Peer Effect

The Cost of Inaction with Sharath Jeevan of Intrinsic Labs

November 29, 2023 James Johnson Season 2
The Cost of Inaction with Sharath Jeevan of Intrinsic Labs
Peer Effect
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Peer Effect
The Cost of Inaction with Sharath Jeevan of Intrinsic Labs
Nov 29, 2023 Season 2
James Johnson

Sharath is the Founder of Intrinsic Labs. Sharath is a recognised author and trainer on inflection points, coming up with a new book in January called “Inflection”.


Sharath is no stranger to navigating tough leadership moments.


He has dedicated his career to guiding organizations through inflection points.


Sharath focuses on the inflection points, to guide leaders towards making informed decisions.


He shares his expertise on how to anticipate these moments and start prepping for them well in advance.


Sharath argues that the best leaders are those who can see these moments coming and start preparing for them in advance.


In today’s episode, we also talk about:


  • The cost of inaction
  • The power of reflection moments
  • Using the threat of the future to shift the present 

Tune in and listen to Sharath Jeevan share his expertise and offer a roadmap for turning these challenging moments into opportunities for growth and transformation. This episode provides a valuable resource for leaders seeking to navigate their own inflection points, whether you're in the midst of a crisis or simply curious about the concept.

More from James:

Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com


Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Sharath is the Founder of Intrinsic Labs. Sharath is a recognised author and trainer on inflection points, coming up with a new book in January called “Inflection”.


Sharath is no stranger to navigating tough leadership moments.


He has dedicated his career to guiding organizations through inflection points.


Sharath focuses on the inflection points, to guide leaders towards making informed decisions.


He shares his expertise on how to anticipate these moments and start prepping for them well in advance.


Sharath argues that the best leaders are those who can see these moments coming and start preparing for them in advance.


In today’s episode, we also talk about:


  • The cost of inaction
  • The power of reflection moments
  • Using the threat of the future to shift the present 

Tune in and listen to Sharath Jeevan share his expertise and offer a roadmap for turning these challenging moments into opportunities for growth and transformation. This episode provides a valuable resource for leaders seeking to navigate their own inflection points, whether you're in the midst of a crisis or simply curious about the concept.

More from James:

Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com


Speaker 1:

The best leaders can use the threat of the future to really shift the present and move into the new future. I think it's really important to call it out and, if in doubt, call it out more loudly. I think it's probably the best advice I can give to leaders. The cost of inaction starts to exceed the cost of action, so it's almost the do nothing is the most costly thing you can do, because that's sure as hell going to get you to a bad place. You have the fanciest title, but you have the most flexibility of what the title means.

Speaker 2:

So I'm delighted to welcome to the show today Sharath. He's the founder of Intrinsic Labs. He's a recognized authority on inflection points and he advises leaders and organizations about this. And coming out in January he's got his latest book, Inflection Welcome.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, I'm such a pleasure to be with you on the podcast. So cool to see you again after a while as well.

Speaker 2:

So the whole idea of this podcast is of going back to tough moments and, if nothing else, that is an inflection point, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, it would be fun to do that, it would be cathartic and if it works, I can also talk about. I really helped probably 100 leaders and their organizations through moments like that. I'll talk about why I call it an inflection moment but helping them navigate those moments, how to sort of future-proof their success through them and emerge stronger and stronger, and so maybe we can talk more broadly about some of the patterns, some of the lessons learned.

Speaker 1:

Yeah we have the book coming out, but also, what can your listeners perhaps apply to their own lives and their own organizational context as well?

Speaker 2:

Maybe we start with, like what is it that made you focus on inflection point as your focus?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I was a CEO for 15 years, James, and the last 10 years I founded an education organization that worked in countries like India, Brazil, Uganda, Indonesia, etc. It reached about 40,000 schools and impacted about 10 million young people and children and it was an amazing journey. I was a highly imperfect CEO, honestly proud of what I achieved, but lots of bumps along the road. But when I think of those 10 years, they weren't 10 linear years. It wasn't sort of every year just get a little bit better, a little bit faster or stronger. We have these sort of chapters in that organizational life and I think it was really, when I look back at what worked and what didn't work, it was about how well we navigated, or I navigated. Those inflection moments really paved success or not. Actually at those different points.

Speaker 1:

I think a couple of those moments I handled well, one I didn't handle so well and so I think, going back to that idea that not all leadership time is created equal, that we have these wild-sized moments that are incredibly influential for ourselves, leaders, but also for the people we help and serve. So I made it my mission in my work life to really help leaders through those moments and help them figure out what makes most sense for them.

