Persist Until They Can't Resist
“Quit making excuses. What we're really talking about here is commitment. Until you make a commitment to your dream, it's not a commitment at all. It's just another fantasy.” - Rudy Ruettiger
I had the great pleasure of getting to meet and spend time with Rudy Ruettiger who was made famous by the 1993 movie Rudy. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s amazing.
This is a true story about persistence in the face of incredible odds.
The third of fourteen children, Rudy struggled in school because of dyslexia. He dreamt of playing football for the University of Notre Dame - even though he didn’t have the skill or size of a typical player.
After his fourth try - and putting in the work for two years to improve marginal grades - Rudy was accepted to Notre Dame. He even talked his way onto the student council before he was admitted.
Once there, he worked hard to earn a place on the practice squad – just showing up until they let him on - but never got past warming the bench, until the last game of his final season when his coach called him onto the field. Magic happened – everything he’d dreamed about and worked so hard for: He made three plays and, in the final seconds of the game, in a single, astounding tackle, he sacked Georgia Tech’s quarterback. Jubilant, his teammates carried him off the field.
Rudy used the same persistence, years later, to get a movie made about his experience at Notre Dame. At one point, his persistence got him banned from campus. It only took 10 years. At one point, he was on one of many trips to Los Angeles to get the film made, to meet with someone in the film business. When he was stood up, Rudy tracked him down at his house to make sure he got to make his pitch.
“Don’t let people steal your dreams.”
His dream, by any standard, was insane: a 5’7” guy who wanted to play football on a college team, and then make a movie about it. That movie, by the way, is considered one of the top football movies ever made.
In spite of the odds, Rudy always acted as if his dream was going to happen, no matter what. When everyone said he was dumb and stupid – that he couldn’t do it – he focused on what he could do. That work ethic and attitude helped him to find a way outside the normal path.
All too often, it isn’t other people who stop us from achieving our dreams – it’s us.
The Challenge
- Look at your team: where do your logical, practical thinking and beliefs get in the way?
- What dream do you really want to achieve - for your work, yourself and your life?
- If you were to put together a plan - with incredible commitment and energy - to persist until they can’t resist, what would it be?
Get RACI
“Clarity affords focus.” Thomas Leonard, businessperson/founder of Coach U.
Making a fast decision is important for success in business and in life.
It’s quite easy when two or three people are involved.
But when there are many, it’s hard to make fast decisions because either everyone wants to be involved - or no one - or sometimes decisions get made without including the right people, and then we create all kinds of other issues.
The solution is to get RACI - a responsibility assignment model for defining and creating:
- Who is Responsible (does the work)
- Who is Accountable (who gets in trouble if the project fails)
- Who is Consulted (whose opinions are taken into account)
- Who is Informed (communicated with once the decision is made).
And you can imagine if you have someone who is meant to be informed, thinking they should have been consulted or someone who is only consulted thinking they should be responsible, it can get really messy.
One of the executives in a company I recently worked with, disputed a key decision because he wasn’t part of the final decision-making – which is normally those who are responsible and accountable. He was indeed consulted but not happy with the decision.
People who are consulted don’t have to be happy with the decision. They just need to provide their input and views and let those who are responsible and accountable people figure it out.
In another situation, we had an executive who was truly accountable and didn’t want to consult anyone. He wanted to make the decision without input from others.
Another executive felt she was 100% accountable but the CEO had a different point of view. The CEO was actually accountable, but the executive was one of the key responsible people.
All these scenarios had the same thing: unnecessary tension, frustration and delay because there was no clarity upfront about how the decision was to be made.
As simple as it seems - and I’m not suggesting you implement RACI for every little thing, in every part of your business - the solution for any project is to be clear who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. And to make sure that everyone on the leadership team involved agrees, up front. You’ll save a ton of communication and confusion down the road.
The Challenge
Take a look at the most important project in your business right now:
- Is it clear who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed?
- If not, make sure it is - and that everyone is clear and agrees.
Drive People Crazy with Impossibly High Standards
"When you lower the definition of success to such a level that any person can reach it, you don’t teach people to have big dreams; instead you inspirit mediocrity and nurture people’s inadequacies." - Shannon Lee, martial artist/daughter of Bruce Lee
Recently, I had the great fortune to kick off a leadership training program for one of my client companies. We started by talking about the distinction between leaders and managers and I asked them to think about a leader who’d had a massive impact on their growth.
As they talked about their examples, all those leaders had belief in them, had pushed and challenged them, made time for them, listened to and supported them and, in the end, made them better and stronger.
