Dave's Journal

A few weeks ago, I was assembling a new desk in our studio. Mostly the project was going smoothly, but one pesky bolt wasn’t fitting onto a brace for the desk. The wrench I had clearly wasn’t working well for the job, but I figured I could just force it a bit instead of having to go all the way back to the garage to get the wrench I really needed. I pressed on with the wrongly-sized wrench, only to have it slip out of my fingers and slice into my thumb. This resulted in me having to stop the work, address the minor bleeding, get a bandage, and then eventually make it back down to the garage to get the wrench I should have gotten in the first place. This of course took way longer than if I had just started with the right tool. The entire rest of the assembly also slowed down since I had to be mindful that I didn’t lose the bandage and risk dropping blood on the furniture. You’ve done something like this too, right? Sometimes it’s just easier to use tool you already grabbed than to stop and get the tool you need. I fear this happens sometimes with leaders when it comes to the skill of coaching. All of us have heard about the importance of having good coaching skills. It’s an essential tool in the toolbox of every leader — one of the most important ones, in fact. It’s useful, powerful, even inspiring, when used well. But it is only one tool and, just like an actual toolbox, one tool isn’t enough for every situation. Feedback for leaders is also important. So is training. In some situations, being directive is right. Facilitation is essential when trying to surface new ideas. And of course, so is accountability when expectations aren’t met. If you go onto our website and look in the episode library, there are more than 60 categories of skills databased from podcasts episodes I’ve aired over the years. One of those categories is called “Coaching Skills” but there are a lot of others. In fact, of the over 500 episodes I’ve aired on the Coaching for Leaders podcast, only about two dozen directly address what I would call coaching skills. Don’t get me wrong…nobody is happier to see a lot more leaders appreciating and using coaching skills in recent years. Yet, I fear that I and others have unintentionally sent the message that coaching skills are critical, while other skills are perhaps secondary. After all, I’m the one who named a podcast “Coaching for Leaders”. But the podcast could be as easily be called Training for Leaders, or Management or Leaders, or Conversations for Leaders, or probably a dozen other words that would reflect the full repertoire of skills that most leaders need. This is one of the reasons I’ve always appreciated the Situational Leadership model created by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. They challenge leaders to first assess the situation and then respond with the appropriate behavior. Just like you would do if tackling a house project. Determine what’s needed first. Grab the correct tool, second. If your coaching skills aren’t getting people where they need to go, it could be that improving your skills might help. But it also could be that you’re using the wrong tool for the situation. I hope that you’ll use coaching a lot as a leader. It’s a wonderful place to begin from — and it will serve you and others well throughout your career. And, I give you permission to not be so coach-like, if the situation dictates something else. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

When I was 16 years old, I discovered that the police department in the town I grew up in had an explorer program. Since I was interested in a career in law enforcement at the time, I attended a meeting and quickly joined. I was never a sworn police officer - nor have I ever done any of the difficult work in policing. However, I did spend two years volunteering in uniform at community events, riding along many times with police officers on patrol, and even graduated from a junior police academy. I once witnessed a police officer get assaulted right in front of me. I had an up-front view of how complex the job of police officer is and, although I concluded that law enforcement wasn’t for me, it shaped a lot of my worldview - especially from the perspective of the police. If you’ve ever listened to the Coaching for Leaders podcast, you know that I often ask experts at the end of interviews what they’ve changed their minds on. It’s a question I also pose to myself. It’s relevant to speak on the events of the day, because George Floyd’s murder at the hands of the police has direct implications for how many of us in organizations do better. In the recent years, and reaffirmed in the last month, I’ve changed my mind on at least three things. First, I used to believe that, unless there was substantial evidence to the contrary, we should generally give police departments the benefit of the doubt, since excessive use of force seemed rare and isolated. On this belief, I was wrong. Thank goodness for smartphones with cameras. They have opened my eyes to what Black folks have been saying for years about police brutality. After seeing hundreds of these videos in recent years, it’s clear that many of these incidents are deeply rooted in systemic racism, not only in our policing, but in American society as a whole. Yes, of course police work is dangerous, but so is commercial fishing, agriculture work, and construction. Yes, there are police leaders who have taken significant action to address racism in policing, but many also have not. I’m done giving police departments the benefit of the doubt. Second, I used to believe that, it’s just a reality for us as a society to accept some “bad apples” in our police forces. Comedian Chris Rock points out that there are some jobs that are too important to allow for bad behavior. Take pilots for example. No airline allows a margin of error for a certain number of crash landings each year. No nuclear power plant allows its engineers an acceptable number of meltdowns. No hospital allows surgeons a quota for ignoring the needs of certain patients. I’m left with the uncomfortable conclusion that, particularly on this issue, racism is why I haven’t held police officers to the same standard I would expect of any other professional dealing with life-safety issues. As a result, I’ve changed my mind on allowing a different standard in policing - and in my thinking. But the most important thing I’ve changed my mind on is my own contribution. If George Floyd’s murder had happened five years ago and you asked me who killed him, I would have said, “Four police officers.” I’ve changed my mind on that, too. Today, I know his blood is also on my hands. While my contribution is different than the people who physically killed him, I and others with privilege contributed to his murder by: Not speaking out against the militarization of America’s police departments. Not recognizing that we need better options for responding to complex situations in our society other than just sending in armed officers. Not pushing any of my elected representatives on this issue. Not having enough empathy for my Black brothers and sisters who have been doing everything imaginable to get attention on this, for years. I don’t know where this leaves you, but it leaves me with the commitment to do better on what I’m often inviting others to do:

Most of the devices we use each day have two essential software components: apps and operating systems. The best apps usually do a few things really well. The browser app on my iPhone make sure I can view websites easily. The task management app makes sure I don’t miss a deadline. I just looked and I have 149 apps on my iPhone. I have no idea how that compares with the general population, but my guess from casual interactions with others is that I’m not alone with a large quantity of apps. That also means lots of updates. It seems like at least 2-3 of them get an update, just about everyday. Often, these fix a problem with the app or make it better in some meaningful way. All of these apps run on top of Apple’s iOS operating system. Unlike individual apps that do one specific thing, the operating system provides a broad foundation for the entire device to perform well. Operating system updates happen less often. They also take longer to install — usually 5-10 minutes instead of just a few seconds. When the operating system gets better, the entire device gets more useful and also opens up the potential for apps to do a lot more. While iOS alone don’t make the iPhone useful, it provides an essential foundation for everything else. The overall strength of iOS has enabled a robust ecosystem of apps from developers to flourish — and turned the iPhone into the most successful consumer product of all time. The reason I’m illuminating this distinction is because I get this question all the time when I open up applications for our Coaching for Leaders Academy: What’s better for me? Hiring an executive coach or applying for your Academy? If you can appreciate the difference between updating an app and updating an operating system, it will illuminate how I respond to this question: Talented executive coaches like my friend Tom Henschel are really good at contracting with leaders and organizations to help them get better at a couple of key areas over a short period of time. When there’s a specific behavior or skill that’s holding you back (or would benefit from focused refinement) coaching is a great way to go. Good coaches are masters at catching things quickly that aren’t working and noticing the thinking errors that you may be making. They will challenge you and help you change your behavior quickly, assuming you are willing and ready. That’s just like getting an update for an app. It’s specific, it’s focused, and ideally, it’s done in a fairly accelerated period of time. Unlike coaching, our Academy is far broader in focus. While we do zero in tactically on specific commitments, the overall aim is comprehensive leadership development. The Academy helps leaders get really good at articulating what the future should look like, assess where there are today, and develop a practice of implementing tactical commitments that help them and their teams achieve results. Plus, they learn how to give and receive objective perspective from others who are outside of their organizations. A leader with a strong foundation in these areas has the ability to do a lot with it — and the potential to take a lot of other people along with them. While coaching is usually done one on one, our Academy members work together with me and the same 5-6 colleagues over an entire year. It means that, each person moves slower than they would with one on one coaching, especially in the initial stages. But it also means that they get a far broader perspective, because they benefit from (and implement) the discoveries their colleagues are making along the way. While I’m always thrilled to see people getting results from their commitments, the real achievement is at the end of our Academy year when leaders have made behavior change a practice for themselves and their teams. That’s an operating system update. It takes longer, but it’s a comprehensive change that enables leadership development as a consistent behavior....

A client told me recently that his manager was concerned about a behavior he’d observed in customer meetings: You’re not jumping in fast enough. My client agreed with the feedback. He even offered to me that he’s noticed the awkward silence in some meetings when people look to him, expecting his input. As we started discussing what he might do, I couldn’t help but emphasize with the situation. Early in my career, I noticed that same awkward silence in some meetings when people would turn to me. Like my client, it was an annoyance early in my career, but become a more apparent issue after a few promotions. At the management level, it’s important to be able to jump in. At the executive level, it’s essential. Sadly, the unstated assumption that’s sometimes made in western business culture when someone doesn’t speak up is either that they aren’t sharp — or they aren’t engaged. Ironically, sometimes those of us who are naturally quieter in meetings are the ones thinking most deeply about the issue at hand. Then, when we’re suddenly turned to for a recommendation or decision, we’re caught off guard. I’ve come away from a handful of meetings in my professional life feeling like I just got punished for thinking too much. Years ago, I stumbled on this tactic: Always have a question ready. Whenever I didn’t know what to say next, I’d immediately ask a clarifying question. This resulted in three benefits: First, the perception that I wasn’t engaged or thinking quickly enough started to change. In fact, after doing this awhile, some stakeholders actually started asking me for my questions, since they often helped us achieve better outcomes. Second, it gave me time to think. I realized that one of the reasons I previously hesitated to give input was because I didn’t have all the information. Being curious yield more information, making recommendations and decisions easier. And finally, it got me used to jumping in. Now as a learned skill, I ironically have the opposite challenge of sometimes jumping in too quickly. If this is a struggle for you too, I invite you to always have a question ready. If you do, it’s lot easier to jump in when it matters most. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

My son and I are reading the original Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. This exchange appears in the book: Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?” The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?” “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?” I’m often asked for advice on what to do next in complex situations. The question I find myself asking is: What’s the outcome you want? The most common response to that question is: Hmmmm. Often followed with, “Good question,” or “I probably should have more clarity on that,” or “I hadn’t thought much about it until this moment.” Like most animals, we are good at seeing what’s right in front of us. Unlike most animals, we have a capacity to envision a different future. There’s nothing wrong with walking around aimlessly. In fact, we should all be doing more of it. David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done, says: Not only do you need to spend time thinking, you need to spend time not thinking – absolutely daydreaming. So, daydream away. And then, when the time comes to make an intentional turn, decide first where you’re going. If you do, it’s easier to see which road to take. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

