GetAbstract Editor's Pick of the Week

GetAbstract publishes succinct summaries of nonfiction books, with key takeaways highlighted. Each week, they select five nonfiction book as editor picks of the week. I'm honored that Unlocking Creativity was selected this past week.

Are Your Employees Afraid of You?

Source: Pixabay

Megan Reitz and John Higgins have written a good Harvard Business Review article titled, "Managers, You’re More Intimidating Than You Think."    They write, 

Most of us believe that we’re approachable to our employees. In a survey we conducted with 4,000 professionals, two-thirds reported they are never or rarely scary to those junior to them.  We’re even more sure that we’re approachable to those who are our hierarchical equals or superiors. Asked whether their peers and their bosses would find them scary, 75% of respondents said it was extremely unlikely in the case of their peers and 80% in the case of their boss.

Yet we know from our other research streams of the last five years that many people think twice before speaking up in organizations because they find colleagues intimidating. This doesn’t add up. Other research shows that managers in particular need to accept that people see them as much scarier than they realize — and it’s hurting their businesses.

My research and experience working with executives at many companies confirms the conclusions presented here by Reitz and Higgins.  The self-perception of leaders often does not match the perceptions of those who work for them.   Most leaders do not have any sense of the fear that they have instilled in their people.  At times, of course, it's not anything major that the leaders have done.  It's simply the fact that employees in many organizations have a natural reticence to speak up.  It seems to come with the territory in most large firms.   Leaders need to lower the barriers, and it starts with recognizing how intimating they may appear to others.  

The Power of Telling Hard Truths

Source: Flickr

As I prepare for teaching some new material during the fall semester, I came across this terrific article by Jena McGregor last year in the Washington Post.  It's titled, "A lesson from GE: The power of telling hard truths - and the peril of avoiding them."   She described the cultural deficiencies that conributed to the downfall of GE. She explains that these cultural flaws did not just manifest themselves in the past few years; they stretch back two decades. McGregor describes a "history of selectively positive projections, a culture of overconfidence, and a disinterest in hearing or delivering bad news."  She argues that the company had a strong "can-do" attitude; unfortunately, that created certain problems.  McGregor writes, 

"In professional workplaces where a can-do attitude is valued above all else, and fears about job security remain common, getting unvarnished feedback and speaking candidly can be especially hard... Add to that its history as a business icon - GE was known as much for its vaunted management practices as it was for its actual products - and leadership experts say it's easy for a sense of overconfidence to creep in."

She goes on to quote Peter Crist, Chairman of Crist Kolder Associates (an executive search firm) and Chairman of the Board of Wintrust Financial Corporation.  Crist explained,  "It's the mindset of invulnerability that iconic companies create - that we are a special entity.  There was a time when GE players had a certain arrogance to them." 

McGregor closes the article with some good recommendations from Ethan Burris, professor of management at the University of Texas - Austin.  She writes,

"Burris suggests they (leaders) have to model the behavior, being realistic about goals and forecasts and candid when things go wrong.  They should host town halls where employees can speak up without criticism, structuring them so bad news can flow to the top.  For instance, he recommends getting mid-level managers to first interview lower level employees about what's not working to make sure tough subjects are aired." 

This week, as I taught a case study about the Columbia space shuttle accident to a group of Japanese executives here in Tokyo, several of them told me that they have begun to start meetings in a different manner than usual. They ask first for bad news before people can begin to share success stories from the past week or month.   It reminded me of a startup back in Boston where the leaders used to tell managers that they had to share two problems or pieces of bad news for every celebratory brag that they shared in a meeting.  

Voice is Not Enough

Source: pixabay

If leaders want to build employee buy-in and commitment, they need to do much more than provide opportunities for people to express their opinions. Voice is not enough to achieve buy-in and build trust.  People need to believe that they are actually being heard, that their views are being genuinely considered, and that they have had a legitimate opportunity to influence plans and decisions.  In short, employees need to know that leaders are actually listening.   Employees want to see changes occur as a result of their ideas and suggestions.   If nothing ever changes, employees stop offering their ideas.  Engagement suffers, and intrinsic motivation declines.  

