Margaret Heffernan discusses how to get the most out of our people, creating a thriving culture of trust and collaboration, and how to prevent potentially devastating “willful blindness.”
- Had people explain why they are working here and share their personal life story. This got employees to see each other as human beings to build social capital. We can do more collectively than we can do individually and building this human connection and trust helps with that. People need to feel safe, trust, and want to help each other.
- Forced ranking pits people against one another.
- Competitiveness leads to this notion that if I help you then I will be doing worse.
- What can I do to cultivate people help each other. The compounding of talent.
In organizations its:
- Important who you hire
- Sending signals on what type of behavior you support appreciation generosity
- That employees contributions have value — by telling them.
Thinking in binary terms:
- Thinking in black and white and binary is much easier than the nuance. It’s much more dramatic. It however does not reflect the richness and complexity of life.
- How to catch myself when I am thinking in binary:
“If I think it’s that simple, you got to be missing something.”
At times someone who challenges you is someone that cares since they need to understand you.
Don’t take the argument personally.
Key take-aways:
- “I can always be wrong. If I was wrong what would I see”. Navigating life from this perspective.
- Not taking opposition personally
