INITIATIVE ACTIVATES YOUR TALENT
It’s a cliché to say that every journey begins with the first step, yet it is still true. Talent-plus people don’t wait for everything to be perfect to move forward. They don’t wait for all the problems or obstacles to disappear. They don’t wait until their fear subsides. They take initiative. They know a secret that good leaders understand: momentum is their friend. As soon as they take that first step and start moving forward, things become a little easier. If the momentum gets strong enough, many of the problems take care of themselves and talent can take over. But it starts only after you’ve taken those first steps.
DISASTER
On January 17, 1994, at 4:30 in the morning, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck the Los Angeles area. The earthquake was considered moderate (in contrast, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was believed to be more than ten times as powerful), but it still did an incredible amount of damage. More than 50 people died and 9,000 were seriously injured.1 More than 22,000 people were left homeless, and 7,000 buildings were judged uninhabitable with an additional 22,000 sustaining major damage. The quake closed 9 hospitals, ruined several freeways, and collapsed 9 bridges.
The disaster, called the Northridge earthquake, was centered beneath the San Fernando Valley and did $44 billion in damage. Some experts considered the people who lived in the area to be fortunate because the earthquake occurred so early in the morning and on a holiday—Martin Luther King Day. Yet it was still the most monetarily costly earthquake in the history of the United States.
BREAKING GRIDLOCK
Los Angeles typically has the worst congestion and traffic delays of any large city in the nation. The effects of the Northridge earthquake made them worse. One of the most problematic areas was a section of Interstate 10 called the Santa Monica Freeway in the heart of Los Angeles—the most heavily used highway in the world. Every day it carries as many as 341,000 vehicles. Estimates were that it would cost California $1 million a day in lost wages, added fuel costs, and depressed business activity for every day it was closed.2
Environmental reviews and permitting requirements in California routinely take eighteen to twenty-four months. And construction on a project this size usually takes well over six months. At a cost of $1 million a day, that would mean the closure of the Santa Monica Freeway alone could create a negative impact costing Los Angeles more than $900 million!
Governor Pete Wilson knew that he needed to act to solve the problem. He initiated a plan to clear the way for quick reconstruction. Wilson recounts, “I issued an executive order suspending all statutes and regulations related to state contracting . . . My goal was to reopen I-10 within 6 months. Each contract included an incentive. If the work was late, we charged a fine, and if it was completed early, we paid a bonus.”3
Demolition and removal work had begun a mere six hours after the earthquake. And on Monday, January 31, just two weeks after the earthquake, CalTrans, the state’s agency responsible for freeway construction, invited five contractors to bid on the job of rebuilding the Santa Monica Freeway. Preliminary plans were made available to the contractors that night. But bids would be due Friday, February 4, at 10:00 a.m., just four days later! The contract would be awarded that night, and construction would commence on Saturday, February 5. And there were two other important pieces of information. First, the maximum amount of time allowed for construction was 140 days. Second, the financial stakes for finishing the project on time were high. If the winning contractor finished the project late, there would be a penalty of $200,000 per day. However, the contractor would receive $200,000 per day over the bid for each day it finished ahead of schedule.
STEPPING FORWARD
One company that received the offer to bid was C. C. Myers, which had completed several CalTrans projects in the past. The company bid the project at $14.7 million with the promise to finish in 140 days.4 However, the management team privately set the goal of completing it in 100 days. If all went well, the company could make an additional $8 million.
But of course, everything didn’t go well. C. C. Myers planned to work its crews in twelve-hour shifts, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The crews quickly became fatigued. The solution? The managers hired more workers. A job that size usually required 65 carpenters. They hired 228. Instead of 15 iron workers, they employed 134. They continually initiated steps to speed up the project, such as using an expensive fast-drying concrete rather than their usual material. And when the company was informed that the railroads would require three weeks to deliver the steel beams needed for the project, C. C. Myers chartered its own trains to get the supplies from Arkansas and Texas to Los Angeles.5
C. C. Myers’s initiative paid off. The company didn’t just beat the 140-day deadline or even its own internal goal of 100 days. The crews finished the job in a mere 66 days—74 days ahead of schedule. And in the process the organization earned bonuses totaling $14.5 million, nearly the amount of the original bid.
