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‘Mean to’ don’t pick no cotton.   – southern saying

I’m a process guy. Systems.

Because it’s about the results. Not because I’m a fan of the gears, cogs and funnels. It’s about paying customers. Nothing else. Everything else is details.

“We intend to take our business to $60 million by the end of 2017,” says the CEO. That’s great. How?

What follows sounds like a strategy session. High level strategy. It lacks details. So the question continues.

How?

Plans matter. Pre-thinking does, too.

But they only matter if you can pull them off. The most brilliant plan poorly executed is a colossal waste of time and effort.

Today’s show was mostly prompted by too much time devoted to talking about reasons, purposes and intentions. Put ’em all in a bucket and stir. Pour out the bucket any way you want. I don’t much care about it because it only matters if the actions matter.

Gratitude Matters, Too

Before you conclude that I’m being a heartless jerk let me talk a bit about gratitude. We’ve all got a long list of things for which we should be grateful. My list just keeps growing no matter how badly I screw up. I have much to be thankful for.

Why does gratitude matter? Because I know how taking action can often lead us to think we’re all that, and then some. Too many people confuse motion and action with their own self-importance. And that can negatively impact effective execution. Effective execution is what matters! I should have executed a better title – EFFECTIVE execution matters.

Plan. Strategize. First, count your blessings. Be thankful. Be grateful. Show that gratitude to the people who have helped and supported you. For those of us who operate with a faith-priority, thank God.

Don’t get too full of yourself. This was brought home to me recently when I heard a very smart economist give a presentation, during which he said there are just 4 reasons why businesses experience trouble: the economy experiences trouble and your business mirrors the economy, your industry experiences a downturn and your company follows the industry, a black swan event (these can’t be predicted or forecasted) and you screwed up. That last one will force all of us to admit we’re mere mortals who sometimes get it wrong.

That’s why gratitude matters. Because humility is a virtue in spite of what some might tell us.

Focus On The Process

I’ve sometimes suffered ridicule for my focus on the process. Mostly by people who fail at gratitude. Funny how that works. The people most full of themselves focus squarely on results. Of course it’s always on their positive results. They love to be the “told you so” people. They also are the braggarts among us.

I’ll tell you why I think they’re wrong and why I choose not to surround myself with them. A person may take an aim to get rich (the result). How they get rich doesn’t much matter. They’re simply consumed with a strong desire to get rich. They define getting rich as earning a million bucks a year. Review people who earn a million bucks a year and you’ll see many different ways to get there. A million dollars earned in a single year. You’ll find some who did it one year, others who did it for many years and some who did it for decades. You’ll also find varied degrees of happiness or unhappiness among them. And you’ll find activities ranging from honest to dishonest, legal to illegal. There are lots of ways to get there. Focusing on the result doesn’t answer the question of how. Without an answer to how, we’re left without execution.

Let me make it even more clear. The results oriented folks love to offer meaningless advice. “Just make it happen,” they may say. “Do what you have to do,” is another popular one I hear. I jokingly say it’s like me telling somebody that the way to become a millionaire is to first get a million bucks.

How does that help?

It doesn’t.

I did a podcast episode about the importance of “the process” that I’d offer you to consider. It’s episode 4010 of my podcast at LeaningTowardWisdom.com. I’ll warn you that it’s a more personal podcast than this one, but I’m pretty proud of that episode.

Here’s why I think the process matters. The goal doesn’t answer the questions,

“How will you spend your days? With whom will you spend them?”

Most of us care about those things. Sure, I’ve met a few people who claimed they didn’t care — as long as they got what they wanted. Usually those were the very ones mostly focused on personal income. To each his own. I’m not really judging those folks. I’m just saying I choose not surround myself with them because I get no energy from them.

Create It. Grow It.

I selected the word execution because it’s so frequently used. In business. In sports. And people – mostly guys – love to use sports analogies. The contrarian in me would use a different word, but we all understand execution.