But one participant had an example that really struck a chord, with the group, when he described how his older brother made the greatest impact, earlier in this life. He had led by example and set expectations for him that were incredibly high - very tough for him to achieve - and regularly called him out when he didn’t live up to them. You could see in his eyes that the experience wasn’t always pleasant or appreciated, but it had really lifted him to a much higher level of performance and achievement.
While this is one of the most powerful things that great leaders do, many aren’t able to master this skill because holding people to an impossibly high standard - and calling them out when they don’t reach it - creates a lot of tension and frustration and emotion. Most people find that exceptionally difficult.
But it’s that kind of tension that forces and helps people to really grow – especially when they know you believe in them and support them. The key is staying true to those high standards and constantly trying to push people to achieve for themselves.
I talk about this a lot in my book in Chapter 13 - Teach People to Meet Your Standards - but I love the twist that not only managers and co-workers can hold people to this very high bar - it can, like this example, be a family member.
In another recent meeting with a client, I saw one of the CEO’s direct reports almost double their performance in a six-month period - and I have to say I was humbled and awed. This executive had been working there for about three years and doing a good job, but with the addition of setting crystal-clear goals and 360 feedback every six months, the person rose to the challenge, and the results were unbelievable!
As a leader you owe it to people to set the bar high, with tangible goals and feedback (the most powerful feedback isn’t always just from you) - to give them the opportunity to step up to what’s possible for them - and treat them like they can. You never know who’s going to rise up, until you try.
The Challenge
- Think about people in your life: Who are you not holding to a high-enough standard when you know there’s a chance they can do it?
- In what area are you not holding yourself up to a higher standard, and who might help you to get there?
CEO Burnout: A Personal Story
After I published a blog post about the deaths of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, one of my former clients reached out to thank me for sharing it, and for helping him through a difficult time. ‘John’ – a successful Canadian CEO, married and father of two – then generously offered to tell his story of a debilitating burnout. He believed that others may recognize themselves in his story, and get help, sooner than later. So, we sat down to talk about our beliefs and values, about success and stress…
KL: We all form a set of beliefs about how to conduct ourselves, and who we need to be during times of stress and crisis. What were yours, and how did they influence your experience?
John: Dad was a workaholic who came from a family of poverty, so he worked very hard to acquire things in life. I remember my Mum, who’d never had carpet as a child, would vacuum ours so perfectly that we weren’t allowed to walk on it!
Even though my father and mother were very supportive, my dad was a man’s man and taught me at an early age that boys don’t show weakness, and they don’t cry. Dad rarely asked for help, so I didn’t, either, and had to figure things out for myself. In tough times, instead of reaching out, for help and support, I would close in and try to figure things out on my own.
My self-worth was based on my success, and that formed one of my main values, as an entrepreneur. I defined success as money, influence and position – but that’s been redefined over the past two years!
KL: What happened that led to your burnout, and over what period of time?
John: In the summer of 2016 I was in an amazing place and feeling on top of the world. My relationship with my wife was the best it had ever been, I felt great physically and mentally, and my business was growing exponentially.
When I started my company, I had a partner – a friend since high school – and things were great for a long time. But as time went on, we hadn’t been seeing eye to eye, and he decided he wanted to be bought out of the business – and I was waiting for him to tell me how much he wanted.
I remember clearly the day he handed me an envelope. I thought it was the amount he wanted to be bought out for, but instead he gave me the shotgun clause, with the minimum timing, from our shareholders agreement, to buy him out.
I was absolutely shocked. I had only 30 days to find many million dollars if I wanted to keep the business I was so passionate about. I hadn’t done anything to prepare to buy him out, up to that point, because in my mind I was waiting for him to tell me what he wanted. I didn’t see this coming.
The buy/sell agreement pulled out the non-compete, confidentiality and non-solicitation clauses in our shareholders agreement. He could take our entire staff and start a company down the street with all our IP, customers and vendors if I bought him out.
After speaking with good lawyers, I realized that going to court to fight these changes would bury the company in expenses and lengthy court battles. It wasn’t worth potentially destroying the company and putting the staff through the mess, even if it meant giving up the business. I chose not to go this route.
To me, at the time this shotgun clause was a relationship ending proposition – a nuclear bomb to our relationship. We shared many of the same friends and circles. Although things weren’t going well, I really trusted him.
I went from feeling on top of the world to absolute despair.
KL: Tell me what happened next.
