~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LEADERSHIP WIRED John C. Maxwell's FREE Semimonthly Newsletter Designed To Maximize Your Leadership Potential. February 2005 - Volume 8, Issue 4 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In This Issue: * Maxwell Moment – Landing Your Thoughts * Leadership@Large – Surveying the Leadership Landscape * Interview – Gutsy Leadership, Part I * Quick Quotes – In Tune ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Maxwell Moment ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ LANDING YOUR THOUGHTS By Dr. John C. Maxwell Years ago, a friend of mine looked at me in a meeting and made a statement that I've never forgotten. "John," he said, "ideas are like soap bubbles floating in the air close to jagged rocks on a windy day." What a vivid picture of how incredibly frail thoughts and ideas really are! Think about it. How many times during the day does a thought pop into your head that makes you stop and say, "I really need to write that down—that's a great idea"? Now, how many of those thoughts do you actually remember and act upon? Unless you've made an intentional effort to record your ideas as they come, I'm guessing the first number is far greater than the second. In my book, "Thinking for a Change", I talk about the importance of "landing your thoughts." I compare this process to landing an airplane. What is the first thing you do when the flight attendant announces that your plane has begun its descent? You fasten your seatbelt because you realize you could be hitting the runway hard and you don't want to get hurt. Now, if you were really afraid of a bumpy landing, you could beg the flight attendant not to let the pilot land the plane. But, in addition to attracting unwanted attention from airline security, that would defeat the whole point of being on the airplane, which is to get you to your final destination. So you fasten your seatbelt, grit your teeth and prepare for impact. The same principle applies to landing a thought. Any idea that remains only an idea doesn't make a great impact. The real power of an idea comes when it goes from abstraction to application. And that's where seatbelts (and perhaps some teeth-gritting) are needed. When you land a thought—either by writing it down so you can study it later or by expressing it out loud to the people around you—you're bound to get all sorts of responses. The members of your audience (including yourself) might be receptive to your thought, but they also might be confused, skeptical, hostile or indifferent. Such reactions aren't reserved only for bad ideas. That's why it's so important to fasten your mental seatbelt before you attempt to land a thought. When an idea has potential, some part of the landing will probably be rough. But that's OK, because this process has a way of honing, strengthening and clarifying good thoughts, thereby turning them into great ideas. With that in mind, here are four observations about thinking that may help you hang tough when you're trying to land a thought. 1. Thoughts never begin fully formed. I don't know about you, but I've never had a complete idea come to me immediately. This certainly would be a more efficient way of thinking, but it simply doesn't work that way. 2. Thoughts take time and others to reach their potential. Notice I didn't say it takes time or others to develop a thought. It takes both. Thought maturation works best when it occurs over time and with input from other informed, thinking people. 3. Thoughts are very fragile in the beginning. The quote from my friend says it all. 4. Thoughts only reach their full potential in a healthy environment. In this kind of setting, criticism is constructive, not destructive. Hard questions are asked to clarify and define an idea, not to attack it or tear it apart. Thoughts may be challenged, but the overall atmosphere is positive, not negative. Even if you're completely prepared for bumpy thought landings, there will always be times when your thoughts crash and burn on impact. In other words, they fail to survive the landing process. Here are two reasons why. 1. They're not good thoughts. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea. I grab the pen and writing pad that I keep by my bed and jot it down, certain that in the morning, I'll be able to lift the thought to a whole new level. But when I look at what I wrote the next day, all that comes to mind is, "What a stupid thought! What was I thinking?" These thoughts fail because they're just not good. 2. An unhealthy environment. I just stated that thoughts only reach their full potential in a healthy environment. So it only makes sense that an unhealthy setting—marked by negativity, excuses, and excess stress and busyness—would be detrimental to good thinking. In the next few issues of "Leadership Wired", I'm going to delve deeper into the subject of good thinking—why it's so valuable and how to make it happen. Until then, begin to think of your thoughts as delicate soap bubbles—full of possibility yet always in danger of evaporating—and handle them accordingly. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Leadership@Large ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ OFF BALANCE? Balance has been a hot topic for the last several years, but that doesn't necessarily mean more people are achieving that elusive, ideal blend of work and personal life. Leaders, especially, often struggle with allowing their jobs to take too prominent a role in their lives. According to the Center for Creative Leadership's Gordon Patterson, balance is about "having clarity about what matters to you and making sure you are taking care of those things consistently." In a recent e-newsletter, the CCL outlined several warning signs that suggest you are lacking that kind of clarity. Here are a few: • You often tell yourself you have to make more time for your spouse. • You frequently find yourself explaining to others, "I really wish I had time to do certain things that I just don't get done now." • You think your family doesn't appreciate you enough for all the hard work you do for them. • "You want to appear interested when your direct reports tell you about their newborn children, but you don't want them to conclude that their job responsibilities are any less important just because they've become parents," the CCL states. The entire January issue of the CCL's "Leading Effectively" e-newsletter is devoted to helping busy leaders find balance—not just with their time, but in their lives. So if any of these warning signs sound familiar—or if your lack of balance shows up in other ways—see: http://www.ccl.org/CCLCommerce/news/newsletters/enewsletter/current.aspx?CatalogID=News&CategoryID=Enewsletter(Newsletters) _________________________________________________________________ WIMPY LEADERS Are you a leadership wimp? If you are "feeble or ineffective" in any leadership function, the answer may be yes. The good news is that leaders are rarely wimps in all aspects of their job, peak performance expert Dave Anderson writes on his website, www.LearnToLead.com. "Normally, there is just an area or two where a leader must tighten up and toughen up to increase his or her overall leadership effectiveness," he says. In an article titled "How to Face and Fix the Top Five Sins of Leadership Wimps," Anderson suggests that wimpy leaders are prone to several destructive attitudes and actions, including: • Blaming outside conditions for a lack of results. No, you can't control the weather, the economy, the competition or the time of year. But "even in the worst of times, you can still control your attitude, your work ethic, where you spend your time, with whom you spend it, your character choices and your devotion to daily disciplines," says Anderson, author of "Up Your Business: Seven Strategies to Fix, Build or Stretch Your Organization". • Being too dependent on themselves. "If you think you're indispensable to your organization, I have great news for you: Relax, you're not that good!" Anderson writes. "The greatest measure of your leadership is not how [your people] perform while you're breathing down their necks; it's how well they do in your absence." • Making "easy, cheap, popular and convenient decisions." "If you lack the emotional strength to make the tough calls, resign your position immediately and go find something you're cut out to do— because you're not fit to lead," Anderson says. For more information, see: http://www.learntolead.com/insider/insideritem.cfm?id=360 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Interview ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GUTSY LEADERSHIP, PART I To lead exceptionally well in the 21st century, a person needs a wide array of personal attributes, from integrity and an ability to choose the right team members to vision and self-discipline. But, according to leadership expert Kevin Freiberg, there's also another key ingredient that sets world-class leaders apart from all the others: guts. A business consultant, executive coach and professional speaker since 1986, Freiberg gained national attention in 1996 with the release of "Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success". This book, which he co-wrote with his wife, Jackie, was hailed by the Financial Times as one of the top five global business books of the year and has, to date, sold more than 500,000 copies. In 2003, the Freibergs expanded on the ideas of "Nuts!" in a second book titled "Guts! Companies that Blow the Doors off Business-as-usual". In this sequel, they explain how a select group of unconventional leaders have bucked traditional trends and still achieved great success. We spoke with Kevin Freiberg recently about what gutsy leadership looks like in today's competitive marketplace. Here is the first half of our two-part interview. Leadership Wired: What makes a gutsy leader? Kevin Freiberg: In a nutshell, it's someone who is willing to step outside their own comfort zone, the comfort zone of the organization and the comfort zone of the industry to do something extraordinary, whether it's extraordinary for employees in creating the kind of work environment that causes people to engage heart, mind and soul, or whether it's extraordinary in terms of doing something that causes customers to engage and become emotionally bonded to a company. When we set out to write the book "Guts", we looked for companies that were