“The essence of leadership is to get others to do something because they think you want it done and because they think it is worthwhile doing.”
—DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
U.S. PRESIDENT AND FIVE-STAR GENERAL Dwight D. Eisenhower used a simple exercise to illustrate the art of leadership. He laid an ordinary piece of string on a table and explained, “Pull the string and it will follow you wherever you go. Push it and it will go nowhere at all. It’s just that way when it comes to leading people.”
PRACTICE 1. GIVING CLEAR DIRECTION
Great leaders are masterful at providing a clear direction and creating an opening for their people. When you create an opening, it produces a vacuum that is always filled.
As an example, our number one goal at EOS Worldwide is to help ten thousand companies implement EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System®. This goal both provides direction and creates an opening that focuses and motivates everyone in our organization to rise up, move toward it, and achieve it.
When President John F. Kennedy proclaimed on May 25, 1961, that we would put a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade, he in effect created an opening for the team at NASA to seize the opportunity, make it happen, and launch us into the Space Age.
An example more closely related to your position is the thinking you need to do about hiring people. In chapter four, we provided you with an example of a seat necessary for your organization to grow. As you define additional seats for your organization, think of each one as an opening, an opportunity for people at or above The Bar to rise up and fill those seats.
The best way for you to create an opening and provide clear direction for your people is by sharing a compelling vision. This consists of conveying clarity around your culture, your core focus, and your goals. You lay out where you’re going and how you’ll get there.
Creating a compelling vision is a collaborative effort by a company’s Leadership Team to answer the following eight key questions:
1. What are the Core Values that define who you are—your company culture? (see the exercise we shared with you in chapter four)
2. What is your Core Focus™ that articulates why you exist and what you do best?
3. What is the 10-Year Target that creates the opening to inspire and motivate your organization?
4. What is your Marketing Strategy that defines your ideal customer and the message that attracts them to you?
5. What is the 3-Year Picture™ that creates an image of what your organization will look like in the not-too-distant future?
6. What is your 1-Year Plan that clearly establishes your financial objectives and three to seven goals for the year?
7. What are the Quarterly Rocks—the three to seven most important priorities that must get done in the next ninety days to ensure that your yearly goals will be met?
8. What are the Issues—the list of ideas, opportunities, obstacles, and barriers to address and resolve both long term and short term?
For a comprehensive how-to manual on answering The 8 Questions™ read Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman. By answering these eight questions with absolute clarity, you will have a comprehensive vision to share with your people. This will ultimately create an opening and provide your people with clear direction. If you are in a midlevel management position and your company’s Leadership Team has already done this work, then simply share this vision with your people. If your Leadership Team hasn’t completed this work, urge them to do it.
After you’ve shared the vision with your people the first time, we urge you to continue to share it with your team every ninety days. Your people will need to hear it repeated at least seven times for it to sink in fully. A tried and proven method to do this is through the Quarterly State-of-the-Company Meeting. It works as shown in Diagram 12:
Diagram 12
There is a huge difference between shared with all and shared by all. The former means that you’ve started the process, while the latter means that you’ve finished the process. This is where many organizations fall short. They assume that by sending a company-wide email or newsletter, everyone will share the vision. We stress the importance of sharing the vision every ninety days at a minimum.
A boss in an employee-benefits company shared this: “We created a ‘shared by all’ game plan, starting with Quarterly State-of-the-Company meetings where we shared our performance, communicated our goals, and recognized people who exemplified our Core Values. Department heads then cascaded the message down through their teams. The enthusiasm was contagious and helped to accelerate our success.”
Knowing that giving clear direction means conveying a compelling vision often and creating an opening, you should ask yourself, “Do I provide clear direction for every one of my direct reports?” Please honestly answer yes or no.
PRACTICE 2. PROVIDING THE NECESSARY TOOLS
Once you’ve provided clear direction for your people, you must give them the tools and support they need to succeed. Necessary tools include such resources as training, technology, additional people, and your personal time and attention.
Of all resources that you can provide, the most important one is your personal time and attention. Ironically, this resource is the least expensive to provide, but when you don’t have the few hours per week that one of your people may need, the cost in terms of poor communication, stalled projects, and lower productivity can be enormous.
