They learn from it.
They own it.
They move forward.

It’s all bullshit.

Because when something actually goes wrong, the real version of them shows up.

The one that gets defensive, but doesn’t see themselves playing the victim.
Or the one that assigns blame and believes it’s accountability.

Most often it’s the leader who, once again, works twice as hard to make sure nobody - including themselves - has time to think about what is actually failing.

You are telling yourself a story about how you handle failure.

It’s just not the true story.

This prompt uncovers your real relationship with failure, and what you can do about it.

It’s time to see the thing you’re hiding from yourself.
Run the prompt.

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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Your team isn’t going to tell you this directly, so I will.

Everybody hates your weekly team meeting.

There. I said it.
And now that I started, I have a few more things I’d like to get off my chest.

You ready? Good.

Because you’re the only one who actually likes that weekly team meeting. You’ve convinced yourself that it’s a great idea.

But it’s not.

Do you really think the meeting keeps everyone aligned?

If so, you’re nutso.

Maybe it’s the only time of the week where you get to hear the updates - but that doesn’t mean everyone else is out of the loop too.

Your team knows the truth.
The meeting is a joke.

And the joke’s on you.

How Your Team Actually Feels About Your Weekly Team Meeting

If you canceled your weekly team meeting tomorrow, nobody would care. In fact, I bet your team would secretly celebrate.

Not because they don’t like working with each other or don’t care about the company. But because they’d get back that weekly waste-of-an-hour.

If you don’t believe me, here’s a dare for you:

Tell your team that next week’s meeting is canceled. Then see what happens.

Nobody is going to ask to reschedule. Nobody is going to panic. They’ll just remove it from their calendar and go about their day.

You know how I know?
Because when you can’t show up, the meeting doesn’t happen.

Think about that.
If the meeting were actually for the team, they’d hold it without you.

But they don’t.
Because everyone knows the meeting only exists for you.

What's Actually Happening In The Room

Your weekly team meeting probably follows the same cadence as most leadership meetings.

You go around the room. Each person gives their update. Most of the updates are things their colleagues already know, because they actually communicate during the week.

Go figure.

Their heads nod politely and they’ll secretly check their phones under the table so you can’t see. Every now and then someone asks a clarifying question, mostly to make you think they’re actually listening - which they’re not.

And then you wrap up by saying something trite like, “great meeting everyone, let’s make it a great week.”

Everyone goes back to their work, and they’re relieved the damn thing is over.

What Your Team Does All Week To Survive Your Meeting

I hate to tell you, but your weekly team meeting is probably doing more harm than good.

You don’t see this, because everybody hides it from you. They even hide it from each other. But I see it happening all the time.

People hold back sharing information from each other because of that meeting.

• If a problem comes up on Wednesday, they think “I’ll bring it up in Monday’s meeting.”

• When they have a good idea on Thursday, they save it for the meeting.

• When they finish something on Friday, they wait until Monday to mention it.

Not because they’re trying to be tricky, but because they know that the meeting needs fresh content to stay interesting and keep everybody awake.

If problems get solved in real time (like they should be), there’s nothing new to say on Monday. So they bank their updates. They store them like a chipmunk stores nuts in its cheeks. But not as cute.

Because of this, decisions get delayed. Problems last longer than they should. It’s not good.

Your weekly team meeting isn’t making your team faster and more communicative. It’s slowing them down and creating a communication problem.

And you’re blind to all of it.

The Reason You Need To Change Your Meeting

The thing is, the meeting isn’t broken because you’re running it wrong (which, by the way, you probably are - hashtag leadership team coaching). The weekly team meeting is broken because it was designed for you, not for them.

You’re the one who needs the meeting. You need to hear from everyone to ease your anxiety, or make you feel powerful, or however you play out your unhealthy patterns.1

Your team doesn’t need any of that. They already know what’s happening. It turns out they can solve problems in real time.

What they need is for the meeting to actually benefit them. Which means restructuring the whole damn thing.

Not adding more agenda items.
Not better facilitation.

I’m talking about a full restructuring of what the meeting is for.

What The Weekly Team Meeting Should Actually Be For

If you’re going to hold a weekly leadership meeting, why don’t we make it one that benefits everyone. Here are 5 ways for your weekly team meeting to be more meaningful.

1. Discuss metrics that matter to the team

The numbers that matter are the leading indicators that help the team make better decisions. If the numbers you share don’t change how your team views the week ahead, you’re sharing the wrong numbers.

2. Make decisions, not updates

Most weekly team meetings are stale status reports.
You should change that.

Have each person bring one decision that they can’t decide alone. Then transform the meeting to a place where decisions get made together.

3. Address their real problems

Your problems don’t matter the most.
Ask the team what’s blocking them. What’s slowing them down.
Then actually do something about those problems.

4. Create firm commitments

Each person says one thing they’re committing to deliver by the next meeting. Not a list of priorities - just one important commitment.
Out loud.
In front of everyone.

5. Celebrate the little wins

The big wins are easy. Everyone already knows about them.

The wins that matter are the ones that usually aren’t acknowledged.
Hard conversations someone had. Silent customer wins. Teamwork above and beyond the usual expectation.

When you celebrate those, you’re defining excellence.

The Real Question

Think of your last weekly team meeting.
If you weren’t there, would your team have had it anyway?

If the answer is no, the meeting isn’t for them. It never was.

So maybe it’s time to ask yourself this important question: “what should happen in this meeting to benefit the team that wouldn’t happen anywhere else this week?”

If you can’t answer that with something specific, cancel the meeting.

Your team will get an hour back.
You’ll get the discomfort of having to trust them to do their jobs.

And both of you will be better for it.

P.S. The meeting isn't the problem. You are. The meeting is just where it shows up.

There are patterns that make you run your weekly team meetings the way you do. You don’t see the patterns. I do. Check out the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop to see into your blindspots.

You are doing work right now that AI should be doing for you. I guarantee it.

I’m not the first one to tell you that you should be using AI more. I’m just the one you’re finally going to listen to

Because it’s time to stop writing that same type of email. It’s time to stop summarizing that same type of report.

You probably don’t even recognize all those things you do that take 45 minutes and produce the same output every. single. time.

There’s a reason you haven’t let go of it.
And it’s not because you haven’t found the right tool.
And it’s not because you haven’t found enough time.

It’s because of you.

It’s the same reason you haven’t let go of certain decisions.
The same reason you’re still in meetings you shouldn’t be in.
The same reason you tell yourself you really should delegate more.

Today is the day that all changes.
Yup, today.

In just 2 minutes I’m going to help you uncover the tasks you should stop doing yourself.

But wait, the tasks alone aren’t the problem.
The problem is you. But we already talked about that.

