What If Work Is Not About Just Winning
Edition #154
Introduction
Welcome to The ContraMind Code.
The ContraMind Code provides you with a system of principles, signals, and ideas to aid you in your pursuit of excellence.
The newsletter shares the source code through quick snapshots for a systems thinking approach to be the best in what you do.
The Code helps you reboot and reimagine your thinking by learning from the best and enables you to draw a blueprint on what it takes to get extraordinary things done. Please share your valuable thoughts and comments and start a conversation here.
Take a journey to www.contraminds.com. Listen and watch some great minds talking to us about their journey of discovery of what went into making them craftsmen of their profession to drive peak performance.
Leaders, Don’t Be Afraid To Admit Your Flaws
Kellogg Insights’ article highlights the importance of leaders being vulnerable. Research shows that people want to work for leaders who are comfortable accepting their vulnerability.
Here are some key thoughts from the article for you to think about and reflect on:
‘Leaders who confess faults are seen as more authentic but no less competent than those who don’t.’
‘Disclosing a weakness makes someone’s behavior seem less calculated, which in turn makes that individual seem more authentic.’
‘To be seen as authentic, vulnerable self-disclosures must be seen as voluntary.’
‘Many leaders are afraid of admitting even those smaller foibles—and that’s a shame, because it’s a valuable way to build trust and rapport with employees.’
Read the entire article here.
Sai Gaddam On Transforming The Indian Classroom
In this conversation with Sai Gaddam, Founder of Comini Learning, he discusses how traditional education systems are becoming increasingly disconnected from real-world demands.
Here are the key topics and ideas from this conversation:
Personalised learning pathways: Holistic evaluation should focus on learning attitudes and problem-solving approaches rather than just test scores and grades.
Technology as an enabler: Education must shift from memorization to teaching adaptability as AI tools transform how we process and apply knowledge.
The Microschool Revolution: Small, personalized learning environments allow educators to truly understand each child’s unique development journey.
Real-world Readiness: The current education system shields students from real-world challenges; practical exposure should start early.
Growth for all: Move away from competitive rankings to recognize that every child can succeed through different paths and timelines.
You can listen to the full episode on:
Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Amazon Music
Use Strategic Thinking To Create The Life You Want
This video from Harvard Business Review, presented by BCG’s Rainer Strack, provides a lovely analogy of taking the best ideas from corporate strategy and adapting them to strategize your life.
Here are some thoughts and ideas from the video that can help you appreciate thinking through these analogies, which this video beautifully sums up:
Ask yourself one question - ‘What if I take strategic thinking and apply it to my own life?’. In fact, you do this every day at work for the company you work for or the business you do.
When corporate strategy is replaced with life strategy, life strategy can be defined as an integrated set of choices that positions a person to live a great life.
There is a profound definition of life here: ‘Life is not about winning but living a great life.’
Find answers to seven life questions, like a set of questions that you will use to prepare a corporate strategy. Here are the seven questions:
How do I define a great life?
What is my life purpose?
What is my life vision?
How do I assess my life portfolio?
What can I learn from benchmarks?
What life portfolio choices can I make?
How can I ensure successful, sustained life change?
You can click on the above link to watch this video.
What If Work Is Not About Just Winning
If life is not about winning but living a great life, why does this philosophy or mental model have to be different for corporate strategy or, more generally, not apply at work? It’s like taking a leaf out of life strategy and applying it back to work!
If work is not about winning, how will it fundamentally transform your thinking about work?
Like discovering your life's purpose, you will first have to think hard about your purpose to work and then look for work that fits or better search for one that comes close to your purpose.
One of the key nuances to appreciate and understand is that an educational degree is not a purpose. For example, your deep need to serve humanity can be the underlying purpose for studying medicine, and therefore, learning and completing that degree will help you achieve that purpose. You then work every day to achieve that purpose. Doctors will have bad and good days, but the purpose helps them stay true to their work. Hence, winning every day does not matter, but serving humanity everyday matters. This creates a tremendous and fulfilled professional life.
If you are in the creative or marketing business, your purpose is to create communication that ‘influences and persuades people to buy’ or ‘build iconic brands’ - that is your purpose. All that you study, learn, and, finally, everything you design at your workplace is to help achieve this purpose. Some communication designs work, and others don’t, but purpose enables you to stay motivated and work harder.
Similarly, a musician aims to ‘create music that moves people’s hearts.’ There will be hits and flops, but the purpose remains intact. Every day, the musician works to achieve the purpose - winning and losing are by-products of the purpose.
So, with architects, lawyers, sportspeople, actors, accountants and academicians, their purpose serves as a catalyst for their work, and they have a great time doing it all their lives. They may win a case, lose a project, or have low scores, etc. However, purpose allows them to quickly handle the ups and downs and bounce back. Therefore, they have a great time working.
Similarly, some engineers may be driven by innovation, discovery, finding a new engineering solution to an industry problem, inventing new products, etc. Again, purpose drives their work; hence, they will have a great time working.
Here are some well-known people who can serve as an illustration and examples:
For Steven Spielberg, how do you define and delineate his work from his life? Making movies is his work and life!
For Roger Federer, how do you define and delineate his work from his life? Playing tennis is his work and life.
For Steve Jobs, how do you define and delineate his work from his life? Thinking, designing and building consumer-experience-friendly technologies was his life’s purpose. Apple, incidentally, fitted into it perfectly.
Jeff Bezos, how do you define and delineate his work from his life? If his life ambition was about breaking the ‘illusionary divide’ between consumers and companies using technology, that was what his life was all about.
Warren Buffet, how do you define and delineate his work from his life? Investing was his work and life.
What’s common, if you can see, is that each of them discovered their purpose and made it their life’s work.
Therefore, here are some broad brushstrokes of how to approach work to have a great work-life:
Spend time contemplating and reflecting on what you enjoy and do.
Invest time to improve in those areas and spend unreasonable time to get better at it.
Don’t take any job for the money thrown at you, but critically evaluate the job content and its fit with your purpose.
Don’t compare your professional success with others; benchmark it around your needs and aspirations.
Learn to enjoy the process of working and not intensely focus on the results.
Remember, winning or succeeding at work is a byproduct of pursuing work by aligning your purpose, mindset, and practice.
Some of the lessons we learnt from this week’s mission:
People want to work for leaders who are comfortable accepting their vulnerability.
The fundamental objective of education is to achieve the transformation of the mind.
Life is not about winning but living a great life.