only the leader can make execution happen

An organization can execute only if the leader's heart and soul are immersed in the company. Leading is more than thinking big, or schmoozing with investors and lawmakers, although those are part of the job. The leader has to be engaged personally and deeply in the business. Execution requires a comprehensive understanding of a business, its people, and its environment. The leader is the only person in a position to achieve that understanding. And only the leader can make execution happen, through his or her deep personal involvement in the substance and even the details of execution.

The leader must be in charge of getting things done by running the three core processes - picking other leaders, setting the strategic direction, and conducting operations. These actions are the substance of execution, and leaders cannot delegate them regardless of the size of the organization.

How good would a sports team be if the coach spent all of his time in his office making deals for new players, while delegating actual coaching to an assistant? A coach is effective because he's constantly observing players individually and collectively on the field and in the locker room. That's how he gets to know his players and their capabilities, and how they get firsthand the benefit of his experience, wisdom, and expert feedback.

It's no different for a business leader. Only a leader can ask the tough questions that everyone needs to answer, then manage the process of debating the information and making the right trade-offs. And only the leader who's intimately engaged in the business can know enough to have the comprehensive view and ask the tough incisive questions. 

Only the leader can set the tone of the dialogue in the organization. Dialogue is the core of culture and the basic unit of work. How people talk to each other absolutely determines how well the organization will function. Is the dialogue stilted, politicized, fragmented, and butt-covering? Or is it candid and reality-based, raising the right questions, debating them, and finding realistic solutions? If it's the former - as it is in all too many companies - reality will never come to the surface. If it is to be the latter, the leader has to be on the playing field with his management team, practicing it consistently and forcefully. 

Specifically, the leader has to run the three core processes and has to run them with intensity and rigor. 

Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan 

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan with Charles Burck. 2002. Crown Business, NY, NY. p. 24, 25

learn about different personalities

Alison: You've played on many teams. How has your approach to leadership evolved with each move? 

Chris: It continually changes. In New Orleans I was crazy in my intensity on the court, wanting everyone to approach the game like I did and trying to make sure I got the best out of them. Later, in Houston, maybe my 13th year in the league, a coach told me that the biggest challenge I have is playing with guys who don’t care as much as I do. Going from team to team, you learn about different personalities and understand that while maybe you can get on this guy, you can’t get on that one. I haven’t always been perfect. Sometimes you don’t have a lot of time to figure out how to communicate with a teammate. But I always at least try with the right intention.

Alison Beard

Life's Work: An Interview with Chris Paul. Harvard Business Review. September-October 2023.

wisdom is missing

Growing up in Athens, I was brought up on the classics and the Greek myths. They were taught to me not as ancient history, as my children learned them in their American classrooms, but as my personal roots and the source of my identity. Athena was the goddess of wisdom, and, for me, the idea of wisdom is forever identified with her — weaving together strength and vulnerability, creativity and nurturing, passion and discipline, pragmatism and intuition, intellect and imagination, claiming them all, the masculine and the feminine, as part of our essence and expression.

Today we need Athena’s wisdom more than ever. She breathes soul and compassion — exactly what has been missing — into the traditionally masculine world of work and success. Her emergence, fully armed and independent, from Zeus’s head, and her total ease in the practical world of men, whether on the battlefield or in the affairs of the city; her inventive creativity; her passion for law, justice, and politics — they all serve as a reminder that creation and action are as inherently natural to women as they are to men. Women don’t need to leave behind the deeper parts of themselves in order to thrive in a male- dominated world. In fact, women — and men, too — need to reclaim these instinctual strengths if they are to tap into their inner wisdom and redefine success.

Wisdom is precisely what is missing when — like rats in the famous experiment conducted by B. F. Skinner more than fifty years ago — we press the same levers again and again even though there is no longer any real reward. By bringing deeper awareness into our everyday lives, wisdom frees us from the narrow reality we’re trapped in — a reality consumed by the first two metrics of success, money and power, long after they have ceased to fulfill us. Indeed, we continue to pull the levers not only after their diminishing returns have been exhausted, but even after it’s clear they’re actually causing us harm in terms of our health, our peace of mind, and our relationships. Wisdom is about recognizing what we’re really seeking: connection and love. But in order to find them, we need to drop our relentless pursuit of success as society defines it for something more genuine, more meaningful, and more fulfilling.

