Author: Chris Clearfield

Frustrated? 

 

You’re probably headed in the right direction. 

 

What if I told you that frustration is actually a crucial part of the process of growth? 

 

That by embracing the challenges and setbacks, you can accelerate your learning and development in ways you never thought possible?

 

If you can wrap your mind around this concept, you’ll improve much faster in your work as a leader, bring a little kindness to your own experience, and—because you’re growing faster—you’ll have a greater impact and get promoted faster. 

 

It may sound counterintuitive, but the research supports this idea.

 

Studies in psychology and neuroscience have shown that when we encounter difficulties or failures, our brains are forced to create new neural connections in order to find a solution. This process of adaptation is what ultimately leads to growth and improvement.

 

I’ve recently started practicing aikido, and as I learn a new technique, I often feel like I’m getting worse. That’s because, as my Sensei puts it, my awareness is growing faster than my skill. 

 

And it isn’t limited to just aikido. This the gap between awareness and skill arises in all the areas of my life where I’m growing: As a business owner. As a coach. As a parent. 

 

Sometimes that gap can be really frustrating. 

 

But that frustration is part of the process. This is important to acknowledge, because otherwise it’s easy for me to get stuck. 

 

At least it used to be. 

 

In 2016, I read Carol Dwek’s fascinating book, Mindset, and it changed the way I look at things. 

 

From Mindset I learned the difference between having a fixed and a growth mindset. 

 

The fixed mindset is an aspect of the judging mind that evaluates my outcomes and often (if you’re a self-critical high achiever like me) determines that I’ve fallen short of my goals.

 

The growth mindset is a belief that life unfolds as a process. And, in the realm of growth, frustration happens because, by definition, I’m trying new things. 

 

Rather than get tripped up by frustration, I can acknowledge it and work past it from a paradigm of growth.

 

This is important because knowing this can help me stay the course, especially as I encounter new and fresh challenges. 

 

But here’s the catch: not all forms of frustration are helpful. If the frustration is overwhelming and leads to feelings of hopelessness or helplessness, it can actually hinder growth and even lead to burnout. In these cases, seeking support and guidance from others can be crucial.

 

So how can we embrace the kind of frustration that leads to growth, while avoiding the kind that holds us back? Here are a few tips:

 

1. Embrace a growth mindset. As I mentioned earlier, a growth mindset is a belief that life unfolds as a process. Rather than getting tripped up by frustration or setbacks, we can acknowledge them as a natural part of the learning process and work past them.
2. Seek out challenges. If you’re always sticking to what you know and avoiding anything that feels difficult or uncomfortable, you’re not going to grow much. Seek out challenges that push you outside your comfort zone and force you to adapt and learn.
3. Get support when you need it. If the frustration is overwhelming or you’re struggling to find a way forward, don’t be afraid to seek support from others. This might mean working with a coach, finding a mentor, or just talking things through with a trusted friend or colleague.
4. Watch my video, Why Frustration is a Part of Growth, and remember that frustration is often a sign that you’re on the right path.

 

 

So, the next time you’re feeling frustrated by the challenges in your life, remember that this is a sign that you’re on the right path. By embracing the frustration as a natural part of the learning process, you can accelerate your growth and development in ways you never thought possible.

 

If you’re someone who needs support to tackle the challenges that are most important to you, reach out. Go to clearfieldgroup.com and click the link to book a call. You don’t have to do this alone.

This week, Elon Musk’s Twitter engineers found themselves without access to Slack, the chat and messaging platform they used for team communication and coordination. Musk apparently made the unilateral decision to eliminate Slack without discussing it with his team, and without securing a replacement communication platform. According to a report from an anonymous employee, the loss of Slack means the loss of years of documentation and message data, and only adds to the current chaos within the company.

 

Sadly, in all likelihood, no one will tell Musk how badly this has affected his company and his employees.

 

As an entrepreneur and innovator, Musk pushed the boundaries of what was possible in the space and auto industries, but his management decisions at Twitter continue to surface concerns about his leadership and decision-making style. His tendency to surround himself with “yes-men” and to ignore dissenting opinions is a dangerous leadership style. It creates a culture where problems are hidden, and people are afraid to speak up. As we’ve seen in a number of recent crises, this kind of culture can lead to catastrophic failures. It’s essential for leaders to encourage diversity of thought, listen to dissenting opinions, and create a culture where people feel comfortable raising concerns.

 

In November of 2022, the billionaire CEO fired many Twitter employees who were criticizing him on Twitter and in their Slack backchannels. And things have only gotten worse. This February, when his Tweet about the Superbowl failed to garner enough attention, Musk held a meeting with the Twitter team to try to figure out why more people weren’t reading his tweets. When one of his principal engineers spoke up and suggested that Musk’s dip in popularity was more likely to be due to the public being sick of his antics than it was to be a problem with the algorithm, they were fired on the spot. 