In keeping with the whole sports/business thing I can’t pass up this opportunity to use one of my all-time favorites. When Tampa Bay first got an NFL team John McKay was the coach. The team was awful. During a press conference a reporter asked the witty coach what he thought of the team’s execution. He quipped, “I’m all for it.” 😀

Execution is just another word for doing stuff. Well, more precisely it’s about doing stuff well. McKay’s original Buccaneer teams didn’t do much well.

Getting it right wasn’t easy for an expansion team in the NFL. In fact, they played 26 games before they ever experienced victory. Getting it right can take time. Mostly it takes doing what’s necessary day after day. It’s mostly determined by how you spend your days and with whom you spend it.

I only know the NFL from a fan’s perspective. I know it’s fundamentally exactly as McKay saw it. Blocking, tackling, running, passing and kicking. Every team is focused on winning. They all want to get it right. With multi-million dollar budgets you’d think more of them would – get it right. If focusing on the results did the trick, they’d all be competing for the Lombardi trophy. But it’s about more than that.

Execution.

It’s one thing to dream it up. It’s something completely different to make it happen. In business, I have found some people who were brilliant dreamers. They could come up with many wonderful, seemingly awesome ideas. A few of them even knew how to launch that idea into some form of reality, even if it was very small. And I love ideas, especially ones that I think are very good.

But growing an idea – growing a business – is a different thing. I’m fortunate to have been called some decent things during my career (we won’t talk about the bad names I’ve been called). Sometimes people have called me “strategic.” Some have called me “an operator.” Others have called me a man of “action.” All compliments. And all because for as long as I can remember I’ve embraced the process – a process that was important to me. A focus on how I spend my days and with whom.

In a future episode we may talk about the difference in creators and growers, but for now I’d like to provoke you to think about your work — the stuff you actually do. I’m not judging what you do, or don’t do. I just want you to consider what you’re doing and ask a few questions that may help you clarify it.

First, I’m going to assume you’re sitting in a chief leadership role. Since I mostly serve C-level leaders, CEOs in particular, I’m focusing on you because you’re the Number One Employee. The buck may stop with you, but the momentum or traction begins with you, too.

What Can You Alone Do?

Make a list of the things that only YOU can do. Because of the seat that you occupy, it’s a chore that can’t done by anybody else. Go ahead. Write it down. It may be a long, long list…or a very short one. That doesn’t matter. Just list it. Don’t sweat about explaining it. As long as you can read the list and understand, that’s good enough. I don’t even want you to be concerned with the length of the list.

What Can Somebody Do?

I know, I know. I just asked what you alone can do, now I’m asking you to look at that same list and figure out what somebody else other than you can do. No, I’ve not lost my mind. Humor me. Look at the list and think of somebody on your team who can do the things on the list. No, I don’t expect you to figure out somebody for each task, but I do expect you figure out somebody who can handle something! Maybe three things.

While you’re at it, go ahead and write down the name of the person by the item. That person who you think could handle the chore. Let me add one small caveat – they can do it well enough to succeed. Don’t get stuck on thinking, “I can do it better myself.” The challenge is to figure out if the task can be successfully executed by anybody other than YOU.

What Do I Avoid Doing Because I Hate It?

This is a different list. Well, maybe. Write down the things you avoid doing because you dread doing it. These might be things on your original “only I can do it” list, but they probably aren’t. These are probably things you don’t ever do because you just hate doing them. Go ahead. Write them down. I don’t care why, and honestly, you don’t either – do you? You just know you despise doing them. Good enough. Make the list.

What Do I Always Do Because I Love It?

Now, let’s flip it upside down and list the things you love doing because you just love it. Who knows or cares why? It doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter if somebody else can do it. Are there things on this list that also made that original “only I can do it” list? Maybe. I’d even go so far as to say probably. That’s okay. Write them down.

Who On My Team Loves Doing What I Hate?

Now it’s going to get a bit tougher – maybe. Think about your team. Think about what you hate. Maybe you hate what you’re not good at. Maybe you hate what you’ve been good at, but you’re sick of it at this phase of your career. No matter, match up the stuff you hate doing with the people on your team who you know love doing that exact thing. If you can’t be sure, then guess who based on what you know of them. So, you’re writing down who on your team loves doing the thing you hate, or who you THINK may love doing the thing you hate.

