COOL NEWS to start 2024: LEAD ON! has been named a Top 10 Self-Leadership publication on the web by FeedSpot (#6 actually), ranked by traffic, number of followers, and freshness.
INSIGHTS (on leadership/self-leadership)
As we bolt into 2024 filled with promise, potential, and possibilities, eager to add all sorts of goodness to our professional and personal life, also remember to subtract something. Or as two Stanford psychologists and sociologists advise, stop “addition sickness,” which is “the unnecessary rules, procedures, communications, tools, and roles that seem to inexorably grow, stifling productivity and creativity.”
Sound familiar? If your place of work is like an addition sickness hospital ward, you’re not alone. It’s human nature. Everyone wants to add value. Adding value most often looks like adding things. Processes. Layers. Systems. “Improvements.” It all adds up until it doesn’t add up anymore. Everyone else’s additions become someone else’s frustrations.
Rarely do we stop and think about improving things by taking something away. Case in point, one university president asked students, faculty, and staff for suggestions to improve the university. Only 11% of responses suggested deletion of some sort.
Here’s some medicine for the sickness, what the Stanford researchers call conducting a “Good Riddance Review.” Sit with your team and ask:
• What adds needless frustration?
• What scatters your attention?
• What has outlived its usefulness?
Pinpoint it. Then punt it. Addition by subtraction.
One less thing will be one more thing to celebrate this new year.
IMPERFECTIONS (something many struggle with)
It would seem we’re almost genetically predisposed to have problems sticking to our New Year’s resolutions. To illustrate; one of the least pessimistic studies I could find regarding the percent of New Year’s resolutions that fail, was from a psychology study at the University of Hertfordshire, which reported a 78 percent failure rate.Another clinical psychologist reported an 80 percent failure rate, by the second week of February.
May I offer an alternative to the classic New Year’s resolution? In this new year, commit to keep discovering the “green growing edge” of yourself. It’s a thought inspired by theologian Howard Thurman, who noted that over the years, we all tend to carve ourselves into a shape. That shape becomes pretty definitive, having taken form through all our experiences. That hard-baked, clay shape, is who we are.
Enter the New Year committed to explore those “green growing edges” of your shape, those areas of interest that still haven’t been fully explored, the experiences you still yearn for, that undefined, exciting part of you that extends the very definition of you. Yes, the core, well-formed self is still there. But it’s the vivacious edges that you nurture and garden that keep you growing, in mind, heart, and soul. Preserving and progressing that edge is something worth resolving to.
IMPLEMENTATION (one research-backed strategy, tip, or tool)
Ever find yourself so frustrated with someone’s behavior, you could scream? When their actions almost make you sad, for them, for you, for having to deal with it?
I’d be surprised if you haven’t.
Here’s one super-simple strategy for putting this kind of scenario in perspective. An instant reframe to ease the pain of your disappointment. Six words that really help, from author, Steve Maraboli.
Stop expecting you from other people.
Leave a Reply