Once your opinion is made, it is always uncomfortable to change it. This would entail accepting you were wrong, or being conscious enough to acknowledge the context has changed and you need to adapt. How can you build a routine to challenge your habits and your convictions?
Only grant your opinion a relative level of confidence
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Be conscious that the opinions you have formed are not universal: other people with different perspectives could analyze the same situation differently.
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Never forget that the context can change rapidly: an opinion you formed last year could be obsolete today, e.g. Entry of a new competitor or a new technology.
Adopt a pro-active method to challenge your own opinions
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Identify the assumptions that underline your convictions and question: are they still correct? E.g. Our clients like our products for their quality. Is our level of quality still so distinctive?
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Ask the experts: how do they consider your vision? Do they need to alert you about some aspects?
Listen to criticism
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Demand criticism, e.g. Encourage your team members to share their reservations with you, call on a “devil’s advocate” to contradict you, surround yourself with different types of personality.
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Keep your own guidance nonetheless: listening doesn’t mean you must necessarily agree.
Take action
Learn the lessons from your mistakes (15 min)
A mistake is only useful when you take the time to learn the lesson, before even trying to rebound!
Identify a petty or major mistake you made recently and ask yourself: what would you do differently if you could start over? What prevented you from considering this other option initially?
Analyze whether this is a recurrent pattern: have you made this type of mistake before? How could you better prevent it in the future?
What have you learned that’s interesting from this mistake? What can you “reuse”?
Question your assumptions (20 min)
Many strategic choices are based on assumptions… which we tend to consider as certainties over time.
Choose one project on which you are currently working. On what assumptions have you based your decisions? E.g.: “lowering the price will increase the sales”; “Quality holds value for the customer”, etc.
Do you perceive some signals – even weak ones – from your environment that could show that these assumptions might be wrong or becoming obsolete? E.g.: emergence of a new technology, new competitor entry on the market, upcoming change in regulation… What are your peers thinking?
If your assumptions turn out to be wrong, what impact would this have on your strategy?
Explore a critical statement that has been made against you (10 min)
We can learn a lot from the criticisms that we receive, provided we can sort them out.
Recall a criticism you recently faced. Dispassionately, ask yourself what teachings you can get from it: what can you improve? What should you or could you have done differently? Is there a need you did not perceive or neglected? Do you need to adapt your operational mode? In what way does this criticism constitute a useful feedback?
All the same, we also receive criticisms of little interest, rather unwarranted or destructive in the way they are formulated. In such a situation feel free to reject them! If necessary, seek the help of a close person to gain emotional distance from this unpleasant experience.
Practical Tips
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