I think it's both exciting and depressing that messages like mine have
an audience you know I talk about really simple things like how to be fulfilled
you know and like how to do things that inspire us and how to work for a company
that sort of gets the best out of us and makes us feel good while they're doing
it and and you know it's kind of upsetting that people are even wanting
to hear that meaning that there's a demand for it but it also presents the
most remarkable opportunity in the world which means there's an opportunity for
us to change the way work is done so that all of those things are not the
exception but rather the rule you know it's it's it is the exception when
somebody says I love my job you know so you meet somebody at a bar
is like what do you do I love my job oh you're so lucky right it's like that
that should be something special is remarkable and so the amazing thing is
is that ability to say I love my job I love what I do
is actually not that complicated to find and not ironically it has nothing to do
with the work that we do it has everything to do with the people with
whom we work and you don't even have to like the people with whom you work
that's the most amazing thing of all if you think about it in the military there
are people who are willing to risk their lives for people they don't even like we
don't even like to give a credit for things you know so what is it that
creates an environment in which people care about each other so much that they
would risk their lives for people that they don't even like right sometimes
this is remarkable human beings in all their complexity and all of the nonsense
and all the messiness what drives us is kinda simple and this
is what I like to research and learn about and write about which is if you
understand the very basic mechanics of this machine called the human being
it's becomes fairly obvious as to what conditions in which the machine will
perform well and in what conditions the machine will not perform very simply our
machine is a social machine we are social animals and we respond to
the environment we're in that good people are capable of doing very bad
things if they're in the wrong environment and people who society may
have given up on if you put them in the right environment are capable of
performing remarkable remarkable things this is the job of leadership which is
to make that environment the leader sets the tone and the tone that is set will
determine how we respond according and again we are relatively simple in our
motivations if you go back to the Paleolithic era when Homo Sapien first
stepped foot on the planet about 50,000 years ago there were other hominid
species that existed at the same time but we were the ones that survived they
died we weren't necessarily the strongest we weren't necessarily the
fastest and yet we've done quite well look at this remarkable world that we've
built one of the huge advantages we had and have is that we are social animals
and things like trust and cooperation are absolutely essential for our
survival they're not just nice ideas they're absolutely essential you can
imagine why when we existed when we lived in populations that never really
got bigger than about a hundred and fifty people for forty thousand of the
fifty thousand years we've been on this planet we never lived in populations
bigger than 150 people I understand scale presents some
inherent problems but you can you can understand the benefits of the group
living what it meant was I could fall asleep at night and trust that someone
in my tribe would watch for danger if I didn't trust the people in my tribe I
couldn't go to sleep and this is not a very good system for survival or
performing or anything any other metric it's the
same at work when we work with people with whom we trust I don't need to
double-check your work I don't need to see it before it goes out to you no I
don't need you don't need my approval right when we have trust we can let
people go do their work and even if they're subordinate we don't need to
double-check or approve or anything things will happen because we trust them
because we all have each other's backs we all have each other's interests in
mind the problem with things like trust and cooperation is that they are not
instructions I can't simply tell you trust me you
can't simply ask people to trust you in your advertising and you can't simply
tell people I want you two to cooperate trust and cooperation are feelings and
this is the problem so the question is where are those feelings come from now
again we are basic pretty simple in in our motivation in our constructions you
can imagine what life what color should I use you can imagine what life must
have been like in these Paleolithic times it was a world filled with danger
all of these forces working extremely hard to kill us whether it was the
weather or lack of resources saber-toothed tiger nothing personal but
all of these forces were working together to end our lives and so as
tribal animals we work together and lived and worked amongst people around
whom we felt safe we felt like we belonged and when we
felt safe amongst the people with whom we lived and work the natural human
response is trust in cooperation it's just what happens when we do not feel
safe amongst the people with whom we work however the natural human
inclination is cynicism paranoia mistrust and self-interest when we do