So I’m also going to tell you why you haven’t been letting that stuff go.
Because it’s not just time to transform your productivity, it’s time to transform your life.

Welcome to freedom.
The prompt is ready for you

👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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In 1950, Bob got hired at IBM.
Or GM. Or Ford.
It doesn’t really matter.

The company wasn’t just where Bob worked - it was who he was.

When people asked Bob what he did, he didn’t say “I’m an accountant.” He said “I work for IBM.”

He stayed at the company for 38 years.

When Bob turned 65, they gave him a gold watch, a pension, and a retirement party with a chocolate cake from the corner store. It had vanilla icing and those little red dot candies on it, which is what Bob liked best.

That was loyalty.

Bob showed up. He worked hard. He bled company colors. And, in return, the company took care of him. And gave him a chocolate cake.

Loyalty was good for Bob.

Today? Things are different.

People change jobs every two to four years. They leave a job for a measly 10% raise and quit by text or TikTok.

Leaders complain that loyalty is dead.

Everybody nods in agreement and thinks back to those good ole days when Bob was around and loyalty was everything.

There’s only one problem with that concept of loyalty.
It’s a lie.

Loyalty Had Nothing To Do With It

Bob didn’t stay at his company for 38 years because he was loyal.
He stayed because he couldn’t leave.

His family’s healthcare was tied to the company.
There was no COBRA. There was no backup plan.

His social circle was dominated by company colleagues and company-sponsored events. In fact, the entire town revolved around the company - and so did Bob’s life. Heck, even the kids baseball team was sponsored by the company.

Bob’s pension didn’t vest until year 30.
If he left the company he wouldn’t just be leaving a job, he’d be leaving his entire livelihood and putting his family at risk.

Quitting wasn’t an option. So he stayed.

And we’ve called that loyalty.
But it wasn’t.
It was forced compliance.

It was a system designed to make staying easier than leaving.

The gold watch wasn’t a reward for loyalty.
It was the series finale after 38 years of having no other channels to choose from.

A Dog Tied To A Tree Isn’t Loyal To The Tree

Here’s the thing about loyalty.

You can only be loyal if you can choose not to be.

A dog tied to a tree isn’t loyal to the tree.1
A prisoner isn’t loyal to the prison.

An employee with no other options isn’t loyal to the company.
They’re just stuck.

Loyalty requires the freedom to leave.

Bob’s generation didn’t have the freedom to leave. With pensions, healthcare, geographic constraints, limited skills, and no professional networks, leaving their job could be catastrophic to the entire family.

Fortunately, for all of us today, workers have options.

Skills are transferable. Healthcare exists outside of your employer. Your business network is available on LinkedIn.

Today you can find a new job from your couch in your pajamas while eating your Fruit Loops, which I keep telling you not to eat on the couch. That’s why we have dining room tables.

For the first time in industrial history, employees have the freedom to leave their job whenever they want.

Which means, for the first time in industrial history, real loyalty is finally possible.

The Two Sides of Loyalty

After all these years, loyalty can finally be two-sided.

If you pay me fairly, I will give you my best work.
If you treat me with respect, I will treat the company with respect.
If you invest in me, I will invest in you.

That’s loyalty.

It’s a relationship between people who could part ways, but choose not to.

And if everything always stayed that way, it’d be a much better world.
Which brings me to my client, the VP.

The Most Loyal Employee I Know

I have a client who is an exec at a Fortune 500. Let’s call him John. No, sorry, we’re going to call him Jon. I’m opposed to silent letters and refuse to use them wen I don’t haf to.

Jon has worked at his company for 14 years (which is like 25 in 1950 years.)

He’s consistently a top performer and has risen through the ranks to his VP role. Jon is highly respected, a clear leader in the company. Even better, he genuinely loves his job.

Jon could be the poster boy for loyalty.
His dimples and stunningly good looks make him a shoe-in for the cover of the loyalty calendar.

A few weeks ago, Jon found out that his compensation is at the very bottom of his pay grade. Basically, he’s being paid 30% less than his peers.

There are people in the same role as him, many with less experience, making significantly more than him.

Jon was pissed, as well he should be - especially after 14 years of being a top performer.

So he went to his boss to talk about it.

His boss said the budget was tight this year - which it is.
His boss said they’ll try next year - which they probably will.

But that’s not the point.
The point is that Jon knew he was being loyal to the company by performing the way that he does. And the company knew that they were not being loyal to Jon by compensating him the way that they did.

Jon will still stay at the company. He knows that.
His boss knows that.
Everyone knows Jon will stay at the company.

He won’t even threaten to leave, because he doesn’t want to.
But he’s still not happy.
In fact, he’s pissed.

But he keeps showing up. Keeps doing great work. Keeps being one of the most reliable people in the entire organization.

The problem is not that the company isn't giving him the raise now - though, that is a problem, just not the main one.

The problem is that they didn't address it on their own. They kept letting the person who adds so much value to the company get compensated far less than others. And it took Jon calling out this discrepancy to even have the conversation about the company’s loyalty.

When Loyalty Hurts More Than Helps

Jon’s loyalty is hurting him more than it’s helping.

His loyalty is the reason they don’t pay him market rate.
It’s the reason they’ve invested in flight risks instead of investing in him.

The company isn’t rewarding Jon for being loyal, they’re exploiting him.

Jon could have walked into his boss’s office and said “I know what I’m worth. Pay me, or I’ll start looking for another job.”

He has the skills. He has the network. He has the options.
He just doesn’t want to use them.

Because he loves his job.
He just wants to feel like his job loves him.

The Same Word, Two Meanings

Here’s the thing.

Jon’s company isn’t evil. His boss isn’t a villain. But they’re operating on an outdated definition of loyalty.

They think loyalty means Jon will stay no matter what.
Jon thinks loyalty means he should stay no matter what.

They’re both right.
They’re both wrong.
And they’re both uncomfortable about it.

That’s the problem.

A Different Definition Of Loyalty

Maybe it’s time we all asked ourselves what loyalty actually means in today’s world.

Not what it meant when Bob was at IBM. Not what we wish it still meant. But what it actually means now.

Because loyalty isn’t dead. It just looks different than it used to.

Real loyalty today isn’t about staying. It’s about creating a relationship that rewards both sides.

It’s about two parties understanding and accepting each other’s goals and limitations. And still choosing to support one another.

That’s the type of choice Bob never got.
And no chocolate cake can make up for that.

P.S. Don’t get me wrong, Bob lived a great life. Thanks to his pension, he and his wife, Janice, enjoyed their golden years taking cruises to all the places on their bucket list. Bob is remembered by his 3 kids and 9 grandchildren, who have chocolate cake with red candies every year on his birthday.

