Human beings hate change. All of us.
When Zoom has to update right before an important call, I'm not thinking "yay! an update! I'm
thinking, ah. I don't have time for this. I just want to do my call."
And I'm an innovation coach.
When Midwest express stopped serving cookies or Southwest Airlines stopped serving peanuts,
I wasn't cheering for the future of airline food. I didn't like it. I was used to the way it was.
So telling people to embrace change is just telling them to fight natural human instincts. We
prefer stability and predictability.
So what do we do instead?
Instead of trying to convince everyone love change, why don't we equip them with the tools
and mindset to navigate it. So that the change isn't as upsetting or disruptive. And they
approach it with an open mind.
There are two Master Skills that Innovators share in this regard: Learning Agility and Growth
Mindset.
But why are these skills so pivotal?
Because they don't just prepare individuals for one change; they prepare them for the ongoing
journey of change. They foster adaptability and instill a sense of curiosity.
Working on these skills outside of a big change initiative reduces the intimidation of that future
change when it becomes necessary.
(Posted 9.9.2023)
I have a big new goal I've been coveting, and I thought I would document my journey from the very beginning.
I recently learned of the Maccabean Games or the Jewish Olympics. It is the third largest sporting event in the world, after the world cup and the actual Olympics. 10,000 athletes go to Israel every 4 years to compete in Olympic events. And the best part is there are age groups!
Ever since I learned about this event, I've wanted to try to go. Having never had a chance to participate in sports as a kid, and really enjoying both sports and competition, this feels like a perfect goal.
Goal: To try to make it to the Maccabean Games (by qualifying for team USA) in tennis. 😮
Now. Here are all the reasons I've been telling myself to forget it.
1. I started playing tennis this year 😂. And the level I have to get to is likely that of a collegiate player. Is that even possible??
2. I had breast cancer surgery last year that sliced through my pectoral muscles. Could I ever get them back strong enough to be competitive?
3. I'm 42 and already experiencing some pain in my knee and hip after exercise. Can my body even handle the training it would take?
4. I've never actively played a competitive sport in my life. And those of you who know my funny high school basketball tryouts story know that I would basically be starting from scratch 🥛🥛🥛.
And here's my short list of why I should do it:
1. I think I can do it.
2. It would be fun to try ❤️.
3. I love playing tennis and can't seem to get enough of it.
Ok. Tell me everything I need to know!
(Posted 9.16.23)
I think it's easy to look at a big, audacious goal and think, "Where do I even start?"
As someone who thrives on challenges, you may have seen my new goal: Improving my tennis rating from 2.5 to 4.5 within a year and qualifying to represent Team USA at the Maccabiah Games in Israel!
Here's how I approach such monumental tasks:
1. Break it Down: Big goals can be intimidating. I start by breaking them into smaller, more manageable tasks. In terms of tennis, it's about improving specific skills one at a time - be it the serve, the volley, or the footwork.
2. Seek Expertise: It's important that I (a person who knows almost nothing about tennis) am not in charge of creating the game plan. That's why I got a coach. He knows what we need to work on to achieve the goal and he provides deliberate practice (the kind of practice that improves skill).
3. Find The Believers: In moments of doubt (and they come often), it's the cheerleaders in our life who reignite our flame. I'm grateful for friends and fellow enthusiasts who remind me of my potential when it seems like an impossible goal. (HT to Adam Smiley Poswolsky for teaching me about the importance of Believers).
4. Identify the Good, Better, Best Goal: I got this strategy from Jon Acuff. It helps you not set yourself up for failure when attempting something really ambitious. I'm creating three options of what I'd like to achieve: Good: I train for a year without hurting myself and significantly improve my rating to 3.5 or higher. Better: I place in a competitive tournament. Best: I place in the US qualifier for the Maccabiah Games.
5. Measure Progress: I'll be setting milestones along the way and sharing them publicly. By tracking where I am vs. where I need to be, I can make adjustments.
6. Don't Over Do It: Passion is a double-edged sword. While it drives you to train, it can also cause burn out or risk injury. So I've recruited a physical therapist to the team to make sure I'm not taking myself out of the game by going too hard to fast right off the bat.
To my tennis enthusiasts out there, I'd love any tips or insights you might have. And to everyone else, what big goals are you setting for yourself? Let's Go Big together! 🌟
(Posted 9.23.23)
When we set big goals, our natural impulse often urges us to dive in headfirst, relying on sheer force to propel us forward.