doing things that were outside the norm that everybody else would look at and say, "You can't do that and still make money." So you have a company like SAS Institute—the largest, privately-held software company in the world today. You step on their campus and your mind will be blown. They have a 56,000- square-foot fitness facility, including an indoor Olympic swimming pool. They have eight full-time trainers on campus that include yoga instructors, weight trainers and nutritionists. They have a medical clinic that has 56 employees, including four full- time doctors. They've got golf courses and tennis courts on campus, two onsite daycare centers, and a gourmet cafeteria that includes high chairs because they want you to have lunch with your kids. Jim Goodnight, who founded SAS, said, "If I can eliminate the distractions from people's lives, they'll write better software. If they write better software, the customers will like that." This is a place where the gates close at 6 p.m. because they want everybody to work a 35-hour workweek. Now, that's extraordinary. That takes guts, because most people would say, "You can't do that and stay in business." And yet they're in 96 percent of the Fortune 1,000 companies with their software. Their software is licensed, which means it's renewable, and their renewal rate is 98 percent. The margins of software are huge. You develop a product for $100,000 and you sell it for $100,000 over and over and over again. To me, that is an example of a gutsy leader who said, "I'm not a charity. I'm not doing this just out of altruism. I'm doing it because it makes good business sense, and if I care about these people and eliminate the distractions from their lives, they will become more wedded to what we're doing." LW: Does being gutsy come naturally, or does it have to be learned or developed? Freiberg: Being gutsy comes from passion. You probably could testify to this in your own life, and I certainly would in mine. The more passionate you feel about something and the more passionately you pursue something, the more courage and guts you have to deal with the speed bumps and the obstacles that get in your way. If you look at the great leaders throughout history, what gave Winston Churchill the guts to get on the microphone with the people of Great Britain and say, "We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender"? It was his passion for Britain. It was his passion to not have to learn to speak German. What gave Martin Luther King Jr. the guts to stand at the end of the bridge when he knew the chance of getting his head beat in and subject his followers to getting their heads beat in was pretty likely? It was a passion for civil rights and equality, wouldn't you say? So I think when you look at the companies we've researched and you look at great leaders that are truly gutsy—their gut isn't just John Wayne bravado. It emanates from a deep-seated passion or, I might add, an outrage with the status quo. They're saying, "Something isn't right here that needs to be right." LW: What is the most compelling example of gutsy leadership that you've ever seen? Freiberg: The SAS example is pretty gutsy. Let me give you one other. There is a Brazilian company called Semco—they're not only gutsy, they're just nuts. Ricardo Semler took over a marine pump business from his father about 25 years ago when he was 21. He stepped in and fired all of his father's senior executives because they didn't have the vision or the passion to grow the company as Ricardo did. Here's a company that says, "If you treat people like adults, they'll act like adults." That seems like common sense until you learn that 40 percent of their workforce sets their own salary. All manufacturing plants—and they have many—set their own schedules. You say, "That's crazy—people will take advantage of that." No, because every six months you have to re-up for your job. If you pay yourself too much, you find yourself working with resentful and bitter colleagues who will sit down in a team environment and say, "You know what, Kevin paid himself way too much—he's greedy, he's arrogant, I don't think we need him on the team." Leaders are evaluated every month by the people they lead and the results are made public. This is a place that has no corporate headquarters. If you want to have a meeting, you schedule a meeting in one of their conference rooms in one of their satellite offices around Sao Paulo. This is a place that has hammocks in the meeting places in case you finish a meeting and you want to take a nap. This is a place that says, "You know what, if people are going home and returning e-mails and doing paperwork and finishing reports on Sunday afternoon, why shouldn't they be able to take their wife or husband or kids to a movie on Monday afternoon?" Semler's whole point is simply this: If you treat people like adults, they'll step up to the plate, they'll perform and they'll produce, and they won't take advantage. I think that's pretty gutsy. LW: You encourage leaders to define their work as a heroic cause. What exactly does this mean? And how does it help in motivating employees? Freiberg: At the end of the day, people come to work for a paycheck and a set of