7
How Do I Resolve Conflict and Lead Challenging People?
I mentioned in chapter four that the most-asked questions I receive relate to self-leadership. The area in which I receive the second-greatest number of questions is that of dealing with conflict and leading challenging people. This is one of the most difficult areas for most leaders. You can do all the right things, but there is no guarantee others will change, succeed, or do well.
Let me be very frank: the answers in this chapter will work only with people who possess some desire to work with you. People who do not want to follow or be productive members of the team will not change. And that doesn’t make you a bad leader. It just means you have someone who’s bad for the team and organization. You only cross into bad leadership if you make the choice to keep someone on the team when you shouldn’t.
Too often, leaders wait. They don’t like to make these difficult decisions. They hope people will change on their own instead of challenging them and offering them a pathway to change. When people on the team are creating conflict or dragging the team down, many leaders think, I’ve failed them somehow. Let me try harder. Let me try something different. Let me move them into a different position. Maybe things will turn around.
This rarely works. I learned this lesson from my older brother Larry, but in a different context: finances. He taught me that your first loss should be your last loss. Most business leaders take a loss, then throw good money after bad in the hopes of making it up. It rarely works. Larry taught me that it’s wiser to cut your losses. Don’t compound them by waiting.
The same can be said of decisions related to people. Everyone deserves our best shot as leaders to help them succeed. But they don’t deserve repeated chances—especially at the expense of others on the team. Nobody likes making these hard decisions, but they must be made, and the sooner the better. Good leaders are direct and decisive in these matters. Ask yourself: is this best for the team? If keeping someone who’s difficult isn’t, get him or her off the team.
1. How Can a Leader
… Move an Individual from Unteachable to Teachable?
… Demand the Change of a Bad Attitude from an Employee?
… Lead Someone with a Passive-Aggressive Personality Who Is Loyal and Effective, But Is Hindering the Team?
… Handle an Angry Employee?
… Deal with a Person Who Does Not Want to Be Led?
Any time you have difficulty with people you lead, whether it’s because of a negative attitude, poor performance, lack of cooperation, or some other issue, you need to start a process then, and that process is the same for nearly every situation. Before I lay that out for you, I want to point out two questions you need to ask before you get started:
Can they change? This deals with ability.
Will they change? This deals with attitude.
Most of the questions people asked about dealing with others in this chapter do not relate to ability. They relate to attitude.
For this process to be successful, when you ask people to change, the answer to both questions has to be yes. It can’t be either/or. I’ve known people with great ability but a bad attitude, and I’ve known people with a great attitude and poor ability. If people are able and willing to change, there’s a chance you can be successful.
1. Meet Privately ASAP to Discuss Their Behavior
As I’ve already said, most people wait too long to address an issue with an employee. That’s a mistake. Missionary doctor Albert Schweitzer asserted, “Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now—always.” If you have a problem with someone, do something about it as quickly as you can.
Meet with the person privately and level with them with integrity and honesty. Sit down and very clearly lay out what the issue is, giving specific, tangible examples of the undesirable actions or behaviors. Don’t be vague. Don’t use secondhand reports. Don’t attribute bad motives to them, because they will only get defensive. In fact, go into the conversation assuming their motives are good. This is more likely to make them open to change and willing to make corrections. And be sure to explain how their actions are negatively affecting the organization, the team, or you.
One more thing. Never go into one of these meetings angry. If you do, you greatly reduce your chances of success. Psychologist William James said, “Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. The factor is attitude.” If your attitude is positive, your mind-set is to give them the benefit of the doubt, and you truly want to help the person, you give yourself the best odds for a positive resolution.
“Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. The factor is attitude.”
—William James
2. Ask for Their Side of the Story
Peter Drucker observed, “Erroneous assumptions can be disastrous.” I’m a pretty good judge of people, but I still sometimes read situations wrong. I misunderstand something that happened, make wrong assumptions, or don’t realize I’m missing an important piece of information. Sometimes circumstances such as a personal tragedy are temporarily prompting unwanted behavior, and the person simply needs help or understanding. That’s why you don’t want to go in with guns blazing. You might be wrong.
3. Try to Come to a Place of Agreement
At this point it’s time to find out if they agree with you. Former secretary of state Dean Acheson stated, “Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.” That’s the right attitude to bring into the process.
