Sumit Gupta

January 2022

  • The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan – Book Summary & Review

    How To Achieve That Most Important Goal In Life

    Living a life with purpose, priority and productivity, without other aspects of one’s life going out of balance, and performing with focus leads to success. Often, the maxims that one accepts as good practices in life are mere myths that can end up hindering one’s progress.

    Not being afraid of the grander visions in life, thinking big and discovering one’s most important goal is the first step towards achieving success. The ONE Thing (2013) by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, is a guide to maintaining focus on that one ‘most important goal in life and provides tools that help in using one’s time productively to get there.

    Think Big

    When J.K. Rowling conceived the story of Harry Potter; she had envisioned a seven-part series of books of his life at Hogwarts even before she wrote the first chapter of the first book. Her ability to think big and have a grand vision at the onset itself was one of the reasons she achieved tremendous success.

    It is hard to think ahead, or envision success without this first step. Negative emotions such as feeling overwhelmed or intimidated prevent one from thinking big. These negative emotions can dominate one’s thinking, leading to mediocrity as one ends up limiting their own potential for achievement.

    If we look at the field of science, the progress that humanity has achieved today would have not been possible if even one scientist had not gone beyond unimaginable possibilities. History is proof that humans are poor at estimating limits; hence, one should never let their aspirations get constrained by limited perceptions.

    Success is an outcome of action, and action is propelled by thought. Hence it is but natural that in order to achieve success, one’s actions have to be based on ‘ thinking big’.

    Prioritizing The To-Do List

    Making ‘to-do lists’ of tasks is a great method of organizing one’s day. However, most people fail to prioritize these tasks. While some struggle with deciding whether to start with the most time-consuming or smallest task first, others simply start with what is at the top of the checklist.

    However, it is important to remember that not all tasks are equal, and prioritizing between which tasks will have a profound impact is vital to success. While he was working at General Motors, Joseph M. Juran, a pioneer in quality-control management, found that the majority of the defects in their cars were caused due to only a few production flaws. Hence rectifying these flaws was a priority.

    He named this discovery the ‘Pareto Principle’ after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto’s 19th century model for wealth and distribution. The model showed that 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the people, proportions that Juran matched with his own model.

    Juran realised that the 80/20 principle could be a universal law, for example, 80% of one’s output or results are delivered by only 20% of one’s input or work.

    The Pareto Principle, thus, proves that in a to-do list, it is the 20% of the tasks that will make a major contribution to one’s success, and hence, prioritizing between the tasks is extremely important to success.

    The ONE Thing (2013) by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

    Focussed Questions And Actionable Tasks

    Mark Twain said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.”

    It is, however, difficult to clearly ascertain which the first task should be and how to get there. Thus, in order to make this clear, one should ask focussing questions. Questions such as, ‘What is the one task that can make all other tasks either easier or unnecessary to do?’

    Focusing questions serve two levels, with each level serving its own functions.

    1. Macro-level: At a macro level, focussing questions help in viewing the bigger picture, and identifying the overall goal. For instance, the one big goal, the overall goal can be one’s career. It helps in finding the right direction.
    2. The short-term level: At the micro, or short-term level, focussing questions help to focus on smaller tasks and prioritize between available options to select the most effective task. For instance, having a team meeting to delegate work and finish faster. It helps in choosing the right action.

    The answers that one gets while repeating the focussing questions lead to progress and build momentum, as they provide actionable steps that aim towards the goal.

    Sequential Habit Forming

    Bill Gates is known to be very self-disciplined. His success in life can be attributed to this quality he cultivated in his formative years. How was he able to maintain such self-discipline?

    Successes like Bill Gates not only constantly focus on drive and discipline, but also selectively use discipline to form good habits. 

    Another example of success, Michael Phelps was diagnosed with ADHD as a child. He could never focus on one task at hand. However, his success today can be attributed to his discipline and focus. Phelps channelled all his focus on creating one habit – to swim every day. Right from the age of 14, and through the Beijing Olympics, he swam every day of every week of every year!

    It is always easier to maintain a habit than to form it. Hence, once a habit is formed, one can channel discipline and focus into forming a new habit, building habits sequentially. 

    For example, one can cultivate the habit of getting up 30 minutes earlier every day to exercise. Once waking up early becomes a habit, one can move on to the next one of perhaps trying to get to work 30 minutes earlier. Then, one can focus on clearing emails before the other gets to the office, and so on.

    Such positive habits and application of discipline selectively help cultivate a disciplined life, without needing to specifically focus on creating discipline.

    Multitasking Is Inefficient

    Contrary to popular belief, multitasking is inefficient. Multitasking, or doing two or more things simultaneously, was a term used to describe the ability of a computer to do multiple tasks using a single processor, alternating between tasks in rapid succession.

    Although people too can do two or more tasks simultaneously, like walking and talking on the phone, one cannot truly focus on either of the tasks effectively. Essentially, people, like computers, switch their focus from one task to the other, juggling between them.

    According to research, juggling between two or more tasks exacts a time penalty. This happens because humans take time to move from one task and focus on the other. While the penalty seems small when tasks are simple, it is much greater when even one of the tasks is complex in nature.

    For instance, if another colleague interrupts a person working on a complex spreadsheet to discuss another business matter, it takes the person a lot of time to refocus on the spreadsheet, and the person tends to struggle to get his bearings back.

    The time penalties – small or big – add up throughout the day. It is seen that on average, in the work environment, workers get distracted every 11 minutes, and spend about one-third of their workday recovering from these distractions.

    Hence, in order to avoid time penalties, distractions and the loss of one-third of a workday, it is better to prioritize and give that one task undivided attention.

    The Willpower Fuel Tank

    For most people, having an iron hold on their willpower is tough. Additionally, research has shown that willpower isn’t a constant resource available to people. Depending on the activities one engages in, it depletes at varying rates throughout the day.

    For example, willpower gets drained when one focuses their attention on a task, modifies behaviour to pursue a goal, or even when one suppresses emotions. Once it gets depleted, the ability of a person to exert it on another task reduces. For example, people find it difficult to resist a snack after any tedious work, or after making tough decisions.

    Furthermore, giving in to a guilty pleasure is one thing, however, if a person is making life and death decisions when willpower is low, the consequences can be much more severe. Hence, if we consider the importance of decision-making at a parole-board hearing for a prisoner, can something as arbitrary as the time of the day influence the decision-making?

    Research conducted on Israeli judges showed that they were more inclined to give favourable judgements at the beginning of the day than towards the end of it. The judges, due to depleted willpower towards the end of the day, were more likely to rely on the default ‘no parole’ decision. It was also seen that the rates of favourable judgements picked up after snacks and breaks.

    This proves that full-blown willpower needs a full tank, and thus one should avoid decision-making when the willpower fuel tank is running low.

    Saying ‘No’ To Unimportant Tasks

    People often find it difficult to say no to requests and help others. While helping people can be very rewarding personally, one has to be able to reserve time and energy for important tasks and for reaching one’s own goals. Hence, one has to be able to say ‘NO’ to low-priority requests.

    Steve Jobs, for example, was equally proud of the projects he did not pursue, as he was of the ones he did. When Jobs came back to Apple in 1997, he reduced the number of project outputs from 350 to 10. He said at a 1997 conference, “When you think about focusing, you think ‘Well, focusing is about saying yes.’ No! Focusing is about saying no.”

    Saying ‘no’ to others need not always be selfish and cold. One can give the person in need another alternative where one does not need to be involved or direct the person to someone else who can help. 

    Additionally, one can implement strategies to cut down the number of requests one gets, like putting a list of FAQs in place. However, it is important to keep in mind that sometimes, saying ‘no’ is inevitable.

    Time, energy, and resources are limited. And hence, one has to be able to prioritize by saying ‘no’ to trivial tasks and requests.

    Living With Purpose And Visualizing Steps

    Having a goal to work towards is very important. If one had to imagine a life without goals and ambitions, making decisions on a daily basis would be tough. Moreover, one would never feel the need to persevere at a tough task, let alone know why one is even doing the task.

    Having a goal gives purpose and meaning to life. It adds conviction to action and clarity in thought, enabling faster decision-making. Most importantly, a goal provides motivation and inspiration when one faces problems.

    Goals encourage planning steps to achieve them. Moreover, visualizing these steps as one moves ahead, is inspiring, and motivating. A study conducted among students showed that the students who visualised either the outcome of the planning process were better prepared, had higher levels of motivation and fared better.

    Take for example; a person who has one goal of climbing Mount Everest. This person will start planning, do research, and acquire the equipment needed. Such planning and visualizing the process leads to progress towards the goal. Without defining this purpose and goal, the person would merely be adrift, with no ambition and no purpose in life.

    Prioritize Work Time And Never Compromise

    People endeavour to achieve a balance in life, between the things that matter most. Yet, no one questions this endeavour. People strive towards balance because their work – personal or professional – has a place of importance. However, this need to achieve balance is by nature unobtainable. Trying to achieve a balance between everything leads to short-changing everything that one attempts to achieve.

    James Patterson, the author, summed up this problem by calling life ‘ a game of juggling 5 balls’. The balls are family, health, work, integrity, and friends. The work ball is made of rubber and the other four are made of glass. As one attempts to balance and keep all the five balls in the air if the work ball is dropped, it will bounce back, however, the other four will break!

    This example clearly indicates that one’s personal life should take priority over professional goals and that one should never compromise personal priorities over professional priorities. How does one then succeed in professional life?

    The answer lies in prioritizing one’s work-life ruthlessly. The fact of the matter is that though neglecting one’s personal commitments and goals can be perilous, one’s professional goals and commitments take top priority.

    Over time, tasks that are of lesser priority can wait, be managed by someone else, and have to be minimized, until the tasks with top priority are completed. In this manner, as one prioritizes work commitments ruthlessly, one can achieve great results.

    Effective Time-management Strategies

    Consider that a person has discovered that one, single most important goal in life, and has a clear plan of how to achieve it. 

    Now, as this person is all geared up to reach that goal, there is one unforeseen problem. Life doesn’t have a pause button, and the world waits for no one. The person realises that while he was busy working on achieving that one goal, things have stacked up, and there are other people, commitments, and projects that are demanding his attention.

    While attempting to focus on that one goal, chaos and the pressure to attend to those builds up in other areas of life. How does the person deal with this?

    The simple answer is trust. By placing trust in the fact that the top-priority goal will come through, one can simplify the other areas of life. Essentially, the person has to let the chaos pile up and accept it.

    Remember the issues of multi-tasking? 

    If the person truly has to commit to the top-priority goal, he has to learn to make the most of his time. One has to defend and ruthlessly commit to the top-priority goals in life. Creating time blocks to work only on the top-priority goal is essential. This can be done by altering the physical work surrounding, by minimizing distractions such as phones or emails, or even working away from the office, so as to avoid distractions from colleagues. These are effective time-management strategies to focus on the top-priority goals.

    Conclusion

    Success can be attributed to defining and working towards that one big goal in life. One has to think big, prioritize to-dos, and use focussing questions to understand which tasks take priority.

    Moreover, avoiding multitasking and focussing on the top-priority goal, forming habits sequentially, identifying when one’s willpower is at its peak, and saying ‘no’ to unimportant tasks will help keep one focussed on that one big goal.