One of our Academy members reached out to me awhile back. He was handling a delicate situation in his organization, requiring him to navigate tons of internal politics. He needed to suddenly give a lot of people a company line he didn’t exactly agree with. He didn’t have ethical objections to the change, but it noticeably didn’t align with the path he’d been cultivating for his team. He knew people would officially accept it, but also that some of his most trusted employees would ask him questions in private. The complex politics of the moment were such that it simply wasn’t appropriate for him to say anything in the short-term, even in private, that deviated from the official message. He was part of a large bureaucracy and playing the long-game. His question to me: How do I say something when I shouldn’t say anything? It reminded me about a discussion I had years ago with a former boss. I was making a courtesy request for something that I thought was a formality. Instead of the “yes” I was used to, I got an uncharacteristically quick denial, followed by silence. Surprised, I asked for a bit more explanation, only to get basically the same response, worded in a slightly different way. I didn’t quite know what to make of it, since I had a great relationship with my boss and he regularly shared his thinking behind almost every decision. Before I determined how to proceed with the conversation, he offered this: Maybe you noticed what I didn’t say. I instantly understood: I see you, I’m with you, but I can’t touch this politically right now. I am an optimist who believes in transparency and trust in organizations. And I’m a realist too. As much as I’d love to convince myself that every leader, customer, and organization is ready for full transparency, sometimes the moment isn’t right, and may do more harm than good. Use this sparingly with the right people. However, when you’re playing the long-game, sometimes it’s helpful to acknowledge what wasn’t said. Like that country song goes, occasionally you say it best, when you say nothing at all. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

This past weekend, I had to do something I’ve been dreading for awhile. It’s been looming over me. It’s been staring at me (literally) for years. The old paint cans needed to go. Several painting projects over the years had littered our garage with half full cans of paint. And, since I’d placed it on my 90-day personal plan, I begrudgingly decided to do something about it. I had our children help me move the cans out of the garage (curiously, they were also not excited about this project). I cataloged each color by photographing all the cans. And then, loaded them all up into the back of our vehicle to take to our designated hazardous waste disposal site. When I arrived there, I was sore, tired, and resentful that this had already taken more of my Saturday that I originally planned. After all, I had committed to doing this, but I had not committed to being happy about it. The employee at the drop-off site took one look at me and said: You’re not supposed to be transporting that much paint at one time. He immediately went onto tell me that the rules only allowed him to accept about a third of what I’d brought. To drop off the rest, I’d need to make return trips, since there’s a daily drop-off limit. In retrospect, I should have known there would be a limit, but it didn’t occur to me to look it up before I got on the road. These limits are smart and sensible. Without them, there would be all kinds of carelessness and attempts to dump industrial waste or otherwise abuse the system. In my specific case, this sensible rule didn’t seem to make much sense. Either way, the paint was going to end up at this site — but under the rules, I’d be coming back over three days, burning more gas to harm the environment more and opening up additional chances that the paint would spill in transport. Plus, taking more of everybody’s time and paperwork. So, the well-intended rule was, at least in this case, counter-productive. I hesitate a bit to share a story like this, because on its face, it’s completely inconsequential. I had to make a few extra trips to the landfill to rid myself of too many paint cans from our beautifully painted home. Talk about a first world problem. But the exact same kind of thing happens everyday in organizations all over the place. The well-intended policy or procedure doesn’t make sense (or actually causes harm) in a specific situation. Since no rule can address every possible situation, wisdom is needed. One of the many definitions Merriem-Webster has for wisdom is a bit of “good judgement.” On more occasions than I’d care to admit, I’ve expressed anger about well-intended rules to people who didn’t make the rules, but are being paid to enforce them. Most of us have lost our cool with a customer service representative who, like many of us, is simply attempting to do a good days work, handle the next situation, and follow the guidelines of their organization. So when the opportunity comes for a bit of good judgement, we get to make the choice. Do we lead with an attack — or do we lead with kindness? Abraham Lincoln is believed to have said: A drop of honey gathers more flies than a gallon of gall. Easy to say. Hard to remember when you’re sore, tired, and feeling resentful. After getting my lecture about bringing too much paint and the details on when I’d need to come back, I had the conscious thought of all the Dale Carnegie courses I’d taught over the years. So, I started with this: Wow. Thanks for telling me. So sorry — I wasn’t aware what the limit was. I’ll plan to come back on Monday. And I added: How’s your day going? This started a conversation that ended with this a few minutes later: We’re closing in 15 minutes. If you drive around and come back in the line in 10 minutes, I’ll see what I can do about the rest. Translation: We both know the rule. We both why the rule is here. In this case, a bit of wisdom should prevail.

Mark Twain once received this telegram from a publisher: NEED 2-PAGE SHORT STORY TWO DAYS. He sent this response back: NO CAN DO 2 PAGES TWO DAYS. CAN DO 30 PAGES 2 DAYS. NEED 30 DAYS TO DO 2 PAGES. Twain’s point is as important for leaders as it is for writers. Being concise takes discipline and, ironically, time. All of us put ideas together in different ways. Some leaders like to just write it all out. Others think best by talking things through out loud. Some of us do our best idea generation while out on a long run. Regardless of how you do your thinking, make a clear distinction between thinking and messaging. The burden is on you to parse out what’s most important in your communications. Don’t leave that effort and interpretation to others. Start by discovering the length of your communications right now. Go back and do a word count on the last staff email you sent, or check the total time on your last voice message. Maybe even have somebody track how much you talk in a few, critical meetings. Once you know where you land, set a boundary that encourages you to be concise. For example, my own boundry for the audio of these journal entries is five minutes. If you are willing to take the burden off others to parse your message, they’ll be much more likely to hear what you’ve said and act in alignment with your intentions. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

About fifteen years ago, I was sitting in the lobby of a building at a client site, waiting for an appointment. An employee walked into the lobby and started a conversation with the security guard. It seemed they knew each other well and the she either didn’t notice me or have any care about her conversation being overheard. They exchanged a few pleasantries and then she said this: When I got my job here, I was so excited. She went onto describe that she had worked really hard to land the position and did her best to make an amazing impression in her first year. She continued: At the end of the year, I received my performance review: meets expectations. She told the guard that while she was disappointed she hadn’t gotten a higher overall rating, she recognized that perhaps there was more she could have done. So the second year, I busted my butt. She went onto describe how she volunteered for assignments, took tons of initiative, worked late hours — and several other key factors that aligned with getting an “exceed expectations” on the next review. The second year’s rating: Meets expectations. I could hear the pain in her voice as she recounted what a difficult blow that was for her at the time. Not only did the review come back the same, but apparently there wasn’t any acknowledgment that she had done anything different. After I worked through the anger, I decided on a different tactic. She went onto describe that in the third year, she basically gave up. I came in late some days. I left early more than I should have. I stopped volunteering to help. Basically, I just did what I had to do — and nothing else. The third year’s rating? Meets expectations. It became apparent from the context of the dialogue that this had been years ago. She continued: So that’s when I realized that I could basically just show up here and do the bare minimum. I’ve got three years to do until I’m fully vested in the pension — and then I’m out of here. I never saw the woman again and have no idea if she made it the last three years. I went onto do work with the organization and, without revealing any identifying details (it was a large enterprise), later shared this story in some of the training I facilitated for managers. The reaction from most people was similar: What an awful attitude to show up with for your entire career. I agree. That was also the reaction I had the day I heard the conversation. But I think it misses the leadership lesson. There are always two sides to every story. I have no doubt that if we tracked down the manager who gave those early reviews, we’d hear a lot more detail that would change the narrative. Yet, while perhaps an extreme example, the story lined up pretty well with what I heard from other employees in the organization at that time. Regardless of the work quality, there were many examples of people who felt they were ignored. If we take her story at face value, she didn’t start her career with such a negative attitude. Apparently, she came in wanting to perform, but the culture there eventually taught her otherwise. As we’ve discussed on Coaching for Leaders many times, the best managers balance a care for people with coaching that helps highlight what people do well and helps them get better when they fall short. Less effective are the managers who only give praise — but are fearful to be candid. And even the managers who only criticize — well, at least they are paying attention. I had a manager once when I was working a part-time job who only criticized. And I still learned lot from him — mostly in an effort to avoid getting criticized. All those things are better than the worst possible way to manage: to not really say much of anything. If that might be you, I invite you to begin saying something. Regardless on how eloquent you are, you’ll likely be doing better than if you said nothing at all. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcast...

Most of us have had that manager that annoyed us to all ends with micromanagement. They were in our face every three hours about a task because we weren’t quite doing it right and it had to be done their way. As a result, it’s been my experience that most managers have some level of healthy concern about not becoming that person. That’s a good place to be. Until it’s not. I actually find the opposite problem more often the issue. Out of concern to not become a micromanager, people tack completely to the other extreme and don’t manage much at all. Occasionally, a superstar employee comes back constantly with amazing work. More often, people miss the mark — especially those who don’t have as much experience. Yet, we’re hesitant to step in, even if it means we’ve got to pick up the pieces ourselves later. After all, we’re supposed to empower people to take ownership over their work and have autonomy and all those things Daniel Pink taught us* about how to motivate people, right? This is where a distinction is critical. There’s a difference between autonomy and independence. Independence means we hand off something and do little to nothing to connect with people before they complete the work. Independence is a wonderful place to get to. It’s awesome to be able to deputize an employee to do great work and then get back a result that’s way better than anything you would have done. However, that’s not the place start a working relationship. And it’s certainly not the place most of us are with with many of the people we lead. Autonomy, in contrast, gives a person the right level of ownership over their work. I also allows for active coaching and management as they learn new skills, make mistakes, and come up short. Micromanagement is bad, sure. What’s worse? The other extreme. Little management at all. I have worked for micromanagers and I have worked for people who have not engaged much. The first is more uncomfortable, but having done both, I’m sure which is worse. At least with a micromanager, you learn something and know where you stand, annoying as it may be. Effective managers give people the right amount of autonomy and are there along the way to help them stay on track and support them. This begs the question: Alight, but how do I determine the right level of autonomy? That’s different in every situation. These two variables will help you decide what makes sense: First, consider experience. How successfully has this person executed this work before? If they’ve never done anything close to what you are asking them to do, both they and you should expect that you’ll check in a lot more often. Of course you can provide autonomy in these situations, it’s just less autonomy than if they had done the work a dozen times before. That’s because this is the point where they want (and probably expect) more time and direction from you. The second variable is to consider the visibility or importance of the work. If the work is for an internal customer that is less sensitive about it being done perfectly, that lends itself to more autonomy. If the work is central to a deliverable for a top client, that lends itself to less autonomy. These two variables change with every task or project. Even if you have a very experienced employee who normally you don’t check in with often, you’re going to define less autonomy up front if they are working on the most important deliverable for the organization’s #1 client. The key is that you as the manager discuss up front, before the work even starts, how much autonomy they have in the context of their experience and the visibility of the work. Micromanagement happens when people don’t expect it. When you’ve agreed in advance to check in daily, that’s not micromanagement. It’s you and them doing what you already said you would do to help them get better. In Gallup’s most recent book, It’s the Manager*, the message is clear:

