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The Power of “I Don’t Know”

November 30, 2010 in Ideas, Leadership, Life, Productivity, Skills, Teamwork, Vision with 14 Comments

“I don’t know” – three words that some people and more specifically leaders, at different times find difficult to utter. I thought of some benefits of saying “I Don’t Know” (in no particular order):

  • Gives Opportunity to Engage Team: When you “open the floor” to your team, it facilitates the team owning solutions. People tend to thrive in environments where they contribute significantly toward solutions. Your team will to rise to the level of the responsibilities you give them. Engaging the team means tapping into a bigger pool of ideas and creativity, some of which may even be better than yours as a leader. Your moments of ignorance or ‘limited knowledge or skill’ can be opportunities for growth for not only you as a leader but your team, use them wisely!

  • Communicates Security of A Leader: This may mean “eating humble pie” for you in some cases. But! Admitting ignorance or limitations tells your team you are comfortable in being you and in your leadership and that the door is open for them to bring ideas. It makes you more approachable as a leader. Saying, “I don’t know” may also give your team more confidence to speak up when they see loopholes or flaws in ideas or plans you present them in future. Thus facilitating “idea-proofing”.

  • Saves Time: The sooner you admit your ignorance and limitations the more likely you are to reach a solution quicker. Get your team going early and avoid avoidable emergencies. Save time and say the ‘three magic words’ sooner rather than later!
  • Expressing, “I don’t know” tells your team the areas in which you need more support in as a leader and team player. Help your team stop guessing how to serve the bigger picture by being a support where you fall short.

What other benefits of ‘saying’, “I don’t know” can you think of?

My Lessons From Last Week – Week 6

October 18, 2010 in Ideas, Leadership, Life, My Lessons From Last Week, Productivity, Squash, Teamwork, Vision with 0 Comments

On Whose Terms?

As I reflect on last week, one of the strongest lessons that seems to stand out is my the question, “how have I been responding to some challenges lately?” I dealt with an institution that needed a lot of documents. This is a normal part of organizational life, for the sake of record keeping,  accountability etc. Like the saying goes, “if’ it’s not on paper it doesn’t exist”… Anyway, I had to do what seemed like a hundred and one trips, phone calls and emails as I attempted to give them all they required from me. At some point I got very frustrated. If I needed their help I had no choice but to meet all the requirements.

This is the nature of life; we are often forced to work with situations we are not happy with. But because they contribute to the outcome we desire, we have to work with them. It is human tendency to want to change everything to fit us or what we consider unique to us. We go about life  acting and thinking, “no one could possibly be in a dire circumstance as I am”. We’re generally “me-centered”…  We sometimes even expect life, our work etc to fit in to how we want it… Sometimes we spend a lot of time trying to change situations instead of cooperating with them. I am no longer going to waste time trying to change things I do not have control of.

Last week I was reminded that there are always going to be situations I am going to be able to change and at the same time, ones I will not be able to change. Instead of trying to change circumstances or systems I have no control over, I am going to simply look more into how I can work with them. Perhaps even work with some of these ‘systems’ to change them! In think there are times we have to work with the challenges and not against them to get the best out situations.

On The Squash Court

A friend of mine made the same mistake I made a few months ago. Just before his match, he added a new grip to his racquet. He did not replace the one that was already there, but wrapped the new one over the old one. If you ask most people that play racquet sports they’ll tell you that it does significantly affect your grip and subsequently your shots and game. Immediately after adding the grip he got on the court and went straight into his match. Because the feel of his racquet had changed drastically it affected his shots. Toward  the end of the match he ditched the newer grip… The difference immediately showed; he was able to better gauge the strength in his shots and better “place” the ball… Unfortunately too late in the game, and he lost!

The lesson: don’t introduce drastic changes before a major “game” if you can avoid it! One of the reasons why change sometimes causes colossal failures is because it is introduced too fast. When you introduce change in your life, organization, team, family etc, it may be worthwhile to do it at a manageable pace. If you haven’t been running don’t wake up and plunge yourself into a twenty kilometer run… Run the shorter distances first and build your stamina. Increase the distance as your stamina builds. Play practice games with the new grip before playing the match with it!

