Responsible FOR vs Responsible TO

Getting increased clarity around complex, messy topics and/or situations is one of the most important focal points of my Coaching work with my clients. One of the best tools I use here is to ask them to carefully examine their thinking and see where they might find some sticky points. To click down further, where might we be able to make some helpful distinctions that will serve to both untangle the stickiness and to open up more space for better informed action?

Some previous examples of how making helpful distinctions can be found in my previous posts on “The Boss” vs Leader, Complex vs Complicated, and Fundamental vs Significant. All three of these posts do similar things – illustrate how what seems to be one sticky thing is better understood as two similar but separate things that are better appreciated independently. In other words, similar but different, with the emphasis on different.

Responsible FOR vs Responsible TO is another distinction that parses out a critically important differences that simply using “responsibility” as a blanket term misses. More appreciation on how FOR and TO are different might help you see the situation in front of you more clearly, understand your choices more thoroughly, and then act with more intention according to a clearer sense of “responsibility” in int actual definition as “ability to respond.”

Responsible FOR is what we hear about all the time, but upon closer examination, is much better reserved for only very specific occasions where there are clear and obvious capacity limitations for other folks involved. For example, you are indeed responsible FOR the vast majority of your children’s needs such as food options, screen time exposure, and dental check-ups. You may also be responsible FOR supervising people and/or projects at work, ranging from onboarding the new hire all the way up through project management and into the C-Suite for full company performance. These are all examples where you have obligations of control and accountability that come with FOR.

Responsible TO, on the other hand, is very different. Here the dynamic is less reactive and instead calls for more autonomy and allows more freedom of action in choosing HOW to respond. For instance, your partner’s challenges at work, your employee’s struggles to perform at the required level, and your boss’ push for an unrealistic deadline are all things you are responsible TO, but not necessarily responsible FOR. You are indeed obligated to “show up” in these situations, and perhaps do something in response, but you aren’t the one that can, or should, be the one to “fix” it. I know this distinction in inherently sticky, so I’ll unpack each of these examples a bit to try to further disambiguate them.

Say your partner comes home from work really frustrated with her coworkers’ lack of meaningful contribution to a project. She’s upset about multiple things here and vents to you for a full 20 minutes about all the facets of the issue. If you mistakenly imagine that you are responsible FOR her problems with her coworker, her team, or even her current emotional state, then you might err and try to “fix” these things.

These '“fixing” attempts will not only fail, but will probably make things worse.

If, on the other hand, you correctly understand that you need only be responsible TO her in the moment, then you proceed differently. At a minimum, you could simply empathize and validate her emotional state of being, something like “Wow, that sounds really frustrating, I can totally see why you’d be upset about that.” Often, that’s all you need to do. You are simply seeing her reality and responding TO it with an appropriate degree of care and understanding. See the difference? No fixing, no efforting, no 20 questions to analyze the details.

With the employee that is struggling to perform to expectations it’s very similar. If you think you are responsible FOR their success, then you might start all kinds of unhelpful interventions like making underinformed suggestions, assigning more training, or even issuing warnings. And sure, those things might have some degree of effectiveness. However, if you see through the lens of responsible TO then you might schedule a chat where you simply state “I notice you are struggling in your performance. What can I do to help you here?” They might just ask for suggestions or additional training like above, but here you are responding TO them directly, and will likely get better results much quicker and with greater respect and rapport getting built along the way.

Finally, with the example of the boss pushing an unrealistic deadline, things might feel a bit more intense but the same principle applies. If you make the wrong choice and reflexively imagine you are responsible FOR meeting it at all costs then you might unfairly push yourself and/or your team to work much harder than would be reasonable. Additional costs will be born by your team here, icluding more stress and frustration with the boss, with the company, and with you too.

However, if you approach this through the responsible TO mindset then you have other options open up in front of you. You could circle back to your boss and ask them which of the other existing priorities they want to sacrifice in order to fast track the one they are currently pushing. You could check in with your team to find the absolute soonest realistic deadline and bring that to your boss as the best you can commit to under the current circumstances. You might even be savvy enough to simply say “Sure, but we’re going to need 2 more people on the team and additional bonus monies or overtime approval to make that happen.” The point here being that you can still take what’s given but then respond TO it with a range of reasonable options for trying to work with it.

The responsible TO framing is all about increasing your autonomy in the moment, and increasing your agency over your future. In other words, increasing your “ability to respond.”

And of course, the boss may reject all of that and tell you to get it done as they slam the door. But that just gives you a new question to consider – how do you want to respond with more autonomy and agency TO a boss that treats their employees this way?

Better is Better

I started messing around with the game of golf back when I was a kid, and got good enough through my efforts to be a starting member of my high school’s golf team for 3 years. I wasn’t quite good enough to play at the college level and soon drifted further away from the sport as college turned into grad school. However, as time passed, I was able to reconnect to my game and spend enough time playing and practicing that I got pretty good at it. I was routinely shooting in the mid-70’s by this point, and it became a point of pride for me that I had developed and refined my skills to that high a level without ever taking any professional lessons. I felt really proud about being able to get so good by applying my own effort and attention to my game.

 One day I was out at a local course and got paired up with this older guy, Steve, who was also quite good. We were enjoying our afternoon playing together and each did our part to have fun while also spurring on some friendly competition. After we finished the first 9 holes I was up by a few strokes, and had been able to pull off a few pretty tidy saves with some good shots along the way. As we teed off on the 10th hole Steve turned to me and asked where I had learned the game. I replied, “Oh, nowhere, I’m self-taught. I’ve just spent a lot of time trying to get a better sense of how to get the ball going where I want it to.” Usually that type of comment would get some compliments or accolades, but Steve simply turned to me and said, “Oh, that’s really too bad.”

 Somewhat taken aback, and slightly confused, I replied, “Too bad? How so?”

 Steve paused, turned to face me directly, and simply asked “Well, how much better do you think you could have been if you had just taken some lessons along the way?”

 That simple question, accompanied by the immediate obviousness of my folly of having taken pride in my rough skills, literally stopped me in my tracks.

 “How much better do you think you could have been if you had taken a few lessons along the way?” echoed in my head for the rest of the round.

 That single, simple question also changed my life.

 At the time, I was 2 years into the Good Karma Café chapter of my life, and had been taking a similar amount of pride in the success of my nascent business coming from my efforts as a self-taught entrepreneur. Steve’s question clearly applied to my business as much as my golf game. I realized that I did not want to make the same silly error of continually missing development opportunities in my professional life that I had been making in my golf life for almost 25 years.

 From that point forward I intentionally shifted fully into what Carol Dweck calls a Growth Mindset and got more intentional about “getting lessons” when it came to running my business. I began to read up on everything related to growing from a single store operation to a multi-store business. I initiated a wholesale reframing of my business operations to allow me to spend more time working ON the business rather than IN the business. My total mindset shifted from “rely on your strengths” to “build on your strengths,” and my successes rapidly increased as I began to implement all kinds of better practices gleaned from the “lessons” I sought out.

 Oh, and I got some golf lessons along the way too, tidying up some loose parts of my game and straightening out my tendency to hit too many draws.

 Where in your life have you done really well through your own efforts? And more importantly, where do you think you can shift your thinking towards a Growth Mindset to open to the possibility of seeing how much better you could be with the benefit of a few lessons?

“The Boss” vs A Leader

My Executive clients understand that developing their Leadership skill set is the most important factor for their ongoing and future success. Our initial sessions focus on unpacking the highlights of their journey to their current success and how their understanding of Leadership may have evolved along the way. A common theme often emerges out of these discussions that’s worth sharing here. Namely, the key differences between the “Leader OF” mindset vs the “Leader IN” mindset.

The smartest path that opens us up to better Leadership of people and projects is one where you search for opportunities to embody better qualities of Leadership IN your existing team or organizational leadership. In other words, from individuals to teams, and from projects to organizational outcomes, the key factor is consistent application of the Leadership IN mindset to your immediate challenges.

 There are several important distinctions to be made here between being a Leader OF (aka, The Boss) and being a Leader IN (a true Leader) your situation. For this short piece I’ll cover 3 ways that Leaders OF are more focused on themselves (and their image) while Leaders IN are more concerned with total team performance and their role in fostering it. Your total Leadership Effectiveness Quotient (LEQ) can be quickly improved to the degree that you can start to move the slider of your current Leadership style from the OF end towards the IN one.

 1)    The first one I’ll mention is the titular difference between “The Boss” and A Leader. Bosses aspire to Leadership through a “power over” mindset, and often imagine themselves as superior to their colleagues and teammates. They want to sit in the back, apart FROM the team, and crack the whip as needed to drive their teams forward. Leaders IN, on the other hand, understand the “power with” mindset and appreciate that the whole team’s concerted effort is what drives success. They want to be a part OF the team and often head to the front to articulate the vision, chart the course, and lead by example.

 2)    A second distinction between Leader OF and Leader In is the focus on external reference points like titles, degrees, or previous gigs. Leaders OF are the folks whose credibility comes from the plaque on their door or diploma on their wall. These are easy things to point to, so these Leaders often relate FROM them and utilize their titles and/or credentials as a crutch or shorthand when giving orders or articulating policy. Leaders IN may have these same external reference points but relate TO them very differently. These Leaders actively avoid games of title- and degree-dropping silliness and instead invest their energy in effectively communicating directives and talking through policy. Again, they understand that their responsibility to the team often comes down to effective communication of the Why’s and How’s of new directives, not just shouting out the What’s.