However, I believe in the value of sitting with a problem and asking a lot of questions up front to help you chose the highest ROI for your energy.
The biggest challenge with doing something new is innovation waste, or using all that energy in ways that don't really move the ball forward.
Take my own objective: I've set an ambitious target to achieve a 4.5 tennis rating in a little over a year and qualify to represent team USA in the Maccabiah Games.
Rather than blindly enrolling in intense training sessions, I'm pausing to ask all the questions:
Foundations & Basics:
- What are the fundamental techniques every tennis player should know? (Below is a video of me spending a day learning the volley).
- How do I avoid typical beginner mistakes?
- What equipment do I need? (did you know there are actual tennis shoes?? And they aren't your sneakers 😂)
Training & Practice:
- How often should I practice to achieve my goal and not injure myself?
- What drills are most effective for building foundational skills?
- How will I know when I'm ready to compete in tournaments?
Mentorship & Guidance:
- How will I know when my coach has topped out at what they can teach me?
- Are there different coaches that specialize in teaching various fundamental skills? Or those that teach singles vs doubles players? Or even those that teach women vs men?
- Who can I talked to that has not only qualified but done well at the Maccabiah games so I can learn from them?
Physical & Mental Conditioning:
- How can I improve my agility, strength, and stamina for tennis?
- What kind of content would be most helpful for me to consume in between lessons? Books, Youtube videos, Instagram accounts.
Feedback & Improvement:
- How can I get regular feedback on my techniques and gameplay?
- What's the best way for me to record my practices?
- Are there other tools or technologies that can assist in helping my performance?
Tournaments & Competitive Play:
- Which local tournaments or leagues should I consider joining?
- How should I prepare for matches, and how do I best learn from each competition?
Community & Networking:
- How can I build relationships with players at or above my skill level to challenge myself?
_____________________________
Do you see how starting with questions can help you save a lot of time and effort?
My hope is that this curiosity fueled approach will set me up for success.
And to anyone embarking on a new ambitious goal: Don't start with a plan; instead, start with a list of questions you want to figure out!
#growthmindset#innovation#drinkmoremilk
(Posted 9.30.23)
In my journey from a 2.5 to a 4.5 tennis player, I've learned a profound lesson that goes beyond the tennis court: The immense value of deliberate practice.
It would be easy for me to spend hours on the court, hitting ball after ball, hoping to improve. In fact, that's how I spent my spring and summer.
While time and effort are commendable, they alone aren't enough for substantial growth.
That's where the magic of deliberate practice comes in.
Deliberate practice is a concept that was popularized by Anders Ericsson, who studied the habits of top performers across various fields. Ericsson's research showed that with the right type and amount of practice, most people can achieve exceptional levels of skill and performance in almost any domain.
But it only works if you follow this very specific kind of practice (I outline the steps in the comments below).
I had my first lesson with a coach about 3 weeks ago, and my body was so sore after that I kept saying, "what have I been playing all this time???" My body was just not used to the movements he was asking me to do!
That's my coach Elliott, in the picture.
🌟 Improving Alone vs. With a Coach:
When trying to improve on our own, we rely heavily on self-assessment, which can often be clouded by our biases or limited perspective. In contrast, a coach provides an external and experienced viewpoint. They see the nuances in our techniques, the small yet significant errors in our form, and the habits that hold us back.
I've grown more in my abilities over the last 3 weeks than I have in my first 6 months of playing tennis! 🚀
Here's how:
With a coach's guidance, our practice sessions become more targeted. They guide our focus, correct our mistakes in real-time, and introduce drills tailored to our needs.
This structured and deliberate approach ensures that we're not just practicing but practicing right. The result? A faster and more efficient improvement trajectory.
For anyone out there striving for excellence, be it in tennis, a professional field, or a personal hobby, remember this: While passion and persistence are crucial, the guidance of a mentor and the discipline of deliberate practice can be the difference between slow progression and accelerated mastery.
I'd love to know if you've ever taken advantage of deliberate practice to master a skill.
And stay tuned for more insights on my journey. The road to 4.5 continues! 🎾🔥
(Posted 10.7.23)
I have a crazy goal: to qualify for the Jewish Olympics.
Spoiler alert – I am currently terrible. I started playing this year and I need to get to a collegiate level of play to have any shot.
But here's the thing; I am embracing every flawed forehand, every misguided backhand, and every missed serve. Why? Because I believe that embracing my inadequacies is the first step towards mastery.