The C. C. Myers organization had expertise, experience, and a proven track record. But the leaders didn’t rely on those things alone. Why? They knew that talent alone is never enough. They knew they needed talent plus! To complete the Santa Monica Freeway project, they needed to show initiative in the bidding process, in the leadership of their people, and in the management of the details. That initiative brought them great success. And the company continues to show initiative. In the wake of the Northridge earthquake, Myers began working with engineers at the University of Southern California on innovations to strengthen existing freeways against earthquake damage.
INSIGHTS ON INITIATIVE
If you want to reach your potential, you have to show initiative, just as Governor Pete Wilson and the leaders at C. C. Myers did. Here’s why:
1. Initiative Is the First Step to Anywhere You Want to Go
A tourist paused for a rest in a small town in the mountains. He sat down on a bench next to an old man in front of the town’s only store. “Hi, friend,” he said, “can you tell me something this town is noted for?”
“Well,” answered the old man after a moment’s hesitation, “you can start here and get to anywhere in the world you want.”
That’s true of nearly every location. Where you finish in life isn’t determined so much by where you start as by whether you start. If you’re willing to get started and keep initiating, there’s no telling how far you might go.
That was the case for Les Brown. Les and his brother, Wes, were adopted when they were six weeks old, and they grew up in Liberty City, a poor section of Miami, Florida. As a child, Les was branded a slow learner and given little chance of success by many of his teachers. But with the encouragement of one of his high school teachers, who told him, “Someone else’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality,” Les managed to graduate from high school and later got a job as a radio DJ. With much hard work, he became a broadcast manager. He got involved in his community, became a community activist and leader, and eventually was elected to the state legislature for three terms. And then he turned his attention to public speaking, where he received the National Speakers Association’s highest honor and was named one of the world’s top five speakers according to Toastmasters in 1992. He has written books, hosts his own syndicated television show, owns a business, and commands $25,000 per appearance as a public speaker.
When he started life, most people wouldn’t have given him much of a chance to succeed. Few thought he had talent. But he just kept moving forward, and he has since moved far beyond his detractors. Successful people initiate—and they follow through.6
2. Initiative Closes the Door to Fear
Author Katherine Paterson said, “To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another.” We all have fears. The question is whether we are going to control them or allow them to control us.
In 1995, my friend Dan Reiland and his wife, Patti, went skydiving along with a group of friends (including my writer, Charlie Wetzel). They approached the event with a mixture of excitement and fear. At the skydiving center in Southern California, they received only a few minutes of training to prepare them for their tandem jumps. Dan said they were feeling pretty good about the whole thing until a guy walked into the room and made a pitch to sell them life insurance.
As the plane ascended to 11,000 feet, they became increasingly nervous. Then they opened the sliding door at the back of the plane, at which point the fear factor went through the roof. Wishing they had worn rubber pants, they approached the door, each of them harnessed to a jumpmaster, and then launched themselves out of the plane.
Within seconds, they were hurtling toward the earth at 120 miles an hour. And after a free fall of 6,000 feet, they pulled their rip cords. When the canopy opened, with a forceful jolt they went from 120 miles an hour to 25 miles an hour. Dan said, “It made my underwear find places it had never found before!”
I laugh whenever Dan tells the story, but I was really surprised to learn from Dan and Patti that as petrified as they were before they jumped, all their fear was gone the second they left the plane.
Author and pastor Norman Vincent Peale asserted, “Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.” If you want to close the door on fear, get moving.
3. Initiative Opens the Door to Opportunity
Benjamin Franklin, one of our nation’s Founding Fathers, advised, “To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.” People who take initiative and work hard may succeed, or they may fail. But anyone who doesn’t take initiative is almost guaranteed to fail. I’m willing to bet that you have . . .
a decision you should be making,
a problem you should be solving,
a possibility you should be examining,
a project you should be starting,
a goal you should be reaching,
an opportunity you should be seizing,
a dream you should be fulfilling.