Let’s stay right here for the moment. I’m assuming you’ve got names that you’re pretty set with – names of people you know love doing what you hate. Question: do you have them doing what they love? Are they doing those things you hate, but the things they love? If not, why not?

I’m really sick of the bus metaphor made famous by Jim Collins…and I’d love to go just one week without hearing some corporate executive use it, but boy has it permeated the business world. Why do you have the wrong people on the wrong seats on the bus?

Stick with me. Stay right here on this question – Who On My Team Loves Doing What I Hate? Think about your own hatred and dread. Think about how you feel when faced with doing something you hate. I’m not talking about some one-off kind of thing like negotiating a long-term lease. You may have to do it and endure it once every few years. I’m talking more about ongoing activity that you know is vital (some more so, some less so) to your company’s success. It’s stuff that just must get done. And it must get done well. But you don’t want to be the one doing it. It’s okay. You’re the big cheese. You can love what you love and hate what hate. That’s why I have this sign my daughter bought me…

Now, think about what you love. You may not know why you love it. It’s likely you have a more keen awareness of why you hate what you hate. Step outside yourself and imagine somebody who can feel like you do when you love doing something. Except they feel that way doing what you hate. I know, it’s hard, right? Well, try.

Go back over your list of things you hate and revise it if you want. Add names. Take names off of it. These are the names of people who love doing what you hate.

Go back over your original “only I can do” list and adjust the stuff that’s on there that you hate. I guarantee you’ve got at least one, probably more. Remove those from your original “only I can do” list and just keep them on this “who on my team loves doing” list. Now, before we move on. Commit to delegating that task to that person. Do whatever you must to get it off your list and onto theirs. You owe it to yourself and to them. Stop doing what you hate. And stop keeping other people from doing what they love.

No, we’re not done yet. Not quite.

Who On My Team Loves Doing What I Love?

These are your kindred spirits. You think so anyway. It may be good for you, but it’s how most of us roll. Birds of a feather and all that.

List the names of the people alongside the list of things you love to do. I’m betting you’re able to come up with those names faster and easier. I’m also betting there’s more of them. Funny how that works, huh?

And as you’re writing down these names you’re probably thinking of yourself, too. I can hear that little voice in your head saying, “Joe is good at it. I’m better, but Joe’s pretty good.” Because it’s what you love doing you’re comparing how well you do it versus the other people on your team. You’re competitive like that. It’s okay. I get it.

Number One Employees Deserve Better

As the chief leader I’m here to tell you that you’re too busy with stuff that doesn’t matter. I’ve yet to see a CEO who isn’t pressed for time. Or one whose schedule isn’t severely packed. But the CEO or other top leader is exactly the one (or ones) who need the most margin in their life in order to serve the others in the company. They just don’t make the time.

They have the time. Too often they just choose not to take it. Instead, they’re doing the things they love. And sometimes the things they hate. It’s not for lack of motion or action, but too frequently it is for lack of effective execution. Today’s word is “hustle.” We love the word because it denotes energy, tenacity and doing, doing, doing. Sadly, we confuse running fast with getting somewhere. It’s possible to run fast without getting anywhere. Leaders are doing it all over world.

As the number one employee you deserve to make an investment in yourself. Your own growth and your own leadership have a ripple effect that will impact your organization. For good. Or bad. You choose.

Refuse to take the time. Refuse to make the investment in yourself. You’ll pay. So will your team. So will your business.

See yourself as the valuable resource you are. Take the time. Make the investment. Your growth will become your team’s growth and your company’s growth. It can’t be helped. It can’t be accomplished any other way.

Employees Deserve Better

Your direct reports and all other employees deserve the best leadership available. That’s your job. Be that leader or be replaceable. Again, you choose.