Kris Marshall of Winning Futures shares this experience: “I recently hired a business development person whom I carefully trained to use our sales process and marketing materials. After working with this person closely, I felt confident in his ability to represent our organization and effectively sell our services. However, weeks later I observed that he was losing his enthusiasm and just not having fun. After having a one-on-one-conversation, I realized that I had failed him. Despite the training, I hadn’t given him the time he needed to thoroughly understand why and how we do the things we do a certain way. So, we started going out on sales calls together, where he could observe me in action and I could observe him. It didn’t take long to get him refocused and reenergized. We still do check-ins and I occasionally accompany him on calls. I make the time to spend with him on a regular basis, and it has made a world of difference.”
Another boss shared this story: “I was responsible for employees and clients all over the country. Whenever I traveled to see my clients, I seldom met with my employees in that city. I was always in a hurry to get back to my office and missed the opportunity to spend time with them. As much as I had preached about the importance of making time for our people, I certainly wasn’t walking the talk.”
When your people need your time and you don’t have it, you must free yourself up, using the Delegate and Elevate tool discussed in chapter three, or you will fail them.
While your time is vital for your people as a resource, don’t lose sight of other vital resources such as training, technology, and additional people. The way to find out if they have all the necessary tools is simply to ask them. It’s debilitating to get your people excited about the direction you’re headed, only to fail them by not providing the necessary tools to get the job done. It’s like giving a blueprint to a contractor to build a house but then withholding the necessary tools or materials.
In Gallup’s Q12 Survey™, employees were asked the question, “Do you have the material and equipment you need to do your work right?” Many answered “no.” The experts at Gallup noted that this lack was highly emotional for many employees; often the needs may be very basic.
So, think about what you want your people to build. Then ask yourself, “Am I providing the necessary tools (including my time and attention) for every one of my direct reports to succeed?” Yes or no?
PRACTICE 3. LETTING GO OF THE VINE
Now that you’ve provided clear direction and given your team the necessary tools to succeed, it’s time to let them run with it and get the heck out of their way. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. Many leaders either can’t or won’t let go.
There’s a story to illustrate this. A leader is walking along the edge of a cliff. Suddenly, they slip and fall over the edge. As they’re falling down the side of the cliff, they manage to grab onto a vine. They find themselves hanging on for dear life, hundreds of feet from the top of the cliff and hundreds of feet from the bottom. In desperation, they consider a prayer to the heavens, and shout, “Is there anybody up there?”
To their utter amazement and relief, a deep voice booms down from the clouds and asks them, “Do you believe?”
They’re desperate, and with nothing to lose, they yell back, “Yes!!! I believe!!!”
The voice replies, “Then let go of the vine.”
Terrified, the leader hesitates and gasps, “Is there anyone else up there?”
Now, before you just let go, we must share an important disclaimer: you cannot let go until you are certain that you have the Right People in the Right Seats. You must have direct reports to whom you can let go—reports who get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it (GWC). When they do, they’ll be able to rise up and seize the opportunity you’ve given them. If they don’t, you cannot let go of the vine. Until you fill these seats with the Right People, whoever is currently in the seats will always pull you into doing all or some of their work. You’ll never have the time you need to be an effective leader or get things done.
So, you cannot take this third Leadership Practice and haphazardly let go, or use it as an excuse. You can’t say, “Well, they told me to let go, so I did and I failed.” It is incumbent on you to ensure that each direct report has the Core Values, gets it, wants it, and has the capacity to do it before you let go.
Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, points to three major factors that directly influence a person’s level of motivation: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. In this Leadership Practice, we are focusing on the first motivation, Autonomy. Your people want the freedom to do what you’ve hired them to do, and they can get frustrated when you meddle with them while they’re trying to do it. Give them some rope, the freedom to succeed, to show you what they can do. You become a better leader when you clarify the outcome you are looking for and then let your people achieve that outcome in their own way. Even though it might not be the way you’d do it, you’ll still get the right outcome.
A boss shared his observation about the benefit of letting go and how doing that helped his team: “My first reaction to the concept of ‘letting go of the vine’ was to look at my people and think of the countless situations where they had failed to make decisions to help us reach our long-term goals. I had serious doubts about their ability to make key decisions independent of me.
