The 3 'E's of 'Good Work'

At ConantLeadership, we're committed to lifelong learning and continuous improvement. In service to your leadership growth, each month we curate this digest of resources from around the web to:

Share actionable advice from top leadership luminaries
Celebrate a range of viewpoints (inclusion is not an endorsement)
Contextualize workplace trends through a leadership lens
Illuminate cultural recalibrations in the world of work
Support your personal development in life, leadership, & beyond

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From ConantLeadership

Why Executive Assistants Are Savvy Leaders

At a past BLUEPRINT Leadership Summit—Doug Conant convened in conversation with top experts in the administrative space, Bonnie Low-Kramen and Ann Hiatt. Together, they spoke about the importance of recognizing and developing executive assistants as strategic partners and leaders. In this new blog recap of their roundtable discussion, our panelists share many key insights, and here are two.

1. Administrative professionals have unique leadership insight. Assistants are particularly "tuned into every aspect of the business," so they can identify areas where there is an "all-too-common disconnect between leaders and the people on the ground floor," and take action to bridge the gaps. They are natural leaders because they "tend to be doers who make things happen." Conant says, "A lot of the work we see in leadership is about ideas and concepts," but the administrative professionals in an organization are the ones who often help transform theory into reality.

2. Administrative professionals are the heart of the 'Informal Organization.' Conant recounts an important lesson from Jon Katzenbach’s book, Wisdom of Teams: The notion of the informal organization vs. the formal organization. He says, “there are people in your organization who—if there’s ever an issue—everybody goes and talks to them," and he tells senior leaders, these go-to people, are usually not "your direct reports." Rather, it's administrative professionals who are "the linchpin of this often-untapped 'informal organization.'" That's why it's essential to recognize that assistants are essential strategic partners, because they're the ones "who really know what's going on." Get the full story here.

**For more on this: Mark your calendars! Our new online leadership course for Administrative Professionals, The STEPS Program, launches September 15th. This is the same BLUEPRINT leadership course we teach to senior leaders, customized for the true engine of the C-Suite (executive assistants), and taught by Doug Conant. Sign up for VIP discounts, and to be the first to know when this course goes live, here.

The Three 'E's of 'Good Work'

In this interview with Howard Gardner, a renowned Harvard psychologist and researcher, who spearheads The Good Project, (which studies goodness and helps people make thoughtful, ethical decisions), he shares his criteria for what constitutes "good work." He says there are three elements, the three 'E's.

Good work is Excellent. To do good work, "First, the person needs to be excellent." Using the professions of doctor, lawyer, or journalist as examples, Gardner says, "The person needs to know the stuff that requires them to do surgery or to argue a case or to cover an event."

Good work is Engaging. "It's really important if you want to be a good worker to be engaged. If you just count the hours each day until it’s over . . . then you're not engaged." This doesn't mean you don't enjoy time off, only that in some respect, you "look forward to work." Gardner adds, "especially when the environment is very challenging, you need to have something that motivates you to go to work, that engages you."

Good work is Ethical. Gardner says, "You can be very excellent in your field. You can know what you’re doing. You can be very engaged. You can look forward to going to work . . . but if you’re not ethical, then you’re not doing good work." People who know better," who are cutting corners or doing things that are strictly speaking illegal," are not engaged in good works.

In summary, he says his answer to what makes "a good worker, a good citizen" is: "that person knows their stuff, cares about it, and tries to do the right thing." Get the full story here.

**For more on this, take our anatomy of leadership competence quiz to rate yourself across three spectrums of EQ, IQ, and FQ.

When to Walk Away

In this Rolling Stone piece, artist and entrepreneur Stephanie Dillon shares her thoughts on the "art of knowing when to walk away." She writes, "What I’ve learned is that in art, there’s a beat between perfection and ruin. As an artist, walking away from a painting allows me to approach my work from a new angle. I believe that concept also applies to the business world. As a business leader, walking away from certain situations enables me to realign my professional approach." Having reflected on this for years, she shares, "I’ve identified 10 things that, as a business leader, signal it’s time for me to walk away from a situation, be it a project, partnership, board position or something else." Here are three.

I can't be myself. "In a situation, if I can’t be myself, if I have to pretend to be someone I’m not, if I have to increasingly separate myself from what I really think and feel just to maintain harmony, then I know it’s time for me to walk away."

I find myself doing the math. "Sometimes, I find a situation so draining that I start calculating what it’s costing me. Whenever I find myself doing the math—namely, what a given opportunity is costing me in life, be it in terms of money, time, well-being, etc. —then that’s a sign that I have to remove myself from that situation."

I'm building a product that lacks purpose. "For me, it’s important that I’m building with a purpose. I believe that products with a mission and vision behind them are easier to work on and sell. So, if I notice myself working on just a product rather than one rooted in a deeper purpose, I walk away."

Get the full story here.

How to 'Engineer Momentum'

"We are momentum machines. Most of us don't act like it, but it's true," writes Joan Westenberg in this recent edition of her newsletter. She says, "Every choice, every repetition, every small effort compounds . . . write a page every day and you'll have a book in a year. Write sporadically and you'll have scattered fragments. The mathematics is simple, but the impact is profound." While, "the first rep always feels heavy, the first page slow," it gets easier over time because "each effort lays the groundwork for the next, multiplying instead of adding. That's the benefit of momentum: it stacks, builds, grows."

