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Some famous people are famously impolite. Coach Bob Knight. Billy Bob Thorton. Justin Bieber. But to be fair these people have a disadvantage. Fame. Fortune. People clamoring to be close to them.

What’s your excuse? 😉

Some leaders are miserable human beings. They’re unpleasant, impolite and rude much of the time. I know that’s not you ’cause such a person wouldn’t be caught dead listening to a podcast like this.

Being a better you doesn’t require movement from miserable human being to pleasant human being though. That may be one of the more dramatic transformations that no doubt many need to make, but for most of us, the changes are likely far more subtle, but no less transformational.

Rick Carlisle is the coach of the Dallas Mavericks. He’s got a solid reputation as an unpleasant person. I don’t know him except by reputation and by his public displays with the media. I admit he strikes me as very insufferable. And I wonder if he thinks it benefits him professionally or personally. I don’t get it, but I’m not him so I suppose he can act any way he wants. Maybe he’s uninterested in changing anything. Maybe he thinks being a better version of himself includes that sort of demeanor. But again, he’s in the public light and I’m not.

Reflection. That’s how we learn from past experiences. It helps us figure things out. In short, it’s thinking about things. It’s thinking about ourselves, how we’re feeling, what we’re thinking and how we’re behaving. It’s looking at our past behaviors and experiences.

I wonder how many of us have become proficient at facing our feelings. I suspect most of us don’t do it as deeply or as often as we should because it’s hard. And it’s hard because we’ve moving so fast it feels unproductive. Who has time to stomp down and ponder their feelings?

Abstract thinking and pure logical thinking don’t produce improvements and change. We don’t improve our behavior based on those. We have to be in closer touch with our feelings (our emotions).

You can improve your perspective by involving others in the process. Find out what others think and feel. How do they see things? This doesn’t mean you have to agree. You simply need to take advantage of different perspectives. It can help you see more clearly.

You can improve looking past all the extraneous things and getting to the core of the matter. We’re often tempted to concentrate on the thousand little ancillary things orbiting the main thing – without looking as seriously as we should on THE thing. Look past all the smoke to the source of the fire.

Becoming a better you requires time spent in sober reflection. It’s how we can get in touch with deeper feelings, deeper emotions and deeper drives. Reflection will help you find the truth. But there’s an implied action attached to reflection. Resolution. As we more deeply reflect on things we’re drawn to resolve that we’ll learn some things. Improve some things. The Bible calls it repentance. It’s a turning. It’s going from doing things one way…to doing them in a completely different way. It puts power behind our resolve or resolution to grow and improve.

Sadly, we’re likely more shaped by the bad stuff that happens to us than we are the good stuff. That’s why gratitude is hard. It’s easier to reflect on what we don’t have than to acknowledge how blessed we are. We’d all grow if we’d be more intentional in feeling and expressing our gratitude. But that requires focus, attention and deeper devotion to the effort.

Some talk of it as reframing. It’s looking at things through a different lens. Flipping a negative into a positive. Turning mistakes into lessons.

We have to work past the instantaneous emotions, especially the ones that erupt immediately after a failure. Some of the most famous examples are those baseball dugout tantrums where a pitcher or batter enters the dugout throwing things, knocking over water coolers and pitching a wild-eyed fit. Emotions are out of control because the person hasn’t hit their emotion’s pause button so they can find a calmer place – a place much more profitable for reflection and growth. It’s why 2-year-olds act like 2-year-olds. They can’t yet regulate their emotions. I don’t know what excuse the 20 or 30-something-year-old pro ball player leans on. And I’ve seen senior executives behave in a similar fashion.

Reflection is how we’re able to process our feelings. It helps us understand our feelings, and figure out our questions so we can move past them. It’s largely why we have the adage, “time heals all wounds.” It doesn’t really, but time provides the prime ingredient necessary for reflection. And we all know what happens after we reflect. We figure out what we’ll do next.

