Change Proof: Leveraging the Power of Uncertainty to Build Long-term Resilience

CHAPTER 15

Get out of Your Head

Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET

One of the biggest lessons I had to learn as a leader was the value of redundancy. For your people to know what you want, you’re gonna have to keep saying it over and over again. Every time I sent a memo or gave a speech, I was worried that my employees were going to roll their eyes and say, “Here he goes again.” I thought, “No one wants to listen to a broken record.” I was more concerned with being interesting.

So what I did was constantly refresh and renew my message. What happened, without my realizing it, was that my desire to be interesting was getting in the way of me being clear. Clarity is what we’re after. That’s what ...