Defensive Thinking Traps Archives - Courage Growth Partners

Dissatisfaction with “what is” & boundless optimism: PowerUP innovation leadership

One famous Shimon Peres quote - that didn't make it into his autobiography - declared that nagging dissatisfaction is Israel's greatest natural resource. People would chuckle when Shimon made this declaration, speaking about innovation leadership at an international conferences like BioMed. Anyone who's lived in Israel knows that we're a country of chronic critics. We're always looking for a better way, a better deal, [...]

By Louise Yochee Klein|2017-11-14T19:28:21-05:00November 14th, 2017|Coaching, Defensive Thinking Traps, Leadership Development|

Courage to take the high road and create value

Wow, John McCain. As expert advisors who show leaders how diverse strong interests can debate and generate the best solutions to complex challenges and drive value-creation, we’re impressed. You called out the “win/lose victory-at-all-costs” defensive thinking trap and appealed to your colleagues to use diverse perspectives and creative tension and come up with something better. You knew that some zealots [...]

By Louise Yochee Klein|2017-07-28T20:08:15-04:00July 28th, 2017|Company Culture, Defensive Thinking Traps, Leadership Development|

Feel -> Think -> Act: Replace defensive thinking with generative dialogue

Ouch! You've probably felt the sting - when someone talks over you, dismisses your best recommendations or mutters a sarcastic quip about your accent, profession, age, professional experience or gender. Double ouch - if your antagonist has the authority to scuttle a deal you are putting together or red-line your career. At Ouch! or Double-Ouch! moments of truth, it's tempting [...]

By Merom Klein|2017-07-17T17:26:45-04:00May 2nd, 2017|Defensive Thinking Traps, Leadership Development|

Creativity threatens the executives who want it – so it thrives best with Courage

The bias against creativity is one of the 12 defensive traps that leaders have to overcome, if they want fresh bold ingenious high-potential people to bring forward a stream of fresh bold ingenious high-potential ideas. This article from Quartz says creativity is often perceived as a threat, even by the executives who want it. When the C-suite is threatened by [...]

By Merom Klein|2017-07-17T18:01:17-04:00March 30th, 2017|Company Culture, Defensive Thinking Traps|

Injecting Courage into Strategy – Lift your innovation leaders above defensive traps

If you're an innovation leader who's been asked to build a strategy that can take a product, technology, alliance or service to a new level of value-creation - or transform a line of business to stay competitive in a volatile uncertain complex aggressive (VUCA) market - don't be surprised when your Courage is tested along with your intellect, creativity and [...]

By Merom Klein|2017-07-17T17:43:43-04:00March 6th, 2017|Defensive Thinking Traps, Leadership Development|

PowerUP – stay out of the Theranos trap

Groupthink. Maybe we should call it "the Theranos trap" - when a high-power hard-charging visioning true-believer CEO refuses to listen to risk assessments - and assumes her best hopes are validated because high-status marquis-value celebrities who know little about the business are WOW'd by the vision. Check out this post - and the article from the Washington Post about "the [...]

By Merom Klein|2017-07-17T18:26:52-04:00June 20th, 2016|Company Culture, Defensive Thinking Traps, Leadership Development|

Lift inventive thinking above risk-averse traps

Diagnosis is Step 1 for Leaders to Make Courage Contagious. Inventive thinking doesn’t “just happen” — even when you recruit brilliant stars, give them autonomy, give them funding and ask them to bring you their best recommendations. Can you recognize when your team, task force, Board Meeting or customer negotiation falls into one (or more) of these risk-averse traps - and gets derailed or [...]

By Merom Klein|2021-01-03T13:26:10-05:00July 22nd, 2014|Defensive Thinking Traps|