by Caroline Leach | Feb 13, 2016 | Leadership, Social Media, Work/Life
“Find Your Inspiration” greeted us on the tram today as we arrived at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.
What a great way to build community. It created connections through social media with #GettyInspired.
Not only was I inspired myself and in how my family responded to our visit, but I could also see how others experienced this architectural and artistic treasure.
There was a common experience in being part of something bigger than ourselves. This is a hallmark of all storied brands, and the Getty sets a great example.
The Getty has been the site of many a previous inspiration for me. The DIRECTV annual leadership development program. A National Charity League gathering for an architecture tour. Many family visits, including today’s.
Today was by far my favorite. We checked into a tour of the collection’s highlights. It was led by a passionate and knowledgeable docent who ably linked art history with current events.
We learned how Rembrandt, who never traveled more than 40 miles from his home, had haunted flea markets of his day to collect props used in his paintings.
We learned how Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder had collaborated on a painting about the transience of peace in The Return from War.
We learned how Vincent van Gogh painted Irises, the vibrant view outside his window in his first week at the sanitarium in Saint-Remy, France.
And it was only a few hours later that we heard the news of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia‘s passing. Whatever your politics, it underscores how each day is really all that each of us has.
That was poignantly clear in today’s New York Times article about an AT&T leader who overcame great adversity.
(Full disclosure: I work at this company and this blog represents my own opinions.)
This leader’s mother encouraged him to imagine himself in different circumstances.
That’s the power of inspiration.
by Caroline Leach | Feb 6, 2016 | Corporate Communications, Leadership, Learning
Reading is all the rage among many business leaders.
As a lifelong bookworm, this is welcome news. Something I’ve always loved to do has (finally) become on trend.
The lesson? If you do things you like long enough, they might become popular at some point. Then you can say you were ahead of the curve.
The benefits of reading are vast – there’s focusing your mind and calming your soul. There’s learning new information relevant to your career. There’s exposing yourself to a diversity of viewpoints to understand how different groups of people think and act.
In the year since I posted News Rituals of a Communicator, my own reading habits have evolved and changed.
New on the scene are 3 daily digests pushed to my email.
- theSkimm. This filters news through the eyes of Millennials. It’s a fun read with a fresh take on the world, with quotes of the day, a main story and things to know.
Thanks to colleague Lauren Brown for the recommendation, during a meeting of our company’s employee resource group for women.
It starts with today’s agenda, moves into the world in brief and wraps up with market activity.
- L.A. Business Journal. This is the local look at what’s going on in the Los Angeles business world. It aggregates sources with news that impacts Southern California.
And since I work for a Dallas-based company, I’ve become an avid follower of The Dallas Morning News.
Isn’t this a lot to read? Not really. Similar to other news sources, I scan the headlines in each digest and choose at least one story to read in full.
That’s why I focus so much on the importance of headlines in any corporate communication. Often it’s all people will read. The main point has to be captured in it. If someone read nothing else, would they get the key point? Is it something that could be easily found later in a search?
Beyond news, there are blogs for a variety of viewpoints. And what about books? There’s less of a method to my madness here in creating a reading list.
I keep an eye out in Harvard Business Review posts for upcoming books. Sometimes I’ll discover books through TED talks. Other times it’ll be on best business books lists.
Usually I discover books before their publishing date. So I pre-order on my Kindle app. It’s a fun surprise the day they download. This week’s gift is Adam Grant‘s Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World.
Because I’m such a book lover, I haunt my local library‘s new releases section. It’s like browsing the latest titles and taking all the best ones home for free. Even better, they get returned after 2 weeks and don’t clutter my home or office. There’s also an option to borrow electronic books.
How is there time for all these books? They’re always available on my smartphone or tablet. That way I can read on the go whenever I have a few minutes. It makes time fly when you’re standing in line or waiting for an appointment to begin.
When time is tight, I’ll read the first chapter, last chapter and any other chapters in the table of contents that catch my eye. There are plenty of book summaries out there. And you can listen to books in the car.
And I’m endlessly inspired by Claire Diaz-Ortiz and her reading habit. Her post on How I Read 200 Books a Year gives great tips for how to fit more reading into your life.
What are you reading and how do you make time for it?
by Caroline Leach | Feb 5, 2016 | Leadership, Learning, Marketing & Analytics
Are the hallmarks of great leaders confidence, certainty and decisiveness?
Or as our world grows ever more volatile and complex, are the best leaders open to influence? Are they persuadable?
That’s the premise of a great new book by Al Pittampalli called Persuadable: How Great Leaders Change Their Minds to Change the World.
How did I find it? By reading one of my favorite marketing blogs. Seth Godin had a great plug for it last week in his post “When I want your opinion…”. And if Seth is recommending a book, it’s going to be good.
With only slight sheepishness at being a marketer’s dream by buying the Kindle edition of the book after reading the post, I dove into it this week.
What did I learn? In a nutshell, I’m going to be much more comfortable evaluating new data and information as it comes to light. And I’ll be more willing to change my mind as a result.
Some of it harkens back to the classic principles in Robert Cialdini‘s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. The reciprocity principle in particular has stood the test of time as a key driver of social media.
John Maxwell‘s writings about Becoming a Person of Influence also made an impression. Maxwell says you have to be open to the influence of others, in order to have an influence on them. I’m still tickled that he was one of the first people who “followed” me back on Twitter.
Why is persuadability to important? “In a world that is unpredictable, ultra competitive and fast changing,” Pittampalli writes, “being persuadable is the ultimate competitive advantage.”
This gives key advantages, he explains — accuracy, agility and growth:
- A better understanding of the world fuels more accurate decisions.
- Quickly seeing and responding to changing conditions enables necessary pivots.
- And honestly evaluating your performance and getting feedback creates growth.
How do you become persuadable? Pittampalli outlines 7 practices of persuadable leaders. Here are 3 that most resonated with me.
First is “considering the opposite.” It seems straightforward, yet we have to overcome our own cognitive biases to actively seek out information that conflicts with our current thinking.
A simple way to counter it is by asking yourself questions, starting with “what’s the opposite here and have I thought about it?”
Second is “update your beliefs incrementally.” What works in leading change in general also applies to being more persuadable.
As more evidence becomes available, we can update our beliefs along the way. That way, beliefs evolve naturally over time. It’s easier for your own brain as well as for others to embrace smaller changes in thinking.
Third is “avoiding becoming too persuadable.” Just because you choose to become more persuadable as a leader, there are still plenty of times when it’s appropriate to make decisions that may be unpopular and take action.
Like many things in life and leadership, there are tradeoffs to be made. It’s valuable to get input up to a point, but then there are diminishing returns over time of each additional piece of feedback.
Perhaps you’re embracing on a course of action and finding it difficult to decide whether or not to proceed. A good question Pittampalli puts forth is asking yourself, “Is it worth it?”
My experience in business reinforces for me that it’s more important than ever to be open to new evidence. The world is constantly changing, and information used previously to make decisions is likely to have changed.
By extension, it’s important to become ever more comfortable with changing you mind. Along with that, it’s critical to clearly articulate the reasons behind the changes in your thought process.
As Simon Sinek so compellingly outlined in his TED talk How great leaders inspire action, understanding “why” is the first thing people need to know in order to change the world.
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