“If you want to escape from prison, what is the first thing you need to know?”
One student said you need to find the key. One said to get a great attorney (like OJ). One said to convince someone to let them out.
The teacher rolled their eyes, smiled and said no each time. Then the teacher responded after everyone said something.
“The first you need to know if you want to escape from prison is that you are in prison.”
Self-awareness, understanding and acceptance are on where you are at and why is essential BEFORE you can take highly effective massive action.
Otherwise you solve for the leaf on the tree and not the root cause. It’s one of the biggest mistakes leaders and managers make.
It’s the first step I share with human resource professionals and other managers on how to build great teams and teamwork.
Understanding your team can be doing better, why that is and what role you have played in it…is step one.
It’s not problem solving because it will happen again otherwise.
History repeats itself until you learn the entire lesson.