What are some signs that leaders are actually listening?   

• The leader asks questions, trying to understand an employee's ideas more thoroughly.  
• The leader plays back what he or she has heard, seeking to confirm an accurate understanding of employee views.
• The leader asks others for input and feedback on an employee's suggestions.   
• The leader thanks those who have the courage to express dissenting views.
• The leader comments directly about what he or she has learned from direct communication with employees, and he or she seeks to learn more through further dialogue.  
• The leader follows up promptly when an employee makes a suggestion, rather than letting recommendations simply hang out there in limbo for weeks or months.

'Tis Better to Give Than To Receive

We've always heard the wise old adage, "It is better to give than to receive." Scholars Ed O’Brien and Samantha Kassirer (from University of Chicago and Northwestern respectively) set out to test this piece of advice empirically.   The researchers designed a simple experiment.    They provided their research subjects (college students) $5 per day for five straigth days.  They told 50% of the students to spend the money on themselves.  They directed the others to give the money to others each day.  The scholars asked the students to respond to a questionnaire each night, evaluating their happiness.  As you can see in the chart below, the "givers" maintained a high level of happiness throughout the week.  Meanwhile, the "receivers" began the week almost equally as happy as the "givers" in this study.  However, the receivers experienced a substantial decline in happiness as the week progressed.  

Source:  Chicago Booth Review

How do the scholars explain the results displayed above?   Alice Walton summarizes one of their explanations in her article for Chicago Booth Review:

The phenomenon may have to do with someone’s vantage point, the researchers suggest. When we receive money or goods repeatedly, it’s easy to compare the results and become acclimated to them. In fact, research over several decades has explored “hedonic adaptation,” a theory of happiness that suggests people quickly become accustomed to good things and return to their original happiness level.   But giving seems to work differently, suggest O’Brien and Kassirer. When people give, the endpoint isn’t always apparent, therefore comparison—and acclimation—aren’t as likely. As they write, “The happiness we get from giving appears to sustain itself.”

Rationalizing Bad Decisions: How Moral Disengagement Plays a Key Role

Source: Pixabay

Darden Ideas to Action, a site that features cutting edge research insights from the Darden School at UVA, published a fascinating piece earlier this year titled, "TALKING OURSELVES INTO IT: HOW WE RATIONALIZE BAD CHOICES."  The article describes research by James Detert and Sean Martin, along with several colleagues from other schools.  Jim and I went to graduate school together, and he is a terrific scholar of organizational behavior.   You can read the underlying research here.  

These scholars have documented a rationalization process that they call "moral disengagement" that unfolds when we are trying to justify to ourselves and others our poor decisions.  Detert and Martin have created a typology of moral disengagement strategies, and they offer some examples of the types of pharses associated with each strategy.  Here are the eight types.  The list proves a useful tool for self-reflection.  You can ask yourself:  Am I thinking or saying something similar to these phrases?  If you answer yes, it might be time to step back and reconsider your course of action or your decisions.  

Here are eight common moral disengagement strategies and what they sound like:

Moral justification (“This is actually the morally right thing to do; we’re actually helping them by doing this.”)

Euphemistic labeling (“I’m just ‘borrowing’ this.” “It’s ‘collateral damage.’”)

Advantageous comparison (“Doing A, is not as bad as doing B.” “It’s not like I’m doing B.”)

Displacement of responsibility (“My boss told me to do it.” “I’m just following orders.”)

Diffusion of responsibility (“Everyone’s doing it.” “It’s a group decision.” “This is just a small part of a bigger system.”)

Distortion of consequences (“This is a victimless crime.” “No harm done.” “It’s no big deal.”)

Attribution of blame (“They brought it on themselves.” “Buyer beware.”)

Dehumanization (“They’re a bunch of dogs.” “They’re like robots.”)

8 Books on Creativity Every Entrepreneur Should Read

Thank you to TSOHOST for featuring Unlocking Creativity on your list of "8 Books on Creativity Every Entrepreneur Should Read."  I'm very honored to be in such great company. 

