REAL CONVERSATIONS- ASYNC 1

Overview of a seven-step model that represents one of the best practices in having effective
conversations. These techniques would help people who are passionate about achieving results but
are not willing to use threats or lies or manipulative tactics to achieve them. It's for people who want to
be honest, principled, and respectful in their conversations. It's for people who want to have great
results and great relationships, who want to be assertive without being aggressive and considerate
without being taken advantage of.

1. SHARING:

How to share your thoughts perspectives feedback in a way that's honest and considerate. There’s a
distinction between feedback, advice, and judgment.

ADVICE FEEDBACK JUDGEMENT

Any sentence that starts with
“you should” or “you shouldn't”.
The subliminal message that
you convey when you give
advice to someone is that you
know more than them on the
subject being discussed, that
they don't know what they
should do and that you do.
For example, you start giving
advice to peers in a different
division and you say you
should have done this, then
you might get a defensive or
an aggressive response.
I notice/ I see/ I think/ I see/ I
believe. The big difference is
the word I instead of the word
you.
If you say to an employee If you said you're lazy/ you only
“You've been more than half an think about yourself etc. that
hour late for the last few would be a judgment and they
meetings (FACT CAN’T BE can dispute that because now
DISPUTED), even though I we're not telling what we're
requested you to be on time, thinking and feeling, but telling
so I'm beginning to think that what kind of people they are,
(WHICH IS DIFFERENT as if it's a fact. People can and
FROM SAYING “YOU’RE NOT often do react negatively.
CONCERNED”, A
STATEMENT WHICH CAN BE
DISPUTED) you're not
concerned that the rest of the
team might be waiting for you
over here and I'm feeling really
frustrated about that (YOU
HAVE THE FINAL
AUTHORITY OVER HOW
YOU’RE FEELING, CAN’T BE
DISPUTED AGAIN).” This
might feel very direct even
blunt but it's actually best
practice

Advise works perfectly in only
one situation when you do
know more than someone else
in a given situation and they
agree that you're the expert.
Sharing is all about letting
people know what the facts
are, what you're thinking, what
you're feeling, and why are you
thinking and feeling that way.
It's about sharing your internal
experience, something only
you have access to and
something that is hard for
others to dispute.
Judgment + advice makes the
other person defensive or
counter-attack because he's
feeling attacked all the “YOU
YOU YOU” statements sound
like accusations. E.g. instead
of saying you don’t spend time
with me and you should spend
more time with me, say I miss
you when you’re away and I
feel happy when you spend
time with me. That is sharing
because I'm revealing what's
going inside me.
Thus, give feedback and share feelings instead of giving advice or passing judgements. A lot of times
people hold themselves back from sneaking up because they're afraid that they might say something
wrong but if you're communicating from a place of sharing, it's not about being right or wrong, it's
about being honest. Then you can speak with confidence in authority.

Sharing is therefore a skill that allows you to be honest, direct, humble, open, and considerate in your
communication.

2. LISTENING:
(i) Words- Can show confidence (such as “Sure”) or maybe lack of it (Such as “Sort Of”). We
should never make conclusions on the basis of one or two words though, and look for
patterns.
(ii) Emotions- Listening can make us hypothesize about the emotions of the person.
(iii) Body Language- For example, when you look down, it might show sadness.
(iv) Intention- Why one says what one says, and why one doesn’t say what one doesn’t say.

Listening allows you to build connect and trust, and understand a person.

3. UNDERSTANDING:

Sometimes, when we are listening to others, our own beliefs and biases prevent us from
understanding others. And subconsciously, we can manipulate people by stating their POV in a
distorted way. Ideally, summarize the other person’s POV in a way that he will say “Yes, that’s exactly
what I’m saying”. That will mean that you’ve understood him.

Understanding is not the same as agreement. However, understanding each other is important to
have a way forward in a conversation. For example, if someone supports another party, listen to them
and summarize in a way that they say “Yes that’s what I am saying”. Until they say that, we’re still not
willing to understand their POV.

4. QUESTIONS:

 “WHY” Questions: To really understand the root cause of a problem, ask them “Why?” 5 times.
However, such questions can come as accusatory and attacking even if they are intended to just
understand the problem. The listener might perceive it as attack and could use excuses to
defend.
 Thus, can ask “NON-WHY” questions. For example, “What” do you think…/ “How” should we go
about this…/ “Who” are the best people for this…/ “When” should we release it/ “Which” solutions
can work etc. All these questions are about finding the solutions and don’t have an accusatory
tone to them.
 Thus, why questions can help in finding the root cause of a problem but we need to use non-why
questions wherever possible.

 “CLOSE” questions have a narrow range of answers (such as Yes/ No). These are better to
establish facts and when we want to move forward on action. For example, “When will this start?”,
“How much will this cost?”.
 “OPEN” questions help acquire much more information though. For example, instead of asking
“Did you like the movie?” (CLOSED), we can ask “What did you like or not like in the movie?”
(OPEN). Such open questions help more engagement with subordinates and also bring
ownership in their tasks. For example, instead of saying “If Plan A failed, why didn’t you do
XYZ?”. Here, we are delegating the actions but not the result. If XYZ plan fails, the subordinates
can blame you. Thus, instead say “How would you like to go about this, what ideas do you and
your team have?”. You can add your inputs in such questions, but open questions add ownership
and enthusiasm in the team, and allows you to fully leverage their capabilities.
 Thus, ask solution oriented questions rather than giving solutions

 “LEADING” questions are where you have decided what the answer the other person should give.
For example, “Don’t you think this impractical?” or “Do you really think this is the best you could
have done?”. These are basically statements disguised as questions. These are manipulative and
designed to put the listener on the backfoot and agree with the point of the questioner. Instead,
make honest and genuine questions such as “I am disappointed in you performance this year, I
feel your potential is much higher than what you delivered”. This is much more powerful.

5. REQUESTS:

By learning the best practice of how to make requests you're much more likely to have people deliver
on the commitments that they made to you. The 7 elements to a complete request:

I. Explicit request- There's a difference between someone breaking a commitment to you and
someone not living up to your expectations. If you ask someone explicitly to do something
and they say yes but then they don't do it, then they have a broken commitment. But if you
haven't had an explicit conversation with them, then they're not breaking any
agreements. Quite often we get angry at people when they don't act as per our expectations
as if they have broken an agreement. But these are two completely different things.

The biggest reason that people give for not having explicit agreement is “I shouldn't have to
explain this, they should know this. But you're setting yourself up with disappointment and
frustration. So, translate your unarticulated expectations into explicit agreements.

II. Have an open listener- If you make a request when somebody is distracted or upset
and simply assume they got the message, you don't even know if they heard or absorbed
your request. The biggest way to get an open listener is to hear them out so that they feel
they've been understood, only then will they be open to hearing what you have to say. If you
simply order people to do things and say “I don't want to hear it” to their concerns, then you
may not have buy-in. If you feel like someone is not listening to you, it's probably because
they feel you haven't understood them. Instead of explaining yourself more assertively or
repeating yourself, you need to stop to listen to them. Only after you've understood them
are they going to be open to listening to you.