not feel safe amongst the people with whom we work if our leaders do not make
us feel safe we have no choice but to spend our own time in our own energy to
protect ourselves from each other when we do not fear each other we naturally
work together to face the dangers and seize the opportunities it's the exact
same thing in our modern business world there are forces that are a constant and
beyond our control that are working to kill you right maybe I'm exaggerating
but there are forces outside things like the uncertainty of an economy the ups
and downs of a stock market a new technology that might render a business
model obsolete overnight your competition that sometimes is trying to
kill you it's trying to destroy that product to put you out of business but
at the very minimum is trying to frustrate your growth and steal your
customers these forces are a constant and you have no control over them and
never will the only variable are the conditions inside the organization and
when those conditions are set in a manner that allows us to feel like we
can trust and cooperate we do this is what leaders are supposed to do there is
an exact definition of leadership and it is not my opinion you know I I I love
all the books that come out and all the articles what makes a great leader what
are the five things you need to be a leader you need charisma you need vision
you know all of these things I can tell you right now those things are sometimes
useful but they're not essential not everyone has vision does that mean
they're they're not allowed to be leaders you know some people have
remarkable charisma and some people don't does that mean they will never
lead of course it's all nonsense you can't manufacture these things some
people are good strategic thinkers and some people are not some people are just
naturally good at basketball and some people are not there are skills you can
get better at them for sure but you're either a visionary or not these are not
things that we can manufacture in other words they're not essential components
for leadership there's only one characteristic that I'm comfortable
saying that all leaders must have to become leaders and that's courage
because leadership is hard and it often requires sacrifice and the the that it
will happen that you will have to put your interests your comforts your
advantages aside so that others may gain and that sometimes really hard in fact
standing up for others may mean that you might get your head chopped off you know
a leader sometimes loses job because they did the right thing
right that comes with significant risk the choice to be a leader comes at
significant risk and this is why not everyone chooses to be a leader
leadership has nothing to do with rank it has nothing to do with the title you
have on your card leadership is a choice that's it I know many many people who
sit in the senior echelons of a corporation and they are not leaders
they are authorities and they have authority and we do what they say
because they have authority over us but we would not follow them I know many
people who sit at the bottom of organizations who have no authority but
they are absolutely leaders and the reason they're leaders is because they
have made a choice they have chosen to look after the person to the left of
them and they have chosen to look after the person to the right of them it
doesn't always mean they have to sacrifice their interests but when it
really counts sometimes they choose to sacrifice their interests because it's
in the interest of the person to the left and to the right of them this is
what leadership is
the role of leaders is not an accident either it's built into our anthropology
it's part of our survival the reason we have hierarchy and we have leaders for
those times when we lived in these austere conditions we had a little bit
of a problem it's a very practical problem it wasn't necessarily enough
food to go around all the time you didn't miss as we didn't have
supermarkets and cars we just go get milk sometimes there was food readily
available and sometimes not which meant it someone brought home some food and
we're living in a population of up to a hundred and fifty we would all Russian
tea because we're all hungry and if you were lucky enough to be built like a
football player you could shove your way to the front of the line if you were the
artist of the family you would get an elbow in the face this is not a good
system for cooperation it's not a good system for survival because the odds are
that if I got punched in the face this afternoon I'm not gonna wake the guy if
I see danger bad system and so we evolved into these hierarchical animals
we are constantly assessing and judging each other
whose alpha whose beta we are naturally hierarchical and we always organize
ourselves in hierarchies so even in meetings we go to meeting like
everybody's equal I want you guys to work together it's not going to happen
we are never equals we always assess we always judge we always allow some others
some difference in the role of leadership and some of us defer and sort
of take a more subordinate role it always happens not necessarily a bad
thing and again the reasons are very practical based on our history because
what would happen was when we would assess someone as our alpha and let me
be clear your capacity to be an alpha in any population is not an absolute it is
relative to the population you're in so you might be a technologist or an
