“A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position.” — John C. Maxwell
Happy Friday, Brew Nation!
Take a look at the image below. It’s a photo I took right on our kitchen counter this week.
If I asked you to tell me what you see in this photo, what would your answer be?
Many of you would see a carton of farm-fresh eggs. As a process guy and an executive coach designed to passionately hunt down waste and defects, my “waste goggles” immediately focused on the details: I see a cracked shell. I see different shades. I see a couple of empty slots where eggs are missing.
None of those responses are wrong. But let me ask you this: How many of you looked at that photo and saw the makings of a brand-new color palette to paint a house?
Because that is exactly what my wife, Chris, saw.
Where I saw an imperfect process, she saw a spectrum of beautiful, earthy design options for our home. This simple moment at the kitchen counter is a powerful reminder of one of the most critical rules in organizational excellence: You must get multiple viewpoints when looking at a problem. If you only rely on your own lens, you are leading with blinders on. And, especially, if you are the leader, the solution will come across as top-down, and buy-in will be limited.
The Trap of the Single Viewpoint
When we get stuck in our businesses or our personal growth, it’s rarely because a solution doesn’t exist. It’s usually because we’ve fallen in love with our own perspective of the problem.
Just this week, I was having a conversation with a close friend about his progress on writing a book. Months ago, he found himself completely stuck. He had established a rigid process in his mind: I have to force myself into the habit of writing a strict number of words every single day. That viewpoint created a massive creative block.
But while he was struggling to stare at a blank screen, I noticed something else. He was posting short, daily videos to his teammates filled with fantastic, high-value leadership tips. The content was flowing out of him effortlessly—just not through a keyboard.
I looked at it through a process-improvement lens and gave him a fresh perspective: “Stop forcing the typing. Take those videos, have them transcribed, and let’s see how much closer that gets you to the book.”
Voila! He shifted his perspective, changed his process, and he is now over 40,000 words into his book draft! He didn’t lack the material; he just needed a different way to see the carton.
- Quote of the Week
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” — Anaïs Nin
Being the Uncommon Leader means realizing that your perspective is a resource, but it is never the entire roadmap. It’s the “tire shine” of collaborative wisdom. Average leaders gather a team just to get agreement on their own ideas. Uncommon Leaders gather a team to intentionally expose their own blind spots. They know that a culture which welcomes diverse viewpoints will always out-innovate and out-execute a room full of “yes-men.”
What You Need to Do:
The “7 Ways” Exercise
When you are faced with a complex problem—like a sudden void in leadership, a project delay, or a personal plateau—how do you break past your initial perspective blindness?
I frequently challenge my coaching and consulting clients to run an exercise called “7 Ways.” This week, I want you to apply it to a hurdle you are currently facing. Email me your list at coachjohngallagher@gmail.com with the subject line “VISION”:
- Define the Problem: Write down the challenge clearly at the top of a sheet of paper.
- Force Seven Solutions: Force yourself to write down at least seven entirely different ways to approach or solve that single problem.
- Push Past the Obvious: There is nothing magical about the number seven, but it forces your brain to abandon traditional, comfortable paths.
The Secret: Your first or second ideas are usually the ones you’ve always used. They are the “common” answers. It is almost always the 4th, 5th, or 6th “way” on that list where the non-traditional, high-leverage breakthrough is hiding!
“The next time you look at a problem in your business and think, ‘This is broken,’ pause for a second. Go find a peer, a mentor, or a frontline team member and ask them what they see. You might just find they are looking at the exact color palette you’ve been searching for.”
It’s an honor to be your trusted Friday Coffee Guy. Each week, I bring what I’m learning and living in the trenches of leadership development. If this edition challenged you to take off your blinders and ask your team, “What do you see?”, SHARE it with a leader who is currently pounding their head against a wall, then click SUBSCRIBE. Let’s grow Brew Nation together!
Until next week—stay focused, stay rooted, and finish the race with extreme ownership, Champions!
