'I'm Never Doing That Again'

Entering its fourth season, the television show Seinfeld was building a large following. 

On the eleventh episode of the season, the writers took a huge chance, stretching the limits of television by discussing a subject that didn’t seem suitable for a network audience. 

George gets caught doing “that” by his mother and comes into Monk’s café; the gathering place of their four-person rendezvous to announce to all, “he is never doing “that” again.” 

The three others laugh, not believing one single word of his ill-fated promise. The laughter prompts the four to create a contest to determine which of the four can never do “that” again. They all pinky swear for honesty and off they go.

The episode, entitled The Contest, was a huge success. Many attribute the finely-crafted hidden meaning through catchy phrases attributed to Seinfeld’s rise as one of the best shows in American television. 

The catchy line, “I’m never doing ‘that’ again,” can become a powerful tool for any leader because “that” can apply to so many situations and decisions a leader has to make over the course of a season or a long year. 

It can also apply to someone who has lost his/her job, not fulfilling their level of performance in their job. Stuff we need to eliminate in our life, should make it to our ongoing “never doing that again list.” This list is a great way to gain constant self-improvement, increase self-awareness, and ultimately make you a better leader and person. 

The goal of the list is to never make the same mistake twice. The hard part isn’t finding the obvious ones, it’s finding the problems that aren’t as conspicuous. This entails four steps:

1. Removing ego from the equation. Repeat offenders of mistakes, always fail to remove their ego from the problem. They rationalize and explain the problem as something else, which naturally allows them to do “that” again. 

2. Accountability from everyone. To make the perfect “I’m never doing ‘that’ again” list, everyone must be accountable for their actions. Accountability can only occur when ego is first removed. Without step one in place, step two never takes shape. 

3. Identify whether the mistake was caused by judgement or execution. Once again, being correct here requires step one and two to be in order. Leaders can have the right plan, poor execution, or the wrong plan and great execution and both times the results are not what we want. Understanding this element for our list is perhaps the most important and the only correct answers will come if 1 and 2 are aligned before. 

4. Own the results. As leaders ,once we have completed our list of “never doing ‘that’ again we must own the results and must be loyal and devoted to our answers. We cannot slip, or we will do “that” again. 

Let’s start our list today without the pinky swear. 

Keep yourself honest don’t do “that” again. 

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