    Finally, one has to find purpose and visualize the process of achieving that goal. Using effective time-management strategies, and prioritizing one’s professional commitment ruthlessly, while never compromising on personal commitments will lead to achieving great success in life. 

  • Kindred Motes – “I’ve had to work on reining in my natural instinct to avoid burning out!”

    This interview is part of a new series where leaders in influential positions share their leadership journey – how they got to where they are today. I believe we all have a lot to learn from our stories of where we started, our successes and struggles, and important lessons learned on the way.

    This interview is with Kindred Motes. He has more than a decade of communications, social impact, philanthropic, and digital strategy experience, including impact campaigns for or in collaboration with some of the most prominent names in the social justice, technology, policy, and philanthropic sectors. He is the founder and managing director at KMSG, which is a boutique strategy, social impact, management, and communications consulting firm. You can find Kindred on LinkedIn here.

    KMSG leadership brings more than a decade of communications, social impact, philanthropic, management, and digital strategy experience to its practice, including impact campaigns for or in collaboration with some of the most prominent names in the social justice, technology, policy, and philanthropic sectors: The United Nations, The Obama White House, USAID, ACLU, Global Citizen, Netflix, Participant Media, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Google, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Vera Institute of Justice, the Foundation for Louisiana, Wallace Global Fund, and New America, among others. 

    1. What do you like about the work you do? What do you find most challenging?

    Being a social impact, advocacy, and communications strategy consultant who works with various clients across sectors is really interesting because it forces me to constantly immerse myself in many different issues simultaneously. A typical day for me (though there really are none!) can involve a lot of things, but here are some of the most common: advising clients about trends in philanthropy; creating an engagement strategy for reaching high net worth individuals; designing a campaign to bring elected officials, influencers, activists, and policy experts together as part of a live event; running infrastructural or peer analysis projects and then designing a new organizational or team structure; building an audience growth strategy for Twitter and monitoring its success; and creating Google Ads campaigns to drive client referrals, fight mis- and disinformation, or build support for a cause through SEO. 

    Kindred Motes
    Kindred Motes

    And just as the services and tasks are diverse, the issues are, too – from vaccine equity and medicines access to ending extreme poverty, fighting hate and extremism, supporting local communities of color and building resiliency through community-based philanthropy, empowering women and girls worldwide, and building a pipeline of tech professionals in the private sector and government who are trained to put people before profits. It’s an amazing, amazing way to learn about different areas while driving strategies that I’ve already shown are fit for purpose through prior and existing projects.   

    The beauty of the work – its diversity, scale, and scope – is also what makes it the most challenging, particularly from a small business perspective. I’ve had to become really diligent about my time, my energy, and being realistic about what is feasible and what isn’t, and when I either need to pass on a project or bring on additional support to make it happen. It’s a really fortunate situation to be in – a good problem to have, as the saying goes – but it’s really important to me that the people I work with are pleased by our collaboration, because I think your reputation is really one of the few things that you have as a small business owner. That matters to me. 

    I’ve had to work on reining in my natural instinct, which is to get excited and say yes to a project just because the organization’s mission or vision aligns with mine without first considering my own likelihood of burning out from continual 16 hour days. Thankfully, that’s not the case anymore!

    2. What are you passionate about? 

    I care a lot about making sure that people understand the messages and calls to action that are important or essential to realizing a better world, and that’s what initially drew me to the world of communications and then took me into strategy, social impact, partnerships, and investment theories. 

    Reading is a lifelong love, and I travelled through books long before I ever set foot on a plane or went to another state, region, or country. I’m passionate about understanding the state of the world, so a lot of my time is spent listening to podcasts or audiobooks while taking long walks. 

    I’m passionate about leisure, too, including tennis, baking, cooking, and hosting dinner parties for friends on a large scale (once that is possible again!). But I’m most passionate about learning new things, having discussions about issues I don’t understand with people who do, and/or getting into discussions with people who feel differently about something than I do. 

    I love travelling and hope to better figure out how to do so in a way that feels healthy both for me and for the places and communities I visit. I’m passionate about building a community of social impact professionals who want to take issues of access, equity, justice, sustainability, and empowerment to the broader world through innovative campaigns, messaging, events, and collaborations. And I’m passionate about creating a workplace and company that respects and values both its clients and its staff and sets a tone that is aligned with the nature of the work we’re trying to do. 

    3. How do you manage pressure, stress, and fight the risk of burnout?

    Burnout is something I think a lot about. I worked anywhere from 50-80 hours per week last year on average because I was in startup mode, and had to do client work while also managing every element of the business – from accounting, business development, web design, marketing, legal outreach, LLC registration outreach, tax payments, etc. – completely alone. 

    I wanted to learn the fundamentals myself, but I also just didn’t know if it would last, so I didn’t want to spend a fortune outsourcing those things. It was incredible, exciting work, and I’m so grateful to have been able to have the experience and learn everything that I did,  but once I had some time off at the end of the year around the holidays, I slept for entire days and realized that my body was really telling me to slow down. 

    So this year, KMSG is implementing a 4 day workweek and requiring any current or future staff or contractors to make time for their own rest, relaxation, and creativity by asking them to take a minimum of four weeks per year in paid time off. I wrote about why in a piece on our site. 

    I was a bit nervous at first that clients would respond negatively or find it difficult to work around, but everyone has been very supportive – which also underscores for me why it’s so important to have alignment between organizational missions and personal values when choosing who to work with. 

    This trend of reducing workweeks to match the modern world, not the Fordian factory floor era, is finally starting to catch on, and I think the pandemic has shown that flexibility can be and must be a key part of office and workplace strategy and adaptation moving forward. As a manager, and a business owner, I don’t care where in the world you get the work done or what time you’re working on it as long as you’re communicative, responsible, and hit your deadlines. 

    Stress and anxiety are something that are a bit more persistent, especially for people who work in social impact, social justice, human rights, and/or advocacy campaigning. Everyone I know who works in this space is either burned out, jaded, hopeless, nihilistic, or some combination of them at one point or another. 

    My fiancé tells me all the time that my perspective of the world and my own sense of how things are going is far too shaped by the things I read daily to keep up with work, my political podcast consumption, and discussions on Twitter. He’s probably right, but I can’t become irrelevant in my own sector for the sake of optimism, so I’ve had to develop other strategies to mitigate that stress. 

    Walks, for me, are essential to my own emotional, mental, and physical health. As anyone who knows me can attest, it is not unusual for me to walk 8-12 miles on any given day with good weather (and when I have time in my schedule). Fall and winter make that tough, especially this year because I was travelling most of the fall in Europe for client work at the G20, COP26, and a few other events, which left little time for much else. 

    But if I’ve had a stressful day, I’ve realized that, for me, time with my fiancé or close friends is restorative, long walks listening to audiobooks or podcasts can help me reset, cooking dinner myself is calming, and a nice cup of tea can fix almost everything. Long weekend trips with friends or my partner are restorative, and I still enjoy an old-fashioned phone call.

    4. Who has had the most influence on your leadership? What have they taught you?

    Honestly, there are way too many people to mention here, and I’m getting anxious just thinking about it. So many people influence and inspire me. But if I had to give a shortlist and give brief lessons that each gave me, I’d start here:

    My parents: They are both incredibly hard workers who always stressed the power and importance of accountability, humility, and admitting when you don’t know something – and then working to figure out the answer to it. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing something; we should normalize admitting that we don’t know things because most people are faking it at one point or another and that lack of honesty can be really harmful to teams, communities, and society at large. 

    My parents inspired my own entrepreneurial spirit from watching theirs, and one of the biggest things they told me that has stuck with me is that time is the ultimate judge of something. Time will show whether you were right, even if it isn’t clear to someone at the moment. There have been times when I felt like someone else in a work setting did something unjust, or cruel, or harmful, and I wanted to push back or make a different case or prove to them and others that they were wrong. 

    But, most of the time, my parents’ words always helped me pull myself back and realize that my job was to keep my head down, do good work, and let the results speak for themselves. Time will tell. And in virtually every case, it did. That thinking is kind of radical these days, and that’s why I think it has so much power. It can really allow you to distance yourself from toxicity in a way that isn’t just avoidance. 

    Mary Crowley: One of the best bosses I’ve ever had. She encouraged creativity and individual thinking, advocated for her teams to get what they needed, and never saw the growth or success of a team member as anything other than something to be celebrated and steered in a direction of mentorship. She trusted my expertise, asked questions, and made me feel like I was actually leading something, not just being told what to execute on. 

    She also gave credit to her team rather than keeping it to herself, which showed a level of investment that was entirely to her credit. In my experience, too many managers are afraid of letting their direct reports shine, excel, grow, or try new things – I guess because they need control, are afraid of their team’s long-term intentions, or maybe just insecure in their own leadership. It’s probably some combination of those things. 

    But Mary showed me that it was possible to be successful, driven, ambitious, and influential while also being kind, empathetic, empowering, and humble. It’s a mix I try (and fail) to emulate every day, but any successes in my own management, past, current, or future, are due in no small part to Mary. I’m so honored to have benefited from her support and encouragement and am grateful to call her both a mentor and friend to this day.  

    Paula Januzzi-Godfrey: Paula was my boss and mentor during my time in the Episcopal Service Corps, and inspired me early on, at a young age, to think of success in a role as being about more than a title or money – because, as a stipend-based fellow, I didn’t really have either of those things! She brought such positive energy, joy, and love into her work, and affirmed my desire to try new things and learn from them. Some of the days we spent working together are among my happiest memories from that time in my life. 

    Anna Hall: One of my most inspiring colleagues. Anna taught me to dream big, plan big, make big asks, and then do everything you can to turn them into successes. I met Anna early on in my time living in New York, and to me, she came to represent everything about the kind of career I wanted to have. 

    She was the first in-house consultant I’d ever worked directly with, and I was so inspired by our conversations about negotiations, strategy, client outreach, event planning, influencer outreach, and every one of the many jars Anna had her hands in. She was the first person I met who made it seem realistic for me to someday try and pivot to a big, bold career in social impact, social responsibility, sustainability, and public engagement strategies. She made it real because she made it visible and accessible. I’ve learned so much from her and am so proud that we have kept in touch as friends.  

    5. What are your goals or aspirations for this year?

    I’ve been really fortunate to have gotten to work with some amazing clients since starting my practice, and I’m really excited to continue working with many of them this year on issues of equity, impact, and justice. I’d like to do more work around sustainability and impact investing, and am excited that I’ll soon be announcing a partnership with one of the leaders in that space. 

    On the business front, I’m working with some close friends, advisors, and former colleagues to think about what it would look like to scale up KMSG and really hone in on particular needs within my client base to assess why they’ve found so much value in our work together and how I can replicate that in a way that doesn’t compromise on the fundamentals. I’ve been in conversation with a few other amazing professionals I’ve worked within the past who are interested in branching into this work, so I hope 2022 is the year that KMSG can take the things that made last year so successful and build on them to create an even stronger foundation for long-term success. 

    On a personal level, I’m building in time to recharge, rest, think, and ideate. I think too many people prioritize productivity at the expense of giving themselves time to experience true creativity. If you’re never free to let your mind rest or wander, your creative juices can deplete. In my field, that’s a major liability, because creativity is the majority of the job requirement! And yet, I think depleting creativity by working too much is sadly way too common in my field. 

