All right so now let's explore the skills that Tom Tierney story illustrates. Tom is fond of saying that you got to live your life first and build your resume second, that we are not our resumes. Our lives are a lot more than what we see on the sheet, that represent professionally and how important it is for all of us and especially emphasizes this in his talks to business school students such as some of my own classes here at Wharton where he has spoken, to see the whole person. One of the ways in which Tom is really such a powerful model I think of him as the Bono of business leadership and he's so good. He got that good because he really cares about growing and getting better. He's constantly asking himself, "how do I improve?" So through this disciplined creativity that you see the growth of a great leader. He, like all of the six people we are learning about here in our course illustrates virtually all 18 of the skills that you're now thinking about. But in each case we're just focusing on three for each one just for the sake of illustration. But you can see in his story, I expect, other skills than the three that we're going to examine here. But let's look at the first one. The be real skill of envision your legacy. Imagining the future and thinking ahead to where it is that you're going and the impact that you're having and why you're doing what you're doing. Tom stories is a wonderful example of that. He has a vision. He doesn't know always exactly what it's going to look like but he's got an idea a compelling image of an achievable future. In the example for instance of the Make A Difference company, where he is thinking about what he wants to leave and of course that then grew from bridge span into his work and in philanthropy. So it's a realistic picture of the future but it is a picture of a future that he is imagining, from the point of view of now. And every leader, every growing leader needs that. And you may not have that right now but there are ways of helping to become more articulate and aware of what your legacy might be, the legacy that you're pursuing. He left Bain to go further towards his legacy and get closer to his values. And this again is something that you can do more of if it's something that you're interested in. Let me tell you how. So for each of the skills, there's an exercise that I'm going to tell you about and in the book on which this course is based, there's more exercises but we'll just leave it to one here that I've selected and all of these exercises come from the literature in organizational psychology and behavioral economics. They're not things that I just like made up in the shower one day. This is evidence based exercises that you can do to cultivate each of these skills. So let's look at an exercise that I refer to as time travel as a way to enhance your skill at envisioning your legacy. So what you do is take 15 minutes and just set aside a quiet place, where you can breathe and relax and focus and leap ahead to the future in your imagination without judgment or reserve and just trying to be as open as you can, without inhibiting. Well I can't do this. They won't let me. I'm nervous about this. Just put those thoughts aside and imagine it's 15 years from now, from this very day. And what does that day look like, the day that you want. Describe that day. So you wake up and what happens? Who are you with? What do you do in the morning? In the afternoon? In the evening? Who you're interacting with and most importantly what's the impact you're having? What's the legacy that you're creating? What are other people saying about you? And about what you do. Try to imagine what those conversations sound like, and describe in detail what is happening. Not in general terms but in specific terms about who does what and what it looks like, what it feels like, what it smells like. Vivid detail of sensory experience helps to make it real in your mind. We're talking about creating a compelling image of an achievable future, visualizing like athletes do. And when you do that research shows that when you are able to visualize your ideal future, the likelihood of you're achieving it is greater. So try that and then write it down or sketch it out somehow or maybe speak about it into a video camera. And then see what you learn from doing that. And what you'll probably find is that you want to refine it, think further about it especially if you share it with other people and get feedback from them or maybe ask them to do the same. This is something I like to do with various groups that I work with including students and client groups. I'll ask them to do a one page just what I told you to do and then I'll ask them to share it. And it's so much fun to hear what people have to say about what is really a projection of how they feel today about what matters most in their lives. It's a reaching out into the future and a very useful window into what it is that you care about right now which is what we're getting at here. What do you care most about and how you articulate a future that helps you to direct your action in a smart way towards where you want to go. All right. The second skill that Tierney story illustrates from the whole principle is to weave the disparate strands the different roles that he plays. There is a real sense in Tierney's life of coherence, in how the different pieces fit together. So when he's away he's connected to his family when he's engaged in community initiatives and service, it's easy to see how that complements his work professionally and enriches his family life and gives him spiritual fulfillment. The roles fit together. Now they don't always and they didn't always like when behaviorally, physically he had to be away. But he pursues the idea of choosing work that is consistent with his core value of being of service of helping people doing social good as he started with the United Way when he was, you know early in his career. And when I was at a recent celebration for marking an anniversary of the publication of the book, Give Smart which is about philanthropy, I saw people from different parts of his life. His family was there, his friends were there, business colleagues were there, people from some of the organizations that these philanthropic organizations support were there. Political figures were there you could see the the meshing of different roles in a way that just made so much sense. Investing in the different parts helping them to cohere as one part is something that he also helped other people to do as in the story I told you about John Donahoe. He's very conscious of how important it is to help people feel a sense of fulfillment and harmony