Arianna Huffington

"Why We Need Wisdom More Than Ever," by Arianna Huffington. Thrive Global. November 30, 2016. Excerpt from Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder pp. 116–130. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World.

like what you do

Do your best. But like it! Like what you do and then you will do your best. If you don’t like it, shame on you.

Katherine Johnson

"Katherine Johnson (1918-2020): Former NASA Research Mathematician," NASA. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World.

the world needs your spark

The world needs your spark. The world needs your energy. The world needs you to show up for your life and take hold of your potential! We need your ideas. We need your love and care. We need your passion. We need your business models. We need to celebrate your successes. We need to watch you rise back up after your failures. We need to see your courage. We need to hear your what if. We need you to stop apologizing for being who you are and become who you were meant to be.

Rachel Hollis

Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals. HarperCollins Leadership. 2019. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World. 

master your mind

A collection of quotes from David Goggins:

Denial is the ultimate comfort zone.

Tell yourself the truth! That you’ve wasted enough time, and that you have other dreams that will take courage to realize, so you don’t die a @#!$% %$@!*&.

Pain unlocks a secret doorway in the mind, one that leads to both peak performance, and beautiful silence.

When you think that you are done, you're only 40% in to what your body's capable of doing. That's just the limits that we put on ourselves. 

Our culture has become hooked on the quick-fix, the life hack, efficiency. Everyone is on the hunt for that simple action algorithm that nets maximum profit with the least amount of effort. There’s no denying this attitude may get you some of the trappings of success, if you’re lucky, but it will not lead to a calloused mind or self-mastery. If you want to master the mind and remove your governor, you’ll have to become addicted to hard work. Because passion and obsession, even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up.

Be more than motivated, be more than driven, become literally obsessed to the point where people think you're !$#@% nuts.

Only you can master your mind, which is what it takes to live a bold life filled with accomplishments most people consider beyond their capability.

David Goggins

Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds - Clean Edition. Lioncrest. 2020. 

communicate the benefits of change

Executive sponsors must communicate effectively with employees throughout the project. The sponsor plays a critical role in communicating those messages that employees want to hear from the person in charge:

• A vision of where the organization is going
• A road-map that outlines how the vision will be achieved
• Clear alignment of the current change with this vision
• Specific goals or objectives that define success
• His or her personal commitment and passion for the change

...In addition to sharing their personal commitment to change, executive sponsors should directly communicate the benefits of the change to employees. They should make clear connections between the objectives of the change and the overall direction of the business. Executive sponsors may want to share success stories or struggles from other departments or from early trials with the change. Employees want to hear about the challenges endured during the transition and how they were handled. They want to hear the good and the bad, the suffering and the rewards. They want to hear that success is possible and they want to learn from the mistakes of others. Most importantly, they want to hear the primary sponsor speak about the opportunities and benefits for the business as a whole. 

Jeffrey M. Hiatt

ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government and our Community. 2006. Prosci Research. p.84,85

straight conversations

 

I think the first 3:25 seconds of this interview is powerful. Here's an excerpt from the transcript:

Reporter: Following the huge win against the Pelicans we saw this team take to the court, take the locker room, go to the weight room – and that was after a big win. What has this team’s emotion and reaction been like after the Clipper’s loss?

Coach Monty Williams: It’s been the same approach…. One of the culture pieces we’ve tried to implement is we don’t let win’s and losses dictate the atmosphere and the culture we feel like we are establishing…. That’s something that I’ve learned over the years, I cannot change – no matter what happens on the floor our gym stays the same. We want everybody here excited about coming to work, and I think that allows for us to have a level of consistency in how we approach development. The most important thing is that people are excited to come to work. Nothing changed. Yesterday was the same as any other day…. We teach, we grow, we get after it. 

Reporter: You’ve been preaching staying in that middle ground for a while now. When did that mentality really set in for you?... Why is that such a key in order to get this team where you want them to go? 

