3.3 Observe the patterns of mistakes to see if they are products of weaknesses.
Everyone has weaknesses and they are generally revealed in the patterns of mistakes they make. The fastest path to success starts with knowing what your weaknesses are and staring hard at them. Start by writing down your mistakes and connecting the dots between them. Then write down your “one big challenge,” the weakness that stands the most in the way of your getting what you want. Everyone has at least one big challenge. You may in fact has several, but don’t go beyond your “big three.” The first step to tackling these impediments is getting them out into the open.
3.2 Don’t worry about looking good—worry about achieving your goals.
Put your insecurities away and get on with achieving your goals. Reflect and remind yourself that an accurate criticism is the most valuable feedback you can receive. Imaging how silly and unproductive it would be to respond to your ski instructor as if he were blaming you when he told you that you fell because you didn’t shift your weight properly. It’s no different if a supervisor points out a flaw in your work process. Fix it and move on.
a. Get over “blame” and “credit” and get on with “accurate” and “inaccurate.”
Worrying about “blame” and “credit” or “positive” and “negative” feedback impedes the iterative process that is essential to learning. Remember that what has already happened lies in the past and no longer matters except as a lesson for the future. The need for phony praise needs to be unlearned.
3.1 Recognize that mistakes are a natural part of the evolutionary process.
If you don’t mind being wrong on the way to being right you’ll learn a lot—and increase your effectiveness. But if you can’t tolerate being wrong, you won’t grow, you’ll make yourself and everyone around you miserable, and your work environment will be marked by petty back-biting and malevolent barbs rather than by a healthy, honest search for truth.
You must not let your need to be right be more important than your need to find out what’s true. Jeff Bezos described it well when he said, “You have to have a willingness to repeatedly fail. If you don’t have a willingness to fail, you’re going to have to be very careful not to invent.”
a. Fail well.
Everyone fails. Anyone you see succeeding is only succeeding at the things you’re paying attention to—I guarantee they are also failing at lots of other things. The people I respect most are those who fail well. I respect them even more than those who succeed. That is because failing is a painful experience while succeeding is a joyous one, so it requires much more character to fail, change, and then succeed than to just succeed. People who are just succeeding must not be pushing their limits. Of course the worst are those who fail and don’t recognize it and don’t change.
2.4 Remember that most people will pretend to operate in your interest while operating in their own.
For example, most people will operate in a way that maximizes the amount of money they will get and that minimizes the amount of work they have to do to get it.
To see this, just leave someone unsupervised and allow them to bill you for what they have done. Be especially wary of this conflict of interest when people are advising you on matters that will affect how much money they earn—such as the lawyer who spends a lot of billable hours giving you advice, or the salesperson who advises you on what to purchase while receiving a commission on the amount that you spend. You can’t imaging how many people I meet who are eager to “help” me.
Don’t be naive. Strive for the highest possible percentage of your population having meaningful work and meaningful relationships while recognizing that there will always be some percentage of the population who won’t care for the community and/or will do it harm.
2.3 Recognize that the size of the organization can pose a threat to meaningful relationships.
When there were just a few of us, we had meaningful relationships because we knew and liked each other. When we grew to between fifty and a hundred people, we had a community; when we grew beyond that, the sense of community began to slip because we didn’t all know each other in the same way. That’s when I realized that having groups (departments) of around a hundred (give or take about fifty) that are bound collectively by our common mission was the best way to scale the meaningful relationship. While bigger companies tend to be more impersonal, that is just another challenge that has to be figured out.
To have a good relationship, you must be clear with each other about what the quid pro quo is—what is generous, what is fair, and what is just plain taking advantage—and how you will be with each other.
One important thing that typically divides people is how they approach their work. Are they working just for their paycheck or are they looking for something more? Each of us has our own views about what is most important. I have made a lot of money through my work, but I see my job as much more than as a way to make money—it’s how I choose to live out my values around excellence, meaningful work, and meaningful relationships. If the people I worked with were primarily interested in making money, we would have conflicts whenever we had to choose between upholding our values and making an easy buck. Don’t get me wrong—of course I understand that people don’t work for personal satisfaction alone, and that a job must be economically viable. But we all have definite ideas about what we value and what we want our relationships to be like, and employers and employees have to be in sync on such things.
Naturally there will be disagreement and negotiation, but some things cannot be compromised and you and your employees must know what those things are. This is especially true if you’re seeking to create an environment that has shared values, a deep commitment to the mission, and high standards of behavior.
2.1 Be loyal to the common mission and not to anyone who is not operating consistently with it.
Loyalty to specific people who are not in tight sync with the mission and how to achieve it will create factionalism and undermine the well-being of the community. It is often the case, and quite beautiful, that personal loyalties exist. However, it is also often the case, and quite ugly, when personal loyalties come into conflict with the organization’s interests.