John: Well, the terms of the buyout were significantly less than what I felt the company was worth. I learned he had spent months trying to raise the money to buy me out, so he knew the likelihood of me finding the money in 30 days – rather 20 business working days – was very small. I could help but feel like this was a well crafted plan.
I was in a good place, leading up to this, because I had spent two years focusing on personal development – understanding who I was as a leader and as a person. I thought I knew myself, and the traits I wanted to improve - and I was working on them. When this happened, I felt all the work I was doing wasn’t enough.
It felt like a game of survivor. I felt totally confused, uncertain and worried.
KL: So, what did you do?
John: For 28 days I was up ‘til 3 am, going through files, talking to people who could finance me – trying to figure this out. My partner’s wife was our head of finance and I had little access to data without going through her.
I felt it was hopeless and was going to give up – it took him months to find financing and now I had 20 business days. Then I called my brother, an Oil and Gas engineer in Calgary, who said, “You will never forgive yourself if you don’t try.” I agreed, so he offered to take a sabbatical and help. He is an amazing person.
KL: It came down to the wire, didn’t it?
John: On the 28th day, I found the money with a handshake deal – and had another 30 days to close it. I had to prove to my investor that he was making the right decision. If the deal fell apart, I would default and my partner would get an additional reduction in company cost according to our shareholders agreement.
That compounded my fear and self-doubt. Can I run the company without key people? How many people will leave? What has he been planning for these last several months? What am I missing? Many jobs depend on this.
On the very last day of the deadline – there were so many things happening all at once – I was talking with multiple lawyers on the phone, trying to finalize last-minute items and determine if I was able to go through with it. I remember there was actually somebody in the background, counting down the seconds. The deal had to happen by 11am. 16…15…14… At three seconds to go, we said, “Let’s do it.”
KL: That must have been such a relief!
John: That’s when the true anxiety really kicked in, when the weight of the world came down on me. I’ve never felt anxiety like this in the past.
The contract had released all employees from their contracts, which didn’t seem right to me. I suppose there is more I could have done, but it would take months in court and the company would degrade.
I decided to compete with him. I don’t blame him for anything, and I take full responsibility for everything. I was willing to work and go above and beyond to reach my goals. I’m extremely competitive – to my detriment, some of the time.
My partner ended up leaving with a number of key employees: our entire engineering team, and a couple heads of other departments - it was going to be a challenge to replace them.
I had a ton of stress – it was all fight or flight. Every day, I thought about giving up, and moving to a different city to start over. I didn’t want to face being a failure if I couldn’t hold it all together. I realized I have a very deep-seated fear of not being good enough.
KL: Did your family know what was happening?
John: Yes. I gathered my family for a weekend away and told them what was going on and said that, if I tried to get the company, I wouldn’t be around for at least six months, while I figured it out. They said, “If that’s what you want, that’s what we want.”
It didn’t take six months, it took 18. During that time, I was not present, physically or mentally. I was gone – a shadow of myself. It was terrible. My wife and I are much better, now, but it got to the point where I thought she was going to leave me. She’s my rock. If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have got through it, but there was only so much she could take. I’d promised six months before it got better, but after 15 months she couldn’t take it. She was alone and had no one to support her and our kids. I’m very, very fortunate that my marriage didn’t fall apart.
KL: Tell me how this manifested in your physical health.
John: I was a solid, very fit person who lost 20 lbs. I started drinking coffee, which compounded my anxiety.
I had stopped drinking before this happened but started again – not a lot, but I can see, now, how easy it would be to fall into some sort of addiction.
I’d try to fall asleep around midnight to 2am, using Nyquil, Gravol, Benadryl, cannabis – anything to turn off my mind. I often woke up in a pool of sweat, nightly around 3 am.
I’d wake up to the first sound – to this day I cringe at the sound of birds chirping at 4:45 am! I went from eating six meals a day to one or two – typically not ‘til after 2 pm in the afternoon. A company delivered food, but I’d rarely eat it all. I just didn’t have the time, desire or energy. My body temperature was all off, I was often cold and would shiver.
My anxiety was so high I couldn’t put my head under water. I couldn’t go into a small room or an elevator. I managed to get on a plane for a business trip, but I couldn’t get back on to come home; I would psych myself out. I started getting weird quirks and tics. I literally thought I was losing my mind. I wasn’t present at all with my family or people at work. I would avoid social situations, phone calls, emails – anything that that might add more pressure.
I was a robot on a mission – and making poor decisions that I never would have made in the past.
KL: When did you realize you knew you needed help?
John: I broke down when I was talking to my wife, one day, and she did, too. I saw the concern and worry in her face, then started to reach out to different psychologists and psychiatrists – anyone I thought who could help me.
