Expanding Your Inner Circle - Jeff Berkowitz - The Impactful Leadership Show - Episode # 028

The Impactful Leadership Show

You don’t know everything and that’s ok, but it’s important that you know where your expertise ends and the opportunity to learn begins. Jeff Berkowitz is the Founder and CEO of Delve. Jeff has been recognized by Politico and is one of the best-known policy researchers in Washington D.C. He has worked with The White House, The State Department, major presidential campaigns, and national political campaigns. You’ll hear about how to identify your two circles of competence, being aware of what you don’t know, and how to improve your company’s onboarding process and culture.

Takeaways:

• Many people work in the outer circle of competence of what they think they know, rather than working in the inner circle of what they actually know. This can lead to lots of disagreements and friction both inside an organization and outside.
• Much of what people think they know is actually based on flawed assumptions and as a leader, you need to be willing to recognize what you really know and what you still need to learn. What you don’t know can hurt you.
• As a leader, one of the most powerful things you can do is ask questions and really dive into finding the answers. You need to step back and ask yourself what do you actually know and what do you need to figure out.
• It’s valuable during the onboarding process to learn how people approach work and how they can be successful. This helps avoid misunderstandings down the road.
• You should always be expanding your circles of competence by learning new things and taking a humble assessment of your own knowledge.
• There’s always more research that you can do when making a decision but you need to realize when you’ve done enough to make a decision and that’s not always clear.
• Think about if the decision is reversible or not and see where you are in terms of how much research you have done. You can never really get to 100% done, but if you are at 70-80%, you probably have enough information to make an educated decision.
• The more you can identify the purpose of the information and the decision you are trying to make, the more you can figure out what information you actually need.

Quote of the Show:

• “One of the most powerful things you can do as a leader is ask questions” - Jeff Berkowitz

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/berkowitz/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jberk
• Company website: https://delvedc.com/

Shout Outs:

• The Motive by Patrick Lencioni

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The Impactful Leadership Show is sponsored by the DC Chapter of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization. Learn more at https://www.eodcnetwork.org/home

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