engineer and you might think you're the hottest best most fantastic engineer and
so does everybody else and you walk around like this and you go take a dance
class all of a sudden you egos not so big anymore right we've all had the
experience right we've all had the experience where we shake someone's hand
and we're nervous you're not the album you know or when we
consents with someone's nervous meeting us you're the author right it's it's a
relative scale so when we assess that someone in the population is our is
alpha we voluntarily step back and allow them first choice of meat and first
choice of may we let them eat first we may not get the best choice of meat but
we will eat eventually and we didn't have to get an elbow in the face to get
that food good system to this day we are very comfortable with paying deference
and offering advantages to those more senior than us there's not a single
person in this room zero that has a problem with somebody more senior than
you at the company making more money than you as a salary my having a bigger
salary than you doesn't bother you at all you might think they're an idiot but
it doesn't actually bother you that they make more money than you because they
outrank you no issue it doesn't bother us at all that somebody more senior than
us has a bigger office or a better parking space it is of no issue
whatsoever in fact we very often find ourselves deferring to our alphas doing
nice things for our foes we open doors for them and call them sir and ma'am and
get them tea and they didn't even ask I can promise you that if as you were
walking out of this room if Steven Spielberg happened to walked in walk in
you would hold the door open for him and then you would go home and tell your
spouse or your boyfriend your girlfriend you'll never believe what happened today
I held the door open for Steven Spielberg how come you don't advertise
when you hold the door open for anybody else it's because we're proud to
sometimes do menial labor for those who we perceive as alphas in our system
we're proud to work for the groups that they lead and the organizations that
they lead by the way you can't lead a company you can run a company you can
only lead people and so this whole idea of deference and how we always defer
instead of volunteer to these alphas is a natural human response and it's a
survival instinct and it's all about this and that's the point
none of those perks that you get for being the leader for being the alpha
none of them come free they come at a very high expense you see the group is
not dumb we expect that the person who's better fed the
person who's actually stronger or smarter than us the person who has a
higher self-confidence has more self-confidence because of all our our
love and deference in hello sir and hello mmm and actually boost their
self-confidence we expect that this more confidence
stronger better fed person when danger threatens the tribe we expect them to
rush towards the danger to protect us that's the cost of leadership that's why
we gave you first choice of mate because you might die and we want to keep your
genes in the gene pool we're not stupid and this is what it means to be a leader
the willingness to rush towards the danger to protect those in your care it
is a choice you don't have to be a leader it is a choice if you don't like
the costs of leadership you may not accept the perks of leadership because
they do not come for free this is the reason why we are so viscerally offended
by some of the banking CEOs have these disproportionate salaries and bonus
structures it's not the money that offends us it's that we know deep inside
us that they have violated the very definition of what it means to be a
leader they have accepted all of the perks and bonuses and benefits of being
the leader and yet they're not willing to make any of the sacrifices for the
role that they have accepted in other words we know that they allowed their
people to be sacrificed for them to keep their bonuses and perks and advantages
worse sometimes they chose to sacrifice their people to protect their bonuses
and their perks this is what so offends us it's not the money if I told you
we're going to give a hundred and fifty million dollar bonus to Nelson Mandela
does anyone have a problem with that no how about a two hundred and fifty
million dollar bonus to mother Teresa got an issue with that
it's not the money it's not the money it's that leadership is a choice and in
our modern day and age unfortunately many of the people who like to call
themselves leaders are not leaders at all
they are authorities that's all they are and we have to do what they say because
they have authority over us but we would not follow them and this is a problem
because when we do not feel that they have our backs we do not feel safe work
inside their organizations they force us to spend our time and our energy to
protect ourselves from them and the organization itself suffers it's what
happens it's ironic to me that organizations like your own who want to
drive innovation and ideas and new ways of thinking would in the same breath lay
people off because they didn't make the numbers in one year you do realize that
those two concepts are completely counterproductive it's like talking to a
CEO and I ask what are your priorities they say we have two priorities
innovation and efficiency not possible there is nothing efficient about
innovation try fail try fail try fail try fail try fail try fail succeed not