Someone in my old EO group suggested I talk to a business coach. The first two I talked to thought I was too much of a mess to try to help, but you took me on. I remember you warned me it would take a long time – a year and a half or so – before I’d start to climb out of it. You were right: it was 16 months before I woke up, one day, to a small sense of relief.
It was like a daily roller coaster ride. I’d see possibility and feel better, then a phone call or email would send me down to the bottom, and I’d spend hours working my way out. Then I’d go down, again.
I remember, once, when the anxiety got so bad, I began to understand why people take their lives. I just wanted to the pain to stop. It was so strange, it was physically painful to be on the earth. I never thought I’d get to that place, never in a million years.
I pulled over and called you immediately. You reassured me that I would get through it – and that hope went a long way.
One day, you showed me the mental health continuum model. Everything was in the red zone! My cortisol levels were off the charts, and I was doing everything I could think of: I saw psychologists, got neuro feedback, read books, listened to mediation tapes, journaled, did gratitudes.
But what helped me most was talking to someone who understands.
KL: What did you start doing to take care of yourself better?
John: I stopped drinking coffee and got my sleep under control. A big one was eating properly, resting and trying to take time just for myself. It was so hard to do. I’d walk and walk by myself, and then started jogging, until I couldn’t go anymore – and that runner’s high got me through that day. And, as you say, I started ‘licking toads’ – doing the hardest things first.
To deal with ruminating on negative thoughts, I got very good at meditating, clearing my mind.
KL: How has this experience changed how you lead and operate at work?
John: There are so many ways. It cut my high ego down and realized what part of my ego was useful and what wasn’t. It is such a powerful thing.
I’m more empathetic. Before this happened, I had zero empathy for people with anxiety and depression, and thought that those things were a weakness. I’m now able to help others who are going through this, to quickly recognize it, and relate.
We had an employee whose manager said she wasn’t performing, and he was considering letting her go. So, I talked to her and could tell the way she looked at me and was talking and fidgeting – (that was something I did) that she was suffering from anxiety. She shared she was going through a really bad divorce. I spent time with her, gave her tools I had learned, and she is way better now.
KL: How are you doing now?
John: Well, I still don’t like to check emails! I expect something to go wrong, struggle with trust, and get scared of getting that awful feeling back, but am able to get past it.
The business now has some amazing new people and we are doing great.
I realize how so many things – material things I thought were important – aren’t. I value relationships, my family and friendships, so much more now.
What hasn’t changed are my goals and my passion for success. I’m just wired that way, but I’ve balanced them a little better.
You always stressed that this experience would make me stronger, so I vowed it would make me better. It’s such a mental game, and I was able to push through, to see this as an opportunity, instead of a failure.
KL: What insights or advice would you share with others, as a result of this experience?
John: Everyone goes through something like this, at some point, in their lives. It’s important to acknowledge that you have a problem and to get the support you need. Know you will get through this. It will take time, but you will get through it. It’s a process.
- First, try and get very clear about what you’re anxious about – usually a fear of something. My experience was related to something that happened in my past. I felt not good enough. I had a fear of failure, of letting down my employees, friends and family
- Talk to someone – a counsellor or a coach – who understands anxiety and can help you unravel it. Daily, if possible – definitely weekly – to check in. You need someone to help show you possibility. I talked to you a lot when I was at the bottom of the roller coaster, and by the end of the call, I’d feel so much better. The boost would get me through the day
I also asked a friend to call me every day, and he did. If I know a friend who is going through similar things, I know they are not going to reach out for help, so I call them
- Meditate to get the thoughts out of your head. I also listened to a book “Don’t Feed the Monkey Mind” about the chatter in your head. That was helpful. Your brain turns into a machine that can spiral you quickly down, if you let it
- Exercise every day. Move your body. A long walk, run, anything
- Get sleep. Lack of it compounded everything. My wife refused to let me take sleeping pills so over-the-counter got me through
- No caffeine
- I’d notice myself holding my breath. I talked to an Olympic athlete who won two gold medals, to ask how he got through. He said ‘breath’. I went to a high-level yoga instructor who said ‘breath’. The moment I got anxious, or stressed, I’d get control by breathing properly, through my belly, and it really helped me. The breath is powerful
- Journal – write your thoughts down daily
- Write out gratitudes – it’s an antidote to fear.
Profit or Culture First?