When I’ve met with people in this situation, I’ve had some look at me and say, “You’re right. This is a problem that I have.” It can be very humbling for them, but it opens them up to change, and that’s ideal. Often you can help someone with that attitude.
However, I’ve also had many people say, “No, it’s someone else’s problem.” When that happens I tell them, “I believe I’m right and this is your problem. I’m going to give you a week to think about it. We’ll meet again and discuss it.” My hope is that they’ll give it some honest thought and maybe ask people who know them well and will be honest with them.
After a week has gone by, we meet and I ask, “Do you agree that this is your problem?” If they have a change of heart and agree with me, we can move forward to the next step because they’ve taken responsibility. If they still don’t agree, I say, “You may not agree with what I’ve just said. But you will have to agree to change and follow my guidelines if you want to remain on the team. And I’m going to hold you accountable.”
4. Set Out a Future Course of Action with a Deadline
No matter whether people agree with you or not, you must lay out a specific course of action for them to take. Once again, be very specific. Indicate any actions they must not take or behaviors they must not exhibit, starting immediately. If there are action steps they will need to follow through on, lay those out and put deadlines on them. And make sure they understand. Put your requirements into writing if needed. If you don’t both agree on what needs to happen in the future, you will both be frustrated.
5. Validate the Value of the Person and Express Your Commitment to Help
Before you finish your meeting, let them know that you care about them and genuinely desire a positive resolution to the situation. Tell them how you will help them. Goethe recommended, “Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them become what they are capable of becoming.”
Sometimes the greatest value a leader can add to other people comes through telling them the truth, showing them where they can grow, and then helping them change. Some people spend years on a job being resented by their boss and fellow employees, but are never told about their problem or given a chance to change and grow. As a leader, you have the chance to help them.
Sometimes the greatest value a leader can add to other people comes through telling them the truth, showing them where they can grow, and then helping them change.
Sitting down with people and telling them where they fall short isn’t easy. And there’s no guarantee that they will acknowledge their problem or change. There’s a strong chance that you will have to let them go. If you are having a hard time making that decision, ask yourself this question: “If I needed to hire new people, knowing what I know now, would I hire these individuals?”
If the answer is yes—keep them.
If the answer is no—let them go.
If the answer is maybe—reevaluate in three months.
If the answer is that you don’t know, give yourself three months. If the answer is still that you don’t know, the answer is really no. Your emotions are making it difficult for you to accept a hard decision.
Fred Smith, one of my mentors, said, “Whenever I am tempted not to act in a difficult personnel situation, I ask myself, ‘Am I holding back for my own personal comfort or for the good of the organization?’ If I am doing what makes me comfortable, I am embezzling. If doing what is good for the organization also happens to make me comfortable, that’s wonderful. But if I am treating irresponsibility irresponsibly, I must remember that two wrongs do not make a right.”
As a leader, you owe it to the rest of the team to make these tough choices. That’s what you get paid for.
2. How Do You Raise the Bar When People Have Gotten Used to Settling for Mediocrity?
The first question in this chapter dealt primarily with attitude issues. This is more of a performance issue. I think any time the team isn’t performing, the leader has to look at himself first. I need to examine whether I am part of the problem. Am I setting a bad example by settling for mediocrity personally? Is that part of the problem? Or have I lowered my expectations so far that people just assume that average is OK? If either of these things is true, I need to go back to the question in chapter four: what must I do to lead myself successfully? I can’t raise the bar for others if I haven’t raised the bar for myself.
I can’t raise the bar for others if I haven’t raised the bar for myself.
If you as a leader are pushing to reach your maximum potential, you can begin to look at the people you lead and start asking them questions:
• Are you reaching your maximum potential? This is often an awareness issue. Many people don’t understand that they can do much more than they are currently doing. They may not even have reaching their potential as a goal. Help them see the possibilities.
• Would you like to do better? You can find out a lot about a person by hearing their answer to this question. If they answer yes, you may be able to help them. If they answer no, they can’t even help themselves.
• Do you know how to reach your maximum potential? Many people don’t have a clue about how to be more successful. They have the desire, but not the knowledge. This is a case where a “no” answer is actually a good thing. If they don’t know the path forward, you may be able to show it to them.
