What this means is that to improve, we need to reach a point where we experience comfortable discomfort. Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky calls this the “zone of proximal development.” In this zone, the person or system is stretching beyond their current capabilities to take on a manageable challenge. To make the challenge more manageable, the person or system may seek support from a knowledgeable source who can guide the learning process. The added confidence the guide provides allows the person or system to progress with less fear of failure, increasing commitment to keep moving forward in the face of setbacks or obstacles. Simple. Or not?

If it was simple, we would live in the zone of proximal development continuously. In every aspect of our life, we would find ourselves optimally challenged and supported to improve. Our organizations would be examining each and every process to ask how it could be made better and engaging in a series of carefully choreographed steps to keep moving forward.

In truth, we lack the motivation, support, or clearly defined path to follow to live in comfortable discomfort. We have a lot going on in our lives or business, so we settle for most things being on autopilot while we confront the most pressing opportunities or threats. If we’re superbly organized and dedicated, we even conduct a SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis to make certain our efforts to improve are aimed at the right target. Once we’ve done that, we’re on the road to victory, right? Again, not so fast.

First, we need to take stock of our current capabilities, which turns out to be hard for us to do. At the individual level, we can think back to our surprise at the test scores we received, whether they were higher or lower than we expected. Because we don’t yet know what we need to know to be successful at a task we are learning to perform. Experts in the area can assess our capability in comparison to what will be required, but we can only guess. At work, when we agree to engage in new projects or take on developmental assignments, we’re betting we can find our way into the zone of proximal development where we can figure out what to do before we fail. If we guess wrongly, we may find that we have exceeded the optimal level of stress and instead of learning, start focusing on how to escape or recover from the situation. We should ask for help, but we may feel that doing so would prove we aren’t cut out for the work, causing embarrassment and possibly limiting future opportunities. Failures, when they occur, may also cause us to recalibrate our willingness to pursue future opportunities to learn. For some, it’s better safe than sorry. For others, failure makes them come alive. Most entrepreneurs don’t succeed the first time out of the gate. If they didn’t adopt the perspective that failure is the result of a worthwhile attempt to learn, they would never try a second time.

Still at the individual level, once we have committed to try something new, we may refuse help or find ourselves stuck working with the wrong resource; someone who doesn’t really understand how to lead the way or to work with us to bring out our best. We may not have a clear path to follow, resulting in floundering rather than progressing. Or, we may not have the support or resources that success requires, which Vygotsky refers to as the “scaffolding” needed for learning. If we already knew what success required, we would have set things up differently; but lacking experience and expertise, we may struggle. Maintaining an optimal level of stress is difficult when you don’t know what you are doing.

At the organizational level, we may not agree on the challenges we should pursue or how we should go about pursuing them. The fight over where to focus and how to get started can leave people feeling unheard or unwanted, causing them to remain on the sidelines rather than jumping in to help where needed. Once the work has begun, it may be discovered that the challenge is much harder than expected. Still, once a commitment has been made, it’s hard to acknowledge the truth and abandon the goal. The longer the organization stays committed to a failing cause, the less energy there is to start over and try again.

Respecting the authority of its leaders, organizations don’t have an independent mind that might call for help from a “more knowledgeable other” in Vygotsky’s language. If the leaders themselves don’t turn to board members, consultants or others for help, they are left to figure things out for themselves. In the ideal, the board would observe the organization struggling and demand that leaders seek advice on how to proceed. Due to leadership-board dynamics, that does not always occur. In privately owned organizations without a board, the risk of continuing with failing strategies is even greater.

Then, there is the fact that organizations live in an increasingly unstable environment. Organizations often discover that by the time planning for a new strategy has concluded that something else has popped up as an urgent priority. The feeling of being ripped out of one challenging project to be assigned to another is a frequent experience in the VUCA environment in which many of us exist. Low employee engagement scores can come either from people being asked to work endlessly on tasks that provide no challenge at all or on too many efforts that seem impossible to accomplish.

What should leaders do about this state of affairs?

· First, understand what successful learning requires at the individual and organizational level. Choosing tasks that are challenging but not impossible may mean breaking difficult strategies into smaller steps that are more easily handled.

· Then, provide the scaffolding (support, resources, processes) to enable people to learn and move forward.

· Make certain they are able to consult experts (more knowledgeable others) who can guide them and help internalize the capabilities required to operate independently in the future.

· To ascertain whether people are in the zone of proximal development, ask for feedback from those involved in the accomplishment of individual development plans or important organizational projects to understand what they are experiencing.

On a broader level, leaders should pause to reflect from time to time task ask, “Are we feeling comfortable discomfort?” If the answer is too confident (we’ve got this!) or too uncomfortable (we’re in over our heads) take steps to get back into the zone of proximal development. Optimal stress leads to our best performance.

The actual experience of being a member of a senior team isn’t as neat and tidy as the models suggest. If asked, team members would probably disagree on what stage of development the team is in, or what actions could be taken to make the team more effective. What members of most senior teams would agree on is that the team is not operating in an optimal fashion and it’s been that way for a while.

What would “optimal” look like?

· Listening intently to one another,

· Letting each person influence decisions in accordance with their demonstrated competence regarding the issues at hand,

· Feeling psychologically safe enough to speak up when you disagree with the boss or other members of the team,

· Being open to exploring new ways of looking at things,

· Owning accountability for outcomes,

· Being empathetic and emotionally available,

· Evidencing a commitment to learning,

· Serving as ethical and behavioral role models to others

You can add to the list. If you are a member of a senior team, you might feel that achieving these and other markers of team development are out of reach. You might achieve them for a fleeting instant, but not on a consistent basis. Does that make you a terrible team?

That question opens another quandary. How should we measure team development and team performance? There are many tools that aim to do so, but does a measure of how often people listen to one another really tell us how effective a team is? If an organization’s stock increases in value over a period of time, does that mean the top team must be fully developed and performing optimally? Even if all signs point to the organization doing well, do we know how well it could be performing? Measuring team effectiveness and impact is elusive.

Again, from the inside, members would say they have reached a certain level of ability in working together, with some outstanding examples of cooperation and other examples of breakdowns. Taking the average, most would say their teamwork is “pretty good” but not perfect by any means. In other words, without stating it explicitly, they would say the team has reached a certain level of capability but basically stopped developing; they’re stuck.

Finding the resolve to do a thorough self-examination and then taking a series of actions to get to the next level of team development is difficult. But why? Throughout people’s careers, they hit ceilings of performance that they then find ways to break through. When approaching unfamiliar tasks, they don’t get frightened and run away; they keep trying different approaches until they find one that works. When they are in over their heads on a technical matter, they don’t just settle for the best decision they can make without understanding why they are making it; they call in experts to help. But when it comes to improving senior team performance, it’s like there’s an unstated agreement that members are doing the best they can and trying to improve would only be frustrating, embarrassing, or make things even worse by acknowledging what’s not going well, particularly if the boss’s behavior has something to do with it.

If the team could start over, with no history of political conflicts, failed decisions, members dismissed for bad behavior or incompetence, the formation of protective cliques, or fallout from disagreements with the boss, they would put agreements in place to avoid all those negative events and more. But there is history, and there are personal injuries associated with past events that can’t be undone. While people can and do turn over a new leaf, it’s hard to get everyone on a team to do it at the same time. That’s why teams feel stuck. Members are compelled to keep trying, but it’s difficult to believe that the lasting effects of an entire history of team traumas can be overcome. At the first sign of reversion to old patterns, members give up.

To get unstuck, without a new leader appearing or a majority change in the membership of the team, there needs to be a clearer demarcation of the past and present. Psychologists refer to this as a clean psychological break, or an “ending” that has to take place before something new can begin. To accomplish this, the team needs to take part in an activity that acknowledges the past and put in place new arrangements that will prevent backward slippage.

One example of this kind of activity is the “Prouds and sorries” exercise recommended by Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff. The stage is set by the leader, who firmly points out the need to transition from the past to the future given the challenges the team is facing. Then, members of the team fill out sticky notes listing the things they are proud of and sorry about the team’s history. The team arranges them into categories and speaks to them without debate or criticism. By acknowledging that the team did some things well, there is a foundation to build upon. At the same time, there are things that are acknowledged to have gotten in the way. The leader then declares the need to make a clean break between the past and the future, continuing the things that the team does well but also being clear that the things that have gotten in the way in the past will not be allowed to continue.

To reinforce the clean break, aspects of the way the teams need to work need to change. Examples of such changes include:

· A change in meeting location, agendas, length, preparation required, facilitation, or building in regular discussion of the team’s process (ways of working together) with attention to past prouds and sorries.

· Changes in team membership or roles that signal a new beginning

· Co-locating team offices

· Tackling projects that require a high level of collaboration

· Changing incentive systems to reward support provided for other members of the team rather than individual accomplishments

Such changes may be largely symbolic, but they signal that things are expected to change. If they don’t, it’s incumbent upon the leader to reinforce expectations that the behaviors leading to past sorries will no longer be tolerated. Backing that up with group pulse surveys, individual feedback sessions, and even changes in team membership when called for keeps sending the signal that it’s time to move forward or get off the bus.

The psychologist Kurt Lewin believed that the forces in favor of change had to outweigh the forces against it in order to overcome resistance. However, it’s important, he pointed out, to remove the resisting forces before applying more pressure in favor of change. Keep that in mind as you work with people to figure out the best ways to start fresh.

A growth mindset, popularized by Carol Dweck, turns situations in which we are not prepared to succeed into challenges to be surmounted. The reframing of “I can’t do this” to “I can’t do this yet” makes possible things we aspire to achieve but have not yet mastered. A CEO who has a terrible interaction with the board can either say, “I’m not cut out for this job,” or “I just learned something important about how not to go about this.” An interesting part of Dweck’s research demonstrated that labeling a child as “smart” when they do something well is likely to cause them to develop a fixed mindset (“I’m smart” or “I’m not smart”). Instead, helping the child understand what they did well focuses them on the steps they took to learn or think things through, which leads to the development of a growth mindset (“I can figure this out!”). Think about the messages you receive at work; do most people tell you how wonderful or terrible you are, or do they praise the steps you took to reach a challenging goal? Most likely it’s the former. People pay attention to what we’ve accomplished and not how we got there. Why does this matter? As a manager who is responsible for the development of your subordinates, you want people to learn. That comes from discussing their thinking and the process they went through to accomplish (or miss) a goal, not just calling out their performance. Encourage people to try new ways of doing things that could be more effective and demonstrate your faith in their ability to improve. The result will be that they act themselves into believing they can be better, developing a growth mindset.