I began my career working in a neighborhood education center. Early on in my new job, a parent called one day to inform us that her daughter, who was struggling with math, would not be continuing in our program. I spent a minute or two chatting with the mom. It wasn’t about the money. The child just wasn’t motivated to do the work and she didn’t see the point in continuing to take everybody’s time. Later that day, my boss (who knew way more about the girl’s struggles with math than I did) heard about the call and took me aside. When she discovered that I hadn’t done much to advocate for the child, she didn’t pulled any punches. She took a step towards me, waved her finger in my face, and raised her voice: You call her back now and you tell her she’s wrong. The demand was so blunt that I thought she was kidding. She wasn’t. Of course, she didn’t literally expect me to say those words, but she did expect me to advocate for the child - and she wasn’t going to let me off the hook until I did it. My boss knew from experience that if this girl stopped now, they’d likely never get serious about math. Feeling like I had little choice, I made the call. Twenty years later, I remember little about the conversation except that I went in with the intention to advocate for the child. Somehow, I convinced the mom to keep going until the child’s confidence in math improved. I would not recommend this style of management. My boss got away with it because she was a top performer, but also because she did something amazingly well that Dale Carnegie taught in How to Win Friends and Influence People*: Appeal to the nobler motive. Once it was clear I had turned the situation around, it was like her demand never happened. She made it a win for the child — and me. You did that. You changed that child’s life. Incidents like that happened again and again in the year I worked for her. She pushed my colleague and I super hard, every day. When we performed well, she was the first to tell us. When we screwed up, she was in our face with tons of observation and coaching, until we got better. And when we had a big win, she’d broadcast it far and wide. She’d talk about the kids lives we changed and helped us build our brands within the company. Both of us got fast-tracked for promotion, because of it. The first week I worked for this boss, I didn’t want to come back. By the time I came under a new boss a year later, I immediately missed her. I had quickly learned that she would fight tooth and nail for any employee who was making a big difference for kids. Lots of people give feedback. Some do it gracefully; some don’t. But few tie it to the nobler motive — the bigger, larger reason behind the numbers. Be the kind of leader who appeals to what really matters and, even when the feedback is tough, reminds people why they’re really there. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

A client reached out to me recently and shared a struggle he’s been having. His organization is going through a difficult time — for reasons that have nothing to do with him, his team, or his part of the organization. Strong headwinds are at play for the entire industry that will likely take several years to play out. He mentioned that in the recent past, a few higher level leaders have swooped in for site visits and promised resources and changes to help his team better weather the storm. However, these espoused resources never seem to materialize. Of course, this has only made the problem worse. Members of this person’s team, already struggling to find motivation during a difficult time, get quickly aggravated by promises of help — only to later discover that the promises are empty. I couldn’t help but empathize with this leader, since I’ve seen this happen before. A usually well-meaning, senior leader comes out for a site visit and make promises to help with something. And then nothing happens. I also find myself empathizing a bit with the senior person, too. I’m sure there’s a least a few times in my career when I, hopefully well-meaning, promised things I didn’t deliver on. When you are visiting a team or site that you don’t see everyday and are surprised about a resource they don’t have, there’s the tendency for a lot of us to want to be the hero and deliver something that helps severybody out. Sometimes we don’t follow through as senior leaders — and sometimes, we do follow though, only to discover that the situation is, of course, a bit more complicated that we first thought. Good intentions and effort aside, the complexity sometimes requires us to put things on the back burner. Yet another reminder of these wise words from the book Difficult Conversations*: Intent does not equal impact. Our conversation ended up surfacing two actions this leader could take to minimize this issue, going forward. First, we decided that when a senior leader comes for a site visit, making a simple request in advance could help. The invitation might sound something like this either over the phone or privately, at the start of the visit: You’ll likely hear some frustrations from my team today, since it’s a difficult time for all of us. I know you want to help support us in the best way possible. If you see a way to help and you’re certain it’s something you can do immediately, we’re really grateful for that. If, however, you see a place to help and the resources/budget aren’t available today, it will help me immensely if we can chat offline first. I’d love to hear what you’re thinking and then find the right way to roll it out, once the resources are in place. Some senior leaders will get that message loud and clear. Some won’t. That can’t be controlled — but you can still make the request. Second, in the spirit of teaching people how to help you, some people simply don’t know what to do if they can’t swoop in to save the day. Rather than just telling people what they shouldn’t do, it’s often useful to also be directive on exactly how they can help. An invitation like this can go a long way: Thank you for being here to support us. Here’s the way you can help my team the most during this visit. Spend time asking questions about their work. You’re going to hear frustrations. Listen to them. Don’t try to solve them. Once you’ve listened, even if it’s unclear what you can provide right now to help, show them they’ve been heard. They need that right now — and it will also help me a lot in the coming weeks. I’ve rarely seen a senior person push back on an invitation like this. They may not execute it well, but they’ll likely do better than if you said nothing. It’s a lot easier to get irritated with the “You’re not helping,” complaint than to do the more proactive work of asking for help. Teach people how to help you, so you’re more likely to get the support you need.

This week, I’ve heard lots of bad news. This has included things like an unexpected layoff, dealing with a mental health challenge, losing a major business deal, and an unwanted result from a doctor. The fact that bad things are happening in the world is obviously not news, but it’s personal when it’s someone you know and care about. As I heard about these different situations from the people who were sharing them, I was struck by the odd coincidence that all of them, not knowing each other, had already made some sort of substantial movement to address whatever had landed in their lap. I found myself in awe and, despite the challenges ahead, amazed by how willing everyone appeared in working through whatever the situation was. It reminded me of a passage in the book Difficult Conversations*. This legend is retold: After observing O Sensei, the founder of Aikido, sparring with an accomplished fighter, a young student said to the master, “You never lose your balance. What is your secret?” “You are wrong,” O Sensei replied. “I am constantly losing my balance. My skill lies in my ability to regain it.” It’s virtually impossible to lead the kinds of lives that many of us lead and not get knocked off our game pretty regularly. A lot of the time, it means we look a bit awkward. Sometimes, like a few situations I’ve heard about this week, we get knocked flat on our face. For all the things we have influence over in our lives, there are infinitely more things we can’t control. What is controllable is what happens after we get knocked to the ground. We can stay there, forever. We can stay there for awhile, and then get up. Or, we can just get up. Having done all three of those before and stayed on the ground for years at a time, I’m not attempting to pass any judgement on what you should do in any given situation. Had I had some of the things happen to me this week that I heard about from others, I’d still be on the ground. The invitation here is the simple reminder for all of us that, even in the midst of chaos, we get to choose if we get up -- and when that is. When we can get up, rarely does it solve the problem, but it allows us agency to own it. Maybe that’s why this bit of wisdom, attributed as an African proverb, has inspired me more than once: When you pray, move your feet. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

Years ago, I was instructing a training course for a group of engineers building fighter jets. During the introductions, several the participants introduced themselves as stress engineers. I was curious what a stress engineer did, so naturally I asked one of them about it later. Turns out the job involves analyzing the various materials used on the aircraft and then testing how much strain they can handle. As you’d imagine, figuring this out is pretty important when building an aircraft. If you’ve ever watched out the window of a plane going through turbulence, you know how much a wing can (and should) bend when exposed to stress. It’s super important that these materials are flexible. If they weren’t, they would have to be so heavy that it would make flight almost impossible. So, understanding and managing stress actually enables flight in the first place. Think about that for a second. Managing stress enables flight. Otherwise, it would be nearly impossible. It’s interesting how we accept this reality when building things like aircraft, vehicles, and strutures — but when it comes to our own careers and lives, we view stress only as a problem. A lot of us view deadlines as roadblocks instead of checkpoints that keep us moving forward. We get nervous when speaking in front of a large audience instead of thinking about how that fear could be reframed as excitement. We work towards early retirement, expecting the the excessive stress we take on for the next decade will pay off in some kind of stress-free existence later. No doubt, just like on an airplane, excessive stress is a problem. If a major medical situations hits, you lose your job, or a crisis happens in your life, those are serious problems that any of us would struggle with. And, the opposite is also a problem. No stress, no deadlines, no obligations — sure, it’s nice on vacation for a week or two, but over time, even if you could create that reality, it wouldn’t be healthy. All of us know people who’ve tried to eliminate stress from their life (like through traditional retirement) and declined in health and happiness. Be like a stress engineer. Don’t waste time trying to eliminate stress. Instead, anticipate where it’s likely to come from, notice when you handle it well and when you don’t, and build your commitments to align well with the optimal stress level for you. When you align stress with intention, you’ll be flying high for a long time. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

A decade ago, I responded to an inquiry from a new client who had reached out to talk about being more effective. During our first meeting, it became increasingly apparent that he was working a lot. At some point in the conversation, we got into detail on his schedule. He was woking 12-14 hours, most days. “Most days” meant virtually everyday. Monday through Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday. On Sundays, he would come in to work for a few hours in the morning, leave to spend time with him family mid-day, and come back to work in the late afternoon. He wasn’t an executive or even a senior manager. He was a very experienced, individual contributor with a lot of talent. He was also exhausted and close to a breaking point. As we talked more, I learned that the excessive hours had emerged gradually over a few years. While he had started at the company with a more typical schedule, things kept getting busier. We discovered that he struggled with putting boundaries on requests. Because of this, others kept asking more. He eventually allowed so much on his plate that he found working 80+ hour weeks almost essential. What prevented him from pushing back or asking for more resources? He didn’t want to appear selfish by not helping his colleagues. While not normally this extreme, I see this patten a lot. Many of us justify taking on tons more because we don’t want to be selfish. After all, it’s our job to step in and help, to be a team player, and “support our family” as some organizations say. This is problematic when it comes from a place of avoiding asking for resources because it seems selfish. Ironically, in attempting to avoid selfishness, we end creating more of it. Merriam-Webster says that being selfish is: Lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure. Making a choice to do a ton more for our organization and not asking for the right resources is selfish — because we get the pleasure of avoiding tough conversations and mostly other people pay the price for it in the long-run. Our family and friends pay a price when we take on tons more work and don’t get a promotion, a salary bump, or more vacation time. Suddenly they get less of us, and nothing else. In the long-run, they lose. Our organizations pays a price when we eventually feel resentful about all we’re doing for a role without anything in return. This eventually results in our disengagement or departure. In the long-run, they lose. When we eventually move on from our position, as most of us do, taking on tons more and not getting the right resources means we’ve misrepresented what a typical candidate for our role can reasonably accomplish. When we’re holding a role together through shear personality and willpower rather than the right systems and resources, things fall apart quickly when we’re gone. Contrary to popular belief, that is not a win. Things falling apart shortly after we leave doesn’t mean we were brilliant. It means we failed to put the right resources in place for the work to be sustainable. What motivates us to do this then? The selfish the pleasure of being the hero. There are many, appropriate times in work and life that we all jump in to help. When this comes from a place of transition, margin, growth, or joy, what a wonderful gift to give to others and our organizations. Let’s just beware telling ourselves that we’re doing the world a favor by not asking for what we need. When there’s full transparency on what resources are necessary to do the job well, we’ll find more happiness over time and the people around us win too. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