 3)    The final distinction I’ll share here is the different relationship to Challenge & Support that you’ll see in those that embody the Leader OF mindset vs those with Leader IN. Most Leaders OF provide a lot in terms of Challenge to their teams, but much less Support. For example, these folks shout a lot about margins, deadlines, and goals. But how often do they ask where they can provide Support in terms of clarification, prioritization, or task delegation?

 The greatest irony here is that these same people behave the EXACT OPPOSITE way when it comes to receiving Challenge & Support! These types of Leaders bristle when challenged on important specifics, policy issues, or even simple contradictions. Yet, when it comes to Support, they constantly ask for it in all kinds of ways - like requesting that the team stay late at the last minute, answer emails off hours, or take job-risking shortcuts. For example, these folks might announce “Looks like you’re staying late tonight!” at 4 pm on a Tuesday or “I expect a reply within the hour” to end an off-hour email.

 Leaders IN, on the other hand, do things 100% differently. They provide necessary Challenges to keep the team motivated and moving, and sterner direction as needed for lower performing members. However, these Challenges are almost always accompanied by some version of “what can I do to help you succeed here?” This explicit pivot to Support is what characterizes this Leadership style when it brings Challenge energy into play.

 And the same holds true for how they receive Challenge & Support. These Leaders are always seeking a better way of succeeding and actively solicit critical feedback. They know that they have blind spots, under-developed backhands, and areas where they can improve, and will often check in with trusted teammates for signs of slippage and progress here. When they do ask for Support, it is framed in language that understands the size and scope of what’s being asked, and appreciates the sacrifices that might be needed to accomplish it. They’ll say things like “This project is time-sensitive, can anybody stay a bit later this evening to help me get it out the door?” and will end that rare off-hour email with “No reply needed, just wanted to set this idea on your desk for tomorrow AM.”

 Regardless of your current position, these characteristics of Leadership IN your team, project, or division, etc. are all helpful examples of ways it’s possible to devote more constructive effort into helping your team succeed. And when it comes time for recognition or promotion, your name will end up higher on the list because of it.

3 Tips for Going Pro

Many people tend to think of athletics when the term “Pro” comes up, like Pro Football or Pro Baseball, where the very best at the game are rewarded handsomely in money, fame, and prestige. However, the very idea of being a “Pro” at anything simply comes from the notion of “professions” being a skill, trade, or activity where folks of sufficient abilities could charge other people money for their services. In fact, getting “paid to play” through salary, winnings, and/or sponsorship is usually the main criteria separating out amateurs and hobbyists from professionals such as seen in golf, tennis, and poker. But once you cross the “getting paid” barrier and can be considered a professional, what does really excelling – “Going Pro” - look like within your field?

 Every profession has its own internal comparisons that separates the true “Pros” out from the “pretty goods,” and this dynamic holds true from Plumbers and Electricians to Politicians and Engineers. It’s the commonality of these internal standards across professions that I want to focus on here. Even in everyday usage a person who develops a high enough skillset in almost any activity is often considered a “Pro,” precisely to the degree that they embodying certain standards and principles. Let’s take a quick look at a few of these that you can borrow to help you “Go Pro” in your career field, and your personal life as well.

 1)    Professional vs Personal – This first distinction is perhaps the most crucial one to make. At the core, what marks a Professional? Most simply, it’s not personal! For example, professional poker players work very hard to focus on just the hand in play, and same for professional golfers focusing on just the shot at hand. How you personally feel about what just happened or who was involved is indeed important. But it shouldn’t unduly impact your ability to focus on the immediate task at hand.

 How you react/respond to a situation with a lot emotional energy in play? How you decide to approach a dilemma with an annoying coworker? How you “show up” for a meeting, interview, or review when there is a lot at stake? How present are you for your partner when things get a little heated? Rarely will you do well in any of these if you have a lot of personal feelings-based energy in play like anger, fear, resentment, or jealousy.

 What personal stuff might be holding you back from showing up like a Pro?

 2)    Going Pro also requires you to be aware of and understand the basic objective metrics of evaluation that are relevant. What are the “industry standards” that you will be measured against? Are there clear goals or data points that are commonly used to determine who is a “Pro” and who isn’t? What external reference points should be checked or consulted in decision making here? Ethics and code compliance are obvious examples, but even such basics as common courtesy, attention to detail, and cleanliness are commonly mentioned in the context of professional standards.

 What are the standards of professionalism in play for you in your career field that separates out the true Pros? What about in your personal life? How are you measuring up to them? What could you change about your behavior and/or attitude to improve your performance as measured against them?

 3)    Perhaps most importantly, Going Pro requires dedicated attention and effort on improvement. Professionals understand that the game is always changing and that complacency leads to failure. Therefore, they spend a lot of time on training and development. Pro Football players watch film and run practices each week in preparation for the next week’s game. Professional poker players play lots of hands of online poker and study the habits and tells of other professionals in preparation for the next tournament. Professional actors rehearse the lines and facial quirks of their next role for months leading up to when the filming begins.

 What are you doing to prepare for your next opportunity to show up like a professional? How are you training to improve your craft? What are you already doing to take action here? Are you getting the results you want? Why or why not?

 Hopefully these 3 Tips for Going Pro land for you in a way that clarifies some next steps in front of you if you want to level up in your work place or better connect in your relationships. Putting some more effort in developing your professionalism by gaining more awareness of how you show up and what you’re being measured against are great actions to take in any event. Striving to improve in both areas can be hard, but the benefits of Going Pro will certainly make it worth your efforts.

3 Keys to Conflict Resolution

From the bedroom to the Boardroom, and everywhere in between, interpersonal conflict will inevitably occur from time to time. Minor disagreements at home and petty turf wars at work can be annoying and costly in different ways, in both emotional and energetic capital. The bigger skirmishes and open hostilities that often characterize divorces and HR lawsuits can exponentially increase all the TME costs for those involved. For these reasons, and countless others, it behooves us all to learn more about healthy approaches to conflict management and resolution.

 First things first, I recommend focusing on intentionally cultivating your personal resilience as an Agent in the world in order to buttress your inner conflict management skills. Contrary to current popular cultural trends and ideologies, you aren’t merely a passive and helpless recipient of whatever the Arena exposes you to. “Safe spaces”, virtue-signaling pins, and social isolation are all instances of approaches that echaracterize this unhelpful victim-of-circumstance-so-control-the-Arena model. Instead, our approach is to recommend taking as much ownership as possible over your ability as Agents to improve what you can control or influence. In other words, your own terrain – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

 For example, exercise, physical fitness, and a healthy diet are 3 keys to more robust bodily health. For stronger mental health the cultivation of solid critical thinking skills, engaged learning, and growth mindset are 3 activities to invest in. Similar keys and practices exist for both emotional health and spiritual health as well. In fact, our full-spectrum Ecology of Practices Coaching model here at Catalyst takes just this Agent-focused approach to action. It specifically includes the development of increased resilience so as to avoid being drawn into unnecessary interpersonal conflict whenever possible. We even go so far as to suggest that almost all interpersonal conflict can be avoided through cultivating said resilience, decreasing emotional reactivity, and increasing your efforts to “go pro” whenever possible.

 However, despite our best intentions and most deft deflections, some instances of interpersonal conflict are inevitable. Once we find ourselves ensnared in such, there are additional skills that we need to bring to bear on the situation to increase our chances of creating a best-for-all resolution. Among these skills, the one I want to speak to here is a top priority – a clear focus towards outcomes and future implications. More of a stance than practice, this view to the horizon and beyond can be cultivated by asking yourself 3 distinct questions regarding any solution proposed to resolve the conflict.

 1)    Is it Fair? Fairness is a primary human motivation, and one that extends down into other species such as monkeys, dogs, and corvids. Sometimes fairness is relatively easy to ascertain and ask for in a conflict scenario. For example, let’s say that certain year-end bonus monies were paid out according to questionable and opaque processes, leading many to question the methodology of management and stoking claims of favoritism and other team-wrecking, morale busters. A fair resolution to this type of conflict could be to ask that all bonus-determining criteria be agreed upon and published at the beginning of the year, and then publicly tracked and updated regularly so that all interested parties know where they stand at any given time so as to prevent similar conflict next year. *Note - See the how this approach orients to future outcomes rather than past “problems”?

 Other times fairness can be much harder to determine. Let’s go with the above example of employee bonuses again, but turn up the complexity. How do you fairlyreward full time employees’ efforts over the year vs part time employees? Surely, it wouldn’t be fair if part-timers got the exact same year-end bonus as full-timers, right? Now add to the mix the ideal of rewarding time served. Certainly it’s fair to reward those with 5 years of service more than those with 2 years, right?? Now what about position in the company? Shouldn’t the team leader position get a larger piece of the bonus than the night janitor? Now what about the full-time night janitor with 10 yrs. of service vs the part-time team leader with just 1 year. What’s the fair way to allocate bonus monies here where multiple variables intersect? 

 The goal here is to seek to identify a solution that can be considered to acknowledge as many differential factors as possible, and to do so as fairly as possible. However, this is but Step 1 of the process.

 2)     Is it Reasonable? At first glance this concept seems very similar to fairness described above. However, often times what seems to be a very fair solution to a conflict is actually quite unreasonable, and therefore, should not be implemented. Many of King Solomon’s parables play up this distinction for effect, like his suggestion to cut a baby in half to be shared equally between 2 women who claimed to be its mother. Obviously the 50% split part was a nod to fairness, but the proposed distribution method was entirely unreasonable.

 More likely situations in your life where the fairness/reasonableness divide should be closely examined might be in relationship breakups where property and other asset disputes need to be settled. Should you cut the car in half to split it, or should you look for equitable trade-offs among all the assets? We can draw from the bonus pool example above for another example. If bonuses were rewarded somewhat unfairly this past year, would it be fair to reward them equally disproportionately in the other direction next year for fairness? Or would that be an unreasonable solution that introduces more problems into the mix?