“However, my top-down leadership approach was not helping them grow. As an example, our typical meetings were high-tension affairs that produced mediocre results. My team would offer up information and I would make all the decisions. It wasn’t until I missed one of our critical meetings that I realized my error. In my absence, there was great collaboration without any tension. However, no decisions were made.
“I was upset that they had not made progress while I was away. Then it hit me! Despite telling my team that they were in charge, I realized that I was the one who was actually doing their work. I was the one holding on to the vine, holding them back and not trusting the people in the company to make decisions. I did, in fact, have Great People that wanted to fulfill our vision, but I just hadn’t allowed them to do it.
“It was time for me to let go of the vine and let them carry the company toward our vision. I realized that my team was already aligned with the direction of the company, and they were committed to helping it grow. They needed someone to lead them, not someone to tell them what to do. The more I let go, the more they grew and the faster we achieved our goals.”
In a session with one client, a boss complained that he didn’t have enough time to get his job done because he had people lined up all day outside his office. He commented that perhaps he should purchase a pull-tab device similar to what you use at the butcher shop so people could “take a number.” He thought he was being funny, but he was talking about a very serious failing. He was taking pride in having all the answers for his people. He was hanging on and controlling everything. By not letting go, he was robbing himself of the time he so badly wanted for other duties. It was making him feel powerful, being the go-to guy, but he was not empowering his people to answer their own questions. As a result, he was creating his own problem.
In his book, The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, Ken Blanchard reminds us: “Don’t take on the problem if the problem isn’t yours. That monkey doesn’t belong to you.” A “monkey” could be a problem, obstacle, barrier, or anything that your direct reports bring for you to address and solve. All too often, the boss feels she must take on the monkey, the question or issue. Here’s how it works. All day your direct reports knock on your door asking for advice, or for you to make a decision for them or to give them a quick answer. Picture that question or issue as a monkey on their shoulder. They’re bringing that monkey to you. And their number one goal is to leave you with their monkey.
What do you do? More than likely, you’ve been taking their monkeys. This process goes on all day. By the end of the day, you have twenty monkeys all over your office to deal with, leaving you frustrated, exasperated, and overwhelmed. Don’t take their monkeys. You’re not addressing the underlying problem. You need to create autonomy, but instead you’re enabling people to give you their problems to solve.
The solution is for you to make sure your people walk out of your office with their monkey. It’s okay to serve as a sounding board, but limit your involvement to that. A great way to cure this epidemic is when they bring a monkey to you, ask them to bring a solution or two. Ask them, “What would you do?” Regardless of the technique you use, just ensure that when they leave your office, they take their monkey with them.
So, here’s the question: “Am I letting go of the vine with every one of my direct reports?” Yes or no?
PRACTICE 4. ACTING WITH THE GREATER GOOD IN MIND
Ask yourself, “Am I walking the talk? Am I setting the example?” This means that whatever vision you’ve conveyed to your people, your actions and decisions are aligned with that message. The irony is that once you put the needs of the company before your own, you’ll get everything you want and more. As Warren Bennis said, “A leader doesn’t just get the message across, a leader is the message.”
In his book, American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company, author Bryce G. Hoffman shares a key point in the turnaround of Ford that Mulally led. He writes, “Ford executives finally stopped making decisions based on what was best for their own careers and started trying to figure out what was best for the company as a whole.” Hoffman goes on to say, “It was the key to Ford’s phenomenal resurgence.” Acting with the greater good in mind resulted in one of the greatest turnarounds in American business history, led by one of the greatest leaders of our time.
The compelling vision that you conveyed to your people in Leadership Practice 1 is the greater good that we are describing here. Once you have done this, all of your actions must align with that greater good. All the words in the world mean nothing to your people if you don’t back them up with your actions. “Do what I say, not as I do” doesn’t work. Remember, your people are watching you, and before they commit to change, they will evaluate how well you walk the talk. As go you, so go they. You must consistently act with the greater good in mind.
