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by
Seth Godin
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June 2 - June 27, 2023
A confident coach doesn’t worry about losing a client, athlete, or student. They focus on serving them with clarity and encouragement. They create moments of discomfort in service of a lifetime of empowerment and possibility.
We don’t need a coach as much as we need to want to be coached.
Survivor’s relief rarely leads to powerful innovation and resilience.
If you say “This bus is headed for Oxford,” then the discussion is open for people to suggest that you missed the exit, that you’re driving on the wrong side of the road, or that you’re running behind. There isn’t, however, any time or room for someone to whine and complain about the fact that we’re going to Oxford. The sign is clear, the promise is specific. Get real or don’t play.
If we’re not reliable, what are we?
A system is a set of rules and communication tools that enable us to work in parallel, to create value and solve a shared problem.
The obvious short-term solution for complex, difficult problems is for a powerful manager to take charge and simply tell everyone what to do.
But it doesn’t last and it doesn’t scale.
Significance means change, but change can feel risky. If we’ve been indoctrinated to fear it, if it feels like a gamble, the song of safety can become seductive.
The indoctrination of a “career” is about the seduction of stability. It is a stepwise progression,
Significance is where high trust meets high stakes.
Show me your agenda for today, and I’ll show you what you value. If your team spends almost all of its time on chores with known solutions, then you’re probably in the stopwatch business.
prerecorded video memos can effectively replace lectures.
no one likes being lectured, and they like it less when it’s in real time and masquerading as a conversation.
Instead of taking attendance (you need to be in front of your computer, at the appointed time, to be in a real-time meeting), they paid attention to contributions. Instead of rewarding a combination of obedience and sparkle, they amplified individuals who were able to pay attention to what needed to be done and then do it.
121. A Significant Meeting Is Different It happens in real time because it can only work in real time. It’s a conversation in which everyone listens and speaks. Only the people who need to be there are there. It leads to a decision, not the delivery of information.
Being present in real time is a waste unless we interact.
Read This before Our Next Meeting.
Leadership is voluntary. Voluntary to perform and voluntary to follow. It’s the work of imagining something that hasn’t happened before and inviting people to come along for the journey. Without voluntary enrollment, it’s not leadership, it’s only management.
management is easy and cheap, a shortcut when you are unable to earn enrollment.
The mythology of the lone genius undermines our ability to show up and contribute enough to make things better.
They do it poorly on the way to doing it well.
It’s tempting to mark someone as a failure, as opposed to doing the more nuanced work of differentiating the work from the person who made the work.
Naming something is useful when we’re right, but it’s a challenge when we’re wrong. Because the act of putting something into the wrong box will prevent us from understanding what it really is. And it also can numb us to the feeling of awe we experience in the
“I’m not sure what this is yet, let’s interact and see” opens the door to forward motion and wonder, instead of pushing hard for things to get back to normal.
The best part of a knock-knock joke is the pause after someone says “Who’s there?”
Significance isn’t what we get. . . . It’s what we do for others.
An Encyclopedia of Real Skills
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