Adam Fairhead
Would they miss you if you were gone?
Your teammates, that is. Who would miss you more? Who wouldn’t miss you that much? Why?
If you’re on a great team, you may never want to leave. But asking yourself this question may reveal where there’s important work to be done.
How about your team’s customers and clients? Would they miss you if your team was gone? Or would they merely “pick another” to buy from? Why?
Asking this question may...
Adam Fairhead
What if admitting weakness makes you seem stronger?
It always seems to be the most confident, proficient members of teams that are quickest to point to their mistakes and apologize for them.
And it seems to be the less-confident, less-proficient members that rarely apologize, or spot (or admit) their weaknesses–instead, apologies are replaced with versatile excuses.
Adam Fairhead
“Life is long if you know how to use it.” – Seneca Ever said, “we’ll get around to that… someday”?
I hear teams say this often. And it’s always from passionate teams, full of energy and great ideas.
But we have the team. We just don’t always use it wisely: we get stuck with Low MPG. The current obsession with workaholism is to blame:
Adam Fairhead
Ever taken a personality quiz? Or a StrengthsFinder?
My teams love these things, and they get to communicate more effectively with each other as a result.
But whether it’s ‘personality types’ or ‘position agreements’, there’s an important distinction: Define your role. Don’t be defined by it.
Introvert or Extrovert, Operations or Marketing, it applies equally:
Adam Fairhead
Which are we supposed to focus on?
There’s merit in both: in our similarities and in our differences.
As a team, we must focus on both, at different times:
Adam Fairhead
Teams are not families.
It’s common, particularly in the tech world, to see teams–regardless of strength or culture–referred to as ‘families’. In reality, the best teams realize they’re the supporter of families:
Adam Fairhead
What’s wrong with preaching to the choir?
We use this phrase to suggest something is redundant. But we have the choir’s attention. Shouldn’t they have ours?
Adam Fairhead
Is there such a thing as “too much help”?
We’ve talked before about how to “call the cavalry” on teams, to offer help and support when needed.
But cavalry can be overused.
By our definition of A+B players, team members grow (B-to-A) rather than regress (B-to-C).
Adam Fairhead
“Well, if you don’t have time to do it right, what makes you think you’ll have time to do it over?” – Seth Godin, Purple Cow Your work isn’t perfect.
And it doesn’t need to be. Yet it still needs to get done.
Adam Fairhead
Ever thought, ‘If I knew the future, I could rock today”?
Yesterday we talked about intuition. Today we’re talking about beliefs.
From machine rights to literally sharing your thoughts with others, the future is sure to contain many “surely not” moments.
But what do you believe today that, in 100 years time, will seem totally ridiculous?
Adam Fairhead
Last month we touched on 3 things robots can’t do.
Let’s touch on the first: intuition.
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence or conscious reasoning, or understanding how the knowledge was acquired.
This enables us to say:
Adam Fairhead
How much do you know?
Those who focus on what they know, know the least. The more you talk, the less listening–and learning–you get to do. The more someone enjoys the sound of their own voice, the less likely there’ll be wisdom in their words.
Those who focus on what they don’t know, know the most. Great minds ask great questions, talk less, and absorb the information in the room. When they do decide to speak, you know it’s worth...
Adam Fairhead
Ever been to a tie shop?
To some, a necktie is a necessary item in a store with too many options to choose from. $18 to “get me out of here.”
To Hermès, a necktie tells a story – one so important, they feature Gary, “the peerless expert”, to guide shoppers toward the right tie for them on their website and Madison Ave store. $180 to “tell my story with my ensemble.”
Most teams get to choose how they see...
Adam Fairhead
Mark Court is really good at what he does.
If you’ve ever seen a Rolls-Royce with coachlines (stripes), you’ve seen his work.
That’s what he does: he paints coachlines.
Adam Fairhead
Which of these two statements do you prefer:
If you’re like most people, you’ll much prefer hearing the latter.
The first leaves people feeling like whatever they tried to do was wrong, and that they shouldn’t do it again. That growth is too dangerous to attempt.
The second leaves people feeling like whatever they tried to do wasn’t perfect, and can be improved. That...