Speaker 2:

And so, if all time is not equal and there are these moments which have great impact, let's say over a 10-year span, how many roughly are you expecting?

Speaker 1:

I think it really depends on what sort of sector you're in, how fast the organization is. Is it an upstart, is it a nutritional resistance? They're not fixed time periods, but I'd say in Stur's life there were three of those. That's a really significant one, James, over the 10-year trajectory, but it could be every couple of years. If you're in AI now, for example, it's probably even faster if you're perhaps the NHS.

Speaker 1:

So I also advise maybe it's every four or five years. So I think, rather than a timeframe, it's recognizing the key dynamic that I think we want to look out for is this idea. I talk in the book about asteroids and starships. Asteroids are things that hit you from outside. There are changes in your market, your regulatory landscape, your funding environment, the climate, overall geopolitics nowadays all that stuff. So that stuff outside that comes in and has a profound effect on how you lead. The starship is internal. Maybe there's a board succession or a founder transition or shifts in the leadership team or retention crisis in this period. We're in any of those internal triggers and I think it's recognizing the force of those two things and the interplay between them. Usually one or two are involved, but the biggest inflection moments happen when both happen at the same time.

Speaker 1:

So that's one thing to look out for. You can react to an inflection moment or you can anticipate one, and in general I'm a big fan of trying to anticipate one, because you have a lot more time to future proof. Really as well. You can feel the writing on the wall, you can feel these things happening and that's what I say most of the leaders I work with.

Speaker 1:

These are across every center, james, from tech to the arts to health, the university sector, you name it and I think the best leaders I work with they kind of already get a sense that there's a new mountain to climb and actually one of the big signs or triggers is you're feeling quite comfortable. You feel like you know everything. That's almost always a harbouring of the fact that something, another mountain is about to appear and it's probably better to start thinking about how to climb that mountain as quickly as possible before it becomes a problem in itself.

Speaker 2:

And if that?

Speaker 1:

resonates with you.

Speaker 2:

I suppose the thing that strikes me is, like I said, you've got these events hitting you as either a starship or a comet asteroid. Sorry, how do you anticipate if some of these are external factors? How do you anticipate an asteroid, for example?

Speaker 1:

So I think about industries where, for example, the regulations being quite light. So let's take that example. Look at tech as a classic example of that, right, where things like social media, personal technology, there hasn't been a lot of regulation coming up. We know that that's going to change. We know regulators are looking at the AI boomers. Look at Bletchy Park. But that is the writing on the wall.

Speaker 1:

So I think that one approach on leadership is say, look, let me put my hand out of the sand and just pretend this is not going to happen and just make hay while the you know, sometimes that's a one approach. That's a very dangerous approach, right? A better approach is say, look, we know this is going to happen. Let's actually invent the future and start bringing regulators into how we think, because we know that's how we're going to have to operate soon, in the years to come. Let's build those capabilities and the stakes are lower now. Let's try and do that now. And if you think of the biggest stories around inflection moments, look at you know Netflix and blockbuster, right, and you know a blockbuster could see Netflix encroaching and they could see people were trying to ban with points and fall. They didn't act on that. They wanted a coast and keep comfortable, and that was the death of their business.

Speaker 2:

Essentially I've had discussions of board rooms before Like what that feels like sort of the risk of doing nothing is often grating the risk of doing something, because you can just more easily quantify what the risk of doing something is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think when inflection moments, the calculus changes and Elton talked to boards and leaders at James in that context that the the cost of inaction starts to exceed the cost of action. So it's almost the do nothing is the most costly thing you can do, because that's sure as hell going to get you to a bad place. If you act.

Speaker 1:

You may not get it right first time, but if you build what I call a learning dial into navigating that inflection moment, you can start to iterate and change and adapt as you go, but you are moving forward.

Speaker 2:

Hmm, is that quite a hard conversation to have that sort of quantifying what the risk of doing nothing is.

Speaker 1:

I think, where I think if you get to a sort of calculus of trying to provide a spreadsheet of what the cost of action is, I normally realize that's not the client I probably am best place to work with, james. Being honest, the leaders I work with they're brave, they're courageous, they, they want to take risks, they want to, they want to carve that new front here and they don't want to be complacent or or place a friday as well. So let me just give you a real example. I mean, you're probably familiar with the B core movement, hmm, the positive, where companies get certification for being having positive impact. I've been working with their leadership team in the UK. There's an amazing executive director called Chris Turner in the UK.