• Can I help you? One of the most rewarding roles leaders have is that of coach and mentor. When people are teachable and open to growth, helping them succeed can be highly rewarding.
One of the things you as a leader need to help your people understand is that nothing good comes out of being average professionally. You can’t build a business or make a difference by being average. It’s OK to be average in many areas of your life. You can be an average golfer and still have golf as an enjoyable hobby. You can be an average cook and still keep your family fed. You can be an average driver and get from point A to point B. But you can’t settle for mediocre in your marriage, for example, and expect it to remain solid. And you can’t be mediocre in your profession and expect to be rewarded for it.
In a practical sense, one of the best ways to raise the bar for people is to do it incrementally. For example, if you are a real estate broker with a lot of agents in your office and most of them make only three sales a year, challenge them to do four. That’s a very reasonable increase that most people will believe they can do. If you set the goal, give them an incentive to reach it, help them create a plan to achieve it, and check in with them along the way, most of them will be able to achieve it.
The beauty of incremental challenges is that they increase the confidence of the people who achieve them. And they inspire everyone else who has been average. They give them hope. That’s why every time someone gets a win, you should tell their story. It rewards that person and motivates those in the middle to perform better. The top producers don’t need motivation. They are already motivated and performing well. Everyone else needs it.
An incremental challenge also helps the organization when it has a lot of people. If every person grows a little, the organization grows a lot. If you can get a lot of people improving, it can have a tremendous impact overall.
3. How Do You Motivate an Unmotivated Person?
When I started out in leadership, I thought I could change people. Now I realize I can’t. People must change themselves. That doesn’t mean that I have no responsibility to people in my organization in the area of motivation. There are still things I can do. I can work to create an environment and culture where motivation is valued and rewarded. Here are the ways I do that:
Start with Motivated People
The best way to create a culture of motivation is to start with as many motivated people as you can. The Law of Magnetism in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership states, “Who you are is who you attract.” If you want people on your team to be motivated, you must be motivated yourself. People do what people see. I have to live it before I expect it from anyone else.
You should also hire motivated people. That sounds obvious, but you might be surprised how many leaders leave this trait out of the equation when looking for team members. Many focus too much on just talent or skill. Even the leaders who recognize the importance of attitude sometimes miss motivation. And then they wonder why their people aren’t performing at a higher level.
Understand the Connection between Relationships and Motivation
People are motivated by leaders who connect with them and treat them like human beings. If you are a people person, this may sound painfully obvious to you, yet some leaders still miss it. I once knew a leader who referred to all the people on his team as “ding-a-lings.” He was constantly saying things like “I told the ding-a-lings what to do, but of course they didn’t do it,” and “I’ve got to go meet with the ding-a-lings.” It was clear that he believed everyone was below him. His contempt for people was apparent to everyone who worked for him. Few things are more demotivating than working for someone who disrespects you.
Give Each Person a Reputation to Uphold
People often go farther than they think they can go when someone else thinks they can. One way to show people that you believe in them and in the possibility of success for their future is to give them a reputation to uphold.
Ask yourself what’s special, unique, and wonderful about each person on your team. All people have talents, skills, and positive traits that make them valuable to the team. Figure out what they are and then share them with others. The more you validate people for the good things they do—or could do—the more they want to do them. Not only does this motivate them to perform in their strength, it also encourages an environment where people say positive things about one another.
Reward What You Want Done
I’m well known for my books on the laws of leadership, teamwork, and growth. Recently I came across Grandma’s Law. It says, “If you eat your vegetables, you can have dessert.” It’s amazing how well this works with kids. Why? Because most people will work for a reward they desire. If you want to create an environment where people are motivated, give them reasons to get things done.
I love the story of the salesman who sat looking through the window of a hotel restaurant. Outside raged a blinding snowstorm.
“Do you think the roads will be clear enough in the morning to travel?” he asked his waiter.
“That depends,” the waiter replied. “Are you on salary or commission?”
Rewards are motivating. Rules, consequences, and punishment don’t do anything to get people going. They merely keep people from doing their worst. If you want people’s best, give them incentives for performance.