We live in a world that celebrates perfection, where social media highlights are filled with nothing but accomplishments.
But what you don't often see is the journey, the missteps, and the countless hours of practice that go into honing a skill.
Every professional was once a beginner. And in those early stages, they weren't pretty. They weren’t perfect. But they were resilient.
Being bad at something is a gift.
It provides us with a blank canvas, a world filled with endless possibilities. Each mistake is a lesson, each failure a stepping stone.
If we approach each setback with a learner’s mentality, we evolve. We grow. We inch closer to our goals.
So, why am I sharing this with you? Because I want you to enjoy my pain. Not in a sadistic way, but as a testament to growth, to vulnerability, and to the beauty of the journey.
Today, you might be chuckling at my missteps, but in the coming months, you’ll witness a transformation.
This kind of strategic decision making is one of the top skills innovators must master.
Here's how I make the decision without letting my pride take over:
I'd like to add that one way I make this decision easy on myself, is I avoid it altogether by
employing a stage gate process for evaluating where I invest my time and resources.
The stage-gate process divides the development of a new initiative into stages separated by
gates. At each gate, the ongoing viability of the initiative is evaluated based on predetermined
criteria:
Our resources—whether time, talent, or capital—are finite, and successful innovators
understand that we have to continuously reassess to make sure that we don't get stuck.
They recognize that every excuse, no matter how valid it may seem, is a self-imposed roadblock
on the path to transformative change.
Rather than getting bogged down by challenges or setbacks, innovators harness them as
catalysts for creativity and adaptability. They maintain an unwavering belief in their vision,
knowing that for every problem, there's a solution waiting to be discovered.
This relentless pursuit of betterment, paired with a refusal to let excuses deter them, is what
sets innovators apart and drives them towards groundbreaking achievements.
I've listed out the common excuses I've heard inside organizations, and how innovators can
combat them:
The new age of business demands innovation not only from a select few but from everyone.
Whether you're in the mailroom or the boardroom, innovation is the new standard operating
procedure. So, to all my friends across the organizational spectrum: It's time to step up, sideline
those excuses, and let your innovative spirit shine.
Innovation #NoMoreExcuses #OrganizationalGrowth
In my journey from a 2.5 to a 4.5 tennis player, I've learned a profound lesson that goes beyond
the boundaries of the tennis court: The immense value of deliberate practice.
It would be easy for me to spend hours on the court, hitting ball after ball, hoping to improve.
In fact, that's how I spent my spring and summer.
While time and effort are commendable, they alone aren't enough for substantial growth.
That's where the magic of deliberate practice comes in.
Deliberate practice is a concept that was popularized by Anders Ericsson, who studied the
habits of top performers across various fields. Ericsson's research showed that with the right
type and amount of practice, most people can achieve exceptional levels of skill and
performance in almost any domain.
But it only works if you follow this very specific kind of practice (I outline the steps at the end of
this post).
I had my first lesson with a coach about 3 weeks ago, and my body was so sore after that I kept
saying, "what have I been playing all this time???" My body was just not used to the
movements he was asking me to do!
That's my coach Elliott, in the picture.
When trying to improve on our own, we rely heavily on self-assessment, which can often be
clouded by our biases or limited perspective. In contrast, a coach provides an external and
experienced viewpoint. They see the nuances in our techniques, the small yet significant errors
in our form, and the habits that hold us back.
I've grown more in my abilities over the last 3 weeks than I have in my first 6 months of playing
tennis!
Here's how:
With a coach's guidance, our practice sessions become more targeted. They guide our focus,
correct our mistakes in real-time, and introduce drills tailored to our needs.
This structured and deliberate approach ensures that we're not just practicing but practicing
right. The result? A faster and more efficient improvement trajectory.
For anyone out there striving for excellence, be it in tennis, a professional field, or a personal
hobby, remember this: While passion and persistence are crucial, the guidance of a mentor and
the discipline of deliberate practice can be the difference between slow progression and
accelerated mastery.
And if you want to know if you're taking advantage of deliberate practice, consider these
important elements:
In contrast, here are the potential issues with solo practice:
I'd love to know if you've ever taken advantage of deliberate practice to master a skill.
And stay tuned for more insights on my journey. The road to 4.5 continues!
The role of meeting planners is quickly evolving from individuals who orchestrate gatherings to those that curate experiences. And in an era of ever-evolving audience expectations and shortening attention spans, it's time to expand the role to include "experience designers".