Adam Fairhead
Be careful what you create.
Some teams try to create everything. And therefore nothing is truly amazing, simply because they had to try to do it all themselves. Even Rolls-Royce curates liberally from BMW parts, allowing them to focus their creative-genius on what makes them unique.
Other teams try to curate everything. And therefore nothing is truly unique, simply because they won’t create anything themselves. Even Amazon creates its own products, despite profiting almost-exclusively from selling other people’s products.
What do you create?...
Adam Fairhead
Fake things can damage your focus.
One of my favorite wristwatch designs is Omega’s Seamaster 300. It’s around $5,000 to acquire. Fakes are apparently around $200.
Quality and ethics should be the least of a fake buyer’s concerns. Worse is the mindset it creates for that buyer:
Adam Fairhead
Sometimes the only answer we have is, “Because that’s just how people do it.”
And it’s a terrible answer.
Teams the world over accept this answer without ever challenging it. What if yours did?
Adam Fairhead
When you screw up, what happens next?
Is your team a ‘Win/Lose’ or ‘Win/Learn’ environment?
If ‘learn’ means growth and ‘loss’ means the neglect of growth, let’s turn our attention to the differentiator: the pursuit of growth.
Adam Fairhead
A couple of years ago, auto companies presented their visions for the next 100 years.
Most of them flaunted exotic 3D interfaces and unconventional new designers.
Rolls did the opposite. Titled ‘103EX’, they removed the dials, switches and interface altogether. What remained was a couch.
Making things complicated is simple. Making things simple is complicated.
Last week, one of our teams was congratulated–during a sales presentation–for successfully leapfrogging the rest of the market as they’d experienced it.
Not for some...
Adam Fairhead
Are you ready for when it all goes right?
There are times you dream of as a team. Customers and clients beating down your doors. New orders coming in faster than you can keep track of.
Stop: “faster than you can keep track of”? That’s an issue.
In aerodynamics, frictional force increases with speed. Cars have lift force issues, teams have “dropping the ball” issues.
How well is your team designed to handle the frictional force of growth?
Adam Fairhead
Ever get to the end of a day feeling you should have done more?
Even if you were hard at it all day?
We often ‘feel’ when we’re truly contributing to our team (and when we’re not) regardless of how busy we are.
Conversely, have you ever got through half a week and felt like you’ve already “crushed it”? Let’s define that. I call it the “Thing Of The Week”.
It goes like this:
Adam Fairhead
Success is not a goal.
If it’s yours, you and your teammates are unlikely to achieve it.
I’d like to argue that “success” is a starting point, not a finishing line. An ingredient, not a destination.
Success: Trying until you reach a goal in the short/medium/long term. Failure: Stopping that trying process prior to goal attainment.
Adam Fairhead
Do you have a junk-drawer full of ebooks, courses, and products?
To solve hard problems, teams often rightfully employ the processes and systems of others. Often good systems, too, but with mixed-to-no results.
Let’s talk about the next time you decide to download a PDF or buy a product. Consider doing so while affirming this as a team:</p>
“We’re going to become their favorite testimonial” – your team What does this mean?
Adam Fairhead
Every problem has a solution. Even the hard ones.
And while the road to a solution may vary, there’s comfort in knowing there’s a process of finding it. Turns out, the process only has four steps, posing as questions:
Equipped with these steps, we’re unable to...
Adam Fairhead
Most things aren’t as hard as we think they are.
‘Hard’ often replaces words like ‘new’, ‘unfamiliar’, ‘unknown’, and ‘different’. For example:
Adam Fairhead
Guilty. We all want to make our important work the very best it can be.
That’s why we like to add icing and sprinkles to things: to try and make it better.
Adam Fairhead
How many times a day do you give or receive feedback?
Feedback can be one of two things:
Unselfish feedback propels good work forward. Selfish feedback not only slows it down but makes it lose its sense of direction. Of the two examples, can you tell which is which?
While giving feedback, ask yourself: “Is this feedback just ‘my style’, or...
I create a newsletter called GrowthCandy. Each issue shares one idea to help build and spread your work, delivered as a short comic. Fast to read. Easy to apply. Hard to forget!