When I first started the Coaching for Leaders podcast back in 2011, it didn’t even occur to me to reach out to well known experts to appear on the show. At some point after the first year, I got a little braver. (Not smarter, but braver.) I started sending out some invitations, asking experts to appear as guests. Based on the lack of responses, most of these emails probably went ignored. I still remember well the response from an assistant of a well-known expert who wrote back and thanked me so kindly for reaching out, but said that sadly she couldn’t make the interview work with this person’s schedule. While I knew that was probably code for “your show isn’t big enough” I was oddly thrilled that someone actually read an email and considered the request at all. About a year later, I saw that this same expert had a new book coming out. I thought it might be a good time to reach out again, so I pulled up the prior conversation in my inbox. I noticed that the subject line of the email I sent a year earlier was this: Invitation to appear on Coaching for Leaders It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. Nobody, especially back then, knew or cared about appearing on my show. They were instead wondering the same thing that all of us wonder — especially when we get a request for time from someone we don’t know: What’s in it for me? I drafted a new email with this subject line: Invitation to promote your new book This time, I drafted a message with only the relevant information about the show that would matter in the context of this expert getting traction for their work. I hit send. Three hours later, the interview was booked. For a long time, I’d made the mistake of sending too many emails that were written from the point of view of my interests. After booking this interview, I realized how critical it was for me to be making requests that spoke to the interests of the recipient. I had spent a year writing invitations that completely ignored one of the principles I’d been teaching at Dale Carnegie: Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view. I’ve discovered this is critical for subject lines. If the subject line doesn’t provide immediate, apparent value to the recipient, it’s far less likely to get attention, if it’s opened at all. You don’t need to be a creative genius to get results with this. Consider the value the recipient gets from message. Here’s an example of an average subject line: Agenda for today Instead, make the value of the same message more apparent with a subject line like this: 3 key points for your 1pm meeting The value of that subject line is more more specific and apparent. Draft at least one email today will a subject line that demonstrates value to the recipient. If you do, your emails are much more likely to be noticed, read, and acted on. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

When I was about six years old, my dad bought a Tandy 1000 computer from Radio Shack as a Christmas gift for our family. I remember learning how to use the floppy disks, how to connect the dot matrix printer, and the intricate details of swapping memory boards to upgrade from 128K of memory to 256K. We spent countless hours playing games, learning MS-DOS, and occasionally pulling our hair out in frustration as we navigated this new world of personal computing. It spurred my interest in using technology to make our lives better. Without it, I’m not sure I would have ever gotten as excited about technology or ever used to reach others as much as I do today. My dad’s intention behind this gift was great: introducing us to technology that was likely to be a part of our future. The context was right too: I was just old enough and it was Christmastime. My dad was also great about encouraging me to explore learning the hardware and software on my own. Even though I had no idea what it was when it first came out of the box, it ended up being one of the best gifts I ever received. That’s the kind of gift every person wants to be able to give. A meaningful gift that, decades later, the other person will still remember and appreciate. Sadly, it almost never works that way. For every gift like that Tandy 1000, there are countless gifts I’ve received in my life that I can’t even remember — and some that I returned as fast as I could. In retrospect, it really had nothing to do with the person giving the gift. Mostly, it was about my readiness to receive the gift. I suspect the same is true for you. A friend asked me recently if I had any advice for teaching others how to give feedback to help people improve — and I couldn’t help but think about how feedback is very much like giving a gift. First, the intention must be genuine. Feedback should be given to help someone get better, not to make us feel better about ourselves. Most of us have made the mistake of buying someone a gift that we’d like instead of considering what the other person really wanted. The best feedback considers first the recipient. What I can offer them that’s meaningful? How do I say it in a way that shows I care? That means instead of saying, “You’re wrong,” we say, “I see it differently than you do.” Second, the timing should be right. Handing someone a gift when there isn’t any context for it is awkward. Feedback, in the same way, should come with some kind of context. If that’s not obvious to the other party, it’s your job to frame the context. And then third, and perhaps most importantly, allow them to accept the gift — or not. My dad got that right with our Tandy 1000. A few of our family members really dove in. Others didn’t. That was OK. Once a gift is given, you don’t get to decide what someone does with it. They may tell people about it for decades, they may not remember it, or them may be processing the return right after you leave. That’s just like feedback. Once given, you can’t control what the other person decides to do with it. Sometimes they’ll take it to heart, sometimes they’ll do nothing, and sometimes, they’ll fight you. If that person is someone you manage, there are of course implications for those different responses, but you can’t possibly control whether they decide to accept your gift of feedback. Instead, aim to be the kind of person who gives meaningful feedback in the right context — and then allows the other person to decide what they’ll do with it. If you do that, you’ll create relationships where people don’t feel controlled by you and you’ll become more genuine in your feedback, that’s not expecting anything in return. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

Many years ago, I was standing in the lobby of a customer’s building, waiting between meetings. An employee I had worked with years earlier noticed me and stopped to say hello. She explained that she was now working directly for one of the top people in the company — and invited me to come up and see her office the next time I was in the building. So, I accepted her invitation. I’ve long since forgotten most of that second conversation, but something she said made it abundantly clear that I had a green light to ask this question: Do you think there’s a chance your boss would be open to a quick chat to explore if we could help more people in your organization? Most of the details of what happened next aren’t significant for this entry. This part is: A few weeks later, I was briefing the entire executive leadership team of a $10 billion business. I wish I could tell you that I was some kind of genius, but in retrospect, the green light in the situation was obvious. It wasn’t so much that I noticed it, but that I acted on it. The hard part here is that the lights in most organizations are rarely green or red, but actually some shade of yellow. That’s why most of us spend time planning, taking measured steps, and testing progress. And most of the time, that’s absolutely the right decision. The missed opportunity for a lot of us is that we’re so conditioned to move regularly and methodically, that sometimes we keep doing that same thing when the green light is apparent. We hesitate when the customer says: These are the best results we’ve ever had. What else do you recommend we do? Or we don’t follow up when the boss says: Let me know what resources you’re going to need next year. Or we don’t say where we need help when a colleague wonders: What can I say to others that will make this go easier for your team? Or we’re not willing to say something when an influencer in our industry asks: How can I be helpful to you? I’ve sat through more than my fair share of these green lights. I was passed over for promotions earlier in my career because I didn’t move on things quickly enough. I’m not suggesting that you try to create green lights where they don’t exist. You’re probably better off, both on the road and in your career, erroring on sitting through a green light than in making the mistake of running a red one. Reading the tea leaves of what shade of yellow the light is today in your organization or industry is super hard. I don’t have a good answer for how to do that. 90% of the time, you’ll never know for sure. But I’m pretty sure these days about two things: Every once in awhile, it’s abundantly clear that the light is green. Once it’s green, it’s going to change back to yellow or red again, very soon. Be cautious when you’re not sure the color of the light. But when it’s really clear that the light is green, don’t wait around for it to change. That’s the moment to go like hell. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

There have been many meetings I have attended in my professional life that have not lived up to the intention that was hoped for when someone first put that meeting on the calendar. No meeting is more likely to cause this kind of disappointment than the standing meeting. This is the staff meeting when we all get together at 10am on Tuesday mornings because, well…because we always get together at 10am on Tuesday mornings. A lot of people get frustrated with standing meetings because they can easily degenerate into glorified reporting sessions. This sounds like everyone going around the room and mostly talking about what’s happened in the last week and what they are doing for the next week. Then, everyone disperses to go about their work, only to repeat the process next week. How do you know if you’re guilty of this? If you or someone on your team started the agenda for the next meeting by duplicating the Microsoft Word document from the last meeting and just changing a few words, you may be facilitating a glorified reporting session. I used to have little sympathy for managers who ran these kind of meetings. However, as time has gone on and I’ve worked with more and more leaders who tell me their side of the story, I’ve come to two conclusions: First, in some organizations, it’s simply an excpection (if not a directive) to get people together at some regular interval. Second, I’ve realized that a lot of people have literally never seen another way to run a standing meeting. If you find yourself in this place, especially if you’re the person leading the meeting, here’s another way to approach this. Instead of having a standing meeting, hold a learning meeting. A learning meeting is about problem-solving, not reporting. A good learning meeting will get people motivated to engage and walking out doing something better. Here’s the structure of what a learning meeting might look like. Each attendee talks about a recent accomplishment. Each attendee shares something they’ve discovered recently that might help others in the room. Each attendee says where they would like or need assistance right now. Let’s break this down… Starting by asking people to talk about a recent accomplishment has two benefits. It encourages people to talk, since most people are more comfortable talking about what they’ve done well vs. where they failed. It also raises the energy in the room by reminding people what’s working. Asking each person to then do the second thing, sharing something they’ve discovered recently that might help others, gives people permission to do something that most already like to do: share something cool you’ve discovered with other people. It also encourages generosity by asking people to take an action is the interest of everyone else in the room. Each person benefits from something they’ve likely not heard or considered before. Finally, by asking people where they would like assistance right now, you zero in on where they need new learning. Others in the meeting can then offer to help. If you really want to double down on helping, each time you meet go into detail on having the whole group collaborate to help one person specifically. Then rotate to a new person each time. Yes, this requires a level of trust with the group. If that trust isn’t there today, this is modular, so you can start small. Begin the next few meetings just by asking people just to share a recent accomplishment - and gradually work the other pieces in, as people get more comfortable. If you are willing to run a learning meeting, you’ll get more dialogue and energy during the event. More importantly, people will walk away with something they can use, immediately. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

