Do Nothing! – The title itself captured my attention. This book review will simply outline my Top 10 Two Word Phrases found in this helpful book for new or seasoned leaders. J. Keith Murningham uses many clever two word phrases throughout the book to create memorable tips for leaders.
Here are my Top 10 Two Word Phrases:
1.) Pygmailion Effect: Leaders set high expectations and demands on your people. They can achieve so much more than they think. You can inspire them to do so. See previous post on the Pygmalion Effect.
2.) Social Activity: Leadership is not an individual activity it is a social activity requiring teams to accomplish something great. Leaders in isolation experience isolated results. Leaders on teams experience exceptional results.
3.) Leadership Law: Think of the reaction that you want first. Then determine the actions you can take to maximize the chances that those reactions will actually happen. See last post on Right To Left Leadership.
4.) Others Focused: Leadership is not about self-preservation it is about people-development.
5.) Transactive Memory: Daniel Wegner developed this phrase. It is defined as the ability of your team to turn quickly to the person with the skill needed to complete a novel task. It is simply about knowing the strengths of your team.
6.) Backwards Induction: When setting goals start at the end, as it pertains to the result, THEN think of the step right before the end and build from there. Most of the time we think of the end and then go to the initial step. Backwards induction is about the step right before the end.
7.) Trust More: We purchase items on eBay from complete strangers. We need to trust our team to be competent and get the job done.
8.) Psychologically Safe: Teams that feel free to make observations, ask questions and make comments are psychologically safe. A leader needs to create a psychologically safe environment first.
9.) Pluralistic Ignorance: Everyone having the same question but everyone simultaneously being afraid to ask it. This is also called Basic Assumption Mental State or BAMS.
10.) Wire Walkers: Leaders need to walk the line between task and people, warmth and competence, results and relationship and control and democracy.
Which one of the ten represents your greatest strength? Which one represents your greatest opportunity?