No one can wait until everything is perfect to act and expect to be successful. It’s better to be 80 percent sure and make things happen than it is to wait until you are 100 percent sure because by then, the opportunity will have already passed you by.
4. Initiative Eases Life’s Difficulties
Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck famously stated, “Life is difficult.” That’s not most people’s problem. Their response to life’s difficulties is. Too many people wait around for their ship to come in. When they take that approach to life, they often find it to be hardship. The things that simply come to us are rarely the things we want. To have a chance at getting what we desire, we need to work for it.
Philosopher and author William James said, “Nothing is so fatiguing as the hanging on of an uncompleted task.” The longer we let things slide, the harder they become. The hardest work is often the accumulation of many easy things that should have been done yesterday, last week, or last month. The only way to get rid of a difficult task is to do it. That takes initiative.
5. Initiative Is Often the Difference Between Success and Failure
A man who was employed by a duke and duchess in Europe was called in to speak to his employer.
“James,” said the duchess, “how long have you been with us?”
“About thirty years, Your Grace,” he replied.
“As I recall, you were employed to look after the dog.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” James replied.
“James, that dog died twenty-seven years ago.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” said James. “What would you like me to do now?”
Like James, too many people are waiting for someone else to tell them what to do next. Nearly all people have good thoughts, ideas, and intentions, but many of them never translate those into action. Doing so requires initiative.
Most people recognize that initiative is beneficial, yet they still frequently underestimate its true value. Perhaps the best illustration of the power of initiative is a story about the patenting of the telephone. In the 1870s, two men worked extensively on modifying and improving telegraphy, which was the current technology. Both had ideas for transmitting sounds by wire, and both explored the transmission of the human voice electrically. What is remarkable is that both men—Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray—filed their ideas at the patent office on the same day, February 14, 1876. Bell was the fifth person on record that day who filed for a patent. Gray, on the other hand, sent his attorney, and the man arrived more than an hour after Bell, applying for a caveat, a kind of declaration of intention to file for a patent. Those minutes cost Gray a fortune. Bell’s claim was upheld in court, even though Gray complained that he had come up with the idea first.
Talent without initiative never reaches its potential. It’s like a caterpillar that won’t get into its cocoon. It will never transform, forever relegated to crawling on the ground, even though it had the potential to fly.
PEOPLE WHO LACK INITIATIVE
When it comes to initiative, there are really only four kinds of people:
1. People who do the right thing without being told
2. People who do the right thing when told
3. People who do the right thing when told more than once
4. People who never do the right thing, no matter what
Anyone who wants to become a talent-plus person needs to become the first kind of person. Why doesn’t everyone do that? I think there are several reasons.
1. People Who Lack Initiative Fail to See the Consequences of Inaction
King Solomon of ancient Israel is said to have been the wisest person who ever lived. Every time I read Proverbs, which he is believed to have authored, I learn something. In recent years, I’ve enjoyed reading his words in a paraphrase called The Message:
You lazy fool, look at an ant.
Watch it closely; let it teach you a thing or two.
Nobody has to tell it what to do.
All summer it stores up food;
at harvest it stockpiles provisions.
So how long are you going to laze around doing nothing?
How long before you get out of bed?
A nap here, a nap there, a day off here, a day off there,
sit back, take it easy—do you know what comes next?
Just this: You can look forward to a dirt-poor life,
poverty your permanent houseguest!7
British civil servant and economist Sir Josiah Stamp remarked, “It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.” That is true. Whatever we do—or neglect to do—will catch up with us in the end. Those who never initiate often end up like the subject of English playwright James Albery’s verse,
He slept beneath the moon;
He basked beneath the sun.
He lived a life of going-to-do;
And died with nothing done.8
Don’t let that happen to you.