Six Great Questions to Stimulate Critical Thinking and Constructive Debate Within Your Team

Problems with Priorities

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/
160866001@N07/46537652121

As I observe many different leaders struggle with strategy execution, I notice that priority-setting tends to be at the root of the problem.   How do leaders struggle with establishing and communicating priorities?  Here are four patterns of dysfunction that I have observed:

1.  Leaders change their priorities quite often.  Members of the organization think to themselves, "This too shall pass" as they observe the latest "flavor of the month" or "management fad" being championed from the top.   Alternatively, employees simply find themselves confused as to what they should be doing. 

2.  Members of the organization do not agree with the priorities established by the leader.  In some cases, leaders do not recognize the disenchantment.  In other cases, they convince themselves that the employees simply "don't get it" and don't have the strategic vision necessary to chart the organization's path as well as those at the top.   This type of "leader knows best" thinking can be dangerous though.  Moreover, employee engagement falls, and therefore, productivity decreases when employees do not believe that the leader's priorities match their values.  

3.  Leaders do not communicate their priorities clearly.   Too often, the leadership team assumes that employees throughout the organization understand the goals and objectives, when in fact, people are somewhat confused or unclear about the strategic direction and priorities.  

4.  Leaders set too many priorities.  At this point, employees perceive everything as urgent and important.  In some sense, if everything is crucial, then nothing is really crucial.  People do not know how to allocate their time and effort properly in these situations.  

Hiring Etiquette for Employers

Source:  needpix.com

We've all heard the usual advice for job seekers as they prepare for interviews:  prepare thoroughly, be punctual, ask good questions, follow up promptly with a thank you note, etc.   How about for employers?  Are there rules of etiquette that should apply to the interviewers and the firms that are hiring?  Sue Shellenbarger examines this question in the Wall Street Journal this week.   She argues that some firms are treating job seekers poorly, and in so doing, are hurting their reputation amongst qualified and talented candidates.  Therefore, these firms could find it much more difficult to attract talented people in the future. 

What are some examples of bad etiquette described by Shellenbarger?   First, some firms simply do not inform finalists that they have not been chosen for a job.   Others never respond or respond very late to inquiries from interviewees.   It seems that some hiring managers simply do not want to have the uncomfortable communication with a candidate that they rejected.  However, avoiding that conversation can have damaging effects on a firm's reputation.   Second, interviewers themselves are unprepared in some cases.  They behave poorly during an interview, or demonstrate that they are not ready to conduct a professional interview with the job seeker.   In some cases, they rely on technology to conduct virtual interviews, yet the interviewers are not adept at utilizing the technology.  Third, firms draft poorly defined job descriptions at times, or they seem to change the role in the midst of the hiring process.  Thus, they confuse job seekers.   Finally, some firms conduct a lengthy series of interviews and then do not fill the position at all.   Because they do not explain their actions to interviewees, they leave the the impression that they have may have been manipulating job seekers.  Shellenbarger tells the story of one job seeker who was asked to deliver a presentation with an innovative recommendation for an organization.   The enterprise never filled the job, and never followed up with the applicant.  The job seeker wondered whether the organization was simply using the interviews to collect free advice. 

I loved this article because it made the important point that a company has to consider how the conduct of a hiring process shapes the image of the organization moving forward.  The missteps in that hiring process can make it very difficult to attract the best candidates moving forward.  Etiquette is not just important for candidates.  Firms and their interviewers have to be professional as well.

Tiger and Federer, and the Case for Generalists

Source: Bleacher Report

David Epstein has published a terrific new book titled, "Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World." He makes the case for not specializing too early in life, but instead, taking advantage of a period of sampling and discovery. He makes a strong case for why generalists tend to innovate more effectively. In fact, he offers an interesting contrast in the book between Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. Tiger specialized at a remarkably young age. Federer did not. He argues that we seem to be favoring the specialists such as Tiger, and extolling the virtues of intense focus, and failing to recognize the value of generalists. Here's an excerpt:

I found more and more evidence that it takes time to develop personal and professional range—and that it is worth it. I dived into work showing that highly credentialed experts can become so narrow-minded that they actually get worse with experience, even while becoming more confident—a dangerous combination. And I was stunned by an enormous body of work demonstrating that learning is best done slowly to accumulate lasting knowledge, even when that means performing poorly on tests of immediate progress. That is, the most effective learning looks a lot like falling behind.