4. How Do You Deal with People Who Start Things but Never Finish?
The bookends of success are starting and finishing. Some people never start. If people don’t have the discipline to do what they must when they need to do it, they have no shot at success. Good things in life don’t float to you. However, some people are in love with starting things, but never finish them. I know someone who loves to start but never finishes. He’s had seventeen different jobs. He says, “I’ve finally found something I want to do.” That new job usually lasts about three or four months. He’s a perpetual optimist, but only about things he hasn’t done yet.
The bookends of success are starting and finishing.
As a leader you can help people to finish better by helping them understand what happens when they don’t follow through and finish something:
They Lose the Reward of Finishing
Anyone who has accomplished things in life understands that 90 percent of the rewards in life come on the back end, not the front end. A great sense of personal satisfaction comes from completing a job and doing it well. There is a great sense of camaraderie and joy among team members when they work together to accomplish a goal. And of course the monetary rewards also come from finishing. People who never finish anything never experience these rewards, so they don’t understand them, and they don’t realize that almost all of life’s rewards are on the back end.
They Lower Their Self-Esteem
Every time people quit and don’t finish something they start, they lose a bit of their self-esteem. Whether they are aware of it or not, they begin to internally label themselves as quitters. I’ve never found a person with a high self-image who quits all the time. There is a pride in accomplishment that people who quit do not possess. They may show false bravado, but not a deep sense of satisfaction with who they are and what they can do.
They Sabotage Their Own Success
People who never finish often don’t understand they are developing a habit that will sabotage their success. Quitting becomes a habit. And they make excuses. But it’s easier to move from failure to success than from excuses to success!
It’s easier to move from failure to success than from excuses to success.
My dad drilled into us kids that if we started something, we would have to finish it. He used to say, “When you made the choice to start, you made the choice to finish. It’s not two choices; it’s one.” That kind of mind-set has served my brother Larry, my sister Trish, and me well.
They Lose the Trust and Respect of Others
Quit enough times, and others will think you are unreliable, and that erodes trust. Nobody wants to work with people they cannot trust. Nobody wants to be handcuffed to a quitter. People who blow themselves up will eventually take you with them.
People who don’t finish what they start often don’t recognize the negative impact it has on themselves and others. As a leader, you can help them to understand. Teach them that by starting and finishing they are demonstrating that they can handle bigger and better responsibilities. They become candidates for more time, attention, and opportunity from you and the organization because they are demonstrating that they are ready for these things.
5. How Can Leaders Help Individuals Move Past Their Mistakes, Filter Out Negative Self-Talk, and Get on a Path of Success Toward a Better Future?
The ability to deal with difficulties, mistakes, failure, and loss is crucial to people’s success. My desire to help people with this has been so strong that I’ve written two books to teach people how to do it: Failing Forward and Sometimes You Win—Sometimes You Learn.
Many people get emotionally stuck when they make a mistake or suffer a loss. They often become overwhelmed by regret. That’s a problem because, as writer Katherine Mansfield observed, “Regret is an appalling waste of energy.… You can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.” If the regret takes hold for too long, it can turn into guilt, resentment, and self-pity.
When we experience losses, we need to learn from them and let them go. If we focus on the loss instead, it can bring us down. Here’s the difference between people who focus on the loss and those who focus on the lesson:
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LOSS: Think About What They Did Wrong
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LESSON: Think About What They Can Do Right
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LOSS: Relive the Pain
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LESSON: Put Energy into Healing
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LOSS: Increase Self-Pity
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LESSON: Increase Self-Reliance
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LOSS: Get Emotionally Down
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LESSON: Get Excited
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LOSS: Feel Hopeless
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LESSON: Gain Hope
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LOSS: Get Stuck in the Past
PEOPLE WHO FOCUS ON THE LESSON: Move Forward Toward the Future
Some losses require time because they cut deeply. We need to grieve. We need time to heal. But many small losses and problems don’t warrant much energy. Most of the time we need to learn the lesson from the loss, and then move on.
6. At What Point Do You Turn Your Energy Away from Dissenters and Low Performers and Focus on Those Who Want to Grow?
As leaders, we often want to take everyone with us. I know I did as a young leader. I was going places, I was excited about it, and I wanted everyone to take the journey with me. But that never happens. Some people can’t go with you. Others don’t want to. Your job as a leader is to give people a chance to get on board, giving them your best at helping them succeed, or to move on without them.
