I’m going back to the long-used podcast show title, Grow Great with Randy Cantrell because it’s always been and will always be about leadership. And true leadership starts with us, our determination to lead our lives in ways where we have the most positive impact on others.
It still involves leveraging the power of others because we know it’s the truth – who you surround yourself with matters!
I hope to be just one of the people who surround you, urging you on, giving you some things to ponder, sharing some insights and experiences, and providing you with a free (the podcast) resource in your quest to grow great.
The subject matter won’t change so much, but the focus is going to lean more heavily into leadership whose aim is to help create the most high-performing teams, groups, and organizations possible.
Why?
Three big reasons prompted this return.
One, I’m intentionally pivoting my work more heavily into serving city government leaders. While it’s true, leadership is leadership, context matters.
Since I was about 15 I’ve been involved in business. Selling is where it all began. Business is all about selling. It’s about getting new customers, serving existing customers better and not going crazy in the process. I’ve spent my entire adult life in those pursuits.
Then about 6 years ago I got an opportunity. Pure serendipity. And good fortune. I was blessed to get a phone call one day from a friend who didn’t quite know what I did. It was an opportunity to do some executive coaching for a city. City government leadership, something I knew nothing about. Truth is, I didn’t even know anybody who operated in that space really. But I got the engagement and as they say, “The rest is history.”
I’ve continued to operate in that space while simultaneously serving CEOs and business owners.
There was something special – different – about serving leaders in city government. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it for a few years, but within the past 18 months or so it’s become more clear. The focus is people. Not that high-performing businesses aren’t about people, but they’re necessarily focused on people in a different way. The work is very different. And I’m very familiar – I’m an expert at business operations. I should be. I’ve spent almost 50 years practicing the craft. Maybe that had an impact on this whole thing – city government was something new. Different. There was no focus on getting new customers. Gone were the operational elements of marketing and sales – trying to generate revenues and enhance profits.
Instead, city government leaders were focused on being efficient and effective through organizational behaviors that would contribute to high-performing cultures. At least the cities and towns who engaged me were. These weren’t folks looking for remedies. They wanted to get better. They wanted to grow great – or grow greater!
It was refreshing. Rewarding.
Two, the past few years have taught me the importance of a high-performing culture in organizations. I’d always believed it, but I had firsthand encounters with cultures that were once higher performing, but things changed. It slipped. And I saw the devastating effect it had on people – both individually and collectively. So I got more intensely focused on figuring out how high-performing cultures can be built and maintained through continual growth.
Three, and this is the most important reason. I’m going to my roots.
Maybe it’s my age. Experience. Maturity. Or maybe it’s my lifetime of interest, passion and worldview.
A few episodes ago I did a show referencing The Human Side Of Enterprise by Douglas McGregor, published in the 1960s. When I was a teenager, working for various owners of stereo shops (yep, there were once stores where people purchased speakers, receivers, turntables and all that stuff that made playing records possible). More often than not I worked for tyrants. Men who had no clue about how to build organizations. Or how to treat employees. Daily, I’d lament, “There’s got to be a better way!” But I didn’t know. I certainly hoped so.
While I loved business – still do – I realized I loved something else more. High-performing organizations comprised of the most energized people possible. Those are my roots going back to my teen years. So I’m coming home.
Today, my worldview and philosophy are more steeped in knowledge and experience than when I first wondered, “There’s got to be a better way!” Now, I know there is. And this podcast is my contribution to that. I hope you find it helpful.
I don’t know anybody who relishes getting up in the morning to attack the day in hopes of achieving a mediocre outcome. But that happens in the lives of too many people.
They lumber out of bed, prepare for the day with a quick stop by their favorite coffee joint in a mindless routine of preparing to simply endure another day. Pandemic notwithstanding, too many people behave as though they’re extras in The Walking Dead TV series.
We all have a philosophy – a way we approach our life. It includes how we see the world and our place in it. This isn’t some static view uninfluenced by age, experience, knowledge or our surroundings (including the people who surround us). It’s this constantly moving, shifting, organic thing, but it’s likely got some foundations that may not be quite as portable. Think of it as a room in your house – a fixed space – but within that room, there’s plenty of variations in how the future can be arranged.
Much of that foundation is based on our values, convictions, and beliefs. Not just about ourselves, but about others. And yes, perhaps about God. This also includes how we view success. It’s what matters to us. Largely comprised of what matters most to us!