Coach: …Listening to the guys that I had coached before, they didn’t always feel excited about coming to work because they thought that I was going to push them in a way that diminished their talents. I really had to take a deep look at my approach. It was one of my prayers that if God ever gave me a chance to be a head coach again I wanted to be excited about work everyday myself, but I also wanted the players to have the same feeling – when they got up out of the bed they felt really good about coming to work…. I had some straight, black and white conversations with guys that I coached, and what I heard back – I was ashamed to be honest with you. I didn’t realize it and that’s why the communication with those guys was really important for my growth. 

Monty Williams

Post-Practice Media Availability. 1/5/2021. https://www.facebook.com/suns/videos/163428998468163

laugh often and much

This [quote]... which is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, has made such an impact on Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos that he hangs it up on his fridge.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of the intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the beauty in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here. This is to have succeeded.

These are the fruits you bear from a life well lived by consciously choosing to do the things you're passionate about -- the things you are called to do that make you "tap dance to work" every day, to borrow an expression from one of the many books about billionaire Warren Buffett.

Bezos can testify: "You don't choose your passions, your passions choose you," he once said. "All of us are gifted with certain passions, and the people who are lucky are the ones who get to follow those things."

Following your passions comes with added benefits: you love coming to work because you love what you do. Buffett said it best: "In the world of business, the people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love."

Marcel Schwantes

"According to Jeff Bezos, This May Be the Best Definition of Success He's Ever Read" Inc. April 24, 2020

the difference between emotion and passion

Team members need a keen awareness of the difference between emotion and passion. 

“You don’t want an emotional team; you want a passionate team,” [Coach Herm Edwards] said. “When the pressure mounts the most, you want poise and this sense of, ‘We’ve been here before. We know how to handle this.’ There’s this calmness of when things go crazy … what makes a winning team is to get players that hate to lose more than they win. Teams that have discipline, that are tough — those are the teams that win.”

Anna Katherine Clemmons

"ASU Coach Herm Edwards is Preparing Athletes for Football Season - and Life." USA Today.  November 2019

what if

Life is full of decisions. From seemingly small decisions like what to eat for dinner, too much more consequential ones such as choosing a career to pursue, we are all faced with numerous choices on a daily basis. It’s human nature to look back at the roads we didn’t take and wonder, “What if?” Yet a new survey conducted in England has revealed that a staggering amount of people are unhappy with the way they’ve lived their lives.

According to a survey of 2,000 British adults commissioned by UK charity consortium Remember A Charity, four out of ten people regret how they have lived their lives so far. Spending too much time at work and not traveling enough were among respondents’ biggest regrets.

Other common regrets among those surveyed included neglecting their health and not spending enough time with their family. Many wished they had been a better parent to their children. All of that regret seems to be a big motivator as well, with 40% of respondents claiming that they want to make some positive changes in the near future...

Interestingly, close to half of those surveyed said they regret focusing so much on financial success as opposed to more meaningful endeavors.

John Anderer

"Hindsight Is 20/20: 4 Out Of 10 Adults Regret Their Life Choices". StudyFinds. July 22, 2019. 

walk the talk

Inspiring leaders walk the talk. They have character and conviction. They live by a different moral compass. They back up their words with action...

On October 2, 1994, the 49ers were losing to the Eagles 40-8. Head coach George Seifert pulled [Steve] Young from the game. Years of pent-up frustration boiled to the surface. Young was livid and visibly argued with the coach. While it was out of character for Young to show such anger publicly, the players began to perceive him in a different light. They saw a fiery leader committed to winning. The “Steve Young Rant” became a rallying cry for the rest of the season.

Five days later the team played in Detroit. Young got hit so hard an excruciating pain shot up his leg. “Writhing in pain” Young crawled on his elbows to the sideline. The doctors were worried he had injured a nerve and told him not to play. Young overruled them. As long as he could walk, he wanted back in. Two plays after crawling off the field he jogged back to the huddle and completed 17 of 20 passes, leading a come-from-behind victory. “Dude, you really are crazy. You did the death crawl,” one of his teammates said. Young had cemented his leadership role.

The 49ers played like a team with a new conviction. They won the next ten games and ended the season with the number one offense in the league. Young was named MVP, but didn’t feel a sense of accomplishment. In the locker room he gave the speech of his life:

“It’s 34 days to the Super Bowl. We need to make a commitment that every day we do everything we can to put the flag on top of Everest. Let’s go make some history!” Everyone roared. Young had become the leader everyone wanted to rally behind, but only after his actions during the season gave them a reason to follow him.

