Go Directly to the Source

Last week’s issue: Developing your bench

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Today at a Glance:

• Perspective is everything

• Go to the source when you hear about a problem

• She thinks like a boss

• Leaders eat last

• Negotiation by Chris Voss

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Perspective is everything.

Where you’re sitting as a leader is not always the correct viewpoint.

You need other’s perspectives and insights.

When a message is repeated by several people and you hear it 4th or 5th hand, the message has been diluted heavily.

It’s probably nothing like the original and it almost certainly will be missing the context.

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A big thank you to this week’s partner, forests over trees. Be sure to show them some love.

Forests over trees (link)
Forests Over Trees. Read a weekly tech strategy breakdown alongside 1,300 leaders from Meta, Apple, Google, and more. Don't miss the forest for the trees. 

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At Apple many years ago, it was often common for a front-line analyst to return to their cube from lunch to find Steve Jobs sitting at their desk.

What on earth was the CEO of the company doing coming down to the frontline?

Why didn't he just go via the chain of command?

Because Steve understood the value of feedback directly from the source.

He wanted to speak to the person closest to the problem, to get the truth and understand the actual impact.

We all know what happens when facts are passed around too many times.

Steve recognised that the passing down of information through the various layers of leadership might have blurred the problem or feedback, which would have impacted the decision he needed to make.

Avoid misunderstanding the impact or problem.

Do this instead:

1/ Speak to individuals closest to the problem - when you hear about a problem, go to the source. That might involve picking up the phone to a customer or even speaking to employees in your organisation closest to the problem.

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

2/ Multiple sources - don’t accept a single data point, source or point of view as the whole truth. It may have a bias or be incorrect. Evaluate multiple sources to ensure you’re getting a good representation of the problem and impact.

3/ Be aware of recency bias - this is a cognitive bias that favours recent events over historic ones, giving greater importance to the most recent event. This can blur the feedback you’re receiving, so evaluate if the problem is a repeating theme or just a 1 off issue that feels worse because it’s happened a lot recently.