AICC Boxscore 2013

Think like a Leader and Lead like a Thinker By Mark Sanborn, AICC 2013 Spring Meeting Keynote Speaker & Workshop Presenter

The point of thinking —about life and leadership—isn’t just to know new things. It is, to paraphrase philosopher Jim Rohn, to behave in new ways. Reading a book won’t help you lead any better than buying a treadmill will make you fit. If you don’t use it, you lose the benefit. (50% of adults don’t read one book a year.) We live in an age that seems marked by attention deficit. Our lives have so many competing demands that a modern dilemma seems to be a lack of time to truly think. Yet thinking is the basis for everything that happens in our lives. It is a dangerous course to allow others to do our thinking, or to let business and activity minimize the amount of time we give to thought about our work and lives. Leaders are always good thinkers; great leaders are great thinkers. The following suggestions will allow you to undertake better thinking and reap the benefits thinking creates. 1. Make time to think Most days when I’m in Denver, usually mid-afternoon, I drive a couple of miles to the nearest Starbucks. I don’t take my cell phone, but only a pad a paper and a pencil. My objective is to spend 15-30 minutes of uninterrupted thinking. Feedback from my audiences tells me that this simple idea is one of the most effective and valued things I teach. Why don’t people make time to think? Perhaps it is because they confuse activity with accomplishment. Author Amy Salzman once observed that most people aren’t too busy to look up from the

grindstone; they are afraid of what they might find. We can stay incredibly busy and still accomplish little. Thinking helps us separate the mundane from the magnificent in our lives. It can clarify both our direction our purposes. It does require that we stop doing business and living life long enough to think about our businesses and our lives. 2. Find a good place to think. Many homes have a room called a study, although how much if any study actually occurs in these rooms is questionable. A study can be an excellent place to think, especially if you design it for that purpose. Any place that provides enough calm and lack on interruption is a good place. One of my favorite thinking places is about 30 minutes outside of Denver on the side of a small mountain that overlooks the Continental divide. The reason for having a place to think is that a purposeful place quickly enables thinking mode. When we go to a specific place or spot to do out thinking, the mind becomes conditioned to do just that. Find a place that invigorates your thinking and go to it frequently. 3. Focus your thinking. One of the biggest obstacles to thinking is lack of focus. At times it benefits one to let his or her mind wander. This open, spontaneous approach is not, however, the best at all times.

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Leaders are always good thinkers; great leaders are great thinkers.

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