You may have discovered this journal because of the podcast I’ve hosted since 2011 called Coaching for Leaders. Although for many years producing and hosting Coaching for Leaders was very much a hobby, the listening audience has grown quite substantially to the point where we are now passing 10 million episode downloads. One of the interesting side effects of producing a popular podcast is that I get pitched all the time by potential guests and their agents who want to appear on the show. Often, I get 4-5 of these pitches a day. This is a wonderful problem to have. While I at least glance at everything that comes across my desk, I ignore the vast majority of these pitches. There are lots of reasons for this, but a big one is credibility. Most people approach a pitch with some version of, “Here’s the beautiful website that I have, and the amazing book I’ve written, and how much wisdom I have to support your listeners.” And sometimes, all those things are true. What I can’t help but wonder when I get messages like this though, is who says so other than just you? One of the most common skills I taught leaders during my time as a Carnegie instructor was how to facilitate question and answer sessions. Most people, when asked by an audience about their proposal, recommendation, or request, frame their responses with their own opinions. There is a time and a place for your opinion. If you already have a lot of credibility with an audience, your opinion can go a long way. However, a lot of us find ourselves needing to influence individuals and groups where we don’t yet have a lot of credibility. When that’s the case, opinions aren’t good enough. In those situations, credibility comes from providing evidence. One of the best ways to do that is to cite an independent, third party that is respected by the audience you want to influence. Here’s an example of the kind of pitch that most people make — one without third party credibility: Next quarter, I recommended we invest in a new, customer support platform. It’s going to help our customers get personal attention from us and respond more quickly and effectively to maintain great relationships. It will almost certainly help us retain more customers if we have a system that helps us show up as more human and personal. Not a bad claim — probably true for a lot of businesses that are growing quickly. Now, consider this version of the same pitch: Next quarter, I recommended we invest in a new, customer support platform. Last week, I spoke with two of our association partners who have already made this move in their organizations. Both of them reported increased customer retention and one has tracked data showing a 10% increase in retention over the last six months. The request is exactly the same in both cases. In second example, the perceived risk to the person you are attempting to influence is lessened by demonstrating how an idea like yours has already produced results for another organization they know and respect. People rarely say this out loud, but almost always an audience you don’t already have a lot of credibility with is asking the question: Who says so other than you? The mistake that people make when citing third party evidence is tracking down sources that are impressive to the person making the pitch, but not necessarily to anybody else. The key point is to find and cite evidence from third parties that are already respected and trusted by your audience, not just you. If you don’t have credibility with an audience today, find the third party evidence that will support your ideas. You may still not get what you want, but you’ll earn the attention and consideration of others more consistently. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

You show up for a lunch date with an old friend you’ve not seen in awhile. You share a hug or a hand shake, sit down, and start catching up. You friend asks how you’ve been and what’s been going on in your life and career. You start telling them about some of the things that have happened since you last connected. When you’re done talking, your friend says: That was a great opening statement. If ever you heard something like that from a friend in conversation, I think you’d find it quite a bit awkward. Why are they grading you out loud on their opinion of the quality of what you’ve just communicated? Yet, for some reason, we’ve decided, at least here in North American business culture, that it’s perfectly fine to do this all time when somebody asks us a question. Multiple times a day, I witness someone fielding a question in a professional context and then responding to that question first with a phrase this sounds something like this: That’s a great question. As a Dale Carnegie instructor I was taught that this is called, “grading a question” — and was coached hard to avoid doing it. Telling people that they asked a great question before you answer it is problematic for a number of reasons. First, it’s verbally inefficient. Saying, “that’s a great question” to everyone in the room each time you are asked something doesn’t add anything to the dialogue and just wastes time. Second, it’s almost never equitable. If you’re fielding a question and answer session with a group of people, you’d better grade every question with the exact same wording and the exact same body language and facial expression. Otherwise, you quickly establish inequity. Since it’s virtually impossible to grade each question the same, it’s worse than just wasting time. What ends up happening is that you tell four people in the room that that had a “great question,” but then you don’t say it to the fifth person who asked the tougher question you didn’t want to get. I’ve seen it happen multiple times where someone was facilitating a question and answer session and they told almost everyone else in the room that they had a “great question,” but then didn’t say “great question” to the key customer, vice president, or other decision-maker in the room. Super awkward to watch. When you grade questions, it gets really obvious pretty quickly who you are enjoying talking with in the room and who’s questions you really don’t want. Third, at its worst, grading questions can be perceived as manipulative. This is especially troublesome if you’re handling a situation where there is some hostility in the interaction or some kind of difficult issue being addressed. Showing up and telling everyone that they are coming with “great questions” can look like you are hoping to win favor instead of just responding. While I don’t recall seeing a situation where someone was intentionally trying to manipulate in this way, there’s something that feels really awkward about showing up for a meeting to address a major issue and the point person who’s supposed to be addressing the problem keeps repeating “great question” to everyone’s inquiries. When I see this happen, I wonder why the person is putting such emphasis on making value judgements around what their stakeholders are asking instead of just addressing the problem. Most of the time, we don’t mean anything bad by saying, “great question.” It’s just an unfortunate habit that unintentionally projects things we often don’t want to communicate. My invitation to you is to stop this madness by simply responding to a question without grading it. If you must, restating or repeating the question in your own words is a better option than grading it. If you will reduce the amount of grading you do in your interactions, you will allow people to more clearly hear what really matters in your responses — and leave all this other baggage behind. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Pod...

Between high school and college, I took half a dozen courses in economics. The details of these courses have long since faded from memory, but I remember well one principle that was repeated: Good enough is best. Economics is, after all, the study of how we make decisions with scare resources. Since resources are always scarce, we constantly need to make decisions to say yes to some things and no to others. “Good enough is best,” is a principle that reminds us to stop when it no longer makes sense to invest more resources. The classic example of this is washing a car. You could spend 7 hours on a Saturday washing your car. However, for most people, spending 30 minutes washing a car is “good enough.” Does a car look better after washing it for seven hours than it does after 30 minutes? Yes — but not enough to be noticeable to most people. That’s why 30 minutes is “good enough” — so you avoid the diminishing returns of increased time. Sensible? Yes. Way harder in practice. The problem is that while all these economics professors taught that “good enough is best” they reported grades like B+ when you just did just “good enough” in their classes. I’m not sure what things were like in your schooling, but among my peer group, school system, and most importantly my own expectations, B+ just wasn’t good enough. I wanted to get A’s. I expected to get A’s. Getting an A meant that you had things figured out — and that you were successful. But the hard reality of effective leadership is that it’s not possible to knock out A’s all day long. There are never enough resources - especially time. This precipitates a problem for leaders. Often, those of us who step into roles of increasing visibility and responsibility are the people who were the “A players” in our prior positions — or in school. Or often, both. And then we get hammered with the realities of defining priorities in an environment of scare resources. So, we do one of three things: For a lot of us, our first inclination is to keep getting A’s. We work crazy hours. We do things that probably aren’t in our job description but really we need to do, just this once or twice, because nobody else does it quite as well as we do. We drive people nuts by micromanaging, to make sure that the A’s continue. We don’t take many vacation days. We convince ourselves that we are indispensable. When that doesn’t work, some of us learn to opt out. We don’t pitch the new idea to the executive team. We don’t start the business. We don’t ask to change our role. We don’t take quite as much initiative as we could or should. Because, we know there are B, C, D, and F grades along those roads. It’s easy to stay on the road where you only get A’s. The better option is to stop obsessing over the A itself and to start obsessing over the choices made about what gets A work and what gets B+ work — or perhaps even C work. The reality of leadership is that you have to decide what’s really important, what’s good enough, and what isn’t worth the time. I’m not arguing for sloppy work. I’ve had many situations in my career when nailing an A+ result was essential. But it retrospect, there have been way more times when A work was a waste of everybody’s time and the only thing driving the A work was me not even stopping to consider that any other way we prudent. What’s something right now that others or you are putting A work into, where B+ work would be perfectly fine — and free up more of your time to do what’s really important? Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

You already know about Neil Armstrong’s most famous landing on July 20, 1969. It’s his other landings you might have missed. Before becoming an astronaut, Neil Armstrong was a naval aviator and test pilot. In 1951, he lost part of a wing in his F9F Panther during combat in Korea. Miraculously, he was able to land the plane. In 1956, he lost three of four engines in a B-29 after one engine disintegrated and damaged the rest of the aircraft. Quick thinking by both pilots allowed the plane to land on a single engine. In 1957, his nose gear failed while landing in an X1-B. He was forced to bring it in for a controlled crash — one he was fortunate to walk away from. In 1962, he misjudged his altitude and damaged an F-104 while attempting to land in Nevada. After becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was selected as the commander of the Gemini 8 space mission in 1966. It was a critical mission in the space race, since it was the first ever attempt at docking two spacecraft. It nearly ended in disaster. After the docking, a thruster malfunctioned, causing both crafts to spiral into an uncontrollable spin. The roll reached 296 degrees per second — a rate that would cause most humans to blackout. The crisis was ended only by Armstrong’s quick thinking to fire the re-entry thrusters. This finally slowed the spinning and brought the capsule back to Earth for an unexpected, early landing. Just 14 months before landing on the moon, Armstrong was nearly killed again. NASA had commissioned the production and use of two lunar landing research vehicles. The vehicles were designed to train the mission commanders here on earth to fly and land the lunar module on the moon. A single jet engine was mounted vertically onto a metal frame and the astronaut, strapped into the top of this frame, would hover at several hundred feet above the ground, simulating the gravity on the moon and what flight might feel like in the lunar module. The controls malfunctioned on Armstrong during his training flight in one of these vehicles on May 6, 1968. He just barely ejected from the vehicle, which crashed in a fireball. Investigators later concluded that had Armstrong hesitated only a half a second, he would have perished. Neil Armstrong had no less than six close calls with death before landing on the moon. It’s one of many reasons he kept his cool during the final descent on July 20, 1969 when they discovered their original landing spot was covered with boulders. Armstrong took manual control to find a better spot. That took way longer than any simulation anticipated, which is why you’ve heard that they landed with little fuel to spare. The part that’s often left out though, is this: Before it almost killed him, Armstrong had landed that training vehicle on Earth with even less margin of fuel than he did on the moon. He claimed the training was so valuable that the lunar landing would not have been possible without it. We rightfully celebrate incredible human achievements like landing on the moon. We rarely see up close the tremendous learning, resilience, and perseverance that those achievements required. Should you dare attempt great things, expect — and perhaps even embrace — a few rough landings along the way. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

