How to Claim Your Leadership Power | Michael Timms | TED

557,158 views ・ 2024-07-23

TED


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00:03
Are there any other parents here
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who have struggled to get your kids out the door on time?
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(Laughter)
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So, you know, right?
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It's like herding kittens.
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(Laughter)
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My wife and I would start nagging our three daughters
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long before it was time to leave,
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but that obviously wasn't working
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because we were always late for everything.
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But one day was a complete Gong Show.
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Five minutes before we needed to leave for an important event,
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I found my oldest daughter on the porch reading,
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my middle daughter was playing the piano,
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and my youngest daughter wasn't wearing any socks.
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So I told them, "Stop reading, stop playing the piano,
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put on your socks, and everybody get in the car."
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Five minutes later, nobody was in the car.
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(Laughter)
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On my way to help my youngest daughter with her socks,
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I noticed my oldest daughter was still on the porch reading.
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Now I'm starting to lose it.
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Her response?
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"I didn't hear you."
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But before I could say a word, I heard the piano start playing again.
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(Laughter)
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And that's the story of how I lost my mind.
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The end.
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(Laughter)
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I just wanted my daughters to take a little ownership
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for getting out the door on time.
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But then I remembered something I teach management teams.
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You can't inspire accountability in others
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until you model it yourself.
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That's when I realized I wasn't taking any accountability for this problem,
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I was blaming it totally on my daughters.
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So I tried a different approach and looked in the mirror.
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What was I doing, or not doing,
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that may be contributing to this problem?
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Then it hit me.
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I knew when they needed to be done breakfast, dressed,
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groomed and ready to leave.
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But did they?
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I also knew what time it was,
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but there were no clocks in their bathrooms,
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which I discovered is like a different dimension from my girls
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where time ceases to exist.
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(Laughter)
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Solution.
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I put big clocks everywhere
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and posted the schedule in a common area.
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And you know what?
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It actually worked.
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Now we're not perfect at getting out the door in time,
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but it's much better than it was.
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I had fallen into the same trap
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that many people in leadership positions fall into,
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which is blaming other people for a problem
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without considering my part in it.
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While working with leadership teams,
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I discovered three powerful habits that elevate the performance of others.
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I call it the three habits of personal accountability.
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Habit one: Don't blame.
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03:00
Habit two: Look in the mirror.
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Habit three: Engineer the solution.
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This sequence of habits has an almost magical effect on other people's behavior.
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And you get better results.
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03:17
But this isn't just for CEOs and managers.
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We're all trying to help others be better, right?
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As a parent, a coworker or a volunteer.
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Here's why these habits work.
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Habit one: Don't blame.
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Think about the last time you blamed someone for something.
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How did it turn out?
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Probably not well.
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That's because our brains interpret blame
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the same way they interpret a physical attack.
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Blame triggers the fight-or-flight response,
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which effectively shuts down our prefrontal cortex,
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which is the problem-solving part of our brain.
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So when I was getting angry at my daughters,
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it wasn't motivating them.
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It was actually impairing their brain function.
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Researcher Dr. Amy Edmondson studied hospital teams
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to see how culture affects people's willingness
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to report medical errors.
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She expected that the high-performing teams would make fewer mistakes,
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but to her surprise,
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they reported more errors.
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Why?
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Because when people aren't blamed for problems,
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they're more willing to admit their mistakes and learn from them.
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But in cultures of blame, people hide problems
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or point their finger at someone else.
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No one is going to take accountability
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if they think they're going to be blamed for doing so.
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Blame destroys teamwork,
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problem solving,
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learning and initiative.
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05:00
In other words, blame kills accountability.
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So what should we do instead?
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Habit two: Look in the mirror.
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05:13
Most of us are really good at noticing other people's mistakes,
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but we're not so good at noticing how we contribute to problems.
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One time, my assistant helped me mail out hundreds of expensive marketing packages
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to prospective clients.
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Three weeks later, no responses.
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So I checked one of the cover letters.
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It read, "Dear Mr. Smith,
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[insert company name here.]"
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(Laughter)
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She missed one of the variable fields in every letter.
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Thousands of dollars down the drain.
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Now, she felt awful and said, "This is totally my fault."
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I was thinking, "You are darn right this is totally your fault."
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06:01
(Laughter)
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But then I looked in the mirror
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and I realized I didn't highlight any of the variable fields in yellow
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like they are in all our other templates.
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If I had, she couldn't have missed it.
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Now I'm not saying that every problem is my fault.
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But if I look closely enough at my problems,
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I can usually discover how my actions or inactions
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contributed to them in some way.
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This is a profound insight
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because if I can see my part in a problem,
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I can do something about it.
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The next time you encounter a problem, try this.
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Ask yourself: How may I have contributed to this problem?
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I taught these principles to a construction company,
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and followed up a few weeks later to see how things had changed.
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A project manager told me the following story.
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"Our general manager is a total blamer,
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and team meetings usually turn into blame sessions.
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But the week after you taught us these principles,
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that meeting went very differently.
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When our general manager identified a problem,
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he was about to lay into the person who he thought was responsible.
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But then he stopped,
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put his head in his hand for a moment,
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then looked up and said,
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'This is how I think I contributed to the problem.'
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The mood in that meeting changed instantly.
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And then I saw something I have never seen before.
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Other people began raising their hand saying,
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'No, boss, it wasn't just your fault.
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This is how I think I contributed to the problem.'"
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When leaders acknowledge their part in problems first
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it makes it safe for everybody else to do the same.
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And if nobody else follows suit,
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then you've earned the moral authority to ask,
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"And how may you have contributed to this problem?"
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Before others will allow us to hold them accountable,
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they must first see us hold ourselves accountable.
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Now what if the cause of your problem isn't what you think it is?
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Habit three: Engineer the solution.
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When bad things happen,
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our brains are hardwired
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to blame the person closest to the mess and ignore other causes.
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Fortunately, there's a fix.
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It's called "systems thinking,"
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which is noticing how environment and processes influence behavior.
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Systems thinking emerged toward the end of World War II,
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when the US Air Force noticed
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that a lot of their planes were crashing without any mechanical problems.
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Their conclusion?
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"Our pilots are idiots."
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(Laughter)
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So they engaged some consultants
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to help them select less error-prone pilots.
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When the consultants investigated,
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they discovered they didn't have a pilot problem.
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They had a cockpit problem.
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For instance, pilots confused gear handles that looked and felt the same
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if they were located right beside each other.
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Or they mixed up controls
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if they were in a different position, in a different model of plane.
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Design better cockpits, the consultants concluded,
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and you'll have fewer crashes.
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So the US Air Force engineered the solution
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by simplifying cockpit design.
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Similarly, when I stopped blaming my daughters,
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I noticed the environmental factors that were influencing their behavior.
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I engineered the solution by putting up clocks and a schedule
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so they had the information they needed to take the initiative.
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Instead of asking, "Whose fault is this?"
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Ask: "Where did the process break down?"
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This question is your secret weapon to short-circuit the blame game
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and find sustainable solutions to your problems.
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Remember,
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you can't inspire accountability in others
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until you model it yourself.
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The next time you encounter a problem,
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test this sequence of habits and watch it change your outcomes.
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Don't blame.
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Look in the mirror. And engineer the solution.
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Be the change
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that you want to see in others.
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Our world is in desperate need of more people
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who take ownership of problems and solutions.
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In our workplaces,
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our homes and in our society.
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And the secret is,
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as you model these behaviors,
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so will those around you.
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It's kind of magic.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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