The challenge we all face is how to maintain the benefits of breadth, diverse experience, interdisciplinary thinking and delayed concentration in a world that increasingly incentivizes, even demands, hyperspecialization. While it is undoubtedly true that there are areas that require individuals with Tiger's precocity and clarity of purpose, we also need more Rogers: people who start broad and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives while they progress. People with range.

I wholeheartedly agree. I've argued that we need more polymaths, more Renaissance men and women, because they often can connect intriguing ideas and concepts from disparate fields in ways that lead to creative breakthroughs. Moreover, specialists can become closed-minded and dogmatic as their expertise deepens in a particular field. Of course, we need specialists in our organizations, but we must take great care to nurture the inquisitive, curious generalists who just might help us develop our next groundbreaking new product or service.  Sometimes, these generalists may seem as though they don't add as much immediate value. Sometimes, their minds might wander.  They may tinker a bit too much, at least according to the typical ways that executives might evaluate their performance.  We just might want to tolerate a bit of that unorthodox thinking though if we want new ideas to flourish. 

Advice for our Younger Selves

Source:  Pixnio

Christian Jarrett reported recently in BPS Research Digest about a new study by Robin Kowalski and Annie McCord, published in the Journal of Social Psychology. The paper is titled, "If I knew then what I know now: Advice to my younger self."  The scholars examined what advice people above the age of 30 would give to their younger selves. Jarrett explains the findings:

Their findings show that people’s advice to their younger selves is overwhelmingly focused on prior relationships, educational opportunities and personal worth, echoing similar results derived from research into people’s most common regrets in life. Moreover, participants who said they had followed the advice they would give to their younger selves were more likely to say that they had become the kind of person that their younger self would admire. “…[W]e should consult ourselves for advice we would offer to our younger selves,” the researchers said. “The data indicate that there is much to be learned that can facilitate wellbeing and bring us more in line with the person that we would like to be should we follow that advice.” 

The two studies followed a similar format with the participants (selected to be aged at least 30 years) asked to provide either three pieces or one piece of advice to their younger selves; to reflect on whether following this advice would help them become more like the person they aspire to be or ought to be; whether they had actually followed the advice later in life; to consider a pivotal event that had shaped them in life, especially in light of the advice they’d chosen to give their younger selves; and to reflect on what their younger self would make of their current self. Participants mostly gave themselves advice around relationships (“Don’t marry her. Do. Not. Marry. Her.”), education (“Go to college”), selfhood (“Be yourself”), direction and goals (“Keep moving, keep taking chances, and keep bettering yourself”), and money (“Save more, spend less”).

I enjoyed digging into this paper because I think it has important implications regarding the value of self-reflection.  Several years ago, I heard former Baxter Healthcare CEO Harry Kraemer, now a professor at Kellogg, discuss his nightly routine of self-reflection.  Each night, Kraemer takes a few moments to think back to how he conducted himself throughout the day, both in his professional and personal life.   Kraemer has developed a set of useful questions to use during this reflection time:

1. What did I say I was going to do today in all dimensions of my life?  What did I actually do?
2. What am I proud of?  What am I not proud of?
3. How did I lead people?  How did I follow people?
4. If I lived today over again, what would I have done differently?
5. If I have tomorrow (and I am acutely aware that some day I won’t) and I am a learning person, based on what I learned today, what will I do tomorrow in all dimensions of my life that are important (as a father, as a leader, as a son, as a spouse, as a spiritual person, etc.)?

I cannot say that I have Kraemer's discipline for daily self-reflection, but I have taken to trying to take some time every few weeks or months to consider these questions.  While I would benefit from pondering these questions more often, I do think that even the occasional time to reflect has been extremely helpful.  This research certainly bolsters Kraemer's argument and makes me want to try to make more time for reflection on a more frequent basis.  

