The Conundrum of Leading With Humility

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and seen a couple that causes you to do a double take? You ask yourself, “How did he ever get the chance to marry her?” You aren't being mean; it just doesn't make sense. It goes against everything you learned and experienced in school. Yet, there they are, in a healthy relationship.

That is how many view humility and leadership. The thought of humility blended with corporate success doesn't make any sense. How can you succeed if you put others first? How can you win if you look out for the interests of others? How can you dominate the market if you care about something other than the bottom line?

The answer rests in understanding humility. As C.S. Lewis writes, “Humility isn't about thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”

A common view is that the opposite of humility is pride. Many argue that pride is a symptom of insecurity. When we lead through insecurity, we are actually puffing ourselves up and losing our humility. Our leadership becomes filled with trying to obtain or maintain power and control. Obviously we want to be authentic leaders, but we can’t be authentic without humility. And part of that means being secure in ourselves – so much so that we give more to others.

When you lead with humility, some might look at you and wonder how you will continue to be influential with great results. Some might look at you and wonder why you don’t tear people down in public, they might wonder why you don’t speak first in the meeting, they might look at you and wonder why you have so many coffee meetings. But you just have selfless ambition and value others. Nothing gets in the way of your results, but you don’t devalue people in your pursuit of the result.

Here is what this looks like in the office:

• When you see someone struggling, help them instead of watching them drown.

• If your idea is not the best idea, use your influence to promote the best idea.

• If your idea is the best idea, work to see things from the team’s perspective as well.

• Give credit to others instead of yourself.

• Value everyone, not just the people who can promote you.

What have you done to be an authentic leader? Share your thoughts!

Performance Management | The 201° Story

It was the summer of 2019. Our family was officially growing from 3 boys to 3 boys and little girl. So our house size needed to grow as well. We found the perfect house in the woods. Sure … it had what Meg needed inside, but it also has what I need outside. A massive, custom-built, Texas-style smoker.

Okay. Here’s how I fed my family and friends all summer. Here’s when it clicked.

Great management is like smoking a pork shoulder. Don’t roll your eyes - get ready to go eat and become a better manager. Management is not just telling people what to do and making sure it’s done. Management should truly be helping your people achieve their fullest potential and then celebrating when it happens! That doesn’t happen organically, naturally or easily. It takes a process. (just like it takes a process to get to 201°!)

Step 1 | Preparation

The Food: Preparation is key. The right cut of meat, the right spices, the right temp on the fire. If you don’t prepare, there’s a good chance you won’t enjoy the end result.

The Backyard Smoker

The Manager: Onboarding the team member properly makes a drastic impact on the success of that team member. Build a relationship with them, find their strengths, discover their communication style and bring clarity to how they can succeed. We leverage the SDI 2.0 to help shorten the learning curve in new relationships and enhance those that already exist.

Step 2 | Maintain Consistency

The Food: The pork shoulder is on the grate. It’s cooking. There are three responsibilities I have during this step of the process.

a) Monitor the smoker temperature

b) Monitor the meat temperature

c) Continue to add the proper amount of logs to the fire to maintain the temperature

The goal is consistency. It takes effort, checking, knowing the right size of the log to put in the fire box. The meat can keep improving with consistency.

The Manager: Maintaining a consistently healthy work environment is key to developing a direct report to reach their potential. Our check-in process helps the team member take ownership of their development and gives you the opportunity to provide steady feedback so they can keep improving. The goal is growth and moving towards 201°. If you don’t keep the fire going or if you let it go for too long the temp can drop. That’s when you need to lean in even more to get back on track.

Step 3 | The Wrap

Time To Wrap!

The Food: The pork is edible at 145°, but it would be horrible. It’s like giving a direct report a task and they complete it, but they do such a bad job that you will never ask them to do it again. Well - that could be on you for asking them too soon. (maybe). Back to the food. When the pork shoulder reaches 180° you pull it out and wrap it in foil. The foil increases the temp faster and gets it to 201° in half the time. If you wrap too soon the pork can cook but will lose out on the flavor and burnt ends. You have to do the wrap at the right time, which is clear to you since you are checking it on a regular basis to maintain consistency.