To ensure that his people always act with the greater good in mind, Todd Sachse of Sachse Construction has a discipline he has used for decades. He calls it “The 10, 10, 10 Rule.” He explains that the first 10 represents the first ten minutes after making a decision. Emotion usually drives your initial reaction. How do you feel about the idea? Are you happy, sad? The second 10 represents the first ten months regarding a decision, which he considers short term. You usually ask yourself, how much money am I going to make this year? What resources do I need and what will they cost me? The third 10 represents the first ten years after a decision. Now you’re asking yourself, how will it affect my reputation, relationships, community, and family?
Todd urges you always to evaluate the third 10 as the most important in all decisions. When you make decisions based on the long-term greater good, you begin each decision-making process by thinking about how the decision will affect relationships, the company’s reputation, and the future.
Coincidentally, Suzy Welch teaches the exact same discipline in her book 10-10-10: A Life-Transforming Idea, which reinforces the importance of always acting with the greater good in mind.
Todd teaches this discipline to all of his people to help them focus on the greater good. To illustrate the importance of this approach when making decisions, Todd’s company landed a high-profile, $18 million project. Halfway into the project, however, he realized they were going to lose $750,000, due to multiple mistakes by many parties.
Upon this realization, Todd concluded that blaming, finger pointing, and lawsuits would just exacerbate an already bad situation. What he cared about was his company’s reputation. He made the decision to focus on the greater good and emphasized this point with his team. He told them, “We are not going to focus on the money. We are going to do the right thing and make it perfect and move on, because our relationships and reputation are more important in the long run.” Todd understood that no amount of money could repair a poor reputation.
The troops rallied and erected a showpiece that indeed became the talk of the town. Despite the short-term profit loss, the project gained them considerably more work and profit over the long run. This is a classic example of acting with the greater good in mind.
How well are you living up to this practice? Ask yourself the question that Winning Futures founder Sam Cupp would ask: “Do you want to do what’s best for the company, or do you want to do what you want to do?” Sam’s business grew to more than twenty-five companies totaling $300 million in revenue. He always acted with the greater good in mind, making him both a successful businessman and a great boss.
Here’s a confession from a boss who wasn’t so great at acting with the greater good in mind. She started working for a small company, where she had to wear many hats and be involved in many departments. As the company grew, she reached her capacity and needed to delegate and elevate, but she resisted because her sense of worth came from having control over multiple functions. When her boss eventually hired a new person to take over two of her functions to free up her capacity, she was resentful. She also felt that she was less valued and wallowed in self-pity. Six months later, she finally realized how much happier and focused she was in her new role. Upon reflection, she appreciated that the change has been for the greater good of the company, a change that she did not appreciate at the time because she had let her ego get in the way.
So, now is the moment of truth. Ask yourself, “Do my actions, decisions, and personal example align with the company’s greater good?” Yes or no?
PRACTICE 5. TAKING CLARITY BREAKS™
To stay sharp, confident, and at your best for your people, you must take Clarity Breaks.
One discipline that all great leaders have in common is that they take time on a regular basis to rise above the everyday demands of their jobs to reflect and think from the thirty-thousand-foot level. As Henry Ford said, “Thinking is the hardest work there is which is probably the reason so few engage in it.”
In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey calls this discipline “sharpening the saw.” Bill Gates calls it “think weeks.” He would take one week twice a year to do just that—think. Lee Iacocca wrote in his autobiography about how, when he was running Chrysler, he would take time each Sunday night to establish his goals and prepare for the upcoming week. He started this practice while in college. All great leaders have their own formula. Therefore, you must choose yours. Decide the time, place, and frequency that works best for you—whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly.
By definition, a Clarity Break is time that you schedule away from the office, out of the daily grind of running the department, to think and to work on your business, department, or self. Stepping back to think will create clarity for you and restore your confidence. This is important because the normal course of day-to-day business pulls you deeper and deeper into the minutiae of your work. As a result, you sometimes can’t see the forest for the trees. You start to feel overwhelmed and you become short with your people.
Therefore, at intervals, you must elevate yourself above the day-to-day activities “in” the business so you can work “on” the business. As the philosopher Kurt Gödel stated: “You cannot be inside of a complex system and at the same time understand the system you are in.” Choose a day, time, and place that works best for you. Some leaders think longer range in their den every morning, or at a library weekly, or a coffee shop monthly. Never do a Clarity Break at your office.