efficient it takes so you throw money to try things out you can be innovative or
you can be efficient you can be efficient in hope for innovation and you
can be innovative and hope for efficiency there's always gonna be one
subordinate to the other not bad not better or worse but let's not kid
ourselves and think that they can be equal grounds they cannot it is
impossible but worse an organization that claims or hopes or desires or
aspires to be innovative must at every expense commit themselves to the safety
of their people because only when we feel safe and protected will we
voluntarily commit ourselves the support of each other and the advancement of the
vision
there are very simple ways to do this
here are just a few great leaders would never sacrifice the numbers would never
sacrifice the people to save the numbers great leaders would sacrifice the
numbers to save the people and so when we live in a day and age where our
leaders are so comfortable sending you home to tell your spouse and your kids
I'm sorry I no longer have an income because the company had to make its
numbers for the year forget about the people who lost their jobs what about
the people who didn't get laid off how inspire do you think they feel to
come back to work every day how do you how safe do you think they feel do you
think we're gonna give our best knowing at the next time if the company doesn't
make its numbers by the way which may or may not have anything to do with us
remember all of those outside dangers the ups and downs of technologies the
ups and downs of stock markets the ups and downs of economies do you think when
you have a bad year you set your children down and say kids it's been a
bad year we have to get rid of one of you or worse or worse
I got to keep my Mercedes and so it's either you or the car and we picked you
right no we tighten the belt we work together
we figure out ways to make it happen to see it through the hard times we cannot
judge the quality of a crew based on how they perform in good times we judge a
quality of the crew by how they perform in rough waters and unfortunately we
throw our crew overboard when we hit rough waters what makes them want to
commit to see the ships make it through the rough waters what they do is they
sit down and watch their own backs because nobody else is gonna watch my
back there is no innovation and in a group like that there is no innovation
in a group like that backstabbing ideas stealing plenty of that nothing personal
gotta look after numero uno so number one people come first numbers are always
subordinate to people numbers will not rescue you in hard times people will
numbers will not come up with new ideas people will numbers are not innovative
people are that's number one another one which is really really really easy is
honesty it's really easy to be honest just tell the truth and if you tell the
truth on a regular basis we will say you have integrity that's all it means
he's a really basic concept so for example if somebody calls and a
secretary picks up the phone and says Dave's on the phone and you say damn I'm
not here you've just sanctioned lying inside your organization that's what
you've done you have said that when it suits you even if these lies are small
you may tell lies that was dishonest I went to visit Quantico Marine base where
the Marine Corps chooses selects their officers
and on the day I was there true story I was waiting in a conference room for the
colonel in charge of OCS to come and give us a briefing on on the base about
about OCS about the selection process and he arrived late Marines don't ever
arrive late and he showed up late he came in and apologized he said I'm sorry
we've had an incident with one of our Marines so I go what happened you know
he said well we're considering throwing him out of OCS which means throw him out
of the Marine Corps like I'm thinking what law did he break what did he do so
I said what did he do and the colonel said he fell asleep on watch and I said
that's it he fell asleep on watch in the woods of Virginia you know I'm like you
guys are tough he said and then he explained he said no you don't
understand he said and we asked him about it he denied it when we asked him
about it again he denied it again and only when we gave him irrefutable proof
did he say quote I want to take responsibility for my actions the
problem we have he said is we believe you take responsibility for your actions
at the time you perform your actions not at the time you get caught we have
another Marine who fell asleep on watch he admitted it he got punished we have
no problem with him and he went on to explain he says you have to understand I
cannot put this marine in a leadership position where they're responsible for
lives of other Marines because of they're in a combat situation and his
Marines doubt for one second that the words coming out of his mouth are
anything but the truth if they believe for one second that the words he is
speaking are only to make himself look better or cover his own ass trusts will
break down in the whole group and people will die
now we are not in life-and-death situations but the way our minds
interpret information that it's given to us is in terms of life and death this is
why we don't trust politicians they tell us the things we want to hear we don't
prima facie disagree with anything we've been told but we know that they don't