III. Context- Why is your request important. If you say to someone “Could you please send
the report by Thursday”, you made the request, but there's no context. But if you said “Could
you please send the report by Thursday 5:00 p.m., I have a meeting with a client next
morning at 10 a.m. and I want to download the report before you leave office. I can read it on
the flight there”. Well now they understand why it's important that you need it by that time,
you're much less likely to have them break that commitment.

IV. Unambiguous- Saying to an experienced subordinate “Will you please clean up the
presentation before you send it the client” may be completely fine. But for a less experienced
 team member you might need to be more specific- “Could you please make sure that we're
using the same font in a consistent font size on each slide and run a spellcheck. Also, replace
all the cartoons with high-definition pictures instead”. That's clear.

V. Check understanding- There are some managers who have complained that their teams
don't deliver even though that they have explained clearly what they wanted. But it was clear
to whom? It might be clear to them but it's clearly not clear to the team members. Clearly if
you ever say to your team member this is not what I was expecting, it's not their fault, it's your
responsibility. It's your responsibility to check if they've understood and one of the ways of
doing that is to ask more open questions. So rather than simply saying do A then do B, then
do C, ask them. “Talk me through how you're planning to execute this and one of the major
challenges you feel you need to watch out for. And if you really listen, then you'll get a much
better understanding on the areas they’re clear on, and the areas they're not clear on

VI. Deadline- If there's no deadline, then it's not a request because people can always say to you
“I was just about to do it” and they have not broken any commitment, so you can't hold them
accountable. Saying things like “This is really urgent, do this ASAP”. Remember, there is
never any urgency, but there is always, always a deadline. Calling lots of things urgent will
increase pressure without clarity, but when there are clear deadlines and people can prioritize
and plan their schedules accordingly, they become more productive. When you give a
deadline, then the understanding is you don't follow up every few hours, it's their job to get it
done by the deadline. You just get on with your work. That's what it means to trust and
delegate.

VII. The person you are making the request of has the freedom to say no to the request- If they
can't say no, then it's not a genuine request, it's an order or demand or a threat. So if you ask
someone to complete the report by the weekend and they say won’t be possible, you say “I
don't want to hear any excuses you have to get it done” and they might say “I'll try I'll do my
best” which if you really listen to it carefully is not really a commitment. And if then they don't
give you the report by the weekend, you might say “You broke your commitment”, but
technically they didn't give you a commitment. You effectively made the commitment on their
behalf. You can force somebody to say yes but getting someone to say yes is different from
getting a commitment. A commitment is when someone says yes to a request when they
have the permission to say no, and if you don't give the permission to say no by threatening
them or making them feel guilty or by begging them, well then you can never really rely on the
yes because what else could they have said. But if you said “Hey I really need this report on
the weekend but if you can't get it done, let me know right now so that I can communicate to
my stakeholders”, and then if they say yes, they can, then it's a commitment.

Just to be clear, commitment is not the same thing as a target. A target is an aspirational number than
you're aiming for. Sometimes when someone doesn't achieve a target you may be tempted to accuse
them of breaking a commitment and subtly insinuate that they lacked integrity, to get them to feel guilt
and shame so they work harder. If people do this knowingly, then it's a manipulative conversation.

6. SAYING NO:

We are afraid that if we say no we'll be seen as lazy, incompetent, disobedient, non-cooperative etc.
and these are all legitimate fears, but it's critical to learn to say NO in order to be successful in your
professional career and happy in your personal life. Three ways to say no:

I. Yes-no-yes technique- Anytime you say no to something, you say yes to something else
that is more important and that is the first yes. So, if it's my mom's birthday this Saturday and
my boss asks me to come into office over the weekend and if I'm saying no, the first thing I've
got to be clear is that I'm saying yes to letting my mom know that she's a priority for me. If
you're not clear what your priorities and values are in life, you'll find it hard to say no. If you
 say no to a promotion to a subordinate, what you're really saying is yes to working in a high-
performance team. If you refuse to let your children have another chocolate cake, you're
saying yes to their health. If you refuse an unrealistic timeline from your boss, you're saying
yes to creating a work-life balance that will keep the best people in your team staying in the
company for the long term.

The no is the request you say no to. You're not rejecting the person making the request,
you're saying no to the request. So say it unambiguously because if you say “I'll try or I'll do
my best, then people could interpret it as a yes and treat it as a broken agreement if you don't
follow through”.

But the real genius in this model is the final yes. The final yes is a yes to the relationship. It's a
willingness to offer something else that you're willing to give that might be of value to the
other person. So, “My mom's birthday is on saturday so i'd rather not come on the weekend,
but i'll come in on monday morning at 8 am and half the work will be completed by 12 p.m.
Does that work for you, boss?” When you present a counter offer, the other person feels like
you're trying to find a solution and be helpful, even though you've got other priorities.

II. Yes and technique- If your boss says that you need to move your deadline forward from
October 30th to September 30th, instead of saying no, you say “yes we can do that and in
order to make it happen, we need to add two more people to the budget and budget for the
overtime”. Now it may not sound like it but it is actually a no to the original request of
achieving an accelerated timeline with the same manpower and budget.

III. Just to say no- No explanation is required in some places. So, if I ask Brad Pitt out on a date
and he says no, well that's it he's not obligated to provide a reason or a justification. It's his
prerogative. The only person who can't say no is a slave- that's the definition of a slave,
someone who's not allowed to say no to the master. Now there are prices that might be paid
when you say no but remember, in professional relationships and perhaps even more in
personal relationships, if it becomes a choice of saying yes to what you asked to do or saying
no by quitting or breaking a relationship, you always have that choice. Feeling that
you're not allowed to say no will wear away at your self-esteem and dignity. So don't forget
that you have that choice.

Now there are two caveats to saying “NO”.

You might say no to a target because you're not sure that you can achieve it, and you're afraid that if
you say yes and don't deliver, then you're making false promises. But missing a target is not the same
thing as making a false promise. A target is aspirational, the only people who will never miss their
targets are people who play very safe, take very safe targets.

Saying no to a commitment that you know you can't keep is being honest saying no to a target that
you're not 100 sure you can achieve is playing safe and that may not work as well in terms of how you
perceived in a high-performance organization.

The second thing is that if you're saying no because you think it's not possible to achieve an objective
in the timeline with the budget you have, then you need to have done rigorous calculation and
scheduling so you can prove it with granular details if requested. If you're saying no because you think
something is impossible and other people think it is possible but you're just not stretching yourself,
then you will lose your credibility. So, say no but after you've done your homework so you can be sure
of what you're saying.

7. Managing agreements & Holding people accountable-

A great team might not be a team that keeps all its commitments because that's just as true of a team
that takes very safe targets right. So, you will break some commitments simply because the
unpredictable, uncertainties that will always be there in life. The sign of a great team is one in which
the members manage their agreements:
I. If you know for sure you can't satisfy a request, then don't say yes. Say no when
required.
II. Now sometimes you might not be sure what’s the likelihood is of you being able to deliver
on a promise and you're afraid to over commit and set yourself up for failure, and if you
say no, then you'll be seen as playing safe or not being collaborative. So, in those cases,
managing agreement also means that you can always say “Let me check and I'll get
back to you”. When you say you'll get back to someone, always give them a time by
when you'll get back to them and get back to them at exactly that time. If you just say “I'll
get back”, well it creates uncertainty and they might feel that you don't consider their
concern as important. If someone says to you- “I'll get back”, well then you might want to
politely check if they can give you a time by when they'll get back to you.
III. Managing your agreements means that if you realize you're not going to keep a
commitment to someone, then you inform them as soon as you realize that.
IV. You ask if you can renegotiate a new agreement. You may even want to do something
else to make up to show that they and your world are both important to you.
V. Now if you ask someone to do something for you and you realize that you don't need
them to do it anymore, inform them as soon as you realize that to save the effort.