Schedule an appointment with yourself. Put it down on your calendar. If you don’t schedule the time, it will never magically happen. At first you may be concerned about when you’ll find the time. The irony is, you’ll actually save time by taking Clarity Breaks. When you are clear about your bigger objectives, you gain the confidence to simplify procedures and create efficiencies. You make better decisions when you’re not under stress.
Use this scheduled break wisely, though. This is not time to catch up on email or complete a to-do list. It’s time to think, to see things clearly and restore your confidence. Faced with a blank legal pad or journal, with no agenda, no interruptions or distractions, you’ll be challenged at first to actually think. After all, you’re starting to form a new habit. Henry Ford was right—it is the hardest thing to do. To help you get started, we’ve listed some questions you can ask yourself during a Clarity Break:
• Is the Vision and Plan for the business/department on track?
• What is the number one goal?
• Am I focusing on the most important things?
• Do I have the Right People in the Right Seats to grow?
• What is the one “people move” that I must make this quarter?
• How strong is my bench?
• If I lose a key player, do I have someone ready to fill the seat?
• Are my processes working well?
• What seems overly complicated that must be simplified?
• Do I understand what my direct reports truly love to do and are great at doing?
• Am I leveraging their strengths?
• What can I delegate to others in order to use my time more effectively?
• What can we do to be more proactive versus being reactive?
• What can I do to improve communication?
• What’s my top priority this week? This month?
In the October 15, 2015, issue of Financial Advisor, Deena Katz related an experience that she had while on a cruise ship in the North Atlantic. She found herself completely disconnected from the outside world when her ship lost its internet connection for five days. Without any electronics to keep her occupied, she found herself sitting around with nothing but time. As she wrote: “In final desperation, with absolutely nothing else to do, I began to think. I thought about my clients, our next generation of advisors, some processes that we needed to refine and some marketing strategies. I let the ideas flow, then began to take notes. What resulted were solutions to an array of items that had needed attention for a long time, but that I really never thought I had time to attack. There was no interruption, no input but thoughts I generated. I was synthesizing and analyzing the morass of data I had collected in my head for decades. This is the essence of critical thinking.”
Chris Beltowski of imageOne shared this about how taking time to think helped him: “At one point I was stressed while wearing too many hats and overseeing far too many people. I took a Clarity Break and was able to see clearly the way my world looked at that moment in time and what I thought it should look like for the greater good of the company and my own sanity. I formulated a game plan, shared it with the owners of the company and was surprised at how quickly they gave me the okay to move forward. Forcing myself to take that Clarity Break helped me to see things from a completely different level.”
Our clients regularly tell us of similar experiences. After taking their very first Clarity Break and seeing the benefit, they eventually began to schedule them regularly. So, ask yourself, “Am I taking Clarity Breaks?” Yes or no?
THE LEADERSHIP SELF-ASSESSMENT
Now that you have a clear understanding of the Five Leadership Practices, we’ve created a one-page self-assessment so you can do a quick checkup on yourself. Answer each statement either yes or no. Remember, it’s an all-or-nothing answer.
Diagram 13
THE FIVE LEADERSHIP PRACTICES—NEXT STEPS
Step 1
If you’ve answered the self-assessment questions honestly, you probably have one or more no’s. This exercise is not trying to make you feel guilty or inadequate. Rather, it is intended to show you the areas that need improvement so you can become a great boss. So put a stake in the ground. Schedule a date on your calendar for when you will be able to answer yes to all of your no’s. The norm is six months from today.
If you answered no to any of the questions in the Five Leadership Practices and you don’t know how to change that no to a yes, go back to that practice. Reread that section and apply exactly what we taught.
Step 2
Schedule a date, time, and place on your calendar to take your next Clarity Break. Right now.
How do you become a great leader? Remember what President Eisenhower said: “The essence of leadership is to get others to do something because they think you want it done and because they think it is worthwhile doing.” By giving clear direction, providing the necessary tools, letting go of the vine, acting with the greater good in mind, and taking Clarity Breaks, you will become a great leader. This is one-half of the formula to become a great boss!
Now that you know how to be a great leader, let’s address how to become a great manager.
