Are You a Boss or a Parent?
“Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime.” - Chinese proverb
One night, I was out with my kids, walking a dog we were looking after. We stopped to chat to a guy with another dog – just pleasant, idle chit chat, as the dogs happily greeted each other. As we parted I said, “Have a great night.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he snarled, as he turned away.
It was an interesting moment: while I wanted to wish him well, he interpreted it as controlling or diminishing.
As humans, many of us have that voice in our head: we don’t want to be parented or told what to do – to feel our capability and intelligence disrespected.
The exchange brought me back to one of the leading tenets of leadership: being there to help people find their own answers and to see things for themselves.
In Chapter 12 of Your Oxygen Mask First - Stop Being Chief Problem Solver - I talk about how even the most effective leaders do themselves and their teams a disservice by answering questions, and solving problems, even though it’s faster.
Instead, they should say things like:
- “Have you considered…”
- “When I was in a situation like that, this is what happened…” or
- “What do you think?”
And they’ll create the right discussions so that the team can define where they want to go and key strategies to get there. Then step back to let them do the rest of the thinking for themselves.
This approach expands your team’s capabilities. It also forces them to be stronger leaders and frees your time and energy to do the things that matter.
The Challenge
- When are you parental in your approach by telling people what to do?
- Go back and read Chapter 12 in the book.
Running to Catch Up or Leading the Pack? The Morning Routines of Successful People
“You don’t expect a thoroughbred racehorse to perform at its peak without proper care, so why expect this of yourself?” - Your Oxygen Mask First
How we start anything is very, very important – a meeting, a conversation, or a relationship – and one thing I’ve noticed is that high-performing people are consistent with how they start their day. Morning routines of successful people often begin with self care, including practicing Resilience Rituals (Chapter 3, Your Oxygen Mask First) that help them to get ahead of the day, instead of chasing it.
I recently got back to mine, after slipping for a while, and what a difference they make!
My Rituals fall into two realms: personal and business. I first exercise or get out in nature to take care of my Self, and then I lick one of my toads to take care of the toughest thing I have to do, first. Getting them done by 7:30 or 8:00 am creates amazing momentum. It sounds pretty basic but, without them, I’m not at my best.
It’s the difference between running to catch up or leading the pack.
With daily Resilience Rituals, it’s feels like you’ve already won the race before you hit 9:00 am.
The Challenge
- What are your Resilience Rituals for your Self and Work?
- If you don’t have them, what are two simple things you can do every morning to lead the day?
Team Meetings, Debates, and the Power of Bowling Balls
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” - George Bernard Shaw
Teams – like families – can start to fragment when everyone is so busy running in their own directions.
That’s why spending time to reconnect is so important.
Kind of like family get togethers. Friday or Sunday dinners bring families together to chit chat, and vacations give you deeper, shared experiences. Special occasions that bring extended families together – like birthdays and Thanksgiving – allow time to get together, time to reconnect, to debate and talk about what’s important, to work out issues and love each other again.
Proper meeting rhythms in a company should operate the same way.
The Rhythm of Team Meetings
An amazing health tech company I work with recently met to do just that. Because this strong, engaged, smart team works incredibly hard, on so many things, there’s just no time, day to day – or even weekly - to discuss and get a handle on big issues. Our quarterly planning meetings are like family vacations where we all come back together for a couple of days to reconnect, realign and have fun together. We also engineer their meetings to have big conversations to debate the direction of the company and key decisions that need to be made.
In this meeting, we spent over an hour on one topic because one person on the team had a different opinion than everyone else. This key member of the team is often not the first to speak nor to dominate the conversation, so we held the space to more deeply understand his perspective and to flesh out his real concerns. It was an incredibly powerful discussion.
Make Time for Debate...And for Playing Together
When there’s the luxury of time for debate, amazing things happen as issues come to the surface and we work towards alignment. So, we decided to reset monthly team meetings to allow four to six hours to make sure issues are dealt with sooner, and not backlogged by the time we get to the quarter.