The execution – effective execution – hinges on people doing the things they’re great at. I know, I’ve not talked about judging people on skills. That’s because I started with where our hearts at. And maybe it’s not 100% accurate, but most of us tend to be good at – or we have the capacity to get really good at – the things we love. Rarely do we develop a knack for something we dread or hate. So I’m going with that premise. If you’ve got an odd situation where you, or somebody on your team, is great at something they hate, then brace yourself for a short-term effective execution of that thing. Even if people are great at something they hate, they won’t keep doing it for long. Don’t count on it for your long-term strategy.

People talk alot these days about employee engagement. I’ve got two simple strategies for it: a) give people work they love to do and b) talk with people. Do more of both and it’ll work.

Conclusion

So what does all this mean? It means if you get execution down – if you figure out the best way to spend your days and the best people to spend your days with – then you’ll achieve more. Period.

It requires a boldness and courage I don’t see nearly often enough. Too many big bosses are busy behaving the way they think big bosses should behave. They think they’re supposed to have all the answers. They grow too full of themselves. They over value what they bring  and they under value what others bring. They develop unrealistic beliefs about their success – or their company’s success. And sometimes unrealistic beliefs about the market or the competition. In short, sometimes the best of us can grow delusional.

Today, it’s about a reality check. It’s a human heart reality check designed to make you think about your own work flow, systems and processes. Dig deeper than I have and figure out what’s working well, what’s not working at all and what may just need some tweaking. Start by taking a much closer look at how you’re spending your time as the chief leader. Ask yourself if somebody might be able to do that job…perhaps better! Consider some possibilities you may have never considered. Because effective execution matters. Frankly, not much else matters because at the end of your career it’s all going to have been a matter of how you spent your time and who you spent it with. Make the most of it.

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He’s the guy at the front of the room. Leading the meeting.

Around the room sit all his direct reports. All eleven of them.

It’s a half-day meeting that’s been planned for months. It happens about three times a year — a meeting whose sole aim is to “get down to it,” according to the CEO. He means it’s a meeting he hopes will foster the most candid conversations possible.

The meeting starts off slowly, as so many meetings do. They go around the room sharing whatever they’d like – a trite, common way folks start meetings. I’ve never understood the strategy. Here you are, at a prime time to get the meeting off to a great start and immediately you stomp things down with a 3rd grade show ‘n tell tactic. I watch the energy dissipate increasingly as the the exercise gets underway. People are sharing the most innocuous things possible. You can tell they’re prepared for this little exercise. You can also tell nobody is getting anything from it. Certainly not more energy.

After 15 excruciating minutes it’s over. There’s a slide deck prepared by the CEO to update the team on information they’ve likely looked at for weeks now. Each executive knows this information backwards and forwards. That lasts 15 minutes. This is the kind of meeting these folks have endured more times than any of them can remember. It’s corporate, organized and lackluster. But nobody expects anything else.

And I’m saddened to realize that. “Nobody expects anything else,” my voice in my head mutters repeatedly.

The CEO is a brilliant business guy. He knows his stuff. Everybody respects his business acumen. And his experience in the industry. Like many CEO’s he’s often preoccupied. He can seem disengaged. Catch him at the right time, which most direct reports will tell you is “most of the time,” and you’ll see it.

At my suggestion he’s asked each direct report to bring one-big-thing to the meeting. As much as I enjoy working many different things, from many different angles – I’ve learned that focus on a single thing at a time is extremely powerful. And tough to do. Partly I suggested this to focus the group, but the bigger motive I had was to foster the CEO’s goal of getting down to it. When you have to narrow it down to a single thing, that cuts to the chase.

The assignment wasn’t complex, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Bring one-big-thing that’s the biggest elephant in the room at the moment. Not something down the road. Something present right now (that was also strategic to force people to be in the moment). It could be anything – a challenge, an obstacle, an opportunity, a worry, a specific problem…anything else.

“Don’t force it,” I told the CEO before the meeting. Let the game come to you. Ask for people to share if they’d like. And if they don’t want to, don’t get angry. The objective was to first share, then to foster collaboration among the group to help support the person with their insights and counsel.