“Perception is reality. I had worked hard my entire career to establish myself as a leader. But I wasn’t a leader until I was perceived as one. You become a leader in times of trouble,” says Steve Young. “Leaders emerge when things don’t go well. When everyone else starts pointing fingers, a leader takes responsibility.”

Carmine Gallo 

"Hall Of Fame QB Steve Young On Leadership, Character And Conviction" Forbes. Nov. 2, 2016

set a vision and connect the dots

It's vital that once-in-a-career leaders set a compelling, inspiring vision that focuses employees and encourages the expenditure of their discretionary energy. It should be a vision grounded in strategic objectives and the values of the company.

When you set such a vision, employees show up with conviction and are passionate about building something together that makes a difference in something that matters. In the absence of a compelling vision, employees can flounder. Think about yourself and what it's like to work in a place that has no clear, inspiring vision--you feel rudderless.

It's just as important that the vision is then consistently communicated and that the leader helps each employee understand what their unique role is in delivering the vision.

Scott Mautz

"Developing These 5 Habits Will Make You a Once-in-a-Career Leader to Employees" by Scott Mautz. Inc. Jun 19, 2018.

be radically transparent

When people ask me, "What's the secret to great communication?" my usual response baffles some, because it can seem so counterintuitive: "Be radically transparent."

Radical transparency does not mean telling someone to his face in front of his peers that his polka-dotted tie is ugly. It's having the emotional courage to stand up to someone or something when you feel violated, to speak from a deep place tugging at your heart, or to cut through healthy conflict now to avoid unhealthy conflict later.

Marcel Schwantes

How Can You Tell Someone Has True Leadership Skills? Look for This 1 Rare Sign. Inc. 6/15/2017

I went the opposite way

 'Look, I understand the importance of persistence, and the value of encouragement, but who tells a stranger to never give up on their dreams, without even knowing what it is they’re dreaming?' he says in the clip. 'How can Lady Gaga possibly know where your passion will lead you?'...

He uses the example of American Idol to illustrate his point, explaining how thousands of hopefuls show up at auditions looking for their big break, only to be told that they don't have what it takes - and are frequently surprised when they are rejected. 

'Look, if we’re talking about your hobby, by all means let your passion lead you,' says Mike.

'But when it comes to making a living, it’s easy to forget the dirty truth: just because you’re passionate about something doesn’t mean you won’t suck at it.'

Mike cites his own experience as the Dirty Jobs host, having met plenty of talented tradesmen in his time, as proof that it's better to the break the mold. 

'When people follow their passion, they miss out on all kinds of opportunities they didn’t even know existed,' he says.

He uses the example of a septic tank cleaner, who had become a multi-millionaire through his work. When asked for the secret to his success, he said: 'I looked around to see where everyone else was headed, and then I went the opposite way.'

Valerie Siebert

"'Just because you’re passionate about something doesn’t mean you won’t suck at it!’ Dirty Jobs TV show host Mike Rowe tells millennials NOT to follow their passion" Daily Mail. 6/12/2016

your company needs you now more than it ever did

Schistosoma mansani, commonly known as the blood fluke

Creating an economically viable entity where lack of original thought is handsomely rewarded creates a rich, fertile environment for parasites to breed. And that's exactly what's been happening. So now we have millions upon millions of human tapeworms thriving in the Western World, making love to their Powerpoint presentations, feasting on the creativity of others.

What happens to an ecology, when the parasite level reaches critical mass?

The ecology dies.

If you're creative, if you can think independently, if you can articulate passion, if you can override the fear of being wrong, then your company needs you now more than it ever did. And now your company can no longer afford to pretend that isn't the case.

So dust off your horn and start tooting it. Exactly.

Hugh MacLeod
"your company needs you now more than it ever did" Gapingvoid. 7/31/2004

lose yourself

You only lose energy when life becomes dull in your mind. Your mind gets bored and therefore tired of doing nothing. Get interested in something! Get absolutely enthralled in something! Get out of yourself! Be somebody! Do something. The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have.