How to Avoid Choking During Your Next Job Interview

Sian Beilock, President of Barnard College, has written a good HBR digital article titled, "Why Talented People Fail Under Pressure."   She writes,

When the pressure is on, we tend to panic — about the situation, its consequences, and what others will think of us — and as a result we apply too much cognitive horsepower to what we are doing. We start overthinking something that usually comes naturally to us.  

How we can avoid panicking in these types of situations, such as a crucial job interview?  Beilock argues that we need to shift our thinking to other tasks in ways that use up some of our cognitive horsepower.  That prevents us from overthinking the challenge at hand.  She explains:

If you notice that you are starting to overthink, try singing a song, repeating a one-word mantra, or focusing on the three key points you want to get across to your audience. These approaches use up that cognitive horsepower that could otherwise be used against you.. Let’s say you’re preparing for a job interview. You know your resume inside and out, and in normal circumstances, you can easily recount your strengths and accomplishments. But when you sit down in the interview chair, you freeze up. If you take time beforehand to occupy your prefrontal cortex with unrelated activities, you’re less likely to overthink in the moment and more likely to be able to communicate your message effectively.

For more on Beilock's work on coping with pressure, see her great book, "Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To."  

Silencing the Specialist on Corporate Boards or Management Teams

Imagine that you have hired a specialist on your management team, and they are, by far, the most qualified and knowledgeable team member on a particular topic.  Perhaps they know far more about cybersecurity than anyone else on the team, for instance.  What happens when generalists on the team comprise a majority and push for a particular decision about which the specialist disagrees strongly.  How do you handle this conflict?   How do you reconcile the views of the majority with the lone dissenting voice of the specialist?  

Randall Peterson of London Business School has written about this topic in the context of boards of directors.    He describes how specialists can be silenced on boards in many cases, and how that can lead to big trouble.   Here is an excerpt of an article Peterson wrote several months ago for Strategy & Business. In the article, he argues that boards often lack "open and frank discussion" and makes the case for a process of "qualified consensus" to protect against truly disastrous decisions.  Peterson explains: 

I have found consistently in my own research that majority-rule voting actually fails when the will of the majority is used to silence legitimate and specialist minority voices. What is right for the many ought to prevail, but not at the expense of the rights and specialist knowledge of a minority. This means that boards must understand the full implications of their two duties — care and loyalty — especially at a time when they are hiring more specialists. And it’s worth remembering that the sincere embrace of those two duties on the part of each director is key if majority rule is to function effectively.

So if, say, the digital specialist director in my example ends up voting against a cybersecurity-related decision she believes to be ill-advised, but a majority of her fellow board members vote for it, that director needs to consider whether her peers truly understand the risks. She needs to ask herself whether their decision is fully informed, and if not, she is obliged to raise this issue, rather than simply accept the vote. What follows in practice is that when a director believes that a particular decision is fundamentally wrong, whether for ethical reasons or because it violates regulations or because it represents a disastrous strategy, that individual director should be able to challenge boardroom colleagues. This does not mean that each board member must entirely agree with, and vote in favor of, every decision the board makes. But there is an important distinction between a decision that an individual judges to be suboptimal and a decision that the board member believes is totally wrong.

Boards should therefore operate on the principle of qualified consensus. By qualified consensus I mean a state in which a majority are in favor, and no one believes the decision is fundamentally wrong. Board chairs should be giving every member the opportunity to explain a dissenting point of view, to which the others listen and respond. You might think that this already happens as a matter of course. Yet I often hear about cases where the board literally hears the dissent, but does not recognize the distinction between a suboptimal decision and one that is seen as truly wrong. Giving a dissenting member the opportunity to speak up is just not on the board’s radar screen often enough… Unfortunately, open and frank discussion that arrives at consensual and informed decisions — and thus incorporates understanding of the point above — is too often lacking among boards. For example, in another global study of board directors by the London Business School, scheduled to be published in late 2018, 64 percent reported misunderstandings in the boardroom to be commonplace, and one-third reported the need to revisit decisions.