Talk with 100 random people about these things and I’d wager you’d be hard-pressed to find more than a couple who could clearly articulate their life philosophy. Many of us are simply too busy, too stuck and too distracted to give it the thought and action it deserves.
Today, let’s try to change that, even if it’s just slightly. Maybe it’s time – or past time – for you to consider YOURSELF as a limited resource. What you choose to do with yourself is entirely up to you. Nobody else. You get to write your own story in spite of the fact that you may be deceived into thinking others are writing it for you. That only happens when you allow others to craft your story.
Step 1 – Don’t let them.
Before you can begin to leverage your own power to invest in yourself and train yourself to become better – you must assume responsibility for your own life.
If you’re prone to think of yourself as a victim then may I suggest you invest in some books aimed at helping people overcome such delusions. Talk with somebody. Seek out a professional mental health expert. Do whatever you must do to correct the damaging notion that you’re where you are because somebody (or a group of somebodies) have done this to you. Find whatever resources you can – and don’t stop until you find them – that can help you understand that you’ve got much more power than you think. Until you reach that place, your life will won’t improve because you’re failing to take ownership of your own story.
I’m a notebook freak. I love great notebooks. I’ve got them all around me, almost all the time.
Since I was a child I enjoyed writing things down. Making notes. Capturing quotes. Jotting down words or phrases. Titles of books. Or songs. Just getting things out of my head onto paper is something special for me. I can’t fully explain it.
Through the years I’ve started new notebooks thousands of times. There’s nothing quite like unwrapping the cellophane wrapping of a brand new notebook, one unmarred by anybody. No writing on any page. It’s my new notebook. I can write what I please when I please. When I was a kid I’d write my name in the front. And maybe the date. Or I might write a heading on a page in anticipation of what might follow. The great thing about it…I could do it however it suited me at the time.
Sometimes I’ve begun notebooks thinking I’d use this particular notebook just for a specific purpose. Some theme perhaps. Or something else. But a few pages in I changed my mind. And the notebook became a hodgepodge of ideas and random things. But it’s okay ’cause it’s my notebook and I can do with it as I please.
But when it comes to something infinitely more valuable than a notebook – YOUR LIFE – am I to believe that you have more control over a notebook or some app on your phone to capture ideas, than you do your life?
I’m supposed to believe as a fact that your life is like giving somebody else your phone so they can use the Notebook app on YOUR PHONE for YOUR LIFE?
Yep, sounds ridiculous when I put it that way, huh? Well, that’s because it is ridiculous.
I don’t care if people have done you wrong. It’s happened to all of us. Some worse than others, but we all suffer. We’ve all been hurt. Time to build a bridge and get over it because this is OUR LIFE and time is wasting.
Step 2 – Self-education is just the beginning, but it’s not the end.
Self-education is impossible in people who refuse to accept personal responsibility for their own lives. That’s why this is number 2, not number 1. 😉
Self-education is mandatory for everybody who aspires to achieve their ideal outcome. It’s not the end of education, but it’s the beginning, middle, and end. Better yet, it’s ongoing, continual, and never-ending. And it’s not the only form of education in our lives, but without it we don’t embrace the other forms necessary to help us reach our ideal progression. We won’t get better if we neglect it.
Daily we have to take it for ourselves by putting in the work to learn. Self-education isn’t just about knowing, it’s about doing. It’s about closing the “knowing-doing” gap by doing more consistently what we already know while simultaneously learning new things that we’ve never known before. Then doing something with that new knowledge.
Puzzles. Word games. Video games. Chess.
These are just a few examples of activities that appeal to millions of people for one simple reason. Humans thrive on figuring things out. We can be energized by complexity.
Last week my wife and I binge-watched a Netflix series, The Queen’s Gambit. It’s a mini-series about a child chess prodigy. She loves playing chess, trying to figure out new strategies. The character thrives on learning more about how to play chess.
Her commitment to chess propels her to pursue playing the game at the highest level possible. Hours spent reading books, talking with more seasoned players, competing in tournaments, and visualizing game strategy all contributed to her self-education.
Gauge your determination to educate yourself in areas where you have an interest. Or areas where you know it might benefit your life.
Self-education has a cumulative impact on our lives – a powerful, positive impact!