Norman Vincent Peale

The Power of Positive Thinking: 10 Traits for Maximum Results. Simon and Schuster. 1952.

toxic leadership

[Tony] Fadell’s reputation for being intense, very animated, and prone to raise his voice (not necessarily in anger) spilled over to push the Nest team. Carr wrote, "A meme is floating around the office comparing Fadell's style to that of the Mountain in Game of Thrones, the towering brawler known for beating his opponents to a pulp. But surviving as a startup consumer electronic brand requires just that sort of attitude." Another anecdote reveals: "When one employee failed to live up to his standards, Fadell ordered a manager to fire the employee, saying, "You gotta Glock Glock that dude," as he mimed shooting off a handgun. He was joking, but unapologetic."

All of that fist-banging and hard driving for perfection is supposed to bring out the best in his employees, according to his cofounder Matt Rogers. "But at the same time, he is incredibly caring and passionate about their development," Rogers said.

You can’t develop much of anything under such circumstances, according to workplace experts. As psychologist Paul White notes, toxic leadership may appear successful for a while. "Over the long term, their attitudes and actions catch up with them," he says, "Trust and teamwork deteriorate in their areas; they have a high turnover rate in their department, and they will eventually destroy the health of the organization."

Lindsay McGregor and Neel Doshi, co-authors of Primed to Perform, underscore the importance of total motivation and how it erodes or boosts bottom line results. "In one company we surveyed, salespeople with positive "total motivation" produced 28% more revenue than their more negatively motivated counterparts."

Lydia Dishman

"What's Going On At Nest?" FastCompany. 2/17/2016

your brand: the people who report to you

Reflecting on his time as CEO, Hurt emphasizes that there is no better way to enforce culture and values than by the way you hire. “You’ll be most defined as the CEO by the people [who] report to you. That’s going to be your brand.” Moving quickly at startup speed brings out the true integrity of your hires — both the good and the awful. 100 mph work speed is where your top players step up, the people Hurt describes as “born to change the world.”

The individuals you choose to bring onto the team speak volumes. With each new hire, the CEO reinforces the values of the company, highlighting the traits perceived as most valuable for the organization. The same concept is applicable to firing. Hurt clarifies, “If you fire brilliant jerks, it says to everybody, ‘that’s not going to be condoned.’ If you hire people that have real passion, love your calling, it’s going to feed on itself.” The CEO sets the tone.

Drake Baer (presentation by Bazaarvoice CEO Brett Hurt)

"You Aren’t Born Knowing How to Be a CEO" First Round Review. 7/2/2013

passionately remind them

Most of us know this instinctively, but in the heat of the moment, it's easy to forget how powerful an insight it can be. In an experiment at Harvard in the early 2000s, for example, psychologists gave a math test to a group of college students, all Asian American women. Researchers randomly split the group into two. Before being given the test, one group was subtly reminded that they were women; the other that they were Asian Americans. What happened? The first group performed below average; the second group, above it. The lesson: Perceptions--in this case, that women are weak in math and that Asian Americans excel in it--can have a huge impact on performance. Other studies have found the same thing. In the 1970s, researchers at Harvard asked subjects to take a math test, then paired them up to role-play a boss and an assistant. Then they were given another test. The scores of the assistants dropped an average of 50%.

As the leader of a company, of course, you are constantly faced with employees who do not perform up to expectations. What should you do? The single worst thing is to call them lazy and attempt to shame them into taking action. Instead, employees need to be reminded of what they are capable of accomplishing, even as you observe that they are falling short of their potential.

Which brings us back to Sir Winston. In his early days as Prime Minister, Churchill also had to exhort a war-weary military, Parliament, and public to stay the course. In a make-or-break speech to the House of Commons, Churchill acknowledged "the darker side of our danger and burdens" and went on to say, "It is in adversity that British qualities shine the brightest, and it is under these extraordinary tests that the character of our slowly wrought institutions reveals its latent, invisible strength." The speech has been credited with helping to revive Britain's sagging spirits and gradually changing the course of the war.

So if your people seem to have lost some of the passion they once had for their jobs and your company... why not take a page from Churchill and passionately remind them about the light within them? Who knows what possibilities you may create?

Hitendra Wadhwa

"What Would Winston Do?" Inc. 5/29/2012