Innovation is Built Upon Self-Awareness
And you cannot outsource, hack, or automate self-awareness.
Everyone likes a good shortcut, a clever hack, or a helpful way to streamline a task. It is such a relief to discover smarter ways of doing things that help free up energy and creativity for other endeavors.
That being said, this sort of technical approach doesn’t necessarily apply to every area of life — in this case, self-awareness.
The more self-aware leadership is, the more self-aware their teams are. As a result, the atmosphere becomes ripe for innovation.
Humans Are Complex Interconnected Beings, Not Automatons
In her book Fierce Conversations, Susan Scott writes:
If we wish to accomplish great things in our organizations and in our lives, then we must come to terms with a basic human need: We must recognize that humans share a universal longing to be known and, being known, to be loved.
When our conversations with others disregard this core need, our lives can seem like an ongoing, exhausting struggle to influence others to do what we want them to do, to rise to their potential, to accomplish the goals of the organization or of the relationship. We persuade, cajole, manipulate, and…