Step 3 – Anticipate what you need to know.
“Everything is hard until it’s easy.”
It’s my favorite quote even though I don’t know who said it. Or where I first heard it. But it’s simple and profound.
We don’t know what we don’t know, but we must anticipate what we need to know. It’s a big part of investing in ourselves and training ourselves.
Think about the things you know today that you consider quite common, but just a few years ago you had no clue how to do it.
Like how to post videos to Facebook? 😀
I still remember 10 years ago when older business people staunchly declared they’d never get a “smartphone,” and now you can’t pry it from their hands. That flip phone just couldn’t cut it anymore and they pilot their iPhones like teenage girls.
Many people wait to be trained. Big mistake!
If it is to be, it’s up to me.
Don’t wait for somebody to show up to teach you, or train you. Take matters into your own hands.
Start with the things you’d like to learn or the things you know you need to learn. Expand from there.
Maybe formal education is required. Likely not, but it could be. I mean, you’re not going to learn how to do surgery or practice law without both formal education and training. By the way, education is acquiring the knowledge necessary. Training is putting that knowledge into action. Both are critical for our growth and improvement.
Think longer term. Look further up the road from your current position. Aim for where you want to go, then get busy figuring out what you need to learn in order to get there.
Step 4 – Lean on others for help. #ThePowerOfOthers
There are only a few ways we learn.
Trial and error. This is common. We just try things and fail, try more things, and still fail. It’s not called “trial and success” for a reason. Because mostly it’s trying things that don’t work as we struggle to figure out what does work.
Self-education alone. Perhaps it’s less common than trial and error. Likely because many people don’t have the patience to study something on their own. When we read books, listen to podcasts, watch videos, take online courses or other things where we’re trying to figure it out by studying it out for ourselves…then we’re neck-deep in self-education. Which is a good thing. The only bad thing is that little word, “alone.” If this is all we do, it may only be slightly more impactful than trial and error.
Let somebody – or get somebody – to teach us, to show us and to coach us. It’s the most effective of the three. And it’s especially positive when we incorporate all three at the same time. “I don’t need help,” says the person who clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing. But pride won’t let him accept help. And pride will stymie his progress. Not worth it.
Leverage people who can shorten the time required to learn something. Connect with people who can teach you by educating you, and by showing you, then coaching you how you can do it.
I regularly tell folks that over a dozen years when I began Bula Network the work was mostly “roll-your-sleeves-up-get-your-hands-dirty” consulting work. Overtime it quickly morphed into coaching. It almost always sparks the question, “What’s the difference between coaching and consulting?” To which I answer, consulting is “do it for them” and coaching is helping them learn how to do it for themselves. It’s that give a man a fish versus teach a man to fish deal.
Every coaching client I’ve ever had can (and will) tell you that the acceleration of growth made with help is vastly better than trying to go it alone. It’s true of anything people want to learn. Somebody out there has the ability to help us learn it. Our job is to ask, “Who?” Then seek them out.
Charles Handy is an Irish author and expert in organizational behavior and management. I’m a longtime fan of his books. One of them is entitled, The Age Of Unreason.
I’ll give Mr. Handy the last word today – words he wrote in that book, published in 1989.
“If changing is really learning, if effective organizations need more and more intelligent people, if careers are shorter and more changeable, above all, if more people need to be more self-sufficient for more of their lives, then education has to become the single most important investment that any person can make in their own destiny.”
Douglas McGregor was a founding faculty member of MIT’s Sloan School of Management. In 1960 he published, “The Human Side Of Enterprise.” The book is most noted for introducing the world to Theory X and Y. Simply put, Theory X assumes workers are lazy and unambitious while Theory Y assumes workers are internally motivated, want to do good work, and will strive to improve.
I was happy to run across this book when I was still quite young. It was the mid-to-late 1970’s. By then the book was almost 2 decades old, but it reinforced what I had hoped was true. There was a better way to manage work and lead people.
I had learned that bosses were mostly tyrannical barking out orders and riding people hard in order to get the work done. I was well into my 20’s before I ever experienced a boss who offered any encouragement or practical coaching. Up to that point, every boss I had was a jerk. Self-centered. Uncaring. Greedy. Autocratic.
For years I had stuck to the notion that there must be a better way, but I had no proof. Until McGregor’s book showed me I might be right.
