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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Tasha Eurich
Read between
June 22 - June 23, 2019
KEY CONCEPTS AND TAKEAWAYS: CHAPTER 7 The prism metaphor: Every time we get a new perspective on our behavior, it helps us see ourselves in a richer, more multidimensional way. The MUM effect: People prefer to withhold the truth when it comes to telling us how they see us. CEO Disease: The tendency for people in powerful positions to be less self-aware; when the overconfidence that results from past successes makes it challenging to hear feedback—and others reluctant to give The Ostrich Trinity: The excuses we make up to avoid getting feedback: I don’t need to ask for it; I shouldn’t ask for
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If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix’d in your present opinions, modest, sensible men who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error. —BEN FRANKLIN
3R Model, which I’ve used for many years to help others (and frankly, myself) stay in control of how we receive, reflect on, and respond to feedback.
it was the girls’ belief that boys were better at chess—our fear of confirming them can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, even before we receive any sort of feedback. This effect was dubbed stereotype threat by psychologists Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson, and it’s been demonstrated for a variety of stereotyped groups and in a wide swath of areas.
Thankfully, there’s a simple intervention we can use to inoculate ourselves against these self-limiting effects: a process Claude Steele dubbed self-affirmation. When faced with feedback in an area that plays into our self-limiting beliefs, merely taking a few minutes to remind ourselves of another important aspect of our identity than the one being threatened shores up our “psychological immune system.”
researchers have recently discovered that reminiscing can indeed be a powerful mechanism for self-affirmation.
The best way to manage our weaknesses isn’t always clear-cut, but the first step is to openly admit them to ourselves, and then to others. Sometimes we can make small changes that have a big payoff. Occasionally, we can completely transform. But in a few cases, the right response is, as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, to accept the things we cannot change.
KEY CONCEPTS AND TAKEAWAYS: CHAPTER 8 Self-limiting beliefs/Stereotype threat: The stereotypes we hold about ourselves that hold us back. Four types of feedback: Positive and confirming, positive and surprising, negative and confirming, negative and surprising. Tools to deal with surprising or difficult feedback The 3R Model: Receive, Reflect, Respond Self-affirmation: Not deluding ourselves to think we are better than we are, but rather, reminding ourselves of our objective strengths and seeing the bigger picture of who we are Tool: Affirming our values Tool: Reminiscing Accept what we can’t
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“A gem,” he explains, “is a learning that enables us to reevaluate what we’re doing.” And the gem he received from Mike that day was that it was wrong to try to make employees in his own image. That as a leader, his role wasn’t to control their every move, but instead to help connect them with the bigger picture, give them the right tools, and provide the space to make mistakes but still hold them accountable.
If being individually self-aware means understanding who you are and how others see you, a self-aware team commits to that same understanding at a collective level. More specifically, there are five things that self-aware teams regularly assess and address: I call them the Five Cornerstones of Collective Insight. First, their objectives: what are they trying to achieve? Second, their progress toward those objectives: how are they doing? Third, the processes they’re employing to achieve their objectives: how are they getting there? Fourth, their assumptions about the business and their
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Albert Bandura’s theory of social learning, which suggests that followers tend to imitate the attitudes and behaviors of their leader.
Edmondson coined the term psychological safety to describe the shared belief that it’s safe to ask one another for help, admit mistakes, and raise tough issues.
trust alone isn’t sufficient for psychological safety. More than merely trusting that team members have one another’s best interests at heart, psychologically safe teams go a step further to see one another as real human beings with weaknesses and flaws. In fact, Google’s research program found that the single most powerful contributor to psychological safety was vulnerability, or a willingness to openly admit our failings. And that has to start at the top.
Getting feedback ground rules*5: No pushback or defensiveness. Take notes and ask questions only for clarification. Be open-minded and assume good intentions. Thank your team members. Giving feedback isn’t easy! Giving feedback ground rules: Avoid generalities (“you always” or “you never”). Focus on the behavior rather than the person. Don’t give your interpretations—just the behavior. Provide examples.
Specifically, unaware companies fail to ask the rather arresting question that my colleague Chuck Blakeman likes to ask his clients: “What are you pretending not to know?”
KEY CONCEPTS AND TAKEAWAYS: CHAPTER 9 Five cornerstones of collective insight Objectives: What are we trying to accomplish as a team? Progress: How well are we achieving our objectives? Processes: Is the way we’re working helping us reach our objectives? Assumptions: Do the assumptions we’re making about our business and environment hold true? Individual contributions: How is each team member impacting our performance? Three building blocks of self-aware teams A leader who models the way Tool: Leader Feedback Process The psychological safety and expectation to tell the truth Tool: Team Norms
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For example, and rather shockingly, one of the best ways to identify a narcissist is to simply ask them whether they are, in fact, a narcissist—more often than not, they’ll reply in the affirmative. But why on earth are they so willing to admit to toxic traits, like egotism, selfishness, and vanity? Just like Daniel, they are aware that they possess these characteristics, but don’t see anything wrong with them. In fact, they tend to view them as positive!
When we confront with compassion, we can often nudge them to make powerful changes that don’t just improve their life and happiness, but ours as well.
To help you to record and process your learnings from the Insight Challenge, you can download a workbook at www.Insight-Book.com. And if you’d like a more scientific baseline of your current level of self-awareness before you begin, you can find a free 360 assessment at www.Insight-Quiz.com.
KEY CONCEPTS AND TAKEAWAYS: CHAPTER 10 Delusional people: People who have no idea how their behavior impacts those around them. How to deal with the three types of delusional people The Lost Cause: They cling to their delusions; it is futile to challenge their self-views. Tool: Compassion without judgment Tool: Floating feet-first The “Aware Don’t Care”: They see their behavior clearly, but not its negative impact. Tool: The laugh track Tool: State our needs The Nudgeable: They want to change, but don’t know what they need to change. Tool: Confront with compassion
Here are a few questions to help you get started in exploring your passions: What kind of day would make you leap out of bed in the morning? What types of projects or activities do you never seem to get sick of? What types of projects or activities do you find least enjoyable? If you retired tomorrow, what would you miss the most about your work? What are your hobbies and what do you like about them? If you’re looking for more guidance to unlock your passions, there is no shortage of “What color is your parachute”–like assessments, and I certainly encourage you to take them. But not all are
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