    So I’m aiming to have more time to myself and with friends and loved ones that are not tied to some pseudo-restful, productivity-driven activity. Anything tied to a goal, professional development, financial wellbeing, intellectual advancement, etc. doesn’t count as leisure. That’s my new rule. There’s time for those, too, and I definitely love and plan to do them (from business podcasts on a walk to professional development certifications or taking a language course), but I’m trying to reframe how I think about rest and leisure to remove achievement metrics from that time. 

    I’m also getting married in October, which makes me incredibly happy. I can’t wait. 

  • Difficult Conversations (1999) by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen – Book Summary & Review

    Handling Tough Conversations

    Communication lies at the crux of a healthy relationship. While some people are naturally good at communicating, many others find it extremely difficult to conduct, hold, or manoeuvre difficult conversations. However, it is essential for everyone to know and learn how to handle conversations, especially the difficult ones that people try to avoid.

    Difficult Conversations (1999) by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen is a compilation of everyday examples of difficult conversations and tips to help manoeuver them. It helps in analysing what makes some conversations difficult to have and why people tend to avoid them. It also gives an insight into how one can end a difficult conversation and make sure that there are no hurtful outcomes from those difficult conversations.

    Never Avoid Difficult Conversations

    When one finds any topic difficult to discuss with others, it can be termed as a difficult conversation. While gender politics, race, sexuality, and religion are topics that find their way into conversations easily, they can quickly turn difficult to discuss. 

    Unpleasant and difficult conversations often leave people vulnerable and thus, are often avoided. Most people who avoid such conversations face a conundrum of whether they should approach the topic, or steer clear of it altogether. While mustering the courage to approach the topic could lead to improving situations, the risk of an undesirable outcome is always present.

    For example, if a neighbour has a dog that keeps incessantly barking at night, having a conversation with the neighbour about the issue could either make the neighbour sympathetic towards others’ plight, keeping his dog inside at night, or he could react in an unpleasant manner thinking that one is overreacting to the issue and hold a grudge.

    While difficult conversations are never ideal, not facing the issue to find a solution is worse. Hence, it is always better to have that difficult conversation, learn to speak up in an effective manner and find a viable solution to the problem so that relationships surrounding that conversation improve.

    Difficult Conversation (1999) by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen - Book Review & Summary
    Difficult Conversation (1999) by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen – Book Review & Summary

    Blame, Feelings, And Identity

    There are three parts of a difficult conversation, which take place simultaneously. They are – the “What Happened” conversation’, the Feelings conversation, and the Identity conversation.

    1. The “What Happened?” conversation – In this conversation, the two parties fight over who is right, assume and believe the other person is wrong, and assign blame. For example, if a person tells a friend “What you said the other day was inappropriate,” however, the other person could tell the first person the same thing!

    While trying to assert that one is right, one could end up accusing the other of ill intent. For example, if a person flushed down their partner’s cigarettes down the drain, the partner could perceive the act as malicious and one of trying to gain control, rather than perceive it as the more likely scenario of trying to help the partner quit the habit.

    People also tend to blame the opposite person for actions that they may have nothing to do with. For example, the partner could accuse the person of being the reason why they were late to work (“I was late to work because I had to stop to buy a new pack of cigarettes. If you hadn’t flushed them down the drain, I wouldn’t be late!”)

    1. The Feelings conversation – Conversations are all about the emotions a person feels, and this is what makes them difficult. Emotions such as disappointment, anger, frustration, hurt, fear etc. can cause people to feel disrespected.
    1. The Identity conversation – This conversation revolves around character. In the case of the neighbour and his dog, the person feels uneasy to have the conversation with the neighbour, even though they decide to confront the neighbour. The person considers himself as being friendly and is worried about being perceived by his neighbour as aggressive. This worry leads to self-doubt, challenges one’s self-image, and causes imbalance making the person avoid the conversation with the neighbour.

    Understanding these components of a difficult conversation helps in understanding which areas need improvement. One then needs to turn a difficult conversation into a Learning Conversation.

    The Learning Conversation

    When two people in a conversation discuss without blame, fighting, silencing their emotions, or without self-doubt, the conversation is said to be a Learning Conversation. The concept can be applied to the aforementioned three types of difficult conversations.

    1. The ‘What Happened’ Conversation – Firstly, rather than think about the irrationality of the opposite person opinions and thoughts, one should try to understand where the person is coming from. One can try to focus on the fact that the person views the situation in a completely different manner. What are the person’s perspectives? Does the person have different information that has led to this conclusion?

    Thinking in this manner helps in feeling offended and incites a genuine interest in the opinions of the other person.

    Secondly, the focus should be on the actions of the person rather than thinking that the opposite person has any ill intentions. For example, if a friend comments that your attire is shabby, rather than thinking that the friend is trying to insult, maybe, actually, the friend is concerned about your health.

    Thirdly, one should avoid blaming others at all costs. Blaming focuses on judgement. It incites resentment and is a backwards-looking tactic, which gets people nowhere. Instead, one can focus on trying to understand how people contribute to a situation. 

    The focus should lie on understanding how both the parties involved have contributed to the argument, and what can be done to resolve the differences.

    1. The Feelings Conversation – Dealing with, and sharing ones emotions with others are tough. Moreover, when these feelings threaten to embarrass, people tend to suppress such emotions. Applying the concept of the Learning Conversation to the Feelings conversation takes place in three steps.
    1. Exploring – The first step involves exploring one’s emotional footprint. This essential entails understanding emotional reactions and what one considers ok to express or suppress. Questions such as, ‘How did one learn to categorize certain feelings as inappropriate?’ ‘How did one process these feelings as a child?’ etc. these questions help in identifying what one is feeling.
    1. Negotiating – Feelings change as perceptions change. Hence negotiating one’s feelings by focussing on curiosity, impact and contribution is important. For example, rather than assuming things about the opposite person, one can focus on finding out what is one’s own contribution, and how does one impact the conversation. Once assumptions and impact are addressed, one will be able to understand the situation more clearly and also understand how one’s emotions are affected.
    1. Sharing – The third step involves sharing one’s feelings with the opposite person in a thoughtful manner. If one simply bombards the opposite person with pent-up emotions, any difficult conversation will worsen. Thus, while sharing feelings, it is important to address, both, the good feelings as well as the bad ones. For example, rather than telling one’s mother outright, ‘I am angry with you.’ One can say, ‘I understand your concern for me, but I also feel angry every time you bring up the issue of me not having a job.’
    1. The Identity Conversation – People tend to get confused about their own identity because humans by nature tend to judge themselves in terms of absolutes: useless or competent, incapable or capable, kind or mean, etc. however, it is essential to understand that identities are made up of a number of components in varying degrees.

    For example, let us consider a person who considered himself loyal. This person gets a job offer from a rival company. Though the pay is very attractive, he turns down the offer thinking that accepting the job would amount to disloyalty.

    A person should ideally try to understand which are the traits and characteristics they value most in themselves and are afraid to lose. Once a person is able to understand these, one can start building complexities to one’s identity.

    Essentially, the person should start challenging the thought that he would be disloyal. Doesn’t being underpaid in the current job and still staying put amount to loyalty?

    People should accept that there are grey areas to everything and that the world isn’t either black or white. Hence battling others challenges to ones own self-perception is always a futile task.

    Another way to manage the identity conversation is to stop believing that one can control others reactions. This helps in balancing oneself. Others reactions are their own and one can never predict them. Understanding this will help in staying focused in the conversation and others reactions won’t seem so unsettling as they did before.

    The Neutral Third Story

    Difficult conversations are always tough to initiate. However, it is never a good idea to start with one’s own perceptions, as they could threaten the opposite person’s self-image.

    For example, if a person tells his partner, “I’m upset about what you said about me in front of your friends.” This could be misinterpreted by the partner in this manner, “You betrayed me by talking about me to your friends, or if you accidentally said those things, you are thoughtless.”

    Here the partner would then become aggressive or defensive in her response, so as to protect their own self-image as a loyal partner. How should one then, address a problem without inciting defensiveness or causing hurt?

    Telling a neutral third story is the key. A third story is a third-person perspective of an issue. It addresses the differences between the two sides in a conversation.

    Consider two roommates. The first roommate complains that the second roommate never does the dishes. The second roommate can’t understand why the first roommate is so obsessed with cleaning dishes. Neither of the arguments is a good starting point for a discussion. Hence, they can turn to the third story, with a statement such as, “the definitions of cleanliness and choice of washing the dished differ.” In this statement, no one has passed a judgement on the other, and hence, neither of the parties in the conversation needs to get defensive. Both the roommates can then look for a solution that satisfies the needs, perceptions, and opinions of both.

    With a neutral third story, any difficult conversation can turn into a productive and meaningful one.

    Conclusion

    People often avoid difficult conversations due to the fear of their outcomes. In order to have, manage, and find a resolution to a difficult conversation, one has to understand the components of a difficult conversation. They need to convert the difficult conversation into a Learning Conversation. 

    The focus should lie on sharing feelings, curiosity to understand the opposite persons perspective and avoid playing the blame game. 

    Finally, turning to a neutral third story can help transform a difficult conversation into a meaningful and productive one.

  • Issue #44.5, 25 Jan 2022 – The importance of self-awareness for your leadership

    Dear reader, click here to view this leadership update on your browser.

    “We can’t be of service to the world without truly knowing ourselves” – Yarrow Kraner

    Yarrow Kraner is the Founder of HATCH and H360.ai, is an Aspen Institute Fellow, RSA Fellow, a member of Catalyst 2030, and named 2015 top 100 creatives in the U.S. by Origins. He’s directed projects with Richard Branson, The Rock, P Diddy, and more.

    In the podcast episode, Yarrow opened up about his childhood and shares how he was bullied at school where he was the only white boy. He speaks about how this experience allowed him to build empathy later on and understand his own privilege as a white man. He shared how this led him to start an organisation looking to find the superhero in every person, and how it continues to shape his leadership.

    Find the full audio interview and show notes here

    “Success to me is being the person you want to be and, to look in the mirror and just be good with it.” – Bojana Duovski

    Bojana Duovski is a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of YourNextStory, Concierge Amsterdam, and Dutch Uncle, and she is gifted to recognise and acknowledge talent and connect worlds that are too far apart.

    What stood out during my interview with Bojana was how she dedicates time for her “Walk and talk”, which is, in her own words, “a gift of her presence that she voluntarily gives others”. She has done over 400 of these in the last few years, where she would walk and talk in the woods or in a park in Amsterdam with the other person.

    Find the full audio interview and show notes here

    Related Finds

    Why we should break the safety walls around us?

    The 5 Levels of Leadership from John Maxwell

    The power of walking in another person’s shoes

    The Promise of a Pencil – review and summary of Adam Braun’s wonderful book

    Notes from one of the best books about taking care of employees – Everybody Matters

    How can you contribute?

    Choosing Leadership is a podcast for people who know deep inside that there is more. My invitation to you is to “choose” leadership and to step up as a leader.

    Subscribe to the Choosing Leadership podcast on Spotify, Google, or Amazon Music. We are also live on Apple Itunes.