2. People Who Lack Initiative Want Someone Else to Motivate Them
There’s a silly story of a man in a small town who was known as a great fisherman. Every morning he went out on a lake in his small boat, and in a short time, he returned with his boat loaded with fish.
One day a stranger showed up in town and asked if he could accompany the man the next time he went out. The fisherman said, “Sure, you can come. Meet me at the dock at five a.m.”
The next morning the two men went far out into the lake and made their way to a remote cove. As they traveled, the stranger noticed that the fisherman didn’t have any poles or other equipment—just a rusty tackle box and a scoop net.
After the fisherman shut off the motor, he opened the tackle box and pulled out a stick of dynamite. He struck a match, lit it, and then tossed it into the water. After a deafening explosion, he grabbed his net and started scooping up fish.
With a hard look, the stranger reached into his pocket and pulled out a badge with the words game warden on it. “You’re under arrest,” he said evenly.
His words didn’t faze the fisherman. He simply reached into the tackle box again, lit another stick of dynamite, and held it while the fuse burned down. He then handed it to the game warden and said, “So, are you going to just sit there, or are you going to fish?”
Successful people don’t need a lighted fuse to motivate them. Their motivation comes from within. If we wait for others to motivate us, what happens when a coach, a boss, or other inspirational person doesn’t show up? We need a better plan than that.
Tom Golisano, founder of Paychex, Inc., offered this considered opinion: “I believe you don’t motivate people. What you do is hire motivated people, then make sure you don’t demotivate them.” If you want to get ahead, you need to light your own fire.
3. People Who Lack Initiative Look for the Perfect Time to Act
Timing is important—no doubt about that. The Law of Timing in my book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership states, “When to lead is as important as what to do and where to go.” But it’s also true that all worthwhile endeavors in life require risk. I love this Chinese proverb: “He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg.” For many people, the tragedy isn’t that life ends too soon; it’s that they wait too long to begin it.
4. People Who Lack Initiative Like Tomorrow Better Than Today
One of the reasons noninitiators have such a difficult time getting started is that they focus their attention on tomorrow instead of today. Jazz musician Jimmy Lyons remarked, “Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man.” But that attitude gets us into trouble because the only time over which we have any control is the present.
Edgar Guest wrote a poem that captures the fate of those who have this problem. It is appropriately titled “To-morrow”:
He was going to be all that a mortal should be
To-morrow.
No one should be kinder or braver than he
To-morrow.
A friend who was troubled and weary he knew,
Who’d be glad of a lift and who needed it, too;
On him he would call and see what he could do
To-morrow.
Each morning he stacked up the letters he’d write
To-morrow.
And thought of the folks he would fill with delight
To-morrow.
It was too bad, indeed, he was busy to-day,
And hadn’t a minute to stop on his way;
More time he would have to give others, he’d say
To-morrow.
The greatest of workers this man would have been
To-morrow.
The world would have known him, had he ever seen
To-morrow.
But the fact is he died and he faded from view,
And all that he left here when living was through Was a mountain of things he intended to do
To-morrow.9
The idea of tomorrow can be very seductive, but the promise that it holds is often false. I heard about a customer who went into a furniture store in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and saw an old, faded sign on the wall that said, “Tomorrow we will give away everything in the store.” For a moment, the customer got excited. Then he realized the sign would say the same thing tomorrow—putting off the giveaway another day and then another day. That particular tomorrow would never come.
Spanish priest and writer Baltasar Gracian said, “The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.” Anything worth doing is worth doing immediately. Remember that for people who never start, their difficulties never stop.
TALENT + INITIATIVE = A TALENT-PLUS PERSON
PUTTING THE TALENT-PLUS FORMULA INTO ACTION
To be honest, all of us are plagued by procrastination in some area of our lives. If something is unpleasant, uninteresting, or complex, we tend to put it off. Even some things we like doing can cause us difficulty. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe observed, “To put your ideas into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” Yet to reach our potential and become talent-plus people, we must show initiative. Here are some suggestions to help you as you strive to become a talent-plus person in this area:
1. Accept Responsibility for Your Life
Greek philosopher Socrates said, “To move the world we must first move ourselves.” Show me those who neglect to take responsibility for their own lives, and I’ll show you people who also lack initiative. Responsibility and initiative are inseparable.
