Tweddle Group Outward Mindset

The romance of goal-setting captures our attention at least once a year (looking at you, New Years). We want to run marathons, we want to write books, we want to fall in love, we want to get in shape-we want to follow through on our commitments and reach the goals we've set for ourselves, but it's all easier said than done.

Here's the full interview with Jim.

In The Outward Mindset, we write about this. There is a basic outward-mindset pattern that people can apply in organizations. The first of the three parts of the pattern is to see others. What we mean by that is to become curious and attentive to the needs, challenges, and objectives of those with whom one interacts and affects. When my mindset is outward, I'm going to be purposeful about building my awareness and understanding about other people. And if I'm a leader, I'm going to open up space and create opportunity within my organization so people are learning about each other's objectives, needs, and challenges.

James Farrell, one of the principal authors of Arbinger's book, quotes a foreign political leader as saying: "You have to understand we and our enemies are perfect for each other. Each of us gives the other reason to never have to change."

Great article / reminder!

We're familiar with the basics of increasing productivity-setting clear goals, providing feedback, establishing standards, providing skills development-there's no shortage of advice when it comes to making the workplace a more efficient place. However, emerging on the scene of workplace productivity (and overall quality of life, we might add) is something less likely to be found on a "Top Ten" list: genuine human connection.

I've always loved this story.

"The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence." - Confucius

It was this occasion, this call for action, that was the opportunity to practice what I'd been talking about into my recorder all morning, lost in my own thoughts. These moments are choice points, when we determine our own way of being by whether we will respond to the humanity of another or not. The more consistently we choose to honor our sense of what we know to be the right thing to do, the more we discover the peace and deep naturalness of being right with others.

From my point of view, we tend to go astray when developing leaders by often jumping to the desirable or corrective action too early without inviting those leaders to look at the situation with different understanding, perspective and interpretation. In other words, we are not trying to shift the way they think prior to changing the way they do.

When we feel bugged by others, usually we demand a different response from them than we ourselves are willing to give. When neither we nor another are caring for each other, for example, we can get quite upset at the other's lack of care. We operate with an oxymoronic illogic: I'm upset because you are doing precisely what I am doing!

While I might consider another's lifestyle choices to be negative or reprehensible, viewing their burdens through the lens of my pat solutions ultimately hinders my ability to understand them. And seeking to understand their behavior without condoning it is essential to true helpfulness.

"A good leader should always ... " How you finish that sentence could reveal a lot about your leadership style. That's the idea behind a management survey tool called the Leadership Development Profile. Created by psychologist Susanne Cook-Greuter and professor Bill Torbert, the survey relies on a set of 36 open-ended sentence completion tasks to help researchers better understand how leaders develop and grow.

After reading the material I realized how important these concepts are to leadership and that we were missing this aspect of leadership in our curriculum. We were teaching leadership theories and leadership skills (like giving good briefings, or being a good listener), but not focusing on the interpersonal aspect of leadership. The Arbinger material brings home for the students the relational side of leadership. Also, the students really connect with the stories and enjoy how the books are written as a narrative rather than a list of points to memorize. This material is a needed break from the endless stream of PowerPoint bulleted lists they get in most classes these days.

I LOVE this, especially "They don't let anyone limit their joy" - great read!