After spending almost 12 hours in this meeting, we still stuck to our original after-meeting plan to go bowling. What a riot! Laughter and camaraderie, gutter balls and high fives. This was a family party, and everyone had a great time - even though my team lost when an opposite team member got three strikes in the last frame. We were a competitive bunch but were thrilled to see his victory.
That time to connect and bond and play together, helps to enhance the dynamics of the team and builds camaraderie and trust - and makes the next day’s debate even better – because we’re aligned with each other and the business issues.
And, it’s important to establish some guidelines to help a healthy conversation - to have a facilitator (me) as a traffic cop to make sure everyone gets their turn without jumping in.
There are two key things that help keep a business family strong:
- Lots of time to have the right debates, and
- Guidelines to have healthy debates so that everyone is heard – not just the loudest voice in the room.
The Challenge
- For your quarterly planning meeting: yes, you need a good agenda and a good plan, and a facilitator, but the key is to have time for powerful debates with very different opinions in the room, in order to make dramatically better decisions about your business. (That’s why’s you hire smart people!)
- Make sure you play - not just the typical dinner and talk. That’s easy and comfortable but the benefit to the team is minimal and no different to any family.
High five together, debate together, play together.
Identifying High Performers Before Hiring
“A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player.” – John Wooden, record-breaking wins basketball coach
In high-level sports it is very obvious who are the highest performers. Not only are they physically talented, the best of the best hold themselves (and their teammates) to a higher standard. They know how to deal with pressure and deliver under tight deadlines. They are committed to excellence and visualize success and peak performance. They develop pre-performance routines to stay focused and increase perceived self-control. They learn from mistakes and apply the lessons quickly. They are the ultimate team player.
Athletes receive mentorship and direction from coaches, but the highest performers capitalize on the opportunities to have a competitive advantage. They pay attention to every little detail to perform at a higher level. This isn’t exactly rocket science but, when you add in 10 things that make a 1% difference, there’s a noticeable difference in patterns of performance.
In business, high-performing A Players are essentially the same: They consistently deliver results, are incredibly well prepared, intelligent, resourceful, ask the tough questions, and are diligent in improving their game. They go above and beyond expectations, always put the team first, have a very high standard of excellence and are a true pleasure to work with.
These are the people you want to recruit for your team. The challenge is knowing how to identify these high performers before you make a hiring decision.
I recently conducted a Topgrading™ interview, for one of our clients, of an extremely personable candidate who had already been screened using traditional methods. The candidate had made a great first impression and had already met some of the members of the team. Although an offer of employment was being drafted, the COO wanted to conduct a Topgrading interview, just to be sure. As we dug deeper, it became clear that the candidate did not have the performance patterns nor the skill sets required to perform well in the role - the rigor, discipline or drive. If the offer had been presented and accepted, it would have resulted in a costly mis-hire.
Traditional hiring interview methodologies – with only a 25% success rate of hiring high performers – are simply not designed to reveal the patterns of performance that distinguish a true high performer from the rest of the pack, and their fit with your culture.
That’s why Topgrading is so powerful. This tried-and-tested methodology gets you into the locker room - or boardroom, pre- and post-game - to excavate not just the facts, but to reveal how a candidate really thinks, acts and performs in real-world scenarios – not just how they say they perform.
It’s how you build the MVP A-Team your business deserves.
The Challenge
- Measure how successful you are at identifying A Players in your job interviews
- Use the Topgrading methodology to dig deep, and to ensure greater hiring success building your A-Team.
If we can help you to make better hiring decisions by teaching you Topgrading skills – or do it for you - please let us know.
Kristin Hazzard, an Executive & Leadership Coach at Lawrence & Co. Growth Advisors, was an elite hockey player who competed at the national championship level and in the semi-professional Women’s Hockey League.
The Gift of ADD and Dyslexia
“We should stop trying to get all children to think the same way. We should support and celebrate all types of neuro-diversity and encourage children’s imagination, creativity and problem solving – the skills of the future.” - Richard Branson
It’s fascinating how we like to decide that things are either good or bad. And, if we really want to be accurate, almost everything is good or bad – it just depends how you see it.