Source:  Harvard Business Review

While Peterson writes here about boards of directors, one might apply his thinking to the top management team and other senior teams as well.   These teams have to think carefully about how they handle the specialist who dissents.  How do you treat that person's voice, and do different types of dissent matter?  I personally like the distinction between an undesirable decision and one that is fundamentally wrong.   Teams at the top definitely need to think about how to build psychological safety, and how to handle dissenting voices once candor is encouraged.    

John Oliver on Climbing Everest

One of our Bryant University alumnae, Lauren Reichert, brought this hilarious video to my attention this week.  In this clip, John Oliver offers a very humorous take on the wave of people trying to summit Mount Everest in recent years.  Given my research on the reasons why teams get in trouble on the mountain, I thought it would be interesting to many readers of the blog.  For more on my work about Everest expedition teams, see this recent article by Kyle Stock for Bloomberg, or this article from Entrepreneur magazine published in 2016.

The Six Mindsets Behind Creative Thinking

Bryan Collins has written an article for Forbes about the core ideas in my book, Unlocking Creativity.   He has some terrific new examples of his own regarding the mindsets that inhibit creativity in many organizations.   You also can listen to my appearance on Bryan's podcast through this link.   Hope you find the article and podcast interesting and thought-provoking!

5 Tips for Conducting Effective After-Action Reviews

A Simple Way to Get a Fresh Set of Eyes on a Problem

Christian Jarrett of the British Psychological Society's Research Digest reports this week on a new study by Duke University scholar Sarah Gaither and her colleagues.  The article describes experimental research highlighting the power and efficacy of a simple technique for boosting one's creativity.  Here's an excerpt from Jarrett's article: 

Source:  PxHere

In a new paper in Developmental Science, a team led by Sarah Gaither at Duke University presents evidence that prompting children to think about their own multiple identities boosts their problem-solving skills and increases their flexible thinking.... In the first of three studies, Gaither and her team split 48 six- and seven-year-olds into two groups. One was the intervention group and these participants spent time reflecting briefly with a researcher about eight of their various social identities, such as “friend”, “girl” and “reader”. This process concluded with the researcher saying “That is so cool that you are lots of things at the same time.” The other group served as a control and these participants chatted briefly with a researcher about eight of their different physical attributes, such as having two feet and a mouth. Similar to the intervention condition, the control condition ended with the researcher saying “That is so cool that you have a lot of things at the same time.” Afterwards all the children completed four different problem solving and flexible thinking challenges... The findings were consistent, with the children who reflected on their multiple identities outperforming the children in the control condition on all four of the tests.

This research proves quite consistent with earlier work on the effects for adults of gaining "psychological distance" that I described in my book.   For instance, I described experimental research in which people displayed more creativity when they were able to gain social distance from a problem through imagining themselves as different people, or imagining others tackling the same problem.  Sometimes, we can be 'too focused' on a problem.   Multitasking is awful, of course, but some concerted effort to 'unfocus" amidst intense work on a problem can be helpful.  One way to gain distance is through the intervention described here.  

Your Professional Decline & Your Happiness

Source:  Wikipedia

Arthur Brooks has written a thought-provoking article for The Atlantic titled, "Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think."  Brooks reviews the literature regarding the age at which professional productivity peaks in various fields, as well as some of the research on personal happiness.  He closes with some thoughts about how he will approach his work and life moving forward (Brooks has just stepped down as President of the American Enterprise Institute and will be joining the Harvard faculty this summer).   Here's an excerpt from Brooks' terrific essay:

What’s the difference between (Johann Sebastian) Bach and (Charles) Darwin? Both were preternaturally gifted and widely known early in life. Both attained permanent fame posthumously. Where they differed was in their approach to the midlife fade. When Darwin fell behind as an innovator, he became despondent and depressed; his life ended in sad inactivity. When Bach fell behind, he reinvented himself as a master instructor. He died beloved, fulfilled, and—though less famous than he once had been—respected.

