Myth-busting life’s big lies: “Me” to “We”
Most great leaders can recall a few specific moments of meaningful growth, typically marked by letting go of long-held beliefs in exchange for a rocket-boost of discovery. Spoiler alert: what follows is the executive equivalent of learning the truth about the tooth fairy. (She exists, but once you’ve seen that collection of teeth she builds her empire on, you cannot unsee it.)
First meaningful-but-jarring discovery: Your parents are just adults. There is no magical bridge they crossed into a different land of adulthood. For the most part, they raised you with fewer instructions than you have about yourself today. Forgive them for being human, and move on.
Next: Your major, degrees, or other qualifications matter about 72% less than you think they do. Personally, my Masters in Education (never thought I’d carry a M, Ed. without being a doctor) did help the imposter syndrome I used to experience by pulling back the curtain: those letters behind your name don’t make you smarter. They just prove you’ve played the game. When it’s worth playing, do it. But if you want to grow, look for people who will grow you. If you’re lucky and intentional, you can find those relationships in the very places you’ll also get degrees. But if you have to choose between the grades and the investment in mentorship, pick people every time.
After you’ve busted these first two myths, there are at least half a dozen more that I’ll save for my book, or for my famous TED graduation speech (that’s if Taylor Swift doesn’t borrow them as lyrics before I get there). Can we skip to the good part?
The truth that will create the most freedom for yourself and others is one most leaders don’t reach until they’re forced to. Walking through this door earlier, healthier, and with attentive eyes can change your entire career and life trajectory for the better.
Success is not a solo sport.
You are not alone. You never were. And everything you think you’ve pulled up your bootstraps to accomplish, despite the discomfort or stretching you took, is likely a result of someone else’s talent carrying you across gaps in your own.
The alluring promise of strengths-based development is there is something within you that carries tremendous potential. Talent is a way of behaving or performing that just clicks for you, and also results in increased energy as well as demonstrated excellence. But if that’s all true (it is), then it must also be true that your rare talent is just that–rare. You don’t do everything that well. In order to be exceptional at something, it means you are relatively un-ceptional (thanks Encanto) at most things.
And that’s where the final bridge of maturity leads you. On the conventional side of the ravine is the assumption that in order to live your best, most successful life, you need to know a bit about everything. In order to be an influential leader, a well-respected CEO, or even Miss Universe, you need to pass as excellent in all the roles you represent. Or maybe there’s another side to this story.
Once you bravely walk across this myth-bridge, you discover there’s a different way to succeed. Double, maybe even triple down on what you do best, and stretch you own talents into spaces where they benefit the performance of others. As you grow from “me” to “we,” you’ll find it takes work. It takes un-learning the classic effort-based grit and hustle culture. And here’s how it can happen:
Chris is a dreamer. A creative investor with an eye for new gadgets and general impatience, he oversees the marketing department of his mid-size agency and constantly looks for new e-commerce opportunities. For nearly a decade he has spent at least a third of his resources on developing skills he thought he needed. Attending conferences, building new partnerships, and taking classes, this guy reliably knows a very little about a very lot. But any time he tries to hire someone to help him, the relationships quickly fizzle out. He struggles to support others, feeling like the only way for him to make an honest living is to do most of the work himself.
This year, Chris and I began purposeful curiosity about his strengths, asking two key questions on repeat.
How could his strengths (what he does really well and also loves to do) benefit the future growth of his team?
If he quit doing anything he didn’t both enjoy and excel at, what would be possible?
Chris had a hard time with this. At first, it sounded gimmicky. The repetition felt like a game. But the more we explored it, the clearer his strengths became to him. Instead of classifying all his accomplishment as talents, he saw there was a difference between something he could do, and something he did with great energy.
The real shift happened when he got into the habit of asking the first question. Going from a lens on strength of “how can this help me succeed” to “how can this help someone else succeed” freed him up to do more of what he loved, because it led to delegation of the energy-sucks he didn’t.
Sounds good, right? If you’re ready to cross that gap from “me” to “we,” there are a few keys panels you’ll need to build this bridge:
Set objective expectations.
Measure something without emotion. Be explicit about what success looks like. Even easier, describe what you can count, measure, sort, or see when the job is “done.”
Consider the implicit parameters. Name the sacred ways of working that you expect someone else to carry out. (And evaluate just how important they are if you’re going to demand they be followed.)
2. Build up your people.
It’s okay if you can’t name what you do well. Your strengths are valuable because they happen naturally. So by design, they can be really hard for you to notice. Your team is the same way. Your job as their leader is to reveal to them their talents.
At every opportunity, highlight what they are doing that is especially valuable. The more specific you can be, the faster they’ll see it. Don’t expect everyone to succeed in the same way. Look for the differences between your people, and name them. You don’t have to do this alone. Get into the habit of asking people what parts of projects or jobs they loved. Heck–even ask them what parts of their week created the most enjoyment. You can find and name talent anywhere.
3. Know your best vs their best.
Complementary partnerships sometimes happen by magic. But if you don’t have reserves of that resource, they can be accelerated manually. Start by naming what you do well, and what they do well that you don’t.
Make yourself some clear guardrails of what you don’t do exceptionally well, or what you simply don’t enjoy doing. These are the talent spaces to look for in others first. Catch yourself playing in a sandbox where you’re just going to be okay, especially if it’s one where someone else could build a sand castle worthy of display.
Somewhere along the way, we let school get too hard and soft skills get too soft. We became accustomed to solving hard problems, equating the grind and battle to the positive outcome at the end. Meanwhile, we cast teamwork and collaboration as a nicety, something that made you kind. The opposite is true. Teamwork makes you successful. Ease makes you excellent. You don’t just need to focus on your strengths and navigate your weaknesses. Chances are, you could benefit from focusing even more on your strengths and looking even more purposefully for partners who can fill your gaps.
As for the tooth fairy…I told you you couldn’t unsee that image.