Speaker 1:

About eight years in, about 3% of UK GDP now, now now goes through the B core movement. It's amazing, right, but it would be very tempting to say, look, let's make it 4%, 5%, to just kind of grow incrementally. That's not what the team and board want to do. They want to think differently. They want to look at some of the more structural enablers of business being positive and how to play a more deeper role in that kind of question. That's the what I've been helping them on their reflection moment over the last six months. So those are the kind of leaders that I end up usually working with, because they they can see the writing on the wall and they really want to be that pioneer and carve that new ground, create that blue ocean as well.

Speaker 2:

Hmm, so it feels like the outcome is not necessarily the alternative. Outcome is not necessarily a bad one. It's just less exciting, less good. It's kind of, if you're going to really go for it, you've got to be prepared to risk the present.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think the problem is the the present will last for a little while. It might be a year, it might be a couple of years. We never know. We don't actually know because often we over anticipate how long we can keep doing what we do. But if we know it's not sustainable, it's better to move faster and build an effort. You can still do some of the elements of the present. Of course it doesn't mean you have to go 100% to the new direction, but if you can navigate and create that other track, that other way of working, I think the other thing is just nowadays it's so important to keep our teams motivated. They can. They're smart, they can see the writing on the wall. If we behave like a defensive incumbent and try not to take any risks, they will start saying what am I doing here? What's going on? That anxiety itself is one of the reasons why we should act actually as well.

Speaker 2:

It's quite interesting because you see graphs of industry declines and I think as humans we like to project, we project linearly, we go it's gone up by 10% this year, go by 10% next year. It's gone down by 10%, this year, go down by 10%. And you look at, let's say, cd sales Kind of they went kind of a little bit down, a little bit down, a little bit down, like a sort of half the market dropped out of it. That's why that that is the risk of doing nothing, right.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. I think the challenge also about that incremental or linear thinking is that we sort of extrapolate a little bit less or more We've been doing already. So if you look at the CD example, we don't imagine that you could digitally stream music, right? Look at what Napster started to do and she completely shifted the industry now in Spotify.

Speaker 1:

So I think a lot of the times I find inflection moments are powerful because they give leaders a space to Reimagine the future, to completely reinvent where they want to go.

Speaker 1:

It almost gives them that license, because when things are going smoothly, it's often hard to Justify to you about your board or investor story why, why you guys? Why why mess with what's already working? That's a typical thing Actually. When you see this right here on the wall, it gives you a sense and often I find that many CEOs or leadership teams they have an inkling of where they would like to go. They have a sense they could do something bigger, deeper, more impactful, faster growth, whatever, but they've never had yet the little bit of that extra conviction to do it and the urgency of the inflection moment allows them to do that. So so tip to anyone listening to this who's a leader Use that you know, use that burning platform if you like, powerfully Use that cost of an action narrative and reason of this I've got to act and this is a great chance to really build and take the Position to a place it wouldn't have got to otherwise.

Speaker 2:

So the conviction is there. So you say that coming up to some moments before they raise this inflection point, the convictions there already that or there's a niggle, that there's something to do. You said that the moment itself can help them create the organization impetus to make the change. But is there something around helping them Create the space to like look into that niggle?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's what I might do day in day out is I create what I call a guided journey. It's a safe space or reflective space where leaders, leadership teams, often boards, investors, whoever key stakeholders, staff members, of course Can come in and look at that and really trying to figure out where they want to go. So I think.

Speaker 1:

I talk in the book about. You know this idea of dial. Or you know, think of a watch. We've got the hour hand, the minute hand, the second hand and the watch dial. The hour hand is that long-term direction question and I must always start working with teams on that question of when do we want to go next? And the key is not to just do something a little bit better or a little bit more incrementally better, it's to carve a new direction and Often I find the best way of carving direction is to think about our perspective on the problem at hand and Think about why how do you harness the freshness of that perspective?

Speaker 1:

So If you take, for example I'm taking that the CD example is a good one or the music one, there was a really strong perspective of the fact that you know, music could be ubiquitous, it could be. You know, we could have music anytime, anywhere. We can have all the music in the world on our fingertips at any, any point in time. And those of you are going to that HIV store and Bond Street and buying this cookies and also thumb, as a kid, a teenager, it was a complete reinvention of that future. But the sharpness, that perspective, almost the audacity of it allowed a new business model to emerge.

