Jolt!, Phil Cooke [reading women txt] 📗

of gifted artists and professionals who worked on the project. Some do the rough drawings, others outline the scenes, others fill in the color, still others handle the details—not to mention the sound effects, voices, and music. None of this information detracts from the genius of the great artists throughout history. But it does reinforce the critical importance of teams.

» TECHNOLOGY, POLITICS, BUSINESS, GLOBALIZATION, MEDIA, AND CULTURE HAVE GROWN SO COMPLEX AND MULTILAYERED, IT’S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR A SINGLE PERSON TO REACH THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF ACHIEVEMENT.

Does that take anything away from the importance of the individual? Absolutely not. Individuals are the fuel that makes progress possible. Individuals are the core of the enterprise. But joined together through relationships, anything is possible.

The power of relationships can open doors you could never open on your own. It can provide favor when money or resources aren’t enough, and it can help you find the answers you desperately need.

The key to unlocking openness at work is to teach people to give up having to be in agreement. We think agreement is so important. Who cares? You have to bring paradoxes, conflicts, and dilemmas out in the open, so collectively we can be more intelligent than we can be individually.

—PETER SENGE, M.I.T. PROFESSOR

Although most of this book is focused on increasing your individual sense of accomplishment, potential for success, and ability to change, we must also keep ourselves in perspective. We are relatively small cogs in a much bigger picture, and it will take cooperation, networking, and people skills to reach the next level in our lives.

» I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST SELF-ESTEEM, BUT I HAVE TO ADMIT, WE’VE COME THROUGH A PERIOD WHERE SELF-ESTEEM TEACHING BECAME EXCESSIVE.

People became obsessed with positive self-esteem, and it permeated business, education, and communities. It all began back in 1969, when psychologist Nathaniel Branden published a highly acclaimed paper called “The Psychology of Self-Esteem.” He argued that “feelings of self-esteem were the key to success in life,” and his idea soon became the hot new thing in education. At the apex of the craze, the California legislature even established a “Self-Esteem Task Force” for the state’s schools.

But the problem with teaching self-esteem? It doesn’t work.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal about the fifteen thousand studies the movement generated, Kay Hymowitz concluded:

And what do they show? That high self-esteem doesn’t improve grades, reduce anti-social behavior, deter alcohol drinking or do much of anything good for kids. In fact, telling kids how smart they are can be counterproductive. Many children who are convinced that they are little geniuses tend not to put much effort into their work. Others are troubled by the latent anxiety of adults who feel it necessary to praise them constantly.

The book NurtureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, may put the final nail in the coffin of the self-esteem movement. For instance, as Hymowitz pointed out, the book reveals that

drop-out programs [based on self-esteem] don’t work. Neither do anti-drug programs. The most popular of them, D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), developed in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department, has become a more familiar sight in American schools than algebra class. By 2000, 80% of American school districts were using D.A.R.E. materials in some form. Now, after extensive study, comes the news: The program has no long-term, and only mild short-term, effects. Oh, and those tests that school districts use to determine giftedness in young children? They’re just about useless.

When people focus excessively on themselves, it damages the potential of the greater project. My wife and I were leaders of our local high school choir parent boosters organization. The music program was national caliber, and the four choirs from the school traveled extensively, competing and performing nationwide. As a result, they needed an unusually high-level fund-raising program, and the parent boosters were the driving force behind it. Kathleen and I weren’t in leadership roles very long before we realized the biggest challenge we faced was from a small handful of parents who thought little about the overall program and only about themselves.

Every project we discussed, they viewed not through the lens of the choir but through the lens of their particular family. All they cared about was their son or daughter, and they had little concern for the overall program. As a result, I had to spend the vast majority of my time fixing the problems they caused, bandaging the hurts they inflicted on other families, and repairing the damage to the program. The great majority of the parents thought in terms of the choir and were a joy to work with, but when only a few parents became self-centered, it created problems that grew difficult to control.

CONNECTING WORKS

One of the least understood and most powerful concepts in life is the power of connecting and networking. When you discover the awesome influence of “we,” you’ll see doors open, walls falling, and obstacles disappearing. You can never accomplish as much individually as you can with connections.

Realize that there are two types of networking.

There is networking to develop your personal relationships, and there is networking to connect other people. Both interrelate, and both will benefit you in different ways. Truthfully, I’ve personally received more benefit from helping other people than I have from networking for myself directly.

It’s about relationship building.

Real networking is about building genuine friendships, not just building blocks to your career. Care about the people. You’ve heard the phrase, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” and it’s exactly right. Years ago, the vice president for a major corporation told me, “If you’re genuinely interested in a client’s family, he’ll be a client for life.” The key word is genuine. It’s all about authenticity. People aren’t stupid, and they can detect when you don’t really care.

Don’t focus on you.

Be genuinely interested in the project, the problem, or the person. Do it for the right reasons. The old model is most evident in the TV series The