Usually, the most successful members of your team are the ones who feel that they aren’t getting enough support and encouragement from you. You tell them they are doing a great job but that’s not enough. They want you to help them get even better. The same goes for successful CEOs. They are thankful that the board appreciates the job they are doing and gives them a hefty bonus at the end of the year, but they wish the board would act more as a thinking partner rather than keeping its distance and standing in judgment. As a manager, go from the “sink or swim” philosophy to the “teaching people to swim” approach.

Mindfulness, as discussed by a number of researchers including Ellen Langer, Richard Davidson and Sara Lazar, deals with the benefits of focusing inward, becoming more aware of our emotions, thoughts and cognitive processes. Usually, this is accomplished through meditation, a practice that is often shunned by busy, action-oriented executives. While getting people to give mindfulness a try can be difficult, evidence shows that it can actually alter our brain structures, resulting in greater plasticity, emotional regulation and stress reduction. I don’t care how busy you are, you can probably benefit from those. Years ago, I conducted interviews with leaders of change like Desmond Tutu, Millard Fuller (founder of Habitat for Humanity) and others. Long before mindfulness was widely popular, each of the people I spoke with said that they practiced their own version of it, whether it was engaging in prayer, planning their day, or just pausing to ask what was the most important thing they could do next. Most of us rush into action without a plan, or a process to examine our priorities, or a way to reflect on our impact. Whether you get into the deeper intrapsychic stuff or just use your time more wisely, I’m convinced that a little mindfulness can go a long way.

It’s interesting to ask why we resist paying attention to how we think both individually and collectively, given that thinking is the highest-value activity that we can engage in. Perhaps it’s that we do it all the time, so we take for granted that we know how to do it well, even though research would suggest that we don’t. Or it may be that we’re afraid to open the box and look inside because we fear we will fall in and never come back out. That the entire process of thinking is so complex and so dependent upon the context and conditions surrounding it that we may never feel confident in our ability to think clearly again. Maybe we have a fixed mindset and therefore believe that we can’t improve our ability to think, despite evidence to the contrary. Or maybe we calculate that we’re doing well enough as it is, so thank you very much, but no. We humans have some interesting psychological hangups, and getting in our own way is one of them.

At one time, IBM was known for its single word admonition: THINK. Today, with what we have learned from studying the processes involved in human thought, we might want to add a word to that: THINK BETTER.

You won’t find “embodies the brand” on a list of leadership competencies used for selection or among the criteria that boards use to assess CEO performance. Few senior teams include how they might go about living the brand as a discussion item on their agenda, but they should. There’s very little cost but a lot of upside potential. CEOs and senior team members could point out that they have never been trained to be symbols of the brand and they would be right. It’s not a topic taught in business school or in executive development programs. Senior leader’s initial attempts to live the brand might be awkward or ineffective but like learning a language, practice makes perfect.

Examples of leaders who have discovered the power of living the brand are Richard Branson of Virgin, Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia, and Phil Knight of Nike. It’s hard to imagine Virgin without Branson, whose smiling exploits are chronicled in the company’s advertising, from banking to travel to spaceflight. His larger-than-life persona speaks to the company’s desired brand image; fun, adventurous, rebellious. Customers have a choice of who to do business with; why not choose the company that wants you to experience what Branson does rather than a boring alternative?

Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, lived his brand into existence through his climbing and other outdoor activities. He invented tools and clothing that didn’t exist previously because he needed a more effective, more comfortable, more environmentally sensitive way of doing things. His lifestyle and creativity attracted others to join his company who shared his values. Fifty years after its founding, the company renewed its values: quality, integrity, environmentalism, justice, not bound by convention. People who buy its products may be attracted to their beauty or functionality, but the core customers share Chouinard’s dedication to live their passions and care for the world at the same time.

Phil Knight’ book, Shoe Dog, told the story of his struggle to invent shoes and clothing that could help athletes reach their peak performance potential. He ran Nike the same way, overcoming obstacles and demonstrating resilience again and again to eventually achieve success. The “Just do it” tag line is one that is familiar to the company’s employees and the majority of people around the world. Buying an article of Nike clothing is a commitment to oneself to try harder, a reflection of the brand that Knight lived into existence.

If your organization is blessed with a famous founder or charismatic CEO, it’s a much more straightforward endeavor to live the brand in their image. But if that’s not the case, you’ll need to figure out another way. In general, you will need to work on two things: clarifying what your brand stands for that matters to people, and then how to bring that brand to life not just through advertising but in the way you operate every day. Advertising is key because it announces what you have decided to the world; but inauthentic advertising that doesn’t match the experience customers have with the brand can cause more harm than good. When Pepsi trivialized social protests over race by suggesting they could be diffused by sharing a can of Pepsi, leaders quickly learned that their company’s previous lack of engagement in the issues gave them no right to play in that arena. Pepsi pulled the ad.

But advertising, as noted previously, is table stakes. To live the brand, you have to define it and then undertake a series of actions that demonstrate you mean what you say. Preferably, these actions will affect both what your customers experience and the experience of your employees as well. Some call the internal impact your “employer brand”. Whether or not you believe there is a competitive market for talent, it doesn’t hurt to make efforts to increase the identification of your employees with your organization.

What does living the brand involve? First, you need to define the larger meaning of your brand. You do this by associating your brand with a connected noble purpose or by highlighting how your products or services will make your customers’ lives much better as a result of choosing your products over your competitors’. This isn’t always easy, and the less visible your products are to customers the harder it is to make an impression that matters. “Intel inside” and “At BASF we don’t make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better” are examples of how companies rise to this challenge. Once you have defined your brand’s larger meaning, the next hurdle is to translate the words into actions that are consistent with the message. What does “Intel inside” mean to customers or employees? The implication is that having an Intel chip inside your computer makes it better than computers without it, so there has to be something about the chip itself that is actually better. There also should be something about working at Intel that makes it “Better to be inside Intel” than to be inside somewhere else. Intel maintains an active developer community and precise facility construction standards to enhance the quality of its chips. It increases the quality of its people (“Inside Intel”) through providing technical conferences, sabbaticals, and mandatory engineering reviews. No matter how difficult, you have to walk the talk.

More broadly, CEOs and senior teams should experiment with a variety of approaches to living the brand until they determine what feels right for their company. This might include:

· Engaging employees in identifying the best ways to live the brand, since it matters to them and they are an excellent source of ideas.

· Aligning rewards with brand-consistent behaviors. What you reinforce is what people pay attention to.

· Use two-way communications to speak to the commitments you are making. As in other matters, where leaders show up and how they behave once they get there says a lot about what they value.

· Do the right thing when it matters. It’s easy to live the promise of the brand when there’s nothing at stake but if living the brand sometimes requires sacrificing easy profits, think of doing the right thing as an investment in the future vitality of the company.

· Speak to the brand in prominent appearances and publications. You don’t need to write a book as Phil Knight did, but your annual report and the shareholder meeting are excellent places to convey messages consistent with your brand promises.

· Be creative. It takes time to make your brand ownership activities uniquely your own.

Living the brand is a good thing for your customers and employees. However, you may find that it’s a good thing for the senior team as well. A little pride in what you do together can be helpful as a reminder of why you do what you do, even when doing it isn’t easy.

In business, we leave multiple positions and project teams over the course of our careers. Some of these departures are more significant than others, like when CEOs step down. Often, we hear the language, “lame duck” associated with the period between when a departure is announced or drawing close and when it actually occurs. According to Brittanica.com, the term originated in the 1760s in London to describe members of the London Stock Exchange who couldn’t pay their debts and had to waddle away from the Exchange in embarrassment. Now, it applies to politicians who have been defeated and are finishing their terms or anyone whose authority might be ignored because people around them know they will soon depart.

For this reason, CEO transitions are sometimes not announced until they occur. Shareholders want assurance that someone with the authority to take decisive action is in the role should the need arise. From the perspective of the CEO, it feels better to be treated as the boss rather than discounted.

The argument can be made that as a lame duck the departing CEO should stop making decisions that have an impact on the future of the business. The less they do, the more room there will be for their replacement to assert their path forward without having to undo their predecessor’s handiwork.

While this may seem wise on the surface, business is continuous and opportunities don’t always wait for clean breaks in leadership. Moreover, some strategies, like those involving acquisitions, expansions, or the development of new lines of products, are multi-year endeavors that may have begun long before the lame duck knew they would be leaving. If the CEO appoints leaders to the senior team near the end of their term, those leaders will be in place when the new CEO arrives, and the new CEO will need to decide if they are right for the job. The lame duck CEO must weigh whether it is more detrimental to continue operating with a key position unfilled or fill it with someone who may not last through the transition.

In fact, if the lame duck CEO were to take their hands off the wheel in order to keep the path for their successor clear, the board might question their judgment. Instead, boards should expect CEOs to avoid leaving before they leave. Even if the lame duck is being forced out, the understanding is usually that he or she will either continue to do the job or step aside to allow an interim leader to be named.

Incumbents who are thinking about leaving obsess over whether to confide in their manager or the board. It’s true that some managers will start treating the person as a lame duck the moment they hear that the person is even considering departing. On the other hand, there are leaders who are generous in their support for their subordinates and may actually help the person make the best decision regarding whether and if so when to leave. Incumbents need to understand that their manager or the board have a responsibility to the organization to prepare for the incumbent’s potential departure, which may involve notifying HR or the full board. The decision to share one’s thinking depends on the criticality of the position and the quality of relationships involved. The safest course of action is to wait to share your thinking until you have made the decision to leave but remain open to hearing counteroffers should they be forthcoming. Every situation is different, so take this advice with a grain of salt.

Given these considerations, what’s the best way to end an assignment?

· While exploring options, keep things to yourself but understand if this phase goes on for long, word is likely to get out.

· Once the decision is made to leave, don’t announce it to peers or the larger organization until necessary. Avoid the lame duck dynamic for as long as possible so that you can still lead effectively if required to do so.

· Ideally, the actual lame duck period between the announcement of your departure and leaving will be a matter of weeks rather than months. You want to give people a chance to close loose ends and prepare for what’s next without it seeming that this period is dragging on.

· Keep putting in your best effort. Don’t leave in the 7^th inning, even if your heart isn’t in the job anymore and you are looking forward to what’s next. How you leave says a lot about you and you want to be remembered as someone who cares deeply and keeps their commitments. You never know how the perceptions others may influence your opportunities down the road.

· Take time to say goodbye to people who have made a difference in your life because they cared about you and about the job getting done. A note or personal chat can make a huge difference to them and demonstrate that you are the person they aways thought you were.