It's not just about meeting logistics anymore; it's about crafting a memorable experience from start to finish.
Why Event Planners Need to Create Memorable Events
And the key to crafting unforgettable experiences is to start thinking of an event as a storyboard. Much like a filmmaker plots the journey of their hero, planners should think about their attendee's experience as a scene-by-scene story line.
By identifying the main 'scenes' or touchpoints of an event, we can meticulously sculpt each moment, adding elements of surprise, emotion, and personalization, and ensuring that it leaves a lasting impression.
Specifically, the best event designers think of the following three elements:
Want to put these elements into practice?
I recently facilitated a joint meeting of members from PCMA and MPI to brainstorm 100 different ideas to make our events memorable. We broke down the event journey into the following scenes: the lead-up to the event, arrival, the main content, the departure, and post event follow-up. For each scene, we shared things we've done or seen that could make any event stand out.
I've turned that discussion into a handy checklist. It's a treasure trove of inspiration to make your next event truly memorable. Download it below!
Remember, every event is an opportunity to tell a story, craft an experience, and leave a mark. As we embrace the role of an experience designer, we're not just planning meetings—we're creating memories that will resonate for a lifetime.
The Big Idea:
It's the story of one man's experience in 4 different concentration camps over 3 years. He details the brutal, unimaginable treatment that he endured, the loss of everyone he loved, and how, through all of that, he didn't lose meaning in his life. A practicing psychiatrist both before and after the war, he explains that having meaning, much more than striving for pleasure or power, will help you get through life's challenges and allow you to be happy.
Background:
In 1942, just nine months after his marriage, Frankl and his family were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. His father died there of starvation and pneumonia. In 1944, Frankl and the surviving members of his family were transported to Auschwitz, where his mother and brother were murdered in the gas chambers. His wife died later of typhus in Bergen-Belsen. Frankl spent three years in four concentration camps.
While head of the Neurological Department at the general Polyclinic Hospital, Frankl wrote Man’s Search for Meaning over a nine-day period. The book, originally titled A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp, was released in German in 1946. The English translation of Man's Search for Meaning was published in 1959, and became an international bestseller.
The book is 50% his account of surviving in the camps and 50% his theory of Logotherapy that he believes is a better psychiatric approach to dealing with neuroses like anxiety and depression.
Top 10 Takeaways:
Rating:
Final Thought:
I am so moved after reading this book that I don't want it to leave my side. Like I literally want to carry it around in my backpack wherever I go.
I just never want to forget how I felt reading it. The thoughts of what we as humans a capable of doing to others and at the same time what we are able to survive while maintaining our humanity.
And I didn't mention it above, but I don't want to forget the story of Dr. J – You can never predict the future actions of a man. People can change in radical ways.
Other quotes I loved:
I set a goal to do the splits this year.
I've never done the splits. I'm not even close. Here's my laughable starting photo.
And yet the goal doesn't really matter.
What matters is my mental model of how I, Diana, learn to do new things. Sometimes impossible seeming things. And my real goal is to learn the flaws in this model and update it using the splits as my vehicle.
Goals are nothing more than wishes.
And even if you have a plan for accomplishing your goal, that's not as strong as having a mental model for how you as a person generally achieve goals.
This Goals Achievement Mental Model would include answers to the following questions:
My goal is not just to achieve new things each year, it's to refine my philosophy about how I achieve things. Tweaking my mental model each year gives me a clear roadmap to follow, making it easier to stay on track and avoid getting sidetracked or discouraged. And it helps me spend my time better. I'm dedicating 15 minutes a day to doing the splits. That's a very big return on a minimal output.
So while the goal itself may be important, your personal methodology of how you accomplish goals or resolutions is a lot more valuable to your long term growth. If you can upgrade your mental model for achieving goals each year, you'll find that your growth becomes exponential.
Don't get me wrong, I do want to hear about your New Year's Resolutions! It's fun to go for big things! It's just that the goal itself doesn't interest me nearly as much as your mental model to get there.
Many of our daily actions are habitual, meaning they are performed automatically and without conscious thought. It's a useful way for us to save mental energy and streamline tasks that are performed frequently.
These automatic actions are often based on our mental models, which are the assumptions, beliefs, and frameworks that we use to make sense of the world around us. They are like little formulas about how we believe things are supposed to work.
Here's a simple example:
Except this mental model is actually incorrect. Salt doesn't make your water boil any faster (unless your pot is filled with 20% salt). If you want your water to boil faster, it would be smarter to just start with hot water.
