How We’re Reshaping our Companies Narrative Heading into this Recession

How I Course Correct Every Quarter

The reflection and planning process I do every quarter to course correct

End the end of every quarter, I take a step back to reflect on my life.

In aviation, there's something called the 1 in 60 rule, which states that if a pilot has traveled sixty miles at approximately a 1° off-heading, they'll end up 1 mile off track.

I see this happen in my life all the time.

Minor deviations off-course over long periods cause me to end up miles away from where I want to go.

So I need to course correct as I go.

My quarterly check-ins are my compass. They help me recognise where I'm off-track and how I'll get back on track - sometimes, they even lead me to new destinations.

I've been doing them for years, and they've made a substantial difference in my life.

This is what I do.

I split my life into 3 buckets.

Health, Happiness & Wealth

Then I look back on the quarter and ask myself a mix of these questions for each bucket.

• What was my biggest surprise?

• What was my biggest lesson?

• What would I do if I could do anything without the chance of failure and constraints of time and money?

• What's the one thing I could do that, by doing it, will make everything else easier or unnecessary?

• What's the one thing I did right? Can I double down on that?

• Did I move towards resistance / Did I do anything that scared me?

• What am I doing right now that doesn't make me feel "F**k Yes"?

• What's the least valuable thing I'm doing right now?

• What can I eliminate, delegate or automate?

• How can I 10x this area of my life 12 weeks from now?

Sometimes these questions are duds, and nothing interesting falls out; sometimes, they make me requestion everything in my life.

After this, I choose 1 - 3 outcomes I want to achieve for each bucket over the next quarter to get me back on track.

I recommend reading Taylor Pearson's quarterly review process here if you want to dig deeper.

Notes: Taking a step back to reflect and refocus your life every so often will help you stay on track.

Using Narratives To Influence Team Behavior

A framework I use that helps me make decisions faster.

People relate to stories better than numbers.

So this week, we're putting together a presentation to explain to our team what's happening in the economy and why it is an opportunity.

We want to be transparent about the challenges we're facing, like the $200k in bad debts we've racked up. But we don't want our team to take a 'that's just the way things are' attitude to these challenges.

There are circumstances outside our control, but many within our control.

So we want to be honest and show a proper lay of the land but then build a narrative that shows how we can control our destiny.

If we do it right, we can come out the other side of this thing better than we went in and establish ourselves as a market leader over the next few years.

A few quotes from Morgan Housel, author of Psychology of Money, come to mind here.

"The more you want something to be true, the more likely you are to believe a story that overestimates the odds of it being true."

So the more we buy into the negative stuff, the more we'll act like it's inevitable.

"Everyone has an incomplete view of the world. But we form a complete narrative to fill in the gaps."

So we can shape our team's narrative to focus on the opportunities we can capture here.

Notes: People respond better to stories than facts, so create a narrative that pulls facts into the vision you're trying to build.

• I’ve been lazy and not learned much this week. Sorry folks.

Accountability Or Skin In The Game

How we can motivate ourselves and others by putting skin in the game

People have two brains, one when there is skin in the game, one when there is none. - Nassim Taleb

Being accountable means you pay the price for messing up.

Last week I made a mistake in the newsletter and disrespected some of our reader's culture. We lost readers, we lost credibility, and we lost respect.

We paid the price.

As Nassim suggests, we behave very differently when we have something to lose.

People want to know how to get motivated to do something. Or how to incentivise their team to perform. But perhaps they're looking at the problem the wrong way around.

We respond to losses far more than we respond to rewards. So while dangling a carrot is a good start. Having something to lose is a more powerful motivator.

And you can only lose when you have skin in the game.

Notes: Something to lose is a stronger motivator than something to win.​