    I am interviewing leaders to learn from their stories – of how they came to be where they are today. These are the stories peers and friends don’t usually know, and my attempt is to bring them out. Find out what has shaped them to be the person and leader they are today.

    Our journeys might not look alike. They might resemble more of a roller-coaster ride than a race track, and that is what makes each one of us special and unique in our own ways. I am deeply touched when someone takes the time to share their story with me.

    If you would like to recommend someone else who I should interview, feel free to recommend them. You can send me a message on LinkedIn or send me an email at sumit@deployyourself.com.

    Until the next week, keep Choosing Leadership.

    With gratitude,

    Sumit

  • Leadership Journeys [06] – Bojana Duovski – “Success to me is being the person you want to be and, to look in the mirror and just be good with it.”

    This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

    I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

    What stood out during our interview with Bojana was how she dedicates time for her “Walk and talk”, which is, in her own words, “a gift of her presence that she voluntarily gives others”. She has done over 400 of these in the last few years, where she would walk and talk in the woods or in a park in Amsterdam with the other person.

    You can find Bojana at the below links

    In the interview, we talk about

    • I have an 11-year-old daughter and I’m actually aiming to be the example I have never had to her. That’s my biggest goal in life.”
    • “I always question the status quo, because I love to explore boundaries and where possible to colour outside the lines. If a framework is there, I always go to the edges.”
    • “I invest in others, because I missed that in life, I really think paying forward is the way to go. To give people something more as a human being and as a leader. “
    • “I learned over time to see the power of asking for help. I was very much aware that people in my teams are smarter and better at certain things. I am there to guide them towards an end goal and the full potential of themselves.”
    • “I don’t need a lot of influence from outside to feel okay with myself. “
    • “Whatever you say or whatever you do, people are listening through the filter of their own needs. They always reflect with their own framework, so actually, they are not listening to you and as a leader it’s also important to take responsibility for the interpretation people make”.
    • “With the war in my home-country it was my goal to earn money and there was no room for self-reflection in that period, so it didn’t matter which route I would take to get to my goal. From the very lowest position in advertising, I grew to managing director within 10 years. And actually when I reached this position, I was thinking: ‘What am I doing here?’”

  • Team of Rivals (2005) by Doris K. Goodwin – Book Review & Summary

    The Greatest President There Ever Was

    Abraham Lincoln is touted as the ‘greatest President there ever was’. His ability to inspire, political genius, and the strength in his vision had the ability to change the course of a country’s history. 

    Team of Rivals (2005) by Doris K. Goodwin, is a closer look into his life, how he led the country into greatness by keeping the northern front united, putting an end to slavery, and winning the Civil War.

    A Uniquely Ambitious Man

    Abraham Lincoln’s early childhood years were splattered with hardships. Born on 12th February 1809, young Lincoln’s father Thomas Lincoln made him work at a tender young age. He would split and chop down trees, plough fields and dig wells. Yet he had an innate desire to learn, read, write, and educate himself. His father would even burn Lincoln’s books so that he wouldn’t get distracted from his work.

    It was, however, due to his loving his mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln that he did eventually learned to read and write. While not much is known about Nancy Hanks, she was a strong woman and died when Lincoln was only 9 years old, of dairy poisoning. Her death strained the relationship between Lincoln and his father. 

    As tragedy kept rearing its ugly face, a few years later, Lincoln’s sister Sarah Lincoln, died due to childbirth. His first love Ann Rutledge died in 1835, possibly of typhoid. Undeterred, and encouraged by his stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, Lincoln continued to follow his ambitions.

    His stepmother saw his potential for greatness and encouraged him further. In April 1837, Lincoln relocated to Springfield, Illinois to start his career in law.

    Team of Rivals (2005) by Doris K. Goodwin
    Team of Rivals (2005) by Doris K. Goodwin

    Turbulent Political Scenario

    Lincoln was soon elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1834. The decades of the 1840s and 1850s saw the emergence of slavery as a major political issue. As the physical territory of the United States expanded to the west, a clear divide between the ‘free’ northern states and ‘enslaved’ southern states emerged, whether the newly created states of California and New Mexico should allow slavery or not.

    Another political point of dispute was the Fugitive Slave Law, a controversial subject that needed escaped slaves to re-join with their masters, even though they had escaped to a ‘free state’.

    To diffuse emerging tensions, in 1850, The Compromise of 1850 was passed. It surmised that California was to be a slave-free state; the Fugitive Slave Law would be strengthened. While any comforting effect of the compromise was only temporary, debates started once again in Nebraska and Kansas.

    The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed. It allowed territories to themselves decide whether slavery would be allowed. The Act rescinded a previous statute wherein slavery would not be allowed north of Missouri.

    These events were primary to propelling Lincoln’s political career, as he became more active in fighting against slavery, leading to the creation of the Republican Party in 1854.

    The Whigs and the Democrats, the two important political parties at that time, were at odds on the issue of slavery and all those against slavery joined as Republicans.

    Salmon Chase, the Ohio statesman, became the first Governor of the Republican Party, as he was one of the most vociferous voices against slavery. As the Whigs split, Lincoln, along with William Henry Seward, New York Senator, and Edward Bates, a St. Louis Statesman, joined the Republican Party. Being the prominent leaders, these were the rival candidates who would stand for the 1860 Presidential Elections.

    An Underdog In The Party

    As compared to the stalwarts in the party, Lincoln had so far had, a very brief and modest political career. He was not the top choice as compared to William Henry Seward, who was a well-established politician. Seward’s exuberant personality matched his career choice, and his enthralling speeches made national news.  

    Secondly, Salmon Chase, the next contender was the trailblazer of the campaign against slavery. He had made himself a name in high-profile cases by defending slaves from the Fugitive Slave Law. Despite losing several of these cases, his claim that ‘the law was unconstitutional’ would, later on, serve as the foundation of the Republican Party.

    The third candidate in the running, Edward Bates, was a senior in the Party. At the age of 66, he was an 1812 war veteran and had an established law career to boot. He was also one of those who was an advocate for mending the north-south divide and had drafted the state constitution of Missouri.

    With such stalwarts vying for candidature, Lincoln’s modest career placed him quite low in the ranks for consideration for nomination. This point is more elaborately explained in Team of Rivals.

    The Big Surprise

    Lincoln’s career was slowly building momentum within the party as the big stalwarts were resting on their laurels. The legendary Lincoln-Douglas debate of 1858 gave Lincoln his first national exposure. Despite losing to Douglas, Lincoln won the popular vote. His speeches at the debate were later published and studied as part of debate classses for years to come.

    Lincoln was campaigning in the north, in the New England states, making eloquent speeches and perfectly laying out the agenda of the party through captivating campaigns. His clear stance against slavery and consistency in belief showed that he was willing to work to resolve the issues of the southern states.

    While Lincoln was making friends at every campaign, Chase and Seward were not even campaigning. They were overconfident. Seward even went for a European tour in 1859 instead of campaigning, and Chase was of the opinion that he deserved the nomination for all the work he had already done.

    As for Bates, his indecisiveness with his stance on slavery, preference to discuss issues such as economy rather than slavery, and even stating that others were using the issue of slavery to propel their political careers was the last nail in the coffin. The Republican Party members were not happy with his comments.

    All these factors were the reason for Lincoln winning the nomination at the Republican Convention of 1860 – a big surprise to all his rivals.

    A Balanced Cabinet – A Team Of Rivals

    Lincoln’s political genius was perhaps evident in his presidential victory in 1860. However, it was the selection of his heads of administration that is the true testimony of his political intelligence.

    He used a simple strategy: to choose those who were best qualified for the role, rather than thinking whether they belonged to the group of Democrats or Whigs. Hence, he first turned to his election rivals – Seward, Chase and Bates. In Lincoln’s administration, Seward made Secretary of State, Bates bagged the position of Attorney General, and Chase became the Head of Treasury. Apart from these prominent positions, he chose to have a good mix of politicians for other important positions. 

    Some of his unique mixes included former Democrat Simon Cameron as Secretary of War to represent the state of Pennsylvania, and as Postmaster General, he appointed Montgomery Blair from Kentucky (whose family had held a powerful place in the Democratic Party).

    His choices were indeed surprising, as any President would prefer to choose allies who would be supportive of his decisions. Instead, he chose people from diverse backgrounds who wouldn’t hesitate to voice their opinions and diverse perspectives clearly. This is what the author Doris Kearns Goodwin calls a “Team of Rivals”

    He believed that his choice of representatives would help in uniting the north and the south. However, the situation rapidly deteriorated following the Great Secession Winter. South Caroline had decided to secede from the Union, citing the election of a ‘Black Republican’ as the tipping point, a move that was soon followed by Florida, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, and Louisiana. 

    The Onset Of The Civil War

    Lincoln was inaugurated as a President on 4th March 1861. The newspapers were already calling him the ‘first President of the Northern Confederacy’. While it wasn’t an ideal start, Lincoln was ready for all challenges that headed his way.

    The very next day of his inauguration, Lincoln got a letter informing him that Fort Sumter in South Carolina was about to be captured by the Southern Confederates and that supplies had been cut off. Lincoln had a choice to make. Should he send reinforcements, which would agitate the situation further, or give up the fort, which would be perceived as weakness?

    Though it was a time of quick decision-making, Lincoln did not act in haste. He called his cabinet for opinions. Initially, only Seward had reservations about sending reinforcements to Fort Sumter. Unfortunately, though Lincoln tried to send reinforcements, conflicting orders went out and the plan went bad. 

    In an attempt to salvage the plan, new messages were sent out. However, the Confederates had intercepted the message and attacked the fort even before the new reinforcements reached. Lincoln lost the fort on 13th April and took full responsibility for the failure.

    The loss of Fort Sumter led to the secession of North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, and Tennessee from the Union. The United States was at the brink of a Civil War, and the first blood was spilt when a regiment was attacked in Baltimore on 19th April 1861. 

    Lincoln realised that the Union was not as good with uniform, weapons, and horses, and were unprepared for war. He then urged Cameron and Chase to get the military in shape.

    Keeping The North United

    A conflict was now inevitable. However, Lincoln saw a chance in the midst to unite the people of the north. In his address to the Congress on 4th July 1861, he made it clear that the fight was about keeping the very idea of democracy alive, and not just against slavery.

    On the 21st of July 1861, the First Battle of Bull Run took place in Virginia. The battle was fierce, and could almost be heard within the city of Washington DC. However, the Union was no match for the valour of Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson. 

    General George McClellan was put in charge to rally the Union troops. However, his continuous overestimation of the Confederate army, and his claims that there were twice the men in the army than there actually were, led to stalling, and he refused to march on the orders. The stalling resulted in their loss in the Second Battle of Bull Run in Richmond and caused 10,000 casualties. This was a clear indicator to Lincoln that he needed to make changes in his cabinet first.

    His Department of War was rampant with corruption and the head of the department, Cameron had no idea that his associates were pocketing and wasting large amounts of public funds. Lincoln chose former Democrat and US Attorney General, Edwin Stanton to replace Cameron. It was time for drastic measures.