believe the things that they're saying and so we as human beings were very very
smart and this is always ingrained in us we always make sure just to keep a safe
distance from anybody who we don't believe is honest because if we were to
find ourselves in a life-and-death situation with them you know what I'm
gonna if I had to gamble I'm gonna say won't go with them when someone is
honest they're willing to tell us good news they're willing to tell us bad news
they're willing to be upfront with them even if it's news that we don't want to
hear even if it's not in our interest we're okay with it we actually trust
them hey listen I gotta be honest with you your performance has been really bad
these days I love this area where I start to give sandwiches give them the
good news before you get to the bad news right so
give them something general and generic that they don't believe anyway hey
you're really smart and on this one project that you did that you're really
complete like it's really specific when they give us the negative right in other
words we didn't believe the positive in the first place we knew they were just
biding their time to get to the negative honesty I'll give you another example of
honesty and how we respond to it okay we've all had this happen you get an
email that says to you do your Simon you you I'd get that you wouldn't get that
if you get that send it to me dear Simon haven't talked to you in years I hope
you're doing well congratulations on your success it's really amazing would
love to catch up and get a cup of tea sometime by the way I'm if you could go
to this website I'm trying to raise money for a project I'm doing it would
really appreciate if you could vote for me or tweet it out thanks a lot Dave and
what do you do when you get something like that you're like you know right now
what if we simply reversed the information dear Simon I'm trying to
raise money for this project I'm doing would really appreciate if you could
click on the link and vote for me and maybe even tweet it out haven't seen you
in years hope you're doing really well congratulations all your success would
love to get together with you for a cup of tea sometime Dave
in other words tell me the reason you sent me the email right the niceties are
fine but that's not the reason you sent me the email it was dishonest it was
disingenuous honesty is such a simple thing right it's such a simple thing and
when it is afforded to us we respond with loyalty and Trust and the
commitment and devotion and loyalty because why wouldn't we by telling me
accurate information it helps me better survive I like that I appreciate it I'm
gonna stand next to the honest one honesty is king hard but important and
if we screw up be honest about the screw up I want you to know I wasn't honest
with you I was in a weird position and I should have told you the truth and I
didn't I got embarrassed and then I made it worse I know I I don't I don't know I
didn't sorry I am ashamed you know like we can be
honest about the failings even we can accept punishments great organizations
that people scrub you can be punished but it doesn't mean you'll lose your job
if we fear that we will lose our jobs we don't work in safe organizations if we
fear getting in trouble that's okay when we fear getting in trouble for my
parents we don't fear that they're gonna throw us out of the house right same
thing same thing here's another thing that is
easy to do and is a component of leadership right allowing others to fail
my friend David mark hey who wrote an amazing book called turned the ship
around check it out ma rqu ET was a naval cat as a captain of a submarine
nuclear-powered los angeles-class past attack sub and mark a believed like many
of us do that his credibility as a leader was closely tied to his
competence to his intelligence you know we believe that we have to know as much
or more than those in our report because this is what gives us credibility as
leaders right and so in typical mark a fashion when he was assigned to one of
the great honors of his career to be captain of his own submarine the USS
Olympia he spent a year learning every button every switch every pipe every
valve of the submarine he went through the dossiers of his crew he knew
everything about his crew he was gonna be prepared and he was gonna know as
much or more than everybody else on board because he was the captain now he
had to he had no choice two weeks before he took command of the Olympia he got a
phone call that says yeah you're not gonna be the captain of the Olympia
you're gonna be the captain of the SantaFe it was a slightly newer
submarine still in Ellis angeles-class submarine but mark I realized because it
was slightly new some of the things were different and he didn't want anybody to
know that he didn't know everything that's we kind of kept it to himself and
pretended he knew everything but that's okay you know he's a smart guy as a
competent guy yeah obviously trust him enough to be captain he was fine then
there was another little wrinkle where the Olympia was the best rated crew in
the United States submarine fleet the Santa Fe was the worst rated crew in the
submarine fleet they ranked last or close to last in almost every readiness
measurement in the entire some would and that the Navy had right but mark hey
figured that's okay I have a bad crew that's alright I'm gonna be a good
leader if I give good orders I'll have a good ship and if I give great orders
