Kat Cole, COO of Focus Brands, created the Hot Shot Rule: imagine a superstar taking your job and ask what they'd change immediately. Then do those things yourself instead of waiting for them to arrive. It cuts through daily noise and forces clarity.
Today I want to share with you a great technique for improving your performance at work. It comes from Kat Cole. She's an amazing leader. She's the COO of Focus Brands, which owns Auntie Anne's Pretzels, Cinnabon, and other restaurants and cafes. She calls it the Hot Shot Rule, and here's how it works. Once a month, you say to yourself, if a hot shot came in and took over my job, someone who's amazingly talented and tenacious, a total star, what would they immediately begin doing differently? Answer those questions. And then do those things. Don't wait for the hotshot. This technique is a form of self-distancing, which we've talked about before. It also gives you a kind of bracing note of clarity in the muck of simply each day trying to get to the end of the day. I've started doing this myself. This has helped. It's not perfect. I haven't fixed everything. But each month this reminds me that I can do a lot better. Give it a try.