    The Emancipation Proclamation And The Shift in The War

    Lincoln knew that the confederates were using slaves in the war. Whether the Union should recruit black soldiers in the army or not was being debated for months.

    In July 1862, Lincoln introduced the Emancipation Proclamation – an executive order that would allow him to circumvent Congress. In one move, he slammed down the Fugitive Slave Law and freed about 3 million to 4 million slaves in the United States, making them eligible to enlist in the army.

    At this point, Seward alerted Lincoln against making the proclamation as the proposal would seem as last effort and affect the already low morale in the Union Army. Lincoln heeded the General’s advice and waited till the Union was victorious.

    Lincoln got his opportunity at end of the Battle of Antietam. In September 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, marched into Union territory, forcing General McClellan to take immediate measures. A fierce battle ensued and the Confederate army retreated. However, McClellan stalled once again giving the Confederates time to regroup. The stalling was the General’s last action, and Lincoln relieved him of his duties as Stanton declared McClellan a traitor.

    The win at Antietam, was, however, just what the Union needed. At the start of 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was announced, as the Union saw more victories. 

    On the western front at Mississippi, General Ulysses S. Grant had divided the Confederates and claimed the Mississippi River. His victory at the Battle of Gettysburg marked the shift of the war in favour of the Union. Lincoln had found his general as Grant proved to be a formidable asset in war.

    Re-election, Victory, And A Disappointment

    After Lincoln’s Emancipation proclamation, 180,000 black soldiers formed a regiment. More than 50,000 casualties had taken place at Gettysburg in addition to many others. Lincoln’s re-election seemed a distant dream.

    In September 1863, at Chickamauga, the battle resulted in the Confederates losing 18,000 soldiers whereas the Union lost 16,000. Though the battle was lost, the Union held on to the city of Chattanooga. Stanton saw the advantage in time and in an emergency cabinet session, proposed to reinforce the city with 20,000 soldiers.

    With cooperation from the Department of Railroad, Stanton carried out his plan within 7 days before the Confederates could regroup. Lincoln then put General Grant in charge. One of the fastest deployments in military history, Stanton’s plan proved to be a success and the Union drove the confederates out of Tennessee.

    At the same time, the Democrats were planning a misguided coop to overthrow Lincoln, not knowing that Lincoln’s plans were actually heading towards victory. The Democrats were proposing ‘peace at any cost’ with the South with General McClellan at the helm.

    However, 3 days after the Democrats’ announcement, General William T. Sherman of the Union, won the battle in Atlanta, and the Navy captured the confederate port of Mobile Bay. These victories sealed the fate of Lincoln’s re-election and thwarted the Democrats’ plans of compromise.

    Determination And Goodwill

    Lincoln’s goodwill towards his colleagues was evident even after the war. Salmon Chase, the Secretary of Treasury, had been campaigning for his own spot during the re-elections. He had begun placing his own friends in the department, overstepping his bounds and refusing to accept his mistake.

    Though Lincoln was aware of this, he chose to not sever the ties of a productive relationship. Thus, while he accepted Chase’s resignation, he also appointed him as a US Supreme Court Chief Justice – a gesture of goodwill that never went unnoticed. Seward even proclaimed that Lincoln’s ‘magnanimity is almost superhuman.’

    Lincoln knew that as the war came to a close, he had to protect the Emancipation Proclamation even in peacetime. He knew he had to push the proclamation as an amendment in Congress. Hence, in January 1865, his Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery once and for all.

    He individually met with significant members of the Congress and secured the much-needed five Democratic votes in favour of the amendment, the final nail that broke the spirit of the Confederates.

    In the initial months of 1865, representatives of both sides were in deep discussion about ending the war. However, without any conclusions drawn, the last few battles of the war ensued. General Sherman, however, successfully captured Charleston in North Carolina and Columbia in South Carolina. In April 1865, finally, General Lee was defeated in battle at Petersburg.

    The Confederacy fled Richmond, and a week later, General Lee handed over his 28,000 troops to Grant. The war had ended, and victory was sweet, as Lincoln triumphantly walked the streets of Richmond, with former slaves cheering.

    A Loss For The Nation

    After General Lee’s surrender, Lincoln gave an enthralling speech from the White House. As Lincoln laid out his hopeful plans of uniting the southern states and the Union, John Wilkes Booth, along with Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt, were amongst the crowd, planning to kidnap Lincoln in exchange for Confederate prisoners of war. 

    However, after hearing Lincoln promise citizenship to slaves, Booth changed the plan and decided to kill Lincoln along with Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward.

    Lincoln was scheduled to watch the play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater on 14th April 1865. Familiar with the location as a professional actor, Booth entered Lincoln’s seating box in the theatre. He shot Lincoln in the back of the head and escaped as Major Rathbone tried to hold him down. He stabbed Rathbone in the chest and jumped onto the stage.

    At the same time, Powell broke into Seward’s house and severely injured many as he looked for Seward. Seward was bedridden as he was recovering from surgery due to a carriage accident. Though he stabbed Seward in the face, the metal that was used to repair his jaw saved Seward.

    George Atzerodt, deciding that kidnapping was one thing, but murder was unacceptable, reneged on his plan to murder Johnson.

    Lincoln died the next day.

    Conclusion

    The death of Abraham Lincoln was a sharp blow to the rebuilding of the United States. According to southern-born Montgomery Blair, “Those of southern sympathies know they have lost a friend willing and more powerful to protect and serve them than they can now ever hope to find again.”

    Lincolns political genius was evident in how he surrounded himself with his political rivals. Moreover, his goodwill and determined belief that those who did not agree with each other or him would make the best decisions for the country, and whose unique opinions and thinking would help in exploring solutions from all possible angles for any issue.

    Lincoln’s ‘team of rivals’ was perhaps the best cabinet that led to the making of a great country!

  • Issue #44, 18 Jan 2022 – Create (or change) your definition of Hard Work and Success

    Welcome to the Deploy Yourself Newsletter, where I share what impactful leadership looks like to show your own power. I also share the most insightful lessons and stories I encountered in the last two weeks. You can also read this issue online.

    Hey,

    Create (or change) your definition of “hard work” and “success”

    What is your definition of “hard work”? Does it just mean doing more of what you have been doing? Does it just mean slogging and working more hours and “trying” harder?

    What is your definition of “success”? Does it just mean accumulating more money, titles, and possessions? Does it just mean chasing milestone after milestone, even when you feel empty on the inside and have no idea what you are running after?

    I have found that most people have an inherited definition of “hard work” and “success” – from their parents, peers, and mentors. They have rarely taken time to define what hard work means to them, and what all does it include or exclude. Read the below statement as you make your own definition of hard work.

    • Does your definition of hard work include REFLECTION, REST, and HARD THINKING instead of just doing more?
    • Does your definition of success include being VULNERABLE and HONEST rather than projecting fake confidence?
    • Does your definition of hard work include SLOWING DOWN to see what others can’t see?
    • Does your definition of success include CREATING THE FUTURE instead of living into a future handed down to you by your manager, education, or experiences?
    • Does your definition of hard work allow you to see your own limitations (SELF-AWARENESS)?
    • Does your definition of success include taking RESPONSIBILITY without blame when you mess up?
    • Does your definition of hard work include living in UNANSWERED QUESTIONS, instead of having the right answers?

    The above is very simple when you understand it fully, but not easy. How do you want to define hard work and success? What all can it change in your life?

    Reply back to share what you think. I read and respond to every reply.

    Articles and Stories Which Have Fascinated Me

    One

    Tone of voice when it comes to writing

    This is Monzo’s tone of voice guide, which is a (fairly) brief overview of how they write. Some important points from the guide are :

    1. Every word matters. Every word is a chance for us to make a connection with someone, go beyond what they’d expect from a bank and brighten their day.
    2. Swap formal words for normal ones. Example – Use help instead of assistance, and start instead of commence.
    3. Use more verbs and fewer nouns
    4. Put yourself in your reader’s shoes when you’re writing; what are they going to be most interested in?
    5. Always be clear about who’s doing what
    6. Shorter sentences are easier for people to scan and quickly get the information they need. Plus, they’re more accessible for people who struggle with reading or have a cognitive disability, like dyslexia.
    7. Use emojis to add context, not replace words

    From the Tone of Voice guide by Monzo

    Two

    The Role of Language in Shaping Our World

    Researchers at Stanford University have proved that the way we use language shape how we see the world.

    It is often said that what you say is what you get. Saying that you are tired will actually make you feel tired and you will have all the symptoms to prove that. But we don’t realize that it was our word that caused it in the first place.

    So the next time you speak, be aware of the words that come out of your mouth. Be aware of how others’ negative words make you speak out negative words too, and vice versa. Try to catch yourself when in negative emotion and speak powerful words instead.

    Make your words work for you, not make it difficult for you to work. How? See examples below:-

    1. Declare a Commitment. 
      1. I commit to exercising 30 minutes daily.
      2. Let us commit together to make this company the best place to work for.
    2. Make a Promise
      1. I promise to finish this report in two days.
      2. I promise to never drink and drive again.
    3. Make a Specific Request
      1. Can you finish this report before Friday or not?
      2. If you like it, can you share this article on Facebook today?
    4. Offer Support
      1. Is there anything I can do to help you with this task?
      2. I am just a phone call away if you need me.
    5. Offer Hope
      1. You will make it through it. You are stronger than you think.
      2. Believe in yourself, not the critics. I know you will prove them wrong.

    From an article from my desk – Don’t Allow Yourself to Use the Word TIRED

    Three

    The power of making personal preferences and working styles explicit

    When working with a new team, everyone experiences a steep learning curve—not just in terms of the work itself, but in how the team operates.

    How do people prefer to communicate? What are their goals? What does collaboration look like? Usually, you learn the particulars and quirks of each individual over time, through trial and error.

    Being proactive about sharing personal working styles is especially important in a remote era, given that virtual communication limits our ability to read tone or body language, while the lack of informal interactions or 1:1 time slows down the development of personal relationships.

    For leaders, your User Manual can give the team insight into your leadership style, while your team’s manuals can help you better guide group dynamics and coach individuals in the manner that’s most helpful to them.

    From an article on NOBL Academy – How User Manuals Foster Team Development

    Four

    Quality of Life, Science, and Religion

    Social scientists are researching what humans can do to improve their quality of life. Their findings echo what religious practices perfected centuries ago.

    Certain religious practices, even when removed from a spiritual context, are able to influence people’s minds in the measurable ways psychologists often seek.

    For example, having people practice Buddhist meditation for a short time makes them kinder. And when we studied the act of giving thanks (gratitude), even in a secular context, we found it made people more virtuous.

    We see synchrony in almost every religion the world over: Buddhists and Hindus often chant together in prayer; Christians and Muslims regularly kneel and stand in unison during worship; Jews often sway, or shuckle, when reciting prayers together. These actions belie a deep purpose: creating connection.

    Regularly taking part in religious practices lessens anxiety and depression, increases physical health, and even reduces the risk of early death. The ways these practices leverage mechanisms of our bodies and minds can enhance the joys and reduce the pains of life.

    Like any good scientist, I’m simply following the data without prejudice. And it’s humbling. Doing this doesn’t require accepting a given theology—just an open mind and an attitude of respect.