If your team's leadership needs work and you want someone who'll tell you the truth about why — let's talk.

He had just talked with one of his top employees who, let’s call Lisa.

Lisa’s great at her job. He knows it. I know it, and I’ve never even met the woman. She’s that good.

My client had been proactively making changes to better support Lisa and make sure she really understood how valued she was at the company. He was getting her more staff, more resources, and really defining a clearer path of growth for her.

But then Lisa quit. Completely out of the blue.

My client told me that he can’t believe she did that. He said, “I put my neck on the line to get her the team structure she wanted. I thought she’d be more loyal.”

Meanwhile, four months earlier, the company laid off 7% of its workforce, including four people on Lisa’s team, and my client was the one who informed the people that they were being laid off.

During one of the meetings he had with the people he was laying off, the person said to him, “I thought this company wasn’t gonna do layoffs. I thought you said you’d stay loyal to us.”

So this seems like a pretty good time for you and I to have a conversation about loyalty, don’t you think?

So let’s have it.

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But great therapy actually changes things (which is why I’m flattered whenever my executive coaching clients call me their leadership therapist.)

I’m not here to tell you to fire your therapist. However, there’s something you need to know if you don’t know already.

When you ask AI the right questions in the right way, you’ll be able to see into your blind spot infinitely more clearer and faster than any therapist can ever provide.

The catch? Most people don’t know how to ask the right questions.

Well, my friend, that’s why we’re here together. I gotchoo.

Here are 7 of the most important prompts to help you understand your behavior better than a weekly $300 therapy session will ever provide.

1. The Other Perspectives

You’re in a situation that’s stressing you out - but you can only see it one way. Your way. That’s not a thinking problem, that’s a perspective problem. This prompt gives you three other ways to look at your specific situation - then it points to the one you’re resisting the hardest. Turns out, that’s usually the one that will allow you to exhale.

2. The Energy Audit

Your tired. You’re drained. You think it’s the workload or your commute or lack of sleep. It’s probably something else.

This prompt goes through your week and finds what’s really draining you. It’s almost never what you think.

3. The Stuck Point

There’s that something you’ve been “thinking about” for weeks. Maybe months. But you’re not actually thinking — you’re circling. Something specific is holding you back, and you probably can’t name it. This prompt names it for you… and tells you if your waiting is worth it.

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I struggle not to check my phone at dinner.

Not because I’m expecting an urgent email. Just because… I have to check my phone.

I sometimes wake up at 4am thinking about that thing I need to get done. The thing I still haven’t done for two weeks now.

I used to think this was dedication.
I thought that caring about work meant I needed to think about it constantly.
I believed that to be a good leader, you have to be always on.

If you look at my life on paper, it sure looks like I have work-life balance. I’m home when the wife and kid finish their days. I cook all the meals for the family and we eat together every night.

I even try to stay clear of my computer on weekends.

But my mind never stops.
And I’m about to tell you why.

If you have the same active mind as me, get ready for an ice cold splash of water right up the wazoo.

The Zeigarnik Effect

In the 1920s, a Russian psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik was sitting in a Viennese café when she noticed something interesting about the waiters.

They could remember every order that hadn’t been paid yet: the couple that ordered the garlicky goulash, who was still waiting for coffee, and which poet still hadn’t paid for yesterday’s strudel.

But the moment a bill was paid - woosh! - the waiter forgot everything about the order.

It just disappeared.
Completely erased from memory like it never existed.

Weird right?
Bluma thought so too.

So like any good, over-achieving Russian psychologist in the 1920s, she ran some experiments to test this phenomenon.

She gave people a series of tasks and let them finish some, while forcing others to be left unfinished.

And here’s what she found:

People remember incomplete tasks far better than completed ones.

This is now called the Ziegarnik Effect.

Our brains want closure.
When we don’t have closure, our brains hold onto the unfinished tasks until they’re complete. Then, buh-bye, they fly away.

Crazy right?
I know!

Oh, If You Had Only One Open Loop

This is the point where it would be super-easy for me to tell you to “just go complete that project, close that loop and your life will be perfect.”

Then I drop my mic and walk off stage.
Oh, if it were only so simple.
If only I had a mic and were on stage.

However, if I were a guessing man - which I am - I’d guess that you’re probably like me. You don’t have one unfinished thing on your mind, you have 47 of them.

There’s those projects you started but haven’t finished.
The challenging conversations you keep postponing.
The difficult decisions you keep delaying.

You’ve got lots of open loops.
And your brain is holding onto all of them, all the time.

It’s not because you’re so dedicated to work - though I’m sure you are. It’s because your mind literally won’t let go until something is resolved.

It’s not willpower, my friend.
It’s biology.

And it’s really fucking exhausting.

The Open Loops You’re Creating Without Knowing It

I work with hundreds of leaders, and none of my executive coaching clients are bad at their jobs. They’re all really good at them.

Yet even they unconsciously create dozens of open loops. Even the best of us do it without thinking.

In fact, here are ways you’re probably creating open loops and not even recognizing it:

• When you tell yourself you should delegate more - that’s an open loop.

• When you hand off a project but say “keep me updated” - that loop stays open.

• When you defer a decision, for whatever reason, including your conflict avoidance. Open loop.

And that’s just work.
Add in the laundry, cleaning the garage, the tickets you keep meaning to buy, and your brain is drowning in incomplete chaos.

Maybe you keep telling yourself it’s a time management problem.
It isn’t.

You think you have an efficiency problem.
You don’t.

Maybe you tell yourself that you’re great at compartmentalizing and you’re just going to let these unfinished things go. Out of sight, out of mind.

But it’s like that itch in the middle of your back. You tell yourself you’re not going to scratch it. You’re an adult. You have self-control.
Then suddenly it’s the only thing you can think about.

This Is What Leadership Actually Feels Like. And It’s Wrong.

If you’re like me, you think you’re being a good leader or an exceptional worker by staying on top of all the things you need to do.

But it wears you down.

• You can’t think clearly about tomorrow when your brain is chained to last week

• Your decisions get sloppy.

• You feel a low-grade hum of anxiety that never really goes away.

You assume that’s just what leadership feels like. Trust me, it isn’t.

Most of the time you’re treating your brain like a clown car. You shove one more incomplete idea into any open spot and tell yourself it’ll be fine. There’s always room for one more.

One more deferred decision.
One more unfinished project.
One more conversation you’ll have eventually.

But no vehicle is supposed to hold that many things. And neither is your brain.

Those unclosed loops are heavy. They add up to a heck of a lot of mental weight to carry around.

You’re not thinking about work all the time because you’re dedicated to it. You’re thinking about work all the time because you won’t finish anything.