benefits. They're not going to come to work without those things. But ultimate meaning comes from pursuing a purpose in life and work that is truly noble and truly heroic. So when you define the business as a cause, people feel a sense of heroism about what they're doing. Whether we're in touch with it or not, whether it's conscious our subconscious, everyone wants to do something heroic with the gifts and talents God gave them. I don't care who you are—I know that's true because that's how we're wired. We weren't given these gifts and talents just to be mundane. How does that play out in a company? The janitor in a hospital can be seen as a mundane nobody who does something boring and routine for work every day—sweeping floors. Or that person can be made to be a part of a team saving lives. It's a different perspective. There's a story that's told about a guy named Joe Saltzer who was a cleaner for NASA in the late 1960s. A bunch of tourists were touring the plant at NASA and they came upon Joe and they said, "What do you do?" And he said, "I'm helping to put a man on the moon." Gives it new perspective, right? "Well, come on," you say, "sweeping floors for a living is pretty mundane." No arguments there, unless a leader comes along every so often and says, "Let me show you how your individual contribution is linked to something more noble, more heroic and more meaningful in terms of what we're doing around here." We had some photo developers in a seminar many, many years ago. They operate these one-hour photo shops in Wal-Mart and other places. I said, "What's really heroic about what you do?" I got all these TQM answers—our photos are the best quality photos, we have a better share of the market, we know how to mix chemicals to create clearer prints, our machinery is the best. Finally a woman stood up in the back and said, "That's true, but that's not what's heroic about what's what we do. What's heroic about what we do is we preserve people's memories." Now, at the end of the day, do you get more excited about coming to work and pushing three green buttons and pulling a lever that spits out a print, or do you get more excited when you say, "Know what, that wedding is important to you—we got it. The birth of your first child—we got it." See what I'm saying? You're connected to something larger and more noble. To really motivate the contemporary workforce, we've got to define the business, not as a business, but as a cause. And when the business becomes a cause, what follows is a movement. I don't know about you, but in our company, I don't want just workers. I want fanatics. I want people who are fanatical about what we're trying to accomplish and who feel like they're part of a movement. We get into about 80 different organizations a year and I can tell you, I've heard my share of boring, mundane executive speeches. Some guy gets up there and says, "If we don't take care of the customer, we're going to be in bad shape. If we don't cut costs, shareholders are gonna start to complain." People are in the back of the room dousing themselves with lighter fluid just to stay awake. If you listen to people like John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. or Nelson Mandela or even frail little Mother Teresa, people would get done listening to one of their speeches and they're not dousing themselves with lighter fluid. They're saying, "Let's march. Let's lock arms and let's march— now," because they felt like they were part of a movement, whether the movement was the civil rights movement or to take care of the poor. What if we could build that spirit in more organizations where people came to work and said, "I'm not just part of IBM or Starbucks—I'm part of a movement, and the movement isn't going to advance as effectively without me"? When we get there, we're cutting to the heart of true motivation and true leadership. -- Interview by Lois Flowers, INJOY consulting editor Editor's Note: Watch for the second half of our interview with Kevin Freiberg in the next issue of "Leadership Wired". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Quick Quotes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ IN TUNE "Conductors of great symphony orchestras do not play every musical instrument; yet through leadership the ultimate production is an expressive and unified combination of tones." --Thomas D. Bailey "The question 'Who ought to be the boss?' is like asking 'Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor." --Henry Ford "A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd." --James Crook _________________________________________________________________ Leadership Wired is written by Dr. John C. Maxwell and is available via e-mail on a free subscription basis. You can subscribe at: http://www.INJOY.com/Newsletters. Questions about document transmission or editorial comments? Contact mailto:feedback@INJOY.com. Visitors may use the information contained in this e-newsletter by placing the following credit line: "This article is used by permission from Dr. John C. Maxwell's free monthly e-newsletter 'Leadership Wired' available at www.INJOY.com." This information cannot be used for resale in any manner. Copyright (c) 2005, INJOY, Inc.