among the different parts. So here's something that you can do if this is a skill that you want to develop, to increase the degree to which you are able to weave the disparate strands of your life together and it's an exercise that I call hidden identities. And I think you'll enjoy this show so here's how it works. Choose a set of people maybe two or three from your work life, your home life and your community life. People that you can talk to, people that you trust, where it wouldn't be too awkward to ask them to describe you. And especially to describe what is most unique about you. What's most special about you. Psychologists call this the reflected best self exercise. Who you are reflected in the people around you. So just ask people to describe you and do that for a couple of people again in each of the different domains or parts of your life, and see what you discover. Are some people unaware of other aspects of your life that really matter to you? What does that tell you? It might lead you to share an aspect of who you are in your family life with professional colleagues in a way that builds trust, strengthens relationships and helps other people to see you in a fresh life that helps them to be closer to you. And this exercise it's going to yield ideas and information that's going to help you to think about how you can thread the different pieces together in a way that you hadn't before because you'll know better how you are seen, how you come across how people see you in the different parts of your life. Uncover those hidden identities. All right. Let's get to the third of the three skills that Tierney's story illustrates and that is the innovative skill of seeing new ways of doing things. Hanging out with Tom Tierney is so much fun because he's always coming up with ideas that are helpful to you, with you know creative, you know, here's something you should try. Here's something that might help you to grow your impact. He's just bubbling with ideas. He's just naturally gifted at doing that and is always looking for here's something to think about to make things better. He's willing to innovate, he's interested in generating ideas that are intended to improve things. And so he questions how is this working? Maybe I should try something new. He is a strong believer that pre-determined career tracks are silly they're bunk as he refers to them and that you're constantly inventing the path that you're on by thinking about what matters and then trying trying new ways to get closer to living according to what matters most to you. He is in essence a really good learner. He's a great student and a seeker of feedback as in the example that I told you earlier about Meg Whitman and his being a steamroller. And the idea of always looking for opportunities even at different volumes of investment; learning, earning and serving doesn't have to be in sequence. It can be all different stages throughout your life. So creatively thinking about new ways of doing things, some people are really good at this maybe you're not. Maybe you're really good at this and you want to get better so there's lots of things you can do. One thing that I have found to be useful is what researchers call an idea web. So here's how this works. Something you might want to try. Visual images we know, some people call them mind maps, help you to see new possibilities in a way that you might not have otherwise. So here's how you might try a mind map of your own that allows you to flesh out possibilities for new ways of thinking, new ways of acting that creates opportunities for your growth. So it's about a graphic representation of an idea that is holistic, non-linear is not a spreadsheet. It's the opposite of a spreadsheet or an action plan. It's about ideas and images. So whatever the idea or or goal is that you have in mind, draw a picture of it. Get a big sheet of paper and just draw a picture. Don't worry about how you're not a good artist and just represent it the best way you can and just put that right in the middle. Maybe you're meeting with a team of people that's creating a new product. And what does that look like. Just draw that picture and then make some branches like six branches from that picture and what are the other images or words now that help to elaborate on what that image says. So flesh that out, draw those images and then do another set of branches until you've got a whole bunch of images and words on a sheet of paper and look at that. And what do you discover? When you look at words and images that center around an important idea or goal that you've got, this encourages what researchers call whole brain thinking, you start to see possibilities for connection to move pieces around and your creativity starts to blossom. I encourage you to try that and like all the exercises that I'm teaching you about here I'm going to be asking you to post your stories about trying those on the discussion threads that are linked to our course. All right Tom Tierney is, you know when I asked people how would you describe Tom. The word that pops up very persistently is disciplined. This guy cares about getting better. He's serious about it but he also has fun and he's very humble. He a laughs at himself. He cares mostly about defining what success really means and that helps him to be clear about where he stands. He's a reflective person. He thinks about particularly his failures and then makes adjustments. His father taught him to be thinking about the person who has less than what he has. He told me a story about how he had gotten a rejection of some kind when he was in school. I think it was a bad grade and he didn't get a job or didn't, I think maybe it was when he didn't make it into Stanford and he is walking along the path and he hears this person behind him whistling. He turns around to see who is this person whistling and it's a person in a wheelchair. And as Tom recounted that story he said if he can whistle here's a guy who's got serious physical disability, well then I can whistle. So he tries to look at things even in dark moments from the point of view of you know inspiration, and you know appreciating the opportunity for growth and committing to making things better not just in his work but in all the different parts and that is what has made him successful in his work. Aiming to serve, aiming to use his talents to make things better for other people and from that has grown a remarkable life of service and impact. All right. Congratulations. We are done with the first module in our class. Next up in the next module we're going to be exploring and learning about the life of Sheryl Sandberg and Eric Greitens. See you then.