I'll have a crate ship so they set sail and about two or three
days into into into being out there you know when they got ready he's like
barking orders get ready for this get ready for that and and everybody was
following his orders enough they went out to sea it was great feeling
everybody when they do it you say right and about two or three days out they
were submerged and they decided to run an exercise so they turned off the
reactor manually and pretended that they are having a meltdown and they ran the
boat on battery power it's called EPM right and mark' decided
he wanted to add a little tension make this see how well they would do with
with more difficult situation then he gave a simple order ahead two-thirds and
what that means is run the boat 2/3 its maximum speed to his side was his
navigator who was the second-in-command at the time on the on the on the in the
in the bridge and he was also the most experienced sailor on board he'd had two
and a half years aboard the Santa Fe and he repeated the order ahead two thirds
and nothing happened and seaman Jones junior sailor sitting at the controls
was squirming literally squirming in his seat
so mark hey piers out from the side of his periscope and says seaman Jones
what's the problem and seaman Jones replies sir there is no two third
setting apparently on this slightly newer Los Angeles but there was no two
third setting on the EPM so he turns to his navigator he says did you know this
and the guy goes mm-hmm
he said then why did you give the order he said because you told me to and
that's when Mark a realizes he's aboard a ship he doesn't understand and he has
a crew that's trained for compliance it's not like you can just turn around
and ask for a new boat or change a crew out we in the private sector think that
we have an advantage because we can hire and fire people you're assuming that
we're hiring and firing the right people we think with it when things don't work
just change the people get rid of the get rid of the weak links mark a didn't
have this this is his crew he's stuck with it and it's not like in anything
else in the world in submarines there's no one person who dies you either all
live or you all die that's it those are your options on a submarine and sir Mark
a is forced to literally re-examine everything he understands about
leadership because bad things will happen if this is the way it goes and so
one of the things he realized is he had a permission-based Society aboard his
boat sir permission to dive to 4-under feet permission granted eyes are diving
for in defeat in other words all the authority all of the accountability lies
with the person in charge with the captain if something goes wrong the
captain allowed it to happen mark Abe and the words permission to
aboard his boat and he replaced them with I intend to the hierarchy is not
affected at all the chain of command is not affected at all the difference is
psychological I intend to dive to foreigner feet all right
all the accountability lies with the person performing the action now and so
what started to happen was people took their jobs more seriously and they
started to ask each other for help because where things went wrong and
instead of wanting to get permission from the boss now if the bus asked a
question you wanted to be able to have the answer
which means when the bus says did you check the depths sometimes he asked and
sometimes he didn't did you check the tips of course I check the debts what
are the depths 400 you know in other words you could never be caught not
knowing before you made a decision accountability went up there are lots of
other things that mark' did which he talked about in his book within a short
period of time the crew of the Santa Fe became the highest-rated crew in naval
history not that year not the submarine fleet in naval history same people same
equipment it's not the people it's the environment it's always the environment
that people are fine it's always the environment and this is what leadership
is one of the things mark' realizes in most organizations the people at the top
have all of the authority but none of the information and the people who are
actually performing the jobs have all the information but none of the
authority and in most organizations they strive to get the information up no push
the authority down this is what creates great organizations and what that does
is it makes us feel that our work and our lives have value we want to be given
the opportunity to make mistakes we want to be given the opportunity to work hard
and have responsibility it feels good to work hard to have responsibly of
something if somebody else we've all had the experience sometimes junior
sometimes senior in our jobs I can remember in my own career I used to have
a boss who did the opposite and I would write I would write something and she
would covered in red pen and tell me to make her changes and so go make her
changes I come back and she'd covered and repentant me to make her changes and
at some point I stopped caring about the quality of my first draft because I knew
she's just gonna change it all to whatever she wanted anyway
no longer felt valuable or valued as opposed to telling me the macro issues
she had this is not clear I know what you're trying to say but it doesn't come
across try again responsibility accountability I remember
the first time that somebody gave me accountability I had to produce
