For years I’ve sung the virtues of being adaptable and to be fair adaptability does have real value in certain situations. But I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just not enough. Being adaptable is over-rated.

By definition, leadership is bringing change to the world around you rather than simply conforming to what already exists. If I am changed by the prevailing culture around me instead of that environment being changed by me, then in reality I am a more of a follower than a leader. It happens all the time in big organisations where valuable individuals morph slowly into cookie-cutter clones.

When does being adaptable serve a purpose? When it comes to the non-negotiables in life and business adaptability tends to be the higher road. In May I’m relocating to New York City to expand The Leadership Coach to the USA. I’m going to need to adapt to lots of new things like higher rents, US currency, and driving on the right hand side of the road. They’re non-negotiable… unless I want to end up homeless, broke or hospitalised in a car crash.

But what about my Australian accent and spelling, my personal values, leadership strategies or business model for example? If I adapt on these things I become just one of the masses. In fact I might need to register The Cookie-Cutter Coach as my business name instead. I’d be giving up some of the very things that make me distinct and add value to who I am in the marketplace. Standing out is a fundamental aspect of being a leader.

There’s a higher level than adaptability and it’s the space that every leader should occupy most of the time – being culture creators.

Great teams are full of culture creators. They are the lifeblood of true movements. Culture creators replicate themselves in others. They reproduce and amplify the qualities they want to see more of in the world around them. Their influence is infectious and it goes well beyond their job description. You can tell when a culture creator has joined a team because things start to change.

As I asked in a recent post “Are you a thermostat or a thermometer?”. One changes the temperature of the room, the other merely measures it.

So, are you a culture creator?
•    What are the impact of your words, your actions, your beliefs, and your attitudes?
•    What do you reward, what do you tolerate, and what do you punish?
•    What are your priorities, your agendas, and your non-negotiables?

In these ways and more a leader shapes the culture of their team, their business and even their personal world.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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Recently a coaching client asked me, “How can I get my team to be more proactive?”. Good question. If you asked just about any leader if they want their team to use more initiative and be on the front foot, they’d say “Yes”… but ask them how they can build the sort of team where being proactive is second nature and most leaders will fumble for an answer.

I believe it’s not just a matter of hiring people with a track record of taking action. Sure, some people seem to be initiators by nature but I’ve seen people like that shine in one company and wilt in another. Rather than focus here on finding proactive people let’s talk about how to create a proactive culture that shapes the people who work in it.

If you want proactive team members, give them a B.R.E.A.K.

Backing
Ask yourself the question, “If things didn’t turn out well when one of my team members used initiative, would I back them anyway?”. Say they responded to your call for cost cutting by ditching a popular project. Other team members are frustrated, and it was probably the wrong call, but they acted when you asked them to act. What now? This is a moment of truth. If you back them publicly (even if you bring a little correction privately) they’ll probably grow from the experience. If you don’t back them, the whole team learns that what you actually want is for people to not make mistakes.

Reward
I’m amazed how often I see a blatant contradiction between what a leader says he or she wants from the team and what they actually reward in those they lead. If you want proactivity then promote those that step up. Don’t reward playing it safe, perfectionism, procrastination or people-pleasing. What you reward and what you punish are potent reminders to those around you of what you really want. It also teaches people what you’re prepared to settle for.

Example
The expression “hypocrite” comes from Ancient Greece and was used to describe the actors in their plays who wore a mask. Wherever hypocrisy creates a gap between what we want from others and what we expect of ourselves the impact of our personal leadership is diminished. If you want others to seize opportunities and challenges with decisive action, then ask yourself the honest question “Am I myself a shining example of what I want?”. If your answer is anything less than a confident yes, then make no mistake- you have lowered the bar for everyone.

Authority
There’s nothing worse than being handed a task for which you have all the responsibility without the authority. Successful leaders deputise others. It’s not enough to simply give a person the title, the brief or marching orders. Are they empowered to act? To make all necessary decisions and changes? To carry out their mission without your constant feedback? To gain the buy-in of other team members because their mandate and authority is clear?

Knowledge
Lastly teams become proactive when they have clear knowledge and understanding of what you want, when, how and why. One of the surest ways to create indecisiveness is to withhold information. Without certainty about their goals, roles and boundaries most team members start to flounder. The more effort I make equip my people with the right knowledge, the more likely they are to do the right thing, at the right time, in the right way.

So rather than challenge your team again to “be proactive”, maybe it’s time to take another look at the culture you’re creating.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback

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While in the USA recently I watched a documentary on the leadership development programs of the US Marines. I was struck by what a senior officer described as their “leadership philosophy”: Know Yourself, Know Your Job, Know Your People.