In all fairness, much of my speculation was born from my Christian faith. Kindness evidently had no place in business as I had experienced – especially between boss and employees. But I knew that was required if I was going to practice what I believed as a Christian. Yes, it was incredibly difficult to be kind to the boss and most of us did it only because we were afraid.
McGregor was the first person to apply behavioral science to business. It seems strange to us today to think that psychology and how people think and behave wasn’t really part of human management theory until Douglas McGregor focused on human behavior so intently.
He believed that as society grew more complex and technology expanded to provide more competitive advantages, that people would grow increasingly more critical to make groups successful. In 1960 he thought we were not even close to approaching maximizing the potential in human behavior. Sixty years later, and I could easily argue that not much has changed in many circles.
“Strictly speaking, the answer to the question managers so often ask of behavioral scientists — ‘How do you motivate people?’ — is, ‘You don’t.’ Man is by nature motivated.”
McGregor wrote that in an essay entitled, “The Manager, Human Nature, And Human Sciences.” He believed we needed to think about the problem differently if we had any hope to solve it. Namely, it meant treating people as individuals, knowing that each one has his own set of values and internal motivations. Organizations are living organisms comprised of people who want to learn, grow and improve. It was McGregor who pointed out how we’re all defined by how we think so he urged business to change our assumptions about people – Theory Y was a major shift from Theory X, even though McGregor felt both were two sides of the same coin.
If Mr. McGregor were alive today – he died in 1964 – he’d likely see a world more receptive of his ideas than ever before. He saw the future, an ideal future. And that’s my main point today. To encourage you to see the ideal outcome for your group, team or organization. Especially as it pertains to the people who are inside.
As you read McGregor – something I strongly encourage you to do – you’ll find it remarkable that these ideas were crafted by a man who lived when autocracy, hierarchy authority and viewing people as merely interchangeable parts were the norms. In some places they still are. Sadly.
He wrote this in The Human Side of Enterprise…
“Managerial practice appears to reflect at least a tacit belief that motivating people to work is a “mechanical” problem. There are certain similarities between this view of man at work and Newton’s Law of Motion. To a considerable degree, man has been perceived to be like a physical body at rest. It requires the application of external forces to set him in motion – to motivate him to work. Consequently, extrinsic rewards and punished are the obvious and appropriate “forces” to be utilized in controlling organized human effort.”
McGregor knew there was a better way. A simpler way. A more human way.
He felt managers should behave more like gardeners than tyrants. It was, he argued, their job to grow people because people are organic, living things – fully capable of growth, improvement, renewal, adaptation, and change. It’s not about fixing people, but it’s about helping people become better!
Much of what McGregor preached could be boiled down into the word “relationships.” We need each other. Learning to leverage the power of others in our life – and our ability to help others by letting them leverage our service in their lives – it makes an enormous difference in our lives. It’s our ideal path forward. It’s our ideal outcome.
I first met Leo Bottary via an email I sent him. A cold email. He had no clue who or what I was.
I had read his first book (co-authored with Leon Shapiro, CEO of Vistage) – THE POWER OF PEERS. I wanted to see if Leo had any interest in starting a podcast. I found great value in the ideas put forth in that first book. And wondered if a podcast might help get the word out that there’s tremendous power in helping others and allowing others to help us.
I did a series of audio summaries of that first book – THE POWER OF OTHERS – right here. You may want to go back to check out those episodes. Click here and you’ll see the entire list. Or click here for the first in that series of summaries – and go here for Leo’s interview after I summarized all 11 chapters of that first book.
Well, one thing led to another and we launched a podcast called YEAR OF THE PEER. Today, it’s called PEERNOVATION (just like the title of Leo’s third book).
Leo has intentionally priced it for the widest possible audience. We both hope you’ll invest in a copy. Better yet, we hope you’ll employ the framework to help you become part of or leader of a higher-performing team.
Today, Leo joins me as we talk about his childhood and growing up in Boston to a fantastic story about his father’s late-life success in a brand new career.
I’m like Picasso. No, I’m not great at art, but I’m not great at math, either. Neither was he evidently.
During his early school years when the teacher asked him to write the number 4 on the board, he’d see it as a nose, then proceed to draw the rest of the face. The other kids saw the number four. He saw a nose. Such is the difference between ordinary and extraordinary. Or the difference between an artist and a mathematician.
Perspective impacts just about everything.