Becoming a better person will translate into us becoming better leaders and better family members, too. There’s a congruency in our lives that we all crave – the ability to be the same person no matter who we’re with or where we are. Reflection helps unchain us from being victims to our feelings. Or our past.

What have you done with your past? Ignored it? Focused on it in a negative way?

Reflect on it. Spend time figuring it out. Try to understand it. Then figure out what you’ll do about it now that it’s over. It won’t determine your future unless you neglect to properly reflect on it.

Every day you behave and make decisions based on big truths that we believe in, but also in big lies that we also believe. Many of those lies are about ourselves. And our fears. Our daily lives are filled with the conflict between these two. We want to suppress our fears, but the more we think about them the more pronounced they become. The more we hope to move past our failures the more we think to think about them. The bigger they grow.

Reflection allows us to resolve that. Reflect on your experiences until you better understand what happened, why it happened and what you can do to learn and grow from it. It’s the path forward — toward becoming a better YOU.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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Today I want to share with you an irresistible offer for entrepreneurs craving to grow their business, their leadership, and their life.

The aim is to hit two business building trifectas:

1. Getting new customers
2. Serving existing customers better
3. Not going crazy in the process

That’s the first trifecta that we all hope to hit. But there’s another one.

1. Saving time
2. Having good health
3. Making more money

The Peer Advantage by Bula Network is intentionally designed to help members hit both. I hope you’ll apply so we can learn more about each other. I want to help you grow great!

Randy

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Conversations have bound humans since the beginning. Yes, the VERY beginning. Talking with one another. Talking with God.

Conversations are about expressions of our heart. Quite literally, conversations answer the question, “What’s on your mind?”

Society stopped listening. I’m not sure when it happened, but the Internet isn’t the culprit. Digital technology may have contributed to the noise increasingly becoming a one-way conduit, but we had stopped listening to each other long before. Social media and all the associated vehicles that enable us to speak to the world have surely fostered in many of us an inflated sense of self-importance where we feel what ‘we’ve got to say is more important than what anybody else may have to say. But those inner feelings existed before the Internet.

I’m not sure if it’s a lack of humility or curiosity or both, but I remember being frustrated as a teenager during casual conversation circles if somebody dominated the storytelling. Even more so, I grew anxious if nobody provoked somebody to say more about something that struck me as quite interesting. Life clearly belonged to the extroverts. I was likely more sensitive to it because, at heart, I’m introverted. People who constantly interrupt others and people who don’t ask the obvious follow-up question drive me crazy. As somewhat of a joke, it’s why some years ago I registered the domain, “WaitAMinuteWhat.com.”

Wait a minute, what?

I catch myself wanting to ask that quite often when I hear somebody make an interesting remark that is almost immediately followed by something else with something far less interesting to contribute.

People rarely listen. Rarer still is listening to understand. Life has taught me why, too. Most of us just aren’t that interested in what you’ve got to say because we’re mostly fixated on what we want to say.

When is the last time somebody who appeared genuinely interested in you asked you about YOU?

I’ve been fascinated with conversation for as long as I can remember. I love it. Mostly I love asking questions and learning. In spite of the fact that I’ve been podcasting for well over 10 years, I mostly enjoy listening to learn about others. Sure, there are times when it’d be nice if somebody would ask about me, but I stopped holding my breath for that opportunity a very long time ago. 😉

Communications experts and psychologists have produced a variety of models aimed at helping us make conversations more productive. I suspect most are a waste of time, not because they don’t work, but because too few adopt them in daily practice. We gravitate to our normal course of speaking and listening. We do what works for us. At least we think it works for us, which means we feel okay about it.

That doesn’t make it effective. Certainly not as leaders.

At work, most of our conversations are directed by the folks in power. Meetings are led by the person in charge. The agendas are driven by authority. It’s high school all over again where the extroverts take the power and railroad the others to come along on their journey.

For decades I’ve watched it happen in social settings, business settings, church settings and everywhere else people engage in some sort of attempt at communication. Sadly, rarely do they quickly get to the heart of the matter and dive deeply enough where people feel safe to truly say anything – much less to say what they’re truly feeling and thinking. Many of us have never figured out how to have a genuine conversation about heart and meaning. Others of us have forgotten how.