· Once the new person arrives, you need to move on. Resist the temptation to serve jointly for a period of time to allow for a smooth transition. You can still be available to the new person informally, but staying on in a formal capacity only makes it harder for the new person to assert their leadership. For example, you don’t need to retain a formal position to introduce your successor to key customers. Customers know who you are and if you offer to have lunch with them and the new CEO, they will likely accept.

· The same goes for poaching talent or customers. Don’t do it without explicit permission. Keep your reputation intact. You never know when you’ll need it.

Yes, you can leave the game early but there’s something satisfying about staying to the end even if the outcome is almost certain. Leave with class and you will be remembered as a person who can be trusted to do the right thing.

The process is simple. Give a group of people a subject to think about related to organizational performance or team effectiveness, a few minutes to jot down some thoughts on their own, then share and record, followed by discussion. If you want to end with a list of action items and assigned responsibilities, so much the better. That’s all there is to it.

You might not think that such a simple exercise would produce much of value, but I’ve seen it generate deep discussions and open up debates that if not carefully facilitated could erupt into serious conflict. Give people a chance to share what they think, and you never know what you’re going to get.

Let’s try it out. Think about the team you serve on. What would you want to see stop, start, and continue? Here’s my list for senior teams I have worked with over the years.

Stop

· Putting personal interests before the good of the group and organization. You’re already getting paid a lot to do work on behalf of the organization. Put your personal ambition on the back burner and stay focused on the task at hand.

· Fighting change. Change is going to happen. Your job is to use your creativity and intelligence to plan it and your skills to lead it. When you resist, you deny everyone in the organization a better future.

· Hiding. If you’re afraid the boss will call on you and you won’t know the answer, find your courage. No one has all the answers, even the ones that should be easy. Every contestant on Jeopardy misses a question now and then. Admit you don’t know, ask if anyone else does, and if not, make a commitment to find out.

· Being bored. If you’re bored, others probably are as well. Be honest, suggest a change in the meeting format that would make things more interesting and be willing to try it out. It’s amazing how much time is wasted in meetings at the highest level, where every minute should be spent on matters of strategic importance.

· Letting the boss off the hook. Bosses need feedback too. You don’t have to do it in public but you can let the boss know when they are at their best and when they’re not. It’s up to them to decide what to do with your feedback but if you never give it, you don’t give the boss a chance to improve.

· Leaving without knowing what was decided or who is responsible. Sometimes, members do this so that they can’t be held accountable for what they intend to do or not do. That’s a cop out. Call the question and don’t get up until it’s answered.

· Missing meetings. There are all kinds of excuses, but the time set aside for senior team meetings should be sacred. If the meetings are not important enough to attend, change the agenda to make them more worthwhile. Then show up.

· Stepping on others. Talking over someone is not only rude, but also destructive. If ideas get squashed before they can even be expressed, the team loses the opportunity to hear them, and the person may give up trying. Curb your ego. Your great thoughts can wait five minutes. Take turns, like you learned on the playground.

· Voting with the majority when you don’t agree. Being a good team member doesn’t mean going along with everything; it means stopping the team from doing something stupid. Take the heat and give in after a good fight if you must but don’t let your real beliefs go unsaid. You made it to this level because you are worthy. Now prove it.

· Showing off to please the boss. You may have information that others don’t have, or a degree that allows you to be an expert on legal matters. Yes, you’re special, but so is everyone else in their own way. Bring out the best in others instead of trying to be the best yourself. If you really are the best, your rewards will come.

Start

· Listening. It’s what you are there for. Put away your phone or computer, focus on the speaker, and ask good questions. You’ll be amazed at how much you can learn and contribute.

· Being curious. We only really understand the things we have looked at from different perspectives. Why are we getting the results we’re getting? What can we do two or three times better? Why do you see the world so differently than I do? What’s it like to be in your shoes? Ask more questions and you’ll get smarter. When a team asks questions, it gets better.

· Coming prepared. If you expect to walk in cold, be informed, and then leave that’s exactly what will happen. If you come prepared, know what questions you want to ask and have a sense of what the challenges are that need to be addressed, everything suddenly gets more interesting.

· Giving and receiving feedback. One of life’s biggest fears is finding out we’ve been doing something wrong or that someone doesn’t appreciate something we do. It’s hard to welcome in feedback that could be disturbing. But here’s the thing – whatever it is, people know it already. It’s only you who are in the dark. You can keep telling yourself you’re perfect, but you won’t understand why you aren’t getting the support or recognition you deserve. When team members finally open up to each other, it’s amazing what happens. The bonds of trust grow deeper, and psychological safety allows people to bring forward ideas and reactions they never would have before. I understand that it’s scary but if you can do it, it makes a world of difference.

Continue

· Sharing information. You know things that others don’t know but need to know if you are going to join in directing the enterprise. Tell people about what’s happening in your unit or region; help them understand what customers are thinking; share the latest developments in regulations.

· Learning. Whether it’s bringing in speakers or attending programs, conferences or industry forums, continue learning individually and collectively.

· Annual retreats. Spending concentrated time away from the office on strategic matters allows you to dig in more deeply into topics that deserve attention. Plus, building social bonds and recharging your batteries is never a bad thing.

· Assigning projects to subgroups. Working collaboratively on projects with one or two members of the team allows you to develop knowledge, improve your relationships and feel a sense of accomplishment.

· Visiting locations together. Showing up makes a difference. It shows your interest in what people do, gives them a chance to be recognized, and raises issues and opportunities the team should discuss.

You can complete your own list and urge your fellow team members to share theirs. It doesn’t take a lot of time, but it can make a big difference.

The fact that we have struggled with these issues for four hundred years says that there are no right answers. No matter how much technology has advanced or how much more contact there is between cultures, there still is no blueprint for the ideal global senior team. Nevertheless, how your global team operates matters. If your team covers up disagreements, delegates upward because it can’t come to consensus, or goes through the motions rather than digging deeply into important questions like the ones above, you have a definite problem. Creating a global team for appearances sake is probably more harmful than operating with a cohesive home-country team that makes a genuine effort to gather input from the rest of the world.

If you think it’s important to have global voices at the table, here are some dos and don’ts.

Do make time for team members to share what others should know about their cultures and their business experience.

It’s a mistake to assume that everyone knows what they need to know about the world’s cultures. Making time for each member of the team to introduce their cultures and business experience opens the invitation to speak about issues as they arise rather than allowing the home country’s culture to dominate discussions.

Don’t pretend there are no differences among team members in the way they think or what’s important to them.

Cultural experts Mitchel Hammer and Milton Bennett call this intentional overlooking of differences “minimalization.” Minimalization doesn’t require that we work to understand where others are coming from. Rather, it allows us to pretend that there are no differences in cultural business practices, leading to suboptimal regional strategies. Instead, Hammer and Bennett content, we should strive for “acceptance” in which we acknowledge that there are real differences in how business is done and “adaptation” in which we actively endorse changes in business practices to take into account those differences.

Do use structured techniques to bring out the best thinking of team members.

Most senior teams would benefit by adopting techniques that make certain that every member’s voice is heard in making important decisions and interrupt the social dynamics that lead to groupthink. This can be something as simple as going around the table to allow each person to speak. Because there is often an unaddressed power differential between members of the global team from the home country and others, using structured techniques is even more important to ensure that different perspectives are understood. The added value of having international representation around the table can’t be fully realized if international voices are silenced.

Don’t allow headquarters members of the team to align prior to team meetings.

Pushing back against headquarters is hard enough for internationals as it is. If the headquarters team comes across as a united block, or says, “We’ve already discussed this issue and concluded that….is the best course of action,” international members of the team will find it even more difficult to bring forward a point of view that may not have been considered.

Do vary meeting times and locations.

Many global organizations do this already. Even so, my experience working in a global organization taught me how easy it is to slip back into headquarters-friendly meeting times or avoid trips abroad at the first sign of a possible budget crunch. When you forego opportunities to be exposed to regional cultures, customers, and regulators it’s more likely that the team will adopt a home-country orientation in its thinking.

Don’t forget to communicate directly to regional units.

It’s common for senior teams to issue one general statement regarding important decisions that is tailored primarily for home country internal and external stakeholders. Doing so makes people from other regions feel undervalued or puzzled about what the message means for them. If you are a global organization, don’t rely on the global team member from an international region to translate the message. Think about how to make the message relevant and demonstrate that the entire team has thought about how to communicate globally.

Do calendar time for regional business updates on a rotating basis.

Each major region should have a chance on a regular basis to do a deep dive on what’s happening in the business, including a review of results, key customers, competitors, successes and challenges. Furthermore, these presentations should include one or two questions intended to gain input from the entire team so that the team feels a sense of ownership over regional strategies.

Don’t assume that everything is fine.

No matter how much progress you have made in globalizing your senior team, don’t forget to check in to see how things are going. An anonymous survey or set of interviews by a third party is a good way to gather data for an annual review. Over time, new members join the team, priorities change, and decisions made affect business results. Members of the team may feel that they are gaining or losing status, or that their regions need more attention than they are receiving. A global team operates in a dynamic environment. The value of the team is fully realized when the team pays attention to its own dynamics and what’s happening in different parts of the business.

We know the world isn’t really flat. But if we don’t sail out over the horizon or at least listen to those who have, we shouldn’t be surprised when our ships encounter cyclones and sea serpents.

Aging experts point to two types of intelligence we rely upon to make critical decisions. The first is fluid intelligence, which has to do with the speed at which we process information and our ability to rapidly and accurately access our memory. For computer geeks, fluid memory is like RAM (Random Access Memory) that controls how your computer operates, making decisions in nanoseconds. The other kind of intelligence is crystallized intelligence, which is like the information stored on your hard disk. Fluid intelligence peaks in our twenties. We are able to think and take action quickly in our younger years, but we lack the experience to guide those actions. Hence, we often view younger executives (think the tech bros) as entrepreneurial but impulsive, not always making the best decisions. On the other hand, our crystalized intelligence continues to grow with age, until we reach a point where we no longer can access it on demand.

Because of the undeniable effects of age on our ability to think and apply what we know, researchers suggest our overall mental performance peaks between 50 and 65. It was a very good thing that captain “Sully” Sullenberger was 57 years old at the time of the “Miracle on the Hudson” and he did such an incredible job that we wish he could fly forever. Unfortunately, he recently announced that he is suffering from early-stage Alzheimer’s. Although some pilots would be perfectly capable of flying into their 70s or even their 80s, airlines in the United States have a mandatory retirement age of 65. In other countries, like Canada and Australia, there is no mandatory retirement age, but pilots must pass routine physicals.