Undoubtedly, the Marines are an elite and highly effective military force. Their leadership training must equip graduates to make life and death decisions under the most extreme circumstances. Leadership is a complex responsibility and yet they responded with a stunningly simple and potent philosophy. Know yourself, know your job, know your people.

By contrast I’m deeply concerned that so many business leaders can’t describe their plans without a 50 page document and Powerpoint slides. In complex times, every leader must choose to simplify. So here’s how to lead like a Marine:

Know Yourself
Before you assume this is the “easy one”, why not do a quick inventory of your self awareness?

• What are your top five values?
• What have been your key life-defining events and how have they shaped how you see yourself and your world?
• What are your greatest strengths as a leader?
• What are your greatest weaknesses and opportunities for growth?
• What are your blind spots and what are you doing about them?
• What makes you angry?
• What are you most afraid of?
• How do you change when you’re under pressure?
• How do others see you as a leader?
• … and we haven’t even scratched the surface.

Self awareness is foundational to effective leadership. To know yourself is a challenging mission.

Know Your Job
You cannot truly succeed in any role without understanding your job. Not just what activities are you to be involved in, but what results are you there to deliver? Clarity in understanding your role and objectives is critical, and without it you’re like a sportsperson competing without knowing the rules of the game. Lasting success becomes unachievable.

I wonder what would happen if I was to interview you and ask you to describe to your job in detail? What if I then asked your boss how he or she sees your role? And what about those who report to you? What would I get? Consistency? Conflict? Clarity? Confusion?

If you haven’t got clarity on your job- get it or get going elsewhere, because you can’t succeed without it.

Know Your People
Something I have observed often as I’ve coached individual leaders is that many haven’t made the effort to get to know the people they lead. Some believe a convenient myth about keeping people “at arm’s length”. Some have never applied themselves to understanding people with a different outlook or personality to their own. Some are preoccupied with themselves and lead people as resources rather than human beings (which is why “Human Resources” is a sort of oxymoron to me).

To my shame, I’ve led people for years only to discover later that I hardly knew them at all – that they had a painful divorce, a life’s mission, a serious illness… whatever it was, I knew nothing about it. Not because it was a secret, but because I was content with only a superficial knowledge of my team.

But the Marine Commander’s benchmark for leadership was extraordinary. “I will not let a man become an officer that I would not allow to lead my own son into combat”, he said. That’s a serious benchmark for knowing the people you lead.

Recently a friend said to me, “Criticism is the death gargle of a non-achiever”. It’s a great statement and I’ve found it to be true. Many years of leadership have given me the opportunity to see the long-term impact of different mindsets on a person’s life. The truth is that all too often those whose criticism rings the loudest are the very same people who have contributed nothing but words. Non-achievers.

It’s easy to be a critic. To pick apart what others have created. To appoint ourselves as judge and look down on those around us. To deflect attention from our own inadequacies by focusing on what we believe are the faults of others. Sadly in Australia, where I live, it is so common in our culture that we created a name for it – Tall Poppy Syndrome.

We’ve probably all sat in business meetings where the culture made being creative nearly impossible. In that environment you quickly learn that bringing an idea to the table is seen by others as invitation to shoot you down. Those businesses often wonder why there isn’t more innovation coming from their team, but they don’t recognise that their critical culture is the silent killer of creativity.

I just spent seven weeks traveling with my family. While we were in New York City I saw a subway advertisement that read “Stupid creates. Smart critiques. Be stupid”. To me it was a great reminder that there’s a certain risk of appearing stupid that comes with being creative instead of critical. But it’s the risk every achiever must take.

Does that mean that we should never be critical? Do we hold back on feedback? No, I believe it’s really about the overall balance of our communication. It’s one thing to offer suggestions on how something could be improved, and another thing altogether for negativity to be your default setting. What’s the theme of your communication? Do you tend to notice and commend what is good, or notice and condemn what could be better? When my team know I am for them and I give encouragement whenever possible I can bring criticism from time to time without becoming “the critic”.

I recently heard speaker Steve Penny say, “I would rather fail tremendously than live dismally”.

To me that’s the bottom line. I’d rather being defined by my creativity than by my criticism.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback

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Four frustrating hours on Adelaide roads last week got me thinking about leadership. I must confess that few things in life can test my patience like drivers who sit in the fast lane oblivious to the fact that they are choking up the traffic. I know all the right things to tell myself about how “it’s an opportunity to slow down and develop some patience”. But the truth is I had somewhere I needed to be and three lanes of traffic were crawling well below the speed limit because a few individuals wouldn’t get out of the way.

