Clippings

Building Credibility

Q. What was the lesson for you?

A. Every time you take on a new role, building credibility is incredibly important. I don’t think you do it by being smarter than everybody else or knowing more necessarily than everybody else. I think you do it by rolling up your sleeves, by showing commitment, by proving that you’re willing to learn, by asking for help.

All those things earn you credibility, especially if the people who work for you feel like you’re not going to sit back and take credit for what they do, and if they get a sense that you’re going to support them, help them grow.

via nytimes.com

Dawn Lepore's interview in today's New York Times contains this gem. I wish I worked for more people who believe this; I hope I show commitment to the people I work with.

Emerson/Senge

At Twitter, Michelle James points the way to Emerson

RT @swichman: "Real action is in silent moments." ~ Ralph Waldo EmersonTue Jul 06 02:27:30 via webMichelle James
CreatvEmergence

I especially like this because it puts me in mind of my favorite passage from Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline

At one of our recent Leadership and Mastery programs, I talked to a manager who was born and raised in India, and who has worked in both United States and Japanese firms. She said that when a person in a Japanese firm sits quietly, no one will come and interrupt. It is assumed the person is thinking. On the other hand, when the person is up and moving about, coworkers feel free to interrupt.
 
"Isn't it interesting," she said, "that it is exactly the opposite in American firms? In America, we assume that when a person is sitting quietly he isn't doing anything very important."
Senge draws the point out: "How can we expect people to learn when they have little time to think and reflect, individuallly and collaboratively?"