This is what you expect to see in a high-performing team. You may not be able to keep all your
commitments but with some practice you can manage almost all of your agreements.

What do you do if someone in your team or even outside your team breaks a commitment to you?
What does it mean to hold someone accountable?

I. The first step is to check if you actually have a broken commitment. There might be a
misunderstanding. So when a coachee misses a coaching call, I don't send him or her
mail saying you missed your coaching call. I say “according to my calendar we had a
coaching call booked at this time but I didn't hear from you, so I just wanted to check if
you missed the coaching call or if I made a mistake with my scheduling”.
II. Once you establish that a commitment was broken, the second step is to understand why
the commitment was broken. There may be a very good reason- there was an
emergency medical situation for example. So first listen with empathy to what happened.
Be careful even if the reason seems to be fairly indefensible from your viewpoint not to
cut them off. You may be afraid that you're giving them the impression that you're willing
to accept excuses and justifications, but listening and even understanding someone's
point of view doesn't mean that you agree with them, hear them out completely. They're
much more likely to respect you and listen to you, if they feel you heard them out.
III. The next step is to ask why did they not inform you when they realized that they were
going to break their commitment to you. Because remember informing someone that
you're going to break a commitment to them as soon as you realize it is one of the key
features of a high performing team. And they have a really good answer for why the
commitment was broken and why it was impossible for them to communicate it earlier or if
they communicated as soon as they could then let it go.
IV. You know you've heard them out patiently, sounds like they did everything they could-
just move on. Figure out what the next steps are and make a new agreement. However
if the answers are not reasonable, point out that a commitment was broken and
share the consequences that the broken agreement had and how you feel about their
actions. You may even ask them to make up for it in some way if appropriate.

Then have a deeper discussion to identify the root causes that led to the breakdown. This may be a
conversation with a lot of open questions and exploring and perhaps even some coaching thrown in.
And once you feel you've found solutions to the underlying breakdown, then reach a new agreement
that both of you feel confident will happen. If you do not feel confident that they are going to keep their
agreements, or if there is a track record that they keep breaking their agreements to you without
taking new care, then you may need to terminate their employment. Keeping someone in your team
whose word you can't rely on means that you can't be sure that you can keep your own promises to
others and if your own integrity and reputation is important to you, then you may need to take this
hard call. But this is obviously not something you want to do without really trying to work through it.

First of all, you need to be keeping your own commitments. If you're not managing your own
agreements, then you are going to spread that culture in the team. Secondly you need to be
making complete requests otherwise you might be setting yourself up for broken
commitments. Then you need to have empathetic and honest conversations, even if they're
uncomfortable to hold people accountable, if they're not managing their agreements. And
finally, if after all this add a reasonable investment of your time and coaching them, they are
still not reliable then termination of the professional relationship is legitimate and maybe even
advisable option. It may have an emotionally draining short-term impact but in the long term
it's far more energizing and impactful working with people who you can trust. This is of course
the step of last resort but if you follow all the other steps as well then you probably won't need
to do this. You would have created a culture of accountability.
 LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS- ASYNC 2
Inspiring trust and credibility so that people choose to follow you. For example, Gandhi’s followers.
Leaders have compelling vision, they articulate it more passionately, they have more integrity,
clarity of thought. Leaders have introspected 2 fundamental questions- What’s important, and
what is not. Leaders have clear values, make sharp choices where other get confused. Clarity →
Conviction → Integrity → Commitment → Results → Credibility → Ability to inspire others.

There are 5 principles of leadership effectiveness:

1. Clarity:
It consists of four things-

a. Being clear of what you want in detail and what will you do to make it happen?
b. Being clear on why it's abhorrent
c. Being clear on the prices you're willing to pay in order to achieve your goals
d. Being clear on the timeframe. A statement like I want to work on my health would not
be a statement of clarity.

Clarity would sound more like I want to be able to run five kilometers in 30 minutes by 31st
December because I want to be a reliable earner for my family and I want to have fun playing
sport. To achieve this, I'm willing to bear the physical effort and soreness from running for one
hour three times a week. In the above statements, what, why, the price, and the timeline is clear.
By the words we use, we can easily differentiate clarity and confusion.

Warning signs that we haven't yet reached a place of clarity:

1. I don't know: This is a legitimate statement when it comes to statements of objective reality,
or it pertain to externalities or the future. So, if someone asks you what is the capital of Peru,
or is Brazil going to win the world cup well you don't know. Saying I don't know here does not
represent a lack of clarity. It's just an honest, factual statement.

But if you say I don't know about things that lie within you or within your control, then
saying I don't know signifies a lack of clarity. For example, I don't know how I feel about
him. Well, if you don't, then who does? Sometimes, we say I don't know because of fear. If
I say I love him and want to be with him, but I'm not sure how he feels about me. Then that's
clarity. What is getting in the way of making those statements of clarity is a fear of rejection or
a fear of being judged.

2. Another way we avoid our fears is by being vague: I want a job that is meaningful and
rewarding. Now this superficiality because well who doesn't. But when I say I want to be a
marketing director of Apple by the age of 40 based out of the US, then I just made it real. And
that's scary because it might not happen, because you might get disappointed or hurt,
because people might think you're delusional or arrogant. You need courage to reach a
place of clarity. Even if we're not being vague about what we want, our fears might have us
insert qualifiers like I guess, or that would be nice. We act like we don't know what we
want, what we feel, what we think, what we believe, what hurts us or inspires us. If we want to
know ourselves better, we need to know that there is no stranger here to interrogate. If you
want to know what you want, just say the sentence- “I want” and then complete the sentence.
The words that come out only come from one place- YOU.

Clarity is not just about declaring with granularity what you want, it's also about being clear on
what you're going to do specifically to make it happen. When someone doesn't have a clarity
on what they're going to do they often use the phrase “I'll try”, but the phrase I'll try indicates
 a lack of confidence. So, clarity comes from splitting the phrase into “I want and I will”,
clearly defining what you want and what you’ll do get what you want. For example, “I want the
finance team to be convinced to release the payment to the vendor. So, what I'll do is I'll call
the header finance and let them know that the vendor has called three times, ask them for a
timeline by which they can release the payment. If they don't seem convinced, I'll speak to the
finance director”.

I want refers to the outcome that may or may not happen. I will, refers to the decisions that are
within my control. Sometimes we try to create false confidence by replacing the words “I’ll try” with
“I will” and that again indicates a lack of clarity. For example, if I tell my boss I'll try to achieve my
target of 20 crores and he raises his eyebrows and says try. Then I might assert more forcefully
and say no boss I will achieve my target of 20 crores. The obvious question is how just by
changing the words I'll try to I will doesn't mean you've magically got clarity. Again, for
clarity you need to break up the fake confidence.