That’s a picture of many organisations. When those who are in leadership positions don’t lead they choke up the pathway to the future. They’re often unaware of the frustration others feel towards the pace they are setting. But it’s called the fast lane for a reason (or a passing or overtaking lane depending on where you live). What a huge disservice it is to teams when they’re led by people who have forgotten that leadership is not just another lane, it’s a fast lane that should be used purposefully or else vacated so others can lead.

So how do you know if you’re being a Fast Lane Frustration as a leader?

1. Check Your Rear View Mirror
If you look behind you in leadership and people are chomping at the bit to get past you then perhaps you should ask yourself if you’re using the leadership lane effectively. You can tell people to be more patient, blame the next generation for being pushy, or defend your right for it to be “your turn” but there’s no escaping the responsibility that comes with that lane. Do what you want in the slow lane, but if you’re going to choose the fast lane, use it well.

2. Check Your Speed
I’m not saying that every tailgater is evidence that I’m not leading. The truth is some people really do need to slow down and stop being a hazard. But I should be prepared to check my own speed to see if I’ve slowed down without realising it. Perhaps I got into the leadership lane full of vision and ideas but lost some momentum as time went by.

3. Check Your Attitude
Do I see leadership as my right or do I see it as a responsibility? My attitude towards others and towards my position in leadership can create dangerous blind spots. It’s interesting how easily I can judge people as ‘idiots’ for driving slower than me, while labeling others as ‘maniacs’ for driving faster than me. A little self-awareness and a healthy does of humility can serve a leader very well.

4. Check If You’re Getting Ahead
How long since you actually passed somebody? The leadership lane isn’t the place for just keeping pace with the rest of society, it’s designated for progress. Have you got the same peer group as you had five years ago or have you passed some of them and caught up with others that used to be ahead of you on the leadership journey?

As for me, my leadership commitment is clear. I will pursue self-awareness, be aware of the pace I set and check my attitude regularly. And if the day comes when I am not using the leadership lane to make progress anymore, then I will get out of the way so someone else can.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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It’s widely accepted as common sense that increasing transactions is good for your business, but often it just isn’t true.

• Have you ever purchased something at a store and got the distinct impression that you were an interruption to the salesperson?
• Have you received the sort of service that leaves you wondering if that business saw you as a person or a ’sale’?
• Or how about the salesperson who rattles off their script and doesn’t seem to hear a word you say?

The danger for those businesses is that on the profit & loss statement those transactions might have looked good, but the experience left you less likely to choose that business again. So what is the solution? I’m convinced that it’s not just transactions that build your business- it’s interactions. Transactions are ok to a point, but nothing leaves an positive impression on people like great interactions do.

I have three kids and I remember clearly those first moments when each of them were born. I’ll never forget looking into my daughter’s eyes for the very first time. In that moment we had a connection that didn’t require words and that impacted me for life. Sadly though I have found that in the busyness of life, with all of its pressures and to do lists, that it’s easy for those interactions with my kids to deteriorate into mere transactions. Played with the kids? Tick. Got the groceries? Tick. Baths and bedtime? Tick. Transactions.

So if even the most significant relationships in our lives can slip into becoming transactional, how much more is that true of your customers who you connect with for just a few minutes? Sometimes it’s easier to just churn out transactions than to take a moment and connect with people in a genuine way. But interactions are what human beings crave. Sure, we have our busy days when we just want to buy something and go. But at the core of human nature is a desire to matter, to be noticed, to be treated with dignity, to connect.

But how does a leader build the sort of team that deliver on this consistently? Here’s one answer. I spoke at an event for small business owners recently and a very successful franchise owner shared her hiring strategy. It was simple yet profoundly effective. She said “I hire for personality, then train for skill”. While other franchise owners were looking through applicants’ resumes for experience in food service or academic achievements she was looking for one thing – the right personality. “I can train them to operate a register”, she said “but I can’t train them to be nice”. And with that simple formula she was building a winning team.

So perhaps it’s time to do an inventory-

• Where does personality feature on your list of priorities when hiring staff?
• Are you underestimating the number of roles on your team that need to be delivering genuine interactions?
• And what do people experience when they connect with your organization? Transactions or interactions?

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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I’m not a gifted sportsman, in fact even ‘competent’ is a stretch most of the time. But one sport I picked up quickly was snowboarding. There’s something exhilarating about hurtling down the side of a mountain strapped to a snowboard with trees and rocks all around you that heightens the senses and reminds you that life is short (and could be even shorter if you don’t take up a different hobby).