The Manager: When the team member is ready for next-level coaching you need to provide it. You have been maintaining consistency and development for them, but you and I both know that some comments they need to hear they won’t hear until they are ready. We don’t want to break them, we want to develop them. Picture a team member at 180° and you are almost to 201°. It’s time to have a conversation about their growth, development and how they can hit the next level. Then you maintain consistency at a faster pace to help them get there.

Step 4 | The Celebration and Rest

The Food: When the temperature gauge on the meat hits 201° it’s a party for all. Hard work is going to pay off soon. You pull the pork shoulder off gently because it’s falling apart already. After you pull it off the smoker it’s time to let it rest for an hour. It’s still cooking. It’s 201° degrees! Let it rest for an hour and finish prepping the rest of the meal. If you don’t let it rest you will not experience the full potential of what you spent so much time working on.

The Manager: When the team member pushes through a challenging project with success and hits 201° you celebrate! When we Hustle and Grind we need to remember to Rest! If we don’t give them a moment to rest we will miss out on the team member truly hitting their full potential.

Well … that’s the 201° Performance Management Story. It’s time for you to experience your own 201° stories. Give us a shout to bring 201° to you soon.

4 Reasons You Need A Presentation Coach

4 Reasons you need a presentation coach

• Could Christian Pulisic have scored a hat trick in the premier league without coaching?

• Could the Pioneer Woman have been able to make southern food great without coaching?

• Could Steph Curry have defied the odds without coaching?

Anyone who has done something great has had someone in their corner helping them and guiding them along the way. If you are preparing for a career impacting presentation or speech, you might need a coach in our corner.

Here are four ways to know you need to call us:

1) You started preparing for your speech with a PowerPoint.

Listen - how many influential presentations have you heard with a death by PowerPoint presentation? We want people to remember you and your message - not your slides.

2) You can’t share a story without ummmsss and ahhhs ..

You can be great, but if you have a great amount of filler words and noises you won’t be great today. Just like you are distracted by filler noise - so will be your audience. Let us help you nail your presentation so your audience will know your message versus your filler word of choice. ummk.

3) You can’t open up and grab your audience.

You’ve seen it happen a million times. The speaker starts talking and you start checking email. You don’t want to be the speaker that gives everyone a chance to catch up on work they are “missing”. You want to be the speaker that causes people to remember your message and forget about their calendars.

4) You have friends that say you are great.

You are awesome. We know that. However, if you have friends who are not telling you how to improve your speaking, they can’t be trusted to guide you towards delivering an influential presentation.

Do they check your:

• Content for flow, timing, and impact?

• Body language?

• Hand motions?

• Pacing?

• Storytelling?

• Vocal variety?

• Transitions?

Listen - we all have great friends, but if I’m going into a career impacting presentation, I want my friends in my corner and a coach who is guiding me towards the win.

Give us a call if you are ready to advance your ability to deliver a presentation to your fullest potential!

Remember What's Important

Remember what’s important

Last night I was watching Secretariat with my 13-year-old son. He's captivated by pretty much any movie that has to do with anything sports-related.

About half-way through the movie, everything seems to be falling apart. Red, the horse, is not eating or running. The owner leveraged everything she had on the horse winning the triple crown. In those moments it seemed like everything was falling apart after everything had been going so well.

As I was watching that section of the movie, I felt like those 4 minutes summed up my day. It was the kind of day when nothing was going right. Proposals weren't signed, friends were getting divorced, and the list goes on.

All of a sudden, what they thought was a life-changing issue was not a big deal.

It seems that way in life. We put so much stock into what happens today that we can forget what can happen tomorrow. A few years ago if I had a day that didn't go as planned, I would have stayed up all night working because of my short-sighted view of the big picture. I would have justified skipping:

• story time with my four kids (3 boys and 1 little girl)

• watching a movie with my son

• sipping wine with my wife

Let's be honest, a few years ago that happened often!

