Appreciate the Opposite Approach
Build a missing quality by observing, role-flipping, and practising
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
In discussing what he calls masculine and feminine approaches to life, Gawdat offers a three-part development method. First, observe people who reliably use the approach you underuse and watch how they solve the same problem differently. Second, perform an appreciation exercise: describe your own solution, then imagine how a specific person with the contrasting style would respond. Third, practise the missing quality repeatedly in daily life. The reusable mechanism is broader than his gendered vocabulary: observe an alternative, simulate its perspective, and rehearse a selected behaviour until your range expands. The goal is not to demonize the existing strength or copy a stereotype. Gawdat explicitly warns that overdoing either analytical or intuitive qualities creates imbalance.
Origin
Extracted from The Diary of a CEO
Core principles
- 01Different approaches can solve the same problem
- 02Observation makes an unfamiliar quality concrete
- 03Role-flipping creates appreciation before imitation
- 04Repeated practice develops an underused approach
- 05Overusing either side creates a new imbalance
How to run it
- 1
Identify the underused quality
Choose a specific approach you lack, such as flow, empathy, linear analysis, intuition, or inclusion. Define it behaviourally rather than by identity.
Watch out Do not equate a quality rigidly with sex or gender.
- 2
Observe contrasting solvers
Watch people with different default styles address the same problem. Record the questions, sequence, and behaviours that differ.
Pro tip Use a real task so the contrast is visible.
- 3
Run the appreciation exercise
State how you would solve the problem, then reconstruct how a named contrasting person might solve it. Look for useful options your default excluded.
Pro tip Choose someone you know well enough to avoid caricature.
Watch out The exercise is perspective-taking, not mind-reading.
- 4
Practise one behaviour
Select one missing behaviour and repeat it in relevant situations. Review whether it adds flexibility without erasing useful strengths.
Pro tip Gawdat chose flow as a sustained personal practice.
Watch out Overcorrecting can create the opposite imbalance.
In the wild
A highly analytical manager notices that every project is overplanned. They observe a trusted creative colleague, imagine how that colleague would handle one low-risk decision, and practise delaying premature certainty while allowing new information to shape the route.
→ The manager retains analysis while adding a more adaptive response.
Common mistakes
Turning qualities into stereotypes
The transcript defines these as approaches available to anyone, not fixed categories of people.
Demonizing the current strength
The target is overuse and lack of range, not the elimination of linearity, strength, intuition, or flow.
Is it for you?
Best for
People whose default analytical, intuitive, forceful, or fluid style has become too narrow.
Not ideal for
Using gender stereotypes to prescribe how another person should behave.
From the transcript
“it first requires an exercise of awareness”
“the appreciation exercise basically starts to get you to say oh my god there is another way”
“the third is practice practice practice”
From the episode
Happiness Expert Returns: Retrain Your Brain For Maximum Happiness: Mo Gawdat