Returning to the corporate world, there are neither age limits nor mandatory tests that executives must pass to stay in their roles. It’s up to boards, or the person himself or herself in privately held companies, to make the determination of whether the CEO or others should continue to serve. Yet there are no standards to go by, and most board members would not regard themselves as experts in judging mental acuity. This puts the enterprise and all those whose lives are affected at some degree of risk. And it’s not just executives over 70 who should concern us; various mental and physical diseases can affect an executive’s ability to perform in their 40s and 50s, which is prime time for them to step into the corner office.

It is the CEO’s fiduciary duty to disclose medical conditions that might influence their ability to perform their responsibilities but it’s rare for CEOs to announce their mental decline. Boards are required by the SEC to publicly disclose such impairments but again, rarely do so due to the reputational risks posed. In recent years, boards have more often given waivers to mandatory retirement ages for star CEOs, valuing track records over momentary lapses in memory or judgment.

When should a board be concerned? Some of the signs that age might pose a substantial risk are the following.

· We live in an age of rapid change, where keeping up with what is happening and reacting quickly to threats and opportunities is critical. When an executive is out of touch with what’s happening or downplays the importance of serious threats, it may be time to start the succession process in earnest.

· When the CEO takes forever to make an important decision on some matters while shooting from the hip to make rapid ungrounded decisions in others, it’s time to worry. This is not reasonable behavior.

· When the leader needs help synthesizing information or stops wanting important updates at all, they may be living in a world of their own making.

· Repeating the same stories multiple times to the same audience or not recalling important events are signs of diminished cognitive processing.

· Uncharacteristic emotional outbursts can be a sign that an individual feels challenged and fears they may be losing control.

· Micro-managing details that others have been managing perfectly well may demonstrate a loss of confidence in the security of their position due to a generalized inability to stay on top of things.

· Sticking to a losing strategy and berating anyone who challenges their position is not something a clear-thinking CEO should do.

· When staff have to correct communications or override orders that don’t make sense, the executive may have reached a tipping point at which the risks of continuing on outweigh the benefits of their experience.

It’s usually up to the board chair, lead independent director, or eldest offspring to sit down with the executive to have a private conversation about their ability to continue serving. Due to the delicate matter of the conversation, personal allegiance and a desire to preserve the relationship, this conversation is one of the most difficult to have. Everyone would prefer to avoid the public embarrassment of a forced removal from office but unfortunately, the executive’s mental condition may preclude the person making a rational decision to step down on their own. The board can decide to take an intermediate step such as requesting that the CEO undergo physical and mental testing but eventually, the board has to weigh its fiduciary responsibilities against other concerns. While ousting the CEO is not something a board looks forward to, it can be among its most important responsibilities. And it doesn’t stop there. Board members pass their prime too.

We can think of the implementation of AI occurring in three steps. The first step is to apply AI to routine jobs to achieve greater cost savings by replacing humans with automated processes. Organizations could accept those savings as the full benefit provided by AI but they won’t stop there. Agentic AI will offer opportunities to innovate, conceiving of new products or services that could alter existing business priorities and operating models. This is step two. We don’t know whether AI, if it existed in 2007, would have recommended to Apple’s leaders that they enter the cellphone business but that’s the kind of shift that AI will be asked about in the years to come. Once accepted, similar recommendations will cause leaders to ask, “Now what?” The recommendations will need to be implemented, resulting in changes to how the organization operates. That’s step 3.

So now, twenty years on from Apple’s decision to enter the cellphone market but with AI onboard, let’s examine the work that AI will do and humans will still be needed to perform when a shift to a new business opportunity is recommended by AI.

Here are just some of the many questions leaders will ask AI to answer.

1. How much investment will be required to capitalize the new business?

2. Who are the most likely providers of that capital? Is it better to borrow the capital or to offer equity?

3. What components will be required to create the new products? Who are the potential suppliers and how would you rate their costs, quality and reliability?

4. How should we layout production facilities for optimal efficiency? What equipment will we need and where can we obtain it?

5. What regulations will we be subject to and what licenses, permits or permissions will we need to acquire? How do we go about securing those licenses and permits?

6. What moves are competitors likely to make once we announce our intentions? Which competitors should we be most concerned about? How might we address the threats posed by our competitors?

7. Are there any strategic partnerships that we should consider that could help us accelerate growth or protect our share of the market?

8. Who will our key customers be and what are the best ways to interest each of them in our product given their unique business/personal needs?

9. Which advertising strategies are likely to be the most effective? Please design a complete advertising strategy and design an associated campaign. Estimate the costs of different levels of intensity of this campaign.

10. Set up an agent to respond to customer inquiries and complaints that meets the following operational requirements…

I could go on, but you get the idea. AI will provide guidance on a number of important operational decisions, help formulate strategies and also provide agentic support in performing routine tasks. Still, the organizational chart for the new product unit will not be a single box labeled, “AI.” Humans will still perform critically important tasks. The notion that AI will take complete control is premature, if that day is ever allowed to come. What will humans be doing? Here’s a parallel list tied to that above.

1. Determine the appropriate level of risk and the timing of needed investments.

2. Engage in discussions with financial institutions, individual investors, and expert advisors to investigate financing options and build a package that balances concerns related to risk, speed, and control.

3. Visit material suppliers to investigate capabilities and negotiate terms.

4. Visit equipment suppliers to determine choices available and determine the best setup for production facilities to optimize a number of parameters such as initial cost, reliability, efficiency, flexibility, inter-operationality, safety, environmental impact and other concerns. Complete contracts, develop a detailed plan for construction, and build the facility.

5. Approach regulators, complete necessary prework, negotiate terms and conditions, accept terms and responsibilities.

6. Monitor competitor’s move, develop counter-strategies, make business and operational adjustments to reflect those strategies.

7. Hold talks with potential partners, explore terms, negotiate agreements, begin collaborative efforts and adjust based on experience.

8. Put in place a highly competent salesforce to form relationships with key customers. Understand customer needs, negotiate contracts, and work with operations to introduce product design/delivery/support changes to secure advantageous sales.

9. Make key decisions regarding advertising mix and spend, monitor effectiveness, use data to adjust strategies, renew strategies as old ones age out.

10. Train a group of experts to address customer issues in cases where the customer is not satisfies with the response they receive from AI.

It should be obvious that these tasks require a human touch. It’s one thing to recommend the layout of a facility and then to handle all the work that goes into building it, or to locate suppliers but then enter into negotiations that result in mutually acceptable terms.

What are the implications for organizational design at step three of AI implementation?

First, strategic decision makers remain. These are the executives who manage the tradeoffs and accept responsibility for the overall success of the organization. As their decisions generate work to be performed that requires human to human interactions, the level below them is also needed. Beyond that level is where things get interesting.

As new initiatives are undertaken, such as negotiating contracts or building facilities or acquiring customers, human effort is required but not necessarily on a permanent basis. Each organization will need to determine the need for human workers depending on the nature of the business. Early in the initiation of new projects, large numbers of humans will be required but they could be retained on a temporary contract basis rather than as permanent employees. Thus, from what used to be level 3 down, organizational designers will be making tradeoffs between work that requires temporary, permanent or AI agents to perform. Because change is going to remain constant as technology, competition, customer needs and regulations evolve, this mix of performers will be permanent but dynamic. The number of permanent or temporary workers required will shrink or grow, and the range of tasks AI is entrusted to perform will continue to expand. Each part of the business, from R&D to legal, will require its own mix as a product of the work that needs to be conducted. As the system operates, it will become obvious where more human control is needed and where AI can play a cheaper and reliable role.

The design criteria that guide the setup of the units making up the organization will include ensuring safe and reliable operations, optimizing cost and flexibility tradeoffs, making certain that where human talent is applied that it is skilled and capable of performing the critical tasks involved in implementing AI-guided decisions and processes, improving the quality of human to human interactions, agreements and collaboration, maximizing the control of key operational requirements, and adding to the organization’s ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. Linking mechanisms, which bring together people from different units to guide joint efforts, have always been important but will become more prominent as the speed of adaptation increases, partly as a function of business speed and partly due to improvements suggested by AI.

In short, while there will still be an organization chart appropriate to the work of each organization, what goes on inside the boxes will be different at step 3 of AI implementation. The size of the boxes will expand and contract, AI will perform a larger percentage of tasks, and the white space between the boxes will become as important as what goes on inside the boxes. AI literacy will become more important at all levels, as will skills in human interaction that allow people to form trusting relationships and make mutual adjustments that match the speed of change. The implications for paper-pushers, rubber-stampers and robotic operators are not favorable. What we do as a society to help retrain and reposition these people is something we must address even as we dance with new technologies that offer so much promise in transforming our enterprises. All of these challenges are before us. The time to begin rethinking the design of our organizations in partnership with AI is now.

It’s easier for some companies to create a connection between employees and the brand because their business is naturally appealing to people. Patagonia and LL Bean, for example, take advantage of their outdoor clothing and equipment focus to create opportunities for people to enjoy the outdoors using company products. They allow employees paid time off to enjoy the outdoors, which for LL Bean is consistent with their brand message, “Be an outsider.” Meetings are held outdoors, people go outside for lunch, and the campus in Freeport, Maine is designed to make walking among the buildings feel like a walk in the woods. Employees are allowed to borrow outdoor equipment and to spend time at company-owned camps with their families and friends. The company’s outdoor club features activities such as hiking, paddling, cross-country skiing, and cycling. Employees in the store wear green shirts and khaki pants in homage to the brand image. Many employees have deep roots in Maine or relate strongly to the state’s hearty culture. The land of lobstermen, loggers and hunters requires that its residents endure cold winters and emphasize self-reliance. If there is a single brand that is synonymous with Maine, LL Bean is it.

But what if your business doesn’t have broad appeal or isn’t understood at all by the average person? If I asked you what business TCS was in, you might draw a blank. So would the majority of people around the globe. But if I showed you the picture below, chances are you would make the connection.

Since beginning to sponsor the New York City marathon in 2008 and now 13 other marathons around the world, as well as auto-racing and other sporting events, the value of Tata Consultancy Services brand has grown 10X. These events had over $2B in economic impact in the cities where they were held in 2024 and generated $279M in charitable contributions. TCS is the most valuable IT services brand in India where it is headquartered, and the #2 IT services brand globally. From their website, “Building a brand is like a Marathon. Every step you take matters, while keeping focused on the distance ahead. The TCS brand has been built ensuring the highest standards of innovation, technology expertise and customer service – along with a deep sense of long-term partnership with our clients, collaborators and the community. We run together to harness the power of technology in improving human experiences – from how we do business, to how we live, organize and prepare, as we perpetually adapt to a world of constant change.”