 3)    Is it constructive? This is perhaps the most important factor to consider, especially where there are future relationships and other implications to consider. For example, many times we can come up with what appears to be a both fair and reasonable prospective solution to a conflict and imagine we are finished. But we’re not there yet. Let’s take a deeper dive into this final point to bring it all home.

 Say a regional manufacturing facility with over 1000 employees was improperly disposing of waste into the local aquifer for 10 years. This waste eventually leaked into a community lake and killed a bunch of wildlife, which ultimately led to its discovery and legal action. The company soon settled with the EPA and paid some appropriate fines. The previous shady CEO was fired, and a new CEO was brought it to take the company into full compliance and move the business forward. So far, so good.

 However, the community was still rightfully upset over the damage to its water and to its trust in the company. It therefore decided to sue the company for enough money to clean up the lake, but also for additional larger sums in punitive damages. The total amount of the lawsuit was generally seen as both fair and reasonable, especially given the amount of damage done to the community and the company’s earlier attempts to deny and deflect responsibility for it all.

 Yet, from the “is it constructive?” angle things looked a bit different. The financial impact of this lawsuit on the company would be extreme, and might push them into closing the facility entirely, thereby jeopardizing 1000 jobs in the community. The suit also failed to consider the longer term relationship damage that might come from it, most likely creating ongoing resentment flowing freely in both directions. In this scenario, the small community might have won the battle of the lawsuit, but risked losing the war of economic survival if 1000 jobs disappeared and losing the value of relationship as any remaining mutual good will disappeared.

 Instead, the lead attorneys from both sides got together and crafted a settlement that included sufficient funds to fully restore and restock the lake as requested, but eliminated the punitive damages request and substituted in much smaller, but sustainable, community investment funding for the next 20 years for a senior center with pickleball courts, continuing education, and other support activities. Finally, they also secured commitment to fund an additional training program at the local community college that would lead to employment opportunities at the company in some capacity for all graduates.

 Adding this constructive angle to the question changed the whole dynamic and provided some helpful, longer term perspective into the total solution conversation. The past-oriented, retribution focused solution that put fairness at the top and reasonableness on the side would have given the community a large short term win, but one that also incurred long term costs.

 Instead, adding in the future-oriented focus on constructive allowed a solution to be negotiated that repaired the initial problem of the poisoned lake, preserved the community’s economic interests via ongoing employment, secured additional community investment for senior support, and provided additional paths of opportunity for the community’s younger members. These additional concessions were still going to cost the company quite a bit of money, but much less than the punitive damages would have, and also spread the money out over many years ahead and into programs that would also benefit the company over time. Win-win-win.

 Next time you find yourself party to a conflict, or perhaps even in a position to mediate one amongst other folks, turn to these questions to guide your solution finding.Is it fair? Is it reasonable?And most importantly,is it constructive?This third part is critical when solving conflicts with friends, family, and/or coworkers whom you are partnering with in working towards a better tomorrow.

Charting the path to win-win-win isn’t always easy, but it is always worth it.

Stepping Up & Stepping In

I recently wrote about how unconscious commitments or fears can leak into our decision-making process and really hold us back from our true Leadership potential. These underlying emotional currents are powerful forces that can hold us back, either by slowing us down or by pushing us to look for safer routes forward. On the other hand, these deeper energetic forces can also add energetic oomph into our decision-making. In fact, many times they are required to push us over a hump of indecision or to firm our resolve to commit to a course of action we are otherwise conflicted about.

 A good example here might be getting angry enough about poor customer service that you are finally incentivized to go through the hassle of lodging a formal complaint. Or alternatively, you might be so deeply appreciative of great customer service that you are willing to sit down and take the time to write them a positive review or send in a personal note of gratitude. Both of these examples illustrate where the opportunity to act was always there, but that extra push of strong emotional energy was needed to overcome inertia or other resistance and actually generate the action in question.

 We previously saw how unconscious resistance is often not the ally it pretends to be, and in fact, often acts against our better interests. Further examination of this flip side of things, where we rely upon emotional energy to inspire us into action, reveals an equally problematic dynamic. But wait, isn’t getting angry enough to complain about customer service, or appreciative enough to compliment it, actually helpful? Sure, of course it is! But what happens that eruption of anger causes us to overreact to the actual facts of the present situation? Or when a touching moment leads to a tearful “thank you,” but then leaves us a bit embarrassed with the messiness of it all?

 What if you could provide simple and effective feedback, both positive and negative, without needing all that internal oomph to actually make it happen? How much more effective could you be, both in Leadership and in life in general, if you were consistently and easily able to make an impact in the world around you, without needing a big rise of energy to come up for you to turn “should” into “am”?  How can you more easily “Step In” when things aren’t going well, and more quickly “Step Up” to compliment and connect when positivity is warranted?

 I’ll share here with you a simple exercise that I often use with my clients who are looking to increase their Leadership Effectiveness Quotient in the categories of Connectedness and/or Competence. The easy part about this exercise is that it can be practiced in all sorts of low-risk, low-reward situations and that confidence and skill in delivering feedback can be quickly increased after only a few weeks of practice.

 Most people find the “Stepping up” to compliment exercises substantially easier, so we’ll begin with this one. Seek to notice those small moments where gratitude or appreciation arises, and then gently give voice to them without making a big deal about it. You want to speak directly to the actions that occurred and calmly deliver your message of appreciation with sincerity and warmth. The power of these messages can be amplified by doing them publicly so that the recipient can get an extra boost of social recognition by those who happen to witness them.

 For example, let’s say that your morning latte at the café is served with a perfect florette design in the foam on top. Instead of simply smiling to yourself, take 10 seconds to thank the barista. Say something like “Hey, I know you guys are busy back there, but I just want to let you know how much I appreciated seeing this beautiful latte art on my drink just now. I know it’s a simple thing, but it brought a smile to my face, so thank you.” Again, no big deal, no extra buck in the tip jar, just a simple and direct positive acknowledgement to the person on the other side of the counter.

These mini “practice sessions” of Stepping Up can easily be extended to friends, family, and coworkers, and I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the general vibe-raising impact they have on your internal and external environment. The key component to focus on is small acts of sincere gratitude.

 Now let’s look over at the much more challenging exercise of practicing your “Stepping In” skills. So many people struggle with these, primarily because they have developed a lot of habits oriented towards conflict avoidance, but also because so many of their previous “step ins” have come from a place of high emotional agitation – a place that does not often lead to measured, constructive responses.

The whole point of these exercises is to practice delivering critical feedback in low risk scenarios and from a place of low energy. You’ll be more effective when less agitated, and much less likely to create further complications in your desire to resolve things. And to be clear, these messages should be delivered discretely or in private when possible.

 First, I want you to look for any and all opportunities to “Step in” and deliver a critique, a challenge, or otherwise negative feedback. Don’t pick one that feels too risky or one that you feel strongly about as your practice opportunity. You want to start with some really easy ones. In fact, the lower your *actual* feelings about it, the better. The whole point of the exercise is to get more comfortable recognizing a negative emotion in very small doses, and then to act in a calm and reasonable manner that directly connects to this emotion but isn’t powered by it.

 Restaurants and cafes are great places to practice this skill, primarily because the business model is based on giving you what you want. For example, let’s say that your burger at lunch tomorrow comes out slightly overcooked. No need to send it back or demand a refund, but you can easily say something like “Hey, I just want to let you know that I ordered my burger medium rare but it came out medium well. I’ll happily enjoy my lunch, and I don’t want a new burger or for you to take it off the check. But I would appreciate you letting the kitchen know that they sent out an overcooked burger. Maybe they’ll pay a little more attention for the next guy.”

 This message can be delivered to your server with a smile, and in a light-hearted, friendly, and discrete manner. There is no need to actually express any of the frustration or anger that was the original response to the overcooked burger.

That is the point of this practice – to speak to the behavior but not from your emotional response. Again, the goal is to identify things that are less than correct in principle, and then speak directly to them from a place of calmness that is not dependent on your emotional energy coming to a boil to move you to a place of expression.

 Ideally, you’ll find several opportunities throughout each day over the next few weeks to practice both Stepping Up and Stepping In. These moments of opportunity should get easier to identify, which will help you cultivate a finer sense of your internal emotional landscape. Also, and more importantly, you should begin to develop some skill and savvy in delivering these messages from a place of warmth and calmness, especially the critical Stepping In ones.

 Effective Leadership can be measured in many ways, but having good communication skills where you can meaningfully connect with those above and below you in the hierarchy will always serve you well.

Stepping Up and Stepping In opportunities are always available, so be sure to look for them today and lean into practicing your skills there. Being able to consistently spot and reward moments of appreciation will increase morale and rapport, and being able to simply correct and challenge people as needed from a place of grounded calmness will inspire commitment and loyalty from those on your team.

All of these combine together and support your efforts of increasing the overall effectiveness of your Leadership.

Playing Small & Playing Slow

Sound judgement is one of the most critical ingredients of effective Leadership. At its heart, judgement is simply the comparing and contrasting of options and alternatives, exploring perspectives that yield clear value distinctions between choices. Which choice is better or worse? Buy, sell, or hold? Which option has the higher probability of success, given the givens? What about when we tweak each of the variables this way and that, how do those probabilistic outcomes change?

Often times the representational algorithm of this process can have perhaps a dozen variables, all mutually interdependent and inherently unforeseeable. This complex decision making can get extremely tedious and feel overwhelming, leading to less than optimal outcomes and suboptimal coping strategies.