You Don’t Need Better Time Management

You don’t need better time management.
You need to start finishing things.

It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be finished.

• The decision you haven’t yet made - make it. It’s probably just a first date anyway.

• The difficult conversation you kept postponing - have it. The CARE method will help.

Close your damn loops, kid.

In fact, while we’re focused on closing loops, you should probably change your daily To-Do List habit too. It’s better to finish 4 of 4 tasks in a day and feel complete, than it is to finish 4 of 9 and feel like the day just got away from you.

It’s not about quantity, it’s about the closed loop feeling of completion.

And that’s the basis of work-life balance.

One Loop. This Week. That’s It.

So here’s your challenge.

What’s the one loop you’ve been pushing down the road the longest?
Not all of them. Just one.

What decision have you been deferring?
What are the things you keep saying you’ll get to but never do?

Choose the one you can close the fastest.
Do it this week.

Just one loop. That’s your goal.

Then you’re going to go to the next.
Because you don’t have a productivity problem. You have a closure problem.

And it’s time to change it.
Your brain will thank you.

And so will your family when you’re actually present at dinner.

—

If you want to figure out which patterns are keeping your loops open in the first place, that’s exactly what the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop is for.

—

PS — I wrote most of this article at 4:15am. Oh the irony.

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I’m not saying he’s accurate with his communication.
I’m not even saying he’s truthful with his communication.

I’m just saying that he’s masterful at it.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how Democrats aren’t fighting Trump enough. They’re not out there arguing with him or proving his points wrong.

They’re just sitting around complaining.

Let me give you a different perspective on this. It’s why I think Trump is such a masterful communicator, but it also is an indicator of how much influence and trust you have in your workplace.

But first Trump,

Trump Pulls. Democrats Push.

Trump defends whatever he says.

He always has a position where he’s defending the every-person.

• He’s defending the Iranians from oppressive leadership and freeing them so they can have a better life.

• He’s giving all Americans more jobs through the immigration policy.

• He’s lowering prices and increasing our country’s wealth through tariffs, and everybody’s gonna get some of that money back.

These are his defenses. Everything he’s doing is defending the people. That’s how he positions it, and that is the masterful part of it.

Because the Democrats don’t act as defenders, they act as prosecutors.

They’re not defending people in most of their arguments.
They’re prosecuting Trump.

This is a critical lesson in how to communicate effectively and how to increase your influence.

Let me explain.

I’m gonna start with a real world example.

A Real-World Example Of Prosecution vs Defense Communication

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You’re not the person people complain about when they leave work.
You’re not the one creating the dynamic that makes other people want to quit.

Still… here’s what I know after years of leadership coaching for both men and women in leadership:

The gap between how leaders see themselves and how their teams experience them, is one of the biggest blind spots in leadership.

I run a fair bit of Culture & Leadership Surveys for companies and free leadership diagnostic workshops for leaders.
In every single instance, people in leadership rate their behavior 30-40% higher than their team does.

It’s not about being bad leaders. Most of the leaders I work with genuinely care about this stuff. The reason is a lot simpler:

Most people never actually ask how they’re doing - or they never ask it to somebody who will give them a direct and honest answer.

I’m not talking about the performance review version.
And not the useless “got any feedback for me?” closer to your weekly one-on-one. Everyone knows that’s a rhetorical question.

The AI prompt below gives you the truth.
It reveals the conversations about you that you don’t get to hear.

This prompt will tell you how your company will remember you if you quit right now.

You’ve spent years thinking about the leader you want to be.
It’s time to get the truth about the one you actually are.

Run the AI prompt now. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

Inner Circle members get this for free. Join here.

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My client was crushing it.

Their revenue doubled in two years. They were expanding their offices, hiring faster than they could find people, and celebrating their success whenever they had a moment to breathe.

Which wasn’t often.

Shortly after they passed $100 million in revenue, they even got a call from a national brand with strong interest in acquiring them.

The CEO went to bed every night with a smile on his face. He had a great company with a great team.

Or so he thought.

The CEO Saw Success

The CEO was an energetic chap, to put it mildly. His personality was like a Labrador puppy - bouncy, friendly and just wanting to be liked, but all with an ADHD aesthetic.

As the acquisition deal moved forward, his energy level went from high to “this guy really needs a Valium.”

At one point he called an all-hands meeting to address the acquisition rumors head-on.

He told the team how amazing everything was.
He hyped the fact that they were entering an exciting new phase.
He went on for about 10 or 15 minutes, then asked if anyone had questions.

Nobody did.

He reminded them about his open door policy and ended the meeting elated.

He knew the company was headed in the right direction. He knew they were doing great and was convinced the employees were happy.

The Employees Saw Disaster

In reality, the company culture was terrible. Employees were furious and the all-hands actually meeting made it worse.

The staff thought the CEO was an uncaring, unauthentic buffoon who was ignoring the company’s real problems.

And the company’s problems were definitely real.

They were suffering from the types of operational and systems issues that come with rapid growth. They could be resolved over time, but they would detonate if there were dramatic change before then. Like, say, an acquisition.

Meanwhile, budgets were tight, innovation was disappearing and the company vision had all but vanished.

The CEO saw it from a completely different perspective. From his point of view, everything was great.

Budgets were temporarily tightened to increase the company’s value for the acquisition.

Innovation was slightly slowed to prove they could generate more revenue from existing products.

The vision was sidelined because the CEO was spending all his time on the acquisition.

Everything the CEO did was geared toward growth. But a different growth than what the day-to-day workers were doing.

He assumed everybody knew and understood his perspective.
They assumed the CEO understood their perspective.

As it turns out, they both were correct in their beliefs - even though they had completely opposing views.

And neither side had any idea the other saw things differently.

There are three sides to every story - your side, my side, and the truth. And none of them are wrong.

The Research Says The Iceberg of Ignorance Is Normal

In 1989, a researcher named Sidney Yoshida documented something that disrupts all of our assumptions about communication.

Top managers are aware of 4% of company problems.
Front-line employees are aware of 100% of them.

He called it the Iceberg of Ignorance.

We often assume our superiors are aware of our problems. They aren’t.

That was 1989, though. Things must have changed in 35 years, right?
Wrong.

In 2015, ThinkWay Strategies did a survey that confirmed the gap still exists.

61% of executives said their organizations had “efficient and effective processes with minimal waste.” But only 27% of employees agreed.

In other words, two-thirds of leadership think a company is productive but three-quarters of front-line employees disagree.

That’s a pretty hefty gap.
But it gets worse.

Here’s How It Gets Worse

I conduct a lot of hugely insightful Culture & Leadership Surveys for companies.

I ask leaders to rate themselves on things like communication and transparency. Then I ask their teams to rate them on the same things.