    From an article on WIRED – Psychologists Are Learning What Religion Has Known for Years

    That’s it for now. If you have any questions or feedback, or just want to introduce yourself, hit reply. I read and respond to every reply. All the best,

    Sumit

    (Twitter) @SumitGupta
    (LinkedIn) Connect

  • Leadership Journeys [05] – Yarrow Kraner – “We can’t be of service to the world without truly knowing ourselves”

    This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

    I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

    Yarrow opened up about his childhood and shares how he was bullied at school where he was the only white boy. He speaks about how this experience allowed him to build empathy later on and understand his own privilege as a white man. He shared how this led him to start an organisation looking to find the superhero in every person, and how it continues to shape his leadership.

    You can find Yarrow at the below links

    In the interview, we talk about

    • “I grew up in Montana in the U S which is a very small population in the middle of nowhere. Big skies, vast horizons. I think it sort of inspired me to dream”
    • “I got beat up every, every other day, anytime that they could catch me before I could get home. And so I started growing this chip on my shoulder. “
    • “And to take the moment or to really sort of sit and ask the question of why this person is feeling like that in that moment, you know, I just recognize like, It’s not really me, that they’re angry at the sort of, you know, I’m a stand-in for a lot of injustices that have occurred and, you know, moving, moving kind of through life.”
    • “We’re bringing a hundred or so right people together that can lead to collaborations that could impact the lives of a hundred million. But those are sort of seeds. The seeds that are planted.”
    • “How do we say the world? It’s like, we have to start with ourselves inside.  We can be as great of service to the rest of the world without truly knowing ourselves and working on ourselves and in our work.”
    • “I have to sit with things for a while. The lessons that I’ve learned in the last couple of years is to be patient and I’m not a very patient person.”

  • Thinking in Systems by Donella H Meadows – Book Summary & Review

    The Systems Around Us

    Everything around us works in a system, right from the different systems that make our body function, as it should, to the different climatic systems that define the very existence of life on earth. In fact, systems can be found in companies, in sports teams, and within a family too. They are everywhere, however, some systems are simply not as obvious as others are.

    Thinking in Systems (2008) by Donella H Meadows, gives an insight to system thinking, to see how the entire world is interconnected in networks, yet have detailed different elements. It explains what systems are, how these systems work, and how can one sustain within them, in order to achieve success in life.

    What Are Systems?

    A system is a group of elements, connected by relationships and that share a purpose. While these elements can be physical and visible, they can also be intangible. For example, while we can touch and see trees, their roots and leaves and the system within which they function, the functioning and the system that underlies the workings of a university are amorphous.

    What binds these elements together is the relationship – whether physical or not. For example, in trees the elements of the system are connected by – or related by – the numerous chemical reactions and metabolic processes, whereas, in the university, the system is connected by the admission processes, teaching processes and examinations.

    What is the purpose of a system?

    The purpose of any system is defined by its observed behaviour, and not by its stated goals. For example, while a government may have a goal of protecting the environment, it may not do much about it. Hence, its goal does not reflect what it actually does, and thus protecting the environment is not its purpose.

    A system is determined by its purpose and its relationships, even if its elements change. For example, a sports team can get a new roster, have changes in its team, etc., however, its relationship to the purpose of winning remains the same.

    The behaviour of any system can be divided into stocks and flows. These can change over time.

    • Stocks – These are elements that can be accounted for, at any given time. For example, books in the library, the water in a bathtub, money put in banks, etc.
    • Flow – Flow is the change that takes place over time in the stock. These take place due to inflows that add to a flow, and outflows, then subtract from it. For example, birth and death are elements of the life system that add and subtract respectively.
    Thinking in Systems by Donella H Meadows
    Thinking in Systems by Donella H Meadows

    The Importance Of feedback In A System

    We know that stocks and flows are constantly changing in a system. This constant change in stock affects the inflow and outflow in any system and is known as feedback.

    There are different forms of feedback.

    • Balancing Feedback – This type of feedback occurs when any force stabilizes the difference between the desired and the actual levels of stock. Balancing Feedback is a chain of physical laws, or rules, that have the ability to change it and relate to the level of stock.

    A thermostat is used to balance the temperature in a room. In this example, the temperature is the stock; the heat that comes from the radiator is the inflow, whereas the heat that escapes from a window is the outflow. Thus when there is a drop in temperature, the thermostat, based on the difference in temperature between the actual temperature in the room and the desired one, turns on the heater.

    • Reinforcing Feedback – Reinforcing Feedback constantly generates more or reduces what already exists. For example, when one put money in a bank, one accrues more interest, thus generating more money in the bank. Reinforcing feedback can exponentially and constantly produce growth or even destruction.

    This feedback is extremely important to a system, as system structures consist of a stock that has one reinforcing and one balancing feedback.

    Consider the human population. The positive birth rate functions as reinforcing feedback, which is growing exponentially. With more people in the world, more babies are born. These babies grow up and have babies of their own, and the cycle of birth continues. However, the human population has balancing feedback in the form of death. Thus, as a population grows exponentially, the balancing feedback kicks in when people die due to diseases and insufficient resources.

    Well-Functioning Systems

    How and why do systems function well?

    Resilience is a very important factor that helps determine if functions well or not. For example, the world’s ecosystems or well-oiled machines work seamlessly. It is their resilience that helps their ability to seamlessly adapt to changing conditions.

    Resilience is the elasticity of a system, or its ability to recover from transition. It is the product of its structure and its feedbacks, working in different directions, ways, and varying time scales. The human body, for example, can adapt to different temperatures, adapt to changes in the supply of food, repair muscles, and reallocate blood supply.

    Resilience, however, is often underestimated, and often sacrificed for goals of comfort or productivity, to a point where the system itself collapses. The overuse of the earth’s natural resources is an important example, where it is leading to severe damage to the ecosystems of the planet. Environmental catastrophes are inevitable.

    Systems, however, have another defence apart from the resilience of self-organization. Many systems can self-organize. Essentially, they learn, evolve, diversify, and can build their own structure.

    This brings us to the next factor of well-functioning systems – hierarchy. As systems self-organize and build new complex structures, they naturally organize into a hierarchy. For example, everything on the planet is divided into sub-systems, which are a part of a larger sub-system, and so on.

    A cell in the stomach, for example, is part of the sub-system of the organ itself, which is further a sub-system of the digestive system, which is a sub-system of the individual. The individual is a sub-system of a family, which is a sub-system of a nation, etc.

    Hierarchies, in a system, help in reducing the amount of information that any given part of a system needs to manage. For example, since the cells in the stomach have the function of digesting food, the cells in the lungs – part of the respiratory system – do not need to carry out that function.

    Investigating Systems Productively

    Sometimes, people tend to focus more on the output of a system that they know well and that seems transparent. However, one can misconstrue the system if one doesn’t focus on the real behaviour or the way the system functions over a period of time. Because the output is the most visible aspect, people tend to simplify it into a series of events.

    For example, while watching a game of football, where both teams are evenly matched, but one of the teams is playing really well, the result of that team winning is less surprising for a person than if the person only saw the final outcome.

    Similarly, people tend to anticipate the linear relationship, even though the world functions more non-linearly. So, if a farmer adds 10 pounds of fertilizer to his farm and gets 2 bushels of wheat, he will assume that adding 20 pounds will reap 4 bushels. Here, the farmer might not consider that adding more fertilizer could also render the farm infertile and reap lesser, or the same amount of wheat.

    Additionally, people tend to dismiss the fact that systems are almost always interconnected, and mentally isolate systems to make the processing of information simpler. At the same time, it is also easy to forget that boundaries are but artificial, and one can tend to get accustomed to them. Hence the tendency to think is too broad or too narrow terms is also possible.

    For instance, while understanding the effects of global warming, charting a detailed model of earth climate can complicate the process, whereas focussing only on C02 emissions from automobiles will also be fruitless.

    Corrupt Systems

    Some systems can show problematic and unnatural behaviours. This happens due to policy resistance, where each individual sub-system has a different goal.

    For example, if an actor in any sub-system or system, gets an upper hand and uses that advantage to change the direction of the system, all the other actors in that system will have to work twice as hard to get the anomaly back in line. In such a case, the system gets stuck, with a recurring problem.

    Drug peddlers and users, both want the supply of drugs to be high, however, law-enforcement works towards the opposite. Hence, when law enforcers are successful in preventing drugs from entering the country, the prices of the drugs available on the street rise, leading to a rise in crime as addicts look to find different ways to acquire drugs, whereas, peddlers and suppliers work towards evading authorities.

    Sometimes, systems can encounter other problems too. For example, when the system uses an unsustainable but commonly owned resource, it inevitably collapses. So if a piece of land that is used for grazing cows sees a constant increase in the number of cows grazing on it, the amount of grass that grows on it eventually decreases and the land cannot be used for grazing anymore.

    Essentially, here, the feedback between resource users and resources is either highly delayed or virtually non-existent. Thus it becomes extremely important the resource users know and understand the effect of overuse, and how regulation can replenish the resource continually.

    Physically Adjusting Systems

    The question arises – How to enable systems to produce more of the good and less of the bad effects?

    The answer lies in changing buffers, system designs, and delays. These can make systems more efficient.

    • Changing Buffers – Buffers such as time, storage and inventory space should be of an optimal size to function properly. Therefore, increasing the capacity of a buffer helps in stabilizing a system. However, if it is increased too much, it will create an inflexible system. For example, it is far more expensive for businesses to store excess goods than to buy the minimum and allow an occasional product shortage.
    •  Changing System Design – A properly designed system works efficiently, has a better understanding of limitations and bottlenecks, and is less prone to fluctuations. For example, earlier, the only road between East and West Hungary passed through the capital city causing severe congestion. The road system itself needed a new design.
    • Changing Delays – Delays are the time it takes any system to notice and adapt to change. Though all systems have delays, sometimes, when these delays are long-term, the system finds it difficult to respond to short-term changes.

    For example, everyone all over the world seeks rapid economic growth, but the physical reality of some elements such as technology, factories, prices, etc., does not change at the same rate, causing delays. Hence to bring inefficiency in the system, it is better to give these physical realities time to catch up and slow down the growth rates.

    Internal Mechanisms And Rules Of Systems

    Apart from changing the physical realities of a system, there are other ways that can make it more efficient and fix problems. This can be done by focussing on the flow of information, its self-organization and the rules of the system.

    In some Dutch suburbs, the electric meters were installed in hallways rather than basements. This change resulted in a reduction of energy consumption by one-third, due to the fact that information about how much energy was being consumed was available to residents. This enabled them to adjust their usage. Here, the system simply introduced a sufficient flow of information that resulted in a significant change.

    However, if setting the rules of the system and its control fall in the hands of those who benefit from it, the system will inevitably collapse. For example, if the trading system of the world was in the hands of corporations, run and ruled by them, and the benefits were for those selected few corporations only, it would collapse.

    Systems have a fascinating characteristic of self-organization, wherein the system evolves and learns on its own. However, self-organization means that humans lose control over it. Thus systems often have man-made limitations. Such limitations can result in a different set of problems, and hence, it is better to let systems self-organize.

    When the goal of a system changes, the entire system learns to adapt to the changed goal. Hence, when systems hold incorrect goals and paradigms, they can run into problems. Paradigms, however, are the deepest beliefs that form the base of a system. Hence an incorrect paradigm needs to be changed.

