Issue #238: Steve Jobs’ Secret to Teamwork (Too Often Forgotten), The Power of Saying Your Name During Self-Talk, and More

Listen to this issue here if you’d prefer. Don't want to miss an issue? Click the bell icon on my LinkedIn profile page to get notified when new issues are published. 

INSIGHTS (on leadership/self-leadership)

Leadership guru Steve Jobs once shared what he believed was the key to fostering teamwork; it’s something that sooo many leaders tend to forget:

“Teamwork is dependent on trusting the other folks to come through with their part without watching them all the time.”

In other words, if you lean into trust rather than micromanagement, teams feel empowered, and their best collaborative work emerges. The other way around, and you crush souls, not goals.

I wrote about this a few months ago, but it’s important enough to share again here (and build on it further). If you know that you tend to stray into micromanagement at times, commit to these five strategies to help you avoid that behavior:

1. Check-in vs. check-up. Checking in is about seeing how people are doing and ensuring that all goes well. That’s good. Checking up is oversight. Not so good. Do you have to follow up on details and ensure progress is being made? Of course. This is about being intentional to make more of your interactions reflect your care and concern rather than your corralling. 

2. Conduct inquiries vs. inquisitions. When you conduct inquiries, you’re assessing how you can be of help. When you conduct inquisitions, you’re in inspection mode. Inspection is comfort food for micromanagers.

3. Focus on improving vs. proving. Micromanagers want their teams to prove they’re doing the work and on the right track. Macromanagers focus their interactions more on helping people learn, grow, and become better versions of themselves.

4. Create the conditions that help you let go. If you’re inserting yourself too often into the team to correct their behavior, there’s a good chance you haven’t been clear about expectations, haven’t put people in roles that best match their skills and desires, or aren’t providing enough coaching and training. Do all of these things, and it will be easier to let the team do their thing.

5. Manage by objectives. Get clear on the mission, then let the team achieve it as they see fit (as long as it aligns with your organization’s values).

IMPERFECTIONS (a mistake many make)

It is sooo easy to get caught in a negative thought spiral, where you beat yourself up with increasing intensity/frequency. But you really can rewire your brain to pull yourself out of downward thought spirals with a simple trick. In the moment you catch yourself beating yourself up, stop, pause, and… 

…talk to yourself in third person, with compassion.

Yup, speak to yourself as if you were a friend in need, with empathy, using your name instead of “I.” For example, instead of saying, “I really blew that meeting,” I'd say to myself, “Okay, Scott, that meeting didn’t go too well. It happens. What can you learn from it, Scott?”

Research from Michigan State University shows it works because it forces you to talk to yourself as if you were talking to someone else – and we tend to have far more compassion for other people than we do ourselves. Our brain processes “distant self-talk” differently than the usual internal monologue that can quickly weigh us down. Third-person self-talk activates the part of your brain that regulates emotions and helps you take pressure off yourself, interrupting the loop of negativity you’ve created. Basketball superstar LeBron James and Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai practice third-person self-talk. Why?

Because it works.

IMPLEMENTATION (one research-backed strategy, tip, or tool)

Here’s one of the most important career lessons I can impart. It requires a brief story.

A father offered his daughter a car for graduating with honors, an old car he’d stored away for the occasion. He told her to take it to the used car lot downtown to see how much they’d offer if she sold it to them. The daughter did so and returned, telling her father they’d offered only $1,000 because the car looked pretty worn out. 

The father then asked her to take it to a pawn shop, which she did. She returned and told her father the pawn shop had offered only $100 because of the car’s age. 

Finally, the father asked the daughter to take the car to a car club, which she did. She returned to excitedly report that they offered $100,000 because the car was a Holden Torana, an iconic car sought by many collectors.

Dad’s response?

“The right place values you the right way. If you’re somewhere you’re not valued, don’t be angry. It just means you’re in the wrong place.”

I’ve learned this lesson repeatedly in my career. Never stay in a place where you’re not valued. Your unique contributions just need to find the right light to be fully illuminated.

Has my work been of value to you? Consider buying me a cup of coffee in appreciation. It’s easy to make a small donation, just click here. Thanks for supporting my mission!

 • Share this publication with a friend, see the keynotes/workshops I give at scottmautz.com and check out my menu of LinkedIn Learning courses, taken by well over 2 million learners!

• Check out my bestselling, award-winning books: The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors, and Leading from the Middle. A Playbook for Managers to Influence Up, Down, and Across the Organization.