Look no further than this current polarizing Presidential election to prove how true it is. Nevermind that social media platforms *may* continue to feed you information that’s congruent with the viewpoint they know you have based on your Internet behavior. Rarely have I seen (in fact, I don’t think I’ve seen it happen once) a person change “sides.” I’m a Capitalist, which means I’m apolitical. But on one side of me is a person with Biden/Harris signs and on the other side is a family flying a Trump flag. Something tells me they each have a viewpoint that’s not likely going to change. They see the world in certain ways and I suppose they’ll vote based on the signs in their yard.
In my coaching practice, which is slowly morphing to incorporate a group component – I call it THE PEER ADVANTAGE, I often have conversations with people about being part of a professional peer group. That’s a group where all the participants share a major common denominator – for instance, I’m building a group of SMB owners. Dip your toes into the “mastermind” arena and you’ll quickly hear things like, “Find somebody who has already achieved what you hope to achieve.” Or, “Join yourself to people who are ahead of where you are.” Or, “Be part of a group where people are achieving higher success than you are.”
Do you notice the problem?
You’re on the bottom of the totem pole in every case. Which begs the question, “Why would somebody more successful than you want to be part of a group that has YOU as a member?” (Thank you, Groucho Marx!)
But there’s something else to think about.
The more familiar we are with something the more complacent we tend to become. Additionally, the more accomplished we are at something, the greater the threat to not appreciate any variations. It’s the whole “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” syndrome.
One of the value propositions of a professional peer group is the ability to help us see different perspectives. What we see as a four may be seen by somebody else as a nose. Both people are helped by the other viewpoints. You only get that with diversity, not sameness.
Curiosity drives understanding. And curiosity is fueled by wonder, not some certainty that we already know.
That’s why professional peer groups with people who share something important – like being an SMB owner – are highly valuable when there are other big differences like industry, revenue volume, age, experience, and personality.
We so rarely change our point-of-view because we don’t often enough seek understanding. We don’t want to understand a viewpoint different from ours because our familiarity with our own viewpoint has convinced us we’re right and all others are wrong. Or less right. What we know to be right may not be ideal. Or even right at all.
Pick any industry. Go find websites or periodicals (trade magazines) of that industry and you’ll quickly see how everybody in that industry is reading the same things, thinking the same things, and largely doing the same things in the same ways. Some are more successful than others and those less successful are envious of the industry leaders. In some instances, the industry leaders aren’t achieving superior success because they’re doing anything terribly unique, but they found some serendipity. Or they’re in a hot market. Or they’ve got fewer competitors. I’ve seen it over and over again – superior success is often achieved not because of what they’re doing, but sometimes it’s happening in spite of themselves.
Last week I talked about anticipating the ideal outcome. It’s a hot button topic for me because success can be the worst kind of complacency. It causes us to stop thinking about what could be. It fosters complacency and self-assuredness that we’re all that and then some. It cements us in a way of looking at things and a way of thinking about things. If we see a number four we’re unable to see a nose!
What If?
Hypotheticals have value. Logically, I think many of us know that. Why then are we so reluctant to ask the hypothetical questions? Why are we even more reluctant to answer them?
What if you were the very best in your field? I don’t mean, “What if you were better?” I mean, quite literally, what if nobody was better at it than you? What would that look like? What would you have to look like? How would that version of you be different than the current you?
I spend more time watching home construction YouTube videos than I care to admit. Sometimes during my late-night bouts of insomnia, I’ll start watching to learn about the new technology being incorporated by the best home builders in the world. One thing I enjoy about these people is their willingness to chase hypotheticals. What if we could reduce the energy consumption of a house by 50%? What about a 75% reduction?
Merely asking the hypothetical sets in motion thinking that seeks what that might have to look like. Not asking those questions fosters no such thinking. That’s why so many home builders around the world are simply copying what everybody else in their industry is doing. How boring!
This past weekend I went to watch one of my grandsons play football. The team was playing poorly and being soundly beaten by the opponent. The opposing team was bigger and faster. Before we got too far into the game my grandson’s team was down by four touchdowns and it was apparent the scoreboard might not have enough digits to display the final score. Enter misbehaving coaches, the scourge of youth sports. The head coach behaved so poorly the officials finally threw a flag for unsportsmanlike conduct on the sideline. That prompted further tirades from the same coach, who then got flagged again for the same thing. That’s when the officials warned him that one more such call and he’d be dismissed from the game. Enter his assistant coach to pick up the mantle of poor behavior. He barked insults at the officials and at one point when an elderly man there to support his own grandson said, “Come on, coach, you’re hurting the team” he turned and unleashed his wrath on the granddad.