My business is much healthier now than when I started, but my ability to remember what's important and not let bad moments ruin my day and shift my focus has improved as well.

I hope to dominate life at work. But if some days I miss out on dominating life at work - that's no excuse for missing out on loving life at home.

Let's remember that there is more to life than what happens today. While what happens today is essential it shouldn't ruin our ability to engage with who and what is most important. We can always rest, wake up tomorrow and get back after it.

How do you keep yourself from forgetting what's important in life when life doesn't go your way?

Why SDI 2.0?

Three Reasons To Bring SDI 2.0 To Your Team

There are a four things that we often hear when working with new teams and clients.

1) We have a great people.

2) Our great people don’t know how to communicate.

3) I (managers) am nervous to bring direct feedback to the great people because of a fear of conflict.

4) Drama drains the team and damages the ability to get great work done.

All of these statements point towards why we leverage the SDI 2.0 instead of other tools.

Here’s the deal, there are plenty of tools on the market and some of them are pretty good. Here are three core reasons we use this one.

1) Stickiness | The concepts and language around when things are going well, when we are in conflict, strengths and overdone strengths are simple and easy to bring into every day work life. If a tool can’t be integrated into your work, it probably isn’t the right tool to invest in.

2) Awareness | Myers Briggs, Birkman, DiSC, Enneogram can all help us become more self-aware of our norms (some better than others), however the SDI 2.0 hits the nail on the head to help us find our voice when we are at our best and navigate conflict to get back to our best when things aren’t going our way.

3) Scalable | My wife will tell you … I don’t like to spend money, but when I do buy something I want to buy something that will last. This assessment will last and can continue to scale throughout your organization. It’s not a one and done tool for a fun training, it’s a tool that drives healthy relational results in your organization and helps each leader take the next step with their development.

Here’s the fourth personal reason. For years I worked with other tools and always felt like they were okay, but not great. This was first tool that helped me realize what I did to make a mess. The first tool that nailed my conflict sequence on the head and caused me to apologize to my wife and realize how to be a better husband. The first tool that caused to me realize why I could get the right results and tick so many people off in the process. The first tool to help me see how I could continue to get great results, but with healthy relationships. I wanted to help people, but it wasn’t always evident. Now … it’s evident more often than it was before.

We hope this helps you think through which tool to use. We loved bringing it to the Walton Arts Center Team in 2019!

Build-A-Bike

Build-A-Bike Leadership Training

We were at the Gaylord Golf Club in Nashville, Tennessee on a beautiful summer day. I’ve been plenty of places for training and keynotes, but today was a different kind of day.

I’ll never forget the moment at the top of the stairs. The management trainees were just informed that the bikes they built during the training were going to be delivered to inner city kids who have never had a bike and most of them didn’t know how to ride a bike.

Immediately the tears started streaming and then laughter, disbelief and joy. The Cintas Team Members took the kids into the parking lot, gave them a helmet and taught them how to ride. About 15 minutes into riding around a parking lot (dodging the latest Mercedes Benz now dangerously parked) a kid turned and asked, how much longer he was going to be able to ride. He couldn’t believe the bike was his.

Then my wife rolled in with Chick-Fil-A for the kids and the plush golf club let us all eat with the kids in the club house, overlooking a golf course most will never see again.

It was a good day. A powerful day. A day of effective training.

Find the Eddy

Rest

I was a cocky 15 year old about to experience the cold Colorado River for the first time after convincing a half-way sober guide to let me go it alone in a kayak. We are heading down the river and he said, “you need to know how to find an eddy in case you need to rest in the rapids”. After learning what an eddy was the hard way, I found myself heaving for air from the cold river.

We’ve all been there. The painful feeling of nothing going right when you are simply trying to rest.

We focus on helping leaders learn to find the eddy so that we can navigate the rapids rather than letting the rapids control us.

If you need to learn how to rest to get back to being you, then give us a call.