CRA | Admired Leadership

Join us October 15 for this unique, virtual complimentary community conference. Save your seat at the link in comments below...

Our Initial Impressions of ChatGPT's Advanced Voice Mode It's finally here, and it's (mostly) as impressive as we expected it would be.

As a leader, can you command excellence without being commanding? A discussion during last week's #ALDirect. We meet every 3 weeks to discuss specific ways our full access subscribers might be engaging and implementing behaviors found in the Admired Leadership core catalog.

Why the debate about generative AI and art matters. One approach to counter AI cheating. Human-written or AI-generated? Big announcements from Anthropic. Read this week's issue of Confluence: https://lnkd.in/gsd_F55e

Opportunities exist everywhere, which excites the entrepreneur in each of us. However, strong business leaders know how to stare down an opportunity and say 'No'. There's a number of factors to why 'No' is the right answer... Check out this Admired Leadership Field Notes to glean some insight to why you should steer clear of some opportunities when they come knocking. Dream Big. Embrace the Process. Affirm the Way. https://lnkd.in/g7cd4xFC

As organizations reach to assign metrics related to their use of AI, we believe some are overlooking a crucial step: building a deep understanding of the technology itself. The McNamara Fallacy, named after Robert McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, describes a form of cognitive bias that overemphasizes easily quantifiable metrics while ignoring harder-to-measure factors. Read this full topic and more in this week's Confluence. (link in comments)

"The truth is that when working with people we regularly engage in review processes to assure quality because we know that while we can have great confidence in colleagues, quality requires review. Yet with generative AI people seem to hold a different standard." Read the latest issue of Confluence: https://lnkd.in/gtamV_wE

When Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, was nearing death, he asked his students to promise they would bury him wearing his white belt, the emblem of a beginner. Kano knew that death, like true mastery, makes everyone a novice all over again. He wanted to teach his students one more lesson: To understand that even after a lifetime of improvement and achievement, mastery most relies on a beginner’s mind, not upon the confidence of acquired expertise and accomplishment. In his work on understanding self-actualization, famed psychologist Abraham Maslow discovered something similar. His research showed that those who had reached peak performance and mastery had returned to a state of child-like curiosity. Maslow called this quality a “second naivete,” in reference to the fact that everyone is born naïve and returns to that state as they reach the highest level of psychological development. Reaching one’s full potential, according to Maslow, or “becoming everything one is capable of becoming,” depends on a willingness to accept one’s flaws and misunderstandings with humor and curiosity. Masters explore the fundamentals of high performance with extreme humility, believing that new insights arrive through naïve questions and inquiry. This process depends on the unusual self-confidence that only accomplishment can supply. Those with any semblance of mastery have already enjoyed some success. But as life-long learners with exceptional records of achievement, they confront a pivotal choice: Stay comfortable with the knowledge and accomplishments of the success they have already achieved, or presume they are once again at the starting line, knowing very little about how the race is really won. The beginner’s mind comes with a price. It requires the “student” to free themselves of worry about external judgments and to operate openly without fear of being seen as a fool. This allows them to see fundamental actions and understandings anew, without the burden of presumption or the blinders of an existing paradigm. This is a cost only those who desire self-actualization and true mastery are willing to pay. Masterful performers commit to an innocence of learning focused only on understanding and unaffected by external judgments or evaluations. Only by rejecting the need for acceptance and approval can the mindset of a beginner take hold and provide new insights. This is the hard work of extreme excellence, and it isn’t for everyone. Rare are the leaders and performers willing to embrace the beginner’s mindset and admit to themselves and the world that they know very little. But for those who take this leap, the potential of true mastery awaits, along with the white belt of naïve curiosity.

The Admired Leadership Institute® Miraval Austin is a bespoke experience for senior female leaders who currently hold significant and growing responsibilities. The event is limited to 18 participants in the first week of October 2024. Learn more at the link in the comments below:

At CRA | Admired Leadership, we love opportunities to make people and organizations better. Our Strategic Communication Academy Seminar series is just one way we do that. There are three seminars remaining this year: Effective Measurement - https://lnkd.in/gRcy2jpq Generative AI Insights and Applications - https://lnkd.in/gbACq8pW Building Advisory Relationships - https://lnkd.in/g7QBspKA These virtual sessions are designed to deepen your communication expertise, explore new ways of thinking and working, and connect with communication leaders from a variety of industries. Contact us to register, email events@crainc.com We look forward to seeing you there!