This is the Too Many Trees newsletter, where I share what I’ve been writing and reading in the realm of leadership and personal development. My coaching practice is centered around the idea that we are more effective in moving towards our goals when we become more conscious and intentional in focusing our time and attention, and learn how our unconscious patterns are holding us back. If you know somebody that could benefit from my perspective, please forward this to them or let them know they can set up a free intro chat with me.
I’m dismayed but not surprised by the leaked Supreme Court opinion this week. This has always been the end-game, as the Republicans have been stacking the courts for decades, and why they pulled the shenanigans about not confirming Merrick Garland but pushing through Amy Coney Barrett in election years.
Even less surprising is the complete lack of empathy shown by the anti-abortion zealots who swarm every post where somebody shares their abortion experience with “advice” and “help” that is seriously lacking in compassion or even an attempt to understand the situation. These responses show they are centered on their own experience, and can’t even imagine that other people might want anything different.
I had already been working on a post called You Don’t Have The Answer for a couple weeks, but finished it off today as a more general response to this week’s news. My conclusion:
Remember that you don’t have the answer, just your own experiences to share. With that humility, you might connect with the other person as a fellow human, and provide them the support and space they need to find their own way forward.
And now for the normal personal development content:
Talks: I mentioned in the last newsletter that I was working on a talk about Creating Organizational Alignment, and have now posted the slides and a recording here. While the talk was prepared for a Chief of Staff audience, I designed it to resonate with any leader or executive who is currently stuck in reactive fire-fighting mode; instead, I emphasize the importance of aligning and orienting the organization around what matters. That alignment work has a multiplier effect making everybody more effective, and I believe it is the most valuable work leaders can do.
LinkedIn: These are ideas that have helped my clients (or myself), and that I share via LinkedIn to help a wider audience.
"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't...you're right!" As this Henry Ford quote suggests, our brains are designed to find evidence to support what we have already decided. So once we experiment with changing our "decision", we can find new possibilities that were not apparent before because our brains were pre-filtering them out.
Convenience trumps intention. If you're having trouble doing something, don't beat yourself up for not having the motivation, and instead look for ways to make it easier to get started on that thing.
Articles and resources I’ve found interesting along the theme of there being more than one way to do things:
Escaping from fixation, by Gary Klein. I’ve been a Gary Klein fan since reading Sources of Power many years ago and learning of his research supporting the value of intuition and how experts “see the invisible”. This Psychology Today article, subtitled “Harnessing the power of curiosity to reduce diagnostic errors”, was insightful in showing we can let go of our preconceptions by noticing repeated anomalies and using them as “a wake-up call to step back and re-examine what’s going on.”
When Subtraction Adds Value, by Gabrielle Adams et al. This Harvard Business Review article makes the case that our default is to make changes by adding something to what already exists, whereas “people systematically overlook subtractive changes”, especially because “evidence of subtraction is less observable — it’s marked only by the absence of something”. Taking a moment to look for what can be subtracted, rather than what can be added, may open new possibilities.
Managing your manager, by Brie Wolfson. Great list of questions and diagnoses to adapt to your manager’s working style to help you both be more successful. As she writes, “We can all help our managers help us by more thoughtfully considering their goals, preferences, motivations, and style in the way we work with them. I’ve come up with a set of questions to help you figure out what makes your manager tick, and some specific steps you can take to help them help you.”
Thanks for reading! See you in a couple weeks!