Tag Archives: discipline

Change Only What Can Be Changed

Leave a reply

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s a reminder that your span of control is limited. Reading time: 1:24

Try this says one leader to the other: “Lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles with it. Now, draw the number 6 in the air with your right hand.”

The second executive tries to comply but to no avail. As soon as she tries to draw the number 6 and twirl her foot clockwise, her foot changes direction. She tries again. Same result.

Doctors say this is a pre-programmed response in your brain. No matter what you do you cannot override it.

You can’t outsmart your right foot when you are trying to write the number 6 in the air. You’ve been preprogrammed. Your response is always dialed in. You have no choice.

Doctors also have studied a related exercise: try to simultaneously rotate the index fingers of both hands in the same direction (clockwise or anticlockwise). Do it slowly at first, then faster, and faster. Pretty soon, they’re going in opposite directions.

The twirling legs and fingers exercises illustrates a leadership thinking tenent: that some things are so hard-wired, it makes no sense to try to change it.

The most effective leaders focus only on what they can change, what they can influence. Naturally. The leadership lesson is clear: Pick your fights- strategically —with a credible vision and an achievable mission.

That’s what leaders do. Then they will more readily get a leg up on the competition. Then they will more readily circle the competition — clockwise or counter-clockwise. And then they will more readily achieve their objective: Twirling a Deep Six weapon of choice in any direction.

Today’s ImproveMINT

Beware of predictive thinking to keep your leadership thinking in mint condition.

SUBSCRIBE: Have a Leadership Mint delivered to your E-mail every business day.
It’s free. Just click the SIGN ME UP box in the upper left column.

Grab the Tiger of Success by DeTAIL

Leave a reply

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to add discipline to your decision-making process. Reading time: 2:57.

Still looking for that magic wand to make your next project an overwhelming success? Look no further. It’s right in front of you. In the details.

Leaders know how to handle their magic wand. They grab the tiger of success by “detail.”

Consider the detail in the piece of bubble gum in the making airplane history. Or the significance in folding socks to become a champion collegiate basketball coach.

No detail is too small in the eyes of a leader-from the 82 different prototype models that factored into the final design of the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles to the 98,178 storyboards used in the movie WALL-E — twice the 43,536 storyboards used in the movie Finding Nemo.

Leaders know the more they pay attention to the details the more their mission and vision will pay off.

BUBBLE GUM MAGIC:

Charles Lindbergh climbed in his airplane for what would become the first solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927. Then he realized for the first time he could not see the compass. An extra fuel tank, positioned in the cockpit, blocked his view.

Lindbergh climbed out of the cockpit. He asked a woman bystander for her compact .Then he asked another bystander for a stick of gum. He used the gum to stick the mirror from the compact on to the cockpit wall so that he could see the compass. Charles Lindbergh grabbed the tiger of success -by detail.

SOCK MAGIC:

John Wooden, UCLA’s legendary basketball coach, would teach his players how to put on a new pair of socks by first smoothing out all the wrinkles that could cause a blister. He even had someone measure the feet of each player -both left and right- to assure the best fit basketball shoes. He did not merely asked each player his size. them inside out to remove a small clump of cloth that could cause a blister. His focus on detail even include the temperature of water served at team dinners (no ice) to avoid cramping and substituting orange slices for chocolate squares served at halftime because he said chocolate seemed to create “phlegm.”

Continue reading →