Why do some seem to be able work effortlessly and produce consistent value? How does that connect to leadership? What are the characteristics common among great company founders, but rare among others?

Investor and former Stanford lecturer Michael Dearing organized and described these characteristics as the Five Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Things Done and it's a beautiful summary to help each of us achieve more. Adjust your thinking and your output will soar.

Read on: blog.WednesdayWin.com​

Read time: 4 minutes

This is among the greatest ideas I've seen that helps hopeful novices transition into impactful leaders.

Let's dive in:

First, let's be clear on what we mean by cognitive distortion. While usually used in a negative context, it means a thought pattern that leads one to perceive reality inaccurately.

Whether by training or from other causes and influences, successful leaders and founders frequently and unconsciously share these five mental models:

1. Unique confidence in oneself

Dearing calls this "personal exceptionalism" or a confidence that success is their destiny and a positive outcome is assured.

• This confidence may be irrational, but it drives bold action
• There is no constraints from how peers operate
• It is a belief in oneself as uniquely capable of succeeding in a particular area or business
• Winning feels inevitable

You must first wholeheartedly believe in your own special ability to succeed.

2. Decide with binary or absolute thinking

Decisions are essentially reduced to absolutes. Yes/no. Genius/foolish. Go all-in/fold completely.

• This kind of either-or thinking helps drive to quicker decisions and bolder bets
• To be effective, the answer must usually be right, but wasted cycles are minimized and more action yields more data to drive even faster decisions
• This can be frustrating for team members and colleagues, but the behavior reduces ambiguity as to direction and goals
• Act quickly and decisively, but realize errors will occasionally need correction

This means being bold in decision making and willing to place big bets to support those decisions.

3. Embrace Creative Destruction

This confidence in the Schumpeterian view of capitalism that acknowledges that large growth in productivity often leads to displacement of workers and companies engaged in outdated modes of operation is a core belief.

• Change is embraced because without change, there can be no growth
• There is no room for "not invented here..." or "that's not how we do things..."
• Older inflexible models are specifically seen as ripe for replacement

A confident belief in a net benefit to society is enough to greenlight projects even even if that will cause disruption to current business. Like former Intel boss Andy Grove suggested: if you aren't willing to cannibalize your own business someone else will do it for you.

4. Overgeneralize & get it mostly right

This is the ability to quickly reduce a complicated scenario to its essential parts and frequently do that correctly. This is similar to how Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has described the value of anecdotes: “When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.”

As an engineer, I often think of this as how I can reduce the apparent scope of a problem and the possible solutions with as little work as possible? The key is to do it fast and correctly!

• Generalize, but without eliminating essential information
• Don't be sloppy: get it right often and fix errors quickly
• While similar to "binary thinking" this covers longer-term visions of wider topics

Don't get lost in details. Map the challenge into something manageable and understandable and focus on fast action to make an impact on this essential challenge.

5. View the world as a platform to write one’s story

Citing Gordon MacKenzie's cult classic business book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball, Dearing calls this "blank canvas thinking" or how these thinkers view the world as a blank canvas for their original creations.

• They view their surroundings as a stage onto which to write their memoirs
• This also includes an ability to see ways to have an impact and make real their ideas
• There is a strong resistance to following only paths set by others

This could lead to egomania run amok, but with a healthy respect for others, it more often takes the form of simply charting a new course that uniquely fits one's own goals, priorities, and desires even if there's no pre-existing blueprint to follow.

Action Summary

There is a natural tension in all of these cognitive distortions. If allowed to completely run the show, these drivers would make a leader unbearable to work with, overly rigid, and generally unpleasant.

But, if you harness these ideas and allow yourself to be more direct, act with confidence and intention, and be more willing to step outside of the well-worn paths, you can achieve at a higher level.

• Embrace your exceptionalism
• Be a binary thinker
• Don't fear creative destruction
• Overgeneralize (correctly!)
• Write your own story

Want to explore Dearing's ideas more deeply? He summarized these ideas here.

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What do you think? How do these ways of thinking resonate for you or great leaders you know? Reply to this email and let me know.

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To your success,

Christopher

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P.S. Like this one? You'll probably want to check out this Wednesday Win on the importance of aligning your identity to your goals, too.

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