Chapter 10
Hiking with the Kids
These days, I hike with my three kids every chance I get. We scramble along the wooded trails until I call out, “Where do Herreras go?” They shout their response in unison: “We go off the beaten path!”
That’s the cue to leave the well-worn path we’re on and strike out to find adventure. The kids keep the trail in sight as they wander off to discover new plants, insects, or animal tracks. They collect moss, climb trees, build forts, and cover themselves in dirt. While they explore, I clear a spot nearby, and soon we’re lying down side by side to play a game of I Spy. We point out everything we notice with our backs on the hard ground and our eyes gazing skyward. We look for imaginary forest people, the ones we read about in fairy tales, believing they have recently passed this way too.
I’m drawn to exploration, particularly in the mountains. One day in the summer of 2009 as I prepared for a climb, I took a training hike up Mailbox Peak, a steep trail cut by the boots of avid hikers. The punishing elevation gain coupled with the weight of my pack made for a torturous day.
As I hiked, I thought about the themes that connected my time in the Army and mountain climbing. I realized they both used symbols and stories to promote courage. The military uses rigorous routine, awards prestigious medals, and holds elaborate ceremonies to cultivate strength, unit cohesion, and honor. The climbing community has their own vocabulary, levels of mastery, and celebratory tales of those who complete the Seven Summits or other tests of endurance and determination. The symbols, ceremonies, and traditions create lore that inspires others.
By the time I made it to the top of Mailbox Peak, I was both exhausted and energized. I wanted to instill my passion for exploration within the culture at PG. Gazing at the view spread out below me, I decided that to inspire people, I would incorporate symbols and traditions that would embed the importance of challenge and discovery within the company.
When I’m with the kids, without fail, other hikers stop to ask if we’re okay. The rule-bound sort feels obliged to inform us we shouldn’t be off the path. We’re polite and wave at these fellow travelers, but we never stop having fun. Once in a while, other daring kids ask to join us, and they become part of our adventure. Welcomed with open (if grubby) arms, the kids quickly bond, and together they investigate every new and unknown thing that can only be found by leaving the trail and following their nose.
By the time we return to the parking lot, my intrepid explorers are spent, starving, filthy, and joyful. The best part of the day is listening to them later, telling their mom everything they never would have seen or known if they hadn’t gone off the beaten path.
I’m convinced we must all remain explorers. Whether it’s in family or business, we need to continually venture into new and untested territory, primed for adventure and discovery.
I used to assume that anyone I selected to join my team would watch me go off the beaten path once or twice and follow my lead. A few did, but most didn’t.
I understood their reluctance, even though it frustrated me. Few leaders that I’d worked for embraced any sort of innovation or venturing off course. Most people I hired had worked in similar situations, and it showed in the way they sought my validation or asked permission to change a process or improve a task. This drove me nuts as I struggled to underscore the necessity of risk-taking to drive innovation. I wanted people to introduce better and more efficient ways of working, but I was up against a barrier that seemed hardwired in people’s brains.
I was determined to build a culture where people felt safe to try new things—even if it meant going against the grain. I overdid it by telling countless stories about my attempts to innovate in my previous jobs. Most of my tales ended with a compliance manager redirecting me back to the well-worn path. Because of those disheartening experiences, I applauded anything large or small that involved doing something novel. But none of these efforts were producing results fast enough for me.
To make innovation a living intention within the company, I started using the term “insultant,” which I first learned from Dr. Ichak Adizes, who writes about corporate life cycles. The idea is for every person at PG to “consult from the inside.” I want everyone to view innovation as an everyday occurrence rather than an aberration from the daily work we accomplish.
To help encourage this mindset, I repeatedly ask, “Tell me about something that annoys you. What should we be doing differently?” Without fail, the conversation turns to something that frustrates the team member. It might be a company inefficiency, a constraint that hinders better customer service, or an issue with their current role. The question prompts open discussion about what needs to change and how.
The other part of the conversation is to ask, “What annoys our customers?” Dennis Snow, an author, friend, and mentor, introduced me to the concept of “service mapping.” The exercise looks at every process through the customer’s experience rather than our company. By flipping the lens, it helps to identify what the customer sees and encounters in every interaction with our organization. The service mapping review opened our eyes to “pain points” that annoyed our customers, and it ignited awareness about nonessential steps to remove, making things easier for the client and in turn streamlining the delivery of our services.
The Army had taught me the power of after-action reviews, and I adapted them for PG. The structured review (or “debrief”) was convened following training exercises to candidly assess what happened, why, and how to improve the next exercise or mission. Even in the military’s strict hierarchy, debriefs prompted questions, open dialogue, and procedural changes. As a leader, I wanted to introduce a routine that encouraged a review after any significant company event to spark a reflective conversation and make our performance stronger the next time around. In my experience, someone in the debrief will inevitably say, “What if we did this?” That’s the one-liner that opens an innovative dialogue. People around the table begin to toss out new thoughts, reacting to and refining the idea that’s been proposed.
Any process left in place too long can become inefficient. I introduced the phrase “resetting the broken arm” to remind us to break things in order to make them better. When a process or routine settles for too long, it’s time to break it again. There are few instances in business where a way of doing something continues to derive the same benefit over a protracted time period. This kind of innovation is about refreshing the things you do well and reaping the rewards of continuous improvement. You and your people must learn to strike a balance between high-performance continuity and disrupting any procedure that has gone unquestioned for too long.
Leaders tend to identify struggle and naturally look for innovation. Once you establish the idea that you are expecting innovation to improve even the smallest annoyance, every pain point in the company becomes an opportunity for exploration and improvement. At PG, people must demonstrate the courage to challenge the company status quo. To shake up the routine and refine our methods, people have transformed services we offer, while others have devised tweaks to enhance the employee experience. People understand it’s safe to explore, challenge, and investigate. They no longer wait for permission but are aware that the greatest career hazard at PG is to plod along the well-traveled trail.
We’ve introduced significant incentives to reward innovation, including all-expenses-paid vacations for top innovators. There are customs and traditions that remind people that daily exploration is mandatory, not optional. The stories of our exploits have multiplied, and the lore has grown. All of these are powerful tools when it comes to changing the limiting mindset most companies engender. In exchange, I’ve been given a gift that benefits everyone on the team while helping the company remain competitive for years to come. Leaders, whatever beaten path you’re on, think instead about pursuing what lies undiscovered off the trail. It won’t go as planned, but you’ve got to ask yourself . . . what’s the best that could happen?
Questions to Guide Your Journey
1.How are you asking people for their input and ideas?
2.How do your leaders mine for new ideas in their interactions and meetings?
3.What routines, rituals, and rewards have you built into your culture to encourage risk-taking?
Flash-Forward
On a rainy afternoon in 2017, my boys and I were hiking the shorter and steeper trail of Poo Poo Point on West Tiger Mountain near Issaquah, Washington. As we approached a vista point near the top, a group of hikers were resting and enjoying some lunch. We stopped to rest too. The trail continued to the right—but off to the left, there was a clearing that looked like it may have connected to the trail further up. We took it. A short while later, I noticed the hikers we’d passed had followed us. My boys started pointing out new discoveries they hadn’t seen before, and the other hikers soon did the same. One finally said to me, “I’ve been on this hike many times and have always wondered where this would take you. How often do you take this route?”
“It’s our first time!”
He laughed, then said, “I guess I just needed to see someone go off the trail.”