Leaders consistently rate their positive behaviors 30 to 40 percent higher than their teams rate them.

Every. Single. Time.

Not only do leaders not know about most of the problems - they don’t even know they don’t know.

You think you’re communicating well. You’re not.
You think your open door policy works. But nobody walks in.
You think people feel safe speaking up. But nobody’s talking.

The iceberg isn’t just big. The damn thing is practically invisible.

Why The Communication Gap Exists

There are two reasons for the communication gap. One is expected. One is a problem.

The Structural Gap

Leaders focus on strategy. Managers focus on operations. This is expected.

The higher you rise in an organization, the further you get from operational problems.

That’s not a bug, that’s the job. In fact, I made a diagram to explain it.

A CEO can’t fix the broken process du jour and still guide strategic direction. There’s not enough sanity in the day to do all that.

Similarly, a manager can’t focus on long-term strategy while herding cats and putting out fires all day.

Different roles require a different focus with different information. That’s just the way it is.

It’s inevitable that company leaders won’t know all the problems that employees do. That’s accepted and won’t change.

That’s the Structural Gap.
But then there’s the Perceptual Gap.

The Perceptual Gap

The perceptual gap is the part where you think you are doing things better than you actually are.

There are two things that heavily influence this. The first is the MUM Effect - which is one of the best named effects this side of the Zeigarnik Effect.

The MUM Effect

In 1970, psychologists Sidney Rosen and Abraham Tesser found that people are reluctant to tell others bad news because delivering bad news makes the messenger feel bad. Surprisingly, it has little to do with the recipient.

Your team has problems and they’re hesitant to tell you - not because of how you’d react, but how they will.

They are protecting themselves from the discomfort of being the bearer of bad news.

And that brings us to the leadership illusion.

The Leadership Illusion

You think your open door policy works.
You think your all-hands Q&A creates transparency.

You think asking “anyone have questions?” at the end of a meeting means people feel safe speaking up.

If you bothered to do a Leadership & Culture Survey, you’d be surprised at how wrong you are. Because the way leaders perceive their behavior is usually much different from how it’s perceived by others.

That’s the leadership illusion.

When you say you have an open door policy, you are convincing yourself that people feel comfortable confiding in you.

But from your team’s perspective, you’re always in closed doors meetings, and when they do talk to you about an issue, you explain to them how they’re wrong.

Your self-perception is wrong and everybody knows it… except you.

[Editor’s Note: he’s got a free workshop to address your self-perception]

The Iceberg Of Ignorance Isn't Going Away.

You can’t get rid of the iceberg of ignorance.

The structural gap will always exist because leaders and employees are inherently focused on different things that bring different awareness.

But you can stop making it worse.

The problem isn’t that you don’t know about all the problems.
The problem is thinking you know more than you do.

Your team isn’t telling you the truth. You just think they are.

And the gap between what you think is happening and what’s actually happening is wider than the iceberg itself.

So why don’t we agree on this:

You don’t know everything happening in your company.
Your team isn’t going to tell you.

The gap between what you think is happening and what actually is — that’s not a communication problem.

That’s an iceberg.
And you’re the one ignoring it.

P.S. — The acquisition went through. Six months later, 15 people resigned including three of his best people. The CEO was genuinely surprised. Everybody else was not.

It’s time you understood the patterns hiding in your blindspot.

Learn more about the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop.

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Seventy percent!

That’s basically every place you’ve ever worked.

The open door policy has been around for a hundred years. I’m not going to give you the reason why it started, but I’ll just tell you that it made sense then and it makes sense now. Because the idea’s really good.

The idea being that “my door is always open. Come talk to me anytime. I want to hear what’s on your mind.”

It says, I’m approachable, I’m accessible. I care about you. I’m the kind of person that you can be open with and trust.

I’ve had open door policies throughout most of my career, I actually believe leaders, when they say they have an open door policy, they mean it.

The intention is good. It’s really good.

Unfortunately, open door policies suck.

Open door policies do not create psychological safety in your company.
They destroy it.

They’re the worst things you can do for your company.

Let me explain why.

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There’s no moment where you sit down and decide that this behavior is acceptable now, that this dynamic is just how things are, that this is the version of your team - or your life - you’re going to settle for.

It happens in invisible increments.

Something bothers you, you let it go.
It happens again, you let it go again.
After a while you stop noticing.
After a longer while you can’t remember what bothered you in the first place.

That’s the danger of compromise. It’s a slippery slope and you don’t notice you’re sliding until you’ve fallen off the precipice.

The crazy thing about the process, is that it feels like growth.
It feels like you’re getting a new perspective and maybe even maturing past the things that used to bother you.

Sometimes that’s true.
But it’s also not.
Sometimes, you’ve just lowered your standards in a way you’ll wish you didn’t.

I had a client who spent twenty minutes telling me everything was fine.

Great team, good culture, no major issues.
Then I asked: “What have you stopped bringing up in meetings because it’s not worth the conversation anymore?”

Long pause.
Then he rambled off a list that was ripe with meaning.

This prompt finds your list.
It shows you exactly what non-starters you had that you’ve quietly allowed to fade away.

Not everything you’re tolerating is a problem.
But some of it is.

And it’s about time you realized how you’re compromising your standards.

Run the prompt now. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

Inner Circle members get this for free. Join here.

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Imagine someone takes a photograph of you while you’re running.
It’s not one of your best photos.

You have one foot in the air, your arms are swinging somewhat wildly and your face is twisted in a “do I really look like that?” type of way.

Then they hand you the photo and say, “This is exactly how you walk, run and move through the world.”

You think they’re insane.
But that’s what they told you, so you accept it as the truth.

Sounds ridiculous, right?
I know.

So riddle me this, Batman, why is that exactly how you treat personality tests?

The Big Five Personality Traits

In the 1900s, psychologists agreed on five behavioral tendencies to describe our personalities. These are known as the Big Five personality traits. They are:

• Openness - how much you look for new experiences vs. sticking with what you know works

• Conscientiousness - how much you prioritize order and discipline vs. flexibility

• Extraversion - how much you get energy from being around other people vs. being alone

• Agreeableness - how much you prioritize harmony between people vs. your own position

• Neuroticism - how much you scan for threats vs. assume stability

Each trait is measured on a spectrum.
You’re not an introvert or an extrovert - you’re some blend.
You’re not open to new experiences or closed to them - you fall somewhere on the continuum.

That’s what personality tests measure.

At some point you’ve probably taken a Myers-Briggs, DiSC, CliftonStrengths or some other popular personality tests. 50-80% of workers have1.

All of the well known tests are psychologically credible measurement tools of the Big Five.