 Many Leaders tend to instinctively shy away from such imposing complexity, and instead of seeking the best way forward tend to orient instead towards finding the safest way forward. Finding a path that definitively avoids the imagined “Big Miss” outcome becomes the driving goal for them.

Occasionally this is precisely correct, like when managing a financial portfolio where long-term security is explicitly prioritized over aggressive short term growth. However, many other times this pursuit of safety creeps in unconsciously, and can easily overshadow the more explicit stated goals. In my work I call this tendency “playing small.”

 Other Leaders’ first reaction is to simply not decide at all. They may ask for more details, more information, another perspective, or just for a little more time. And again, sometimes those are real concerns that yield fresh data that changes the equation in a meaningful way. But much more often they are simple delaying tactics, only meant to alleviate the pressure of making the decision now from a place of discomfort.

A similar move is to “make” a decision, but not actually implement it in any meaningful way and therefore still create a safety space of inaction in which to rest. This move is just a slightly more sophisticated form of delay, but one that allows some self-serving wiggle room when asked about it. Either way, in my work I refer to this as “playing slow.”

 How do you know if you are falling into one of these unconscious traps of playing small or playing slow? When working with clients on these challenges I almost always recommend that we begin by seeking more clarity on what’s really going on underneath the hood.

A helpful approach that can bring more awareness is to explore a form of gentle interrogation that looks more deeply into your process of deciding. I play the role of gentle interrogator with my clients here, but you can also easily do this on your own without a Coach too. You can role play both parts - the part of you that really wants to make the best decision possible as the interrogator and the part of you resisting it as the person in the hot seat. The point is to explicitly embody each perspective 100%, and make fully conscious both the parameter and goals of the best decision and the reasons and rationales for any resistance to aiming high and/or getting there quickly.

 If you suspect you are erring too far towards safety and playing small, then you can begin to ask yourself to explicitly lay out the full range of probabilistic outcomes you have generated, especially the negative ones. Really get into the details here. What are each of the potential outcomes, and what is your best guess, to the decimal, of that outcome actually occurring. What outcomes are more preferred, and why? What are possible bad outcomes, and how bad are they actually?

You might be surprised to see that your best guess odds of those bad things coming to pass are much lower than you “felt” them to be, or that the circumstances of *really bad* aren’t really that bad after all.

 If you are concerned about the delay mindset of playing slow creeping in, ask yourself to fully articulate what additional information you are seeking and how, exactly, that new information might impact the decision to be made. Be as specific as possible here. What information are looking for? What would you need to see to change the circumstances in a meaningful way? How much more time do you think you need? And what exactly are you going to do with that time that will change the variables?

You have to demand explicit details here, hence my choice of the word “interrogation.” Again, you’ll probably find that the role of “hotseat you” can’t fully articulate a coherent rationale here.

 So many clients report to me their initial surprise, and then frustration, at how weak the answers to these questions can be. “David, why do I feel such strong resistance in one moment, but then under direct interrogation, I really can’t articulate anything resembling a solid perspective to support it?”

And to these questions I simply say, “Good, you’ve simply identified that your “reasons” for shying away aren’t conscious, nor are they objectively real. That doesn’t mean they aren’t true or powerful, but it does mean that they might have a lot less to do with the facts of the decision itself and much more to do with YOU and your unconscious fears around accountability or self-confidence.”

 This move to reframe decision-making away from the imagined concerns with concrete outcomes and over to the unconscious fears holding the decision making process back through either playing small or playing slow opens up some great opportunities where Coaching for more effective Leadership can be quite impactful.

Where are you holding yourself back? And what does the “hotseat you” have to say about that? 

“Bloom Where You’re Planted”

This pithy expression is thrown around fairly commonly in the Air Force, especially amongst high performers like my wife and her fellow Officers in Executive Service. I say “pithy,” because it is most often heard or used in the context of acknowledging the challenges of bureaucratic inertia, outdated and inefficient processes, or other systemic obstacles that must simply be acknowledged rather than overcome. It’s used as a kind of a weird combination of “know your place,” “stay in your lane,” and “keep trying anyway.” However, underneath the soft smirk and resigned irony there is some real value in this phrase that shouldn’t be missed.

 First, let’s clarify the obvious intentions in this metaphor. Just like with Air Force assignments, most corporate positions are somewhat “assigned” as well in the sense that you have been put there by those above you and shall remain there until they decide otherwise. So, much like our flower, you have also been “planted” somewhere and are there for the foreseeable future. Obviously, this inability to easily uproot or even change pots can lead to feelings of frustration, resentment, and /or apathy – all very unhealthy and unhelpful places to dwell any longer than minimally necessary.

 From there the admonition is to instead seek ways of “blooming” as the better path forward for healthy and adaptive coping. Acknowledge the limitations, clarify the expectations and opportunities, and invest your energy in growing in the directions that are available instead of complaining about the ones that aren’t. Seems easy enough, right?

 But this challenge is precisely where so many people get hung up. They fundamentally don’t want to bloom where they are planted, and instead stay grounded in their strong preferences to be someplace else. They can’t get unrooted from their own emotional state, and that pool of dissatisfaction is what fuels their expressions. They then imagine, falsely in most cases, that complaining about their predicament is a good strategy for getting pulled out of it and moved over to where they’d rather be. Their main failure here is forgetting to factor in the view from their supervisors, managers, directors, or whoever else in a position to move them. Why would those above reward low-energy slouchers or high-energy whiners from the ranks below?

 And here is where the real message of Bloom where you’re planted can shine through. Which coworkers get promoted? Which colleagues get approached about the new position with greater responsibility and the pay that comes with it? Which associates get made into Partners? Not the whiners, the complainers, and the early-outers. Nope. The shiny apples get picked, and the bright, blooming flowers get noticed.

 So “Blooming where you’re planted” is more than just a dry expression of condolences. It’s in fact a great short-term strategy for better mental and physical health, and more importantly, the best long-term strategy for getting opportunities to uproot yourself and find a better place to truly grow. The fastest way out is up, so double your efforts in “blooming” if you want to moved up the hierarchy rather than out the door.

How best to evaluate Leadership?

First things first, what EXACTLY are we trying to evaluate in the first place?? Getting a good handle on what we mean by “Leadership” is the real crux of the challenge.

The underlying perennial dilemma here has always been of how best to define and measure what we mean by “Leadership.” Is it a quality or function of inherent, innate potential that can simply be unlocked and developed? Is it a learned fluency in practiced skills and techniques? Or should it be considered in a similar fashion to athletic or musical aptitude where raw, inborn talent can be intentionally cultivated, but where one’s fullest expressions often have real limits, well short of one’s aspirations?

Some facets of effective leadership have gained consensus. For example, having a sufficiently high IQ, or G-Factor, is commonly understood as an important component in most recipes for Leadership success in today’s VUCA world.

A high EQ, also known as emotional intelligence, has more recently come to the forefront as equally necessary for Leadership success. Many voices now suggest that EQ is in fact much more important than IQ when evaluating or predicting effective Leadership.

Traditional Leadership 360 evaluative methods attempted to simplify matters, but there is broad disagreement across them on how to best define the most basic qualities in play. Even getting some initial alignment on working definitions only gets you to the next dilemma – how to then consistently measure them in ways across your organization that are both meaningful and actionable?

We knew that Coaches could do better, could be more comprehensive, deliver more impactful results, and truly give all parties involved clear assessments and workable prescriptions for improvement. The results of our work, and our clients’ elated response to it, were the proof-of-concept we needed to push on.

Out of this iterative process we developed the concept of the Leadership Effectiveness Quotient, or LEQ. Much like IQ and EQ mentioned above, the LEQ aspires to quantify complex phenomena in a simpler framework that organizes and simplifies things in ways that provide more clarity and direction for meaningful engagement.

A single LEQ score gives you a numerical rating to measure and quantify the effectiveness of your leadership, similar to how an IQ score can be used for general intelligence. Equally important, it highlights the specific areas where you most need improvement and follows up by providing clear directions forward for growth and development.

This LEQ terminology came to fruition when helping my good friend and colleague, David Zeitler, with his new Leadership 360 Assessment & Reporting method. Zeitler had spent several years applying various assessments in his Executive Coaching work and realized that there were three main areas that – taken together – could provide leaders with a more accurate and useful set of perspectives: Capacity (their level of discernment); Character (their perceived integrity); and Culture (the trust of colleagues). He had created something practical and insightful, but had not found a way to put them all together. It was holistic but not integrated.

In his work, Capacity covers the basic G-Factor of general intelligence, but more importantly, seeks to uncover how base aptitude manifests through the complexity of one’s worldview. It looks at one’s depth of meaning-making, as well as the span of a leader’s application of that meaning-making. Beyond this, it has built-in avenues for constructive coaching recommendations to help guide their efforts in increasing capacity, which translates into greater Leadership effectiveness.

Character covers the important issues of integrity and confidence, as measured by a leader’s ability to “walk their talk” when it comes to core values. EQ is touched upon in here, but transcended to allow room for the qualities of judgement, expertise, and significant interpersonal relationships to rise to the forefront. Accurate assessment and diagnosis here can lead directly to prescriptive, proactive Coaching to improve performance along this critical metric.

Culture is so often missed by more traditional Leadership evaluation approaches because they often tend to myopically focus on the individual Leader rather than the complex web of relationships that form the substrate of a company’s identity. Here, interpersonal trust is the main factor – as Zeitler notes throughout his report, “The Leader IS the Culture.” The “trust” focus of this quality highlights their importance as a figurehead and embodiment of the company culture. In other words, how goes the leader, so goes the culture. Again, clarity on the strengths and weaknesses here leads directly to actionable strategy for improvement.