Westenberg says the core lesson of momentum's power is that it reveals how consistency is "underrated." We wrongly "glorify intensity, the all-nighter, the heroic sprint. But growth comes from the steady drumbeat, the repetition that builds quietly." All this considered, she asks "how do you engineer momentum?" Her answer: "Start by identifying the variables that compound. Knowledge, confidence, network effects - these are multipliers. Then strip away friction. Reduce decisions. Automate where you can. Create systems that make doing the thing easier than not doing it."

Once you have your system, Westenberg says to protect it, "feed it, don't let it stall." And remember, "the beauty is that momentum machines stack. Build one habit successfully and you learn how to build the next. The skill isn't just doing the thing; it's in learning how to design the machine that makes the thing inevitable." Get the full story here.

**For more on this, explore our 6-step Blueprint process which champions small, incremental steps as the secret recipe for making substantial progress in your life and leadership.

Past, Present, Future: An AI Research Roundup

"The rise of artificial intelligence has been rapid and broad, with rampant excitement—and concern—about how the technology will transform industries, the economy, and people’s lives," says the introduction to this KelloggInsight roundup of "research and insights from Kellogg faculty on AI's past, present, and future, and its implications." This compilation of insights is framed around five key insights and here are two.

1. AI may not be coming for your job—yet. "Despite the push to incorporate artificial intelligence into a variety of workplace settings, it may be a long time before AI comes for your, or anyone else’s, job." Researchers say, "it's going to take a long time for it to penetrate an industry, especially in a way that will affect your career." And it's important to remember that we all have a choice in "how we choose to deploy" AI, and "there is time for us to make this choice collectively and deliberately." We can still prioritize humanity: "We can choose to let machines make the bulk of the decisions around our healthcare, education, and defense—or we can choose to keep humans at the helm, ensuring that human values and priorities rule the day."

2. AI is not actually an 'overnight success.' "While the ubiquity of artificial intelligence may seem like it happened all at once and very recently, its foundations were laid over the last century by mathematicians and engineers." Experts say, "we've come a long way," but, "this progress only happened after many years of failures," and that the recent headway is attributed to "sustained research funding" over the past 50 years. It's also noteworthy that, "despite all of the growth, AI still has plenty of issues that need to be solved," one of the most prominent challenges being, "hallucination, in which AI makes up part of the information it provides," asserting complete fabrications as facts.

Get the full story here.

Mastering the 'Cross-Pressures' of Leadership

In this interview with Robert E. Siegel, management lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and author of the new book, The Systems Leader: Mastering the Cross-Pressures That Make or Break Today's Companies, Siegel talks about "the leadership skills required to be successful in today's world, where every product and service is connected." He says leaders must become "systems leaders," who behave differently now than they would have in the past. Part of a systems leader's playbook is learning to master five "cross pressures" that define today's leadership landscape.

1. Priorities. "How do you balance execution and innovation, and not just at a company level, but at an individual level?"
2. People. "How do we promote and model both strength . . . and empathy, finding that balance between talking about our feelings and getting things done?"
3. Sphere of influence. "This concept relates to understanding the internal and external."
4. Geography. "This refers to seeing the dynamic between local and global. In an interconnected world, we’re not going to be able to just focus on one area, city, community, or country alone."
5. Purpose. How do we balance the ambition we feel as individuals, but also with statesmanship or 'stateswomanship'—being a steward of our organization?"

Get the full story, including the six attributes of a 'statesman' or 'stateswoman,' here.

**For more on this, explore our post from the archives, on how to lead change across three circles of impact: your circle of concern, your circle of influence, and your circle of control.

It's Neuroscience: Ownership Drives Responsibility

"In a newly published brain imaging study, researchers showed that the act of merely following someone else’s orders, or not having ownership of our decisions, reduces our sense of responsibility for the actions that follow," explain the authors of this NeuroLeadership Institute piece on how neuroscience can inform our approach to leadership. The recent study "suggests that our sense of responsibility, and the brain activity that supports it, can emerge from having a sense of control or agency in our work," whereas a sense of merely "following orders" will have the opposite effect.

While a desire for accountability is common and widespread throughout organizations, neuroscience shows "people won't choose to be more responsible just because we tell them to. They need to feel responsible first." This fact poses a challenge to organizations "that are structured hierarchically," because employees feel less committed to their actions when operating in strict hierarchies. However, the same science offers an opportunity to deepen engagement: The brain activity in individuals with "free choice over their decisions" shows they are "more highly engaged," feel "a sense of control," and a palpable "sense of responsibility" for their work and outcomes. The lesson is clear: "If leaders want their teams to be more accountable, they first need to increase their teams’ sense of control or ownership of their work." Get the full story here.

Manage Your Life Like a 'Startup Business'

In this excerpt from his new book, The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life, Arthur C. Brooks tells readers, "your life is like a startup business, and you should manage it as such." Think of yourself as "the founder" of your life, which requires you "to be able to take risks and know what the currency is of the fortune you're trying to accumulate." He says that no matter what success looks like to you, the most crucial skill is self-management: "In the startup of your life, you’re the most important employee—so you better manage yourself . . . some people are very successful in managing their professional lives, but managing their personal lives is a different kettle of fish," and that can cause problems.

Brooks says an important part of being a good employee to yourself is being able to define success on your own terms: "At the end of the day, with any kind of startup, you’d better know what the end goal is and you’d better keep it in mind," and it's no different with "the startup of your life." He says not to define success in monetary terms, which is "not to say that money is unimportant. Quite the contrary. It's very important for doing all kinds of things, but it's not a great metric for understanding our own personal success," because often what will really fulfill us is one level deeper, found in "things like love, satisfaction, or faith." Get the full story here.