Is your team looking from the inside-out or the outside-in?
When we’re facing a curly challenge, we often focus on it from the inside-out. That is, we take the thoughts and emotions that are happening inside of us and then use them as the lens through which to see what's happening around us.
The trouble with having an inside-out approach in a team, is that it often leads to individualised or siloed thinking. Instead of looking through a shared lens, everyone looks through their own. This leads to misalignment and makes collaboration difficult.
An inside-out mindset is a natural response to unexpected disruption. It’s our brains instinctive attempt to keep us safe. Unfortunately, when we’re in a team, inside-out thinking can be unhelpful.
Here are five questions that I use with teams to help flip to a more outside-in mindset. Pick an external lens and answer these questions together.
How is { our customer’s / our team’s / our stakeholder’s } world changing?
How is that likely to impact what they need?
How will these affect the expectations of the world?
How will these affect their expectations of us?
Which of these factors is likely to have the greatest impact on the ability to create value?
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