Book Summary in Three Sentences
Our mindset drives and shapes everything that we do – how we engage with others and how we behave in every moment and situation. It refers to the way people see and regard the world – how they see others, circumstances, challenges, opportunities, and obligations. Someone with an inward mindset behaves in ways that are calculated to benefit themselves, while an outward mindset person is able to consider, behave, and see beyond themselves and further the collective result of the group.
The Outward Mindset Summary
This summary will include what I found to be the key takeaways from the book. I will include quotes and passages from the book as well as my own thoughts. This is meant to be an informal summary!
- Leaders who succeed are those who are humble enough to see beyond themselves and perceive the true capacities and capabilities of their people. They don’t pretend to have all the answers. Rather, they create an environment that encourages their people to take on the primary responsibility for finding answers to the challenges they face.
- When people are free to execute what they see, rather than simply enact the instructions of the leader, they can change course in the moment to respond to ever changing, situation-specific needs.
- While behaviors drive results, behaviors themselves are informed and shaped by one’s’ mindset.
- If you only focus on behavior, you will most likely fail, instead however put focus into behavior and mindset.
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- Lead with mindset. Often times, people want to lead with behavior change which will fail.
- When people break free from self concern, the team members are able to consider options that had not occurred to them when their mindsets were inward. When people focus together on the collective result, their mindsets turned outward.What keeps people from an outward mindset is themselves. We get in our own way.
- See beyond yourself and think beyond narrow self-interest.
- We are so convinced that how we think and feel about other people is caused by them, by what they have or haven’t done, by how inconsiderate they have been to us or how judgemental, and so on.
- Pay close attention to the needs, objectives, and challenges of those you work with.
- Here is a short story about a father who thought he had an outward mindset, but really did not.
- Joe was tucking his daughters into bed one evening. After tucking in four-year-old Sarah, he turned to tuck in six-year-old Anna. Anne was in a fetal position, facing away from Joe and toward the wall. Joe leaned over her head to tuck in her covers. He finished and was about to turn and leave to go help his son Jacob with his homework when he heard Anna whisper something. He couldn’t tell what she said, but she had definitely whispered something.
“What was that, Anna?” Joe asked. He bent over to listen.
“You don’t love me like you love Jacob.” Anna said , her voice barely audible.
Joe was momentarily stunned by the comment. He instantly could tell that Anna was really hurting. “Sure I do,” he assured her.
“No you don’t,” she said insistently, Joe paused for a moment.
“Why do you say that?” he finally asked.
Anna still had not moved. “You don’t play with me like you play with Jacob.”
“Sure I do,” Joe defended himself. Every night after I get home from work, we all go out back and play basketball together.”
“I don’t like basketball,” Anna whispered.
That hit Joe hard and made him wonder what kind of father he was for not even knowing his daughter did not like basketball. Joe realized he was doing what he wanted to do with his kids. He was not paying attention to what they wanted to do. He was an outwardly nice, fun loving but inward mindset father.
- Inward – mindset people and organizations do things. Outward – mindset people and organizations help others be able to do things.
- S.A.M – engaging in these three steps is a practical approach to implementing and sustaining an outward mindset way of working.
- See the needs, objectives, and challenges of others
- Adjust your efforts to be more helpful to others
- Measure and hold yourself accountable for the impact of your work on others
- With an outward mindset, leaders position people to be fully responsible both to execute and to plan their work.
- Challenge yourself to not make assumptions about people’s abilities to do certain work without giving appropriate opportunities. It is easy to write someone off quickly. People often times will rise to the challenge you give them if you give them the opportunity.
- If you lead a group of people, ask yourself these two questions:
- What is it like to be an employee here?
- What is it like to be led by me?
- When leaders begin to not take themselves too seriously and begin collapsing the distinctions between themselves and others, they are positioned to begin scaling mindset change.