Two grown men whose team was being soundly beaten, choosing to see the officials as the culprit of their team’s poor play. If I thought I had sufficient persuasive power to change their mind, I’d have gladly attempted it. But I knew to leave well enough alone.
I share that story to illustrate how embarrassing a single point-of-view can look. As I watched my grandson’s team lose all enthusiasm for a sport most of them love, and as I continued to watch these men display what immaturity and foolishness look and sound like, I wondered, “What if the coaches decided to remove all the pressure from young boys trying to figure out how to handle this steam roller they’d run into?” And, “What if the coaches didn’t teach these boys that the officials are the reason for their poor play?”
Instead, as you might imagine, the players quickly began to lean on the excuse that the officials were doing a poor job. With few exceptions, it was obvious the sideline was filled with complainers who felt they were victimized by the game officials. That wasn’t true, of course. The other team was substantially better. And my grandson’s team was being coached by men who couldn’t see the game any other way than how they were seeing it. As a result, nobody was accepting responsibility for the outcome that they clearly deserved. Nobody had fun. Nobody learned anything, except how to insult officials.
That’s the power of a point-of-view unwilling to see it any differently. Unable to adjust in order to achieve a more suitable outcome.
I’d like you to think of those coaches every time you find yourself unwilling to question how you’re looking at something. Especially whenever you catch yourself unwilling to listen to somebody else who may not see the number 4, but instead they see a nose. You may be robbing yourself of something very special that can help you immeasurably.
Perfectionism seems to be a thing that people enjoy claiming.
Others enjoy pointing out the futility of it and how it can provoke procrastination.
We’ve talked in the past about how if you’re going to do something, it’s worth putting in the effort to do it well. Today’s show smacks of a similar theme – of aiming high. Why not?
There’s a big difference in authority and leadership. And an equally big difference in leadership that takes high aim at an ideal versus leadership that accepts the status quo.
Conversations about “what could be?” often reveal how limited our thinking can be.
Sitting down with the boss of a 300 person company that manufactures aircraft parts, the discussion turns to his company’s culture, a culture he feels fairly good about. I ask, “How can it be better? What do you think you’d have to do to make it ideal?”
He’s thinking about it.
Seconds pass.
He’s obviously struggling to answer. I’m usually very comfortable with silence in a conversation, but it has a look I’ve seen before. A look that has shown me he may need further prompting to get the wheels moving more easily. I oblige.
“Surely there’s one thing that isn’t working so well. What is it?” I ask.
“I’m often frustrated at our lack of speed in handling certain people-performance issues,” he replies.
I ask him to explain. He goes on to share a few stories of people who weren’t corrected or supported in real-time. He wishes his leadership team wouldn’t sit on such actions. Some sit on them longer than others, but he confesses it’s a nagging problem that he’s not been able to fix to his liking.
“So what would the ideal look like?” I ask.
The wheels are turning. He’s explaining in vivid detail how things would look, sound, and feel.
Keep in mind, he’s in a very heavily regulated industry with lots of inspection and quality control. Anything having to do with airplanes has life and death potential. So getting it right is priority number 1. This CEO is very familiar with hitting the ideal in manufacturing. But like all of us, he’s susceptible to accepting less than the ideal in other areas – like these people problems he’s talking about.
For the next 40 minutes or so we discuss this ideal that he’s not yet been able to realize. He’s engaged and energized. Toward the end of our session he stops and says, “Man, that’s pretty fun to think about.” I have to tell him, “Imagine how much fun it’s going to be to execute.”
Have you ever planned something big? Maybe it was a move. Maybe it was a vacation. Maybe it was something with your career. Maybe it was a wedding. Something that took some time and planning.
Think about it. Remember how it felt while you were working toward it. Think about the things you did to get ready for it – to prepare for it to become reality.