Everyone experiences setbacks. We all face obstacles. From time to time, we all feel that the deck is stacked against us. We need to show initiative anyway. Dick Butler asserted, “Life isn’t fair. It isn’t going to be fair. Stop sniveling and whining and go out and make it happen for you. In business I see too many people who expect the financial tooth fairy to come at night and remove that ugly dead tooth from under the pillow and substitute profitability just in the nick of time at the end of the fiscal year.” There’s a saying that great souls have wills but feeble ones have only wishes. We cannot wish our way to success. We need to take responsibility and act.
2. Examine Your Reasons for Not Initiating
Chinese philosopher Mencius made this point: “If your deeds are unsuccessful, seek the reason in yourself. When your own person is correct, the whole world will turn to you.” If you lack initiative, the only way you will be able to change is to first identify the specific problem. Think about the reasons people lack initiative already outlined in this chapter. Are you in denial about the consequences of not taking initiative and responsibility for yourself? Are you waiting for others to motivate you instead of working to motivate yourself? Are you waiting for everything to be perfect before you act? Are you fantasizing about tomorrow instead of focusing on what you can do today? Or is there some other issue that is preventing you from taking action?
What’s important is that you separate legitimate reasons from excuses. An excuse puts the blame on someone or something outside you. Excuses are like exit signs on the road of progress. They take us off track. Know this: it’s easier to move from failure to success than from excuses to success. Eliminate excuses. Once you’ve done that, you can turn your attention to the reasons—and how to overcome them.
3. Focus on the Benefits of Completing a Task
It is extremely difficult to be successful if you are forever putting things off. Procrastination is the fertilizer that makes difficulties grow. When you take too long to make up your mind about an opportunity that presents itself, you will miss out on seizing it. In the previous chapter, I wrote about the importance of aligning your priorities with your passion. To become effective and make progress in your area of talent or responsibility, you can’t spend your valuable time on unimportant or unnecessary tasks. So I’m going to make an assumption that if you do procrastinate about a task, it is a necessary one. (If it’s not, don’t put it off; eliminate it.) To get yourself over the hump, focus on what you’ll get out of it if you get it done. Will completing the task bring a financial benefit? Will it clear the way for something else you would like to do? Does it represent a milestone in your development or the completion of something bigger? At the very least, does it help to clear the decks for you emotionally? If you seek a positive reason, you are likely to find one.
Once you find that idea, start moving forward and act decisively. U.S. admiral William Halsey observed, “All problems become smaller if you don’t dodge them, but confront them. Touch a thistle timidly, and it pricks you; grasp it boldly, and its spines crumble.”
4. Share Your Goal with a Friend Who Will Help You
No one achieves success alone. As the Law of Significance states in my book The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork , “One is too small a number to achieve greatness.” Lindbergh didn’t fly solo across the Atlantic without help, Einstein didn’t develop the theory of relativity in a vacuum, and Columbus didn’t discover the New World on his own. They all had help.
My primary partner in life has been my wife, Margaret. She has been a part of every significant goal that I have achieved. She is the first to know when I identify a goal, and she is both the first and the last to support me along the way. And of course, many others have helped me and encouraged me along the way, particularly my parents and my brother, Larry.
In recent years, a key person in supporting me has been John Hull, the president and CEO of EQUIP. When I set the goal of EQUIP to train one million leaders around the globe, the task seemed formidable. As much as I was dedicated to that vision, I had moments when I wondered if it were really possible. John not only was encouraging, but he took ownership of the vision and launched the plan to accomplish it. As you read this book, we have surpassed the goal of training one million leaders and are now working on training another million. One of the reasons I love and admire John is his initiative.