The marathon metaphor is carried over to the employee experience. TCS believes that its sponsorship of marathons champions health, inclusion, and community impact for its people. In addition to creating opportunities for employees to participate in these events, it’s Fit4Life & Purpose4Life programs provide organized opportunities for employees to focus on their health and giving back to their communities, values that are central to the company’s brand.

The takeaway is that regardless of your company’s industry or mission, there are ways to make employees proud to be a member of a community that cares about them and also cares about causes beyond the bottom line. Over time, as employees interact with the brand and shape it through their suggestions, the impact of the brand grows until it has the kind of impacts mentioned at the beginning of this post.

A good internal brand program requires creativity and discipline. You might want to engage a brand consultancy to help you get started. These firms begin with an analysis of what’s important to your employees and customers about your business and then test alternative brand messages for their resonance with employee’s values. Once selected, a brand campaign is undertaken to strengthen brand understanding and identification over time. Participation in bringing the brand to life is key, because one-way messaging through videos, posts and banners may not land as intended or simply be ignored in the blitz of everyday communication. Leadership visibility increases the speed of adoption and the willingness of employees to devote their voluntary time to activities designed to promote the link between the brand and personal values.

Once the link is established, reinforcement is required to remind people of their commitments and to signal the company’s commitment to its people and its brand. If done well, the process becomes a virtuous cycle in which success increases the excitement and commitment leading to doing more.

Living the brand improves the performance of the organization while making people feel better about where they work and what they do. It’s a beautiful thing.

Jim Collins has recommended that CEOs be held accountable for no more than 3-5 key goals which require their close attention, because the delegation of these goals becomes challenging as the work required to carry them out through delegation results in competition between the goals as well as difficulties in coordination across units and levels. While the CEO remains responsible for everything that happens in the company, Collins suggests that CEOs should have systems for monitoring the state of the organization but should not be actively involved personally in managing every detail.

In his final years as CEO, Apple’s board of directors tied Tim Cook’s short-term compensation primarily to Net sales and operating income, with a moderator for fulfilling the company’s values around racial equity. Apple tied Cook’s long-term compensation toward Total Shareholder Return relative to a selected group of competitors. This meant that Cook was guided to focus on four goals while making certain that everything else continued to go well. Like many compensation programs, there was an agreement that if Cook violated ethical guidelines his incentives were at risk.

The four key goals that Cook was responsible for were driven by a mosaic of talent decisions, investments, and overseeing operating excellence that contributed directly to the overall bottom line results. These “ingredients” were not measured or observed by the board. The final number, for example net sales, was all that mattered. It was presumed that missteps in any of the ingredients would be reflected in the final number and therefore needn’t be monitored by the board. Moreover, each goal had a minimum threshold that needed to be met to earn an incentive, and a maximum result that limited the top incentive payout that could be earned. In between the minimum and maximum, there was a linear relationship between results and the amount of the payout as a multiple of Cook’s base salary.

Each company will need to adjust the goals and weightings to fit the unique business challenges, history and future aspirations the company faces. The board of Equifax, for example, includes a “Vitality Index” in its measures of CEO performance, which is calculated by measuring the percentage of total enterprise revenue generated from products introduced within the last 3 years. If innovation is the objective, the CEO’s goals should reflect that.

The architecture of measures should include in-year measures that reflect operational performance goals tied to short-term incentives. Sales, cost management, completion of actions with current-year timelines, or desired talent moves could all qualify. I call these contingent goals because they could shift if business conditions change drastically and the CEO and board agree that refocusing attention on an emerging crisis or dealing with unexpected business conditions is important. Although contingent goals will always receive attention, they shouldn’t be more important than the long-term survival of the company.

The second component of CEO performance should be work toward long-term goals, tied to a long-term incentive program usually paid in the form of shares that don’t vest for some period of time in the future. I label these aspirational goals to distinguish them from short-term contingent goals. They should not change unless a major crisis diverts funds and attention from the CEO’s aspirational agenda. Examples might include introducing a new line of business, investing in the development of top talent, or global expansion. The investments required in the future may reduce cash on hand or other measures that the board would normally attend to. Agreeing up front on the tradeoffs between aspirational and contingent goals clarifies what is expected of the CEO, so there are no end-of-year, after-the-fact debates regarding decisions that were made.

The third component of the CEO’s performance are foundational goals, such as behaving ethically, leading in line with the company’s values, and maintaining a healthy relationship with the board. These things are expected and are reflected in the CEO’s base pay. If they are violated, the CEO could either be removed or their incentives withheld.

In setting contingent and aspirational goals, I recommend that the board concentrates on goals that involve a gap between the current and desired state of affairs and are challenging to accomplish. There is little reason to reward the CEO handsomely for things that would occur naturally without the CEO’s attention, or that can be achieved with minimum effort. The whole logic of incentives is that special effort is required above and beyond what would be expected in day-to-day performance covered by base pay.

In the majority of organizations in the current era, incentive pay far exceeds base pay. If the board gets the CEO’s goals right, the return to shareholders of accomplishing those goals can be significant. In Apple’s case, for example, Cook’s total compensation including incentives, although large in comparison to many other CEOs, is a tiny fraction of the value created for shareholders. While there can always be arguments about the size of executive pay packages, it’s better that the board be in alignment about the CEO’s goals, ways of measuring them, and related payouts at the beginning of the year rather than waiting until the end.

The compensation committee of the board should conduct a thorough review of the goals and metrics used to compute CEO pay on an annual basis. Aspirational goals that take several years to complete shouldn’t change unless they are completed and new goals take their place. Contingent goals, however, should be reconsidered yearly and even within the year, as things can change dramatically. Throughout the year, the board should meet with the CEO to discuss interim performance and make recommendations and adjustments as required. A simplified scorecard should guide these discussions. Good performance should be reinforced while problems should be addressed while there is still time to make course corrections. Rather than maintaining a fixed posture, the board should enable discussions about compensation to be a dynamic process.

Then I moved on to a much larger high school, where I quickly discovered that there were a lot of people who knew more than I and my hand stayed down. It wasn’t that they were inherently smarter, but they had gotten a head start in calculus and languages and other subjects I never knew existed. The folks in charge at my previous school didn’t think we would need that stuff and weren’t prepared to teach it. In the end I did ok in school and eventually got my doctorate but along the way I became curious about people who needed to be the smartest person in the room. Was it helping them or hurting them? Was this a competition and if so, what were the rules of the game and what was the ultimate prize?

In business, there are situations where answers are desperately needed and whoever has a good one is welcome to step up to the plate. Team members appreciate the assist, and the person gains a little street cred for a while.

Then there are those people who simply insist on showing off. Their narcissism is off the charts and their constant talking sucks all the air out of the room. Even if others have something to offer, they don’t because they either don’t want to argue with “Mr. Aren’t I Wonderful” or they don’t want to be seen in the same light. As a consequence, teams fall into false alignment behind a single idea rather than exploring alternatives. Ownership of what happens next plummets and everyone hopes the boss sees what’s going on and does something about it before it’s too late. If the boss lets it slide, Mr. Wonderful assumes he is getting an A and continues on. Since his peers aren’t saying much, he presumes they have little to offer and are probably super-grateful that he has so much to give. One can only imagine how he recounts his day when he goes home for supper.

Psychologists would contend that rather than having a strong ego, the person who always needs to be seen as the smartest in the room is actually quite insecure. A person with a strong ego can afford to listen to others and even invite them into the conversation despite them not having a clear point of view. They can help others develop and learn to contribute on a higher level. They don’t mind having their ideas challenged because they value discovering the best solutions, not just having people accept their point of view. They also don’t mind challenging others if they sense the team is settling for an answer that is easy but less than the situation calls for. These people make highly prized teammates, unlike Mr. Wonderful, whom people switch teams to escape.

The need to be the smartest person in the room is the product of both reinforcement and denial over time. When their ideas are taken up, these folks feel that they have won. Proof once again in their estimation that they are a superior being. When their contributions are overlooked, it’s because others are not capable of understanding their brilliance. Both outcomes satisfy a need to maintain an elevated self-image that is a defense against losing status and a fracturing of the identity that the person has worked so hard to establish.

When the person who needs to be the smartest one in the room is the boss, power differences make dealing with the situation even more difficult. It doesn’t take long for a culture of silent compliance to evolve. When the boss is right, things are great; but when the boss is wrong, it’s lemmings over a cliff.

What’s a truly smart person to do? If you think about great teachers who actually know much more than their students, they don’t show off their knowledge by being the first to answer their own questions. They invite students to think for themselves, supporting them along the way, until students learn what they need to know to function independently. Skilled educators know that in every class, there are students who are capable of eventually eclipsing the teacher’s understanding, thereby achieving new breakthroughs in the field.

The smartest person in the room can either defend their position or extend an invitation to others to outdo them. If they defend, they could win the battle for individual influence but cause their team to lose the war. As we know, teams are frequently able to surpass the quality of thinking of the smartest individual member by paying close attention to their internal dynamics. When ideas are given time and space to grow, alternatives are carefully examined, and each person is expected to contribute regardless of their status, magical things can happen. The smartest person can contribute to this miracle rather than being an obstacle to it. Moreover, by doing so, the smartest person may discover that their status improves as their teammates come to rely upon them to help bring out the team’s best. This is a win-win; the smartest person doesn’t have to play dumb and team members don’t have to suffer in silent frustration.

Getting there may prove challenging. Both the smartest person and other members of the team need to be willing to step back to examine their dynamics with an openness to change. The team may need to speak to their experience of being silenced but also admit to their role in not doing all they could to make the smartest person’s ideas better. The smartest person must be willing to let others build on their thinking rather than always needing to have the definitive word. Making these shifts probably requires that the boss interrupt the pattern and encourages a new way of working. If the boss is unwilling or unable to do this, a facilitator could be brought in. Like any other behavioral change, persistent practice eventually leads to competence and experiencing the rewards that accompany success.

If you question your ability to withstand the pressure when you have to place yourself at risk, think about what the military has to do to prepare soldiers to go into battle. It’s unlikely that risks you will face in business are as daunting. The military doesn’t just send troops into battle and hope for the best. Obviously, they have thought about this for a long time and developed proven methods to help soldiers manage their emotions during times of extreme threat. We can learn from that.

First, we need to understand that courage is not a trait. You aren’t born with a certain amount of courage or a limit to your bravery. You can learn to be more courageous even though it requires disciplined practice. We tend to attribute extraordinary qualities to those who act courageously in situations that call for extreme bravery. In fact, whether or not you display courage under fire is a matter of preparation. That’s what the military relies upon to drill soldiers into readiness for battle.