Every instinct in my body led me to believe that leaning back in a defensive posture was the way to stay safe. Yet ironically, keeping your weight on your back foot is in fact about the surest way to fall. My breakthrough came when I got out of my defensive stance and shifted my weight to my front foot. My instincts told me that this was dangerous, that I would fall and hurt myself, that this was risky. The reality was that I fell less often and then relaxed and enjoyed myself. Those defensive instincts had actually caused much of my pain.

Leaders have to learn to favour their front foot. Aware of the dangers all around them and sometimes still hurting from the last fall, the leader must choose to override defensive posturing and get on the offense. Their default setting must become action not inaction. To press forward not lean backward. To push through pain and go again. In other words they lead with “front foot favouritism”.

So why don’t more leaders do it? Well for one thing it often goes against our instincts. Unless you have a natural inclination towards risk and action, it tends to be a difficult choice at first to contravene what seems like self-preservation and get on the front foot. But with time and success you slowly form a new neural pathway in your brain until eventually “front foot = self-preservation”. The other reason that leaders stay on the back foot is that once in a while that hesitation and passivity actually pays off and saves them from making a “wrong” choice. But what they don’t tend to see is the enormous opportunity cost – all the times they missed out on real wins while they played it “safe”.

The conservative perfectionist part of me can worry about making the wrong choice. The problem is that it’s often better in the long run to make more decisions, even if a few of them are wrong, than to make only a few decisions but get nearly all of them right. In the scheme of things the decisive leader actually makes many more right decisions than the conservative leader does. And the momentum from all that forward motion enables them to take a few mistakes in their stride.

So what is your default setting? The front foot or the back foot? Of course there are times when it’s appropriate to pause and assess the situation or to wait a crisis out. But for leaders those moments should be by choice, and not by default.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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It’s been said that the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is just a little bit “extra”. There’s a coffee house that I’m irrationally loyal to (in fact I’m there even as I write this). It’s not as though the coffee or the service or the surroundings are so drastically different to other purveyors of the bean. No, it’s in the little things that they’ve wooed me into this trance. They’ve got the basics mastered but then they dazzle me with a little bit extra.

Classic example: I walked in recently and the barista proudly held up an extension cord. Strange greeting, but it turns out they’d noticed that my favourite spot by the powerpoint was getting popular, so they bought an extension cord so I could work at my laptop from another table. That’s the difference between ordinary and extraordinary. And what did it cost them? What are the economics of extra? It was probably $6 at the supermarket, but the real point is the value that it communicated to me. I matter. Somebody noticed. Some team member cared enough to remember it next time they were picking up supplies.

That’s value. It’s often like that with being extraordinary… the real cost tends to be less about money, and more about the effort and energy it takes to “go the extra mile”. Yet the rewards are enormous. I’ll drive past five other cafes on the way to this place because they won my loyalty with tokens of effort and energy.

I heard a speaker recently who said, “The gap between where you are and where you want to be is largely determined by the price you’re willing to pay”. It’s a bitter pill to swallow because we’d rather blame something external. But what price am I willing to pay to bridge the gap between where I am and where I want to be? When it comes to my fitness it’s more convenient to blame being busy than to accept that in reality I’m not as fit as I want to be simply because I don’t do those little extra things that fit people do.

So what about you and your team? Imagine you were to take an inventory of all the things you do – every product, service, contact point, and piece of value you add. How many of those would be left if you were to take out everything that could be classified as “ordinary” or standard? If “ordinary” was defined as “doing what’s expected”, “what others do too”, “what you’ve always done”, or “the basics”… what would be left on your list? What is it that you offer that is “extra“ordinary?

It’s time to define extraordinary-

• Ask your loyal fans and passionate advocates what they believe your “extra” is.
• Ask your team to automate the ordinary so they can give their personal attention to the extraordinary.
• Ask yourself what you could do today to invest your best effort and energy into multiplying your extraordinary points of difference.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback

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Years ago a friend’s father had a car accident and was given a loan car over a long weekend by the smash repairer. Since the father didn’t need the car, his son’s friends hatched a plan to get away for the weekend… to Uluru (Ayers Rock)… half way across Australia from Sydney. Driving and sleeping in shifts they raced against the clock, knowing the car had to be back in three days. They barely saw Uluru before continuing on to Darwin (and the untimely demise of a Kangaroo who smashed a headlight and dented the panels). Then they braved muddy floodwaters near the Daintree Rainforest in Far North Queensland and completely submerged the car. Miraculously they were able to restart it and they limped the car home. But there was no miracle for its condition – smashed, scratched, flooded and full of mud. Tuesday morning came, they returned what was left of the car, paid a paltry insurance excess and walked away. True story.