The lesson for you and me, especially after 50: Be Johann Sebastian Bach, not Charles Darwin.  How does one do that?  A potential answer lies in the work of the British psychologist Raymond Cattell, who in the early 1940s introduced the concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence. Cattell defined fluid intelligence as the ability to reason, analyze, and solve novel problems—what we commonly think of as raw intellectual horsepower. Innovators typically have an abundance of fluid intelligence. It is highest relatively early in adulthood and diminishes starting in one’s 30s and 40s. This is why tech entrepreneurs, for instance, do so well so early, and why older people have a much harder time innovating.

Crystallized intelligence, in contrast, is the ability to use knowledge gained in the past. Think of it as possessing a vast library and understanding how to use it. It is the essence of wisdom. Because crystallized intelligence relies on an accumulating stock of knowledge, it tends to increase through one’s 40s, and does not diminish until very late in life.

Careers that rely primarily on fluid intelligence tend to peak early, while those that use more crystallized intelligence peak later. For example, Dean Keith Simonton has found that poets—highly fluid in their creativity—tend to have produced half their lifetime creative output by age 40 or so. Historians—who rely on a crystallized stock of knowledge—don’t reach this milestone until about 60.

Here’s a practical lesson we can extract from all this: No matter what mix of intelligence your field requires, you can always endeavor to weight your career away from innovation and toward the strengths that persist, or even increase, later in life.  Like what? As Bach demonstrated, teaching is an ability that decays very late in life, a principal exception to the general pattern of professional decline over time.

Later in the article, Brooks (now in his early 50s) articulates four commitments he has made to himself as he enters the next stage of his career and life.  

1.  Jump:  Be ready to leave something you love and shift to something new that fits your stage of life more appropriately.  

2. Serve:  Brooks notes that, "An effort to serve others can play to our strengths as we age."

3.  Worship:  Brooks notes the importance of his spiritual life and how it need not be detached from his work life.  He intends to focus on his spiritual life even more moving forward.  

4.  Connect:  Brooks explains that healthy relationships are key to happiness in life, and that one can make time for those relationships without necessarily sacrificing achievement altogether.  

I have not done justice to the fascinating article in this short blog post.  I hope that I have intrigued you, though, and that you will read the entire essay.   

Giving Feedback: Stay on Your Side of the Net

Source: www.maxpixel.net

Adam Bryant, managing director of Merryck & Co, has a terrific article for the New York Times (for which he used to write regularly), about how to build a successful team. He based this essay on over 500 interviews he conducted with senior executives over many years while writing the Corner Office column for the newspaper.   One piece of advice that Bryant offers is to "stay on your side of the net" when giving a team member constructive feedback on his or her performance.  Here's an excerpt:

A big part of holding people accountable for their work is a willingness to have frank discussions about problems and misunderstandings that inevitably arise among colleagues. But the fact is that most managers go out of their way to avoid these “adult conversations.” It’s understandable. They can be unpleasant, and most people would rather deliver good news instead of bad. Also, you never quite know how somebody’s going to react to feedback. That is why problems are often swept under the rug, and maybe dealt with months later in an annual performance review.

One of the smartest tips for having such conversations is to make sure you “don’t go over the net.”  It means you should never make statements that include assumptions about the motivations behind someone’s behavior. Instead, you should stay on your side of the net and talk only about what you’re observing and your own reactions and feelings. That way, it’s harder for people to get their back up because you’re not devising rationales to explain someone else’s behavior. 

Consider, for example, the small but important difference in approaches in the following paragraph: "I’ve noticed you keep showing up 20 minutes late, and it seems like you don’t care." The boss has gone over the net here and accused the person of not caring. "I’ve noticed you keep showing up 20 minutes late, and it makes me feel like you don’t care." Here, with just a small language tweak, the boss is staying on the right side of the net, and avoided an overheated conversation because the employee can’t argue about how someone feels.

This approach was first described to me by Andrew Thompson, the chief executive of Proteus Digital Health, who said he uses it as a counterweight to a natural tendency of human beings. “People concoct all this imaginary garbage about why the person is doing this to them when in fact the person may not even realize that they’re doing anything,” Mr. Thompson said.