WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ARE NOT SELF-REFLECTIVE?

As a twenty-four-year-old graduate student at Kellogg, I was fortunate to be recruited by several leading firms and soon found myself caught up in the process. What started out as an interesting, fun, and, admittedly, flattering mission to find out what it might be like to work for one of these firms suddenly advanced to a final round of interviews. There I was in New York, in the global headquarters of one of “the” investment banks, and they wanted to hire me. As I was ushered around to speak to various people, I started to get a funny feeling. Did I really belong there? I had a serious girlfriend (now my wife, Julie) at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and I was trying to picture myself as a New York–based investment banker. How did this job fit with my life goals and priorities?

Through self-reflection, it occurred to me that, yes, this was a great company, and I was being considered for a position that others might envy—but it was not where I belonged. Equally important, I was not the right person for this firm. Fortunately for me, self-reflection kicked in before I accepted the job. Otherwise, the excitement of the moment could have carried me into a position that did not fit me.

Experiencing such a seminal moment early in my career should have made me alert to the warning signs when it happened to me again, twenty-five years later. The truth is, however, that I was right back in almost the exact same scenario. I had just left Baxter as the chairman and CEO and had started teaching at Kellogg. At the same time, I was being recruited by a number of private equity firms in New York to become an executive partner. Before I knew it, I was taking several flights a week to New York to meet with senior partners. Finally, one evening as I was getting ready for yet another trip, Julie said to me, “Harry, since we live in Chicago and have decided that we are going to stay here, why are you going back and forth to New York all the time? Wouldn't taking a job there be inconsistent with our priorities?”

I had done it again. Because I let my practice of self-reflection lapse for a bit, I didn't catch the disconnect between what I was doing and what I said were my goals and priorities. Thankfully, Julie (as is usually the case) kept me on track. Although personal assessment is key to self-reflection, you cannot always do it without the input of others. We'll talk more about this in the next chapter.

What these two stories point out is that engaging in self-reflection on a regular, ongoing basis (preferably daily) keeps you from becoming so caught up in the momentum of the situation that you get carried away and consider actions and decisions that are not aligned with who you are and what you want to do with your life.

Although self-reflection is the cornerstone of my leadership, it did not come naturally to me. In fact, for people who know me well there is a certain irony when I say that my leadership philosophy starts with self-reflection. My background was in mathematics and economics at Lawrence University, followed by finance and accounting at Kellogg where I received my MBA, after which I received my CPA. I was always a quantitative, numbers-oriented person. Even though I had used self-reflection on a personal level, if someone had said to me that one of the keys to becoming a better leader was to practice self-reflection, I probably would have questioned his or her judgment.

Then one day I had an epiphany. I had always believed in multitasking, thinking it was the key to getting a lot done. At first, I felt pretty good because I could get a lot done. What I soon realized was that the more I accomplished, the more there was to do. I was never done; instead I was just exhausted. Was more really better? Was faster the ideal? These same questions apply as much to my life today as they did back then. Thankfully, I have learned the value of slowing down and reflecting on what is happening in the moment. I realize that instead of moving faster, it makes far more sense to focus on what is most important.