That’s what a lack of ownership will do. You’d never treat your own car like that. But there’s something in human nature that treats what belongs to someone else without respect, unless we cultivate a sense of ownership. Do your team treat your organisation like a loan car? You know you’ve got Loan Car Syndrome when the team don’t value the customers, the assets, the products, the reputation or the vision like the boss does. In great teams you get the sense that every person sees himself or herself as an owner.

I’ve got an Apple iPhone, and I worked out pretty quickly that if I needed help with it I should go to Apple, not to the phone company that sold it to me. I won’t name the phone company to protect the not-so-innocent but they represent what is worst about modern businesses. Departments blame each other, repairs are outsourced to someone you can’t speak to, you wait 30 minutes on hold to have someone waffle about a ‘glitch in our system’. But take your phone to Apple and someone with a t-shirt that reads “Genius” will sit down with you and help you… face to face… because they love their product… they’re proud of it… and if something is wrong they’ll replace it on the spot.

So how can leaders develop a culture of ownership in their teams? It goes deeper than attaching people’s pay and bonuses to performance measures, although that can have its place. By contrast I’ve led teams in volunteer organisations where hundreds of people demonstrated deep levels of ownership without receiving a cent for it.

My Top 5 Ownership Strategies-

1. Demonstrate it daily. They’re watching what you do, not what you say. If the standard is low, first check the standard you’re setting yourself.
2. Reward ownership wherever you see it. You get what you focus on so make heroes (and managers) of those who are exemplars of true ownership.
3. Shift your language from “I” and “my” to “we” and “our”. It’s our business and we have a great opportunity here.
4. Allow people to take responsibility and authority. If you micro-manage your team, or you delegate responsibility without authority, don’t be surprised when they lack ownership.
5. Make sure your people can own the successes too. Ownership should include sharing in the plunder, not just the problems.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback

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My first car was a Datsun 240K – complete with rally clips to hold the bonnet down (OK, it never got anywhere near fast enough to require them) and a kill switch that was identical to the air conditioning switch (as I first discovered while doing 110km/hr on the freeway). I remember wondering why the car seemed to pull to the right side of the road if I didn’t concentrate, and what the strange shaking & shuddering at high speeds was all about. The first service revealed I had an alignment problem. Even worse for a part-time waiter, it had worn out my tyres well before their time.

I see those same symptoms in so many teams… Unexplained tendencies in the team to get off course for no apparent reason. Results and relationships getting bumpy as the team moves forward and increases momentum. People burning out and getting tired long before reaching their capacity. For the wise leader these are signs that it’s time for an alignment check.

So could I suggest some aspects of your team or organisation that need regular alignment checks?

1. Vision and Values
One of the businesses I love to work with as a coach and speaker is Gloria Jean’s Coffees. Spend five minutes with them and you’ll discover that their ‘vision, mission and values’ are the yardstick against which they measure every activity and decision. The values have become embedded in the language of the organisation, constantly reshaping their current reality. By contrast far too many organisations are content to have their values be nothing more than some glib clichés on the company website which make no difference to the way we do business every day. So when do you last thoroughly realign your team against the vision and values you proclaim? Could they even articulate them?

2. Priorities and Plans
One of the fastest ways to burn out your team is to have conflicted priorities and plans. How closely does your actual activity this week relate to what you say your priorities and plans are? Where this really becomes clearest is when you start to pick up speed. The truth is that many teams would fall apart if they achieved the growth they’re hoping for. The faster you go the more critical alignment will become. On the runway you can get away with the door of the plane being open, but not at 30,000ft and 900km/hr. Are you ready to get ruthless with your own priorities and plans and get you and your team ready for the next level?

3. Your Customer’s Experience
Alignment affects your customers too. So what is the true experience of those who use your products or services… start to finish? You say you are all about results/ service/ relationships/ value/ quality/ innovation/ social responsibility. But what do people really experience when they interact with you and your team? I’m currently changing merchant facilities even though my current provider works well for me. Clunky forms, strange processes, ambiguous payments – I’m changing because the experience for my clients doesn’t line up with what I say Innovation Coaching is about. What would happen if you analysed the brutal facts about your customer experience and set about realigning everything that’s out of place?

It isn’t glamorous, but working on alignment might just save your team and prepare you for exponential growth.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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