When the CEO got to this part of the agenda he did well in presenting it. And he displayed patience instead of his usual antsy-ness. Within seconds one of his more seasoned direct reports volunteered to break the ice. About 6 weeks ago he had a health scare. He passed out in his office and folks feared he was having a heart attack. They called an ambulance and whisked him off to the local hospital. He spent one night in the hospital, running all the usual tests. No heart attack, but he was suffering exhaustion. MRI’s and other tests showed elevated cholesterol, but no serious life-threatening issues. He took 2 more days off, but was back at work sooner than the CEO even expected. Typical.

He addressed the group with a story of how he had wound up in the hospital. At least it was how he thought he wound up there. He talked of his family and his co-workers. The success of the organization was forefront on his mind. You could tell he was proud of their collective work. He delivered a heart-felt sermon of sorts to his co-workers thanking them and encouraging them to make whatever changes might improve their own mental and physical health. “I’m not bringing up a problem so much as I’m delivering a warning and asking you all to consider yourself as a resource. Not just for the company, but for all the other people in your life.”

He delivered his thoughts with enough emotion to stir everybody in the room, ending it with a challenge. “What you are doing – what are you going to do – to insure that the resource that is YOU is protected and properly invested?”

There was a pause. Everybody’s wheels were turning in their head, no doubt thinking of about their life and all the people who depended on them. I’m thinking to myself, “This is great. These people are really going to get going now.” Talk about getting down to it. Man, it was going to happen.

Then one word destroyed the moment. It wasn’t a word that was uttered. It was a word to describe the leader, the CEO. Now I can’t judge thoughts, but like you, I can judge actions. And words.

Before the pause grew too uncomfortable, the CEO said, “Who wants to go next?”

Just like that (snap your fingers), the moment passed. Energy left the room. Shocked back to the reality that this meeting wasn’t about people, but it was strictly business. Key metrics. Performance standards. Future projects. Current projects. Budgets.

Everybody made the same conclusion and assigned a single word to the moment, ascribing this word to the CEO.

DISINTERESTED.

That’s how you can ruin your leadership instantly. Be disinterested.

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If you’ve not listened to the first episode of Leadership Challenges (a narrowed-down sub-series of the Grow Great podcast), go do that first. It’s on safety and the importance of establishing that before you can grow into a more effective, impactful leader.

Today’s subject is trust. Safety is first because if our people don’t feel safe with us, then we’ll never get them to trust us. The short command, “Trust me” won’t work. It’s not just a trite sales cliche, it’s baloney. It screams, “Whatever you do, DO NOT TRUST ME.”

Leadership is about relationships. This isn’t about styles of leadership. Those vary, just as much as personalities. Whether you roll like General Patton or Tony Dungy, your leadership hinges on being able to establish healthy relationships. There is a burden of leadership that requires you to show people the way. Forging the relationship is first your responsibility. Yes, all parties have to comply – to some degree. But somebody has to make the first move. That’s YOU.

And Houston, we have our problem. Too often leaders complain that so-and-so isn’t putting in the effort. They’ll complain how some team member isn’t cooperative enough, or reliable enough, or something else. If I had a buck for every time a leader or business complained about an employee who wasn’t proactive enough I’d be off lounging at a beach somewhere full-time. “I wish they’d show more initiative,” says the CEO. Well, duh. Yes, we want people to handle things, including relationships at work, in a more proactive, less reactive way. Unfortunately, when you hang around the place long enough you realize the top leader is often not demonstrating a proactive approach to building the relationship.

This was driven home not long ago when a top leader complained to me about one employee who was too passive for her tastes. She wanted her team to be comprised of assertive, “go for broke” type of people. This one particular person was more reserved and she was struggling to deal with it. Within minutes she was complaining about another employee who had overstepped her bounds. This mid-level manager had inserted himself in a meeting that the CEO felt was inappropriate. I had heard these kinds of conflicting stories before from this leader. She was hard charging, demanding and had lots of things going for her. Like all of us, she had simply gotten a bit blind-sided with her how frustrations. I knew how she felt ’cause every CEO suffers it every now and again. My job was to help her through her frustrations to find solutions that would help her grow as a leader — and help her grow her people, too.