The people you spend most of your time and energy on are the ones who stay. The ones you neglect are the ones who leave. Which would you rather have with you? The high performers who are on board with the vision, or the low performers who criticize you and the organization? If you give your effort to the negative people, at some point you need to ask yourself:
How much of my energy will I let them take?
How much of my time will I let them take?
How much of my focus will I let them take?
How much of my joy will I let them take?
How much of the resources will I let them take?
Asking these questions makes you realize there is a cost to keeping negative or unproductive people. There are lifters and leaners. Whom do you want on your team?
As I get older, I’m finding that I want to spend my time with people I enjoy. I don’t put up with as much as I once did. I have little desire to waste time trying to fulfill other people’s agendas. I want to invest in people who grow and who want to make a difference in the lives of others.
If you don’t winnow out the dissenters and low performers, you lose people’s respect for your leadership. If people are not doing their jobs, they deserve your best shot to help them succeed. When you have given them your best shot, if they’re still not doing their best, it’s time to make changes.
When I went to San Diego to lead Skyline, I inherited a very weak staff. I did my best to get to know them, to learn their strengths and weaknesses. And I gave my best to help them be successful, but it became clear very quickly that many were not going to be good enough to take Skyline to the next level.
So I developed a strategy. That first year, I let go of a third of the staff and replaced them with people who were high performers and believed in the vision. The next year I let go of the bottom third again and replaced them with better performers. The third year—you guessed it—I let go of the bottom third. Aside from a few exceptions, I had replaced the entire staff in three years.
As a leader, you have to set the standard, and then follow through on it. You have to be willing to make the difficult choices and live with the fallout. My friend Jimmy Blanchard at Synovus did that. Synovus has been voted one of the ten top companies to work for in America. Jimmy Blanchard, who was the CEO, helped to create that. Do you know how he did it? He got rid of the people he believed were hurting the company.
He felt that one of the main problems in the company was that employees were not always being treated well, and he believed the issue was many of the supervisors. So in a meeting with the entire company, he told people that the company wasn’t reaching its potential because people were not being valued as they should be. Then he pulled out his cell phone and told everyone in the auditorium that if a supervisor devalued them, they could call him personally to tell him about it, and then he gave out his personal phone number.
Jimmy told me that for the next six months, he received not dozens but hundreds of calls. What he discovered was that the problem kept happening with the same supervisors. So he and the other leaders went to those supervisors and told them that they had to either change or go. It took them about a year and a half to clear out about a third of the supervisors, but it turned the company around. Jimmy said he changed the supervisors slowly, but he changed his people’s attitude immediately.
The more experience I’ve had, the more I’ve realized that as a leader, you just have to go do what needs to be done. When I have to let someone go, I try to do it in the right way. I appreciate them. I do the right thing financially. And I don’t look back. Recently, when I let someone go, he wanted another chance or the opportunity to come back in a lesser role. I said no. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Often we know it won’t work, but we want to keep the relationship and we give in. That’s not good for anybody in the long run. In my early years, I kept people too long. I didn’t make courageous decisions. I put my own feelings above what was best for the organization. But I’ve learned not to do that. Today I’m not the same person I used to be. I’m stronger, more decisive, more courageous. I’ve quit trying to get everybody to love me. Now I just try to do the right thing.
7. How Do You Inspire Your Team to Make Its Current Work a Career and Something to Be Proud to Do, and Not Just Another Job with a Paycheck?
If people see the work they’re currently doing as nothing more than a job for a paycheck, they will become frustrated over time. Almost equally frustrating is targeting a particular position or title and then thinking you’ve arrived once you receive it. No job has a future. Only people have a future. If people keep growing, learning, and expanding their potential, their future is bright. If not, it’s uncertain at best. That’s why I often remind people that the greatest threat to tomorrow’s success is today’s success.
No job has a future. Only people have a future.
To be successful, I’ve kept reinventing myself. I’ve continued to grow, learn, and add to who I am. I started out as a minister. When I realized that to be successful I needed to influence people, I added leadership skills and became a leader. When I began to realize that my communication ability wasn’t strong enough, I started to study good speakers and add to my skills until I became an effective communicator. When I realized that you can only take people so far in their growth using speeches and conferences, I learned to write and create resources so I could become an equipper. Then I learned the power of mentoring and became a developer of leaders. Today I’ve come to appreciate the power of partnership, and I’ve begun partnering with other leaders and organizations to try to make a difference.