Speaker 1:

Hmm how do you give yourself license to think about perfection, perspective and I often will kick the tires hard with leadership teams on how they've seen the problem to begin with. What makes that perspective different? Because that difference in perspective, what is what gives them the ability to lead? That's why people listening to them as well. They want to follow them as well.

Speaker 2:

So let's say you're in the room with these would just this is I like you're not just in the room with a leader, it feels like you're in the leader, the room with the team. Do you ever find a stage where there are people that just don't believe the elephants there? They're kind of into Nile. There's like half the rooms like going there's an elephant, the other house going no, I don't see anything.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, no, no, it happens. I think what I think, one of the rules I think that we I have for running these groups and working together in this way is that it's kind of idea that we always want to make sure the last few is hurt. So if there's a worry about an elephant, even if it's one, one person in a group of leadership of 12, let's address the elephant. It's better to do it, make sure we all feel fully able. We can see that and almost always that one person there are three or four other people, maybe five or six people actually feel the same thing, just unable to voice it. So I do think when I come up.

Speaker 1:

It's really important to surface it up and create a very safe space, a psychologically safe space where you can bring up these concerns because they are important must well, don't do it to grab attention. It's the opposite. So I do think it's really important to listen quite deeply to where people are feeling and feeling anxiety about as well.

Speaker 2:

So do you feel then, often it's the the emotional sort of lack of safety that is that is blocking sort of progress, or is it the rational Can't see it?

Speaker 1:

It's a bit above. I would almost say that the bigger thing is the the emotional side, because I think it's a. It's quite scary, I think, the way that we were taught to know I was a business school 20 years ago that leaders the liability to not know, well, when a world, there's no way that any ultimate leader or a group of leaders can know all the answers. So allowing them to really Draw on their collective wisdom, to talk to stakeholders around them and because their customers, their key partners, investors, it's so important. So just creating that space Allow me to surface it up can be.

Speaker 2:

So from what you've done so you've worked with Beacore, you've worked with other companies are there any other examples that you can give of key inflection moments?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So I was working with a tech startup in South Africa, a really amazing group called Zlatto. They created social currency for young people, james, and one of the key things I was working on with the founder with this idea. Initially. The idea was to reach a lot of young people and offer small kind of micro-incentives for them to progress and get into self-employment. South Africa has one of the worst youth unemployment rates in the world, if I take that as an example.

Speaker 1:

So a lot of the work we were doing together looked at actually what would it be better to have more impact per young person and try and think of repositioning the perspective. Say, can we be the people who will really provide a path from where you are now to actually genuine first self-employment? Maybe it's up your own gardening business and this platform would be getting millions of users. It was amazing, the fastest growing thing in South Africa, so it was very hard to almost so jettison that for a lot of people cost of inaction and say, look, let's go a bit slower to go faster, let's go deeper. With a set of users, we really can have a transformational impact on their livelihoods and income projections and that in turn will attract millions of users once that's proven.

Speaker 1:

And it was a very courageous, very young founder actually, but was able to make that transition and you know it's really flying. I was just in conversation with them a few days ago and just amazing to the sort of progress they make. So again, it takes courage. There's always some sense of loss in the beginning, but it almost always leads to a better place. I've worked with about 100 leaders now in pretty much every major sector, about 20 countries. That pattern keeps persisting. Just a little bit of time to to reflect, to really go deep and then build and build a new mountain.

Speaker 2:

It's really challenging to talk about my clients as well, this idea that it's not about going faster, it's about getting there faster, and often we get caught up in the rush and it's like I need to do more, and he's been sort of actually just taking that step back, taking that moment off a week, whatever it is, just to really understand what we're trying to go, simplify it. Yeah, yeah yeah, massive shortcut.

Speaker 1:

No usually. And so another example I've been working with the JKS, a restaurant group in the UK. They have the largest number of Michelin stars in the country and again, they're going through a really exciting journey of growth actually, and just be able to just step back with their leadership team and also with them as a whole organization, the whole extended management team, it really created the space for them to think about where they want to go next and the kind of culture they need to build to achieve that growth. How do we you know, the minute hand is really the question is about how do we maximize team potential towards that new direction.

Speaker 1:

How do we really make sure we're consciously building in what I call the pillars of authenticity, connection and excellence into team culture and teams ways of working to enable that.