And that’s where the problem begins.
Because when something is scientifically credible, you treat it like the truth.

The Permission Slip You Didn't Know You Signed

If you’re like most people, you’ll view the results of your personality test as a diagnosis of who you are.

But you’re wrong.

It’s like taking a snapshot of your current behavioral patterns, and then believing that picture represents the same exact person you were five years ago and the same one you’ll be five years from now.

Here’s what you do:

You take the test.
You get your results.
You read them.
They seem to resonate. It kinda sorta feels like it describes you.

So you use the results to explain your behavior, instead of changing your behavior.

Don’t think you’re doing it?
Well, my friend, think for a moment if you’ve ever said anything about yourself similar to these comments I hear often from my leadership coaching clients:

• “I can’t help it, I’m an introvert.”

• “It doesn’t make sense because I’m highly conscientious.”

• “Conflict isn’t my thing, I’m better at maintaining peace.”

• “I’m just a detail-oriented person.”

• “I’m a high achiever - that’s the way I am.”

If you have - and most people have - you’re an unknowing victim to the personality test diagnosis trap.

A Snapshot. Not A Sentence.

The psychologists who created the personality tests never claimed your trait balance was fixed forever. Heck, they never even said it would be the same next year as it is today.

Research consistently shows that personality traits change over time. In fact, they can change significantly in as little as 15 weeks.

That means your personality test doesn’t reveal your true identity - it only reveals your current habits.

That distinction is super important for you to understand.

Habits can change.
In fact, habits have to change as you mature and your career develops.

The test isn’t wrong, your interpretation of it is.
You have to look at personality tests in a completely different way.

Your test results aren’t statements, they’re questions. They’re not telling you who you are as much as asking you if your patterns are still benefitting you.

What Your Personality Test Score Is Actually Asking You

If you scored low on Openness, it means you don’t actively look for new experiences. You focus on sticking with what works. That made you reliable when you were an exceptional worker, but the same behavior can now hold you back from getting your next promotion.

If you scored high in Conscientiousness, it means you’ve been fairly disciplined. That pattern probably made you successful as an individual contributor, but the same pattern will work against you when you’re leading a team.

So the big question to ask yourself is, “Does this personality trait still help me or do I need to change it?”

Because you can change it if you want.

How do I know?

I’ve done the same with myself.
Plus, I guide the same kind of change for hundreds of leaders around the world, from Global 100 execs to early stage entrepreneurs.

When you stop looking at your personality test as a crystal ball and start understanding it’s just a photograph in time, you can start using the information in your favor to help guide the changes you need, and be the person you want.

But if you treat them as the truth about who you are, you’ll forget that you’re the one choosing the pattern.

Stop Staring At The Photograph

Remember that photograph running that we talked about at the top of this article?

It’s time to stop staring at the photograph.
Start moving forward.

Your personality test didn’t ever limit you.
You’re the one that gave it that power.

It’s time to take that power back.

—

Do you wonder which of your personality traits are still helping you, and which ones are now the problem?

That is exactly what I help you diagnose in the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop.

P.S. — The behavioral trait you were thinking about while reading this? That's the one you really should understand better.

INNER CIRCLE MEMBERS (aka paid subscribers) get free stuff!
Become a member now, and see what I wrote down there 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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You see back in 2009, they put out a deck about the Netflix culture that has since become pretty darn famous. If any PowerPoint can be considered to have gone viral, this one is probably the biggest influencer of them all.

In fact, Cheryl Sandberg once said it’s one of the most important documents to ever come out of Silicon Valley.

If you haven’t seen it, I’m going to put a link in the show notes here. That Netflix document reshaped how companies thought about culture and it led to the onslaught of company core values.

Today most companies have core values. They’re usually some beautiful words that they’ve come up with to define what they stand for. Most often it involves some form of integrity, collaboration, client focus, and probably innovation.

I’m sure you’ve seen them time again, probably on a wall in some office. Maybe on your wall.

But here’s the thing about core values: they mean nothing. I don’t say that to get your goat. I don’t even know what the phrase get your goat means.

Companies don’t call me when things are going well. They call me when they have problems. When they have complex issues that need some simple and fast solutions.

That’s when I get the call, and that’s okay because that’s what I do. And I love it.

One of the first things I’ll ask them, if I can’t find it online, is whether they have core values and what those values are. Some do, some don’t. Honestly, the ones who don’t have values are oftentimes in better shape than the ones who do.

Because for most companies, core values aren’t so much a healthy foundation of the culture, as they are a horrendous liability. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re probably part of the problem.

Let me explain.

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Success has a cost.
Nobody really talks about the cost.

We talk about the climb. The grind. The sacrifices made.

We make success sound noble.
Like it’s actually worth it.

Was the cost worth it for Robin Williams and Matthew Perry?
I doubt it. They paid everything.

I have a leadership coaching client - successful by every possible measure - who recently confided in me:

“I don’t think I know who I am outside of this job anymore.”

It wasn’t a complaint, more like a realization.

That’s what this prompt is about.

Not whether you’re successful.
Not whether the sacrifices were necessary.

But whether you’ve ever actually added up the cost you’ve been paying for what you’re building.

The relationships that quietly fade away, the versions of yourself you slowly forget, the life that was happening while you were focused on work.

Most people haven’t thought about it.
Not really.

Because doing the real accounting means sitting with a number you’ve probably been rounding down for years.

This prompt does the accounting.
The question is whether you actually want to see the bottom line.

Run the prompt now. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

Inner Circle members get this for free. Join here.

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My wife always handles the logistics in our family.

She does the research, makes the reservations, and schedules the appointments. She coordinates our daughter’s calendar of what she’ll do, when she’ll do it and how she’s getting there and back.

I help when I’m asked.

I’m not lazy, not in the slightest. It’s just that day-to-day family planning isn’t top of mind for me.

My wife tells herself she’s just better at the organizational stuff. And she is. Because she’s been doing it for the 13 years we’ve been married.

Here’s what happened.

She started doing the planning because I kept forgetting. Not maliciously. I just didn’t have the mental load to remember - I was too consumed by work.

That behavior created an environment where I didn’t need to remember. She would always handle it. Or she’d remind me to do it.

Either way, the system worked.

Which meant my brain stopped tracking those things entirely. After all, why would I build a habit for something that’s already handled?

[Editor’s Note: rhetorical question. don’t answer that]

This meant my wife had to do even more remembering. Because suddenly I wasn’t just forgetting - I literally didn’t know what needed to be done in the first place.

That created an environment where asking me to do something required my wife to…

1. Notice it needed doing

2. Remember to ask me

3. Explain what needed to happen

4. Check that it got done, and,

5. Probably redo the parts of it that I didn’t do the way she expected.

Which means it genuinely became easier for my wife to just do the things herself.

