Did you know that very little of what you know makes any real difference…
… in your leadership and the things that really matter to you? You know you procrastinate, yet knowing this has not led you to take new actions. So you still procrastinate.
You know you agree to things that you actually don't agree with, yet knowing this doesn't prevent your next episode of being fake. Just notice that simply knowing, knowledge, is making little to no difference in your ability to alter the quality of your life and your leadership.
And of course you think that there must be something, some key information, that you don't yet know or understand that will provide that critical insight. So you hunt down more information - books, seminars, blogs - cautiously optimistic about finding an answer. And yet with every new answer there are no new actions; insights but no action.
How many books on leadership have you read and how many key behavioral patterns have they actually altered for you. At best you have had incremental gains in effectiveness while the big issues still persist. All you now have are even better explanations for why: you are a “green”, or a “driver”, or don't listen well, or lack inspiration, or aren't enough of a follower as a leader, blah blah blah.
Take a moment and think of two habits that you have that are counterproductive to your leadership. Two of mine are 1) that I think I know what you are going to say and stop really listening, and 2) I like to add to what you said, often "fixing" or altering what you said so it's "better" or more accurate (according to me). I’m pretty sure just those two habits drive people crazy when I do either.
Now think of a couple of your habits. Here are some possible habitual ways you may be that don't work for you or others. You could be too quite, too loud, late, disorganized, rigidly organized, aggressive, a pushover, overly skeptical, gullible, manipulative, a victim, superior to others, lazy, driven but never satisfied, always accommodating, inflexible, etc...
Now here is the thing about your behaviours. You already know you are this way.
It is not news to you that you are this way and that this way doesn't work some or even most of the time. So why do you keep doing it if you know it doesn't work? Now here's the thing, you will have tons of reasons for why you don't act on what you know. These reasons are another kind of information and things that you “know.” They are, in fact, just more justifications for all your knowing.
My next question is, "If you know that you have an ineffective pattern (say, correcting others) and you know why you don't stop it (it's a habit and habits are hard to break, you are actually often right anyway, you just need to be more aware, etc..) then why don't you implement what you know?" To which you will give me more and more explanations and reasons, none of which will make ANY difference for you or leave you any better off.
However passionately you advocate that more and more explanations and reasons for why you are ineffective equals being more effective, it doesn't. But you must think it makes a difference 'cause you explain and justify just about everything that doesn't work. So if Knowing is Bankrupt then what works? The answer lies in the realm of discovery, a very different animal from remembering information. More in the next blog.