 

In short, Musk isn’t leading with curiosity. Curious leaders know that when they tap into the wealth of knowledge and expertise embodied in their team members, it leads to better outcomes for the organization. This kind of open communication also fosters a culture of transparency, which helps to build trust and improve engagement and motivation.

 

It’s important to note that for leaders, creating psychological safety is one of the most important jobs, especially in complex, fast-moving organizations. Psychological safety is the belief that one can speak up without fear of negative consequences. In a culture where psychological safety is present, team members feel empowered to share their perspectives and bring up concerns, which can help leaders make better decisions. 

 

However, in a culture where psychological safety is lacking, individuals are hesitant to voice dissenting opinions. This leads to a lack of diverse perspectives, and could create disastrous consequences. Leaders like Musk should strive to create an environment where all team members feel heard, valued, and are encouraged to speak up. This can lead to better decision-making and a more successful outcome for the organization as a whole.

 

The importance of psychological safety extends beyond the realm of decision-making. It plays a crucial role in learning and innovation. When individuals feel psychologically safe in their environment, they are more likely to take risks, share their ideas, and experiment with new approaches. This type of atmosphere enables individuals to innovate, and to learn from their mistakes without fear of repercussions. In this sense, psychological safety can be seen as a prerequisite for organizational learning and ingenuity. By cultivating an environment of psychological safety, leaders can foster a culture of continuous improvement and help their organizations stay ahead of the curve.

 

Musk’s tendency to ignore expert advice is a common feature of many high-profile crises. In recent years, he’s made claims about the safety of autonomous vehicles that have been contradicted by his own engineers and scientists. This type of behavior is especially dangerous when it comes to safety-critical systems. Leaders need to be humble, to recognize the limitations of their own expertise, and to rely on the collective intelligence of their teams to make decisions. 

 

Musk has created a culture of uncertainty and confusion, not only by firing people for making dissenting comments in their Slack channel, but by eliminating a fundamental technology Twitter engineers used to communicate. No one can know for sure how this will end, but historically, leaders who fail to heed the council of their advisors find out the hard way that pushback has value.

 

What about you? How would you reflect on your own leadership style? When you request feedback, are you asking for it in a way that requires people to be brave as they speak truth to power? How much psychological safety have you created in your organization and how do you know?

 

If these questions resonate with you and you would like to learn more about leading with curiosity, check out my video, “Don’t Ask Your People To Be Brave.” 

 

Do you dread difficult conversations? 

 

Confronting issues with colleagues, employees, partners, or family members can be a significant source of anxiety and stress for many of us.

 

Maybe you try to avoid these conversations by assigning them to someone else to handle.  Maybe you procrastinate until the last possible moment to schedule them, secretly hoping that the problems will magically resolve themselves. 

 

If you find yourself spinning your wheels imagining the worst-case scenario outcomes to these conversations, you’re not the only one.

 

The culprit of our confrontation dread is often rooted in our fears about how our words will impact others.

 

Will they be furious?  Will they blame us?   

 

How do we move past the fear of our own impact? It starts with a pretty simple shift.

 

If you’re curious about how you can make peace with difficult conversations, I invite you to watch my new video: 

I hope it will help you turn hard conversations into opportunities for learning and growth.

 

In many ways, this work starts with yourself. Listening can trigger a lot of anxiety. If that sounds like you, take a look at my post on working with anxiety, linked here.

 

As leaders, we all know the value of honest feedback. Chances are, you do your best to encourage it in your workplace. What CEO doesn’t claim to have an “open door policy” when it comes to suggestions from their team?

 

But when you request feedback, are you asking for it in a way that requires people to be brave as they speak truth to power? Do your folks feel safe sharing what they are really concerned about? How can you be sure they aren’t holding back for fear of retribution?

 

My new video, “Don’t Ask Your People to be Brave” explores a few methods you can use to create a culture where sharing concerns and suggesting changes feels more like a fun and creative exercise and less like testifying in a courtroom. Give it a watch if you want to learn how to get honest feedback from your team and make the most of the great minds you have surrounded yourself with.

 

Do you know someone else who would find this advice useful?

 

Share this video with them!

Imagine: Your big meeting with the CEO and senior stakeholders is finally here. They want updates on a big project, and there’s a lot to cover. You’ve got everything well-documented and are ready to do a deep-dive of everything you’ve learned, but you only have an hour to cover it all! 

 

How do you boil down the details of a project you’ve worked on for months into a presentation for senior members who only think about the issue once a year?

 

How do you make the greatest impact without overwhelming leaders with details that may not actually matter to them?