Speaker 2:

Can you then almost manufacture your own inflection points? It feels like sometimes it's forced upon us, but it's like text pausing, taking a moment, bringing the team together. Yeah, you almost control the time of it, is that, right, yeah?

Speaker 1:

so there's a bit of a Machiavellian sort of element of the book. Actually, I think the best leaders can use the threat of the future to really shift the present and move into the new future and build that mutant. Yeah, I think it's really important to call it out and, if in doubt, call it out more loudly. I think is probably the best advice I can give to leaders. If you can set the time frame around something, that's the smartest way because, also, you know, we are all people, as leaders, as CEOs, for example, founders, we already have a sense of what drives us.

Speaker 1:

And if you're feeling, as a leader, a little bit of a sense of being I'm sure you work with clients on this all the time but you feel a bit drained, you're feeling a little bit that the tank has been empty. You're not sure why you're going to work or doing what you do. That's almost always a gut feel, trigger of there's some underlying inflection moment that you feel you aren't quite addressing. And my best trust is your instinct try and create the space to explore it, think about it, bring your team along. They might be seeing you behaving a bit differently, as attentive in a meeting or as it used to be yeah. Don't let that settle as a habit. Try and address it earlier.

Speaker 2:

I think that's a good thing, but I definitely see that a lot that sense of I've got this gut niggle. I just don't have time to read, Dig into it, yeah, or like this builds up and often that's what coaching is, creating that space. People like to really see what's going on for them, but it sounds like if it's happening to someone's, it was saying like it's happening for you, it's probably happening to your team. So just calling it out is permission for everyone to express and Explore it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think there's a, there's a beauty. I think it'd be that open and vulnerable. I think one of the most important things as leaders we can we can do is this curiosity, of course, but also humility and openness, and showing that we don't have all the answers, that we are worried about something and you know it doesn't always mean. I think what leaders I work with think is that if I express a problem or a worry, I've got to have the solution, and actually I also found the trap of as a CEO myself, and I feel it's almost the opposite that actually the more important things to see the problem, have that perspective on the problem, that and why what we're doing isn't quite meeting where we need to meet and then allow your team to find the answers with you. You don't need to own it all.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's, that's so true. I mean so. So don't tell, I'll bring it to tea when I've got. I've got it all sorted, I've. Okay. What is the problem? I can't scope the problem. Okay, what's the solution? It was all happening your head. It's quite tiring. It's so much quicker to do it with your team and I'm more empowering.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they own it and they'll co-create that with you and it's all. That's lonely. I mean very wide right now. It's with with the rule of the CEO itself. I do think there's the CEO's trap between a couple of generations. I'm thinking about a third book at the moment and it's this idea that I think those coming to the workforce, coming to leadership, have a very different mind frame Of what work, boundaries, all those things can be, those above them, maybe on boards, or investors, maybe that's a different generation. They often want more of the same, and I do why the pressure is both upwards and downwards on the CEO. Down sort of puts them in that that squeeze middle, and I do worry that we're going to have a lot of Of churn of great leaders actually over the coming years because of those pressures, and so we can make that job a little bit less lonely and help them to to to work together better with their teams. It's going to be a much more Successful chapter for them and for organizations as well.

Speaker 2:

It's interesting. So you're saying that with CEOs. I definitely see that with founders. I mean they are CEOs. But just just there's these unrealistic expectations On themselves and the narrative as we've shifted from sort of 80s 90s styles of kind of top-down leadership into this kind of leaders, each last mentality it's left leaders kind of not eating at all often. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it, with some very real consequences for mental health which then lead on to impact on their business and their teams and their. So Totally with you on On that. Yeah, they're all the founder.

Speaker 1:

They're all the founder that was running a founders at a workshop a few weeks ago with a through a VC and Many of them some of the companies had closed because of the climate, rain and so on, but also they they went into jobs that I was wondering whether Really the dream role they had. Were they using the founder experience to Craft another level up or had they retreated a little bit into into a safety and I think if that had time A to most of while they were running their companies? That was one thing, but also even to figure out if it doesn't work, what do I really want to do next for my next chapter? My own personal inflection moment. You know there's organizational ones, of course, but also we have a personal one. So I think having them, having had time to think about that, would have got them to a much better place as well. So I think both the personal and the organizational.

Speaker 1:

Those inflection ones intertwine, and we've got to be very conscious of both levels as well.