    For example, the paradigms of environmental protection have changed. Hence, there have been changes in a number of connected systems such as industries, countries, cities, and people, in how they manage waste.

    Understanding The Inner Working Of Systems

    How does one understand and increase the efficiency of systems in a world of systems?

    Firstly, learning the history and collecting information about a system helps to understand its behaviour, as the more information one has the better judgements can be made. 

    Once the information about the system is collected, one can note down how the system works, its functions and arrangements. This ensures that the models drawn are consistent and complete.

    The second step is to distribute the data collected so that the system can function properly. During this process, it is essential to focus on the important measurable and immeasurable factors. Often, people tend to pay more attention to measurable factors, as they can be quantified, easily visible, and tangible, than the immeasurable factors such as quality. For example, justice, freedom, security, etc. cannot be quantified.

    Additionally, one must keep an eye open for what behaviours are produced by which external or internal factors, and if they can be controlled.

    Following these steps helps in understanding wherein a system, the responsibility lies, and what consequences are results of which action.

    Conclusion

    The world is full of systems. These systems are interconnected and interdependent.  In order to make some semblance of these systems that govern the world, it is essential to learn to recognise and study the patterns and behaviours they exhibit.

  • Issue #43.5, 11 Jan 2022 – The power of colouring outside the lines, and the neuroscience behind emotions

    Dear reader, click here to view this e-mail on your browser.

    Stuart Williams on the Choosing Leadership Podcast

    This week I interviewed Stuart Williams, the creator of Impact Economics on the “Choosing Leadership with Sumit Gupta” podcast which I launched just at the end of 2021. This is what he has to say about colouring outside the lines:

    “Ever since I was a young child, my mother taught me to color outside the lines, do not cover inside the lines, because then you’re part of the establishment color, outside the lines, be brave, they’ll create something, you know, literally, you know, create the future. You’d like to see. And, and so. I I’ve never had to think outside the box because I was never put in a box in the first place.”

    Stuart Williams

    This is a podcast for people who know deep inside that there is more. My invitation to you is to “choose” leadership and to step up as a leader in an area of life that matters to you – be it work, passion, health, impact in society, or something else. To listen to previous episodes, click here.

    Subscribe to the Choosing Leadership podcast on Spotify, Google, or Amazon Music. (coming soon on Apple podcasts as well)

    I am interviewing leaders to learn from their stories – of how they came to be where they are today. These are the stories peers and friends don’t usually know, and my attempt is to bring them out. Find out what has shaped them to be the person and leader they are today.

    The Neuroscience behind emotions

    Emotional intelligence has been a hot topic for many years now.

    Why?

    Because nobody taught us in school or college. Yet, learning how to navigate emotions is essential for both producing results and our wellbeing.

    Various studies show that strong leaders have very strong Emotional Intelligence, in addition to their critical thinking skills.

    If you’re interested in finding out the neuroscience behind emotions, check out this guide:

    Learn the Neuroscience behind Emotions, and 5 Steps to Deal with Them Effectively

    How can you contribute?

    Our journeys might not look alike. They might resemble more of a roller-coaster ride than a race track, and that is what makes each one of us special and unique in our own ways. I am deeply touched when someone takes the time to share their story with me.

    If you would like to recommend someone else who I should interview, feel free to recommend them. You can send me a message on LinkedIn or send me an email at sumit@deployyourself.com.

    I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2022. Until the next week, keep Choosing Leadership.

    With gratitude,

    Sumit

  • Leadership Journeys [04] – Stuart Williams – “My mother taught me to color outside the lines”

    This is the Leadership Journey series on the Choosing Leadership Podcast.

    I believe we all have a lot to learn from each other’s stories – of where we started, where we are now, and our successes and struggles on the way. With this series of interviews, my attempt is to give leaders an opportunity to share their stories and for all of us to learn from their generous sharing.

    What I found fascinating in Stuart’s story is how he reflects on his childhood and credits his mother for everything he has done and achieved. He shares a simple story of his mother teaching him to color outside the lines, and how that lesson to be brave and think outside of the box, stayed with him in all his endeavours.

    You can find Stuart at the below links

    In the interview, we talk about

    • “You absolutely have to have a passion in your heart for what you’re doing”
    • “Ever since I was a young child, my mother taught me to color outside the lines, do not cover inside the lines, because then you’re part of the establishment color, outside the lines, be brave, they’ll create something, you know, literally, you know, create the future. You’d like to see. And, and so. I I’ve never had to think outside the box because I was never put in a box in the first place.”
    • “Have the courage of your convictions, but you better be prepared to actually do the work right now.”

  • Issue #43, 4 Jan 2022 – Are you waiting for motivation or confidence?

    Welcome to the Deploy Yourself Newsletter, where I share what impactful leadership looks like to show your own power. I also share the most insightful lessons and stories I encountered in the last two weeks. You can also read this issue online.

    Hey,

    Do not wait for motivation and confidence.

    Action produces momentum. Not the other way round. Once you start moving and take action, it produces momentum. As simple as that.

    The same is true for motivation and confidence. They are a result of taking action, not a pre-requisite. Yet, so many of us wait for motivation and confidence before starting.

    Take my personal example. I stopped myself from coaching full-time because I used to say I am not confident. Guess what, after more than 200 hours of coaching in 2021, my confidence levels have gone up massively. Why was I thinking I would be confident before?

    Motivation and confidence often come from starting, not before. Are you waiting for motivation, confidence, or any other form of readiness to go after your dream project?

    Let me be honest with you. “Ready” will never come. You do not need readiness or confidence to start. They are an outcome of taking action and moving forward, not a pre-requisite.

    As Matthew McConaughey writes in his autobiography Greenlights, which is one of my favourite biographies, “If you have jumped into the arena, you are already a winner.”

    What has the above sparked for you? If you are thinking it can’t be that easy, remember I never said it would be.

    The above is very simple when you understand it fully, but not easy. How is this landing for you?

    Reply back to share what you think. I read and respond to every reply.

    Articles and Stories Which Have Fascinated Me

    One

    The power of “Enough” – one word we don’t use much often

    I don’t think growth is universally bad. In fact, I think it can be downright healthy. But it shouldn’t be left unchecked, and also shouldn’t be the default operating system setting.

    We’ve delineated money as a Means vs money as a Meaning. Money has this sneaky way of transforming itself from a currency to a status symbol. If we let money or wealth define who we are, we’ll never come close to Enough, because someone is always going to have just a little bit more. To paraphrase Francis Bacon (or PT Barnum, depending on your source): Money is a terrific tool, yet a terrible tyrant.

    From an article by Calibrating Capital titled Enough

    Two

    You’re Already More Persuasive than You Think

    Vanessa Bohns writes in this HBR article about the opportunities we miss because we doubt our own power of persuasion. She says “we persistently underestimate our influence. “

    Because most companies emphasize the rigidity and formality of their hierarchies, employees tend to assume that their influence is dependent upon their roles or titles — that if they lack official clout, they can’t ask for anything.

    A major part of the problem is that employees tend to forget that managers are people too and that the dynamics affecting all relationships exist even in a boss-subordinate relationship. Bosses care about whether employees respect them, and they feel guilty and embarrassed if they let their direct reports down. It’s often harder for people, even bosses, to say “no” than “yes.”

    When we ask for something, we tend to focus too intently on our own feelings — of embarrassment, weakness, or shame — and don’t give enough rational thought to how others perceive us. We assume that persuading people will provoke enmity.

    What this all adds up to is untapped potential: to influence others, to effect change, to blow the whistle on wrongdoing. We don’t venture to transcend our formal roles. We fail to benefit from others’ cooperation. Some practical suggestions on how to make requests – Just ask, be direct, go back and ask again, and you do not need to offer an incentive.

    From an article on Harvard Business Review – You’re Already More Persuasive than You Think

    Three

    Why True Joy and Real Happiness Doesn’t Come from Winning But From A Dignified Struggle?

    We grow up believing that winning is what we should aim for, and that is what will give us true joy and happiness.

    Even for those who “win” the big games of life, happiness often remains elusive. I have seen people win big in sports, careers, or friends and yet end up feeling empty, meaningless, and drained.

    Have you ever felt something similar? Like you feel nothing after you get what you have been working towards all this while.

    Over the years, I have realized that it is never just winning that makes us happy. It is always overcoming obstacles while going through a period of struggle or discomfort which leaves us feeling joyful and satisfied. Research has also shown that we are at our most blissful state when we are up against a difficult challenge.

    When we push our boundaries and focus completely on learning from setbacks encountered, we get into a state of “flow“. In other words, we enjoy the most when we lose track of time while working on a hard challenge.

    The best outcome of success when you go through a dignified struggle is never what you get out of it. The best outcome of going through such a challenge is what you become out of it. The medal, the bonus, and the adrenaline rush at the podium often go away in a fleeting moment. But your enhanced skills, abilities, and confidence will stay with you for the rest of your lives. 

    Your big game is out there waiting for you. You just need to embrace the challenge.

    From an article from my desk – Why True Joy and Real Happiness Doesn’t Come from Winning But From A Dignified Struggle?

    Four

    Lessons from 10 years of remote working

    Increase communication volume

    To increase communication, especially if the message is vital, use the three-way handshake. Tell your message to someone using whatever medium you’re using. Then, have that person tell you your message back (in their own words, of course, no copy and paste). You then repeat that message back to them. Assuming everyone has it right, you’ve just completed a three-way handshake.

    Fix technical problems

    Don’t wait until the start of the meeting that you’re hosting to find out your software/hardware/network / whatever is failing you. Don’t email documents around, use the cloud, OneDrive and shared documents. Edit stuff together.

    Develop good habits

    First, establish a work area. Work relatively set times. Be flexible, just don’t be unpredictable. Take breaks and make them real breaks. Move away from your workspace. Eat right and exercise. 

    Be kind

    Be flexible, understanding, and kind to one another. It takes real effort, but it’s worth it.

    From an article on the Redgate Blog by Grant Fritchey

    That’s it for now. If you have any questions or feedback, or just want to introduce yourself, hit reply. I read and respond to every reply. All the best,

    Sumit

    (Twitter) @SumitGupta
    (LinkedIn) Connect

  • The Wright Brothers by David McCullough – Book Review & Summary

    Flying Towards Success

    Every successful story has a history of struggles, untold tragedies and much-needed failures. However, every successful story also has a history of inspiration, virtues of persistence, hard work and perseverance, invaluable lessons for everyone. 

    One such story of inspiration is that of the Wright brothers from Dayton, Ohio, who pioneered in the fields of both, invention and aviation, becoming inspiring idols for a long line of generations of inventors.  Their fascination and obsession with birds brought about the most iconic invention of all time – the aeroplane.

    The Wright Brothers (2015), by David McCullough, gives a deep insight into their lives, and how hard work and passion can make anything possible.

    A Winning Team

    The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, born four years apart, were virtually inseparable throughout their lives. They ate together, had joint bank accounts, and even had similar handwriting. Yet, they both had unique personalities. Being the elder of the two, Wilbur was more scholarly and was clearly the leader of the two. Orville was more gentle, sensitive to criticisms and more cheerful than his brother. While Wilbur had nerves of steel, Orville was more adept at business.

