Hi 👋, welcome back to our 22nd edition 🙌.

“It’s so simple, yet makes such a difference. Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.’”

Mary Kay Ash

Leadership: mistakes and apologies.

We all make mistakes. It happens. But of course, it’s what we do next as leaders that matters most. This chat with Adam Grant and Malcolm Gladwell about apologies was interesting. Apologies, Gladwell says, give the listener permission to file the mistake away and move on. It’s over. But as Grant points out, although apologies are good for failures of competence, they’re less so for failures of character because people doubt your character will actually change. In these instances, the apology should be a change in behaviour (full conversation here). Apologies are important and begin with accountability, followed by swift action to address the issue. Good leaders do that.

A thought for leaders: Good leaders continually update their operating system, so “apologies, I was wrong about that” is a part of that journey. But it’s also important signal. It permits a culture where mistakes can be made, and teaches and promotes the behaviours to deal with them. As Warren Buffet said, “A wise person learns from their mistakes. A much wiser person learns from someone else’s mistakes”.

Culture: listening.

A thought for leaders: Good leaders pause on the urge to “fix” immediately and listen more. The more people feel listened to, the more they’ll feel understood and the more open they’ll be to solutions. A large study of good leadership found that good listeners have deeper bonds and better results. Great leaders are devoted learners, and a key to learning is to listen more than you talk. Listening is a superpower.

Performance: critical ignoring.

We’re drowning in ever-increasing amounts of information. Historically, critical thinking has helped us to understand and evaluate valid information. But the war for our attention means we’re spending more and more time getting sucked into low to no value, meaningless things. Trends that attract our attention are ever more fleeting, and platforms are getting better at holding our attention. That’s why a philosopher, two cognitive scientists and an education scientist – argue that as much as we need critical thinking, we also need critical ignoring. Critical ignoring is the ability to choose what to ignore and where to invest one’s limited attention (full article here).

A thought for leaders: As Annie Dillard said, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives”. If our days are spent distracted, critically thinking about the wrong things, it compounds. As Peter Drucker said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all”. Critical Ignoring is being more proactive about the choice architecture of our lives. This means removing distractions, like notifications, limiting our time on devices and avoiding platform attention traps.

Podcast: EP 28: We Need to Talk about Conversations.

https://flowukandireland.com/podcast/28-ep-28-we-need-to-talk-about-conversations/

This edition also includes a podcast from the Vaults EP 28: We Need to Talk about Conversations. You can listen to it here.

This episode complements the theme in this edition regarding difficult conversations and how we approach them.

You can follow Flow Group on Linkedin here.

Hope you enjoyed and please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

P.S. This month’s featured work is by self-taught Spanish photographer Fares Micue. In the dreamlike images, which show the artist’s facial features obscured by blooming flowers and feathers, symbolism is key, with each object placed carefully to respond to the language of the body as it presents itself to the viewer. Micue notes: “I want my work to be viewed as a whole story condensed into a singular frame.”