Speaker 2:

And that can and that can be triggered by the same thing or it can be Different. You can have those, those personal, company ones, at different times, even as a founder.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no. So it could be that your company is going, you know, like gangbusters but you become a father. We don't think we talk about this at the beginning. I know we're both fathers. Maybe you feel like that. That lifestyle is not quite right for you.

Speaker 1:

I think what tends to happen is that there are two. There's sort of two options I've seen work quite well. The one that doesn't work is the kind of bury your hand just to keep doing what you're doing and pretend that it's all fine. One option is to say, look, I'm not really ready to be to stay in the ring. I imagine, like you know, a ring, imagine a boxing in the ring. I just don't have the energy box anymore. Let me come out of the ring for a while and maybe I'll come back in it when you know that really important life event is has sort of, my child has got older and in school or whatever.

Speaker 1:

The other option is to say, look, I can redesign the role of the founder, CEO or founder to do pretty much whatever I want. Right, and you know my, my board chose to me. You have the sort of fanciest title, but you have the most flexibility, what the title means. You can pretty much make it anything. You can surround yourself with other skills and people, so you do what you enjoy and also that you're uniquely positioned to do.

Speaker 1:

And so I think you could say, okay, well, I'm not ready. You know, maybe I'm. I'm, I'm exhausted by the business development staff. You know, getting partnerships and like tech, tech startup, I'm going to find a director business to do that work and I'm going to be more of the kind of conductor of an orchestra. I want to try and make sure the team plays their instruments well together. The music is really aligned. So there's so many ways to evolve the role and what I would do a lot of work on is how does the role need to also align with the organization is going? So if it's in hyper growth, for example, the CEO role cannot say the same. By definition, it just won't work. So how do you engineer that organizational inflection moment and shift your own personal leadership role and accountability at the same time?

Speaker 2:

But I think first of all, I'm just acknowledging that you can design the role how you want it. I think a lot of us like we assume how the role should be done. We read about how it's how it's been done. We can have all these subconscious rules about how we think it should be done, but actually we can consciously decide and build a CEO role that works for us.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that should be such an empowering message for founders who are producing this that you can pretty much do do anything as long as you're contributing and you're doing things that additive that this can't do. And I think if that culture of kind of what I call job crafting that you know, we, when I went into work, you know 30 years ago, so 25 years ago there was that job description which was kind of the Bible right, you had to go. That was what defined everything. We're no longer in that world. Work is much more fluid, it's much harder to measure, there's a lot more scope to really carve it and think of what's really important there. So if there was one thing that you would leave, founders, with a sort of a closing insight.

Speaker 2:

What would it? What would it be?

Speaker 1:

I think first we'll recognize those make or break moments, that recognize that not all leadership time is created equal, that you have those moments in your company's life that will make or break success for many years to come. Learn how to recognize them. Look up for those asteroids and starships and if you do recognize them and even if it's a gut feel, piece of like I feel something's not quite right, just take it on. You don't have to have all the answers. Work with your team, create a reflective space to confront that and try and look at these elements of long term direction, team potential towards that direction culture and then learning and in a way to straddle those different time frames. That's what makes inflection. It's hard. You've got to take that long, short, medium term perspective or the same time. That will help you systematically do that. But start with a long term where you're really trying to go. How do you see the problem you're contributing towards, or the market or the suit? How do you see it differently and what's the freshness of your perspective on it?

Speaker 2:

And ultimately, inflection points and opportunity.

Speaker 1:

Exactly so. Rather than actually be worried about them or see them as sort of failure or something hasn't quite wrong, let's embrace them as that opportunity that we can cover better future. We climb a higher mountain to come, so there's loss when you do anything differently, but there's also a lot to gain from doing so Well.

Speaker 2:

thank you very much for today. That was really really interesting, sharif.

Speaker 1:

Thanks, james, and please, if anyone likes this topic, I write a lot about this stuff on LinkedIn. Please connect or follow. And yeah, hopefully the book will surprise a few ideas, but we love working with leaders day in, day out, on these questions. It's such a fascinating area to claim.

Speaker 2:

Amazing, thank you, thanks, sharif. As you heard today, coaching opens up a whole range of insights and areas to explore. If you have a potential moment to revisit on the podcast or just want to learn more about coaching, book in for a 30 minute chat with me at peer-effectcom.

Navigating Inflection Points
Leadership and Creating Inflection Points
Recognizing and Embracing Inflection Points
Thank You and Insights on Coaching