What’s next? I have no idea. When I see a growth opportunity to become something more than I currently am, I will seize it and pay the price for the next stage of the journey. That’s what all of us need to do.
If you’re leading people who have settled into a role or position, whether it’s because they are in a comfort zone or because they see their work as just a job, try to help them open their eyes and think beyond today. Help them to realize that a job is never big enough for a human being. We have too much inside us for that. Offer them something beyond their job by doing the following:
Share Your Passion
If you have passion for what you do, you need to share it with your people. A leader’s passion is contagious. It can attract other passionate people, and it can spark a flame in people who might not otherwise be passionate. If they can understand and connect with the vision you have and the passion you feel, there’s a good chance that they will catch it and become passionate too.
Paint a Picture of a Better Future
As I already mentioned, a job is never big enough for people. They want to do something bigger, something that is worth working for. People want to make a difference. One of your jobs as a leader is to paint a picture of their future that inspires them to work harder today. Tell them who they can become. Show them what they could someday be doing. This must be done with integrity, because as leaders, we never want to manipulate people. We just want to help them envision the future.
Show How Their Role Makes a Difference
Too often people don’t understand how the tasks they do contribute to the bigger picture. Good leaders help team members understand their role. They help them see how their contribution is making a difference. This gives team members a sense of ownership over the mission, and inspires them to do better work.
Challenge Them to Keep Growing
H. Nelson Jackson said, “I do not believe you can do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow.” That’s why we need to help people see the value of growing. It is essential not only for the organization’s viability, but also for the individual’s future. People who make growth their goal—instead of a title, position, salary, or other external target—always have a future.
All of these things have the potential to help a leader inspire someone to invest himself more fully in his work and stop coasting. But everything I’ve just discussed rests on one assumption: that you are passionate about your own work. That is essential. People do not follow an uncertain trumpet. They can’t catch fire from a leader who has grown cold himself. If you aren’t fired up, you are a big part of the problem, and the first person you must address is yourself.
8. How Does One Lead People Who Are More Knowledgeable, or Superior Leaders, When Put in Charge of Them?
If you’ve been put in charge of a group of people who are stronger than you in leadership or technical ability, here’s the good news: you have a position. Here’s the bad news: the position won’t mean anything to them. They won’t follow you because of it.
I learned this in my first leadership position. I was twenty-two. The real leaders in the church were in their forties and had been there for decades. They wouldn’t follow me. But that doesn’t mean I gave up. Instead I developed a strategy of asking for people’s help. If someone pointed out a deficiency in my leadership, I didn’t try to convince him that I was right. I agreed with him and asked for his help. Because I was young and didn’t try to pretend that I was a better leader, people were willing to help me. Meanwhile I learned as much as I could, worked as hard as I could, and tried to help others as much as I could. As a result, within six months I had started to develop credibility.
If you’re not a young leader entering this kind of situation, you may need to take a slightly different tack. First of all, if the team is talented, you can’t fool them. You can’t fake it. Good leaders will sniff this out instantly. You can’t make a mess and then expect the team to bail you out. You’ll lose them. You also can’t use your position or pull rank and keep their respect. If you try to, they will disdain you and then sabotage you. You need to admit where they’re better than you, and look for common ground. If they know that you know you’re not as good as they are, they may not feel as compelled to keep pointing it out to you.
Your best strategy may be to enlist help from the most influential person on the team. Go to him or her and say, “Look, I know you’re more experienced than I am. You have more knowledge. My goal is to help the team win. Can I get your help? When I have a problem, can I come to you for advice? When I need to make a decision for the team, can I talk it over with you? I know that with your help, we can all be successful.” If the person says yes, follow through. Ask for advice. Ask for help. And when things go right, publicly give that person credit.
