Whether or not experience inevitably led to expertise, they agreed, depended entirely on the domain in question. Narrow experience made for better chess and poker players and firefighters, but not for better predictors of financial or political trends, or of how employees or patients would perform.
when everything is up for grabs anyway, innovations can be introduced more easily than during stable times. It’s a time to try doing things in new ways—especially new ways that people have long wanted to try but that conflicted with the old ways.
IDEO is a good example. Its leaders constantly talk about the expectation of cooperation. (CEO Tim Brown incessantly repeats his mantra that the more complex the problem, the more help you need to solve it.)
When Cooper gave his opinion, he was careful to attach phrases that provided a platform for someone to question him, like “Now let’s see if someone can poke holes in this” or “Tell me what’s wrong with this idea.”
In Conversation, Resist the Temptation to Reflexively Add Value: The most important part of creating vulnerability often resides not in what you say but in what you do not say. This means having the willpower to forgo easy opportunities to offer solutions and make suggestions. Skilled listeners do not interrupt with phrases like Hey, here’s an idea or Let me tell you what worked for me in a similar situation because they understand that it’s not about them. They use a repertoire of gestures and phrases that keep the other person talking. “One of the things I say most often is probably the simplest thing I say,” says Givechi. “ ‘Say more about that.’ ” It’s not that suggestions are off limits; rather they should be made only after you establish what Givechi calls “a scaffold of thoughtfulness.” The scaffold underlies the conversation, supporting the risks and vulnerabilities. With the scaffold, people will be supported in taking the risks that cooperation requires. Without it, the conversation collapses.
Laszlo Bock, former head of People Analytics at Google, recommends that leaders ask their people three questions: • What is one thing that I currently do that you’d like me to continue to do? • What is one thing that I don’t currently do frequently enough that you think I should do more often? • What can I do to make you more effective? “The key is to ask not for five or ten things but just one,” Bock says. “That way it’s easier for people to answer. And when a leader asks for feedback in this way, it makes it safe for the people who work with them to do the same. It can get contagious.”
We put in some new systems, and they learned new ways of interacting. It’s strange to think that a wave of creativity and innovation can be unleashed by something as mundane as changing systems and learning new ways of interacting. But it’s true, because building creative purpose isn’t really about creativity. It’s about building ownership, providing support, and aligning group energy toward the arduous, error-filled, ultimately fulfilling journey of making something new.
Good listening is about more than nodding attentively; it’s about adding insight and creating moments of mutual discovery. Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, who run a leadership consultancy, analyzed 3,492 participants in a manager development program and found that the most effective listeners do four things: 1. They interact in ways that make the other person feel safe and supported 2. They take a helping, cooperative stance 3. They occasionally ask questions that gently and constructively challenge old assumptions 4. They make occasional suggestions to open up alternative paths As Zenger and Folkman put it, the most effective listeners behave like trampolines. They aren’t passive sponges. They are active responders, absorbing what the other person gives, supporting them, and adding energy to help the conversation gain velocity and altitude.
the teams met every morning for ten minutes for the first two months. Only such frequent clustering can override the old habits and the old self-images and build the new relations that teamwork requires. And you can give no stronger message about a new priority than to give it a visible place on everyone’s calendar.
Make increasing attention a gradual process. Take a baseline by clocking how long your child can stick with a chore, homework, or other assigned task before needing a break. Once you establish the “base rate,” set a kitchen timer for 2–3 minutes longer than the base rate and challenge your child to keep working until the timer rings.
Make the Leader Occasionally Disappear: Several leaders of successful groups have the habit of leaving the group alone at key moments. One of the best at this is Gregg Popovich. Most NBA teams run time-outs according to a choreographed protocol: First the coaches huddle as a group for a few seconds to settle on a message, then they walk over to the bench to deliver that message to the players. However, during about one time-out a month, the Spurs coaches huddle for a time-out…and then never walk over to the players. The players sit on the bench, waiting for Popovich to show up. Then, as they belatedly realize he isn’t coming, they take charge, start talking among themselves, and figure out a plan. The New Zealand All-Blacks rugby team have made a habit of this, as players lead several practice sessions each week with little input from the coaches. When I asked Dave Cooper to name the single trait that his best-performing SEAL teams shared, he said, “The best teams tended to be the ones I wasn’t that involved with, especially when it came to training. They would disappear and not rely on me at all. They were better at figuring out what they needed to do themselves than I could ever be.”
“Danny realized that he needed to be in two places at once. Which meant that he had to find a way to deliver the signal. People will respond to what their boss feels is important. So Danny had to define and articulate what was important.”
In some of these children, such differences represent a “developmental lag,” and over an extended period of time the child (and brain) mature, albeit 2 to 3 years later than in peers. For other children with ADHD, however, this maturation does not take place, and the weaknesses persist until adulthood. It’s important to know that children can and do vary in the development of these and other executive skills without qualifying for a diagnosis of ADHD or any other “clinical” diagnosis. As is the case with almost any set of skills, children (and adults) have strengths and weaknesses that fall along a continuum.
“You have priorities, whether you name them or not,” he says. “If you want to grow, you’d better name them, and you’d better name the behaviors that support the priorities.”
To deal successfully with transition, you need to determine precisely what changes in their existing behavior and attitudes people will have to make. It isn’t enough to tell them that they have to work as a team. They need to know how teamwork differs behaviorally and attitudinally from the way they are working now. What must they stop doing? And what are they going to have to start doing? Be specific. Until these changes are spelled out, people won’t be able to understand what you tell them.
Analyze who stands to lose something under the new system. This step follows the previous one. Remember, transition starts with an ending. You can’t grasp the new thing until you’ve let go of the old thing. It’s this process of letting go that people resist, not the change itself. Their resistance can take the form of foot-dragging or sabotage, and you have to understand the pattern of loss to be ready to deal with the resistance and keep it from getting out of hand.
When you stress access to a desired activity rather than lack of access to a desired activity, you’re keeping your child’s eyes on the prize and not the work that has to be done to get it. The behavioral data we’ve collected show that this shift really is effective: we’ve seen increases in direction following and decreases in task refusal and power struggles when adults use positive statements with kids rather than negative ones.
“Sell” the problem that is the reason for the change. Most managers and leaders put 10 percent of their energy into selling the problem and 90 percent into selling the solution to the problem. People aren’t in the market for solutions to problems they don’t see, acknowledge, and understand. They might even come up with a better solution than yours, and then you won’t have to sell it—it will be theirs.
Use a self-monitoring audiotape, available at A.D.D. Warehouse (see the Resources), to help your child stay on task. This tape sounds electronic tones at random intervals. When the tone sounds, the child is to ask herself, “Was I paying attention?”