There are four components to this preparation: Psychological, Physical, Social and Moral. All are required to avoid panic leading to incapacitation when under fire. If you have ever felt like you need to dive into your foxhole when under attack at a board meeting, you need to work on these four.

We take as a given that fear will accompany being under attack. We can’t wish it away and there’s no pill we can take to numb us to its effects. We have to act in spite of experiencing fear, which requires that we take active control of ourselves as we deal with the situation. We can’t let fear take over, or it wins.

Psychological preparation Involves cognitive reframing (from “I’m going to die” to “What’s the next step?”), gradual exposure to increasingly threatening situations that build confidence, mindfulness (the ability to “leave one’s body” to observe what you are feeling and how you are behaving as a result, then choosing to respond differently), visualization (imagining likely scenarios and thinking about the best ways to respond to them), and mental agility (developing a wider repertoire of choices by practicing different responses or observing others who model effective behaviors). These are all things the military relies on to get soldiers ready to fight and you should too. The idea is to preload your brain with reactive strategies so that when the time comes to use them, you do so unconsciously without needing to invent them in the moment.

Physical preparation is important because the body has built in defensive mechanisms that are designed to help you survive when under attack. When you see a bear, you either freeze or run, without giving the matter much thought. Your brain and body respond to threats in the boardroom in the same way, when courage and clear thinking may be what is called for. Staying in good physical shape provides you with more energy to cope with extended threat situations and reduces the adrenaline spikes that accompany intense emotional encounters. For shorter conflict episodes, learning to control your breathing so that you remain level-headed can be extremely helpful. There are techniques that allow you to do that, but they require some practice and you must remember to use them when you are facing fear. Slowing your breathing has multiple beneficial physiological effects that together enable you to function effectively when under load rather than allowing your natural defense mechanisms to kick in.

Social preparation involves building support from others that enables you to display courage when all eyes are upon you. Having discussed threat scenarios with your boss or members of your team and agreeing on the course of action to be taken frees you up to respond knowing that even if you fail, others will support your actions. When we feel alone, our anxiety increases as we are fighting battle on two fronts; with the attacker and possibly with others on our own team who might take a different position. The military has found that the greatest acts of courage occur when individuals are acting to save other members of their unit. People don’t throw themselves on grenades on a whim; but they do when they know it will matter to their comrades in arms. By sharing the problem with others, we develop a bond that both emboldens us and obligates us to run toward the challenge rather than running away.

Finally, the moral component of courage can be strengthened by clarifying shared norms and values. When these are left unspecified, it’s every person for themselves according to their own standards. As peers observe one another, things can get better or worse depending on the examples that are set. If peers cheat to get ahead, others may feel it’s ok to follow suit. If key leaders display acts of courage to do the right thing, even at the expense of their own gain, it’s more likely that their direct reports will do the same. Rather than leaving it to chance, it’s better to delineate norms and values so that when courage is called for, it’s authorized by established convention. While you might find it difficult on your own to resist requests to perform special favors for key customers or suppliers, it’s much easier to do the right thing when you can point to stated policies. It’s also easier as a leader to help direct reports conform to ethical guidelines if they are clear to everyone.

It’s true that some people are more likely to display courage than others when facing similar circumstances. Due to our personalities and previous experiences some of us see opportunities to display courage as exciting while others view the same situations as troublesome. However, all of us can strengthen the likelihood that we can display courage when we are required to do so. Since courage is often necessary to resolve difficult challenges, achieve breakthroughs, and reach new heights of performance, it’s something leaders should cultivate in their employees. Leaders can learn a lot from the military, where courage can make the difference between victory and defeat.

When interviewing for the role, even if the candidate is well known to the board, it’s not usually the steady-Eddy, year-in and year-out track record of consistent performance that makes board members sit up and take notice. It’s stories that the candidate can tell of how they handled adversity, broke free to set a new course for the business or made a difficult strategic decision to save the day that matter. Candidates would do well to prepare for their interviews by reminding themselves of these moments and practicing telling the stories for maximum dramatic effect.

To have stories to tell, executives must first win in defining moment situations. This requires that they recognize the opportunities when they come along, know how to take advantage of them and finally execute successfully. Let’s examine what’s involved in each of these.

First, recognizing the opportunity requires more than simply paying attention. If the train is flying off the tracks, everyone sees it and everyone will jump in to help. While a candidate may take credit for a contribution that saved the day, it will be obvious that the candidate didn’t act alone.

When looking for a CEO, the board should be seeking someone who can both synthesize information and see patterns that allow them to discern issues and opportunities that others may not detect. You have probably been at the table with someone who has done this and it feels almost like magic. While everyone else is deep in the weeds, this person seemingly out of nowhere makes a declarative statement that silences the room as others reflect on its implications. The statement suddenly makes something seem obvious that previously was not obvious at all.

Seeing what others don’t see requires intelligence, to be sure. While there are many traits that don’t differentiate good leaders from bad ones, intelligence holds up as a trait to look for. Beyond intelligence, practice helps. If you spend your time in the weeds, you think in the weeds. To synthesize information that allows you to see patterns, you have to step back and look at the big picture. You need to ask yourself a lot of questions. “What’s changing and what’s causing that?” “Why didn’t we get what we expected out of the investments we made in technology/R&D/advertising/talent, etc.?” “If I was one of our competitors, what would our strategy be?” The idea is to prime the pump, to already be prepared to pay attention to something that could be a sign that the weather is about to change.

Because we all tend to get trapped in patterns of thinking, it’s also good to talk to others who are likely to have a different perspective. Outsiders, people at different levels, customers, and yes, even competitors can be sources of valuable information.

Synthesizing information you collect from these varied sources involves looking for commonalities but also unique statements that make you sit up and take notice. Not everything you hear will be true, so you have to investigate by triangulating using different sources. It takes a little detective work, but usually you can get to the bottom of things. How likely is it that something is about to happen? You don’t want to spread rumors, so you go to reliable sources you can trust who should know what they are talking about. When strangers and the people you trust align, it’s worth paying attention.

Presuming you discover something important, the next step is to formulate a plan of action. Figuring out something to do is not the same as knowing the right thing to do. Try to avoid leaping into action before you have thought things through, gathered a few inputs from others, or consulted experts in the area if it’s not something you have encountered before. Doing your homework will protect your credibility if and when things go south.

Laying out your logic and your reasons for your plan allows others to share the accountability with you rather than laying it all on your shoulders. Don’t let your ego and desire to be seen as a hero set you up for a fall. Remain highly collaborative, especially if there’s a lot at stake. You can still tell the story of how you saw the threat coming and helped formulate the response. The fact that you recognized the need for others’ support adds to your reputation rather than detracting from it.

At this point in the process, you have evidenced the ability to think, which is critical to your long-term success in the top job. Still, your story needs a good ending and that ending invariably revolves around success. In addition to seeing the opportunity and figuring out what to do about it, you must follow through and make something happen. Sometimes, that can involve months or years of effort. Sticking with it, overcoming obstacles along the way, learning from mistakes and trying again – it all adds to the luster of your accomplishments as long as you eventually get there.

Some people think that dressing nicely, driving an expensive car, or selecting just the right furniture for their office displays gravitas. These things probably won’t hurt your chances but they aren’t what discerning boards care about. Selection committee members are being trained in how to do objective interviewing that gets at your past performance, which is the best predictor of the future. Candidates are sometimes angry when they have given a lot to the company only to be passed over for a younger colleague or someone from the outside. Boards are looking for more than loyalty. They want someone who sees defining moments when they come along and knows what to do about them.

As we encounter others whose guts don’t think like ours, we may feel that our version of the truth is being attacked or ignored, and that we are therefore losing influence as a result. We fight back, harden our position, and become interested in self-protection or victory rather than in what the other person has to say. Perceived violence is met with violence, Bohm says.

Sometimes, when we wind up together in a place we would rather not be, we wonder how we got there. “How could we be so smart and yet so dumb?” Human communication processes are fraught with imperfection, innuendo, interpretation, interpersonal baggage, unexpressed fears, unstated desires, straightforward misunderstandings, political ambition, one upmanship, diversity dynamics, false assumptions, groupthink, magical wishes, impatience, avoidance, embarrassment and baseless assertions. We work with what we’ve got to stake our claims, protect our positions, advocate for the common good, or offer solutions without understanding why we think what we think let alone how others came to the same or different conclusions. Frankly, it’s a mess. At some point in the future, we might turn to artificial intelligence to remove the human factor from decisions, but we will discover that since AI is trained on human thinking, we may be no better off. No, if we’re going to do something about the situation, we will have to do it ourselves and understanding how to engage in real, effective dialogue is a good place to start.

First, Bohm says, you need to start with the right goal. In many of our conversations there is no stated goal. We just get together to talk. We can call an aimless conversation dialogue but that’s not the highly effective interaction that Bohm had in mind. Or, we come armed with evidence to support our argument, intending to overpower our adversaries, whether they are opposing candidates or our everyday colleagues. That’s also not effective dialogue. The correct goal is that by thinking together, we build on each other’s ideas to conceive of something new, something that none of us would have thought of before on our own. We use each other to stimulate, test, develop and eventually formulate a new perspective which can guide our next steps, from which we will learn and continue to improve. We can only do this if we listen deeply to the other, incorporate their thinking into our own, and then venture forth together into new territory that not one of us can claim exclusive rights to. It’s what is called, “collective intelligence.”

To get there, we need awareness of our positions entering the conversation and a willingness to explore the deep assumptions beneath them. We can’t just talk about ideas, we have to talk about ourselves – the way we think and why. If I am convinced the world is flat, I need to examine why that is the case. How did I reach that conclusion? What evidence am I paying attention to that keeps me firmly committed to my beliefs? What new evidence would be required to open my mind to the possibility that the world could be round? Why might it be important for me to entertain the views of others? What potential upside might there be for me or us? Are there things that I value but am not thinking about that adopting a new view of the situation could allow? Can I entertain a vision of the future that is even better than the restricted vision my current beliefs allow?

In dialogue, we can’t present our positions without being willing to have the reasons for our beliefs examined in public. That’s how we understand how we got here but also what’s holding us back from being more effective or more successful or making a breakthrough in areas where we have been stuck. In some situations, we may not be able to assemble facts to drive a decision which we all are forced by logic to accept. Even without facts though, through dialogue we can become more informed about why people think what they think and through that and more open to alternative explanations or pathways. We enter the conversation fragmented but if we dig deeply enough to get to the bottom of our beliefs, we emerge more cohesive and ready to act in an aligned fashion on the path forward we choose. Rather than trying to sell others on our view, we let the new and better collective view surface naturally as a result of our joint effort to think things through. Instead of settling for an unsatisfactory negotiated result that gives each of us only part of what we want, we search for a new solution that gives everyone what they need.