9. How Long Do You Push Someone’s Potential When They Are Not Reaching It?
There are hosts of people in this world to whom it’s never occurred to try to grow, to strive to reach their potential. They are in survival mode, simply drifting through life. I have no desire to have such people on my team. I want people who want to make a difference and whose desire is to keep improving themselves so they get the opportunity to make a greater impact. Yet for nearly everyone, that is an uphill battle. One of my mentors, consultant Fred Smith, passed this on to me:
Something in human nature tempts us to stay where we’re comfortable. We try to find a plateau, a resting place, where we have comfortable stress and adequate finances. Where we have comfortable associations with people, without the intimidation of meeting new people and entering strange situations. Of course, all of us need to plateau for a time. We climb and then plateau for assimilation. But once we’ve assimilated what we’ve learned, we climb again. It’s unfortunate when we’ve done our last climb. When we have made our last climb, we are old, whether forty or eighty.
“When we have made our last climb, we are old, whether forty or eighty.”
—Fred Smith
To keep growing toward our potential, we have to be intentional. We have to fight for it. That can be difficult. Not everyone is willing to keep doing it. When people stop growing, I find that it is often for one or more of the following reasons:
Choices
Many people make choices that limit them. They quit a job with great potential because it is difficult. They put themselves into debt and then can’t pursue an entrepreneurial opportunity. They choose a fun vacation over a conference that might lead to a personal breakthrough. In life, for everything you gain, you give up something. We can make choices that increase our potential or choices that take away from it.
Time
Most people have a short-term approach to success. They want it now. And even if they are willing to engage in a process, they usually have no idea it will take a long time. So they bail out. They need to heed the advice of Persian poet Saadi, who wrote, “Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.”
“Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.”
—Saadi
I have to admit, I am an impatient person. And I usually have unrealistic expectations about how long something will take. How do I fight against this weakness? I develop systems to help me, and I rely on daily disciplines. By focusing on what I know I should do today, I am able to keep plugging away and continue growing.
Price
Many people think they can rely on talent alone to get them through life. But talent will not carry you to your potential. It’s only one part of the equation. Everyone who strives to reach his potential must pay a price—in time, effort, resources, and opportunities missed. Many people fail to pay the price that their potential demands.
Problems
Everybody faces problems, obstacles, and barriers. Some people let those things defeat them. They fail to think creatively when problems arise. They don’t have the tenacity to fight through them. Or they lack belief in themselves.
Sometimes all people need is some encouragement. I saw an illustration of this at the 2013 Leadercast event. Former Navy SEAL commander Rorke Denver asked everyone to reach up as high as they could. Once everyone had, he said, “Now reach one inch higher.” As I watched, I saw all the arms in the room go up just a bit more. We are literally capable of doing more and going higher than we believe we can.
As a leader, I believe I have a responsibility to help people grow and reach their potential. However, I am not responsible for the outcome. I can do my best to set people up for success, but it’s up to them whether or not they do the work to be the best they can be.
That means I need to spend time getting to know what a person can do. I must evaluate their present skills, potential capacities, level of commitment, ability to be motivated, discipline, and intensity. If I am to lead, I owe it to my people to take the time to evaluate well. Only then can I discover the best way to motivate, develop, and equip my people.
Having said that, I also know that most people do not push themselves to their full capacity to reach their potential. My friend Gerald Brooks describes it this way: if life is like an elevator ride, most people will get off one floor lower than they have to. That can be very frustrating, because if you are a caring leader who is concerned about people, you want to see people go as far as they can. Your goal is to help people to reach the highest floor they can. But in the process, it’s important that you don’t get off at a lower floor yourself just because of your desire to help them. You still need to be true to yourself and keep striving to be your best.
If you lead people who are falling short of their potential, you need to start asking why. Have you put them in their strength zone? Are you providing the training and resources they need to be successful? Is there something they need that you’re not giving? You always need to make sure you are not the problem before you look to see where the problem is.
After that, you must remember it is their choice, not yours. You can’t push people to reach their potential. You can choose to leave the door open for them, but they must walk through. If they choose not to, you’re better off spending your time on someone who’s hungry and actively wants to grow.
10. How Do You Know a Relationship Is Broken and How Can You Save It?
Good leaders are constantly cultivating and managing relationships with people at work—their peers, their bosses, their employees—plus all their personal relationships outside of their jobs. Any time a relationship is strained, damaged, or broken, they need to address the problem as quickly as possible. When something is broken or a person is hurt, when there’s silence between you, the other person almost always assumes the worst. And they start filling any gaps of information with negative assumptions.