A little over twenty years ago, I was completing my final year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In my last semester, I teamed up with two other seniors to launch a new student organization focused on leadership development. All three of us had significant campus leadership experience and we wanted to create something that would be a catalyst for future students. Since we’d had success in other capacities, we were able to get a bit of marketing behind our new idea. On the week of our first event, an article ran about our new organization on the front page of the student newspaper, an achievement in itself at university of over 30,000 students. We even had the perfect name: I-LEAD (Illinois Leadership Education and Development). David Ogilvy once said: Great marketing only makes a bad product fail faster. And boy did we fail fast. Almost nobody showed up for the launch meeting. Those that did seemed a bit skeptical, partially because they didn’t know us but mostly because we didn’t articulate a clear path forward. We had relied almost entirely on the newspaper article to market the event instead of reaching out to engage people personally. It also wasn’t clear to us where we were going with things after that first event, so it obviously wasn’t clear to anybody else. We were a flash in the pan. The organization ended even faster than it started. In retrospect, we made a critical error that many people make when beginning: we were more captivated by the idea of starting than in doing the real work. In 1989, Kevin Costner starred in a fabulous movie called Field of Dreams. This dramatic, sports fantasy ends with a row of cars approaching the new business built by the main character. It became a cultural image that transformed how many of us view starting something new. The cultural manta that was coined at the time, and still continues today, is this: If you build it, they will come. But it’s a lie. First, because it’s almost never true. And second, because it’s not even the actual phrase from Field of Dreams. The quote that’s repeated in the movie is this: If you build it, HE will come. As in one person, who does indeed show up at the end of the story. This is a perfect example of how we hear what we wish was true. It’s literally been thirty years since the movie opened and I only discovered today, in researching this entry, that I’ve had the quote wrong all this time. I suspect that’s because we’d much rather believe in a world where if we would just have courage to take the first step, everything else will fall neatly into place. If we’ll just start the business, the financials will all work out. If we’ll just launch the online forum, people will show up and start contributing. If we’ll just get married, we’ll live happily ever after. Thankfully (I can gladly admit today) it doesn’t work that way. If you build it, he or she may come, but if you want “they” to come - and more importantly, to stay — the real work comes well after the start. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

My first full-time management job was as a center director for an education business. Part of my role was to supervise all the part-time instructors at our location. Like most managers who get promoted up, I inherited a team I didn’t select. I gradually hired the team I wanted as positions opened, but one person I inherited was annoying me. While he was friendly to me and our customers, he was (at best) a mediocre performer. When I’d give him feedback, he would improve slightly. Enough to meet the basic standard of whatever I had most recently reiterated. Then, he’d gradually slide back into mediocrity, just slowly enough for nobody to really notice. You’ve met this person too. Perhaps they are on your team now. They drive us nuts. That’s why I was thrilled when finally, one gloriously beautiful day, he showed up and gave his two weeks notice. I thanked him publicly, but of course I was thrilled to see him go. Two weeks later, he arrived for his final shift. It became apparent that he was just phoning it in on his last day. He wasn't paying much attention to our customers. He didn’t seem to be helping out any of his colleagues. With about 45 minutes to go in his shift, after watching this go on for hours, I finally had it. I pulled him into my office, told him in no uncertain terms what a lousy employee he had been for the past several years, and kicked him out. He packed up his stuff — and stormed away in anger. I hope at this point you are thinking how stupid I was and what an obvious mistake this is in a person’s last hour of work. All the reasons to not do something this stupid could be the subject of another journal entry. What you may miss, is the rest of the story. Cause I missed it. While regretting a bit how I’d handled the incident, I nevertheless concluded that it was over. And it was, in a way. I never had to worry about him again, or see him, or talk to him. Yet, I still had a team of great part-time employees, several who witnessed the incident, and one or two who were friends of the former employee. (Somewhat related side note: anytime you fire somebody, no matter how disastrous their performance, there is always a contingent of their peers who will be surprised and troubled with your decision.) My high performing employees didn’t say much to me in the coming weeks. They didn’t volunteer as much to help me with things. They didn’t pick up as many shifts as they had before. My top employees didn’t engage with me the way they had before this happened. They saw me lose my temper and concluded they could be next. What I failed to recognize at the time, and only saw in retrospect, was that I had taught my best employees that I was unpredictable. That team was never quite the same again — and while I’ll never know if it was specifically the result of this incident, a few of my top people left in the months afterwards for other jobs. Set expectations, yes. Give people the feedback they need to hear. Hold people accountable, of course. First and foremost, treat every last person with respect. Because it’s the right thing to do. And because people are watching you. Always. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

Fifteen years ago, I was hired by the franchise owner of a Dale Carnegie office to help grow the business — and eventually develop into an instructor myself. Tom, who hired me, was the kind of person all of us hope to work for in our careers. He cared about people so much that you could barely ever get him talking about himself. Just as important, he lived and breathed the values of Dale Carnegie. Carnegie offices have always been on the conservative side in business attire and Tom was on the conservative side of conservative attire. He showed up every day in a dark suit, traditional tie, and a white shirt. I heard someone joke the first week I was there that you’re allowed to wear any color dress shirt you want, as long as it’s white. Not thinking much of the comment, I showed up a few weeks later to a staff meeting wearing a dark suit, a tie, and an ecru shirt (a very light, beige color). While Tom said nothing himself, I noticed a few stares from others during that day’s staff meeting — including a senior college who pointed out my “brown” shirt when the focus of the agenda had turned to me. Turns out the joke about white shirts wasn’t a joke after all. I got the message, and it was fine. I bought some more white shirts and everyone was happy. The bigger issue eventually loomed with clients. I’ve called Southern California home for 20 years now. I’m don’t think there’s ever been a time that suits and ties have been the norm here. There was also a broader, cultural shift happening here in the United States about the time I started with Carnegie to dress more casually at work. As time went on, it became increasingly apparent that our conservative dress was becoming an obstacle. A valued client approached me one day and said, “We love working with your team, but it’s really odd that you all look like the Secret Service every time you show up.” I knew it wasn’t likely that Tom would entertain a formal policy change out of the blue, so I decided on a different approach. I starting wearing brightly colored ties to work, while going out of the way to ensure every other item of clothing I wore was as conservative as possible. Still technically in line with the dress code, nobody could say much. Since we were a small office, everyone noticed. Once in awhile, I’d through in an ecru shirt or a blue shirt when there were no client meetings or it wasn’t likely I’d run into Tom. One day, someone else wore a colorful tie. After awhile, a few more colors started showing up from others. Finally, the glorious day arrived when the senior colleague who had commented on my “brown” shirt a year or two earlier, showed up for a formal meeting in a blue shirt and a sweater vest. Shortly after, the policy changed. When working with clients who had causal dress cultures, we could ditch our ties. Looking back, it seems like such a tiny thing. At the time though, in the midst of working in a very traditional organization with generations of history, it was a fairly significant shift. There’s a time and a place for a good protest or boycott. Too often though, that’s the starting point instead of the ending point. When it comes to long-standing cultural norms grounded in identity, transitions come slower. If you show up as a leader in an organization and look and act really different than everyone else, most of the time that’s a mistake. People aren’t likely to take you seriously, even if they don’t dismiss you outright. If you show up as a leader and don’t do anything different than the norm, then the norm stays the same. When Jurgen Appelo appeared on Coaching for Leaders awhile back, he made this invitation: Be a little bit weird. If you’re playing the long-game, being a little weird today may open a door tomorrow. It’s a lot harder to dismiss someone who’s being just a little bit weird. As Seth Godin points out, “People like us, do things like this.” An individual who doesn’t quite fit in one wa...

Last week, a few minutes before I arrived to pick up our kids at summer camp, our 5-year-old daughter had fallen and hit her head. By the time I walked in, the nurse had already checked her out and she was perfectly fine. Her camp counselor, a teacher, the nurse, and our son all told me what happened in a whirlwind of several conversations as the kids were getting dismissed. Our daughter also told me the story. All five stories were different. There were similarities, but they were different enough that, without context, you might have thought five different accidents occurred. Ask any police officer who’s interviewed witnesses to an accident or crime scene and they will tell you that they often hear different stories. That’s because, there are four different kinds of truth. The first truth is my truth. What I think happened that is colored by my experiences, biases, and emotions. The second truth is your truth. What you think happened that is colored by your experiences, biases, and emotions. The third truth is our shared truth. This emerges when we’ve come to some kind of mutual understanding of what happened. Finally, there’s the actual truth, which hopefully is reflected in each person’s own truth and, if it emerges, a shared truth, but not always. Sometimes, everybody is off the mark. A lot of the time, it’s not that important if or how a shared truth emerges. In the case with my daughter, it really didn’t matter that there were five different versions of the story because she was fine and everyone clearly intended well. Case closed. But sometimes it’s critically important that one person’s truth doesn’t become the shared truth by default. The most common way I see this emerge in organizational politics is that someone claims their truth in front of a group of people, most often in a meeting, and nobody else challenges it. When a truth is left unchecked among a group of people, it often becomes the shared truth. That means that if your colleague claims at the weekly staff meeting that your team dropped the ball on a recent project, and you stay silent, that statement, right or wrong, becomes everyone’s truth. Once you’ve stayed silent, it doesn’t much matter what you say later, how many people you pull aside to explain yourself five minutes after the meeting, and all the charts in the world you’ve got, proving how right you are. Because it’s not about what’s right. It’s about what’s true. When a claim of truth goes unchallenged, most people in most places will quickly accept that as shared truth and move on. It’s simply too much mental work to do otherwise. If someone else’s truth doesn’t at all align with your truth — and it matters to the organization, to your team, or to you, what you say in the moment is critical. Here’s a few phrases you might consider starting with: I have a different recollection of the events. You must have access to some information I don’t have. It’s not clear to me what evidence you’re using to conclude this. Based on the evidence I’ve seen, I’ve come to a different conclusion. Your aim is not to throw the other person under the bus, or to get into a heated debate, but to indicate to them — and more importantly — to everyone else present, that there is more than one truth in the room. Be polite, be curious, be respectful, and be clear that you are inviting them and everyone else to come to an accurate, shared truth. Respect does not equate with silence. Right or wrong, silence from you indicates to everyone else that the other person’s truth is yours too. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

The airspace above our home is at least partially designated for pilots in training on small, single-engine planes. About once a week, I hear a small plane above us, that suddenly cuts its engine…only to restart it, shortly after. The pilots and their instructors are practicing engine failure procedures so that, should an engine actually fail in flight, a pilot is more likely to be able to land the plane. Recently, someone asked me: How do I keep things from bothering me so much at work? I asked a few questions about his situation and discovered a whole slew of reasons that things were quite bumpy right now. While he was making good progress on turning those issues around, the current challenges were eating at him. Worse, even in a best-case scenario, it would be some time before his professional situation was substantially better. As the conversation went on, it came up that he wasn’t doing much to engage with friendships, wasn’t working out regularly, and was putting in tons of hours. Since I was asked for advice, I offered this: You’re flying a single engine plane. A single engine plane can be a lot of fun to fly, but you are out of options if your engine fails. You’re going down — hopefully in a controlled glide onto a field or road — but going down, for sure. Just like a lot of us go down, at least in our psychological well-being, when something really bad happens at work. Two ways around this: One way is to never have anything go badly at work. Funny, I know, but don’t think that I haven’t deluded myself into thinking I could control this, at a few points in my career. I still even occasionally attempt this delusion today. It’s easy to live the dream when the weather is great and you’ve been flying successfully for years. But even if you’re on the safest, most reliable engine in the world — a large bird could strike and take it down in seconds. The better option? Fly with more engines. Rather than attempting to control the uncontrollable, get more engines on your plane. Investing in new friendships, exercising better, volunteering in the community, taking up a new hobby, and spending time with children are just a few things that have worked for me and others. If you find yourself riding on a single engine, your tendency may be to invest your effort to make it most efficient. That’s good work to do, but not at the expense of the bigger picture. In addition, consider more power, somewhere else. If you’re willing to be a little less Cessna and a little more 747, you’ll keep yourself aloft when the failures come. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.

