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The Culture+ Blog

Insights to help you create a compelling and connected culture

The intersection of your feelings and the data

When you are flight training, one of the training exercises is recovering from unusual attitudes. This means getting the airplane back to wings level from a spiraling descent, or a turning power off ascent, or some other combination of unusual circumstances the airplane may someday find itself in (usually because of pilot error). The issue is that sometimes your body believes the airplane is doing one thing, but the instruments are saying the airplane is doing another. The whole goal of the exercise is to learn how to ignore the body in favor of the instruments. In essence, to ignore your feelings (sorry Obi Wan), and react to the data. This is hard to do as a pilot, and it’s hard to do as a leader. Often, we have a feeling about what is going on with our team. What we feel, though, may not supported by the data. So what do we do? Blame the bad data. Because we can’t possibly be wrong, right??? There may be another path. Put your feelings aside and go deeper on the data. Figure out what is bothering you by examining the exact intersection of your feeling and the data. Your gut may be right sometimes, but the data should have a bigger seat at the table.

by Jonathan

Jonathan Wilson is the CEO of Sandcastle, a leadership training and development consultancy. He frequently speaks and writes about building high performance teams. Jonathan regularly presents his latest findings and insights to business and government leaders at local, state, and national association events (both in-person and virtual). His first book, Future Leader: Rebooting Leadership to Win the Millennial and Tech Future is available now.

Tagged: Leadership

Published on: February 28, 2019

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