How can you tell when a relationship has become broken? These are the most common signs:
• It’s hard to have an honest conversation: When relationships are in trouble, it becomes difficult to have a normal, honest conversation. If you try to start one, the other person will refuse to engage, or become defensive or combative. They don’t want to hear from you. They don’t want to talk it out. Maybe they’ve been so hurt that they just can’t handle it.
• There’s a lack of trust: When relationships begin to break down, suspicion creeps in. The other person begins to question motives. Maybe they feel a sense of injustice or lack of fairness. Whatever trust was originally there begins to deteriorate.
• There’s a lack of passion to continue the relationship: Eventually the other person stops putting in any effort to build back the relationship or make it work. At this point they often withdraw completely, and it becomes very difficult for you to connect with them. Or if you can manage to get with them, they’re mentally or emotionally withdrawn from you. Even if you’re together, you’re not relating to one another.
When you see these signs, you should try to repair the relationship. That doesn’t mean trying to get it back at all costs. Some people sell themselves to try to buy back a broken relationship, and they give away too much. Your goal should be to repair the relationship, but to do it with integrity. Here’s what I think it takes to do that:
1. Initiate Fixing the Relationship with Them
When I have a great relationship and it starts to get strained or broken, I feel it’s my responsibility to go to the person to see what can be done to fix it. I think it’s always the leader’s responsibility to be the first to try to mend the relationship. We need to pick up the phone and say, “Hey, can we go to lunch? We need to talk.” That doesn’t mean it always pays off. But it’s hard to rescue a relationship if you don’t take responsibility for initiating.
It’s always the leader’s responsibility to be the first to try to mend the relationship.
2. Give Them the Benefit of the Doubt
I always go into that conversation assuming that I’ve done something wrong. I’ve discovered that if there’s hope for helping a relationship come back, the conversation goes better if I’m open and willing to take the blame. So I assume I’m wrong. I’ll ask, “Have I offended you? Is there something I’ve done that’s put a strain on our relationship? Is there anything I can do to make amends? Please talk to me.”
Sometimes people say, “No, it’s not you,” and they’ll explain what’s going on in their life that is causing them to withdraw. Sometimes they say, “Yes, there is. Here’s what you did.” And they’ll talk to me. When that happens, there’s a chance to repair the relationship. When that’s the case, I ask forgiveness. And even if what I did wasn’t wrong, I still apologize for what hurt them. It’s difficult to move forward with relational baggage weighing you down.
3. Be Willing to Walk the Second Mile
I believe it is the responsibility of the leader to initiate and to go the second mile in trying to repair a broken relationship. Leaders need to be quick to say, “I’m sorry.” They need to be willing to make needed changes. That’s a part of leadership.
In relationships, I believe the stronger person is the first one to come back and offer to reconcile. The stronger person is the first to ask for forgiveness. Usually that’s the leader. Even if the leader has been the injured party, he needs to initiate. However, the truth is that the weaker person controls the relationship. They always do and they always will.
As a leader you can walk the second mile, but you can’t determine the outcome of the attempted reconciliation. There will be times when no matter how much effort you put in, the relationship is never the same as it was before. And you can’t be held hostage by that. You have to accept it, because as a leader, you have the responsibility to be a good steward of your team or organization. You cannot allow your personal feelings of not wanting to hurt somebody keep you from doing what’s best for the organization. That was hard for me to learn, because I’m so relationally driven.
4. Speak Well of Them Afterward
After I’ve talked to people and tried to resolve whatever issues we’ve had, my goal is to have no unfinished business with them. Whether we resolved the issues and mended the relationship, or had to part ways, I don’t want there to be any kind of grudge between us, and I want to say only positive things about them. If we see each other on the street, I don’t want to avoid them and I don’t want them to feel they need to avoid me. I want to be able to say hi, shake hands, give them a hug, and wish them well. I believe that if you’re a leader, that should also be your goal.
I think a lot of relationships are worth saving, but many can’t be saved. I think we have to be realistic about the relationship, and do our best, but sometimes we have to accept that it can’t be saved. We have to learn to say to ourselves, It’s OK. I don’t have to keep this close relationship with this person anymore. You have to be secure in your leadership and give yourself permission to have a different relationship from what you had before. You still value the person, but you let them go.