It’s not safe out here. Or in there.

Today conference rooms around the world are filled with people wrestling with a variety of challenges. The purpose would seem to be so better decisions can be made, but that’s disingenuous. It’s a lie. The real reason is a display of hierarchy and power. It’s a formal way to show who is in charge, or who is moving their way up to be in charge. That makes it unsafe for everybody to openly share what they’re thinking or how they’re feeling. Best to remain silent, so most do.

Imagine a room where 9 people are seated at a conference room table. Perhaps some others are seated around the room, quite literally with their chairs hugging the wall. Imagine it. There may as many people in the room who don’t even have a seat at the table than those who do. Boy, that’ll make you feel comfortable to speak up, huh? “Listen, bubba, you’re important enough to be in the room, but you’re not important enough to sit at the table…so keep quiet.” And Bubba does.

I have no way of knowing when mankind figured out that sitting in a circle fostered better conversations, but somebody figured it out. If you’ve ever been part of a conversation circle you know how great it can feel. King Arthur likely had the most famous round table. No wonder Camelot was such a terrific place.

Typical meetings that I experience all go pretty much the same way. Somebody in authority or somebody who most seeks authority (power) calls the meeting. People gather in and assume a spot. Some are up close to the person who called the meeting. Others are as far away from them as possible. They say whatever they say and often appear to foster collaboration, but the group knows better. Nobody says anything until a person with whom the caller of the meeting is closely aligned speaks up to validate what was just said. It’s like a Robert’s Rule of having somebody second a motion. And just like that, without any further fanfare or conversation, the motion is passed. The larger portion of the group collectively just wants to get out of this meeting as quickly as possible. Most think the outcome is fairly predetermined anyway.

Enter a jolt. A curveball meeting.

This was always the most natural way I knew to conduct meetings whenever I was leading them because…well, I’ve already told you what frustrated me about conversations when I was just a kid. That frustration hasn’t waned as I’ve grown older.

After saying why I called the meeting and without showing what I may be leaning toward, I’d call on somebody to share what they thought. “Roy, I’d like to know what you’re thinking about this?” Roy is absolutely going to share with the group. When Roy finished I might ask, “Jane, do you have a different opinion or do you agree with Roy?” Jane would answer. And I’d intentionally look for somebody who didn’t necessarily fully agree with Roy. I wasn’t looking for dissension. I was looking to make the meeting safe for candid dialogue and conversation. I was looking for people to feel safe to say whatever they thought, whatever they felt.

Sure, there are meetings whose design is to let the troops know what’s been decided, but we’re talking about CONVERSATIONS. These are dialogues where people exchange ideas, information, thoughts, and feelings.

Leaders have one fundamental duty when it comes to leading conversations – make it safe for people to speak from their heart. You want to hear what people really think and feel. Otherwise, it’s not a conversation.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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Back in episode 318 we talked about the first basic ingredient of leadership according to famed leadership expert Warren Bennis – GUIDING VISION. Let’s kick this week off with a brief discussion on the other ingredients Mr. Bennis found foundational to effective leadership.

1. Guiding Vision (see episode 318)
2. Passion – Bennis felt this was next because without it a leader may find it tough to get people on his side. All that engagement and empowerment stuff. He defined the areas of passion as passion for the promises of life, coupled with a specific passion for a vocation, a profession and a course of action. In other words, a leader needs to be passionate about those things associated with her leadership. In short, the leader loves what he does and what he’s doing. This passion helps leaders communicate hope and inspiration.
3. Integrity – Bennis felt there were 3 essential parts to integrity: self-knowledge, candor and maturity. Self-knowledge (self-awareness) is tough, but we all need to put in the work to truly know ourselves. Get in touch with your strengths and weaknesses, know what you want to do and why you want to do it. Your success hinges on it. Great leaders never lie to themselves. Especially about themselves. Candor is a key to self-knowledge. Candor is honesty in thought and action. It’s uncompromising. Maturity is necessary because leading isn’t merely showing people the way or telling people what to do. It’s the experience we gain as we learn to be dedicated, cooperative and collaborative. Bennis also mentions that integrity is the basis of trust. Trust isn’t an ingredient, according to him, but it’s a product of leadership. It has to be earned.
4. Curiosity and Daring – the last two ingredients of leadership according to Bennis fuel the leader. These ingredients help prevent leaders from fearing failure – at least to the point of paralysis. Leaders learn from adversity and going into the unknown. The strong desire to learn as much as possible and the willingness to take risks by experimenting – these are necessary for effective leadership.