A decade ago, I was instructing a communication and human relations course for Dale Carnegie. We were about halfway through the multi-week program when a participant asked a question of me in front of the class: What do you do when your wife claims that you’re just being nice to her because you’re taking this course? When the laugher stopped, I offered this: If you stop being nice to her when this course is over, then she was right. I appreciated the bravery of what that individual asked all those years ago, because he captured a reality that so many of us run into when trying to become better leaders, employees, parents, and spouses. When we change our behavior, even for the better, people are naturally suspect. It’s the same kind of feeling that parents get when they see their children are suddenly sitting quietly in a chair, grinning at them. Why do you look so suspicious? …is the question our kids often get from me. It’s hard to fault others when they have the same reaction to a behavior we’ve just changed. One of our Academy members reminded me of that this week, when she asked a colleague: Will this “improvement” you're planning catch your team off guard? In the absence of other data, it’s human nature for us to view sudden behavior change with some suspicion. However, you can reduce that a bit up front — and almost entirely, in the long-run. Start by telling people what you are doing. If you have rarely given constructive feedback but now recognize that you should do it more to develop people, tell them what you're changing. I often use this mantra: Why before what. Point out why you’re doing something, followed by what that something is. Here’s how it might sound: I’m working on getting better at developing people when I see opportunities for learning. You’ll hear me giving more real-time feedback so I can do this for you, too. That won't change the discomfort you both have the first few times you do this, but it doesn’t lend itself to as much suspicion if you tell people in advance. But, the bigger question is this: Do you keep going? It’s not that hard to change behavior for a single interaction. In fact, we all do this at least some of the time, in order to precipitate an outcome, which may or not not be aligned with the other person’s interests. That’s why behavior change breeds suspicion, and why we’ve all leaned to be cautious when it comes as a surprise from someone else. If, however, you keep going, then eventually you are not just taking an action. You have changed who you are. When you decide to make a behavior change for the better, expect people to be suspicious. Assuming the new behavior is a positive change for everyone, the fact that people noticed something changed is actually an early indicator that you’re moving forward. Then, keep going. Don’t simply act to achieve an immediate outcome. Take on a new identity and decide before you start to keep going when it doesn’t yet feel like you. When you demonstrate that you are willing to keep going on something worth doing, you not only make things better for others, you become the person you want to be. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, and Stitcher.

For years, I’ve heard countless people give this well-intended advice on structuring a briefing or presentation: Tell 'em what you're going to tell them. Tell 'em. Tell 'em what you've told them. I bet you’ve heard that too. It might be advice for someone who’s giving a presentation for the first time. That’s because it’s a simple outline that most people can follow successfully. But most professionals should move beyond this fairly quickly. That’s because, it’s awfully boring to listen to someone follow this framework. Think of an individual in your professional network who engages you when they present. I bet they don’t typically start their presentations with a table of contents. You can do a lot better, especially in high-visibility situations. Here are three ways to start that will engage people right away: 1. Tell a Story People find stories compelling and want to know how those stories resolve. It's the reason books like Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People* became popular. The concepts were not new, but they were presented through a set of powerful stories that most anybody could relate to. Tell a quick story that relates to the overall message of your presentation. Just say what happened and how the lesson, conclusion, or action leads into your message. Keep it to just a minute or two and then transition to your main points. Also, resist any urge to use a dramatic voice from your high school acting class. Just tell the story like you would to a friend you ran into outside of work. Virtually all of us already do lots of storytelling in our everyday lives. 2. Congratulate Your Audience Get the audience's attention by congratulating an individual or the audience as a whole on a recent accomplishment. Cite a specific incident or situation you know they are proud of. For example, I recently began a presentation by congratulating the team of a larger organization on an impressive rise in their stock price. There are two benefits to starting this way: First, you get the audience's attention, since you just made them the star of the show. After all, if you have earned the right to present, you are there to serve them (not the other way around). Second, you increase credibility since people recognize that you've taken time to do your homework. A lot of speakers think only about their message during preparation, so this sets you apart almost immediately. 3. Appeal to a Shared Goal Start where you can find common ground. While useful in many presentations, it's especially valuable as a starting point when you might not be on the same page as your audience. If you're responding to a frustrated customer, appeal first to what everyone can agree to. Speak to the fact that while there may be disagreements on the solution, everyone in the room wants the problem resolved and the project to succeed. When you start by appealing to a shared goal, you position yourself as a problem-solver. The audience still may not agree with what you suggest, but is far more likely to give consideration to what you have to say. If you’ll begin your next presentation by appealing to people’s humanity, you’ll earn their attention — and then the opportunity to do a lot more. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, and Stitcher.

Our house is just old enough to start having a few things go wrong. A few of our faucets were giving us trouble recently, so we hired a plumber to come in and replace some of the hardware. When he completed the work, he took the old hardware that he pulled out of the wall and placed it into the packaging that had come with the new hardware. He then left it near the faucets where the work was completed. I asked him about this practice, wondering if there was some reason I needed to keep the old hardware. He replied: Unless it’s too large to dispose of easily, I always leave the old hardware behind. That way, you can see what it looks like and what the issue was. Based on the look of the hardware, I was glad we replaced it. He expanded on this: You see, it’s really hard for people to appreciate the value of the work if they don’t see it. I’ve been doing it forever because I find that it helps people feel even more confident that they got something for their money. I have absolutely zero idea if this is a best practice in running a pluming business or not — but I know it helped me to see the value of his work. More importantly, I got to thinking how rare it is that people do this in their careers. I’ve heard this complaint many times over the years: I’m not getting recognized and rewarded for all the value I’m bringing to the organization. I’m lodged that very same complaint myself. Earlier in my career, I made mention to my boss that the next higher level manager didn’t seem to notice or appreciate the value of contributions I was making. My boss agreed that the value I was bringing was not fully recognized, but also offered this: You’re not making your wins very visible. I thought about that and concluded he was probably right. He suggested that I document some of my wins each week and send those to him on Fridays. He offered to help by working one of those wins into his weekly updates with the more senior manager. Those small breadcrumbs, left consistently, eventually helped change the perception of my value to senior leadership. Plus, the genius of his invitation to me to take this action was that once I starting documenting my wins, I found ways to make them more visible on my own. Nobody wants to hear someone bragging about their work all the time, and I’ve concluded it’s just as foolish to assume that good work speaks for itself. In most organizations, senior leaders are simply too busy to pay attention if you don’t help them connect the dots. It’s up to you to teach people the value of your work. Make key results of your work visible by leaving breadcrumbs along the way. And sometimes, yes, even telling people what you’re good at, as my friend Tom Henschel said so beautifully in a recent episode of The Look & Sound of Leadership. If you’re in the position to highlight the good work of someone else in your organization, help them find a way to leave breadcrumbs that make their work more apparent. If you do, you’ll help the organization reward great work and you’ll help them become advocates for their careers. Dave's Journal is available by audio on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, and Stitcher.

Awhile back, a client was expressing his frustration with one of his managers. He said: I’ve delegated the work. I’ve made expectations clear on time, budget, and quality. I’ve set deadlines. But, this person isn’t on track. I see a train wreck coming. He knew that he could swoop in and take over but, being a good student of leadership, he was fearful of micro-managing. “What to do?” was his question. I recently stumbled across an article in the Wall Street Journal about an event featuring Warren Buffett. One of the attendees remarked that he was, “Struck by Mr. Buffett’s emphasis on hiring high-quality managers and then getting out of their way.” The moment I read that, I immediately thought of the situation with my client — and started wondered if I and others have done a great disservice to managers in how much we emphasize delegation. Warren Buffet is, of course, correct. We should hire the best people and then do as much as we can to get out of their way. I’ve said the same myself to our Academy members and listeners. And now, with some reflection, I fear that I’ve probably not said enough this next part: Buffett is describing the ideal. But most of us don’t have the ideal. Most of us didn’t get to pick every member of our team. Most of us don’t have teams of people, all with years of proven track records. Even when those things are true, almost never does work stay the same. Many of our teams members are doing work they didn’t go to school for — and in some cases, hold jobs that didn’t even exist a few years ago. In the leadership roles I’ve had in most of my career — and I’m guessing for you too, clear expectations and good people alone haven’t carried the day. Most team members — and yes, even experienced managers — need support and coaching, especially if the work is new or the situation unfamiliar. But we are hesitant to step in to help, even when know we probably should, because we fear being labeled as a micro-manager. It’s not micro-management if everyone’s on board. It’s not micro-management to assess where someone is and where they need help. It’s not micro-management to put together a plan to support someone in doing great work. And it’s certainly not micro-management to agree to check in every few days and spend time training, asking questions, and working through problems. It’s only micro-management when you do those things, without invitation or buy-in from the employee. Larry Bossidy is the former CEO and chairman of AlliedSignal and Honeywell. In his book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done* he reports spending almost half his time developing the executives under him. Think about that. Half of the CEO’s time at one of the largest and most successful companies in the world. So yes, hire great people and get the heck out of their way if you’re only slowing them down…but don’t claim fear of micro-management as a proxy to not show up. If you have someone who’s struggling right now, ask how you can help. If they need and want your support, define check-in points over the next few weeks where you can do just that. You can help coach, open doors, and provide resources while they still own the work. If you are supporting people by helping them do their jobs better, that’s not micro-managing. It’s the job that managers are called to do.