The other day I was talking with an older gentleman who had retired from one career to begin a new one, his post-retirement career. Some call it “the encore.” He’s now 75. About 8 years ago he stepped away from the work he had done for decades. As he told me about the work he had put in to prepare himself for this new career you could see his eyes light up. Three years in the making. He studied. He read. He made notes. He talked with others who were doing this new line of work (new for him). His final 3 years in his old career were greatly enhanced because he was a man on a mission. To get his retirement career as right as he could.
“Was it fun?” I asked. “The planning and all the work you put in to prepare?”
“Oh, lands yes. I had a blast,” he said.
“I can’t remember when I had that much fun.”
Every time we plan something big we think about it going as well as it can go. The couple planning to get married don’t plan their wedding to be mediocre. They anticipate everything going perfectly. They want it to be extraordinary. They have an expectation that is very high. Rightly so.
Jim is a home builder. Well, more accurately he’ll tell you he’s really in the land business. He has a great knack for buying land at a good price, then developing it. He’s a master at buying low and selling high because he creates subdivisions and builds houses on land that enhances how money he can make. Sadly, he’s not terribly interested in being a great home builder. The homes are just a means to an end – a way to sell the land for more money than he otherwise could.
The houses are perfectly fine, but the workmanship isn’t terrific. Jim doesn’t mind though because it’s a detail that he simply doesn’t care about. In fact, he has very little to do with the construction part of his own enterprise. I look at his business and wonder what it might be like if he took more pride in the home building. I’ve often wondered, “What if he aimed for a higher outcome in craftsmanship in the homes like he does in his land deals?”
I doubt we’ll ever find out because he’s printing money and making more money than he’s likely ever made in his life. I have no working relationship with him, but privately (now publicly) I’m fascinated to wonder about what could be in his business – including profits. And I sometimes wonder if Jim might have some fun in trying to become world-class in building custom homes instead of just trying to hit price points and other measurements that help him add more exotic cars to his fleet.
Through the years I’ve found it interesting how business people who earn extraordinary incomes share stories of striving for something important. Their enthusiasm is apparent as they recite stories of taking a high aim. They can get animated whenever they’re telling me about something they were going to try to achieve that hadn’t been done before – at least, by them. Looking forward to reaching the goal is sometimes its own reward.
Recently, my wife and I went on a pretty rigorous 4-mile hike. We’d done it before and this time we felt we were better prepared. It took us about 90 minutes. The terrain in places was challenging for novice hikers like us. Check that, old novice hikers. At places we were both winded.
Along the route, trees were marked with yellow paint or yellow arrows to show you the path. Every half mile there was a marker.
Before we started we anticipated that it might take us 2 hours. The first time we did it I think it was closer to 3.
We didn’t have a time goal. We just wanted to do it for the sake of doing it.
All along the way we anticipated the next marker.
.5 mile
1 mile
I remember hitting that first mile marker and saying to my wife, “Twenty-five percent down.”
Anticipating getting to the end alive was my ideal outcome!
After an hour and a half we emerged. Finished the course. No twisted ankles. No broken bones. No bruised egos. Just two old bodies looking to sit down and guzzle a Route 44 Sonic soft drink!
My wife said, “It feeels good to have done it.”
Truth is. It felt pretty good planning to do it again. And it felt pretty good all along the way knowing we were going to do it and in a much shorter time than we’d done it the first time.
Carly Simon sang that famous hit song, “Anticipation.”
The first lines of the song say…
We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway
When it comes to our organizations and our leadership, let’s think about the ideal outcomes anyway. Even if you may be tempted to think it’s never going to happen. What if you’re wrong? What if it’s possible? What if much, much higher performance is possible? What if you’re the impediment because you just won’t dream big enough? Or anticipate the desired outcome as being ideal?
What if you’re missing out on loads of fun? The fun to plan – and try to achieve some new outcome? The very best outcome?
What if Jim took aim at maximizing his real estate value by taking his home building skills to a whole new level? What if his company was a premier custom home builder known for a fit and finish that others simply couldn’t rival?
How good can you be?
How good can your organization be?
It’s fun to ask. It’s even more fun to plan the ideal answer.
Be well. Do good. Grow great!
P.S. If you are the owner of a small t0 medium-sized business, l invite you to check out The Peer Advantage by Bula Network. It’s a small think tank just for owners who aspire to be the very best.
I won’t bury the lead.
Douglas McGregor was a founding faculty member of MIT’s Sloan School of Management. In 1960 he published, 
Days ago the book was released – 