And there we are in our loop.

My wife believes, “If I don’t do it, it doesn’t get done.”
And I believe, “She’s better at that stuff anyway.”

Both statements are completely true.

Now my wife thinks I’m incompetent at life management, and I think she’s a control freak who won’t let me help.

Both statements are false.

We’re just stuck in a Pattern-Environment Loop where my wife’s competent behavior creates an environment that makes my incompetent behavior inevitable.

And the longer it runs, the more “proof” we both have that this is just who we are.

And the craziest thing about it?
It’s also happening to you - and you’re not even aware.

You Thought You Were Protecting Quality

I call this The Pattern-Environment Loop.

Your behavior creates an environment, which supports the behavior, which strengthens the environment, and on and on it goes.

My story is far from unique.
Want examples? Oh boy, do I have examples.

There’s my client, a newly promoted VP who got the job for being an exceptional worker. She always knows the answers. Now she leads a team that constantly comes to her with every little problem because they can’t seem to think for themselves.

Or the founder who built his company on intuition and rapid decisions. Now he drowns in approvals because he has difficulty delegating.

Or the COO client of mine who survived by being indispensable, and now hasn’t taken a true vacation in four years because everything falls apart the moment she’s gone.

They all came to me with the same complaint: I work in a problematic environment.

They think the team isn’t ready. Or the company outgrew its infrastructure. Or the culture is becoming toxic.

All of that might be true.
But none of it matters, because it’s not the problem.

Each of these people created their environment because of their behavior.

It’s classic Pattern-Environment Loop.

The Frog Thinks It’s The Water’s Fault

Remember the conversation we had about the frog in the boiling water?
Not the conversation you’re thinking about, though.

You know the metaphor - you drop a frog in boiling water, it jumps out. But if you put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, it stays until it’s too late to leave.

The story is scientifically wrong (too many frogs have been killed by people thinking it’s accurate), but the metaphor is right.

We don’t notice gradual change.

We don’t see our environment shift around us when it’s in small degrees. We just wake up one day wondering how we got here.

But here’s what that metaphor misses.

You’re not the frog.
You’re the chef.
You’re the one turning up the heat.

You just don’t realize it.

How It Actually Works

Let me give you an example that may hit home.

You don’t think you’re a micromanager because you didn’t start by micromanaging.

You started by being thorough - catching errors before they shipped or fixing problems before clients saw them.

You built a reputation that made you invaluable.
And that behavior worked really well, so your environment rewarded it.

You got promoted. You got more responsibility. Your thoroughness became the thing everyone counted on.

Soon your team started doing what all teams do when someone always catches their errors: they stopped trying to catch the errors themselves.

Not out of laziness. Out of efficiency.

Why should they spend an hour polishing the particulars of a deck when they know you will rewrite the darn thing anyway?

Your behavior created a new environment. One where your review was the actual quality control, and everyone else’s work just became the initial draft.

Which means you have to work even harder to maintain the same standard.
And that reinforces your team’s belief that you are the one who makes things great.
Which in turn makes it impossible for you to step back without everything falling apart.

That’s the Pattern-Environment Loop.

Your pattern creates an environment.
That environment reinforces your pattern.
And the loop tightens until the very strengths that lifted you up become the chains that hold you down.

You Think You’re Responding. You’re Reinforcing.

The worst part of this is that it feels like you’re just responding to reality.

• When you see work that isn’t good enough, you fix it. That’s just being responsible.

• When the founder sees decisions that need to be made, he makes them. That’s just being a leader.

• When the COO sees questions that need answers, she answers them. That’s just being helpful.

Every single action feels like the right response to the situation. But every single action is also creating the environment that perpetuates the behavior.

You’re not stuck in a pattern because you’re weak.
You’re stuck because the pattern used to be your strength and your environment won’t let you stop.

Why $356 Billion In Training Doesn’t Work

Here’s what makes this so hard to interrupt.

Fixing the behavior does not change the environment.

This is exactly why $356 billion is spent every year on corporate training programs, and most of it is utterly useless.

A Harvard Business School paper called “The Great Training Robbery” found that most corporate training fails to produce lasting change, because the gravitational pull of the existing environment reverts people back to their previous behaviors.

In other words, if the environment doesn’t change, any behavioral change won’t last.

Why You Can’t Fix This With Awareness

It’s really important to recognize your Pattern-Environment Loops.
But knowing the Loop doesn’t fix it.

You could be told you’re a micromanager. Maybe you even believe it. So you will try to change your behavior and delegate more.

But when you do, the quality drops. Not because your team is incapable, but because the environment is built on the assumption that you are the last line of defense.

Just removing you doesn’t magically self-correct the environment. It collapses it.

That’s not proof that you need to micromanage.
It’s proof that your environment was built to require it.

Awareness tells you there’s a problem.
It doesn’t tell you how to rebuild the environment that’s perpetuating the problem.

You Don’t Break The Loop By Changing Your Behavior

You don’t break a Pattern-Environment Loop by changing your behavior. You break it by changing the environment.

• The micromanager doesn’t need to trust the team more. They need an environment where the team’s work matters before it reaches their desk.

• The founder’s team doesn’t need more decision-making authority. They need an environment where their thinking is engaged before the decision is made.

• The COO’s team doesn’t need to ask fewer questions. They need an environment where not knowing the answer is treated as a signal to figure it out, not a signal to ask the leader.

None of that happens by just stopping the behavior.
It happens by building an environment where the behavior isn’t required.

The Trap You’re Standing In

So here are the uncomfortable questions.

• What patterns are you running right now that used to be your strength?

• What environment have you created that keeps that pattern necessary?

• And what would have to change in the environment - not your behavior, the environment - for that pattern to stop being required?

Because the thing you think makes you indispensable is actually the thing that’s keeping you stuck.

Your strengths built the ball and chain, but your environment locked it around your ankle.

And until you change the environment, awareness just means you’ll never find the key to free yourself from your prison.

—

That pattern you’re running right now? It made sense once. It probably still feels important.

But it’s most likely the main thing holding you back.

The free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop shows you exactly what loop you’re stuck in, why the environment is keeping it alive, and how to begin changing it.

PS — My wife read a draft of this. She said it was pretty accurate. Then she reminded me I have a dentist appointment next Tuesday.

INNER CIRCLE MEMBERS (aka paid subscribers) get free stuff!
Become a member now, and see what I wrote down there 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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And, the fact is, that one day I had to fire 35 people. It was a bad day, a really bad day. My wife at the time, and I ended up getting separated that week too. So what would’ve been a bad day, was a bad time in my life and I felt like a failure.