something that I had to send out to the client the norm was to show it to my
boss before it went out to the client except this time he decided to leave
early and I said well join me to email it to you before you know before it goes
out he goes no good night make sure it goes out tonight bye now I knew what
good was and I knew what it had to be done and guess what he was fine and I
worked hard I wanted to do it right one of the things great leaders do is they
allow us to try and fail and one other thing mark hey Tork one of the marquee
talks about is the importance of training in the importance of practicing
the points of small projects because you can punch a hole in the side of the ship
above the waterline and you fix it it cost some money or whatever but you do
that over and over again so that you don't punch a hole in the side of the
ship below the waterline in training metrics are supposed to go down because
you want people to try hard and fail and find out where the line is in combat
training you want them to get shot because you want them to find where
getting shot happens you don't want you don't want to outscore everybody else in
training it's ridiculous right this is the time to push the limits or give
people little projects that at the worst think about what we do for a living
right nobody here's looking for a cure for cancer or working in an ER the worst
thing we can do the absolute worst is lose a
multi-billion dollar corporation some money
and not enough that will get noticed and it is enough to get noticed it won't put
you out of business like seriously death and destruction and
Armageddon are nowhere to be seen
that's the worst and so when we have leaders that understand that and allow
us to try and fail and try and fail and understand that if we screw it up it's
okay the ships not gonna sink now try again let's sit down and talk about
maybe what you would like to do differently next time I want you to
learn I want you to try again kind of like what we do with our kids and that's
the final point the closest analogy I can give to you about what leadership is
is parenting think about what makes a great parent
you know first of all not having kids is a better life you guys you get a bigger
house you take nicer vacations you can get the car you want not the car you
have to get right much more sleep right yet we choose for some reason to have
children we have choose to make these sacrifices because in time it's kind of
worth it to see this little thing grow up and make something of themselves that
we we got to look after it's kind of worth it the problem with leadership the
problem with parenting is they're both like exercise is they cannot be measured
in small discrete chunks I can give you a compelling presentation about the
importance of exercise and they'll change your life and improve the quality
of your life and let people live longer and you'll believe me you'll go to the
gym and you'll come back and you'll look in the mirror and you will see nothing
but you go the next day and you come back and you look in the mirror and you
will see nothing and then worse you're in pain and so you
have no metrics to show there's any value to anything I've told you so you
stop but if you can stick with it after three months you look at an old picture
of yourself but I can't believe I ever looked like that
I can't believe leadership and parenting the same you have no idea if your being
a good parent on a daily basis none in fact sometimes you're a bad parent but
you kind of have a sense of what it should be and you stick with it and
there are these little glimmers that you get that make you proud that you're kind
of doing the right thing that the sacrifice is worth it like the little
things that the kids do but you won't actually see a return on your investment
investment for like 30 years you know some of our parents are still waiting
for us right leadership is the same I haven't I have no way of measuring that
you're being a good leader on a daily basis even the best leaders are
sometimes terrible leaders on a daily basis
there's no good metric the problem is is it's very hard to measure in short
discreet packets but it's very easy to measure over distance over time that's
the problem good good leadership is obvious you've
measured in things like churn you know how many and what's the average lifespan
of your employees I love reading all these reports and say well the trend is
that people are spending less and less time at their jobs now and maybe it's
because they're looking for more adventure no it's because they don't
feel safe and why would they stick around there's no loyalty it's not a
good trend it's a symptom parenting think about what a great parent is a
great parent is willing to sacrifice given them ton of themselves you know
discipline when necessary provide opportunities provide education also
this young little thing can grow up and achieve more than they thought they ever
could for themselves what's a great leader somebody's willing to sacrifice
and give of themselves and provide opportunities education discipline when
necessary sometimes help them up sometimes make them get up themselves
also they'll grow up and build confidence and achieve things I couldn't
even achieve for myself same thing there's a photograph in the New York
Times a bunch of months ago you remember those shootings in Kenya and the amazing
thing was there was a photographer who was on the scene usually
