The virtue of ‘I don’t know’

I just read Gregory Rodrigeuez’s insightful editorial in the LA Times entitled, “The virtue of ‘I don’t know’.”


© Alessandro Pinna vai Flickr

We seem to be obsessed with opinions because we take them to be a marker of individual independence, distinctiveness and reasoned intelligence. Expressing opinions is how we also express our freedom of conscience and flex our political rights. But when we’re obliged to have an opinion on everything, all the time, our expressions of conscience are less about independent thinking than about making stuff up.

A 1981 study out of the University of Michigan found that roughly 30% of survey respondents were willing to offer an opinion on a highly obscure piece of legislation if a “no opinion” option wasn’t available. The researchers concluded that people “who really have no views on the issues under inquiry ” often “simply flip mental coins in order to satisfy the interviewer’s expectation.”

The authenticity of a meaningful “I don’t know” is powerful. Let’s stop flipping mental coins in order to satisfy each other’s expectations and use “I don’t know” whenever we don’t.
Posted on June 29, 2011 in Beliefs, Leadership, Vision

What is your leadership DNA?

I suspect that many of us never get a handle on our leadership DNA. Instead, we take our views, our tendencies, our work style for granted. Without the self-knowledge that comes from introspection, we give control of what may be our greatest influence to chance.


© micahb37 via Flickr

If you take time to understand your professional wiring, you can begin to understand how your mindset, experiences, and habits influence your work. You’ll begin to see what others see as you lead. You’ll begin to understand why you do the things you do well and why you do others poorly. You’ll begin to identify your weaknesses, which can help you avoid putting them to work. You’ll begin to see your worldview, mindset, assumptions, and beliefs and how they influence what you think, say, and do.

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Posted on June 27, 2011 in Leadership

The most embarrassing moment in NFL history and the choice it offered

Jim Marshall was a defensive lineman drafted in the NFL in 1960 by the Cleveland Browns. In 1961 he was traded to the Minnesota Vikings and played for them for an inconceivable 18 years–starting in 270 consecutive games. Jim play in two Pro Bowls and in four Super Bowls.

However, Jim may be best known for what is considered by many to be the most embarrassing moment in NFL history. Four years into his NFL career in a game against the San Francisco 49ers, Jim recovered a fumble and ran for what he thought was a touchdown. Jim looked to the sideline and quarterback Fran Tarkenton yelled, “Jim, you ran the wrong way!”

Jim Marshall runs the wrong way.

Jim Marshall running the wrong way in game against 49ers.

Jim was devastated with shame, having scored for the wrong team in front of millions on national TV.

But what happened during halftime was amazing. Jim said,

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Posted on June 27, 2011 in Beliefs, Leadership

Creating success from our messes

When I was a teenager, I enjoyed waterskiing. With some springtime weather and a new driver’s license, I was anxious to get our boat out of winter storage. My father consented and I drove some distance to pick it up so that we could go to the lake later that week.


© atibens via Flickr

After getting the boat trailer hitched to the car by the guys at the boat storage place, I headed for the nearest freeway entrance. Half a block before the onramp was a set of railroad tracks. As I crossed the tracks, I heard a funny “clunk” from the back of the car, but thought nothing of it. Just a moment later as I slowed to make a left turn onto the freeway, the boat on the trailer passed by me heading directly for a group of cars waiting at a red light a block away. Sparks flew as the front of the trailer bounced on the pavement. I prepared myself to turn into the boat trailer to prevent it from careening into the cars stopped at the light. Thankfully, the boat continued to veer towards the side of the road, where several cars were parked angularly in front of a store.

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Posted on June 22, 2011 in Action, Leadership

What do your dreams tell you?

Our dreams are the raw material of our mission and vision for the future. James Allen gives the following insights to the power of our dreams in chapter 6 of As A Man Thinketh:


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Dreamers, innovators, artists, and sages are the architects of the world. You live in a world created by the labors of dreamers. The beauties your enjoy, the world around you was created through the power of their dreams and the sacrifices they made.

Treasure the ideals, thoughts, and experiences that stir your heart. Your purest thoughts and experiences are sacred. If you remain true to  your ideas, you will create your own blissful circumstances.

You cannot find bliss in your basest desires nor misery in your purest aspirations. In time, the law of achievement rewards your purest aspirations with bliss and your basest desires with suffering and misery. It cannot be any other way.

All things are first created mental, then physically. The seed of achievement is the dream. The greater the hopes of your heart, the more compelling will be the blueprint for your actions. Powerful dreams create   powerful action.

Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you but perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it. You cannot travel within and stand still without. You will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you will always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, most love.

May dreams be the motivation you need to achieve your purposes.

Posted on June 21, 2011 in Leadership, Vision

Lead like a Self-Actualizer

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a powerful theory of motivation you can use to be a better leader and motivate your team.


© JasonUnbound via Flickr

Most fundamentally, our physical needs for air, water, and food must be met or we will be unhappy and not much later we will die. Once these basic necessities are met, we begin to feel a need for safety, stability, limits, and freedom from chaos. Again, once these requirements are satisfied, we’ll want to belong, to feel loved, to give and receive affection.  Next comes our need for competence and mastery of a set of skills–the basis for our self-confidence.

Even after all these needs are met, we have one more–self-actualization–”to become everything that one is capable of becoming.”

Maslow describes his passion for these positive aspects of psychology and human motivation in his book, Motivation and Personality (yes, it’s a little expensive, but worth it):

The study of [self-actualizing people] is unusual in various ways. It was not planned as an ordinary research; it was not a social venture, but a private one, motivated by my own curiosity… I sought only to convince myself and to teach myself rather than prove or to demonstrate to others.

(It sounds like he self-actualized himself to his study of self-actualization.)

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Posted on June 17, 2011 in Beliefs, Leadership