We realized that what was missing from his analysis and reporting was an integration of his 3 Leadership Qualities in a way that would be immediately digestible and recognizable. So together we created a “Leadership Effectiveness Quotient” scoring system. This allowed each of his 3 Qualities to stand alone with their respective category scores, and then also be combined and averaged to generate an overall total LEQ score.

The single scoring metric of the total LEQ allows us to compare individual scores across teams of people and also, and perhaps most importantly, compare any singular leader’s current LEQ score against a previous one to track development and progress. We were able to collaborate together and combine our different areas of expertise to create a better way for leaders to see where they are, and perhaps more importantly, where they have room to grow.

In sum, the true power and utilty of the LEQ is 3-fold. First, it is a powerful diagnostic tool that cuts right to the heart of what all companies are looking for at every level of their operations – Effective Leadership. Second, it follows up this accurate diagnosis with a thorough assessment of each leader’s relative strengths and weaknesses in the core components of Capacity, Character, and Culture. Finally, and most importantly, it delivers actionable Coaching prescriptions tailored directly to each individual’s blind spots that chart a clear path forward for improvement.

 Clarity, Purpose, and Direction - What more could you ask for?

David Arrell & David Zeitler

TME vs ROI

Is it worth it?

How many times have you asked yourself some version of this question, or had it asked of you? A few months into a new relationship, and some red-ish flags start to show up. Do you continue to invest in the relationship? Several weeks with your new hire and they just aren’t getting up to speed. Do you persist in trying to train and develop them? Your job continues to ask for more and more from you, yet refuses to reevaluate your pay. Do you continue to over-deliver in hopes of an eventual pay-off? Ultimately all these kinds of scenarios come down to one question – is it worth it?

 As important as this question may be in your personal life, it is even more critical in your professional life. Decisions have outcomes, actions have consequences. And not deciding or not acting are often way more costly in the long run. As discussed in my previous OODA Loop piece, making good decisions quickly and then pivoting over to the next issue to do the same, are stairs that lead directly to the C-Suite. A handy way to cut through noise in these moments is to look through the lens of TME vs ROI and see how things look from that perspective. Put in simpler terms, is the juice worth the squeeze?

 In this equation T = Time, M = Money, and E = Energy. Sometimes people prefer to use E = Effort here, but I prefer the broader term of Energy as that captures the “carrying costs” of rumination, stress, and other forms of ongoing passive engagement. Time is listed first as that is often the most important of these resources for busy Executives looking to optimize this equation. The point is that each of these things all have real value, incur real costs, and should be considered as real investments or expenditures of finite resources. Your resources, to be precise. How much of your resources across all these domains are you spending into the situation at hand?

On the other side you have ROI, or Return On Investment. I’m sure you’re all familiar with this term and use it quite a bit in your work, especially in all the usual financial and investment realms. However, as you can see from the left side of the equation, we aren’t just looking at money here. The Time and Energy elements broaden things out considerably and reflect the need to look more globally at your total “costs,” including the emotional, mental, and even existential ones. Back to our initial question, what is the total ROI you are getting out of this situation when you compare it to the previously mentioned TME costs? Is it truly worth it?

Upping your total Leadership Effectiveness Quotient (LEQ) is critical to your future success in the ever complexifying business landscape. An often hidden aspect of this score is your ability to judiciously track your ongoing TME vs ROI across the full spectrum of your day and the things that fill it. Success is often not just about doing more, getting up earlier, or being more efficient. Instead it is about knowing when to pivot away from low ROI situations and how and where to deploy your limited TME more wisely into more interesting opportunities.

Remember the Asymptote

Finding the optimal ROI on time, money, and energy (TME) expenditures and investments is one of the most important skills of effective leadership, especially when it comes making meaningful progress in more complex goals like improving “efficiency,” “profitability,” or even “office culture.” One helpful tip for finding some balance in the mix is to pause from time to time and Remember the Asymptote.

As a rough refresher from your 7th grade Geometry course, an Asymptote is a curve that perpetually approaches but never reaches an axis on a graph. The inherent unreachability element here is indeed the central factor of what I call Asymptotic Goals like “improve X.” However, just because these goals are ultimately unreachable in any absolute fashion doesn’t mean that there isn’t tremendous value to be gained by striving for them. The key challenge lies in finding the optimal relationship between the striving and what is actually realized by so doing. Therefore, for our purposes here Remember the Asymptote embodies two further concepts beyond simple “unreachability” that help anchor our ideal aspirations firmly into the hard ground of reality when searching for that nebulous optimal balance.

The first additional thing I want to point out via the Asymptote metaphor is that we often make a LOT of progress towards our goals early on in the process. Simply bringing focus onto the goal, crystalizing our intent, and putting TME into action can accomplish a great deal in a short amount of time. This high ROI in the early stages should be expected, and the feast of rewards that follow should definitely be enjoyed and celebrated. However, the curve of TME expenditures vs ROI returns will surely bend more and more, and soon enough it gets tricky to measure how much more TME investment is “worth it,” especially as other lost opportunity costs start to mount up.

A good example of this process can be seen with the development of the jet engine. It came on the scene in the early 40’s, but had totally taken over almost all military and commercial airline production by the late 60’s.

This brings us to the second concept, the Law of Diminishing Returns. Simply stated, at some point the absolute value of TME invested in something, be it a goal, project, or even relationship, fails to yield correspondingly higher returns. At this point, additional TME is just a bad investment, period. This is especially true for Leaders who face almost limitless possibility, but only have finite TME available. Identifying these tipping points and stopping short of them is the difference between long term success and sudden, catastrophic failure.

Continuing with the jet engine example, it soon became apparent that the early increases in speed, range, altitude, and efficiency that jet engines provided over piston-powered propeller engines were not limitless. The hard reality of material science, atmospheric forces, and even human pilot needs began to require exponential costs for limited to negative gains. It can be argued that the high point of this push past the tipping point of TME vs ROI was the supersonic Concorde which could cruise along at 1,350 mph. For comparison, commercial flights now operate very comfortably in the much slower yet optimally balanced zone of about  550 – 600mph.

Effective Leadership in today’s VUCA world is becoming increasingly rare. A great way to stand out from your peers and colleagues is to manage your total TME investments and expenditures wisely by tracking the resulting ROI against them. Prioritize the identification of those tipping points of diminishing returns, and then back up a step or 2.

Finding the optimal balance between TME and ROI is a smart move, and establishing a portfolio of work characterized by these moves will truly set you apart. A key to getting there is to Remember the Asymptote.

Clarity is Just Step 1

Pushing for Clarity has long been a cornerstone of my personal learning process. Whether through a lightning flash of insight or the slow creep of a dawning realization, I find great value and satisfaction in seeing finer distinctions and greater resolution emerge in my ideas, thoughts, and concepts. This push for increased clarity is also a central part of my Coaching work with clients. But this Push for Clarity is not just an end to itself, but only the 1st step in an important loop of growth and change.

Step 2 is what I call the Integrity Check. Where can newfound clarity on a situation reveal previously hidden glitches? Or places where one’s actions aren’t in complete alignment with one’s goals? Where is our walk diverging from our talk? Where does our behavior not, in fact, lead to making progress towards our stated goals? Time and time again in my life I’ve seen stark differences in all these things come into sharper contrast with increased clarity regarding my motivations, resistances, and other shadow areas of my psyche. And I see the same things happen in my clients from time to time too.

Step 3 follows almost automatically from the 2nd one above, and that is Setting Intention. The integrity gaps that emerge from increased clarity easily command our attention, but it is up to us as Agents to decide what our intention will be going forward. Will we adjust our talk? Our walk? Or even both? Where do we want to put effort into making change in our lives to create greater alignment in those places that need it? Where do we want to increase harmony and decrease friction in our total energy and effort outputs?

Step 4 is my favorite step. Our actions are where the proverbial rubber hits the road, for without them our insights and intentions are impotent. What are some simple, safe, and immediate steps we can take to close the gaps that our Integrity Checks have revealed? Where can we move the slider a bit in a way that is designed to help us show up in the world as the angels of our better selves demand? And once we start to take some of these actions, how does the world look from the new perspective afforded? What new clarity now emerges, starting the loop over again?

North What?

Goals and guides are big part of our lives these days. Getting clarity around what they are and how we relate to them can be the crucial difference between achieving success or ending in failure. This can be particularly important when embarking on a change or growth trajectory, as often times we have a lot at stake and are marshalling significant resources to apply to our work. A question I often ask my clients here is simply “North what? North Carolina, the North Star, or the North Pole?”

North Carolina is simply a stand-in for a specific destination, with clear boundaries and tangible benefits that come with arriving there. It can be well defined in advance, and the required action plans for getting there can be fairly well articulated. Good examples of North Carolina goals include “make Partner in 18 months,” or “increase net profitability by 20% in Q4.” These are concrete goals. They are specific, measurable, and framed with clear benefits in mind.

The North Star, on the other hand, is not a destination but instead a point of reference. For our intents and purposes here it is fixed, stable, and always visible. One can look to it for directional assist and as a way to vector check the tracking of progress over time. Good North Star examples include checking your year-to-date personal sales against year-end bonus benchmarks or tracking your company’s ongoing performance in key metrics against industry standards and averages. The point here is that having a North Star guidepost in place allows you to make both course and strategy corrections if and as needed.