There is no way to put a value on the assistance that others can give you in achieving your dreams. Share your goals and dreams with people who care about you and will encourage and assist you in accomplishing them. It means taking a risk because you will have to be vulnerable in sharing your hopes and ambitions. But the risk is worth taking.
5. Break Large Tasks Down into Smaller Ones
Once you remove some of the internal barriers that may be stopping you from taking initiative and you enlist the help of others, you’re ready to get practical. Many times large tasks overwhelm people, and that’s a problem because overwhelmed people seldom initiate.
Here’s how I suggest you proceed in breaking an intimidating goal into more manageable parts:
Divide it by categories. Most large objectives are complex and can be broken into steps for functions. The smaller pieces often require the effort of people with particular talents. Begin by figuring out what skill sets will be required to accomplish the smaller tasks.
Prioritize it by importance. When we don’t take initiative and prioritize what we must do according to its importance, the tasks begin to arrange themselves according to their urgency. When the urgent starts driving you instead of the important, you lose any kind of initiative edge, and instead of activating your talent, it robs you of the best opportunities to use it.
Order it by sequence. Dividing the task according to its categories helps you to understand how you will need to accomplish it. Prioritizing by importance helps you to understand why you need to do each part of it. Ordering by sequence helps you to know when each part needs to be done. The important thing here is to create a timetable, give yourself deadlines, and stick to them. The biggest lie we tell ourselves when it comes to action is, “I’ll do it later.”
Assign it by abilities. When you divide the large task into smaller ones by category, you begin to understand what kinds of people you’ll need to get the job done. At this stage, you very specifically answer the who question. As a leader, I can tell you that the most important step in accomplishing something big is determining who will be on the team. Assign tasks to winners and give them authority and responsibility, and the job will get done. Fail to give a specific person ownership of the task or give it to an average person, and you may find yourself in trouble.
Accomplish it by teamwork. Even if you break a task down, strategically plan, and recruit great people, you still need one more element to succeed. Everyone has to be able to work together. Teamwork is the glue that can bring it all together.
6. Allocate Specific Times to Tasks You Might Procrastinate
Dawson Trotman, author and founder of The Navigators, observed, “The greatest time wasted is the time getting started.” Haven’t you found that to be true? The hardest part of writing a letter is penning the first line. The hardest part of making a tough phone call is picking up the receiver and dialing the number. The most difficult part of practicing the piano is sitting down at the keyboard.
It’s the start that often stops people. So how do you overcome that difficulty? Try scheduling a specific time for something you don’t like doing. For example, if dealing with difficult people is a regular part of your job, but you tend to avoid doing it, then schedule a set time for it. Maybe the best time would be between two and three o’clock every day. Treat it like an appointment, and when three o’clock rolls around, stop until tomorrow.
7. Remember, Preparation Includes Doing
One of the questions I often hear concerns writing. Young leaders frequently ask me how I got started, and I tell them about my first book, Think on These Things. It’s a small book comprised of many three-page chapters, but it took me nearly a year to write it. I remember many nights when I spent hours scribbling on a legal pad only to have a few sentences to show for my effort.
“I want to sell a lot of books and influence a lot of people like you do,” these young leaders will declare.
“That’s great,” I’ll answer. “What have you written?”
“Well, nothing yet” is typically the response.
“Okay,” I say. “What are you working on?” I ask the question hoping to give some encouragement.
“Well, I’m not actually writing yet, but I have a lot of ideas,” they’ll say, explaining that they hope they’ll have more time next month or next year or after they get out of school. When I hear an answer like that, I know that it will never happen. Writers write. Composers compose. Leaders lead. You must take action in order to become who you desire to be. Novelist Louis L’Amour, who wrote more than 100 books and sold more than 230 million copies, advised, “Start writing, no matter about what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.”
Desire isn’t enough. Good intentions aren’t enough. Talent isn’t enough. Success requires initiative. Michael E. Angier, founder of SuccessNet, stated, “Ideas are worthless. Intentions have no power. Plans are nothing . . . unless they are followed with action. Do it now!”