Being an amazing listener is a great skill but not when it’s time to speak up. An aggressive personality can be a great when it’s time to take charge, but using it all the time can be a liability. So, whether it’s being fast or slow, driven or relaxed, short or tall, there’s always a different perspective.
We come across this a lot when it comes to how brains can function differently – like in people with dyslexia or ADD.
Learning Differently
Over the years, I’ve had more experience than I expected working with leaders who have dyslexia or ADD - and their kids, which is quite common. I've helped them through challenges, generally in school systems, which are designed for people who are good at learning math, English, and science by sitting quietly all day in the classroom.
While that works well for some, if you had incredible energy and a very active brain that works differently, it’s a problem. These people are often labeled as bad or broken when, in reality, they just aren’t suited to the classroom.
Another way to see it is that they just learn differently.
In fact, many of these kids actually turn out to wildly successful leaders and entrepreneurs which is why, a few years ago, my good friend Nigel Bennett and I set up GiftADD.
We’re slowly gathering stories of wildly successful people and how they’ve leveraged their ADD or dyslexia into a massive gift. A gift that allows them - because of their energy, leadership skills and willingness to take risks - to do things that normal people likely couldn’t.
It’s all about seeing things differently.
Do you know a child or adult who’s struggling? There are resources to help them see that, in reality, they have a gift. And that gift can be channelled resourcefully into a wildly successful life.
Here's a few resources to start with:
- A blog by Richard Branson, who talks openly about his dyslexia, that reminds me about the importance of the mindset around this
- A video of me and Nigel’s son Devon discussing the gift of ADD.
Those with ADD often feel like triangles trying to operate in a world of circles,
feeling crushed by the world around them. They are perfect and we want them
and the world to experience their perfection. These individuals have unique gifts to offer the world. - GiftADD
The Loyalty Liability
“Tell people what you really expect and hold them to it, without apology.” - Kevin Lawrence, Your Oxygen Mast First
In a recent media interview, the host and I had a conversation about why so many entrepreneurs and CEOS don’t build the amazing team that they would like to have. One of the reasons is what I call the ‘loyalty liability’.
I’ve seen two ends of the spectrum: loyalty to people and loyalty to performance.
Many founding entrepreneurs - whether a small startup of a couple of million or those more established with a few billion in revenue - are more likely to be loyal to the people who have helped them to grow.
Hired CEOs are likely to be at the other end of spectrum with loyalty to performance.
“People want real feedback. They want to do the best job they possibly can but need to know where the bar is set.”
Loyalty is an amazing trait. People want to give their best to you but, unfortunately, it often comes at a massive price when those people are no longer as effective in their role as they need to be - when a CEO cares so much about someone that they allow or accept mediocre performance.
Many CEOs I work with aren’t naturally comfortable with feedback, and have built wonderful, caring organizations. But a leader must give feedback so that a team member can stretch and grow, or modify their role when they’ve outgrown their capability. Now, no-one is perfect, but when the CEO turns a blind eye to too many things, it’s no wonder the person doesn’t perform as well. And then the CEO wonders why the business isn’t performing as well as it should, and why they are carrying more of the load and stress.
If a leader or manager really cares for a person, they would never, ever, never, ever, ever, ever, ever let them sit in a role and suffer as a mediocre, low performer. It’s one of the most disrespectful things to do, when you know and they know, that they create no value. Take your heart for those people to train and develop them, move them to a different role or help them to move on.
Many of these low performers need their jobs and aren’t in a position to move. It’s too scary. So, you need to help them to do it with extra time or support to make the move.
As a leader, you have to understand the limitations of your own mindset. If you want to achieve your aspirations, it will only happen with a great team and a loyalty to performance, as the ultimate measure.
The Challenge
- In your business, where is your loyalty a liability – with customers, suppliers or people on your team?
- How can you shift one of those relationships to become more loyal to performance versus blind loyalty?