Another way of avoiding clarity is to miss out on the time

element. I want to spend more time with my family is not a
statement of clarity. A statement of clarity might be from 6
pm to 7 pm every weekday I'm going to spend time with my
kids and I'm not going to open my laptop on Sunday.

3. Be clear on why it's important:

You can have clarity at two levels- at a

superficial intellectual level, or as a deeply
internalized level. The first parameter is clarity on
the pros of a decision- this is the why of the
decision. The second parameter is clarity on the
cons of a decision- the prices we’ll need to
pay. Now if somebody has a low level of clarity
on both these parameters, there will use the
word “should”. “I should go to the gym this
evening”- they don't have a deep level of clarity
because if they were clear, they would rather say
I'm going to the gym this evening. When they
say I should go, what they're really saying is
intellectually, I know it makes sense for me to go
to the gym, but that clarity isn't so deep that I can
be sure that I'll actually go to the gym.

Now if someone doesn't do the things, they think they should do or they do the things that they
think they shouldn't do, then they'll end up feeling the emotion of guilt. If they keep doing this,
for example, I should exercise, but they never actually do it, then one day there will be
consequences- they go to the doctor and find that their BP is high. Then, they’ll use the words “I
have to- I have to avoid sweet foods or I have to exercise. Anytime you use these sorts of words,
you start feeling the emotion of pressure, and of course, it's not true there are no have to's in
life. So why do we say we have to do something when we actually choose it to do it, it's because
we've forgotten why we're doing it. We're very clear on the prices of running on the gym because
we're actually paying them- we're sweating and exhausted. But we've forgotten why it's not that I
have to exercise, I choose to exercise because I want to be fit and healthy. When you forget the
why, that's when you start feeling the emotion of pressure, compulsion, stress.
4. Be clear on the prices required

Now, on the other side there are occasions when we are very clear on why we want something
but we haven't identified the prices we need to pay to make it happen. For example, I want to
leave office every day at 6 00 pm because I want to spend time with my daughter. The why is
very clear- I love my daughter but the prices haven't been identified and accepted so we end up
saying the word “I can't”. I want to leave every day at 6 pm but I can't. It's not true because
there are people who do leave at 6 pm, but there are prices that need to be paid. You might need
to ask your boss if it's possible not to have meetings that start after 4pm, and then he or she might
think you're not prioritizing your work and give the promotion to someone else. It's a possible
price. You might need to delegate to your team and they might make mistakes. If you said I can't
fly, we wouldn't dispute that, but in many cases, people say “I can't” because it allows them to
stay in their comfort zone and not pay the prices they need to, to get what they want in
their life.

These words tell you when you don't have clarity- I should, or I'm supposed to, or I have to, or I
can't, but when you're clear, you look at the pros and cons of making a choice. If the benefits are
more than the prices, then you don't say I should or I can't or I have to, you say “I will”. If the
prices of making a choice are more than the benefits, then you say “I won't”- that's clarity. You
end up saying I want this so this is what I do, or I don't want this so this is what I would not do.

When you're a fully grown adult moving towards leadership, then the only phrase you use are I
will, or I won't, or I haven't decided yet. If you find yourself using red flag phrases in areas that
are important to you, then you might want to pay attention and think through the matter more
deeply till you have clarity on those areas.

Here's a formula for you that captures the statement of clarity- I want A, so I will do B, by time
C. I'm going to pay price D, because what is really important to me is E.
 2. Honesty:
This is being honest with yourself. Honesty is looking at the situation such that it is removing our
biases so that we are neither overreacting nor under-reacting. It consists of four things-

a. Our boss might call us on weekends. It's not true that our boss is trying to take advantage of us.
That's our interpretation. They asked us to work on the weekend- that's the reality. So,
honesty requires us to keep our interpretations, beliefs and biases separate from the facts of
the situation, so that we can see the situation more objectively.
b. Listening to our own emotions without suppressing them. The second element of honesty is
listening to our emotions. The first sign that something is not working is that our intuition will tell
us, but if we suppress our emotions, we'll keep doing what we're doing and then other people will
start criticizing us.
c. Listening to feedback rather than dismissing it. We don’t have to agree with the feedback we
receive but it means we acknowledge the truth about how others are perceiving you, how we are
coming across to others.
d. Looking at results neutrally without going to denial. Acknowledge the results we’ve produced,
whether we've succeeded or failed without making excuses or denying or minimizing it, neither
overreacting or under-reacting, just acknowledging that that's the result that we have produced.

When we are honest about these four elements, we experience self-awareness, the point of
which is that we realize that our beliefs are not reality. It’s just beliefs, we can change those
beliefs, and that gives us a choice we can do things differently.

There are two ways to live our lives- one is to say that our past determines our beliefs and
determines the way we feel, think, act and therefore, our past determines our results and
relationships. That way of living is to say that our past will determine our future. The other way of
living is to decide a vision for the future- what are the results and relationships we want to create,
and that will determine the actions and the conversations we'll have. We might be required to
revise our beliefs which might even require us to change the way we've been looking at the story
of our life up till now. We might need to rewrite it in a way that serves us and our vision.

The Self-Awareness Cycle

Let's understand a little bit more about how they are formed and how they impact us. Our beliefs
come from three sources- personal experiences; from information in books, from classes,
programs; from surroundings, society, culture, family, peers and so on. We have beliefs so that
we can make decisions quickly. If every time I walked across the floor, I start wondering whether my
legs were actually strong enough, I would be paralyzed. So, we do need beliefs.
When we are faced to a new situation, our beliefs help us interpret what's happening, so that we can
respond to it. For example, if our experience with our first 3 bosses is bad, and our 4 th boss asks us to
work on a weekend, we might feel angry and curse that boss and feel that he’s doing it for his own
good. What we experiencing in terms of thoughts, feelings and emotions will determine what we do
and say and how we do and say it. You might speak irritably to others and actions of conversations
will determine the results we produce and our relationships with others. If you're being lazy and
irritable, you might produce a shoddy output and annoy your boss. In that case, your boss could push
you even harder, because they don't trust you. That will reinforce your initial belief that bosses are
jerks. On the other hand, if our experience with our first 3 bosses was good, we migh have worked
hard on the weekend for the 4th boss, impressed him, he could have appreciated us in front of the
partner, and that could have reinforced our belief that bosses are helpful and considerate.

See how our initial experiences often create beliefs that set off a chain of events that end up
reinforcing the initial belief. We go around this cycle and our beliefs become stronger and stronger
till we stop seeing them as beliefs and we start seeing them as reality. Now, here's the problem- the
one thing that we can’t do is change the reality, but we can change our beliefs, unless we
started seeing them as reality.

Empowering beliefs are those beliefs that help us. Beliefs like- I can make friends, I am good at
solving problems etc. Distorting beliefs are those that hold us back- I am not good at maths, I am not
a good public speaker, I'm an introvert etc. For example, if we fumble in the morning assembly in
school, we might avoid public speaking because we believe that we are not good at it, and hence, we
don’t practice and we don’t improve just because of that one incident which gave us a distorting belief.
Distorting beliefs produce negative experiences like anger, sadness, frustration, and anxiety. They
have us behave in ways that lead to criticism of our actions- like you're too aggressive, you're too
quiet, you're not a team worker and so on. They prevent us from achieving the results and
relationships that we want in our lives. But we can't change the distorting beliefs that create all this
because we think they're facts.