As we learn to suspend our assumptions to allow new assumptions to replace them, we gain the added benefit of building greater trust and teamwork. Behavior changes on an ongoing basis, not just when we are formally engaged in dialogue. We listen more. We are more open to having our thinking challenged. We are less afraid to speak what is on our minds, even to authority figures. We adopt the goal of using our collective intelligence to create something better, not to be bound by the assumptions that got us this far. We use less force in an attempt to coerce people to change but instead challenge ourselves to think things through together.

Bohm maintains that shared meaning is the cement that holds society together and notes that the present society has some very poor cement. We have become fragmented and polarized in our thinking at a time when many problems that threaten our common future demand that we act forcefully and in a cohesive fashion. The more we struggle, the more we judge and condemn when we should be coming to the table with an openness to suspending our assumptions and working to create something new. As much as we want to remain in consensus with our own group, we have to be willing to let go of our group’s mantra to step into a neutral space where new ideas have a chance to grow. No matter how good or right we think our ideas are, we must accept that we are not all-knowing and that there is a greater truth yet to be discovered. We must admit that with others, through dialogue, there’s a better chance that we will discover those truths than thinking on our own.

As a leader of an organization, instead of playing the role of an emperor presiding over gladiatorial combat, announce a new set of rules by which disagreements will be explored rather than settled once and for all. Replace, “To the victor go the spoils” with, “The future we deserve can only be conceived if we think and act together.”

That is the power of using dialogue to discover something new.

Goal clarity. Let’s start at the beginning. If your team isn’t clear on its goals, it will flounder until it finds its way. Far too often, leaders assume their teams know what they have in mind when in fact team members don’t have a clue. What’s more, even if you’re clear, team members interpret your message through their own interests, causing conflicts that only slow things down as people invest effort in different priorities. The key here is to get each member of the team to state in their own words what the goals of the project are and what they think will be required to achieve them. It’s the latter discussion that reveals misalignments that will extend the time for project completion. If you can nip these in the bud, not only will things get done sooner, but you will prevent unnecessary conflict among team members that can have a lasting negative effect on future collaboration.

Team size. We know that larger teams are slower, yet it can be hard to resist the well-intentioned desire of people to be involved. Starting with a small team of project leaders, perhaps no larger than three people, and allowing them to seek help as they need it, will concentrate accountability and speed decision making. Each of the small team leaders should be able to devote regular daily or weekly time to the project. Losing track of what is going on and needing to be brought back up to speed is a waste of time and may allow the people working on the project to drift off course in between check-ins by leaders. It’s easy enough to track how many projects your senior team members are supposed to be involved with and how often they actually dive in. If you want things to move along, be mindful of their capacity to truly engage.

Avoid wishful thinking. As projects get underway, try to avoid wishing for things that won’t happen. Examples? Providing a smaller budget or fewer people to work on the project than it will really require. Hoping that a breakthrough will occur in doing something that has never been done before. Expecting external partners to be responsive to urgent requests. Assuming you will get regulatory approvals in time to proceed. Assigning a junior person to do what a more experienced person should do in the belief that they will grow from having to figure things out. Assumptions like these will get you in trouble fast and make it harder to meet important deadlines.

Mid-course redirection. Mid-course corrections are to be expected but be careful to resist mid-course redirections unless they are absolutely necessary. What sometimes happens is that leaders aren’t certain of what they really want (lack of goal clarity again) so they allow people to begin working on a project to see what emerges. Once they are clearer about the possibilities, they form opinions about what they like and what they don’t like. Sometimes, this results in scrapping the original project in favor of a better one. That’s perfectly fine if speed is not a concern but it makes getting from start to finish take longer. If this becomes a regular practice, people learn to ignore deadlines because they are likely to change. To maintain discipline and keep up speed, set interim goals and stick to them. You can still redirect, but people will know that when you set a deadline you mean it and work accordingly.

Maintain stability. On large projects, try not to move project team members on and off. The time to replace a member and get them up to speed can be significant in itself, not to mention the disruption it may cause if the new person brings a different perspective regarding the work required. In large projects, people may get moved in and out a lot, often without much thought. Some of this is unpreventable, but minimizing the negative effects that movement can have on momentum and teamwork is important. Projects may never develop the critical head of steam they need if key players disappear.

Show that you care. People notice when leaders demonstrate their interest in their project. By showing up regularly, asking to see evidence of real progress, and offering support as needed, people get the message that their work is important, and time is of the essence. Showing up at remote sites can have a real impact, as the effort to get there is viewed as a testament to management’s commitment. Stories about these visits spread, and people want to be prepared to showcase their accomplishments when they do. If you sit in your office with your feet up on the desk, it sends a message.

Celebrate meeting deadlines. Make an example of teams that hit their marks. Too often, meeting goals is treated as if it’s expected. You may feel that people don’t deserve a pat on the back for just doing their job. But others are watching. If you celebrate people who meet deadlines by acknowledging the effort required to do so, you’re reinforcing the message that overcoming obstacles to stay on track is appreciated. If you care, they will care.

These are fairly simple prescriptions for increasing the clock speed of your organization. They are likely to be more effective than giving a rah-rah speech or adding more people to projects that are falling behind. If you want to win the hundred-yard dash, you can’t speedwalk. You have to run.

First, it’s important to understand that reaching a flow state requires more than luck. Some people have the impression that being in the zone is only possible when the moon and stars align; in other words that unless conditions are perfect, the chances of experiencing effortless performance are nil. In actuality, the chances of finding the zone are directly tied to an individual’s or team’s ability, as noted by Csikszentmihalyi. Without the ability to perform the task at hand, there will never be flow, regardless of whether the moon is waning or waxing. Conversely, with highly developed competence, actors should encounter opportunities to experience flow more frequently. Golfers are familiar with the quote by one of the games greatest, Gary Player, “The more I practice, the luckier I get.”

Csikszentmihalyi further notes that if performing a task becomes too easy, it can become boring and not bring out our best. In situations where actors are overly competent, it’s important to raise the challenge level a bit. Both preparation and setting the right target are important to finding your way to the zone.

For either individuals or teams, creating rituals that make it more likely to experience flow is helpful. The key is to focus attention, block out distractions, and prepare to give the task your best effort. This is no time for multitasking or working on different agendas. Sometimes, the urgency of the situation calls us to a higher level of aligned consciousness. If you think of the intense scenes in the movie Apollo 13 and then compare it to a typical meeting of your senior team, you realize what having an urgent shared objective can do. Like the folks at NASA, senior teams often pride themselves on how well they handle a crisis. The question is, “why does it take a crisis to allow us to perform at our best?” The answer is that ordinary team meetings contain agenda items of little interest or challenge to team members, unclear prioritization of the importance of the outcomes to be achieved, multiple competing agendas, unplanned excursions from what people were prepared to discuss, political maneuvering, and problems that have not been encountered before.

Since leading an organization requires openness to responding to unanticipated threats and opportunities, a certain amount of time has to be spent on sorting things out which is always messy. In that respect, there’s nothing wrong with ordinary team meetings. To achieve flow however, the team has to block out distractions and remain focused on a single task for which they have prepared in advance and are 95% competent to perform. This suggests that individuals or teams need to ring fence time to work intensely on a single agenda rather than be open to whatever seems important in the moment.

Presuming the right amount of competence and challenge in present in the situation, setting aside protected time is the first ritual to enhance the probability of attaining flow. Next is to remind oneself and others of the rules that must be followed. These include such things as:

· Attacking ideas, not the person, to elevate the level of thinking

· Being willing to entertain new perspectives

· Engaging in brainstorming before narrowing possibilities

· Encouraging equal participation

· Not allowing authority to be used to short-circuit needed conversations

· Doing your homework to be ready to engage when the time comes

· Giving team members ample airtime to explain their position before interrupting

· Encouraging oneself and others to keep trying when success is elusive

These rules need to be shared and enforced regardless of one’s position or status within the team to have maximum effect.

Then, before work actually begins, roles should be assigned that facilitate the work. These might include discussion leader, timekeeper, rules enforcement, and scribe. After that, it’s time to get started.

Once into the work, the team needs to stay on task, maintain psychological safety for every member, and accept that a challenging task requires the team’s best effort and still may not be achieved. Avoiding distractions means turning off devices, staying physically and mentally engaged, and supporting one another to go for the win.

The rewards for achieving flow can be substantial, both in terms of the outcomes of the work and the deepening of the team’s confidence. For individuals, it’s trust in one’s ability to take on stretch assignments that allow one to continue to grow intellectually as well as in one’s career.

Rather than believing that finding the zone is unattainable for you or your team, there’s value in working toward it if you haven’t experienced it already. Figure out what you can do to improve in areas that require deeper competence, set aside time to focus on a single task, follow a routine to prepare, and pay attention to how you are going about the work together once you get underway. You may not be facing an Apollo 13 type of situation, but you will almost certainly discover that the more you practice, the luckier you get.

I’m not deeply religious in the formal sense of the word but I do have faith. I don’t attribute everything that happens to me to an omnipotent external entity or predetermined plan but nevertheless, there are lots of things that affect me that I neither want nor control. It’s easy to feel like the deck is stacked against me or that luck is not in my favor. At the same time, experience has taught me to have faith, that things won’t remain as they are forever. What I now know that I didn’t at an earlier stage in life is that my mindset makes a huge difference in how quickly things turn around. If I feel overwhelmed, hopeless and want to give up, I have no energy for action and remain stuck. If I see a setback or even a serious mishap as a momentary event rather than a permanent condition, I can access my creativity, recognize my resources, and start again.

There’s been tons of research on this, including massive studies in the military, sales organizations, and sports. As a result, we have a better handle on what’s going on in our heads as we respond to negative events in our lives. Here’s what we’ve learned.

· People who are more optimistic (have faith) are less likely to label themselves as failures but rather to attribute their performance to a combination of internal and external factors. Therefore, they don’t develop what scientists call “learned helplessness,” which is a belief that they can never succeed when faced with a similar situation. Instead, they believe that the negative experience was a one-off, rather than an indicator of their true ability. People with learned helplessness focus on what they can’t do, which reduces the effort they put into trying to succeed.

· This is connected to their resilience. Optimistic people are more likely to bounce back rather than quit. They believe that success is just around the corner, even though they may fail multiple times before they get there.

