The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

Even though people or organizations operating with this style of inwardness feel as if they are doing things for others and not for themselves, they aren’t paying attention to the needs, objectives, and challenges of those they are supposedly doing things for.

mindset drives and shapes all that we do—how we engage with others and how we behave in every moment and situation.

He called his regular check-ins with his clients self-accountability checks. This approach to measuring one’s impact requires nothing but a willingness to stay in regular conversations with others about whether they feel one’s efforts are helping them or not.

Without realizing it, too many leaders assume that the role of leadership is to control. They espouse Plato’s “division of labor,” which, according to social thinker Hannah Arendt, has influenced government and military structures for thousands of years.

Rather, it means that when people see the needs, challenges, desires, and humanity of others, the most effective ways to adjust their efforts occur to them in the moment.

Then ask questions that might spark ideas about what adjustments might be helpful: What can we do to help others understand how we value and appreciate them? What can we do to more fully understand others’ viewpoints and concerns? What trappings of leadership currently exist in the organization? Which of these trappings and differences make good bu

“What kind of metric,” one team member asked, “would show us our impact and not just our output?” “What impact do the people want?” another responded. “What are they hoping clean water will do for them? If we had answers to those kinds of questions, maybe we could figure out what we should be measuring.”

People should be involved in determining the results they need to deliver in the context of a collective result.

The most important move consists of my putting down my resistance and beginning to act in the way I want the other person to act.