Given that the advantage of beliefs is that they speed up our decision-making process, when we start
questioning our beliefs themselves, we slow down- we become confused. So let me give you an
example- suppose we've always gotten the feedback that we are honest and straightforward. But
now, we've gotten some feedback that we need to be more diplomatic to be seen as a good leader.
We get confused because we don't want to be faking inauthenticity and people have always
appreciated us for our honesty, but we also want to get promoted. We're not sure if we should try and
change, or stick with something that's worked for us. So, there are problems if we don't question
our distorting beliefs, because then we start thinking it's reality, and we get stuck in a vicious
spiral. And, there are problems if we do question our beliefs, because we get confused and
paralyzed. So, here's the way out of the dilemma. You do need to question your beliefs but only in
four specific situations:

I. When the new situation or the reality you're facing is completely different from the past
situations you've faced so far. It's clear that the beliefs that have worked in the past may not
work in the new situation. For example, when you get promoted or married.
II. When you have negative experiences consistently- if you're feeling stressed or angry or
sad, for example.
III. When people give you critical feedback on your actions and conversations, and it's not
just one or two people. There's a pattern to it.
IV. When you're not producing the results or relationships that you want to. There might be
things that are outside your control that are contributing to this, but it's also you choices that
are contributing to this, and those choices are being determine by your own belief systems.

Accepting or denying reality:

For example, at the end of the year, your bosses will decide our bonus on their assessment of our
performance. They won’t decide our bonus on our assessment of our performance. We might not
agree to their assessment, but the rating will still be on their assessment only . That is a reality. We can
either accept this reality, or choose to stay in denial. Choosing to stay in denial will only make us
upset and resentful. And having resentment is like having a poison and hoping someone else would
die. People will feel that we are closed to feedback and we exaggerate our own achievements. If
instead, we accept the reality that bosses will decide our bonus on their assessment of our
performance, we can clearly ask what is being expected from us at the beginning of the year, and how
are we doing during the year. Accepting reality doesn’t mean that things will remain the same in
future.

Resignation means that you think that there is nothing you can do to change it in the future. While
acceptance means that you realize that what happened, just did happen. Instead of saying this
shouldn’t have happened (resignation) and looking for someone to blame, focus on what you need to
do (acceptance) to get the future you want. There are only 2 worlds that exist- one is the reality in
which we are right now, and the second is the world which “could be” in the future, the way we
want it to be. There is no world of “should be”.

Choosing interpretations:
Reality is tangible, measurable, demonstrable, provable, and objective. There is a difference
between our interpretations and reality. If I said the temperature outside is 28 degrees Celsius, that
would be a statement of reality. If someone from London came to India and said it's really hot and I
said it's not such a hot day, both of us are talking about interpretations which are subjective and
dependent on our belief systems. Such statements of interpretation don't fall in the realm of right
or wrong or true or false, unlike statements of reality. I may say things like I don't feel hot.

This is a cognitive error we make all the time. We don't distinguish between our interpretations and
reality. For example, after a client meeting if one of my colleagues came to me and said “I felt you
were a little aggressive with the client”- is that a statement of objective reality or his subjective
interpretation. It's an interpretation so I can't say “no I wasn't aggressive”, as if he's made a wrong
statement. His statement can't be wrong because it's not a statement of reality. Typically, here is
what happens when we receive feedback like this- we'll say “No I wasn't aggressive”, they'll say “Yes
you were” and we keep arguing for the whole day and we never find the right answer, because there
is no right answer. It's an interpretation. What I can say is “hey I didn't realize I was coming across as
aggressive to others” or “which word sounded aggressive to you” or “I feel with this client you need to
be aggressive otherwise he walks all over you”. I can say any of these statements, except “no I wasn't
aggressive”. because his feedback is a statement of interpretation, and not a statement of reality.
When we think our interpretations are statements of objective reality, and that we are right, we
think that anybody who has a different point of view must be wrong. This prevents us from
seeing multiple legitimate perspectives.

Now the interpretations we have depend on our belief systems. So, if someone says you made a
mistake and my belief system is that people who make mistakes are stupid- what I'm going to hear
him saying is “you're stupid”. That is not the reality of what he's saying. The reality is that he's saying
“you made a mistake”. If I had a different belief system for example, that everybody makes mistakes
and if you make a mistake, you understand what went wrong, fix it and move on. When he says you
made a mistake, my interpretation would potentially be- good thing that he pointed it out to me, I can
correct it quickly now, and my response would be- “thank you”. Interpretations are neither true nor
false, they're helpful or unhelpful. Helpful interpretations will produce effective choices, and
unhelpful interpretations will produce ineffective choices. Therefore, developing the ability to
choose the interpretation that serves you best is very important. If your boss says he was
disappointed in your work, do you interpret it as he's questioning my capability or do you interpret it as
he believes I'm capable of doing a better job? Neither option is truer or falser than the other, but one
will help you respond in a way that is more likely to give you the results and relationships you want.

Initially, it's not easy to choose an interpretation that serves you. The first interpretation that gets
generated will be automatic created by the beliefs you've built up over a lifetime. But when you notice
your emotions, if you're consistently feeling angry or frustrated or anxious, that's an indication that
you might have picked an interpretation that is not going to help you and as soon as you
become conscious of your emotion, you can go back and pick a different interpretation. Here's an
example, let's say you're driving to work and you're late for a meeting and there's an old lady driving
very slowly in front of you. At that moment, you might have the automatic interpretation “she's making
me late”, and the emotion it'll create is impatience. This interpretation could be generated from your
belief that you always need to be on time to maintain an impression of professionalism, and that's
going to create stress in situations like this. But as you notice your emotions you might ask yourself,
“what would be another interpretation” and you might suddenly notice that the woman looks like your
mother and the interpretation you might have is “she's so brave learning new things at this age”.
Instead of feeling angry at the old lady you might even feel protective of her. Nothing has changed in
the reality of the situation- it's the same car, same person, same meeting - but everything is different.

Changing an interpretation like this will take a lot of conscious effort but if you change the
beliefs, the interpretation that is automatically generated will be more grounded. So, instead of
the belief that if I'm late it'll affect my career, it could be always be on time when you can be, but if
you're late once in a blue moon, it's okay, you're good at your job and you'll make it up to them.

There are two different kinds of statements when it comes to reality and interpretations- statements
of reality are called assertions- they are passive and neutral statements like that is a fan or New
Delhi is the capital of India. Statements of interpretation are called declarations, and they are not
neutral. Statements like I love you or I forgive you or I am smart enough- these are not neutral
statements. They'll change the way you feel about yourself, the way you feel about others, change
what you feel is possible, what you're capable of, it'll change the outcomes you produce.

Emotions:
The word emotion comes from the Latin word “mover”, that which moves you, that which puts you into
motion. The greatest champions of the world display huge amounts of emotions. They've learned how
to harness their emotions, but that's not what most of us do. Most of us suppress our emotions,
particularly the ones we call negative emotions. Especially in the corporate world, there is often a
shared belief that emotions are irrational, immature, even unprofessional. Since childhood, we have
the belief that emotions are bad and emotional people are weak, and we learn to suppress our
emotions, instead of listening to them. Our automatic reaction when someone asks us- “how are you”
is usually “good, fine, how are you”, no matter how good or bad things are in our lives.