"A company is only as good as its people. The hard part is actually building the team that will embody your company's culture and propel you forward.” - Kathryn Minshew, CEO & Co-founder of The Muse career search site
I’ve had the great fortune to work with companies in India, Australia, the Middle East, Europe, Mexico, Canada and the US that have phenomenal cultures and deeply believe in creating a great and meaningful place to work for their people.
I’ve also worked with companies that, once I discovered they don’t care about their people as much as they said they did, became very short-lived.
And I’ve found that the struggle, within all companies is the balance between profit and culture. If the focus is only on profit, many choices made may not good for people and could destroy the culture, long term.
Obviously, the challenge is to focus on both.
The question is: What's the correct ratio?
My belief is it’s somewhere between 80/20 and 95/5: focus 80% of your efforts on creating value for your customer in a profitable way, and 5% to 20% on creating a great working environment for your people.
As you’re reading this, some of you may agree and cheer - and some of you may strongly disagree.
But let me continue…
To be clear, I am not saying culture is not important; I’m a huge proponent of creating a place to work that is connected to a higher purpose and values. But it’s naïve to believe that if you only care about your people, profit will follow.
Pick your strategy
When we run strategic planning sessions for companies, we always boil things down to:
- The top three to five strategies to double business in five years
- Three to five goals to march ahead on, annually; and
- What to deliver on each Quarter.
In a recent session with a company, after we picked the top five tangible, high-impact objectives, the discussion turned to people, and we decided to add a sixth objective to make sure we continued to breathe life into the culture.
As Jim Collins found in his research, great companies with enduring success do something on a regular basis – a few times a year - to continue to create an alive and vibrant culture.
Whatever your ratio, all your strategic decisions must put company strength first – to make the company more profitable and dominant by taking better care of the customer. That is why the business exists, and it’s our job to take care of them, to solve their problems and make their worlds better. If we lose sight of that, we put our profits in a very precarious position.
The Challenge
- Review your annual and quarterly goals: Are you in the 5-20% range to focus on strengthening your culture so that it’s a great place to work?
- If yours is a bottom-line, relentless-growth organization, add a sixth objective, every Quarter, to keep your culture vibrant
- If you have a company that thinks only about culture, make sure that four or five objectives, at a minimum, tangibly strengthen and drive profits.
Punctuated Equilibrium
I’m pleased to begin sharing content with you from my associates and other guest experts. Here is the first from my associate advisor Dean Ritchey:
Consistent Short-Term Effort = Long-Term Success
I work with numerous leadership teams to help them establish their quarterly and annual goals. The conversations are robust, interesting and always land on goals that move the business forward. They are always written with the “SMART” framework - Specific, Measurable, Realistic, Attainable and Timebound - so we truly understand what the finish line looks like. And, as a team, everyone understands their accountability to support the attainment of these goal.
So why do these talented teams sometimes miss the mark in achieving the goals?
The gap that I see, forming between average completion rate and top quartile completion rate, lives within the short-term habits.
Over the years, I’ve continually observed the behaviour of “punctuated equilibrium” unfold - the phenomenon where individuals delay the start of the project until halfway to the end date. It’s proven that individuals don’t realize a sense of urgency until the midway point, which typically coincides with a spike in interest from the various stakeholders, who then start asking for progress updates.
So how do we combat the tendency to delay our efforts towards goal attainment?
Weekly Milestones
Since these are the most important goals to move the business ahead, it makes sense to discuss our progress weekly. So, we ask all our clients to develop very clear, weekly milestones that are reported on during their weekly team huddles. The teams review these weekly milestones with the intent to understand the current status and identify the obstacles preventing the milestones from being achieved.
This process provides the opportunity to celebrate milestone completions and, most importantly, it drives weekly spikes in effort. If your quarterly goal requires 12 weeks to complete, the typical punctuated equilibrium point would be six weeks into the project, but by creating weekly milestones, the average inflection point is three to four days.
Our clients with solid performance in establishing and reviewing weekly milestones provide us with feedback that this process actually speeds up discussions. They’ve learned that when milestones are hit, very little conversation needs to take place as the overall goal is on track. It’s when we lack a detailed mechanism for tracking our performance that the conversations lengthen and lack clarity.
Ultimately, developing a strategy for the health of your business is incredibly important for driving organizational alignment, but it is the ability to execute that strategy, with a sense of consistency, that leads to long-term success.
I would offer that long-term success is a direct product of consistent short-term effort.
The Challenge:
- Take your current top five quarterly goals and ensure that, for the remainder of the quarter, you have at least one weekly deliverable for each one
- Assign individuals to report performance against that milestone weekly.