The North Pole is a different story. It sounds like a tangible place, like North Carolina, but the amount of “there” there is unclear. Perhaps the arrival point or actual final destination is inherently vague, or maybe its defined in multiple ways that don’t necessarily align or connect with each other and instead create confusion. Examples of common North Pole goals I hear include “getting recognized” or “making it big.”

I use “North Pole” to describe goals like these for three reasons. #1, they sound good, but much like the geographic North Pole, what does getting there actually mean? The precise geographic North Pole is a chunk of ice somewhere near the top of the world upon which the Earth’s axis rotates, but how to precisely measure that with any degree of certainty is difficult. Even if you get in the right ballpark, a quick look around for 100 miles in every direction reveals the exact same landscape and vista. Unlike North Carolina, there aren’t tangible benefits to be realized upon arrival, or even a clear border in place to let you know that you’ve arrived.

Reason #2, the magnetic “North Pole” is a whole different phenomenon, inherently dynamic and not at all confined to any particular place. In fact, it was as far south as 70 degrees North Latitude in Canada in 1900 before moving back closer to the geographic North Pole in 2017 (90 degrees) and is now racing back south towards Russia. What does “getting there” even mean, and how can you actually know where you are when the very compass you are using functions less well the closer you get? And how to coordinate with another team if they nod when hearing “North Pole” but are thinking geography instead of magnetism? Compared to the obviousness and objectivity of North Carolina, the magnetic North Pole is volatile and subject to variable interpretations.

Finally, #3 North Pole goals are the kind that can involve massive amounts of time, energy, and money. Countless early polar explorers perished in the cold darkness, unprepared for the rigor of the trip. And aside from imagined prestige, what’s really the bigger point? Sure, it’s good to have internally justified goals in play in your life, the kind that exist for their own reasons. But these absolutely should not have a high probability of catastrophic risk tied to them, nor should they have anything that resembles “visiting Santa Claus” as their starting rationale.

In sum, seek to refine your thinking around your goals and guides. Get your North Carolina goals clarified and plot out your plans and timelines for getting there. Figure out your North Star points of internal and external reference and chart your progress accordingly from time to time. Be quick to course correct and adjust strategies as needed.

Finally, uncover and identify anything that slightly resembles a North Pole goal and either refine into a North Carolina destination, reimagine it as a North Star guide, or simply chuck it entirely.

Stars & Constellations

The Big Dipper is probably the most well recognized constellation for us moderns living here in the US. However, other cultures in other times have looked at the exact same chunk of sky and seen instead a bear (Greek), a stretcher (Pawnee), a chariot (Celt), and a coffin (Arabic). The same phenomenon applies to Orion and his belt, another constellation commonly known around the Northern Hemisphere. Some ancient Egyptians viewed the 3 stars of his “belt” as the crown of Sah, father of the gods, while certain Native American cultures viewed them as footprints of the god of the flea people.  

The important thing to consider for us here is that while the particular stars in play are bright and obvious, the constellations are much less so. Like many socially constructed “truths”, a culture’s commonly understood constellations may not be readily obvious to the eye. They have to be actively pointed out, and are often discussed or explained in terms of stories, myths, and legends tied to local flora and fauna. In fact, the mythos that informs the mental construction of constellations is usually much more important than the actual geometry of the figures. Only after going through the process of “learning” the constellations and the stories that inform them do they then jump out as figure to the trained eye, more easily discerned amongst the ground of the rest of the night sky.

This new clarity does come with a cost though. Being trained to spot and identify the constellations of one’s own culture makes it more difficult to identify different constellation patterns that other cultures have identified using some or even all of the same stars. Next time you see the Big Dipper check to see if you find the “obviousness” of it being a “big dipper” an impediment to seeing it instead as a big bear, coffin, or chariot. The exact same stars are being looked at, so why the apparent blindness to another pattern?

This tradeoff that occurs between clarity and blindness is common in many other areas where cultural framing occurs, and is often a large source of friction in communication. Next time you are struggling to either impart or intake information, pause and remember that facts and interpretations emerge from the same dark realm as stars and constellations. What are the obvious stars that we can all see? What are the apparent chunks or groups of them? How are we trying to connect them to other stars around them to create a meaningful pattern via story? And perhaps most importantly, what might we need to “unlearn” so that we can see what’s being offered more clearly and on its own terms?

Moving the Slider

“You need to be more _____!”

I hear this phrase a lot. Most of the time it’s my own voice in my head with the blank being things like “patient with the kids” or “focused during your workouts at the gym.” Other times it’s what my clients are relaying to me from their annual review at work or even just from a casual sidebar conversation with a colleague. Regardless of where and how we hear this phrase, rarely, if ever, does it magically lead to immediate and direct change, much less so to lasting improvement.

However, there is in fact a very simple strategy that can be employed in these situations that will provide immediate benefits, increase your power as an Agent and more importantly, translate over time to lasting, long term benefits. This strategy has 5 short steps:

1)    Notice when this phrase occurs internally or when it is shared with you as advice, and then pause for a single breath.

2)    Get clarity on what is being asked, and then fully frame it in relationship to its direct opposite or another alternative choice. For example, if you are being asked to be more assertive at work then a possible full framing would be Passive vs Assertive, or maybe Reflective vs Assertive. The specific polarity isn’t as important here as is the framing it in a binary choice.

Reflective vs Assertive

3)    Once you have a binary relationship in play then the next step is mentally place this binary out along a spectrum of engagement with your goal quality as 10 and its opposite at 1.

Reflective 1.....2.....3.....4.....5.....6.....7.....8.....9.....10 Assertive

4)    Now try to imagine how you normally show up on it, or at least how you imagine that the people who are giving you the constructive feedback generally see you, and assign yourself a number somewhere in the middle.  

Reflective 1.....2.....3.....4.....5..X...6.....7.....8.....9.....10 Assertive

5)    Now comes the hardest part. What could you do, either right now or at the next available opportunity, to show up just 1 number higher on your spectrum? Not going all the way to 10, but just moving the slider a bit?  

Reflective 1.....2.....3.....4.....5.....6...X..7.....8.....9.....10 Assertive 

The goal here is to take concrete action in the real world at first chance you get, but only in a low risk, bite-sized fashion. No need to barge into your boss’ office and demand a raise here, but how about simply saying “I see things a little bit differently there” when a colleague offers a random opinion on something that differs from yours rather than nodding along in silent disagreement?

 You might find yourself surprised at how powerful these tiny little steps of intentional engagement by can be in effecting real and lasting change in how you show up in the world. With time and effort, you’ll soon find it remarkably easy to simply move the slider in response to a call for change.

Complex vs Complicated

I hear these two words being used interchangeably quite often, but the differences between them are very stark and important to keep in mind in any kind of strategic thinking situation. No more so than when facing important choices in our VUCA world that have real consequences in your life and those who depend on you.

 We’ll begin with “Complicated,” as that one is much simpler. The Dictionary definition is as follows: composed of elaborately interconnected parts; complex: and difficult to analyze, understand, explain, etc.:

 See? Even the good ol’ Dictionary is a bit confused here in that it puts “complex” in there as part of the definition. Perhaps true enough in ordinary parlance, this combination is inadequate for higher order thinking.

 For our purposes here we’ll keep this definition, but add an important caveat. A “complicated” thing or system is one that ultimately has a blueprint. Parts therein can be changed out, you can take it apart and put it back together again, and it is largely adaptable to further modification with predictable results. A Boeing 777 airplane is a great example of a complicated situation The “blueprint” for this airplane is not a one-page document but rather a binder 6-inches thick. Parts can be substituted in and out at will, and further improvements and modifications can be easily integrated. It’s complicated, but simple enough over all.

 Complex is the opposite of this. One of my favorite contemporary philosophers, Edgar Morin, worked extensively with Complexity Theory. His favorite, go-to definition of complexity was just “it isn’t simple.” Witty and short, but more helpful than appears at first glance. The Dictionary definition is a bit longer, but less helpful: composed of many interconnected parts; compound; composite: and characterized by a very complicated or involved arrangement of parts, units, etc.:

 Sooo.... “very complicated”? As if throwing the very in there is helpful? Again, this is the basic definition for regular conversation, but ultimately unhelpful for bigger picture thinking.

 The crucial element I want to suggest is to see “complex” in contradistinction to “complicated.” Complex systems DO NOT have a blueprint. You CANNOT simply remove or change components and study them in isolation with hopes to see how they function in the system. They may adaptive, but are often entirely UNPREDICTABLE. All living things are complex systems, as are larger systems composed of living things. You are a complex system, and so is an ecological ecosystem, so is a weather system.

 Let’s flesh this out just a bit further, using you as human vs Boeing 777 as the example. Can a you be built? Is there a blueprint? Can we simply change out your arm with a stronger one? Can we pull out your heart and lay it on the table to see how it works, and then reattach it later with no ill effect? Most importantly, are you 100% predictable? You are complex, the airplane is just complicated.

 Another good point of reference is hurricane forecasting. It’s 2022 and the newest computing network dedicated to this task brings 42 petaflops of computing power to bear on it, yet is still left to shrug as each storm continuously defies predictions and does what it will. See how Morin’s “not simple” is ultimately very accurate?

 I imagine your strategic thinking capacity, like mine as well, is more than a few bits short of 42 petaflops. So rather than burning it out trying to predict the unpredictable, a better first step might be to see where you can parse out the complicated from the complex. Complicated things are worth grinding on to clarify the blueprints and break down the parts. Done well, this process can yield solid predictions.

Complex ones are trickier. Like hurricanes, they require more vigilant observation, tracking, and flexibility to deal with sudden changes. Even when done well this process at best yields contingencies and hedges, and disaster can still strike. People are depending on you not to confuse the two.

