These are the skills I'm looking forward to working on during my time at the GSB:
Leadership skills:
(1) I want to become more comfortable with feeling uncomfortable as a leader. It's easy to lean into the type of work I've done before and to "hide" in that comfort zone. But if I want to be successful as a leader, I can't hide within the small world of what I've done before. I love the advice from our first session: be compassionate with ourselves and our classmates, and fumble here so that we don't in the real world. I want to push myself in that way during this class. Tactically, that means being game for trying out the role plays, throwing myself at the content, and not clinging to previous professional experiences to "justify" my air time in the conversation.
(2) I need to become a more decisive leader. I probably waste ~50% of my energy each day trying to decide on things rather than accomplishing anything. Analyzing decisions can be productive; agonizing over them is usually not. I wish I were able to make decisions at ~3x speed, and I'll need to be able to if I ever want to succeed as a leader. Part of this is probably a muscle I can work on (i.e., practice some decision-making skills) but the rest of it is definitely self confidence (i.e., find some inner steadfastness to stop second-guessing everything).
Communication skills:
(3) I want to push myself to become a punchier and more compelling writer. I think it's becoming more necessary to share ideas in widely-readable and tightly packaged pieces, and I want to develop the ability to write pieces like this. I frequently get fired up about ideas, but those threads remain fragmented conversations - amongst friends, over a drink, or in a journal. The next step is taking that excitement and putting it on the page (e.g., in an email, blog, medium piece, etc.) to push the idea further. It's easy to sound articulate in a 5 minute conversation; it's a lot harder to put something together that'll stand the test of wide readership.
I'm looking forward to the remaining sessions of this class - thanks!
Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable is a lifelong pursuit and a noble goal, Joel! Thanks for sharing.
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ReplyDelete"I frequently get fired up about ideas, but those threads remain fragmented conversations - amongst friends, over a drink, or in a journal. The next step is taking that excitement and putting it on the page (e.g., in an email, blog, medium piece, etc.) to push the idea further. It's easy to sound articulate in a 5 minute conversation; it's a lot harder to put something together that'll stand the test of wide readership."
ReplyDeleteThis really resonated with me, Joel! Similarly, I've got thoughts on specific topics that I'm passionate about floating around in journals & notes or in conversations with friends, but the idea of distilling these into a thought-piece is daunting and requires discipline. Thank you for summarizing this so well; you're inspiring me to add to my GSB goal list!