And we have tens of thousands of these theories, big and small, secretly governing many of our actions. Here are just some of the categories they fall into:
But we haven't spent much time articulating exactly what our philosophies are in these areas. We're just mindlessly acting based on these hidden rules.
When I was in high school, one of my health mental models (thanks to some brilliant commercials) was that the key to being physically fit was drinking as much milk as possible. Do you remember those, "Milk, It Does a Body Good" commercials? They were very effective.
And when I didn't make the team because I was frothing at the mouth during tryouts (this is what happens when you drink nothing but milk for two days and then engage in aerobic activity!), I didn't question the mental model. I blamed the coaches for having too much running and not enough shooting drills during tryouts. I also declared that I just wasn't a runner. But I held onto that milk philosophy for a decade until I started proactively learning about health and fitness.
We protect these assumptions by never questioning them. Where did they come from? Are they working for us? Do they need updating?
And yet our mental models determine how strategic we are in our actions. If our philosophies are accurate and helpful, they can guide us toward big wins. On the other hand, if our mental models are flawed or limited, they can lead us down the wrong path and prevent us from achieving our goals.
Or, in the words of Charlie Munger, "You get further in life by avoiding repeated stupidity than you do by striving for maximum intelligence."
Method 1: Updating our questions
1. When you ask a question that you ask often, reflect on whether you’re getting the kind of response that you’re hoping for.
Ex: You ask your kid after school how their day was. They say "Fine." You try again. You ask them, "What was the best part?" or "What did they learn?" They don't remember. It feels like a very unsuccessful interrogation. These questions and the mental models that make you think they should be working aren't serving you.
2. Try some other questions instead to see if you get a better response. Ask others about what questions they use to accomplish the same goals.
One question that has worked well for me is: "How was your day on a scale of 1 to 10?"
Method 2. Mental Model reflection
1. Identify an area of your life that you would like to grow or improve. (It's not too late for New Year's resolutions!)
2. Make a list of all the mental models you currently have about that subject and see which ones might need to be updated or might not be serving you.
3. Seek out new perspectives on these philosophies. Consider asking for feedback from others.
4. Update one mental model at a time and come up with a way to test the new approach.
Method 3. Inspiration
1. Find a source of inspiration that regularly challenges your existing mental models. My monthly newsletter attempts to do just that. Ask This Not That is a monthly dose of question makeover – in which I take one common question and offering an alternative that could help you get much better results.
2. Join a group of people who like to talk about this topic. There are strategic thinking groups on both LinkedIn and Facebook.
Whatever method you choose, understand that the quality of your strategic thinking is determined by the life philosophies swimming around in your head. Identifying and upgrading these mental models can help you make better decisions, solve problems faster, and identify big opportunities.
For the past 60 years the financial services industry has been booming. Since 1980, year over year growth rates tripled and large entities flourished as smaller competitors crumbled. With low interest rates and new regulations, banks grew quickly as the rest of the marketplace piggybacked off their success. Savvy and risk-averse business men and women flocked to the industry; a career in financial services seemed like a safe bet.
Such a prolonged period of success is both a blessing and a curse. What made the financial services sector soar has also been responsible for nearly crippling it and taking our economy with it.
By succeeding for so many years – practically a lifetime in the business world – financial service firms remained virtually untouched while other industries were being disrupted. This made them dangerously comfortable. The strategies that once promoted growth stopped working in the same ways in today’s hyper competitive economy.
Ignoring changing tech and forgoing innovation for “guaranteed profits,” created the ideal environment for disruption.
In stark contrast to large, collateral backed loans, today’s financial innovators focus on small and specialized services like micro-loans, peer to peer lending, and small business lines of credit. The walls that once separated consumers from their finances gave way as startups like Square, Stripe, Coin, and Dwalla eliminate fees while providing new value.
Even business we typically wouldn’t consider part of financial services got into the game and expanded the field of competitors. Home Depot now offers loans for home remodeling projects. Starbucks and Chik-Fil-A created an app to speed-up payments and create financial loyalty. Walmart, Google, Apple Pay, Paypal are now viable forms of currency. The threats are ever increasing, and the financial services industry isn’t prepared to innovate and adapt.
While it's not fair to blame success for the impending doom, it is important to address the traps of reaching expert status. Yes, being really good at something, being an expert, can be what stifles innovation.