The reality is, after I sold my first company, I was 30 years old, maybe 29.

I felt like a failure then too. I felt like I didn’t achieve what I wanted to.

I felt like I couldn’t achieve what I wanted to, that I couldn’t do what other people did.

And that’s why now I cringe when people say someone either succeeded or failed. And you hear it all the time about entrepreneurs. He sold his company so he succeeded. She didn’t IPO. So the whole thing was a failure.

I was talking to a client today who has an early stage business. Been going for a couple years. It’s doing fairly well, but still trying to find its footing.

Suddenly, over the last month or two,

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“Every failure is a learning opportunity”
”We celebrate failure here”
”You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”

After working with hundreds of leaders, I can honestly say, with confidence: most of that is bullshit.

If you took everyone at their word, every leader has a healthy relationship with failure.

They haven’t.

Because when something actually goes wrong, the real version of people’s relationship with failure shows up. And it’s rarely as quaint as they described.

Some people suddenly go quiet, or mentally disappear.
Other get defensive immediately, or play the victim - blaming everybody but themselves.

The story you tell about how you handle failure is one of the most deeply wired patterns you have. And you probably haven’t confronted it directly.

In fact, everybody around you knows your relationship with failure - and they know it better than you.

Most AI prompts ask you questions. This one builds a profile of your failure pattern - what you do, what it’s protecting you from and what it’s costing you.

You may want to be sitting down for the response.
In fact, Claude, who knows all of the prompts I come up with, dropped this one on me:

Inner Circle members get this for free. Join here.

Run the prompt now. 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽

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It’s only a conspiracy theory until you find out it’s true.

I’m not saying a plane didn’t hit the Pentagon on 9/11. I’m just asking why there’s no clear footage of a plane approaching one of the most surveilled buildings on Earth.

And I’m not saying an advanced civilization existed before us. I’m just asking how ancient civilizations built structures we still struggle to replicate.

We made fun of Q-Anon. It seemed absurd that there was a cabal of elites locked in a pedophilia ring.

It was a conspiracy theory.
Until it was true.

So maybe it’s time you and I talk about those things you’re convinced you are right about.

Because what if you’re not right?
What if you are the conspiracy theorist?

You Question Everything… Until You Don’t

Skepticism is good.

We teach our kids to be skeptical. We want them to question things. After all, it’s the basis for learning critical thinking.

The most important trait of the most important minds throughout history, is their desire to question everything. Including their own beliefs.

Most leaders like to question things. In fact, many of them pride themselves on their questioning prowess.

They’ll question industry assumptions.
They’ll question expert opinions.
They’ll even question their employees’ ideas.

But there is one thing many leaders won’t question: Themselves

They don’t wonder whether their leadership style is a problem. And they rarely explore how their experience may blind them more than giving clarity.

As it so happens, the conspiracy theorist does the exact same thing.

The conspiracy theorist is certain of their beliefs.
That’s the problem.

The challenge is not that they question things. The challenge is that they are so certain of their beliefs, they stop questioning.

You do the same.

Questions Stop At The Edge Of Identity.

You think asking questions is good. You tell yourself that you’re curious. Curiosity is what makes you a good leader. At least that’s what it says in those books you’ve skimmed.

Reality is different.

You’ll question anything, as long as it threatens your point of view. But you’ll protect anything that reinforces your self-image.

Don’t believe me? Tell me which ones of these ring true…

• If you believe you’re the kind of leader who empowers people, you won’t question whether you’re actually micromanaging.

• If you believe you’re a person who trusts their instincts, you won’t question why your instincts do you wrong.

• If you rely on your experience, you won’t question whether your experience is now your limitation.

And that brings me to my leadership coaching client.

The VP Who Blamed Everything But Himself

Last year I worked with a company where the VP developed (what he thought was) a brilliant strategy to launch a new product.

Six months later, the launch didn’t succeed.

In the group debrief, the VP blamed the market because market conditions had changed.

He blamed the team because they didn’t execute the way he thought they should.

He blamed the timeline because the strategy would’ve worked if they had just a little more runway.

The only thing the VP didn’t blame in that meeting was the strategy itself.

After all, he had spent three months developing the darn thing. Questioning the strategy meant questioning his judgment, which meant questioning his identity as someone who is a savvy leader.

So the questions stopped.

Leaders don’t call me when things are great. They call me when there are complex problems that need an easy solution.

They’ll tell me that their team isn’t aligned, or accountability is nonexistent, or toxic people are contaminating the culture.

They want me to fix it.
No problem. It’s what I do.

What they don’t realize is that their explanations alone tell me almost all I need to know. They’ve questioned everything they can, every potential scenario that could have caused the issues - except for the one thing that is probably the actual cause: themselves.

Questioning the culture means questioning their value.
So they stop questioning.

Confirmation Bias Runs Both Ways

In last week’s article we discussed how the algorithm doesn’t show you the news, it shows you the news that you want to see. It doesn’t tell you the truth, it tells you the truth that you want to hear.

Your brain does the exact same thing.

You’ll remember the wins that validate your business prowess and forget the losses that question it.

Consciously or not, you are always looking for evidence to confirm what you already believe and you’ll dismiss the evidence that contradicts it.

Conspiracy theorists do it with theories, you do it with your beliefs,

Same mechanism. Different conclusions. You’re both convinced you’re right.

You think you’re being rational.
You think you’re following the evidence.
You think you’re asking the hard questions.

You are.
Just not about yourself.

Your beliefs are conspiracy theories you’ve convinced yourself are facts. The only difference is that you can’t see the conspiracy you created.

The Questions You Won’t Ask

So here’s what I want you to do:

Think about the beliefs you’ve never questioned.
Your leadership philosophy.
Your understanding of your team.
Your assessment of what’s working.

Now ask yourself one simple question:
What if I’m wrong?

Once you ponder that one, ask yourself the harder question:
What am I protecting by not questioning myself?

The conspiracy theorist won’t ask those questions.
But you’re not a conspiracy theorist, right?

Just remember, the questions you won’t ask are usually the ones you most need to answer.

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He wrote a brilliant book called Atomic Habits. You probably read it, but if you’re one of the seven people in the world who hasn’t, here’s the basic summary.

If you focus on small, consistent habits that allow you to improve 1% per day, you can radically transform your life.

Now here’s my take on it.

It’s complete bullshit.

The Math Works. The Logic Doesn’t.

From a mathematical perspective, the 1% principle makes sense. It simply takes the concept of compound growth and applies it to daily habits. It’s fifth grade algebra. Improving by 1% every day is one to the 365th power, which results in a 37.7% increase at the end of the year.

The math works. And that’s all fine and nice. But there’s a very big and hugely incorrect assumption with his premise. It’s this:

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