    Having a modest upbringing, their house was always stocked with books. Their father, Bishop Wright always encouraged the children to be open-minded and hardworking. The Wright brothers lived with their mother Susan, and a younger sister Katherine. They also had older siblings, Reuchlin and Lorin, who lived elsewhere.

    While their father encouraged education, he never stopped them from taking a day off from school to enjoy the books at home.

    The early exposure to books helped Orville develop a keen business sense. By the time he was in high school, Orville had already started his own print shop. The same habit instilled a fascination for flight and birds in Wilbur. Wilbur was also a keen follower of the work of Otto Lilienthal, a German glider enthusiast, and Pierre Mouillard, a French poet and farmer who also shared a profound love of flight.

    A few years later, Wilbur and Orville opened a bicycle shop. This shop funded their research and work on airplanes.

    The Wright Brothers (2015) by David McCullough

    The Early Tests

    By the twentieth century, many had dreams of flying and had failed. The press would jump at every failure and those dreamers would face mockery from the rest of the world. One such inventor, Charles Dyer had tried to build an airplane in the shape of a duck in 1870. 

    Wilbur and Orville, however, weren’t deterred by the risk of failure and ridicule. They pressed on with developing important insights, especially surrounding equilibrium.

    They realised that flight sustenance could be achieved when all the forces of the airplane were balanced, had the ability to change with the wind, and to do so, the pilot would need to have that ability by controlling the airplane quickly and precisely.

    The solution came to Wilbur. He realised that the wings of their glider needed to ‘warp’, or bend to enable the plane to turn and achieve different angles. Essentially, the plane could be controlled if the pilot could control the ‘warping’. Thus, they began their work on their first glider in 1899, in the fields of Kitty Hawk, in Dare County, North Carolina. It was in this isolated area where they first staged their successful trials with their glider. Kitty Hawk had the ideal conditions of steady winds that helped lift the glider, and sand dunes that could cushion any crash landings.

    Their first assembled glider weighed only 50 pounds, with two fixed biplane wings on top of each other. It had a movable rudder in the front and could be manoeuvred with warping controls. The pilot would need to lie stomach-down on the middle of the lower wing, facing forward. 

    The brother had a safety pact in place. They decided to never pilot the glider together so that if one of them died, the other brother would be alive to continue their work.

    These first test flights took place in September 1900 and were remarkably successful. They were able to achieve glide heights of 300 to 400 feet at 30 miles per hour.

    Moving On To The Motor

    The success of their test flights fuelled a hunger to improve the designs of their plane. The brother built a lab, just above their bike shop. This lab housed a custom-made wind tunnel. It was a 6-foot long wooden box, with a fan on one end and an opening on the other, allowing them to test different curvatures and shapes of wings.

    By August 1902, the brothers had a new and improved model. With more than 2000 tests of this glider at Kitty Hawk, and one test spanning a height of 600 feet, the results were brilliant. Their next move, after perfecting gliding, was to introduce a motor.

    However, they were unable to find anyone who would build them a motor light enough for their plane. Finally, their friend, Charlie Taylor, a mechanic, built them a custom-made, 12-horsepower, 125-pound motor. The Wright brothers made the propellers for this plane on their own from scratch.

    The new plane, the ‘Flyer’, had 2 8.5-foot propellers spinning in opposite directions to avoid the plane from getting pulled to one side. They got back to Kitty Hawk for tests, where Wilbur won the coin toss to ride the Flyer first. However, he crash-landed when he pulled too hard on the rudder.

     After a few days of repairs, it was Orville’s turn, and on 17th December 1903, at 10:35 AM, the Flyer took off, flew of exactly 12 seconds over a distance of 120 feet successfully charting a new course for motorized flying!

    Nevertheless, their work was far from over. They started straight off on more improvements on the Flyer.

    Scepticism

    Next, Wilbur and Orville began to look for a new location to test their flights, in order to save on time and the cost of transportation to Kitty Hawk. They found a cow pasture in their home state, Ohio, called Huffman Prairie.

    However, the winds in this new location weren’t as ideal as Kitty Hawk, so they built a catapult to assist the plane with take-offs. They would drop weights from a height of 20 feet, which triggered a sling to push the plane on the attack. They were soon able to manage a half turn to land back where they started, despite many failed attempts.

    Despite their success at perfecting motorized flying, the local press didn’t seem to be interested. In fact, the publisher of Dayton News, James Cox, later confessed that they thought the reports of the Wright brother’s successes were bogus, and hence never bothered to check.

    One of the reasons for this scepticism was that Professor Langley of the Smithsonian Institute had recently failed at a motorized flight in December 1903. Funded by the government, Langley’s $50,000 aircraft was receiving much ridicule for its failure from the press. In fact, the first accurate account of the achievements the Wright brothers’ had, came from a beekeeper and flight enthusiast, Amos I. Root, in his periodical Gleanings in Bee Culture in 1905. 

    The lack of press coverage and shown scepticism didn’t deter the brothers. They soon started to think commercially. After patenting their motorized plane in 1903, they approached the military with their ideas. The military too, sceptical due to Langley’s failure, didn’t respond to the brothers despite two different proposals.

    Wilbur and Orville then turned to French and British representatives and signed a contract in France in December 1905 with a team of businessmen. This contract included public demonstrations – eventually taking them halfway around the world – and $200,000 per Flyer!

    From New York To Europe

    By 1907, the brothers had received a patent for the Wright Flying Machine, and their business in the European nations picked up. While their deal with the French was still underway, the Germans offered them $500,000 for 50 Flyers. 

    The brother hired a New York firm, Flint and Company, who had experience in selling military goods in the European market, as their sales representatives. They included a 20% commission only on the European sales, leaving the US markets to the brothers.

    A few months later, Hart O. Berg, the European representative of the firm advised that one of the brothers should address the buyers in Europe in person. Being the natural leader of the two, Wilbur boarded the RMS Campania in May 1907 to Europe.

    Accustomed to opulence, Berg ensured that Wilbur travelled first class, got him a tailored suit from the Strand, and put him up at the New Hotel Meurice in Paris, replete with a rooftop garden and a panoramic view of the city.

    Unfazed by the luxury, Wilbur was more interested in European architecture. He wrote a letter home describing his opinions on the city’s museums and buildings, and how he preferred the obscure John the Baptist to Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

    Their business in Europe began stalling, and soon, by late July 1907, Orville and their mechanic friend Charlie Taylor joined them, along with their latest model The Flyer III, for demonstrations. However, the demonstrations got delayed, and with the Flyer II stuck at customs in France’s Le Havre, they returned home in November 1907.

    Tasting Early Success

    With public demonstration still schedules for the summer of 1908 in France, they got the good news that the US War Department was interested in their planes. The department accepted their offer for $25,000 with a condition that the plane had to pass various tests.

    Before Wilbur left for France again, the brothers demonstrated a new model at Kitty Hawk, which not only allowed the pilot to sit in the plane rather than lie down but also included space for a passenger.

    However, when Wilbur got back to France, he found that their Flyer sitting at the customs was severely damaged by the agents at Le Havre. Wilbur, remarkably, rebuilt a new Flyer from scratch on his own. When the plane was ready two months later in August, he took to the skies at the Le Mans racetrack in front of an influential crowd. 

    Soaring for 2 miles at 30 to 35 feet off the ground, he made two successful half turns and landed gently. The massive success of this demonstration immediately caused a shift in public opinion, making Wilbur’s flight international news. The London, Paris, and Chicago papers were heralding its success, putting a firm stopper in any scepticism that would tarnish the success of the demonstration.

    As Wilbur continued with his popular demonstrations to crowds that rose to thousands, Orville was about to put up an equal fascination show at For Myer, Virginia.

     On 3rd September 1908, Orville demonstrated in front of a small military crowd. Starting tentatively, he became more confident and daring in his demonstrations, garnering the title of the new star of aviation. In just a few weeks, Orville had set seven new world records in altitude, speed, and duration.

    But challenges were far from over.

    A Brush With Death

    Egged on by the world records and daring demonstrations, disaster struck. On 17th September 1908 at For Myer, Orville took flight with a passenger, Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, a distinguished young officer.

    Though Orville had experience in flying with passengers twice before, this time around, one of the propeller blades cracked mid-flight, tangled with one of the wires controlling the rear rudders, and caused the plane to thrash around wildly before it dived 125 feet down. While Orville was seriously injured, the young officer died of a skull fracture.

    With a hip and a leg fractured, and four broken ribs, he recovered slowly as his sister Katherine nursed him back to health. His injuries left him with the use of a cane for a while.

    Yet, this accident did not deter the brothers from continuing to make history.

    As Orville recovered, Wilbur resumed flight demonstrations after a break. The success returned too, with a crowd of 200,000 watching his demonstrations at Le Mans. He soon started training 3 French aviators, a condition that was part of his agreement with the French businessmen. By January 1909, he had earned $35,000. 

    The brothers were winning many awards in France. Including the Legion of Honor, Wilbur himself won the Michelin Cup of Aviation for setting a record for distance for covering 77.5 miles. Soon Orville and Katherine joined Wilbur in France for an opportunity to meet King Edward VII of England and King Alfonso XIII of Spain. The accolades kept pouring in and the Wright brothers were a resounding success in Europe.

    Home Again

    Wilbur and Orville returned to the US with many awards in hand and about $200,000 richer. As they arrived in New York, they were met with a swarm of reporters and fans that followed them all the way to Dayton. The real celebrations and festivities were just about to begin!

    About 10000 people, waiting for them on their front porch, a two-day-long celebration, and a parade that covered the history of America and Dayton in their honour, received them. The parade included 15 floats, 560 historically dressed actors, and 2500 school children dressed in red, blue, and white, singing the national anthem, to commemorate the achievements of the Wright brothers.

    Topping the celebrations was a trip to the White House, with President Taft presenting them with gold medals. 

    All the celebrations and honours in the world could not, however, stop the brothers from continuing their work. Just 48 hours after the parade ended, Wilbur and Orville were back at Fort Myer to finalize the US Army deal, and so that Orville could complete the endurance and speed tests that were unfinished.

    Additionally, a pending legal case against Glen Curtiss, a celebrity pilot who was illegally using their wind-warping technology needed to be addressed. This case – an all-out patent war – went on for about a decade.

    The aviation industry was touching heights all over the world. The Wright brothers too were flying higher. Wilbur flew alongside the Hudson River encircling the Statue of Liberty. Soon, one of Wilbur’s trainees, a Russian aristocrat named Charles Lambert flew over Paris and the Eiffel Tower touching about 1300 to 1400 feet.

    On 25th May 1910, the brother completed a personal milestone at Huffman Prairie. Bishop Wright, their father, at 82, was present to see his sons flying together for the first time! The next round was a memorable one for them too when Orville took the Bishop as a passenger.

    His pride and exhilaration were summed up when he leaned over to Orville as they soared over Ohio, and said, “Higher, Orville, higher!”

    Conclusion

    The story of the Wright brothers is one of the remarkable success, perseverance, and undeterred determination. In the face of hard scepticism and challenging hurdles, they managed to, through sheer talent, change the face of the aviation industry.

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