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David C Morris's avatar

I wonder if there is the need for a longer window (>24 hours) in between seasons or projects - not to dwell on the past, but to take a mental break from it all.

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Admired Leadership's avatar

Oh sure!

The main takeaway is short enough so as not to live in the past. Adopting a defined end that eventually takes on organizational cultural significance is important as well.

Lets think in terms of a sales organization winning or missing a significant RFP.

The general malaise of missing a giant contract that everyone worked weeks on in order to win needs a moment... but culturally... what might we institute that definitively communicates that we are moving on where the leader doesn't have to say those words each time?

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David C Morris's avatar

Agree. I was just thinking out loud if there is any use in spending time looking back further in time to separate signal from the daily noise - are there trends or patterns in our processes that we can tweak to improve the likelihood of success in our outcomes. Thinking about this, you can look back as far as you want, just don't spend more than a day doing it. Find what you can, tweak your plan going forward, and get back to focusing on what lies next.

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Mikey Ames's avatar

When it comes to delivering RFPs... I like the idea of celebrating the completion of a process more than celebrating the outcomes. While an organization passing on your pitch is a bummer, a culture that celebrates great process instead of just great outcomes might mitigate a good portion of the bummers.

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Joe Loughery's avatar

Good morning,

I do not know Coach Summitt, but it sounds like she is practicing temperance. Good for her!

Another legendary coach is the late Bob Knight.

While the only second hand reports I have heard described him as a "hard man;* he certainly has made waves in his field. His records show he knew what he was doing (at least when it came to basketball). Something so rare these days is he got results consistently. He went so far as to write a book called THE POWER OF NEGATIVE THINKING. In this he discusses the power of focus, strategy, and grind. He emphasizes not getting caught up in the celebration. In reality we are all there to do a job. A few hours of celebrating, destroying the body, etc... takes away from recovery time and getting after it the next day.

Coach Knight was a controversial man, but I tend to agree with him and his wariness of developing optimism bias.

Personally, I do believe in celebrating the small wins and certainly the big ones. In the business world, I believe Jack Welch, PhD, said it best: "... placards and pay...," this is the right way to recognize successful members of your organization.

Thanks for your time.

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Admired Leadership's avatar

Coach Summitt's books are worth reading if you care for a recommendation, Joe.

Great tradition of winning that clearly had to come from a grounded framework and philosophy worth learning from.

Didn't have quite the chair tossing technique of Coach Knight, but who did? :)

https://www.amazon.com/Sum-Ninety-Eight-Victories-Irrelevant-Perspective/dp/0385347057

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Jennifer's avatar

Coach Summitt seems like a great exemplar of what you define as an Admired Leader? Was she formally studied as part of your cohort?

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Admired Leadership's avatar

Yes, she was, Jennifer.

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Craig Reynolds's avatar

Useful! Might the practice of convening postmortems after significant events (win or lose) help teams close the books/move on effectively?

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Admired Leadership's avatar

Certainly, Craig.

Backcasting success is a wonderful process... maybe even better than postmortems.

https://admiredleadership.substack.com/p/get-better-at-backcasting

How else might you move a team to celebrate great process instead of just being outcome-oriented?

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Marc Fischer's avatar

Thx for that Lines🥰🙏🏻🙏🏻

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