 

After all, you’ve spent months in the nitty gritty of this work, but this project may be just one of many tasks competing for your senior leaders’ brain space. 

 

How do you keep yourself from wasting valuable time on irrelevant details?

 

I have a strategy that will help you be more effective in the meetings that matter.

 

In this video I will show you how to craft “headlines” to help you direct the conversation and keep it focused on issues that interest the senior folks the most. With this simple strategy you can make a greater impact and be more grounded and relaxed in your meetings while knowing you are addressing exactly what your bosses care about. 

 

 

Watch the video and let me know how you can use the Headlines strategy in your next presentation with a senior stakeholder.

 

Do you subscribe to my newsletter, The Breakdown™? Join today for more tools and insights just like this.

The first thing that I noticed was my lack of anxiety. 

 

Late on a summer Sunday afternoon, I emerged from the converted barn on a thirteen-acre ranch in the rolling hills of Northern California. I had just completed a four-day coaching training, and now it was time to head to the airport. 

 

The ranch wasn’t an “Uber-friendly” location, so my assistant Kristen booked a car to Oakland so I could catch my flight home. 

 

I grabbed my bags and looked around the gravel parking lot. 

 

Hmm… no car. 

 

If the car didn’t arrive in under five minutes, I would miss my flight.

 

When I’m late for a flight, I feel like there’s a conspiracy of forces arrayed against me. 

• Traffic
• Errors on airline check-in websites (“Oops! There’s a problem and you’ll have to see an agent when you get to the airport.”) 
• Slow-moving people in security lines (You’re just now realizing that you need to take your laptop out of your bag! Seriously?!)

 

Growing up, the message I got was that the universe was a hostile place. If you didn’t work to defend yourself, you’d be overwhelmed and overtaken. We are an island battered by a sea of cosmic forces.

So I learned to build a fortress and only let in things that I could control. 

 

In the last few years, I’ve let the walls come down. I’ve worked to consciously flip the view that the universe is hostile. 

 

It’s not my enemy, it’s my teacher. 

 

So on that Sunday afternoon, instead of fighting the universe, I got curious: 

 

Dear universe, what are you trying to teach me now?

Here’s what my clients see when they shift from control to curiosity:

 

Curious leaders solve their problems faster. When you let go of the belief that you need to know the answer, you unleash your creativity (and the creativity of those around you). 

 

When you build allies and deepen relationships, you no longer have to push solutions out. Instead, you get to co-create them. 

 

Curious leaders are less stressed and overwhelmed. When you shift from control to curiosity, your experience at work becomes… well, more fun. It’s still high-stakes — you’re still solving big, important problems. But setbacks become an expected part of the journey and you accept them as part of your experience.

Curious leaders become more influential and more visible in their organizations. You’ll get noticed and promoted. 

 

One team that I’m working with is creating hundreds of millions of dollars of savings across their company just by asking better questions. Talk about getting noticed! Even better, their success lets them continue to shape their work in ways that are increasing their impact.

 

I’ve seen leaders from law to engineering, software, healthcare, and media cultivate their curiosity — and reap tremendous benefits. The industry and the challenges don’t matter.

 

For many of you, your default response is like mine: When you meet uncertainty, you come up with solutions and try to control outcomes. Even as you drown in emails and jump from back-to-back video calls, you get stuck in the fight to be right. As a result, you’re too busy but not impactful enough. 

 

The truth is that we’re all doing the best with the tools we have. 

 

Your reactions are smart! They have, after all, brought you successfully to this exact moment. 

 

But control and striving don’t work anymore because things are getting worse. 

 

Leadership is lonely — and the hybrid, post-pandemic world makes this worse. Leaders carry daunting burdens. 

 

• How do you lead people in a function you’re not an expert in? 
• How do you shape and shift the culture of your teams? 
• How can you make progress on problems that are bigger than the areas you control? 

 

And the pace of change is only getting faster.

 

So what can you do?

Start with curiosity. Curiosity helps us understand others. And nothing builds trust faster than seeing people for their strengths. 

Curiosity also helps us bring awareness to our own reactions and lets us shift those. 

 

As psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl wrote, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

 

How do we find that space? What would it be like to meet your challenges with openness and curiosity?

 

Remember my lack of anxiety in California? 

 

When the car didn’t show up, I knew that I would miss my flight. My normal response would have been to be frantic and stressed out. Instead, I stepped into that space and it changed everything. 

 

I surrendered to the moment. I laughed! 

 

Then, I rescheduled my flight, caught a ride with one of my fellow coaches, and ended up spontaneously meeting with one of my best friends in the world that night. 

 

You can step into this space, too. 

 

How do I know? Because it’s a shift that I’m living (and one that I’ve guided hundreds of others through as well).