Emotions are part of a navigation system in life- it's like a fuel lighter on dashboard, when the
light comes on, it means we need to refuel, and if you listen to the signal that means you refuel, the
light will go away. If you listen to what our emotions are telling us, then we can get a handle on what is
actually generating that emotion. And, when we've handled that the emotion being generated by it will
disappear, because the emotion has done its job. But if you ignore the fuel light, you will run out of
fuel and have a breakdown. Our emotions are the first sign we get that something is working or
not. We should allow ourselves to feel the full range of emotions to hear all the messages we are
getting.

Let's look at the emotion of frustration. If we ignore or deny it and we think that we should not let
ourselves get frustrated, the frustration will build up until we either explode or collapse. But this
happened because I didn't listen to the emotion when it was just emerging. When we learn to listen to
ourselves more carefully, then as soon as I start feeling frustrated, I would say I'm feeling frustrated,
what I'm doing is not working, I need to try something different.

Guilt tells us we've done something that is inconsistent with our own principles and we need to stop
doing it. Maybe we need to apologize or make it up to someone. If I'm feeling guilty for not spending
enough time with my kid, then the emotion is telling me that I need to spend more time with him, and
as soon as I spend time with him, the guilt will disappear. But if I just push the guilt down and say it's
impossible because of the work, then the guilt will stay with me.
Anger is telling me that someone might be acting in a way that's crossing my boundary, and I need to
assert myself and wherever possible, have an open conversation, so we can find a win-win solution.
Resentment is telling me that I need to have a conversation with someone about something I have
been holding on to, or maybe I need to forgive them so that we can rebuild the relationship. Anxiety is
telling me that there is a chance that an outcome could happen, that I don't want to happen, so I need
to do some more planning and have backup. Boredom is telling me that I need to pick more
challenging goals. Feeling overwhelmed is telling me that I need to prioritize. Feeling satisfied is
telling me I worked hard to achieve something that was hard. Feeling silence telling me that I'm losing
something important to me in life. Disappointment tells me that I didn't get something that is
important to me. It's a signpost reminding me of what is important to me. Feeling happy is telling me
that I'm on track. Tiredness or an injury is telling me that my body needs to rest. Yawning is telling
me that my body needs to sleep.

When we're not listening to our emotions and body sensations, we are just pushing it to break down. I
shouldn't get angry, I shouldn't feel sad, I shouldn't get anxious- we suppress our emotions and we
lose the information they're telling us about. If you've been suppressing emotions hard, they
might explode like a volcano and then it reinforces our belief that we have to control our
emotions. Experience an emotion, listen to it, and act, so that the emotion goes away. But if I
negative emotion stays for a long time, then you're not listening to the emotion, you're stuck in it.
You're stuck in it because you're not acting on the message it is telling you that you need to take.

Feedback:
Players have coaches because they can’t observe themselves while playing, and coaches bring an
external perspective. The coach can tell what is missing not because he’s better, but because he’s
watching from the outside. Feedback is an outside perspective which may not match with our
consistent beliefs, because it is based on other peoples’ experiences, which we may not have had.

As humans, we might get angry or dismissive of such perspectives and feedbacks, and we might
even evaluate the feedback basis only our beliefs, which eventually leads us to dismissal of feedback.

Sometimes, a powerful question can be- “What if?”, “What if this were true?”. If you ask such
questions and incorporate such perspectives, you might learn something new and grow. You might
also come to the conclusion (after asking such questions and analyzing it) that the feedback is not
going to help you, and you have the power to not incorporate those perspectives. We don’t need to
agree or disagree to a feedback, we don’t need to work on it, we just need to listen to it, think about it,
and then decide what we want to do with the feedback.

We are often hurt by feedback because we feel we are being judged. But even if we are being judged,
that is not the problem, the problem is that we are judging ourselves. For example, if you think you
are fat, and someone says that to you, you’ll get hurt because that’s how you have always judged
yourself. So, if you find a feedback that stings, instead of getting angry at them, you need to identify
how you’ve been judging yourself, and be gentler with yourself. Even if someone’s abusive, if
you have the internal stability to extract the neutral information from it, you can respond to it
with a great mastery and calm. We need to hear all kinds of feedback (constructive, positive,
demeaning and so on), and create value from it. We don’t need to agree or disagree or work on a
feedback, we just need to listen, think and decide what to do with the feedback.
 3. Ownership:
If after taking an honest look at the situation, we realize that things are not where we want them to be.
Under pressure, sometimes we can blame externalities or ourselves. Ownership is looking at the
choices available to us.

Ownership doesn't mean that you have to do everything by yourself of course as leaders, you need to
get others to help you out. But people will only give you what you want if you give them what they
want. So, win-win is really about understanding the objectives and constraints of your stakeholders.
It's only if you really understand this that you can offer them something that is attractive enough to
them to make them want to get on board.

There are 2 kinds of stories we can make out of a situation- a helpless story, or an ownership story.
Helpless story- The bottom line of a helpless story is that there is nothing I can do/ could have done.
There are usually three things we blame when we tell another story- other people (he doesn't listen
to me/ she betrayed me), or we blame the situation (there was no network/ there was a traffic jam),
or we blame ourselves (I can't say no to people/ I can't help losing my temper). But whoever you
blame, you lose power. If you blame other people, you feel anger, resentment, betrayal; if you blame
the situation, you feel powerless, helpless; and if you blame yourself, you feel guilt, shame, or low
self-worth. You lose your power whenever you say that there is nothing you can do.

The alternative is the ownership story- you look at your choices and actions that contributed to
the outcome, without blaming yourself. A lot of us don't understand ownership. We think
ownership means blaming us. When we are growing up, our teachers would say “who's responsible
for this” and so our understanding of responsibility has been who is the “bad person”. The actual
definition of responsibility is completely different- it is “response-ability”- how we are going to
respond to this, what are we going to do. It wasn't even about what we should have done or could
have done, because that would still be saying that we should have had the learning even before the
event that led to the learning and that's impossible. It was always about what are we going to do to fix
this, what is our learning, what are we going to do differently next time, not what we should've
done- it's guilt. What will we do differently next time- that's clarity.

Technically ownership story has nothing to do with yourself, it's about reclaiming your
personal power. So, imagine you're driving a car, and you get lost. You can blame other people, or
you can blame the situation, or you can blame yourself. But ownership is simply realizing that I took a
wrong left and I just need to go back and take a right. That's it, no drama, no blame, just what's to
be done.

Helpless story vs Ownership story (advantages and disadvantages in more detail):

When we tell the ownership story, we feel calm, optimistic, like we learn something. When we're in the
helpless story, we usually feel like we fail, we feel frustrated, pressured, unhappy. Which story is true?
Well, both stories are true. But why do we choose to tell the helpless story? There must be some
benefit to telling the helpless story. Well, there are benefits but most of them are subconscious
benefits such as getting sympathy, avoiding, responsibility, manipulating other people, having
excuses, protecting my image, proving my point.

Helpless story is a defensive story, which we tell under pressure. We tell a defensive story when
we feel like we are being judged or criticized or evaluated. But usually, the real problem is that we are
judging ourselves. So, if my subordinate makes a mistake, I get afraid that my results are going to
look bad and if my own belief is that if I fail, then I'm a failure. Then I get scared and I say “I'm not a
failure, it's not my fault, how can I succeed if I have such incompetent team members”. But that
helpless story is being generated by my own self-judgment that I'm a failure. If I wasn't judging
myself so harshly, I'd simply say okay let's talk about what we need to do to fix it. It's only when we
stop judging ourselves that we can take ownership. And there are prices to taking ownership,
because when I stop blaming people, and look at the choices I made, I could be blamed or
judged especially if someone else is looking for a scapegoat.

So, there are advantages and disadvantages to telling both the helpless story and the ownership
story. But there is something you can get from the ownership story, that you just can't get from the
helpless story, and that's results. When you tell the helpless story and you say there's nothing you
can do and you believe your own helpless story, then there is nothing you can do. You lost your
power. But when you tell the ownership story and you say not everything is in my control, but I
always have choices, then I'm more likely to figure out what I need to do to produce the results
that I want.

We are often choosing a helpless story and choosing to feel that way because there are some
subconscious benefits we are getting, such as sympathy, we get to be the good guy and the other
party the bad guy, we get to stay in our comfort zone. But if we realize the payoff of this helpless story
is for example being the good guy, then we can just let the payoff go. Instead, we take ownership and
face our fears. Then the price/ fear of being the bad guy we need to pay taking that risk. This might
lead to a proper conversation and a happy ending. Nobody is the bad guy then. Then, we are creating
the results we want. But, in order to do so we've got to acknowledge that we're choosing the
helpless story, and that if we let go of the payoff (being the good guy) and pay the price (risk
of being the bad guy), then and only then will we get what we want in our life. For example, the
story of a marriage.

Both the helpless story and the ownership story have benefits. But the benefits of the helpless story
are that you get to avoid your fears and the benefit of the ownership story is that you chase
your dreams. But if you keep running from your fears, they will always keep chasing you and you will
never get the confidence. A lot of people think that when they develop the confidence, they'll do the
things that they always wanted to do. But that's not how it works. It's not that you build the confidence
and then you can do the things that you want. It's that you do the things that you fear and as you
keep doing them, you start becoming confident.
 4. Win-win situations:
A win-win situation is one in which everybody gets what they want without giving up anything
that was important to them. This concept shows up not only in business, but also personal lives.
The only way it's possible to achieve that is to have deeper, exploratory conversations to really
understand what are other people's objectives, constraints and desires.

When you start thinking in terms of mutual benefit, you start thinking about opportunities and that's
when you start thinking like an entrepreneur. Win-win is not about altruism or charity or being a
nice person, it's saying that people will only give you what you want from them if you give them
what they want from you. And you can only offer something that's attractive enough to them if you
really understood their objectives and constraints. If you see negotiations as win-lose, either I win
or they win, then you’ll either try to dominate them or be a martyr.
 5. Commitment:
If someone says to you, I'll try to get this report to you by Friday they have not made a commitment,
because if they don't give it to you, they'll say I tried and that's a very subjective statement. If they
gave you a commitment, they would say, I'll give you the report by Friday. If they do what they say,
that is, deliver the report on Friday, they were committed. If they didn't do what they said they would
do, they were not committed. Thus, commitment is equal to results.

There are three things that determine the results you produce:

Your intention to produce a certain result; the mechanism that will help you produce it; and the
externalities- the things that are outside your control.

For example, you want to lose 5 kgs in the next three months. What are the different mechanisms you
could use- you could jog/ go to the gym/ swim/ diet etc. But say the gym is closed, what would you
do? You would pick another mechanism, maybe jogging if you had the intention. Let's say then you
injure your foot, now what will you do? You might pick another mechanism, let's say swimming or
yoga, if you have the intention. Now let's say you run out of all currently available mechanisms, you
will invent a new mechanism and you would do that if you had the intention. But let's say at the end
of 3 months you haven't lost 5 kgs, you might use all sorts of excuses, but you have to realize that the
result was not there because the intention was not there, since there are an infinite number of
mechanisms. So the mechanism and externalities are almost irrelevant.

Thus, intension = result

This is a challenging formula as it takes away the legitimacy of any excuses we might have. But
there's an even more challenging way of looking at this and that is to flip the formula.

Result = intention

What this formula is saying is that every result you've produced in your life (such as the salary you
earn, the length you commute, your current fitness level, the time you spend with your kids). Every
single result in your life was created by your intention. Both, the results you like and the results you
don't.

Now this might be confusing because you may say there are times when I've shouted at my child and
hurt their feelings but I didn't intend to, and there were times when I didn't get the promotion I wanted
and it was definitely not my intention to mess up in the promotion interview. The reason for the
confusion is because there are two things that are driving you- your creative intention, and your
defensive intention.

Your creative intention are things you are usually conscious of- the results you want to create. The
principles you want to live by, the relationships you want to have with people and the experience of
life you want to have. But there's also a defensive intention that's driving us- a fear of being seen as a
failure, fear of rejection, fear of making a mistake, and fear of being disappointed.

So, the creative intention may

determine the result I want to
produce- losing 5 kgs. But my
defensive intention is afraid of
being heartbroken, if I fail again after
trying so hard. So, the easiest way to
avoid disappointment is not to get my
hopes high, and so I might say I don't
have the discipline to exercise.
Similarly, maybe my fear of being
seen as a failure as a parent has me control them too much.

A lot of our intentions are subconscious and we're not aware of all the factors that are driving our
actions, but if we want to know what our intention is, we look at our results. The results we produce in
our life are a manifestation of our intention, both creative and defensive. Just like you can look at the
landscape of a desert or a tropical forest and you'll be able to tell a lot about the temperature and the
rainfall of that area, you can look at the results in your life and they will reveal to you what your
intention is. Typically, what happens is that people look at the result they produced, and if they
like it, they say it was my intention to produce that result. And if they don't like it, they say it
was not my intention to produce that result. But what they're really saying is that is not really my
result and so they don't get to learn from it.

If someone gets a serious illness, that's not the place to use this concept though. That result was not
intended. That is a place to acknowledge that there will always be things out of our control, and to
exercise compassion.

But intention is a concept that's useful in most normal situations- to identify the subconscious drives
that you have and see where they are pulling you. When you free yourself from those parts of
your intention that are holding you back you start, displaying commitment.

Commitment is the willingness to do whatever is required, to produce the results you say you
want, in the face of any externalities.

But there's a step-by-step way of thinking about commitment:

1. Make your commitment (not I'll try/ I'll do my best).

2. Plan, think of how you're gonna go about it.
3. Try- you'll either succeed or fail. In either case, you can learn from that result and try
something different.
4. Practice- Once you have learned something intellectually, you practice it consistently till you
produce the results you wanted.

It's simple, but only if you have the intention.

So, if you look at these five principles, we can summarize how leaders think about situations. First,
they get clear about what they actually want to create. Second, they honestly look at the situation-
what is working, what is not working. Third, they look at what they can do about it, what other choice
is actually available to them. Fourth, they see who they need to get on board and how they can get
them on board and finally, they make a commitment to get it done.

The Leadership Effectiveness Check

Ten questions that will help you think through your approach to any situation you're facing:

1. What do I want? How do I make it happen? Be specific, have numbers and timelines
2. What are the natural strengths I can use? Those strengths that are part of your personality
and show up in all areas of your life (not talking about just your work experience or your
technical skills) The reason we want you to focus on your natural strengths is because if you
think that your work experience is a strength, then if you go into a new and unfamiliar role or
an industry, you might feel overwhelmed. But if you're clear about what your natural strengths
are, you can apply them confidently in any situation you face.
3. The area where I'm not being effective: This is any place in your life personal or professional
where you're not producing the results and relationships you want or where you're getting
critical feedback.
4. What is the ineffective choice I'm currently making in this area?
5. Why you're making that choice even though it's ineffective? What is the distorting belief that
tricks me into making this choice?
6. What would be a more empowering belief I could adopt? What would be a different way of
looking at the situations that might open up new and better options for me- options that I
hadn't considered or was unwilling to try earlier.
7. Pause and be present with what you're doing just now. What I notice about the way I've been
thinking just now.
8. What is the strength I'm committed to consciously developing?
9. What is the price I'm willing to pay in the process of developing that strength? You'll need to
pay some emotional prices if you want to develop a new strength (for example the strength of
speaking honestly- indirectly the price might be upsetting people). Ask yourself am I really
prepared to pay it, and then decide it's worth.
10. Request for feedback: Just listen to feedback without arguing or debating or justifying or even
agreeing with them, just say thank you, and tell them you will think about what they said.
 RANGE MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT- ASYNC 3

We often get two contradictory pieces of leadership wisdom:

1. Be yourself; and
2. Transform yourself (basis feedback)

To address this confusion, the range model of development to give people a structure as to how to
think through this question. According to this model, all of us have a “light”- these are the natural
strengths that come to you so easily that you don't even have to put any effort. For example, I have a
logical bent of mind, which is my light.

A strength most of the times is light, but sometimes the strength can also become a weakness, and
that's when we call it the “burn”. For example, being logical might become a weakness in certain
situations when we are too rigid in logic and we don’t respond to the emotion of a situation. This can
become a burn.

Here, we need to develop a certain amount of empathy, listening to the emotional parts of the
communication, which is the “shade”. This is the intuitive part of the communication. This is that
initial one drop of honey in this communication could make your subordinates feel like you’re on their
team, and it becomes far more effective.

But the reason why it's so hard to develop shade, an intuitive, a more empathetic side is because we
are afraid that if we do that, we'll go too far and become this emotional, irrational, illogical person
who's easily manipulated by other people's emotions. We are afraid that we'll go into our “shadow”,
so we don't develop our shade, we keep trying to stay in our light, but because of that sometimes we
go into our burn.

For example, one of my lights might be I think I'm

smart, but then I might come across as arrogant,
that's my burn. I might try to show people that are
smarter than them, so I need to develop my
shade, which is respecting others intelligence,
listening to their points of view. But I'm afraid that
if I asked for their opinion, they might think that I
am stupid, which's my shadow. I don't want that
to happen, so I stay away from listening to other
people, tell them this is what I think, but then I
come across as arrogant, which is my burn.

There are many different ranges, we

just looked at one. And all of these are
applicable to everybody. It might be
flipped for some, for example one might
be having being careful as his strength, while some other person might have their strength in taking
risks. they're

So, for many people these coloured boxes will be flipped around.

Another example- Someone has being considerate as their light, but sometimes they go too far and
they come across as pushy. They want to develop the light of assertive (we're assuming over here
that this range is flipped), but they're afraid that if they do, they would come across as a jerk. So, what
happens is- they're stuck at the moment because they have a distorting belief that if they say no to
somebody, if they push back, people are going to think they're a jerk. So, they get friendly, they're
cooperative- that's the light. But somebody asks them for money and they don't pay that back, I feel
like the pressure to say yes, because I want to be a nice guy. So, then I get taken advantage of, I
need to develop the shade of saying no, but I'm afraid if I say no, people are gonna think I'm a jerk. I
can't even tell the difference between the shade and the shadow. Everybody else will be saying it's
okay to say no, but when I do say no, it's hard for me because I'm not used to, because my distorting
believe tells me if you say no, you're a jerk. So, once I realize that it's just a belief, it can allow me to
experiment.

Sometimes what's going to happen is because I can't even tell the difference between the shade and
the shadow, I will go too far sometimes. Sometimes I'm gonna be a bit of a jerk saying no, because I
can't tell the difference, but as I experiment slowly, I'll find the right balance, and the average
behaviour is not gonna change. If the black dot is my centre of gravity, it's not gonna change that
much (green dot now). People will still see me as cooperative, collaborative, friendly guy. The
difference is, not that my average behaviour has changed so much, but the range of behaviours
accessible to me under pressure has changed. So, now if somebody puts pressure and starts making
me feeling guilty, I'll just say yes (when I am at the black dot), because at the green dot, I'll say no,
what I need to.

So, we mostly know our strengths and weaknesses, but in order to go from the black line to the
green line, we need to be willing to go through our discomfort, doing things that are difficult, not
changing our personality, but being willing to do what is hard for us when we need to do it. As
we move from the black line to the green line, our burn decreases and shade increase, hence,
bringing us to within our effective range of light and shade. Just like Roger Federer and Steve Jobs
did. When Steve Jobs refused to develop his shade, he was sacked from his company. And then
when he was forced to work in his shadow area in Pixar, he developed his shade, and came back to
Apple as a very successful person.

People don't remember

Steve Jobs for his
delegation skills, but his
visionary skills. So, you
don't change your
style, that's what
people will always
remember you for. But
you need to be willing
to go out of your
comfort zone when it's
required to fully express
your strength. So, it's a
little bit like your light is
your accelerator- it's
what gives you your drive, your momentum, your energy- it is what people remember you for. The
brake is like a shade- it gives you the power control over your power. Power is nothing without
control- how fast would you be willing to drive a car that only had an accelerator? But when you have
the both the brake and accelerator, it allows you to go as fast as possible. So, it's a little bit like light is
your accelerator, the brake gives you power of control. So, if a goat comes in front of you while
driving, you press the brake, you use the shade, you use those behavioural skills that don't come to
you naturally. And once the goat has gone away, you go back to the accelerator, you go back to the
light because that is what works for you, that's what your power is.

Being authentic does not mean doing and saying what I feel like- at this point that's just laziness. You
don't just shout on your wife and say I'm being authentic- that's just laziness of not being willing to
change. Authenticity is about doing what is required to be successful. Be willing to work in your
shade, and when it's required, go back to your natural strengths because that's where your power
comes from.

If you say that I am only my light, it will limit you. It'll mean that you'll be close to feedback. Somebody
says “hey you know what I feel, that you went to your burn”, and you'll be like “no that's not who I am,
the light is who I am”. You'll be close to opportunities; you won't produce the results. It’ll stop you from
working with people different from you. So be willing to develop your shade and go into your
shadow. That's how you will fully express what strengths you have and allow you to reach
your full potential.