· People who have faith in themselves or their team are also more likely to take risks that have the potential to lead to extraordinary outcomes. People who are pessimistic value avoiding failure over trying something that could lead to much higher performance. Soldiers who are more optimistic, for example, are four times more likely than their pessimistic counterparts to engage in heroic behavior.

I worked with a group of truly outstanding people who had talked themselves into learned helplessness. Over a period of time, their organization underperformed a key competitor. As we began our work together, they explained that (in their view) their competitors were “A players” and they were “B players”. With that mindset, how could they possibly succeed?

Take a moment to reflect on your situation. Do you have faith in your organization? In its leaders? In your leadership? In your team’s capability? If the answer is “no” to any of these questions, follow up with an examination of your attitude. Do you believe the situation is hopeless and will never improve? Are there so many things that are out of your control that you have no agency to change things? Or, do you see the situation as temporary and that there are many things you can do to improve things over time?

It’s hard to be optimistic if you have just been fired, passed over for a key assignment, or if one of your best performers who you thought was loyal to you recently left to pursue an opportunity elsewhere. It’s hard to be upbeat if your organization’s performance failed to meet the guidance you gave to Wall Street. But think about it. What good does it do to give up hope? Keeping the faith may not be easy in times like these, but it’s what you need to do for yourself and your team. If you’re not naturally an optimistic person, you may need some help to get there. Here are some things that might help.

· Stop dwelling on what went wrong. What’s done is done. Shift your thinking to what could go right going forward and what you need to do to make that happen.

· Change the setting. Leave wherever you have been (even if only for a while) and go to a place you love or that inspires you. A change of venue can help change your perspective. When you’re not surrounded by reminders of the negative, there’s more space to let the positive in.

· Talk to new people. The people who got you here may not help you to get there. Hearing new takes or new ideas gets your brain thinking in new directions.

· Act yourself into a new way of being. Doing almost anything is better than doing nothing. Even actions that fail get you moving. The key is to keep taking small steps regardless of the outcomes of each step. Learn and keep moving. Eventually, you will realize you have made progress.

· Don’t focus on the deep, philosophical questions. Should I choose a different career? Will this business ever be profitable? You can ask those questions later, when you have gotten back on your feet, but not now. The big questions are an impediment to taking action today, which is what you need to do.

Usually, over time, the universe knocks us down but then it lifts us up again. We can have a run of bad luck but then something happens to inspire us. Don’t lose faith in yourself or others at the first sign of a problem. Deep breaths, patience, time. There’s reason to believe that things will improve. Be prepared to take notice when they do.

We set ourselves up for kickback when we fall in love with an idea and move forward with it before we find ways to test the assumptions behind it. How could a combined real estate investment play covered by fees derived from renting out co-working space possibly fail (WeWork)? How could an innovation described as on par with the invention of the PC by Steve Jobs not live up to its hype (the Segway)? How could a massively successful business model developed in the U.S. not be a hit in China (Home Depot)?

At a personal level, when we allow our ego to go unchecked and refuse to listen to those who care for us attempting to warn us about what’s coming, what do they know? Didn’t Captain Ahab know more about hunting whales than his crew? Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani (Theranos) kept believing their manufactured self-talk even following their convictions for fraud. CEO Dick Fuld disregarded frequent warnings from his chief risk officer because he believed that Lehman Brothers was too big to fail. We need courage to do what others are too fearful to attempt but we have to be careful to obey the laws of physics.

The thing that makes managing expectations difficult is that that we can’t just listen to our internal soundtrack. We must look at things from others’ perspective, taking in their concerns and not proceeding until we have convinced them that we are headed down the right path. This means letting them poke at our plans and rather than allowing others to shut them down, using their input to strengthen our strategy. If we proceed with impunity but still make our commitments public, we set ourselves up for a possible fall. At the same time, we can’t keep our ambitions secret because we need the support and resources others provide. The question isn’t whether we decide to undertake a challenge, it’s how we go about it.

With regard to business plans, we can lay out the details of the plan, the investments that will be required, and the assumptions about how the market will respond. We can ask that others make our plan better rather than accepting a snap judgment that it is impossible. We can have alternative approaches in mind to illustrate that we aren’t hung up on a particular route but are still committed to getting to the destination. We can gather data to counter baseless claims that undermine the logic of our thinking and be flexible about how much we can achieve by when to accommodate concerns that we may be overly optimistic. We need support to keep going, not complete agreement with every detail of our vision. We can set up interim tests that address challenges that demand proof and learn from others who have explored similar territory. We should help others clarify and prioritize their concerns so that if we are able to address them, we gain their support. We must ultimately come across as open-minded and cooperative rather than maniacal.

At a personal level, we need to stop perceiving those with different views as a threat and instead as helpers. It’s extremely difficult to see our own blind spots (hence the name) so we need the help of others to perceive ourselves as others experience us. The people who manage disruptions in their march toward success effectively decouple their feelings of personal worth from events that occur or the judgments of others. Instead, they treat events and judgments as data which they can use to improve their approach, recognizing that the best of plans by the smartest and most powerful of people encounter setbacks and fail to please everyone.

To enhance the chances for success without giving up our deeply held dreams, we can set goals for ourselves that are tied more tightly to our own efforts and less dependent upon others or the world going our way. If we’re headed in the right direction, we should experience short-term wins that encourage us to carry on. If we don’t achieve success, we need to be curious about what caused our losses rather than redoubling our efforts to do more of the same. We should invent new approaches and engage in experimenting with them until we find something that works better. We should set goals that are flexible and sustainable rather than time-bound and all or nothing, “If this hasn’t worked by this time next year, I’m giving up.”

Mostly, we need to get out of our own way. There’s nothing wrong with being passionate about an idea or confident in our abilities, unless we refuse to be open to feedback that can help increase our chances of success or survival. Others can be wrong, of course, and there will be times when it’s best to ignore them. Before we reject their point of view entirely, we should strive to create small experiments that allow us to determine if the problem lies with us or them. Data over ego.

As leaders, it’s important to remember that when we self-destruct, we take others with us. Before we drive over a cliff, pause to consider if there are alternatives to the course of action we have set upon and whether there are ways to examine if one of those alternatives might produce better outcomes.

Or, stick with the plan, don’t ask for feedback and proceed at your own risk.

Occasionally, the need is not to predict the future but to invent it. Then, you need an approach that yields new thinking, not just a minor departure from the past. One approach to that is “world building”, described in the book Design Unbound by Ann Pendelton-Jullian and John Seely Brown. Ann is an architect-scholar and John is well known for his role as Xerox Chief Scientist leading Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Lab in the 1990s. World building is especially useful in pointing toward breakthrough innovations and possible solutions to what Russell Ackoff called “wicked problems” such as climate change or reducing dependence on fossil fuels, problems that are multifaceted and immune to simplistic resolutions.

As the title of the book implies, world building is driven by design thinking, brought to us by the folks at IDEO and others in the product design field. At its core, design thinking involves an effort to deeply understand consumer needs through iteratively testing assumptions regarding what consumers want as quickly and cheaply as possible so that course corrections in product design can happen quickly and before huge investments are made. Design thinking is a collaborative sport, best accomplished when people who think differently are brought together to stimulate the creative flow of ideas. The bias is toward action rather than endless hypothesizing so that the innovation process can be directed by data instead of false assumptions.

What’s different about world building is that the inhabitants of future worlds don’t exist yet, so an evidence-based, design from data approach isn’t possible. Instead, the process is intended to work in an inverse fashion. The hope is that by creating a rich depiction of a future world, motivated individuals can work together to create aspects of that world, including innovative products and solutions to longstanding quandaries.

The value of world-building is proportionate to the effort invested. A quick brainstorming session among a few people with the same backgrounds and perspectives won’t take things very far. It’s possible that with time and dedication an individual with a fertile mind can outline the features of a world different than our own, as has been done by Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland), George Orwell (Animal Farm), or Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles). As described in Design Unbound, the motion picture industry has been a particularly fertile ground for world building, bringing together minds from many different disciplines to create classics like Minority Report, Star Trek, Blade Runner, Lord of the Rings, and many more. Many of the futuristic tools used by the crew of the Starship Enterprise were willed into existence by scientists fascinated with the challenges their invention posed. NASA has contributed its share of innovations driven by the imagined needs of space travelers, living under conditions very different from those on Earth. If your organization needs breakthroughs in product innovation or is interested in resolving problems associated with the polycrisis, you might find an investment in world building to be worthwhile.

At the highest level, the goal of world building is to imagine a new context for things to happen in. It begins by asking, “what if” the world was different in a significant way? What if we harnessed the power of gravity? What if we lived in a world without hunger? Then, the real work begins. That future world needs to be described in detail. All aspects of the world should be examined; the way people live, how they get around, what cities are like, the nature of politics, what drives the economy, how people access knowledge, and so forth. The central challenge that your organization wants to solve stays at the center, and the rest is built around it. While it may seem that designing a new curriculum for elementary school children has little to do with achieving breakthroughs in harnessing gravity, you never know what departures will lead to new insights as long as the challenge remains in the background. World building often starts with a map that depicts the new world, re-imagined in its geography to represent the areas of resources, action or thought that make the world work. Without a depiction of Middle Earth, Tolkien’s writing would have been limited by reference to a map of the London tube system. Inventing a new world requires that one imagine the shapes and contours of that world.

Then, because the process of detailing the features of a new world would require an infinite amount of time and energy, the focus is on creating a coherent explanation of how the key features of the world function with regard to the product or problem of interest. In Alice in Wonderland, while amazing and confusing aspects of the world are encountered, we never lose sight of Alice and her wonderment. Making connections among features of the world we are building is often where our subconscious comes into play and novel ways of thinking are encountered. Ideas, systems of logic, governing structures, models, and frameworks produce the glue that holds everything together but also enable creative transformation.

At some point, after struggling long enough to imagine a world that addresses our desired outcomes, we become immersed in it, imagining we actually inhabit it. From that perspective, we begin speaking the language of that world, seeing more clearly what our lives would be like and the actions we are taking that make the future we want feel like a reality. With that added understanding, we can search for experts or others who can join the quest to bring our future world into being. A network of collaboration is thereby created in which actors have the connections, resources, access and shared commitment to bring something that doesn’t currently exist into existence.

When the Star Trek series began, we could only imagine a world with mobile phones, touch-screen devices, human-computer interfaces, MRI machines, the ability to project ourselves into a shared space, or even doors that open automatically when you approach them. Today, the 1970s seem like the stone age. The way we live today is at least in part the product of creative world-building by the people behind the television series. Although the breakthroughs didn’t occur in a quarter or even a fiscal year, they created industries of immense profitability. The world we know wouldn’t exist if Alice hadn’t ventured down the rabbit hole.