 

It starts with realizing that leadership (and life!) is not about certainty. 

 

It’s about curiosity. 

 

In 2022, I started an experiment. Could I guide a group of leaders — all from different organizations — on the same kind of journey that I offer in my consulting and one-on-one coaching? 

 

The experiment was a resounding success. We brought leaders from a diverse set of industries together (over Zoom, natch!) once a month to learn together and support each other in tackling their thorniest challenges. 

 

Over our year together, we explored each leader’s strengths and challenges (“When are you at your best? How do our strengths, overused, become liabilities?”)

 

We introduced knowledge and frameworks around curious questions, trust, and working with resistance. 

 

We practiced and learned together. 

 

Last year, I only opened this work up to a small group of clients. This year, I’m committed to offering this program to my whole community. 

Change isn’t easy. The work is yours to do.

 

But if you’re interested, you will find everything you need to fundamentally change the way you lead in this program:

• Skilled guides.
• Deep and practical knowledge on how to build trust, get the best from people, and influence others.
• A safe and confidential space to practice with a community of fellow leaders.

 

Join me and learn to lead without stress and overwhelm. Let go of the way things “should” be and get curious about how they actually are. Learn how to build trust and create deeper relationships with a group of peers. 

 

We’ll share more about the structure of the program on December 8th, but it includes: 

• Nine hour-long group coaching sessions in 2023. 
• Practical and rigorous leadership frameworks.
• Short videos and readings between sessions.
• Learning pairs to provide ongoing support.
• Intake and wrap sessions

 

The first step is to sign up for my free Lead Curious Open House. 

 

At the Open House, we’ll give you a taste of what this work is like so you can decide if you want to join Lead Curious in 2023. 

 

In just sixty minutes, you’ll get a chance to discuss a live work challenge with a peer and learn something about yourself. 

 

Join us on December 8th from 9:00 am – 10:00 am Pacific (12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Eastern). My colleague Renya Larson and I will be running an interactive workshop with Q&A to follow.

 

P.S. I’m only planning on launching this program once per year, so if you’re interested, don’t miss this! Reserve your free spot today!

 

I almost never teach leaders how to come up with solutions. 

 

That’s because the leaders I work with are all quite skilled at coming up with solutions on their own. They’re technical experts — left-brained people with careers in disciplines like engineering, law, or software. They’re used to putting forward ideas, arguing for them on their technical merits, and then seeing them put into practice. 

 

This is a great approach for a certain kind of problem. The challenge is that, at some point, leaders start working on complex, socio-technical problems, such as changing the way groups collaborate or empowering front-line employees to make judgment calls about what’s most important in their work. These are problems where there isn’t a right answer. 

 

Answers aren’t real! 

 

They’re passé. 

 

They sit in email attachments, spreadsheets, or memos that make a case but don’t necessarily promote the changes needed to solve complex problems. 

 

Answers only become real when people act on them. That action is what creates possibility, and you don’t get possibility without bringing people along on your journey. 

 

For many senior leaders, it can be daunting to work on complex problems. Throughout their career, they have spent much of their time coming up with answers (and being rewarded and promoted for doing so). 

 

Traditional views of leadership posit that leaders know the answer, and their job is to tell subordinates what to do. That approach works in contexts where we’re trying to refine existing practices or exploit existing capabilities, but our most important and high-stakes problems require a fundamentally different stance than simple ones. Instead of coming up with the answer, leaders need to make space for creative disagreement, experimentation, learning, and thinking. 

 

Curiosity helps us explore ideas with others. It helps us understand their perspectives (especially when those perspectives differ from ours). And it helps us enter a relationship of mutuality and co-creation, one where we are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with others, influencing and being influenced, in pursuit of a greater collective objective.

 

A lot of my work revolves around curiosity: how I can use it myself and how I can support my clients to reach for their Swiss Army knife of questions when it might be useful. 

 

If you’re used to whacking problems with your solutions hammer, you might be skeptical. At best, the solutions hammer gets you compliance. Curiosity, on the other hand, gets you co-creation. 

 

Curiosity is simple — but it’s not easy. Even the most effective executives I work with — whether through one-on-one coaching, consulting, or my group coaching program, Lead Curious — make practicing curiosity a priority for themselves and their teams. 

 

That’s because they see practice and experimentation as central to solving their organization’s most important problems. 

 

Are you curious about what curiosity practice looks like? 

 

Join me for my free Lead Curious Open House. 

 

It’s on December 8th from 9:00-10:00 AM Pacific Time (12:00-1:00 PM Eastern US Time). 

 

You’ll get specific tools, practice with a group of peers, and tangible takeaways to help you make curiosity central to your approach to leadership.

 

Spots are limited (and I typically only run these events once a year) so reserve your spot today!