understanding habits

"Understanding habits is the most important thing I’ve learned in the army,” the major told me. “It’s changed everything about how I see the world. You want to fall asleep fast and wake up feeling good? Pay attention to your nighttime patterns and what you automatically do when you get up. You want to make running easy? Create triggers to make it a routine. I drill my kids on this stuff. My wife and I write out habit plans for our marriage. This is all we talk about in command meetings. Not one person in Kufa would have told me that we could influence crowds by taking away the kebab stands, but once you see everything as a bunch of habits, it’s like someone gave you a flashlight and a crowbar and you can get to work.

Charles Duhigg

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Random House. 2012.

looking for character

Wright: When you bring someone into the Spurs organization, what do you look for?

Popovich: Oh, boy. This is going to be a long interview. For us, it’s easy. We’re looking for character, but what the hell does that mean? We’re looking for people -- and I’ve said it many times -- that have gotten over themselves. And you can tell that pretty quick. You can talk to somebody for four or five minutes, and you can tell if it’s about them or if they understand that they’re just a piece of the puzzle. So we look for that.

A sense of humor is a huge thing with us. You’ve got to be able to laugh. You’ve got to be able to take a dig, give a dig, that sort of thing, and feel comfortable in your own skin that you don’t have all the answers. People who are participatory. The guys in the film room can tell me what they think of how we played last night if they want to. Sean Marks would sit in on our coaches meetings when we’re arguing about how to play the pick-and-roll or who we’re going to play or who we’re going to sit.

We need people who can handle information and not take it personally because in most of these organizations, there’s a big divide. All of the sudden, the wall goes up between management and coaching, and everybody is ready to blame back and forth. And that’s the rule, rather than the exception. It just happens, but that’s about people. It’s about finding people who have all those kinds of qualities, so we do our best to look for that, and when somebody comes, they figure it out pretty quick.


Michael C. Wright
"Gregg Popovich on Kobe Bryant: 'You can't help but just watch him'" ESPN. 2/20/2016

quantifiable culture

Because culture is no longer a “soft” feature of organizational success, it must be measured quantifiably so change can occur if necessary. The right company culture drives employee engagement, which can be measured by employee’s beliefs that they feel connected, are able to execute on a high level, and can collaborate with those around them.... According to [Executive Leadership Coach] John [Mattone], just 15% of companies measure culture, while 70% measure employee engagement. In order to better align employees with culture, leaders must accurately measure both and ensure that they’re aligned. In his new book, John discusses five key “cultures” that determine a company’s operational success:

• Can-do culture: To what extent does your organization develop the inner-core values, beliefs and emotional make-up, and outer-core competencies and skills of employees that help the organization succeed?
• Will-do culture: To what extent is your organization’s vision, mission and purpose one that excites and motivates leaders and employees? Do employees truly believe that they can positively impact the business and add value to customers and society?
• Must-do culture: To what extent is there a clear vision and strategy for the organization? Do different parts and levels of the organization share the same vision?
• Individual culture: To what extent are leaders and employees true “role models”? Is there a culture of individual excellence and execution? Do employees “walk the talk”?
• Team culture: To what extent is there a team and collaborative approach to getting things done in the organization?

If organizations have these five engines operating at a high level, they will experience a strong culture that employees identify with, resulting in high operational success. 

Alyssa Drury

"Why a Strong Corporate Culture Requires Disruptive Leadership" BostInno. 2/3/2016

be yourself

Malala [Yousafzai] might have a voice on the world stage, but she doesn’t pretend she’s the world’s greatest authority on education. She understands that to persuade people, she needs to let them see who she really is. Although she always advocates for what she believes in, she uses her pranksterish humor, candor, and youthful charm to disarm people, whether they're global leaders like President Obama and Queen Elizabeth or late-night talk show hosts like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Malala is honest and direct. She shares things about herself—some lighthearted, like how she loves to tease her brothers and her obsession with arm wrestling, and some poignant, like her concern for her homeland and her insecurities about being a teenager. Because Malala is unapologetically herself, her message resonates with that thing all leaders require: authenticity.

It’s natural for leaders to want to impress others, to play a part that sometimes isn't quite genuine—to come off as the smartest one in the room or the one with all the answers. Manufactured personas turn people off. A true leader knows that they'll be more compelling, persuasive, and inspiring to others if they express all parts of their personality evenhandedly—including their humor, humility, and even their vulnerability. Sometimes the messenger is just as important as the message.

Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield

"Five Leadership Lessons From Malala Yousafzai" Fast Company. 10/12/2015

trust employees

In this world of intense scrutiny, where everyone is looking at what you do...one reaction is to create management systems, more process, more controls, and more bureaucracy. Relying on traditional supervision, process and controls would inhibit serving clients responsively, and stifle employees' creative energies. We cannot apply Industrial age management systems to address post Industrial age needs. There is a better alternative, which is to trust employees. Values are the glue, the bond that binds us together in the absence of controls. These must be genuinely shared values; they can't be imposed top-down. Values provide employees a framework to make decisions when management systems and procedures are unclear. It comes down to judgment, based on shared values.

Sam Palmisano

"The Future of Leadership" by Samie Al-Achrafi. The Huffington Post. 10/30/2015