Great leaders are built or made. They’re not born. Many of these ingredients aren’t natural, but they can all be acquired. Wrote Bennis:

Leaders invent themselves. They are not, by the way, made in a single weekend seminar, as many of the leadership-theory spokemen claim. I’ve come to think of that one as the microwave theory: pop in Mr. or Ms. Average and out pops McLeader in sixty seconds.

The balance between feeling and thought is important. Both are required if we’re going to improve our understanding.

Bennis thought the difference between leaders and managers were as the differences between those who master the context and those who surrender to it. But he pointed out other differences, too.

• The manager administers while the leader innovates.
• The manager is a copy while the leader is an original.
• The manager maintains while the leader develops.
• The manager focuses on systems and structure while the leader focuses on people.
• The manager relies on control, but the leader inspires trust.
• The manager has a short-range view, but the leader has a long-range perspective.
• The manager asks how and when, while the leader asks what and why.
• The manager has his eye always on the bottom line, but the leader is watching the horizon.
• The manager imitates, but the leader originates.
• The manager accepts the status quo while the leader challenges it.
• The manager is the classic good soldier, but the leader is his own person.
• The manager does things right while the leader does the right thing.

Wrote Bennis:

To reprise Wallace Stevens (a Pulitzer prize-winning poet who was also a businessman and attorney), managers wear square hats and learn through training. Leaders wear sombreros and opt for education.

Our schools are pretty good at training. They’re dreadful at educating. Training is great for dogs. Not so great for humans. Perhaps that explains why there is such a gap in leadership.

Leaders work on themselves. Bennis felt the paradox of promotion was that leaders rise in spite of their weaknesses, but managers rise because of theirs.

We are our own raw material. We have to know what we’re made of and what we want to make of ourselves. It’s foundational to becoming a better leader.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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True confession: I’m not a baseball fan. I only watch it when the league championship finals begin. But I recently heard a radio interview with the manager of the Texas Rangers, Chris “Woody” Woodward. While answering a question about what being a first-year major league manager he uttered that quote.

You have to understand why you’re winning and why you’re losing.

He went on to reiterate the importance of a major league baseball team to know why what they’re doing is providing whatever result they happen to be experiencing at the moment. Baseball, because of the sheer number of games played,  can throw teams into slumps and winning streaks. Woody wants his team to understand why it’s happening.

The interviewers didn’t do what I had hoped. They neglected to probe further. I was curious to know more. Maybe it’s because I’m not a baseball guy. Perhaps baseball fans just understand things I don’t. But it didn’t make me think about our world of business.

Business, like baseball, is a long season (well, we sure hope it is). We’ve all experienced slumps. Hopefully, we’ve also experienced some winning streaks to offset those. I’m not sure we always understand why. Maybe business is so dramatically different from baseball – I suspect that’s the case.

Take advertising. A company can create an ad campaign that spikes sales. It seems to be working as expected. But in time, it stops working. Why?

Advertising seems to be THE big variable that’s awfully hard to understand. It’s why that old quote from John Wanamaker is so true.

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.

I’ve never managed a baseball team, but I’ve managed businesses for decades. Understanding is difficult. Sometimes it’s tough to know why you’re winning. Harder still to know why you’re losing.

There are days when we’re like Nelson. It feels like we’re staring at Makes No Sense, Inc. and have no clues.