see the aftermath right and this particular one there was a photographer
in the mall and so we got to see pictures of what was going on
and there's one photograph you can look it up it's online there's one photo it's
Taylor Hicks is the photographer's name not the same Taylor Hicks there's a
photographer de Graaff of a mother lying on top of her child okay now think about
that at the sound of a gun it's a mother's instinct to throw herself on to
her child potentially risking her own life to ensure that the life of this
young precious thing will survive her now on other days mom gets to do what
mom says because I'm the mom and sometimes mom takes the liberties and
enjoys the liberties of being the leader and being the one in charge but when it
matters when the child's life survival are at stake there's no question what a
good mother does they throw themselves on top of their child no questions asked
even at personal sacrifice that's called leadership that's what our leaders do
they can enjoy the trappings enjoy the perks enjoy the parking spaces enjoy the
money nobody says you have to give them up in fact we would be upset if you gave
them up because it's our pleasure to do these things for you you know can you
imagine if Steven Spielberg you know you made him a cup of coffees I can make my
own cup it actually would feel bad like we wanted well we want to do these
things it brings us joy to do these things just like it brings our kids
Joy's joy to make us proud and it gives us joy to make our leaders proud we want
to do right by them but we do so with the knowledge that they would sacrifice
themselves for us back in the Marine Corps this idea of
leadership is viewed as a responsibility not as a rank you will never hear the
use words spoken the Marines you will never hear the words I am a leader I
believe I have what it takes to be a leader I aspire to be a leader those
words do not exist here are the words they speak I'm a leader of Marines I
believe I have what it takes to be a leader of Marines I aspire to be a good
leader of Marines in their own vernacular they view leadership as a
responsibility to another human being and not a rank to be attained it's the
same for us you're not a leader you're a leader of people and to say I
am a leader is false I'm a leader of people I aspire to be a leader of people
I believe I have what it takes to be a leader of people I want to be the best
leader of people I can possibly be and we are reminded every time we speak the
words that our responsibilities to another person like the word parent I am
a parent inherent in that word is that there's a child you can't call yourself
a parent without a child I'm a parent of a child it comes with certain
responsibilities inherent as does leadership and so this manifests in some
funny ways in the Marine Corps if you go to any chow hall anywhere in the world
on any Marine base what you will see is they will line up in rank order during
Chow time most junior man eats first most senior man eats last it is not in
any rulebook and no one tells them they have to it happens organically because
of the way they simply view the responsibilities of leadership that I as
the leader like a parent would let my child eat before I eat that's just what
we do and so that's one of the ways it shows up I was told a true story I was
told a story of a Marine officer who was deployed and they had they were eating
among with the group and the that officer made sure that his men ate first
as is the custom in the Marine Corps and they ran out of food the officer
didn't get to eat so when they went out back into the
field all of his men brought him some of their food so that he made it this is
what happens when we as leaders commit to the safety of our people our people
will give us their blood sweat and tears and they will make their own sacrifices
to ensure that we are kept safe and to ensure that our visions are advanced we
cannot sit here with our arms folded and simply complain that our leadership
doesn't look after us that our leadership doesn't get it that they
would soon as sacrifice us to save the numbers and they would never sacrifice
the numbers to save us the day listen to Wall Street they don't put people first
they claim they drive innovation but they're not creating the environment
that would create innovation we cannot complain because we must be the leaders
we wish we had we have a person to the left of us and we have a person to the
right of us that we can take responsibility for sure you don't love
your job but do they are you committing yourself to ensuring that they feel
happy that they feel safe that they have the job they love that they feel like
they're learning that they feel they have opportunity we have entire sections
in the book shop called self-help we have no sections called help others and
yet the science is clear our own sense of happiness our own sense of
fulfillment our health and indeed the success of the organization itself are
tied entirely tarah willingness to serve those in our
tribe to look after those who would we we would call brother and sister which
we don't do in companies we have colleagues in the military they have
brothers and they have sisters we don't always like our brothers and sisters but
my goodness you threatened my brother or my sister and you got to deal with me
thanks very much
thank you very much thank you very much
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