Do You Have Helpful Cassandras in Your Life?

I want you to think about some­thing that the late Andy Grove (for­mer CEO of Intel) referred to as ​“Help­ful Cas­san­dras”. These are peo­ple who are real­ly crit­i­cal and like­ly to, in a pos­i­tive way, let you know pos­si­ble faults in your ideas and think­ing. They are the hon­est voice in the room telling you your idea is actu­al­ly flawed when every­one else may be telling you it’s brilliant.

As lead­ers rise up in orga­ni­za­tions and get more pow­er, more clout and more suc­cess, it’s hard­er to find peo­ple who dis­agree with you. Andy Grove found that, in com­mit­tee or project meet­ings, every­one would agree — and that can be real­ly dangerous.

So, who do you have in your life who is crit­i­cal of your ideas? Tells you that you have spinach in your teeth? Helps you to find the flaws in what you’re doing so it improves your think­ing? Not peo­ple who break you down but peo­ple who chal­lenge your think­ing, debate with you and find ways to shape your ideas to make them bet­ter and bet­ter. These peo­ple are critical.

Of course, once you final­ly get to a deci­sion point, they need to agree with you, sup­port the deci­sion and move ahead. They can’t con­tin­ue to crit­i­cize or debate because that would be counterproductive.

The Chal­lenge

Think about all the meet­ings you are in, the teams you are on, the projects you are part of…

• Do you have some­one who’s real­ly there, in a pos­i­tive way, find­ing the neg­a­tives, the weak­ness­es or the gaps so you make bet­ter deci­sions and have bet­ter thinking?

If you want to hear more about this, lis­ten to this episode of The Growth Whis­per­ers pod­cast as we dig deep­er into this top­ic, and look at the things that are required to cre­ate bet­ter col­lec­tive intel­li­gence with your team.

About Kevin:

CEOs typ­i­cal­ly place their first call to Coach Kevin with a cri­sis to solve. They stay because of his busi­ness acu­men and no-holds-barred, tell-it-like-it-is style.

Kevin’s career spans 20 years, over a dozen coun­tries and four con­ti­nents. He’s worked with hun­dreds of CEOs and exec­u­tives, help­ing them to break through busi­ness chal­lenges, grow their com­pa­nies and find per­son­al suc­cess along the way.

These expe­ri­ences inspired Kevin’s book, Your Oxy­gen Mask First, in which he reveals the 17 habits every leader must know to tran­scend the per­ils of suc­cess, and achieve even more.

About Lawrence & Co:

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

We help high-achiev­ing lead­ers to have it all – a great busi­ness and a reward­ing life. Con­tact us for sim­ple and impact­ful advice. No BS. No fluff.