She wasn’t paying close attention to the contrasting frustrations she had just expressed. So I held up a verbal mirror and restated these frustrations back to her. She leaned back, smiled and said, “Can’t win for losing, huh?” She was referring to how some of her people likely felt. I just said, “What do you think?”

“I think I probably need to own it myself first,” she said. Breakthrough.

Sadly, not enough leaders are as open-minded to accept responsibility to show their people the way. This leader had a strength – a humility and courage – to accept the responsibility to establish trust with people by first learning to trust them. Over time we discussed how our view of people can impact our culture and our organization’s performance. A CEO who suspects all employees are stealing time, materials and inventory will behave very differently than a CEO convinced that people want to get up in the morning, come to work and do a good job. How we view the world – and the people who occupy our space in it – impacts many things for us.

Proverbs 18:24 says, “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly.” Ditto for trust. If you want people to trust you, you must show yourself trustworthy. And you must first trust them.

A CEO may say, “Well, that’s stupid. People have to earn trust.” I get that. Again, we’ve got world views to consider. You can approach life from a no trust zone first, or from a trust zone first. It’s the difference in innocent until proven guilty or guilty until proven innocent. You decide.

I’ve heard tons of seemingly logical reasons offered by top leaders who talk of the negatives – the downsides – of trusting people. Words like “blindly trusting” people are used, indicating weakness and stupidity. When I press a leader to give me specifics of what they think those downsides may be they often aren’t able to list anything too terribly bad. Rarely have I heard a leader name an outcome that can’t be fixed or repaired after the fact.

Now, flip the exercise on its head and reverse it. What’s the downside of NOT trusting somebody? How much time do you have to investigate the negative possibilities? On and on we can go. Those typically far outweigh the negatives of trust. Yes, trust can (and sometimes is) betrayed. Husbands and wives betray each other, too. So should we not trust our spouse? How healthy would our marriages be if we all behaved like that? Same thing for our relationships at work.

The leader’s challenge is to first demonstrate trust in order to gain or facilitate trust. Show people the way. Behave your way to what you want. Yes, far easier said than done!

But true nonetheless.  

It’s really not that hard — until people disappoint us. That disappointment can come when the person doesn’t do something we think they should have done, when they do something we don’t think they should have, or whenever we disagree or don’t fully approve of whatever choice or behavior they made. In short, when people do something we wouldn’t have done ourselves, or when people don’t do it the way we’d have done it — then our trust is tested. Sometimes it’s beyond tested. Sometimes, it’s broken completely. And some CEO’s have a really tough time forgiving people and letting people out of the doghouse. That won’t make things better.

Do you trust your wife? Sure you do, unless she’s given your reason not to.

Has your wife ever disappointed you by doing something you thought was stupid, or something you think you’d have never done? Probably.

Is she still in your doghouse because of it? Boy, I hope not. If so, your marriage is broken. And if I asked your wife the same questions she’s likely give me the same answers you gave. You’ve disappointed her with your acts of stupidity. But she still trusts you. Hopefully she still loves you.

We often have less harsh standards at home than at work – at least with some things. One mis-step by a team member and we may forever deem them untrustworthy. That’s it. One shot and you’re done!

If you’ve successfully raised teenagers you know how futile (and stupid) that is. Our kids learn trustworthiness because we train them, we trust them and we help them learn from their mistakes.

Guess what? It works the same way at work. As leaders, we owe it to our employees to train them, to trust them and to help them learn from their mistakes. Over time we can build stronger trust. Or we can handle it in more toxic ways and damage our people (and our relationships with them) making them less effective. How does that help us succeed as leaders? How does that grow our business?

Make your people safe. Train them. Trust them. Help them learn from their mistakes. Rinse and repeat.

Keep the faith,

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Thank you!