What one thing did you learn last week? Please do share…

Where Good Ideas Come From

October 15, 2010 in Ideas, Leadership, Life, Productivity, Teamwork, time management with 0 Comments

There are some projects I’ve been trying to move forward and have been trying to think about “fresher ideas” to help me do that… I came across this TED talk by Steven Johnson on “Where Good Ideas Come From”… I learnt a couple of things and got “reminders”… Check it out…

The talk made me decide to revisit my “ideas journal”, mindmaps and other places I’ve captured my “brain storms” to see if there is a “common thread” building up to a “core idea / strategy” among other things…

My Lessons From Last Week – Week #5

September 21, 2010 in Ideas, Leadership, Life, Ministry, Passion, Productivity, Self Leadership, Teamwork, Vision with 0 Comments

I went through my blog sometime last week  – a little maintenance work, if I can call it that. I use WordPress for my blog. I checked if plugins were working the way they should, links etc. I realized something; most of the times I’ve checked my links, plugins and other functionality of my blog and overlooked the RSS feeds. Well not this time! I discovered it wasn’t working as it should be. I then installed FeedBurner to remedy that – now working perfectly.

The Lesson: There are the “invisible” components of “systems”.  Because these are more in the background and out of sight it makes it easy to forget or overlook them. Because we cannot see them doesn’t meant they don’t exist and cannot affect us. I was challenged to think about the “background” things in my life and functions that facilitate the more visible ones. These same things have the capacity to bring down projects. A little oil is necessary to prevent a gigantic machines / engines from breaking down. I realized I have checklists for some things but not all. The invisible that matters can be made and kept visible through checklists. Checklists help make “maintenance” systematic. In a team context checklists can facilitate easier duty / task transferals and subsequent continuity.

What I’ve Learned From Twitter

September 10, 2010 in Ideas, Leadership, Life, Social Media, Twitter with 4 Comments

  • Follow: People need you to give them a reason to follow you. Do you have something worthwhile to tweet or are your tweets relevant to them? At different stages I’ve followed different people depending on what I am interested in at that time. There are however, those that i follow constantly. There are other people or organizations i follow “indirectly”. I do this through the use of private lists. I’ve also learnt that people follow you for different reasons. Some to spam, others because they want to “hear” what your thoughts are, others to engage with you on areas of interest. It’s normally the same in “real life”… People may be following you but for different reasons. Some may follow because they are skeptics and want to be around to say, “I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it”. Others follow you because they believe in your cause, or want to learn from you.

  • Discipline: When I decided to get on twitter, I set myself a challenge; to say at least two things everyday that were edifying in some way. I do use twitter to interact and engage with other people also, but want to also challenge others as they challenge me. It was not a walk in the park at first but with time got better. As an ‘aspiring author’ this has helped. I also used twitter as my practice field for blogging. I thought, “if I can commit to a couple of (edifying) tweets everyday, it will help my discipline when I get back to blogging“. Nothing can be sustained without discipline. You are probably the most disciplined person you know! To know what you are disciplined in, look at the most defined areas of your life.
  • Worth: “140 characters?!” I get that reaction a lot when I explain twitter to people. They just cannot get their heads around the number of characters a single tweet can comprise (obviously they’re not on twitter). I’ve learnt the value or worth of what we say everyday is not in the amount of words you use. I’ve come to appreciate more the worth of words; how to use them to communicate. Tweeting has helped me get straight to the point of what I want to say. If it’s worth saying I challenge myself to say it in a single tweet. I think it’s the same in everyday life and not just in the “twitterspehere”. The most important things we can say are normally phrases with very few words, “I love you, I’m sorry, Thank you”… When we use a lot of words sometimes, there is possibility of losing the essence of what we’re trying to communicate. The target for my tweets is 120 characters at the moment. Some of the deepest things I’ve heard or said have been phrases that are concise.
  • Community: Some people I’ve interacted with claim that twitter and social media in general, are a hindrance to “normal relationships”. I think differently. Twitter has closed the time and geographic divide for me. I’ve been able to interact with people that time and space don’t allow in real-time. I dare say – with the digital age community has been redefined. I could be wrong,  but my take is if studies are done to contrast the “normal” community and social media communities there would be more similarities than differences. I’ve shared ideas and resources. For the friends I follow on twitter and interact with in person, Twitter has enhanced relationships. It has helped either start or continue conversations offline. Through use of hashtags I’ve also been able to see what others are saying about a particular subject in real-time. I’ve also learnt to share more, especially when I visit websites or blogs providing the option to tweet the link. I think sharing is one of the characteristics of community, don’t you?
  • Capture: I always have an “ideas journal” on me, but twitter has become an additional means to capture an idea and to get other people’s insights or thoughts on it. Some of my blog posts are actually “tweet spin-offs”. When I get ideas or brainstorm I normally capture them in short phrases, so twitter has become great resource for capturing ideas for me. Sometimes those reading my tweets may see a tweet but I see a marker or reminder for an idea, which could be a talk, blog post, an article, an initiative etc

 

If you’re not on twitter why aren’t you? If you are on twitter, what lessons have you learnt?

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