What can we do? I can’t promise that you’ll always figure it out and understand, but you ought to try. It’s learning and it’s necessary for growth.

Step 1 – Don’t ignore trying to understand success.

In our quest to understand why we’re winning or why we’re losing it’s easy to focus on the losing, not the winning. That’s why it’s more commonplace for companies to devote time to blaming people, but they neglect celebrations. It’s like the parent who ignores A’s on the kid’s report card but pitches a wild-eyed fit when a C comes home.

Donald O. Clifton is the father of Strengthsfinder. He wrote a book many years ago – the precursor to the Strengthsfinder work – entitled, “Soar With Your Strengths.” I devoured the book when it was first published. It made total sense to me, especially as a parent and a leader. Why try to make yourself or others something they’re not. Instead, lead with your strengths. Improve what you’re already good at. In a similar fashion, don’t ignore dissecting success. Figure out why things are working well so you can do more of it.

Step 2 – Ask others.

I’m still trying to figure out why this is so difficult. Especially when it comes to learning and understanding. People slightly older to much older than me have always been the chief folks I’ve looked to for understanding. I want to know what they may be able to teach me. I’ve never found it difficult to learn from older people – especially men (since I’m a man) with whom I’ve invested time to forge a trusting relationship. A small circle of men has helped me navigate the choppiest waters of my life. I can’t imagine going it alone. I’m encouraging you not to.

Others have helped me eliminate blind spots I didn’t even know I had. They’ve prevented me from being stagnant in my understanding of a variety of things. Others can do the same thing for you.

No matter how smart you are, you’re not THAT smart. Nobody is. You’re not smart enough to consider or see everything. And you’re not smart enough to always understand why something is working well or why something else isn’t working at all. You need the perspective of others. If you don’t seek it out and listen, you’re the bigger fool.

Step 3 – Look for patterns.

Life is patterns. Success and failure both have their own patterns. As you’d imagine, they’re not the same. Patterns of success don’t look like the patterns of failure.

When you’re looking to understand why something is working you’re going to see – if you look long enough and closely enough – patterns emerge. One thing leads to something else, which leads to a thing that seems to make a positive difference. The same thing happens with failure…a chain of events will lead to something that seems to throw the wheels off wrecking success.

If you’ll devote time to looking for and at patterns, you’ll see them. It takes practice. That’s why you need to practice it.

The problem is connecting dots that may not be connected. That makes pattern recognition difficult. It’s another reason why step 2 is so important – asking others. You may see a pattern that isn’t a pattern at all. Others can help you see whether it’s a pattern or not.

Step 4 – Question what you connect. Put it on trial and find out what changed.

Again, others can help you best do this. Am I seeing a pattern? Am I connecting dots that truly are connected?

A big part of this step is to figure out what has changed. This is especially helpful when we’re just finding success or when success is beginning to fail. What changed?

As we examine what patterns we’re likely going to spot something that is now different. Maybe it’s big. Maybe it’s subtle.

A business begins to experience a drop in profit margins. They dive into to figure out why. Nothing leaps out at them at first because the top line numbers seem appropriate. It’s not like there’s been some sudden rash of discounts offered. Something changed? What?

Turns out two big accounts slowed down. Just slightly. But that prompted something that wasn’t looked at too carefully at first. The travel and entertainment budgets for these two accounts shot up dramatically driving costs higher. Fearful that the downturn might keep going south sales management pushed more chips into the middle of the table to woo these two big accounts. It wasn’t working. At least, not yet. But it ruined the margins companywide.

Something indeed had changed. You need to find out what changed. For good. Or bad.

Step 5 – Keep asking questions and keep seeking insights from others.

Don’t make this a one-off exercise. Keep it going.