In 1962, McDonald’s franchisee Lou Groen had a problem. His restaurant, in a predominately Roman Catholic neighborhood, wasn’t attracting customers on Fridays in Lent. Recognizing an opportunity, the Catholic businessman proposed a new sandwich for McDonald’s menu, called the Filet-O-Fish. Instead of meat, the sandwich featured a fried fish patty with half a slice of cheese and tatar sauce. McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc was not happy. Fearful that fish sandwiches would smell up all of his restaurants, Kroc created his own menu alternative for Lent: The Hula Burger. The Hula Burger was a slice of grilled pineapple, plus cheese, on a bun. Kroc believed it was the answer for their Lenten obstacle. The dispute between them led to a sales contest. Groen would sell the Filet-O-Fish in his restaurant on the first Friday in Lent. Kroc sold the Hula Burger in another location. You already know who won. The final score: 350 to 6. It’s a mistake to reflect on this story and conclude that we should all work to have better ideas. Smart people have bad ideas, all the time. Ray Kroc was, after all, one of the most financially successful business leaders of the 20th century. Innovative leaders don’t fear bad ideas. They fear not filtering them out. You have no idea if you have a Hula Burger or a Filet-O-Fish until you test it. Despite his personal feelings about the fish sandwich, Kroc was knew it was up to his customers to decide. How invested are you with your “good idea” before you’ve talked to a single customer about it? Challenge your team to test all kinds of ideas so you’ll quickly surface what works…and what doesn’t.

Over a decade ago, I arrived for a client presentation on a Friday afternoon. I’d contracted with the client for an hour in front of his team and had prepared an extensive series of exercises to teach several communication skills. I was a bit skeptical we could achieve the stated objectives in a single hour, but had agreed to the abridged timing to help him out. There were a number of logistical constraints that made other options impractical. The meeting kicked off and my client got in front of the room to introduce me. Before he did, he addressed some company news that happened earlier in the day. I’ve long since forgotten the news, but I recall exactly what happened next. Questions. Lots of them. Ten minutes into the hour, the questions were still coming. I frantically starting re-arranging the outline in my head, assuming I’d perhaps have only have 45 minutes. I removed an entire section, trimmed my opening, and quickly re-thought the summary. My client made eye contact and nodded to me, indicating he knew he was bleeding into my time. Yet, it was clear from his team’s response that he needed to address the reaction immediately. Five more minutes of questions. I trimmed even more. My client finally started introducing me, seemingly satisfied he’d addressed the immediate issue… …only for someone else to bring up a related problem that generated even more questions. When I finally got introduced, I had 24 minutes to achieve objectives I had been skeptical about doing in an hour. Plus, I was mentally exhausted, having spend almost 40 minutes in a state of panic. I learned a valuable lesson that day: When presenting to influential people, assume the agenda will change. No, my client wasn’t good at managing a meeting agenda. No, it wasn’t fair to have to rewrite my presentation half a dozen times. But here’s the thing: Nobody cared. The two dozen people in the room didn’t know that I’d been promised an hour. Even my client, aware that he had gone into my time, later described it as “just a couple of minutes.” He wasn’t trying to be difficult. On the contrary, he was a great ambassador for our work and had opened up tons of doors for us for in both past and future projects. Like a lot of executive leaders, he simply had too much on his mind and no concept of how much he was talking. Rewriting my agenda at the back of the room was, ironically, some of the best presentation training I ever had. Going forward, I almost always had multiple versions of any presentation or briefing ready for a client or executive team. I discovered that the more influential the audience, the more likely timing will change with little or no warning. Are you showing up to serve, or to be served? If you have the privilege to present to an influential audience, it’s not about you. You’re there to serve them. Decide what the audience needs to hear — and have several timing paths prepared to get there. If you can adapt on the fly, a few minutes in front of an influential audience may be worth more to your career than a year behind your desk.

In the part of the world I live in, it’s a common greeting to ask: Hi. How are you? And then to reply: Great. How about you? Usually that’s returned with some version of “doing well” or other generic, positive-sounding statement. This exchange regularly happens as two people run into each other in passing. Often, it’s used as a form of acknowledgement with someone we have a casual relationship with. What it’s not, is a conversation. Rarely does anybody listen to the actual responses. If you dare to interrupt this pattern by responding in a way that isn’t expected, such as “actually, I’m having a tough day,” people are a bit taken aback and rarely ready to engage in any kind of meaningful way. In fact, my seven-year old pointed out to me recently that I often respond with the word, “likewise” in order to shorten the exchange after the inevitable “Great. How about you?” question. I’ve now engaged him as my coach and have asked him to point out to me this verbal tick — and he does so, with perfect consistency. Virtually anybody I’ve ever discussed this with also finds this cultural norm odd, and yet, most of us go on doing it. I’m not suggesting any of us invest any effort into changing broad, cultural norms — but it has caused me to notice something that’s almost universally true: Our first response isn’t the full story. Since so many of us have been conditioned to move quickly, get the information we need, and move onto the next thing, we’ve been conditioned to make a lot of our language as efficient as possible. Especially in our professional environments. For most of us, it’s been the exception when someone — a manager, mentor, or peer — regularly asked a question of us and actually listened for the answer. As a result, it’s the nature for a lot of us to reveal what’s really happening, in stages. In fact, it makes sense that we do that. Why waste the time getting into a really deep conversation with someone who isn’t really interested or willing to take the time. I saw this front and center as a corporate trainer. Often, a topic of discussion would come up about something fairly complex, such as leadership, and the initial responses were fairly generic. I soon realized the practical learning came from quality discussions, not just quantity of responses. Whenever I’d hear a brief, somewhat generic response to a question, I found myself asking: How so? If someone talked about having a difficult time with handling conflict, I’d ask: How so? If someone said they discovered a way to organize their schedule better, I’d wonder: How so? If someone claimed they were struggling with delegating work, I’d respond: How so? I worked hard to always be in a state of curiosity, each time I asked this question. As a facilitator, I found myself aching to find out what was behind people’s initial statements. As this emerged as a habit for me, along with related invitations like “Tell me more,” two things happened that worked great. First, I heard a ton more detail about situations. Often, this detail would provide an incredible discovery for both of us and others in the conversation — and also illuminate a next step when we were trying to solve a problem. The second thing was surprising. Often, when I asked, “how so?” and started listening for more, the real situation, problem, or concern would emerge — one that had nothing to do with what was first stated. I kept noticing how much more we all opened up with more detail — and sometimes, with what was really going on, when someone bothered to be curious. Now, you be curious too by asking “How so?” If you do, you’ll be entering into conversations that actually make things better.

When someone is working on a new idea they’ve shared with my in confidence, I often find myself suggesting that they also get input from their peers, executive team, or customer. Sometimes that generates a comment like this: If I start socializing this idea, somebody else will take credit for it. Often, but not always, a response like this comes from someone who has learned from past attempts that it’s best not to share ideas publicly, simply to watch another person take credit later. Yes, I hear this more often from women — but not only from women. Those of us who are quieter in groups often struggle with this, too. I know it’s heartbreaking and demoralizing to watch someone else get credit for your idea. But we can take steps to prevent it. May Busch, author of the book Accelerate: 9 Capabilities to Achieve Success at Any Career Stage, appeared on Coaching for Leaders awhile back. Her advice for us when we have a great idea? Tell as many people as you can. But why? Two reasons: First, the more people you talk about your idea with, the better your idea gets. You get people thinking about your idea, finding holes in it, improving upon it, telling you who in the organization will oppose it or support it. In short, the more you socialize an idea, the better it gets. Second, the more you socialize your idea, the more people associate it with you. It’s a lot harder for someone to claim credit for your idea in an executive roundtable when you’ve just spent the prior two weeks collaborating on it with 7 other people in the room. But here’s the real hack. And perhaps, way more valuable than making sure that you get credit for the idea. Collaborating with others on your idea, especially if you do it with more than just a few people, means that you have to do something about it. It means you need to take ownership for it. It means you need to show up. Because your real problem isn’t keeping your idea from being stolen. In the digital age, new ideas aren’t that hard to generate. No, your real problem is never moving on at least some of your ideas. The more you start talking about your ideas, the more you start creating movement for them. Become the kind of leader who becomes a catalyst for crafting ideas, makes them better by collaborating with others, and then moves forward to create change. If you start doing that well, ain’t nobody going to be able to steal that.

On December 29, 1972, Eastern Airlines flight 401 crashed in the Florida Everglades just outside of Miami, killing 101 people. It was the first ever crash of a wide-body aircraft and is still one of the deadliest events in aviation history. This crash is often referenced when pilots learn a phrase that’s especially useful in emergency situations: aviate, navigate, communicate. Aviate means, first and foremost, keep the airplane flying. Navigate means to know where you are in relation to the terrain around you. Finally, if and when time allows, communicate with others and air traffic controllers. The key is to make sure it happens in that order. When there is trouble, keep the plane in the air. Stay aware of where you are and where you are going. Finally, communicate if you can. For whatever reason, things didn’t happen that way on flight 401. A landing gear indicator light burned out and it quickly consumed the attention of all three people in the cockpit. So much so that they didn’t notice the autopilot becoming disengaged. This resulted in a controlled descent right into the ground. When things get complicated, it’s human nature for all of us to fixate on the most visible indicator in front of us. Sometimes, to the detriment of the larger goal. The job of leadership is rarely to fixate on the issue of the moment. Rather, it’s to see the big picture, hold the vision for everyone, and navigate change, even in the midst of short-term obstacles. If you’re handling a tough situation right now, are your team and you consumed with a single indicator — or are you first and foremost, flying the plane?

A friend of mine who’s leading a small business sent me a message today. He wrote: I have a very hard time marketing, selling, etc. I need to just grit my teeth and be confident. When I read those words, I immediately messaged him back and suggested that he spend exactly zero time trying to grit his teeth and be more confident. Like him, at almost every stage of my career, I’ve wanted more confidence. The problem is that virtually none of us seem to be able to wish or will our way to confidence. Despite every grand intention I’ve had of being more confident, that alone has never moved the needle. I finally stumbled on a better approach when I became a Dale Carnegie instructor, 15 years ago. Carnegie courses are incredible at helping people develop confidence — and I soon discovered why. Carnegie instructors merely invited people to take the first step in doing hard things. Whether it was speaking in front of others for the first time, or expressing a different opinion, or building better human relations skills, our manta was clear: Help people take a successful, first step. In essence, encouraging bravery. The people who were willing to regularly feel the fear at do it anyway often found their confidence. If you, like my friend, and like me, want more confidence, stop chasing it. Confidence is a lagging indicator. It’s what comes over time. You cannot force confidence today, hard as you and I have tried many times. Almost certainly there’s a first step right now that is scary for you, but you know that if you did regularly, over time, would help you find your confidence. Today, my invitation to you, just like to my friend, is to stop wasting time trying to build your confidence. Instead, simply do one, single act of bravery each day. If you are able to master the discipline of consistent bravery, you’ll eventually find all the confidence you’ll ever need.