Strategic Courage and Self-Belief
You’ve never read a book that says, “I tried all of the strategies of successful people and still failed.” That’s because those people don’t get to write books.
You probably also haven’t read many books whose message is, “I was totally wrong about something important, but you should definitely trust the advice I’m giving you now.” That would undermine the author’s credibility.
Because of that, when consuming “I’m successful, and here’s how I did it” books, I take a skeptical lens.
So when I read basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski’s claim in Leading with the Heart that his response to two losing seasons to start his career at Duke was simply courage and persistence, my BS detector went off.
Coach K writes, “Courage gives a leader the ability to stand straight and not sway no matter which way the wind blows. [...] If you believe in your system, in the people around you, and in your own abilities, then [having a season of 11 wins to 17 losses] will not change what you do.”
I thought, “This sounds good, but it can’t possibly be what he actually did.”
And the reason I thought that was because he writes earlier in the book about the importance of learning and agility, “Every long-term strategy must be adjustable, and people on the team must be prepared accordingly. Teach them to adjust.”
This begs the question: When the external world provides negative feedback, when should we change and when should we persist?
For me, the basic solution is to have little belief in our strategy, and ultimate belief in ourselves.
That is, it’s worth treating our strategies as experiments based on informed guesses, which enables us to remain open to data and to refine our adjustments going forward. (Several weeks ago, I wrote that strategic leaders have conviction, but hold it lightly.)
But ultimately, we’re still left with an unknowable future, and the only way forward is to take another informed guess. And if we allow the negative feedback and outcomes to challenge our self-belief and core convictions, it’ll be hard to muster the courage to take those steps forward.
Leadership Wisdom
Last week, USA sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson won the World Championship at 100m. Her victory represented a huge comeback since she was left off of the last U.S. Olympic team because, after winning the US trials, she tested positive for a banned substance. (Absurdly, that substance was marijuana, which is the exact opposite of performance-enhancing.)
The interview Richardson did after winning the World Championship (which starts at about minute 12 of the video below) contained many wise points about self-belief. My favorite was her response to the question, “Do you feel like you've earned the respect of the Jamaicans and the rest of the world?”
She said: “I feel like I've earned the respect for myself. That's the biggest thing for me—not even just the world—but for Sha'Carri Richardson. I put that respect on me—for me. […] I know I belong. I know I deserve to be here.”
And asked what message she wanted to send to others, Richardson said, "I've been saying it all season—I'm not back; I'm better."
Thanks for reading!
Charles
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