Tackling Debt, pt 2

Last week in Tackling Debt, pt 1 we did a walk-through exercise using the Fundamental vs Significant distinction from 2 weeks ago in planning out an approach to Debt Management. We went through a brief exercise of the first 3 steps of the process. First, tracking our spending, then building out a budget, and finally getting into a stable place with it that reliably yields a good sum of “extra money” to dedicate each month to our Debt Management plan. We are now ready to begin Step 4 with our resulting extra $500 per month in hand per the example. Obviously this is a simplified scenario, but the general principles will hold true for any complex priority landscape. Again, fair warning that this example/topic is pretty specific, so get off the bus now if it’s not of particular interest to you.

 Bringing the Fundamental vs Significant lens to bear on things is where we begin this step as well. A distinction that most financial advisors would seek to clarify when looking at Debt Management is to separate out the “good debt” from the “bad debt.” In simple terms, “good debt” is the kind where your money is out there “working for you” with the idea being that these are things you owe money on that will build wealth, increase income, or otherwise improve your long term financial prospects. Student loans and mortgages are generally considered “good debt” for these reasons. “Bad debt,” on the other hand, is all the other types of debt that are incurred when purchasing rapidly depreciating assets or general consumption of nonessentials like fashion and entertainment. Auto loans are considered “bad debt” here as new cars considerably depreciate the very second you drive them off the lot. As are all other purchases like clothes, consumables, and home goods where you keep adding costs to the original purchase price through ongoing interest payments.

 This first pass in identifying the Fundamentals at this step has yielded the two categories of “good debt” and “bad debt.” Let’s move the “good debt” items off to the side and leave them there for now. “Bad debt” is our next focal point, so let’s again do a quick pass over this pile with our Fundamental lens to see how we can further parse them out. For this example we’ll imagine a simple scenario where there is a single car loan and 3 credit card accounts. The car loan is on fixed terms, both in amount due and payment schedule, and is on track to be paid off in less than a year. Let’s move that off the table and just focus on the 3 remaining credit card accounts as the Fundamentals we want to work with for now.

 Now we run a third pass for Fundamentals to set up our next step in the process. Simply write out the total amount due for each of these 3 accounts as well as the interest rate tied to them. Don’t worry about minimum payments or credit available or anything else for now, those aren’t critical to this process. Lay the 3 cards out in a row, left to right, with the highest interest rate card on the left and the lowest on the right. This is one roadmap for where to apply that extra $500 each month. From a strictly rational point of view you want to pay off the highest interest rate card first and then move on to the next highest and so forth as that “saves” you the most money over the timeline of paying all 3 of them down to zero. The math can get tricky to illustrate this point more clearly, so just trust me on this one here. But math and rationality are only part of the equation, and the smaller part for most people.

 Now is a good time to circle back to the Significant goal of “succeeding at this and feeling good about it” to see if how these credit card accounts stack up against each other from a feeling point of view. Do any of these cards represent or connect to purchases made that evoke negative feelings? Is there one card that was leaned on for more impulsive purchases with higher emotional energy, like expensive clothes that remain unworn on hangers in the closet with their tags still on them? If the cards are all seen equally then simply line keep them lined up as they are in the horizontal row based on interest rates. If they rank unequally from an emotional perspective, any emotional perspective, then let’s arrange them into a vertical column with the most negatively charged card at the top and least at the bottom.

A third approach is to line them up by balance size, smallest to largest. Paying them off in this order is referred to as the Debt Snowball and is a great way to build momentum by racking up some clear wins early in the process. Another benefit of this process is that the amount of money applied to each subsequent debt grows as the previous minimum payment amounts are freed up.

 From here the choice of “where to start?” has been greatly simplified, and mostly answered. You started by separating “good debt” from “bad debt”, and within the “bad debt” category you separated out the credit cards from the car loan. Now the final action plan can be determined by checking back in with your Significance goal of “succeeding at this and feeling really good.” Rest in the question for a few minutes. What feels “really good”? Paying off the highest interest card first knowing you are saving money in the long run, paying them off in the Debt Snowball method, or paying them off according to how you feel about the card and its charges? Which account’s rapidly shrinking balance brings the biggest smile to your face? Which card’s “New Balance =$0.00” brings up the emotional energy that fuels your motivational engine?

 This alignment between the Fundamental facts clearly considered and Significant emotion-based goals clearly articulated is a powerful engine for driving the change you want to see in your life. And most importantly, you’re in the driver’s seat making it happen through clear conjoining of intention and action. Your “bad debt” will slowly roll off your balance sheet as the months tick by, and eventually you’ll have the complex priority landscape in front of you that defines the “where do I invest?” space.

This new financial freedom creates its own set of problems, but I assure you they are much better ones to have than dreading your monthly credit card statements.

Tackling Debt, pt 1

Last week I wrote about Fundamental vs Significant, but only gave a single, simplified example of how that distinction can clarify a complex information landscape. Let’s examine this more deeply with a peek into our everyday lives to a place where you likely have your own experiences of complex prioritization – Debt Management. If you aren’t curious enough about this particular distinction or debt management in general then this is a good point to get off this bus. :)

First, a quick recap of Fundamental vs Significant. This distinction is often helpful to bring to bear when you have a list of multiple things or goals that are “important.” The Fundamental items are important in that they are the building blocks, the non-negotiable, the first things first items. These are “important” because without them taken care of we can’t really do anything else. The Significant items are the end goals, the desired outcomes, or things that answer the “why” questions. These are often the whole point of orienting towards the list in the first place.

Approaches to Debt Management is a great place to tease these out a bit more. Most people have a variety of debt strung out over multiple accounts. Between home, auto, student loans, and credit cards, the average American is almost $97,000 in debt according to 2022 statistics. That’s a lot of money! The goal of managing this debt is a great place to explore the priority landscape and various ways to approach it, especially because it combines the rational and emotional aspects of ourselves in very powerful ways.

 A common refrain I hear from my clients that are struggling with Debt Management is that it all just feels overwhelming, regardless of their overall financial status. They are lost in the swirl of minimum payments, interest rates, and due dates. Compounding this confusing monthly carousel of changing numbers is their own fluctuating emotional relationship to it all leading to disjointed and ultimately ineffective attempts to address it. Their long running goal of “getting on the other side of money” remains elusive, and further recedes over the horizon with each new billing cycle. “I want to get off this terrible monthly ride but I don’t even know where to start.” So they keep all their debt on minimum payment autopay (much to the banks’ delight, FYI) and just keep pushing it off to “later.”

 But one day they finally decide “later” has arrived. They are ready to begin tackling their larger debt challenges head on, but where to start? What’s the path forward to change their relationship to debt? Not necessarily getting out of debt entirely, but at least getting it under control and to a place where they feel good about it. More importantly, getting to a place where they feel good about themselves in their relationship with money.

 Managing a complex priority landscapes like Debt Management a perfect place to illustrate the value of the Fundamental vs Significant filtering lens. Both as a first step, and also at many other steps further into the process. Done well, applying this lens can greatly clarify the terrain. From this perspective of increased clarity the priorities can almost organize themselves into a coherent framework producing clear action plans for their realization.

 We’ll begin by first trying to identify the specific Significant goal that really resonates with the motivational engine of determination, a goal that runs on emotion aligned with intention. On the surface the initial emotions that come up in conversations with my clients usually hit the same deep and powerful chords. “I’m tired of being afraid” or “I’m letting down my family” or “I’m simply ashamed I let things get this bad.” Underneath the surface we can see the common theme of “I keep failing at this and it feels really bad.” From here the Significant emotional goal we want to orient towards becomes apparent – “I am succeeding at this and it feels really good.” With this Significant emotionally grounded priority in hand we now turn our attention over to identifying the Fundamental specifics in play.

 Obviously, the main Fundamental need is “extra money to be applied to debt,” but if this was already present then we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. So now the Fundamental ingredient for achieving our Significance goal of feeling good while succeeding in debt management shifts over to finding “extra money to be applied to debt.”

 Finding “extra money” resonates with my previous piece on finding extra time. Neither time nor money randomly accumulate throughout the day in ways where we can simply grab them and put them to use. Like time, “extra money” must be made. Either by doing extra work, like taking on a side hustle, or by finding places in your current spending where you can shift things around to free up money being spent elsewhere. If taking on a side hustle seems appealing, then stop reading and get busy doing it! But if you suspect that the “extra money” is already present but you are spending it elsewhere then it’s time to investigate your purchasing patterns.

 Step 1 in this investigation is to build out some spreadsheets and simply track where you’ve been spending your money. Ideally you can start by going back 3 or 4 months to build out the basic patterns by pulling your various transaction records. There are plenty of budget tracking tools out there to help you here but the key Fundamental categories of expenses are Fixed, Variable, and Discretionary. Fixed costs include mortgage/rent, car payment, insurance, and anything else that is the same each month and can’t easily be cancelled without radically impacting your life. Variable usually includes utilities, gasoline, groceries, and other necessities that change each month and that you are able to influence somewhat through choice and behavior. Discretionary is pretty much everything else where you have a much bigger role to play in your daily decision making. A quick note, many of your discretionary choices might show up as “fixed” in that they autopay for the same amount each month, but these are discretionary in that cancelling the payment is optional with minimal life impact. Contrary to public opinion, Netflix is indeed a discretionary cost.

 And as a reminder, this is just an observation phase, not an operational phase. If you find yourself really inspired to begin changing your spending habits now or at any point along the way, then great! Go for it! But the point here is just to bring your spending fully into awareness. No more, no less.

