🎧 Liz Wiseman on Standing Out at Work (Curious Minds)

In a conversation with Gayle Allen, Liz Wiseman talks about her new book Impact Players. According to Wiseman, impact players look to how they can make a difference, rather than just play a roll. Most people aspire to make a difference and have a contribution. She shares five characteristics of an impact player:

• Useful – what’s important now
• Step up and step back – leading without it being a land grab
• Finish strong
• Ask and adjust
• Make work light – removing the phantom work

Allen and Wiseman discuss the questions to consider when trying to hire an impact player:

• How do they handle messy problems?
• Leadership problems?
• Roadblocks?
• Moving targets?

Wiseman explains that the book does not serve as a recipe, but rather the start of a conversation. WHat matters most is creating the right conditions.

The best leaders … create both safety and stretch.

Wiseman also discusses the current challenges of remote work. She touches on the breakdown of chains of impact, explaining that when we are apart we often fall into a habit of going from task to task.

We burnout not from too much work, but too little impact.

This all reminds me of something that David Truss recently wrote about improvising:

The world is your stage. The play is your playground. Improvise your roles as best as you can. And remember that others are improvising theirs roles too. Work with your fellow actors to create the best performance you can. But remember it’s all an act, and if you aren’t playing a role that works, change the role or change the way you act in it. All the world is an improv stage, and so you get to write the script as you go. Enjoy the performance, you only get one.