A aside.
- Now take D and compare it to C: which one is more important? Let’s say C. Park D aside.
With this method you have just determined that your priority is C. Period. Congratulations!
Now look at A, B and D and decide whether they make the highest possible contribution towards your goal. Yes? Great, schedule them in the order in which they’ll make the greatest contribution too. No? Then don’t do them if you can get away with that: delegate them, change them, get rid of them or further park them in your “that would be nice to do” list for a future. Or if you must absolutely work on them, do so only after you have done what you need to do today to advance C.
FUTURE: Question the validity of all you do so that you can focus on your priority. Look at your activities for the upcoming week or for the full month. Which ones contribute toward your goal? Keep them. Try to do away with the ones that don’t. Notice that I said, “try to” because in a week/month it’s going to be hard to focus solely on your goal and get rid of everything that doesn’t fit. We’ve all given control of our agenda to others, so it will take a bit of time to gain it back; but if you make a habit of questioning all actions and activities, in a very near future you’ll be focusing much more (if not completely) on your goal. Another great way to prioritize appears in this post: How to choose what is important? Principles of priority.
Know someone who’s trying to do it all and have it all, and is spread way to thin? Please share this post with that person via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
