Use Affirmations in Your Exec Suite to Boost Capacity for Success

Yes your team is full of accomplished C-suite leaders. Do it anyway.

During a recent day spent with one of my CEO clients, the cofounder and longtime leader of a fast-growing healthcare-technology company, I observed a vivid example of the power of a clever, wildly useful tool for boosting capacity in fellow leaders.

My client and his CFO were meeting to consider a provocative new finance strategy. I sat across the room listening as they walked through the ins, outs and technical details of what the company might do. And then unexpectedly, for a brief moment, the nature of the conversation changed. Unprompted, the CFO said casually to his boss, “You know that I’ve never run a finance strategy of exactly this type.” (I’ve removed a bit of detail for confidentiality.) The comment came and went, and they were immediately back to the substance of the topic at hand.

What might the CEO have done other than keep the conversation clipping along? He might have noticed the subtle but golden opportunity to deploy a powerful conversational device for boosting a follower’s capacity for success. It was an opportunity to remind his talented CFO that he (the CFO) is exactly the right person for the consequential task at hand, and the goal would assuredly…