Enter: The Expert Traps. The silent and unseen killers of creativity and creation. When we feel like experts at what we do, the following traps await us:
Trap #1: We Stop Trying to Learn and Improve
Confidence in your skills is important. We’d all like our bankers, lawyers, and employers to be good at what they do. It’s a valid and honorable trait. However, when confidence grows without limits and exceeds its true skill, we lose the incentive to improve.
And this is what suffocated innovation in the financial industry. Big banks and firms were killing it (as in, they were raking in the profits). They were the best of the best; taking the time to reassess their offering would have only distracted them from continuing to win. Or so they thought.
This dangerous confidence convinces experts that it isn’t necessary to test and question the status quo. Hubris whispers “You know what you’re doing. You’ve got the track record to prove it.” While the beginner or the novice looks for opportunities to improve, the expert believes they will always be the best of the best, even as their stock prices plummet. This is one of the reasons they never saw the 2008 collapse coming.
Trap #2: We Don’t Examine Our Successes
Looking backward is a no-brainer when we lose. We can learn from our mistakes. Being a loser incentivizes us to examine what went wrong. But when we win, the opposite happens. Why look back when the future's so bright? By assuming the win was a result of perfect strategy and execution, you could ignore big opportunities to improve.
Winning is awesome. You will never find me happy with a loss. However, constant improvement and innovation demand we approach both losses and successes as a beginner. And a beginner never stops reflecting. If a beginner receives unexpected praise from a superior, the novice will ask, “What did I do and how can I do it again?”
So hold your head up high. Things are going well! Now turn around and take a hard look at how you got there. Can you repeat it? Was it luck? And most importantly, what could you have done better? Ask the hard questions and live to succeed another day.
Trap #3: We Play it Safe
Ah, to be the best of the best. It feels great to be at the top. So great, in fact, you’d rather not look down. Falling from such heights could be deadly.
For many in the financial industry, reaching the top triggered the instinct to survive. How can we avoid falling? What can we do to stay absolutely still and not compromise our position? Delaying or completely avoiding action feels like the safer option when you’ve fought so hard to get there.
But a beginner has nothing to lose. The beginner defaults to action, to responsible experimentation and seeing what happens. For the beginner, the opportunity to learn something new is more motivating than potentially making a mess. Failure is inevitable for a beginner, so why not try?
This doesn’t mean beginners experiment with reckless abandon, the goal is success after all. Beginners forgo guaranteed success in favor of growing their abilities. Experts hunker down and hold their position, even if it means ignoring an oncoming catastrophe.
Understanding the traps is a great first step. But it’s not enough. Research on cognitive biases shows that being aware of biases/expert traps doesn't do much to reduce their effects. All of the above traps happen subconsciously. Trying to “watch out” for the traps is just as difficult as “watching out” for how you’re breathing while you sleep.
The only way to control for the traps of success and expertise is to implement guardrails to keep your work on the right path. Here’s what I suggest:
1. Look for Negative Evidence
When you’re making a decision or choosing a strategic direction, assign someone to challenge your bias for a particular direction. The military calls them red teams, some in business call them a devil's advocate, and I call them provocateurs. Either way, find an individual or team of outsiders who have no vested interest in your project. They care enough to help, but not enough that they will be affected by the outcome. These individuals are in the best position to open your eyes to blind spots.
2. Retrospectives to Examine Success and Failure
Schedule a meeting at least once a year to look back at your project or company and examine the processes and results. Retrospectives create a structure for reflection, learning, and planning. No matter how well things are going, A Retrospective shows you how to correct glaring strategic mistakes that are invisible when you’re executing on day-to-day activities. I’ve used this process countless times and if you’re not sure where to start, you can use my 20+ page guide to running a successful Retrospective here.
3. Experiment
The most innovative companies are only so because of constant experiments. Experiments to see if they can improve things that are already working well. Experiment to find solutions to pervasive problems. Experimentation increases the velocity of decision making. It helps kill or change projects that aren’t working and lowers the cost of finding solutions. The best experiments use the scientific method, and if you’re not sure how to set up your next test, check out my template here.
Complacency is the enemy of innovation. The more comfortable you are, the less you work to improve and create new value. And complacency always takes its toll. As the pace picks up, the expert falls behind. Only those focussed on constant growth and improvement, even in good times, will be the ones to achieve sustained success.
Adopt the mindset of a beginner, build your retrospective strategy, and never stop fighting to improve. If you never settle, you will never peak! Let’s make the financial services industry boom for another 60, shall we?
