Actively cultivate an environment of safety, trust, and mutual help within an organization. This is fundamental for achieving collective potential and maximizing organizational value.
Cultivate a fundamental mindset of intellectual humility, always questioning your own certainty. Ask, ‘If I were wrong, what would I see?’ to remain open to new information and perspectives.
Reframe arguments or disagreements as a ‘gift’ in collaborative environments. Welcome thoughtful challenges from others as an opportunity to test your ideas, sharpen your understanding, and improve outcomes.
When facing decisions or disagreements, consciously prioritize the goal of ‘getting it right’ over simply ‘winning’ the argument. This fosters a mindset that seeks optimal solutions rather than personal victory.
Actively seek out and acknowledge easily available information, especially disconfirming data, to avoid willful blindness. Recognize that ignoring knowable facts is a choice for which you are responsible.
Deliberately seek out diverse perspectives and disconfirming data to challenge your mental models. Actively avoid surrounding yourself only with like-minded individuals to prevent amplified blindness.
Create an environment where people feel safe to voice concerns and issues without fear of reprisal or being labeled a ’troublemaker’. This ensures that valuable insights and early warnings are not suppressed.
View individuals who challenge the status quo or raise concerns as potential ’early warning systems’ rather than troublemakers. Cultivate the courage and poise to listen to them, as their insights can protect the organization.
Maintain humility about the fragility of your moral compass, especially in organizational settings where the desire to ‘do a good job’ can inadvertently override ethical considerations. Remain vigilant about how environments can subtly alter your identity and actions.
Practice self-awareness by regularly reflecting on how your behavior, values, and identity shift in different environments (e.g., work vs. home). Pay attention to what aspects are amplified or suppressed.
Critically evaluate organizational systems and culture for sources of internal competition (e.g., forced ranking, excessive hierarchy). Redesign them to incentivize mutual help and collaboration over rivalry.
Prioritize hiring individuals who value generosity and collaboration, and consistently send clear signals about desired behaviors. Ensure an environment where people feel safe to help and be helped, and contributions are recognized.
Actively acknowledge and appreciate the contributions of others, remembering who helped you. This fosters a culture of reciprocal support and ensures people feel valued.
When making critical decisions, especially in leadership roles, frame the debate around ‘what is right for the business’ rather than personal preferences, comfort, or ease. This ensures objective and beneficial outcomes.
Maintain extreme vigilance regarding the disruptive nature of power and strive to minimize its overt use. Foster an environment where influence and collaboration are preferred over hierarchical command.
Embrace mistakes as learning opportunities, but commit to making different mistakes each time. Actively analyze past errors to understand their root causes and prevent repeating the same ones.
When mistakes occur, openly acknowledge them (setting an example for others), then quickly and dispassionately analyze ‘how did this happen?’. Identify contributing factors and assess what could be changed, rather than attributing it to fluke or personal judgment.
Be wary of binary thinking (’either/or’); instead, embrace complexity and nuance to better understand situations and uncover richer opportunities. Recognize that simple solutions often miss critical details.
Develop the ability to separate constructive argument and opposition from personal attacks. Recognize that disagreement can be a valuable tool for improvement rather than a sign of dislike.
Develop a clear understanding of your own limits and capabilities, learning to distinguish between challenging ‘stretch goals’ and ‘madness’ (impossible tasks). Have the courage to say ’no’ when at your limit.
Implement regular, informal sessions where team members share personal stories to foster human connection and build social capital. This moves interactions beyond functional roles.
Identify and actively remove barriers like distrust, rivalry, and ignorance about colleagues’ needs. This ensures efficient information flow and problem-solving within an organization.
Regularly question whether being good at something means you must do it indefinitely. Allow yourself to explore new paths and purposes, even if it means stepping away from established successes.
Diversify your reading habits beyond your immediate professional field. Include fiction, history, poetry, and art history to broaden your perspective, stimulate your brain, and enhance your understanding of the world.
Adjust your reading strategy based on your purpose: for work, read quickly, annotate carefully, and use digital tools. For leisure, read at a leisurely pace and don’t hesitate to quit books you don’t enjoy.
Actively study business history, including past failures and successes, to gain a ’longer story’ perspective. This helps avoid repeating mistakes and provides critical context often overlooked in contemporary business education.
Actively experiment with various endeavors, and for each, strive to work alongside individuals who operate at the highest level of excellence. This exposure to quality thinking and execution provides invaluable learning, regardless of whether you continue in that field.
Cultivate generosity, curiosity, and especially reliability in your professional and personal life. Consistently follow through on commitments (‘if you say you’re going to do something, do it no matter what’) as reliability is a highly undervalued and crucial trait.
Approach every interaction with genuine curiosity about others, acting as a ‘detective’ to uncover what makes them interesting and what you can learn from them. Everyone holds unique insights.
Consciously choose to prioritize the quality and depth of your work over the sheer quantity of output. Focus on doing a few things exceptionally well rather than many things superficially.