 Once spending patterns have been more fully brought to light, we can begin to move into Step 2 of building a monthly budget. But before going there I want to point out that almost all of my clients are somewhat amazed at how unaware they were around certain aspects of their spending. Common blind spots are monthly services no longer used and underestimating how much money they spent on entertainment like food and drink oriented socializing. For many clients this new found clarity around their spending easily illuminates the areas that they want to focus on changing.

 As stated earlier, the larger goal in creating a monthly budget is to provide a specific amount of “extra money” that we can put towards debt management. Now that we are past Step 1, it’s time to check in to see what other Significance goals have come up. Identifying them now will make it easier to flex our spending later to create that money. As I mentioned above, often this is fairly easy and revealed through blind spot exposure. “I had no idea that my random lunches out with coworkers added up to almost $1000 at the end of the month! Ugh, I don’t even like most of those people, I’m changing that right away!” Other times it can be trickier. “I had no idea that my random lunches out with coworkers added up to almost $1000 at the end of the month! Those lunches are fun and make collaborating with those folks at work much easier, I don’t want to have to give those up!” Though different, in each case a Significance goal was pretty clearly revealed.

 But again, the key is to bring intention to bear on what the awareness from Step 1 has provided. Looking through the bigger spending patterns can be revealing here. Putting the Fixed costs aside, both the Variable and Discretionary costs are fair game for analysis. Where do you see places to make changes that don’t immediately feel like a contraction? Where do you see opportunities to “own your choices” more fully and treat this as a game to be won? What are the Fundamentals and how can they be changed?

 From here fully move in to Step 2 and build out a budget based on goals for spending with upper limits in mind to help guide and shape our decision making throughout the next month. For example, if you decided to cut your lunch with coworkers’ costs down from $1000/mo to $500/month then you would obviously need to make different decisions than you had previously. Maybe you bring lunch with you, maybe you opt for Chipotle instead of Capital Grille, but the point is that you are planning behavior changes to align with desired outcome changes. Combining the math from the spreadsheet with clear planned behavior changes is the goal here. A rough hope to “do better next month” just isn’t going to cut it.

 Once you have this budget guide in place and have planned out the behavior changes needed to support it then it’s time to test it out in the real world through experimentation. In other words, you are testing out the alignment between the Fundamental and Significant. The goal here is to build sustainable change, the kind that feels good in the moment and yields results over time. These new behavior patterns may need to be tweaked from time to time, or revised as more latent Significance goals emerged and previous ones subsided. After 2 or 3 months of real world experimentation and observation your realistic monthly budget goals should be greatly clarified.

**FYI, this is a simplified and idealized walk through. In the real world this process is often muddy and confusing, especially when there are multiple Significant goals involved that are all competing to be met. Making this process even trickier is that there are often other Siginifcant goals in play but remain unacknowledged or unconscious. That’s why Debt Management is such a tough nut to crack for so many people!**

 In some sense, Step 3 is the easiest one to make. How much money have you “found” by living according to a budget that guides a lifestyle that you feel good about yet still leaves you with money in your pocket at the end of each month. More importantly, is it enough to move to Step 4 where you start to actively tackle your debt? There is no set number that “works” here, but somewhere near 10% of your total income is a common goal I see. But more important than actual dollars are your deeper feelings. The real question is does this dollar amount support our starting Significance goal of “succeeding at this and feeling really good about it.” You are unlikely to connect to that goal with $25/mo of “extra money,” but $500 is really going to make an impact.

 If you are happy with where you are after Step 3, then come back next week for a detailed walk through of Fundamental vs Significant in Step 4 where we break down the total debt profile and sketch out a path through it. If you don’t like where you are here, then circle back to Step 1 and start a 2nd run through. And I very intentionally didn’t say “start over.” Iteration is the name of the game, and there are always opportunities to improve the processes we are living by. You might just be surprised at how much easier this all is the 2nd time through it.

Fundamental vs Significant

Where do you start when attempting to make significant changes in your life? Or when facing the maelstrom of our VUCA world with pending decisions that need to be made, how do you identify the most important factors that need to be considered? Or once you’ve identified multiple important factors, how do you further prioritize among them? This points to the real question underneath it all – what do I need to be doing today to achieve the desired outcomes of tomorrow?

 Your resources of time, money, and energy are limited. But your list of important priorities is long. Figuring out where to start is a crucial decision, one that shouldn’t just be blindly guessed. Many arguments, both internally within our minds and externally in discussion with others, get bogged down when arguing matters of importance. The confusion and disagreement persist and increase when we are pushed to rate things in order of importance, especially when it comes to allocating limited resources and the choices seem binary. I’d suggest beginning with a further examination of the word important to separate out the Fundamental from the Significant.

 By Fundamental I am referring to the basic building blocks of a situation, the first principles or otherwise necessary components that support everything else. Atoms are fundamental to chemistry. Playing cards are fundamental to poker. These are the key ingredients, and without them you don’t get anywhere. Remove the fundamentals and everything built above them disappears. They are usually fairly concrete, rational, and non-negotiable. Clearly, they are important,but identifying them is only half the battle when we want to “build the new.”

 Significant, in direct contrast, is usually viewed in terms of goals or outcomes and often phrased as the entire point of the plan. Significance often shows up in priority lists as what we decide to achieve and towards which other resources are marshalled. Significance is often emotionally driven, extremely variable, and subject to change and modification. Significance is the “now what?” that decides whether a block of marble will be carved into a sculpture or be sliced into countertops. The Significance is obviously important too, but in an entirely different way. We need to be equally clear on this factor as we are the Fundamentals in order to proceed in our change aspirations.

 Important often hides or confuses these two things. For example, imagine you’re running a strategy meeting to discuss your small business’ budget for next year. One faction is pushing hard to invest in some cost saving measures in production, arguing that cost control is the most important factor in profitability. Another faction is pushing for investing more in improving the product’s features, arguing that customer experience is the most important factor in profitability. Both factions have accurately stated the importance of their idea’s impact on profitability, but have gotten mired in the swamp of relative importance.

 Fortunately, you can see the bigger picture and chime in. “Hey folks. Both teams are right. We can’t be profitable if our costs get out of control and we can’t be profitable if our customer isn’t happy. The costs are Fundamental. Bad cost management will kill us regardless of how happy the customer may be. And happy customers are Significant in that keeping our costs inline won’t mean anything if we don’t have happy customers once the product gets to market. Let’s get out of this false polarity of arguing either/or and team up to find both/and solutions that address the Fundamental cost concerns and Significant customer experience concerns.

 Parsing out these Fundamentals from the Significant in the beginning provides more clarity on your situation and choices in front of you, an important first step. Clarity refines the conversation which helps get your Significant intentions in alignment with the Fundamental facts in play. Getting them to work together harmoniously is what’s truly important.

It’s a VUCA world, you’re just living in it.

“It’s crazy out there!” tops the list as the most common sentiment I’ve been hearing from my clients for the last few years. Now I am adding “It’s crazy IN HERE!” to that list, as even our inner circles of colleagues, friends, and family are shaking up more and more.

 Like WEIRD from a few weeks back, VUCA is another great acronym that helps us make more sense out of an increasingly incoherent world. Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous have grown in measure and impact, supplanting stability, certainty, simplicity, and clarity. This VUCA situation shows no sign of subsiding, and shows every sign of further escalation in the glow of increasing heat coming from the Culture Wars, increasing risk from the emerging meta-crisis, and increasing mental fatigue from our overloaded sensemaking capacities.

 The VUCA world impacts every area of our decision making. Where are you going to place your next investment? How long do you expect to stay in your current job? Your current house? Your current relationship? How much control do you think you have over these things, and do you feel that you are gaining or losing your grip on it? More importantly, what can you do as an Agent to be more resilient in the face of increasing Arena challenges?

 Ideally this concept of VUCA has helped you at least get a better grasp on the status of the big picture and offered you a way to see all the turmoil you face in a more coherent light. But beyond just the seeing the bigger picture more clearly, a closer look at each of the 4 characteristics reveals an embedded action step for addressing it.

 Volatility often shows up most clearly in markets and price fluctuations. Prepare for future volatility by investing in resilience measures. These will be more expensive on the front end of course, but provide immediate benefits in peace of mind and potential longer term benefits by offering some protection or reduced impact from market forces.

 Uncertainty can be reduced by putting effort into getting more information. But let’s click down and specify that its not just about increasing the quantity of information you are digesting. Increasing the quality of the information you are getting is much more important. Finding better information will help you see the details of your specific situation more clearly which ideally leads to better decision which yields better results. Collectively this adds up to better predictive power, automatically decreasing your sense of uncertainty and increasing your sense of control.

 Complexity is perhaps the hardest thing to impact, primarily due to its inherent resistance to all attempts at simplification. One direction to explore that can offer both short and long term benefits in your simplification effort is to seek out specialist help. Consulting an outside expert who can quickly and efficiently give you a streamlined take on a complex situation is a great investment. Finding one who can present that take in ways that are tailored to your situation and provide a path forward is priceless. Another, much harder, direction is to invest in your own capacity. Specialized classes or coaching can be good places to look for doing so.

 Ambiguity is can be the most paralyzing of the 4 characteristics. Not getting a clear read on things leads to hesitation, and as we saw in our OODA Loop piece, hesitation automatically puts you behind the competition. One way to find more clarity in an ambiguous environment is to float some trial balloons out there to see which way the wind might be blowing. Experiment. Run A/B trials. Look for ways to test your intuitions and analyses, and be prepared to quickly revise them. The world is always moving, and good testing will show you paths for keeping up with it. Great testing will show you the ones that get you ahead.

It’s a VUCA world, you’re just living in it. Where can you apply some effort today to be in a better place on it tomorrow?