Become a professional business autopsy expert inside your own business. Develop, maintain and grow your curiosity about what causes success and failure. It provides the answers you most seek. It provides guidance so you know what to do. Otherwise, you’re just taking a blind stab in the dark. Much better to see what you’re aiming at. So be thoughtful, mindful, intentional and purposeful. That’ll help you shorten the losing streaks and lengthen the winning ones.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy

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Warren Bennis, the brilliant, but reluctant expert on leadership believed a guiding vision was the first ingredient of leadership. Leaders need to have a clear vision of what they want to do. They also have to possess the determination and resolve to persist through setbacks, even failures.

Where are you going?

Personally and professionally?

It makes sense that nothing else comes before a guiding vision. Guiding indicates it’s a direction with a plan. It’s not merely wishful thinking. There’s a purpose and intent behind the vision.

Great leaders see the future first.

What do YOU see? How are you helping your organization see what you see?

Let’s break down a few things that may help.

Step 1 – Don’t assume people can read your mind.

It’s far too common for a leader to become frustrated with people because they don’t know what she’s thinking. We’re living with our thoughts 24/7. Surely we’ve expressed all these thoughts – especially thoughts about where we’re heading. Hold on. Check yourself.

People are working hard to read you. At times, they’re mostly getting it wrong.

You don’t realize it, but you’ve got a scowl. It’s nothing more than a dull headache coming on and inside you’re thinking, “I do not need a headache right now.”

People think you’re displeased with them. One employee even thinks you disapprove of what she’s wearing. So it goes with how people can often MIS-read you.

You must communicate without relying on your ESP.

Step 2 – Have a system of communication.

You can leave things to chance, but as you’d imagine — it’s very risky. Don’t leave your communication to pure chance.

This isn’t about managing the narrative or spin. I’m hoping you operate in a no spin fashion where you can be candid with people. Especially when it comes to the guiding vision you’re sharing.

What’s the process for sharing information? What’s your preferred method of communication?

Every organization has a favorite way of distributing communication. Mostly, it stems from YOU, the leader. The entire organization will follow your lead by watching how you prefer to communicate.

If you prefer email, then it’s highly likely you’ve got an email focused culture. I’d bet most information in your company is shared via email because the organization has figured out it’s your preference.

So which is it? What’s your preferred way to communicate inside your company?

Electronic? Small group meetings? Companywide meetings? Formal? Informal?

Figure this out and then figure out if you’d like to change it. It may not be working as well as you’d like. Maybe you’d like to change it. Then do it.

But have a system.

I’ve found guiding vision conversations were best done with my leadership team first, then distributed companywide in an in-person meeting with hard copy communication to back it up. That was my preference. You need to know your preference.

Step 3 – Once is not enough.

Never assume that one communication is enough. Some will get it very quickly. Others won’t. You don’t want to leave anybody in the dark.

It’s up to you to make sure that the message is received and understood. You need to repeat a consistent message about your guiding vision.

We attend worship services and hear preaching each time. The Gospel Story is ancient. The church was established in AD33. The message is preached consistently service after service to make sure it penetrates our minds and lives. To instruct old heads like me and young heads like my grandchildren. Once isn’t enough.

You should be the Chief Evangelist inside your company. Preach the vision you see. It’ll help everybody understand it and it will cement in the minds of your team that you mean it.

Step 4 – Make every objective congruent with your guiding vision.

Your guiding vision can’t be one thing and all your short-term objectives something completely disassociated with it.

“We’re here to make lives better” sounds great except when employees feel you do nothing but make their lives miserable. Don’t be dishonest. Be real. Be congruent.

Step 5 – Provide feedback.

Guiding visions can be violated. We don’t always hit the mark. It’s important that the troops know when you’re hitting the mark so they can be encouraged to do it more often, and better. It’s just as important they know when you fail to hit the mark. Sometimes personal ownership might be required.

I’ve stood in front of people and apologized for my own failure to hit the mark. The guiding vision should be like true north. Violations have to be acknowledged. Corrections must be made. And good or great adherences to the guiding vision should be properly celebrated.

Are you putting out fires and killing rats? Not paying much attention to a guiding vision? Then you’re attempting to leapfrog the first essential ingredient to effective leadership. Go back to home base, don’t collect $200 and get it right. 😉

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

Randy