Blame, focus, time, a yogurt factory, being remarkable, and Buddhist Enneagram
Here are a handful of the readings, viewings, and listenings that have recently caught my attention and left a mark on my thinking.
1
Episode 14, Amy Edmondson, Harvard Professor and Author of “The Fearless Organization”, on Balancing Psychological Safety and Accountability, Fellow: Super Managers Podcast
Yep, more from my Amy Edmondson groupie road trip as I follow her all over the internet. Heads up, I’m excitedly attending the first ever Psych Safety Day on November 20th.
Sometimes in our busy leadership lives we rush ahead with an idea without first taking time to fully explore what it means to us and how it affects others. Psychological safety, when clumsily understood and unwisely thrown around can backfire, particularly when accountability becomes blame.
From this podcast episode’s transcript, here is what Amy Edmondson had to say about this:
Many, many people see this as psychological safety versus accountability. It’s actually psychological safety and accountability. I truly believe not only that you need both, but you can have both, that they’re not in tension, although it can feel that way. Psychological safety is about that belief that I can speak up honestly and it won’t lead to shame, embarrassment, blame and the rest. And accountability. If you define accountability, which I do, as a very high, deep commitment to performance, then not only can you have both, you must have both. If you define accountability as blame, then they are immediately intention, because blame will lead to hiding, full stop.
She then goes on to paint the dire picture of what happens when blame leads to hiding. HIDING! Hiding is a make-me-safe-behaviour that is learned for survival. When it shows up at work it holds back engagement, ideas, opinions, solutions, and feeling good.
So why are too many leaders short-cutting psychological safety? From what I see, it isn’t because, with the exception of a nasty few, they get their kicks from being a tyrant, but because the idea of a “fearless organization or bust” is just too daunting. I’d go so far as to say, it just feels too impossible.
So instead of avoiding the whole thing, let’s work on what is possible.
- It is possible to lead and build a culture that is purposeful about building psychological safety. It is your choice to make.
- It is possible to develop teams that can explore and find success with psychological safety. While I’m not suggesting an abandonment of everyone else in the organization, we need to think strategically about the long-game and starting where we can have success, where we can make it sticky, can help a new idea or practice spread faster and better throughout the organization.
- It is possible to do the inner work so that as leaders we have the self-confidence, resilience, and curiosity to support and celebrate psychological safety. You can do this.
I really dig this stuff*. If you do too and want to go further or if you are just thinking about dipping a toe into it, book a fee-free chat with me.
Other things on your mind other than psychological safety? Good! My work isn’t about one leadership topic, it is about you. My whole-person approach to coaching leaders is a gift to yourself of time, space, and support to dig deeper and go higher with your leadership journey. While booking our chat, take a peak at what others have had to say about how I do my work.
2
Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day, Amishi Jha
This book kept showing up and I kept passing it by. I have a daily meditation and mindfulness practice that has grown over the years with teachers who stress commitment and even rigour. So perhaps I perceived from the title of this book a hype reminiscent of “send me money and I promise you quick success with very little work”.
But finally I cracked it open, and how wonderful it is to have one’s mind changed. This book may just be the ticket for anyone who has wanted to start a mindfulness or focus practice but hasn’t yet.
Additional thoughts from me:
3
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
One of the things I hear most often is “I don’t have enough time”.
This is true. We don’t have enough time if we somehow carry around the notion that we aren’t mortals. That we live as Greek gods or Star Trek’s Q with nothing but time to poke at everything and everyone.
But we are mortals and time is limited.
This book is a brilliant, sometimes poignant sometimes funny, look at our relationship to time and how we can re-think or re-learn (a couple of my favourite things) a healthier and more enjoyable relationship.
Aside from the book, here are three things that I, as someone who didn’t really learn how to tell time until I was in my teens and still struggles with clocks and calendars, hold dear:
- If I think I have time to do one more thing, I most likely don’t. Thank you Anni H.
- Similar, but perhaps more dark than what Oliver Burkeman says, life is short and often brutal. This inspires me to live with purpose, to give attention, and to appreciate and grow the moments of ease and joy.
- “Stress is a perverted relationship to time.” John O’Donohue. (See my reflections on stress and time.)
4
The Anti CEO Playbook, Hamdi Ulukaya
Just when I’m like “please no more TED Talks”, I run across this one from 2019.
I’m not a proponent of working day and night and never leaving the yogurt factory. But beyond that, there is something here from Ulukaya about setting goals, working hard, working together, and being focused on something that is bigger than our individual selves, that we as leaders need to talk about and do more.
5
This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans, by Seth Godin
Seth Godin, the king of brevity, changed my business approach many years ago with the question “do you want to be the best pie seller at your farmers’ market or in the world?”. There is no wrong or right answer, just the importance of knowing who you want to reach. For me, it’s the community of courageous leaders – you.
My copy of his book, The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) (2007) is ratty, stained, and has an almost talismanic place in my office. It is a reminder of all my smart quitting and that I know when to stick.
But back to his newest release. It was the following teasers, particularly the first one, from the publisher’s website that resonated with my own business strategy:
- Identify your “smallest viable audience” and make remarkable work they can’t ignore
- Understand and influence the systems shaping our world
- Prioritize long-term thinking over instant gratification
- Make smart, purposeful choices that shape a better tomorrow
I have the book on order (to be released October 22nd) and I’m sure I’ll have more to say after reading it.
6
Extras
Here are a few of the things that, oddly enough just like a textbook Enneagram Type 5, I’m currently deeply diving into to learn more.
- Perfectionism. Turns out more of us suffer from it than I thought. And that it isn’t what I thought. As part of my deep dive I’m taking the NICABM’s course How to Work with a Client’s Perfectionism.
- Gratitude journals. I enjoy gratitude. It takes some of the most mundane things, like chopping veggies for lunch up a notch and can bring about that magical Dr. Seuss moment when the Grinch’s heart grows three sizes. But gratitude journals have gotten a bum rap lately and I want to know why. As part of my deep dive I’m reading everything, pro and con, about gratitude journals. I’m rather astounded by the market for gratitude journals (scrap paper also does the trick) and curious about our human tendency towards quick fixes and then disappointment and blame when they don’t work (thus the bum rap). My deeper dive is in exploring the neuroscience of gratitude. While our hearts actually stay the same size, our brains, or the pathways in our brains, do change and there is evidence that our overall health improves. Cool stuff.
- Enneagram Personality Types. Personality or leadership test are useful IF we hold them lightly and wisely for gaining insight into ourselves and our relationships with others and IF we use them as jumping off points for reflection and growth. They are also biased, at times vague or inaccurate, and can often be gamed. Most importantly, we are more and can learn and grow more than what any test might capture at some random and impermanent moment in time. When the Enneagram came up in a recent conversation I got curious and took the test. Given that there are only 9 archetypes (with some nuances depending on how your’e leaning) it isn’t super spooky that I got the same results as when I took it 10 years ago. But I did feel a bit spooked (perhaps even slightly maligned) and started to poke around in the Enneagram world. I am now reading The Buddhist Enneagram by Susan Piver and saying to whoever is nearby, including the dogs and cats, “hey, listen to this”.
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash