WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.799 Come to mindful Leadership transforming lives with your hosts saying, 2 00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:07.240 this is where leadership meets purpose, presence, and passion. In 3 00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:10.759 today's fast paced, high pressure world, we face a leadership crisis. 4 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:14.720 Too often, teams are led by managers who lack empathy, clarity, 5 00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:20.199 and vision, leaving individuals uninspired, disconnected, and underwelue. But it 6 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:22.719 doesn't have to be this way. Great leadership isn't born. 7 00:00:22.760 --> 00:00:26.559 It's fill the endgame. Empower your leadership, inspire the world. 8 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:29.800 Every week, join me, you're host saying, as we tackle 9 00:00:29.839 --> 00:00:33.079 the gaps in leadership and life coaching head on learning 10 00:00:33.159 --> 00:00:38.520 how mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and compassion can redefine success. This 11 00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:41.600 isn't just another podcast. It's a mission to fill the 12 00:00:41.679 --> 00:00:45.079 void left by in effective leadership. And it's not just 13 00:00:45.079 --> 00:00:48.240 about leadership and business. Life coaching for leaders and new 14 00:00:48.280 --> 00:00:52.079 executives is at heart of this journey. Ready to rise 15 00:00:52.240 --> 00:00:54.960 above the noise and lead with clarity, purpose, and impact. 16 00:00:55.359 --> 00:00:59.280 Join a global movement dedicated to reshaping the future of leadership, 17 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:02.159 one my full moment at a time, Let's begin. 18 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:07.879 Welcome back to another episode of the Mindful Leadership podcast 19 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:12.000 on the Transformation Network. The podcast where we turn stress 20 00:01:12.079 --> 00:01:17.239 into strategy, overthinking into clarity, and overwhelm into momentum. I'm 21 00:01:17.239 --> 00:01:20.319 your host, sing the leadership coach who has learned the 22 00:01:20.359 --> 00:01:24.159 hard way that the fastest decision and the best decisions 23 00:01:24.200 --> 00:01:28.400 are almost never the same decision. So pour something warm, 24 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:31.560 put your phone face down someway you can't see it 25 00:01:31.599 --> 00:01:33.879 light up, and let's spend the next twenty five minutes 26 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:39.640 on one feeling I think costs good leaders mostly than 27 00:01:39.719 --> 00:01:43.599 anything else in their life. Let's begin. I want to 28 00:01:43.640 --> 00:01:46.760 open with a picture, and I want you to tell 29 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:51.159 me whether you have lived inside it. It is Friday afternoon, 30 00:01:51.239 --> 00:01:55.079 four forty seven pm, you're living in thirteen minutes, your 31 00:01:55.120 --> 00:01:59.000 phone buzzes. It's your second in command and the message reads, 32 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:03.480 need a call, quick decision before Monday. You step into 33 00:02:03.640 --> 00:02:08.080 an empty conference room, jacket already on, take the call, 34 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:12.199 listen for about ninety seconds, and then, because you are 35 00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:16.560 a competent leader who makes decisions and does not flinch, 36 00:02:17.560 --> 00:02:21.120 and has built fifteen years of reputation on moving fast, 37 00:02:21.360 --> 00:02:24.919 you make the call right there on the phone, with 38 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:28.159 your hand on the door. And then it is Sunday 39 00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:33.479 night and you cannot stop thinking about it. Not because 40 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:37.639 the decision was reckless. It probably was not. Your instincts 41 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:41.240 are good. They have earned their keep for fifteen years. 42 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:44.560 But somewhere between the buzz of that phone and the 43 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:47.080 click of the lock on the conference room door, you 44 00:02:47.199 --> 00:02:51.800 skipped something. You don't know what. You just know that 45 00:02:51.919 --> 00:02:55.039 the thing you've decided in ninety seconds is now going 46 00:02:55.080 --> 00:02:57.800 to ripple through the lives of seven people, three teams, 47 00:02:57.840 --> 00:03:02.080 and one customer, and you are not entirely sure how 48 00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:04.599 you would make the same call with one more cup 49 00:03:04.639 --> 00:03:09.039 of coffee and one more hour. That feeling, that quite 50 00:03:09.639 --> 00:03:12.879 undertow feeling at nine point forty seven on a Sunday night, 51 00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:16.639 is what this whole episode is about today. Because here 52 00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:19.680 is what I have come to believe, after sitting in 53 00:03:19.759 --> 00:03:23.439 rooms with several hundred leaders across a couple of decades. 54 00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:29.800 The decisions that hurt you are not almost never the 55 00:03:29.840 --> 00:03:34.240 once you got wrong on the merits. The decisions that 56 00:03:34.759 --> 00:03:37.879 hit you are the once you made on the wrong path, 57 00:03:38.159 --> 00:03:42.759 The once you sprinted you sprinted through when the momentum 58 00:03:43.159 --> 00:03:47.280 called for a walk, the once where speed of the 59 00:03:47.319 --> 00:03:50.520 answer mattered more to you than the integrity of the 60 00:03:50.599 --> 00:03:54.840 road you took to reach it. Speed is a value, 61 00:03:55.599 --> 00:04:01.439 so is care, and almost every leader under pressure defaults 62 00:04:01.439 --> 00:04:06.120 to one and forgets the other exists. Today, I want 63 00:04:06.199 --> 00:04:09.479 to give you a way to remember both four letters, 64 00:04:09.560 --> 00:04:13.080 a framework I call path, and a promise that doubles 65 00:04:13.080 --> 00:04:19.319 as tigline. Stay on the path to mindful and ethical decisions. Now, 66 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:21.439 before I walk you through the letters, I want to 67 00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:23.879 bring three people into the room with us, because I 68 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.360 don't want you to think this is you problem, or 69 00:04:27.399 --> 00:04:30.639 this is one industry problem. It is a leadership problem, 70 00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:35.879 and it wears different costumes in every building. The first 71 00:04:35.959 --> 00:04:38.800 let's call her Aisha, CEO of a mid size health 72 00:04:38.879 --> 00:04:44.519 tech company, board driven, growing fast under constant deal pressure. 73 00:04:45.279 --> 00:04:48.600 She came to me and said, almost as a confession, 74 00:04:49.519 --> 00:04:52.360 seeing I have to not I have not made a 75 00:04:52.399 --> 00:04:56.120 single decision in six months that I actually got to 76 00:04:56.160 --> 00:05:02.920 think about reactive sy every day. We'll come back to 77 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:05.879 what she did about it. The second leader, let's call 78 00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:10.160 him Thomas, head of engineering at a fintech form, Brilliant, decisive, 79 00:05:10.439 --> 00:05:13.680 the kind of leader whose decisions are usually right and 80 00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:18.079 usually fast. He was about to make a hire that 81 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:22.879 looked completely obvious, and it nearly cost him his best 82 00:05:22.959 --> 00:05:26.079 engineer and we'll get to that one too. And third, 83 00:05:26.399 --> 00:05:30.959 let's call her Anika, head of operations at a manufacturing company. 84 00:05:31.240 --> 00:05:33.639 She had made one of the hardest calls as a 85 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:38.759 leader ever, a layoff, and she made it well, ethically, clearly, 86 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:43.040 And three months later she was sitting across from me 87 00:05:43.199 --> 00:05:47.199 in a state of quiet moral distress, saying a sentence 88 00:05:47.480 --> 00:05:51.879 I will never forget, and we'll get there too. Three leaders, 89 00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:55.879 a CEO and engineer and operator, three different worlds, the 90 00:05:55.959 --> 00:06:00.480 exact same folk running underneath all of them, the folk 91 00:06:00.519 --> 00:06:04.800 between the decision that is fast and the decision you 92 00:06:04.920 --> 00:06:09.399 still stay behind on Monday morning. So let's get back 93 00:06:09.399 --> 00:06:12.360 to the four letter's part stay on, part too mindful 94 00:06:12.439 --> 00:06:17.160 ethical decisions. Four letters, four pauses a walking pace, not 95 00:06:17.240 --> 00:06:20.600 a sprint, and not a stall by any chance. And 96 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:24.519 let me take you through it now before the first letter, 97 00:06:24.839 --> 00:06:26.959 I need to name the thing underneath all of this, 98 00:06:27.480 --> 00:06:32.000 because if you miss it, the framework will not work. Now, 99 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:36.160 there are two speechs of leadership, and the trap is 100 00:06:36.199 --> 00:06:41.800 believing only one of them counts. The first is reactive 101 00:06:41.839 --> 00:06:45.360 speed phone rings, email lands. Someone walks into your office, 102 00:06:45.480 --> 00:06:48.079 you answer the in email, really you speed in non 103 00:06:48.079 --> 00:06:51.720 negotiation right. If you cannot operate here, you cannot lead 104 00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:55.319 in the modern economy. Reactive speed is what makes you 105 00:06:55.839 --> 00:07:01.079 useful in crisis. Now the second. The second is reflective speed. 106 00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:05.519 Same phone, same emails, same person in your doorway. But 107 00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:08.600 now you have given yourself thirty seconds or three minutes 108 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:12.680 or three hours sized to the weight of the call. 109 00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:19.439 You're not delaying. You are recalibrating because you respond. Reflective 110 00:07:19.439 --> 00:07:24.680 speed is what makes you useful in a strategy. Now, 111 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:28.079 the leaders I watched burnout, the ones whose Monday regret 112 00:07:28.120 --> 00:07:31.680 spile up into Friday resentment, live almost entirely in the 113 00:07:31.720 --> 00:07:35.199 first gear, and they forget the second one exists, or 114 00:07:35.279 --> 00:07:38.399 rather they remember it on Sunday night alone, when the 115 00:07:38.439 --> 00:07:43.360 gearshift is twelve hours too late. That was Asha exactly. 116 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:46.519 She was not a bad decision maker. She was a 117 00:07:46.600 --> 00:07:49.839 leader who had never once been allowed to use her 118 00:07:49.839 --> 00:07:53.480 second gear. Every call arrived hot and let fast, and 119 00:07:53.519 --> 00:07:57.279 she experienced her own competence as a kind of trap. 120 00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:00.879 The path is how you make the shift to reflective 121 00:08:00.920 --> 00:08:04.439 speed small enough to actually do in the middle of 122 00:08:04.519 --> 00:08:08.079 a loud week. Four letters, four small pauses, a walking 123 00:08:08.120 --> 00:08:10.920 pace you can keep even when the building is on fire. 124 00:08:11.480 --> 00:08:14.360 So let me take you through the buzzing phone buzzing, 125 00:08:14.360 --> 00:08:16.839 and jacket is already on right. So the first one 126 00:08:16.959 --> 00:08:21.800 is pause for clarity, pat eight pass pause for clarity. 127 00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:25.399 And I want to start by saying what pause is not. 128 00:08:27.279 --> 00:08:32.679 Pause is not procrastination, Pause is not paralysis. Pause is 129 00:08:32.840 --> 00:08:36.000 not three more days of meeting before you decide. Pause 130 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:41.519 is framework. It is a deliberate creation of a small gap, 131 00:08:42.240 --> 00:08:47.639 sometimes ninety seconds, sometimes ninety minutes between the moment a 132 00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:52.720 situation arrives and the moment you respond to it. See 133 00:08:52.759 --> 00:08:57.320 in that gap, three things happen, whether you orchestrate them 134 00:08:57.440 --> 00:09:04.279 or not. Your nervous system settles, your prefrontal cotex catches 135 00:09:04.399 --> 00:09:09.200 up to your limbic system, and your sense of actual 136 00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:14.679 question you're asking comes into focus. Because here is what 137 00:09:14.759 --> 00:09:18.519 I have learned watching bad decisions as at senior levels. 138 00:09:19.200 --> 00:09:22.679 They are almost never bad analysis. They're good analysis of 139 00:09:22.759 --> 00:09:26.399 the wrong question. The team walks in asking should we 140 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:28.840 do A or B? And the real decision in front 141 00:09:28.879 --> 00:09:31.600 of the leader is are we even trying to do 142 00:09:31.639 --> 00:09:34.799 the right thing that A and B were both built 143 00:09:34.840 --> 00:09:38.200 to serve. See, the pause is what gives you the 144 00:09:38.279 --> 00:09:43.120 chance to notice you're about to brilliantly answer the question 145 00:09:43.279 --> 00:09:48.440 you were handed instead of the one that actually matters. Now, 146 00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:55.039 the mindfulness practice here is almost embarrassingly small. Three breadths 147 00:09:55.759 --> 00:09:58.559 that's it, before you answer the email, before you say 148 00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:01.840 yes in the meeting, before you walked into the conversation. 149 00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:05.720 Three breadth in through the nose, out through your mouth, 150 00:10:06.240 --> 00:10:11.559 and one quite question to yourself, what am I actually 151 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:15.600 being asked to decide? This is where I share started. 152 00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:20.559 We ran on experiment and it was almost insult insultingly 153 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:24.759 very simple right For thirty days before she answered any 154 00:10:24.759 --> 00:10:29.759 decision great email, she wrote a single line at top 155 00:10:29.840 --> 00:10:33.720 of her own draft, a line she would later delete 156 00:10:34.200 --> 00:10:37.759 that no one else would ever see. And the line was, 157 00:10:38.120 --> 00:10:43.679 what is this actually about? That was the entire intervention 158 00:10:43.799 --> 00:10:47.440 thirty days, One sentence she wrote to herself, and it raised. 159 00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:52.639 By week two, she had quietly killed three projects that 160 00:10:52.759 --> 00:10:56.200 had been draining her organization for a year. Projects she 161 00:10:56.240 --> 00:10:59.679 had kept alive purely because every conversation about them had 162 00:10:59.720 --> 00:11:03.879 happen and at a reactive speed, and no one ever 163 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:08.039 paused long enough to ask whether they still mattered. By 164 00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:12.799 week four, she had renegotiated two board commitments that had 165 00:11:12.840 --> 00:11:16.559 been pushed onto her in moments of fast jacket on 166 00:11:16.600 --> 00:11:21.399 decision making. She didn't slow down, She just stopped sprinting 167 00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:25.519 in the dark. Now the practice for the letter P 168 00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:29.360 is this for the next real decision. Before you respond, 169 00:11:29.480 --> 00:11:34.840 create one deliberate gap three breadth. Then question what am 170 00:11:34.840 --> 00:11:38.519 I actually being asked to decide? Here? Not the surface quession, 171 00:11:38.519 --> 00:11:43.440 the real one underneath it. So pause for clarity, because 172 00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:48.440 the most expensive mistake a leader makes is not wrong answer. 173 00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:51.559 It is the flawless answer to a question that was 174 00:11:51.720 --> 00:11:57.840 never the point. Now the second letter address bias, and 175 00:11:57.919 --> 00:12:00.279 I wanted to hear the verb because it is doing 176 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:06.200 real work. We are not acknowledging bias a polite nod 177 00:12:06.399 --> 00:12:11.799 at a diversity workshop. We are addressing it. We are 178 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:16.000 turning toward it and putting our hand on it. And 179 00:12:16.039 --> 00:12:19.879 here's the rule I keep coming back to, Bias does 180 00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:23.799 not announce itself. Bias now shows up wearing a name. 181 00:12:24.399 --> 00:12:29.120 Bias arrives wearing the costume of common sense. It is 182 00:12:29.159 --> 00:12:32.759 the data point you didn't even register as a choice, because, 183 00:12:32.759 --> 00:12:36.159 of course we had hired from the top schools. Of 184 00:12:36.200 --> 00:12:39.879 course we got promoted the high performers. Of course, we 185 00:12:39.960 --> 00:12:44.120 have killed that experiment. Of course, the senior person is right, 186 00:12:45.679 --> 00:12:47.919 of course, the loudest wars in the room is the 187 00:12:47.919 --> 00:12:51.360 best informed one. Of course. Of course, of course, and 188 00:12:51.559 --> 00:12:58.159 every of course is a bias wearing uniform. To address 189 00:12:58.159 --> 00:13:00.600 bias is to take that decision in front of you 190 00:13:00.639 --> 00:13:05.000 and ask deliberately, what am it treating as obvious? Here 191 00:13:05.559 --> 00:13:10.039 that might not be? You had one assumption up to 192 00:13:10.080 --> 00:13:14.039 the light, just one. You don't have to dismantle the 193 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:17.879 whole decision. No, you just have to test the one 194 00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:21.960 beam you think you've been leaning on the hardest. Now, 195 00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:25.200 this is where Thomas lived. Remember, a head of engineering 196 00:13:25.279 --> 00:13:28.840 fintech form the decisive one. So he had an open 197 00:13:28.919 --> 00:13:32.240 VPI role and a candidate he was about to recommend 198 00:13:32.519 --> 00:13:38.440 an internal high performer. Well like technically excellent. The decision 199 00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:44.440 looked obvious, of course, and it practically made sense. And 200 00:13:44.519 --> 00:13:48.919 I asked him one question, what this obvious thing about 201 00:13:48.919 --> 00:13:54.799 this hire that you haven't actually examined. He sat with 202 00:13:54.879 --> 00:13:58.399 it for a couple of days, and then he quietly said, 203 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:03.320 I'm assuming this person wants the role. That was it? 204 00:14:04.120 --> 00:14:07.399 He had never asked her. He had assumed because she 205 00:14:08.080 --> 00:14:10.320 was a high performer and the role was a promotion, 206 00:14:10.879 --> 00:14:14.000 So in his mind, a promotion is something every high 207 00:14:14.039 --> 00:14:17.279 performer wants. He had a one on one with her 208 00:14:17.320 --> 00:14:20.600 next morning, and it turned out she did not want 209 00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:24.320 the VP job at all. She wanted to go deeper 210 00:14:24.440 --> 00:14:29.720 on technical architecture, not broader on people management. You see, 211 00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:33.600 Thomas was about to promote his best engineer into a 212 00:14:33.720 --> 00:14:37.960 role she did not want, lose her insight twelve months 213 00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:40.679 and then explain it to her himself as a culture 214 00:14:40.759 --> 00:14:46.720 problem or a compensation problem, anything but the truth, which 215 00:14:46.840 --> 00:14:50.039 was that he had never run the most basic check 216 00:14:50.440 --> 00:14:55.960 on his own assumption. Bias was not malicious. It was 217 00:14:56.080 --> 00:14:59.720 load bearing. See the whole decision was resting on it, 218 00:15:00.600 --> 00:15:04.480 and he only found out because he addressed it. So 219 00:15:04.759 --> 00:15:09.519 the practice for a is this. The next time a 220 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:14.600 decision feels obvious, write down three things you are treating 221 00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:19.919 as given. Then circle one the one year would be 222 00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:25.600 most uncomfortable to discover you're wrong about, and ask yourself, 223 00:15:25.600 --> 00:15:29.320 with a straight face, what if I'm wrong about this 224 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:34.080 one assumption. See that single question will catch more back 225 00:15:34.120 --> 00:15:38.960 decisions than any dashboard you have ever built. Address the bias, 226 00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:44.559 especially the one wearing common sense clothing, standing exactly where 227 00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:48.600 you have stopped looking. And especially in today's AI world, 228 00:15:50.600 --> 00:15:57.720 the bias gets introduced the first time the first sentence 229 00:15:57.919 --> 00:16:01.320 of a code of an application was written. Bias gets 230 00:16:01.320 --> 00:16:07.000 introduced the first time somebody pulled up chargipity, accraud and 231 00:16:07.080 --> 00:16:12.000 write that first question. Because we are limited to the 232 00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:15.600 knowledge that we have, the experience that we have. And 233 00:16:15.639 --> 00:16:19.399 that's where addressing the bias becomes important, and it ties 234 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:23.440 to the values. That's the third letter ties to the value. 235 00:16:23.519 --> 00:16:26.159 And this one, more than any of others, is the 236 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:31.840 letter that decides whether your Monday's self respects you fride yourself. 237 00:16:32.679 --> 00:16:38.879 And here's what I mean. Every meaningful decision, underneath everything 238 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:45.240 is a value decision. We pretend otherwise. We dress it 239 00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:49.919 up in a financial language, strategic language, operational language because 240 00:16:50.039 --> 00:16:54.960 values language feels soft in a boardroom. But peel back 241 00:16:55.000 --> 00:17:00.399 the layers and almost every hard call comes down to 242 00:17:00.559 --> 00:17:05.680 one question, which are the things we say we care about? 243 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:09.759 Are we actually willing to choose right now when we 244 00:17:09.799 --> 00:17:17.359 cannot have both speed or quality, growth or sustainability, loyalty 245 00:17:17.480 --> 00:17:21.599 or merit the customer or the employee, the short term 246 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:25.400 or the long term, the family or the company. Now, 247 00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:29.680 these are not abstract debates for a leadership offsite. These 248 00:17:29.680 --> 00:17:33.480 are actual folks in actual road on a Friday afternoon 249 00:17:33.720 --> 00:17:38.440 when the actual phone rings. Now, to tie to values 250 00:17:38.519 --> 00:17:43.640 is to make the values choice visible to yourself before 251 00:17:43.640 --> 00:17:46.759 you make it. You name it in a single sentence. 252 00:17:47.279 --> 00:17:53.920 Is this decision? Is this decision I'm choosing. I'm choosing 253 00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:58.359 this value over that one because of this outlawed on 254 00:17:58.440 --> 00:18:03.200 a paper or to a t trusted person. In this decision, 255 00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:07.640 I am choosing this value over that one because of this. 256 00:18:07.799 --> 00:18:13.000 And the reason this matters has almost nothing to do 257 00:18:13.039 --> 00:18:17.119 with ethics, theater, and everything to do with regrid prevention believing, 258 00:18:17.480 --> 00:18:20.079 which brings me to Anika. Remember the head of operations 259 00:18:20.079 --> 00:18:22.960 in the manufacturing company. She had to lay off about 260 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:26.119 eighty percent of her staff. She did it well, carefully, humanly, 261 00:18:26.920 --> 00:18:33.119 but every external measure it was clean, defensible, well handed 262 00:18:33.160 --> 00:18:37.400 decision by any measure. And three months later she was 263 00:18:37.519 --> 00:18:42.119 in front of me and she said the sentence I 264 00:18:42.160 --> 00:18:45.720 totally never forget. She said, I don't think I did 265 00:18:45.759 --> 00:18:50.599 the wrong thing, but I feel like I did. So 266 00:18:50.920 --> 00:18:55.400 we pulled the decision apart slowly and What we found 267 00:18:55.480 --> 00:18:59.519 was this, she had made the call quickly, well ethically, 268 00:19:00.839 --> 00:19:04.880 and she had never, in any single moment, named to 269 00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:10.240 herself which value she was choosing. She had chosen the 270 00:19:10.240 --> 00:19:13.599 long term health of the company over short term security 271 00:19:13.599 --> 00:19:18.119 of the team. It was defensible choice, maybe the right one, 272 00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:22.319 but because she had never spoken it not allowed, not 273 00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:29.160 even to her own reflection. Her conscience had quietly filled 274 00:19:29.160 --> 00:19:32.480 the layoff under something that happened to be instead of 275 00:19:32.519 --> 00:19:38.119 something I choose. See layoff under something that happened to 276 00:19:38.119 --> 00:19:40.640 me instead of something I chose. And a thing that 277 00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:44.559 happens to you that you cannot account for sits in 278 00:19:44.599 --> 00:19:48.759 the body like a splinter. We did not under the decision. 279 00:19:48.799 --> 00:19:51.240 We could not, and we should not have. We just 280 00:19:51.400 --> 00:19:55.119 named it outlaw together. I chose the long term viability 281 00:19:55.119 --> 00:19:59.240 of the organization over immediate stability of those eight percent. 282 00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:04.440 I believe that was a right call, and I am 283 00:20:04.519 --> 00:20:08.480 responsible for it. See the distress lifted within the week, 284 00:20:08.839 --> 00:20:12.559 not because decision changed, it did not, but because she 285 00:20:12.640 --> 00:20:16.160 finally owned it instead of being haunted by it. And 286 00:20:16.240 --> 00:20:21.880 that is the secret of TEA. The decision that leaders. 287 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:27.640 There's not rest at night right. It gives people up 288 00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:30.400 at night, always the ones where the value teed of 289 00:20:30.839 --> 00:20:35.799 was real but went unnamed. See the leader chose growth 290 00:20:35.839 --> 00:20:39.039 over people, or speed over quality, or loyalty over merit, 291 00:20:39.440 --> 00:20:42.440 and choose it in the dark, so when consequences show 292 00:20:42.519 --> 00:20:46.240 up two months later, they experience it as a betrayal, 293 00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:50.000 as a betrayal of who they thought they were. And 294 00:20:50.279 --> 00:20:54.160 when in fact they made the choice, they just never 295 00:20:54.200 --> 00:20:59.000 said it out loud, so it never felt like theirs. Now, 296 00:20:59.279 --> 00:21:03.240 the practice for t is this. On your next weighted decision, 297 00:21:04.039 --> 00:21:07.000 finish one sentence before you add I am choosing this 298 00:21:07.160 --> 00:21:11.359 over that. And the reason is this, Say to a person, 299 00:21:12.319 --> 00:21:15.680 write it on a page, or yourself on a mirror, 300 00:21:15.720 --> 00:21:19.799 and make the invisible trade visible. Try to values because 301 00:21:19.839 --> 00:21:22.559 a trade off you name is a decision you can 302 00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:25.359 live with, and a trade off you hide is a 303 00:21:25.359 --> 00:21:27.880 splinter you're going to carry. Now that brings me to 304 00:21:27.960 --> 00:21:30.880 the fourth letter, to harness insights, and the verbe is 305 00:21:30.880 --> 00:21:33.759 doing the work again, Not gather insights, not collect them, 306 00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:37.319 harness them, put them in service of call without letting 307 00:21:37.359 --> 00:21:40.039 them take the wheel. Because here's the thing. By the 308 00:21:40.079 --> 00:21:43.880 time you reach the h you usually have plenty of insights, 309 00:21:43.960 --> 00:21:47.839 data reports, custo feedback, your team, guard your own scar tissues. 310 00:21:47.880 --> 00:21:51.599 The problem is almost never a shortage of insight. The 311 00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:55.079 problem is what you do with it in the final stretch. 312 00:21:56.359 --> 00:22:00.000 And they are two failure modes icee, and they're perfect 313 00:22:00.119 --> 00:22:04.200 mirror images of each other. Failure mode one. The leader 314 00:22:04.279 --> 00:22:07.839 treats that data as decisive. They hand the decision to 315 00:22:07.880 --> 00:22:11.359 a spread spreadsheet. The numbers say, they announce, and they 316 00:22:11.440 --> 00:22:14.400 let the numbers carry the morale weight that was supposed 317 00:22:14.400 --> 00:22:18.759 to be theirs. But the data is never decisive. The 318 00:22:18.880 --> 00:22:24.119 data is decision great input, you are still the one 319 00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:27.960 making the call. A number cannot be brave for right 320 00:22:28.200 --> 00:22:31.119 And failure number two failure more two. The leaders treat 321 00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:35.839 data as decorative. They decide on instant on relationship, on gut, 322 00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:40.000 and then go fishing for data dashboard slides that confirm 323 00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:43.880 what they were always going to do. See, the data 324 00:22:43.960 --> 00:22:46.880 is not validating them, it is being used by them. 325 00:22:47.160 --> 00:22:49.440 And here is the part they forget. Their team can 326 00:22:49.480 --> 00:22:55.720 smell the difference across the building. So harnessing insight mindfully 327 00:22:56.079 --> 00:22:58.599 is the part between those two. You bring the data 328 00:22:58.640 --> 00:23:01.720 to the decision before you side, you let it actually 329 00:23:01.799 --> 00:23:05.039 challenge you, you wage it against your values out loud, 330 00:23:05.279 --> 00:23:07.640 and then you make the final call as a human 331 00:23:08.559 --> 00:23:11.960 who held both, not as a calculator, not at a 332 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:15.640 magician pulling a prea chosen answer out of hand. So 333 00:23:15.920 --> 00:23:18.880 let me bring these three leaders back for this one briefly, 334 00:23:19.079 --> 00:23:22.440 because H is where you can see the difference most clearly. 335 00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:26.279 The leader who only ever runs H is ayesha on 336 00:23:26.359 --> 00:23:30.079 a bad day, differing to board deck, letting the numbers 337 00:23:30.079 --> 00:23:32.960 decide so she doesn't have to. The leader who skips 338 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:35.519 H and fakes it is the one who builds slide 339 00:23:35.759 --> 00:23:38.680 to justify the gut call. But the leader who on 340 00:23:39.039 --> 00:23:42.640 his picture Thomas the morning after his one on one, 341 00:23:43.720 --> 00:23:47.079 he now had data on his side. His engineer wants depth, 342 00:23:47.160 --> 00:23:50.039 not breadth. He had a value on the other side 343 00:23:50.119 --> 00:23:52.799 to genuinely want to grow her career, and instead of 344 00:23:52.880 --> 00:23:57.000 letting either one decide, he reshipped the whole decision. He 345 00:23:57.000 --> 00:23:59.960 didn't promote her into management. He built her a principal 346 00:24:00.079 --> 00:24:04.759 architect track and that hadn't existed the day before. The 347 00:24:04.839 --> 00:24:08.599 data informed it, the value shaped it. He made the 348 00:24:08.599 --> 00:24:11.960 call as a leader, not as a chart, not as 349 00:24:11.960 --> 00:24:16.160 a hunch. So that is how you harness inside, not 350 00:24:16.279 --> 00:24:19.000 a verdict, not a costume, as a companion to the 351 00:24:19.039 --> 00:24:22.440 call and the practice of which is this. On your 352 00:24:22.480 --> 00:24:25.680 next big decision, write the data on one side of 353 00:24:25.720 --> 00:24:29.359 the page and the values on the other side, and 354 00:24:29.400 --> 00:24:33.480 then at the bottom, by hand, finish the sentence. As 355 00:24:33.480 --> 00:24:36.960 the leader, I'm choosing this because of this, Writing it 356 00:24:37.039 --> 00:24:41.279 out by hand will surface ninety percent of mindfulness in 357 00:24:41.319 --> 00:24:45.319 your thinking before you take a single action. Harness insights 358 00:24:45.640 --> 00:24:48.240 make them work for decisions, never in place of it. 359 00:24:48.839 --> 00:24:52.160 The data is decision great input, but you are the 360 00:24:52.200 --> 00:24:54.440 one who has to be brave to be able to 361 00:24:54.440 --> 00:24:58.160 do that. Now, there are two common pitfalls treating pause 362 00:24:58.359 --> 00:25:02.200 as permission to stop possible. Clarity is not I will 363 00:25:02.200 --> 00:25:05.799 think about it for two weeks. It is deliberate finite 364 00:25:05.920 --> 00:25:09.000 gap if the catch. If you catch your subfusing path 365 00:25:09.039 --> 00:25:11.920 as a way to avoid the decision rather than improve it, 366 00:25:12.200 --> 00:25:15.319 you have wandered off the path. The pause has a 367 00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:18.720 beginning and an end. The decision still gets made, it's 368 00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:23.039 just made better. And pitfall number two, skipping the tea 369 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:27.559 because it feels too soft. This is the most conistic 370 00:25:27.640 --> 00:25:30.519 leaders make with this framework, and I want to name 371 00:25:30.559 --> 00:25:36.640 it plainly. The pause feels productive, the bias checks feel rigorously, 372 00:25:36.759 --> 00:25:42.200 The inside harnesses feels analytically. So leaders run three of 373 00:25:42.359 --> 00:25:46.640 four letters and quietly drop the values one because naming 374 00:25:46.640 --> 00:25:50.000 a value out loud feels exposed in a way that 375 00:25:50.160 --> 00:25:53.799 running un numbered does not. So don't. The tea is 376 00:25:53.920 --> 00:25:57.519 the load bearing letter. It is the entire difference between 377 00:25:57.559 --> 00:26:02.640 a competent decision and decision. You can sleep next to 378 00:26:03.519 --> 00:26:07.200 so and if you're listening to this and realize that 379 00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:10.720 the decision you are walking through path are revealing something deeper, 380 00:26:10.839 --> 00:26:15.119 something about what you are actually pointed at as a leader, 381 00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:19.000 that is exactly the terrain the purpose factor assessment was 382 00:26:19.039 --> 00:26:23.119 built to make. Because notice what was underneath all three 383 00:26:23.160 --> 00:26:26.359 of our leaders tonight right. Aisha couldn't pause because she 384 00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:29.480 had lost the thread of what she was even deciding 385 00:26:29.519 --> 00:26:33.880 towards Thomas Miss's assumptions because he hasn't asked what his 386 00:26:33.960 --> 00:26:38.400 engineer was for. And Anika, distressed wasn't about layoff. It 387 00:26:38.519 --> 00:26:42.400 was a value she held but had never made conscious. 388 00:26:42.480 --> 00:26:45.480 In every case, the path got clearer the moment the 389 00:26:45.519 --> 00:26:49.200 purpose underneath got clear. So DM me the word mindful 390 00:26:49.279 --> 00:26:52.039 path on the Linkeodlin and I'll send you a link 391 00:26:52.200 --> 00:26:55.640 to this. So part is how you remember the second 392 00:26:55.680 --> 00:26:58.640 year when the whole world is pushing you to live 393 00:26:58.720 --> 00:27:04.119 in the first For clarity, address the bias, tie to values, hardness, 394 00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:10.160 the insights, four letters, one walking pace, Monday self that 395 00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:14.000 reflects Friday choices. I'll see you next week. Thanks for 396 00:27:14.039 --> 00:27:18.039 listening Mindful Leadership Transforming Lives on the Transformation Network. I 397 00:27:18.119 --> 00:27:20.240 am your host, saying and lead mindfully. 398 00:27:25.920 --> 00:27:29.920 Thank you for watching Mindful Leadership Transforming Lives with me, 399 00:27:30.039 --> 00:27:33.119 Your host is saying, we are honored to have you 400 00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:36.519 join us on this journey to explore the transformative power 401 00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:42.359