August 6-7, 2015

Gritty organizations are unstoppable. But the archenemy of grit is ease.

Grit: why people with less talent and IQs outperform their peers. Unrelenting, long-term tenacity.

Self-Awareness: Blind spots can be devastating. Statistics show that each person has about 3.4 of them, so no one is

exempt. When we make decisions from a place of wounding, we remain tethered to the past and often we don’t even

know it. The good news is we can grow in our self-awareness. Step one is to talk to your people. Those closest to

you can see what you can’t see. “You cannot grow in isolation.” Growth in self-awareness “demands input from

others.”

Resourcefulness: Companies who grow this skill outcompete by 25%. Hybels defines this as learning agility. You

need those who are quick learners, endlessly curious, enthusiastic experimenters and collaborators.

Resourcefulness can be developed by putting yourself into situations that are abused, broken, dysfunctional and

then staying with it to “figure it out.”

Self-Sacrificing Love: Make your leadership personal. Love melts people and molds people into tightly knit

communities that feel like family. At the root of distrust in organizations is the lack of altruistic self-serving love.

Everyone in an organization takes their cues from the senior leader.

Sense of Meaning: What is at the absolute core of why you do what you do. Move from success to significance.

We succeed at our very best only when we help others succeed.

1. What cause do you serve with level 5 ambition? Level 4 leaders are good at getting people to follow

them. Level 5 leaders are good at getting people to follow a cause. Infuse your enterprise with some

purpose that goes far beyond just making money. Money is essential, but it is not the point of life.

2. Will you settle for being a good leader? Or will you grow to become a great leader? We are shifting

from organizations to networks. You can’t manage a network – people have to follow you by choice.

3. How can you reframe failure as growth? The Dawn Wall Story – I’m not failing, I’m growing. And that is

the point of the climb. It is making me stronger.

4. How can you succeed by helping others to succeed? When we’re facing fear, risk, inadequacies, the

response is – let me help you.

5. Have you found your hedgehog? We can’t predict what kind of cards we’ll get dealt, but if you see life

as a series of hands, and you refuse to leave the game, and you play every hand you get to the best of

your ability, that leads to a compound effect.

6. Will you build your unit – your minibus- into a Pocket of Greatness? Great leadership at the top doesn’t

amount to much without great leadership at the unit level. Focus on your unit. Figure out who should be

in the key seats on the bus. Be rigorous, not ruthless, with your people. Take care of your people.

7. How will you change the lives of others? How will lives be better and different because you were here o

this earth? Life is people. And I hope you take advantage to be useful.

If there’s laughter in the room, people will solve whatever problem is there, no matter how hard it is.

Creativity is the new business currency. It’s about solving problems. Coming up with solutions

is a creative act. To come up with solutions, you need other people. Create a culture where it is

safe to be honest. There is a real aura of danger around failure. Fail fast and get better. Art isn’t

about drawing, it’s about learning to see. Don’t get lost in the details, think about what’s going

to have the greatest impact. Magic happens when there’s a loss of ego in the room.

The real goal of telling stories is to make the world a better place.

All good artists know that you have to operate within constraints. There is a problem with being

unbounded – the constraint forces you to reorder. Sort what you can do. It isn’t until you get to a

time schedule or a budget schedule that you figure out the right things to do. You don’t want to

waste your energy, you have to think about what’s going to have an impact.

We don’t have very many rules. Even the way we make our films, there isn’t a lot of framework

because if you do that, you fall in the path of repeating yourself. Select the team based on

passion. We ask they go outside to do research. You have to go there and get something that

you don’t know. If you bring the thing you don’t know into the film, you take it into a different

level. Even if you [the viewer] don’t know if it’s real, you can sense that it’s real.

Does the good guy finish last or first?

We lead in a connected world. There are three styles of interactions: Takers, Givers, and

Matchers. Takers shirk responsibility and take credit. Givers are philanthropists. Matchers

believe in quid pro quo. Givers often fail in the short run but succeed in the long run.

As leaders, how do we create a culture of givers?

1.The first and most important decision you make as a leader is to hire the right people. The

negative impact of a taker in the culture is double or triple that of bringing in a giver. It’s more

important to keep the takers out. Keep the wrong people off the bus. There’s no

correspondence between agreeableness and disagreeableness and giver and taker.

Disagreeable givers – critical feedback that nobody wants to hear, challenge the status quo –

a bad user interface but a great operating system. Agreeable taker, also known as the faker, is

the deadliest. Just because someone is nice to you does not mean they care about you.

2. Redefine giving: In the end, only kindness matters- adam Rifkin – most connected guy on

LinkedIn If you want to be a successful giver, don’t be mother Teresa – do more 5 minute

favors. A micro loan of your time, skills, or connections. You don’t have to spend 19 hours with

each person. 100 hours / year, sweet spot – 2-11 hours / week.

3. If you want a culture of givers, you need a culture of people who aren’t afraid to ask for help.

If no one asks, you get frustrated givers. Encourage help-seeking. Ask for help. Give people a

chance to ask.

We want more love, intimacy, belonging, joy. The only path to those things is more vulnerability.

We have to show up and let each other be seen by each other.

What do transformational leaders share in common?

1. They do discomfort. I’ve never met a powerful leader who is not ok with discomfort.

2. They have absolute emotional awareness. We are emotional people who sometimes think. You want to see behavior change, you better

speak to their emotions. If you try to speak to their cognition, you will change nothing. We are not thinking beings who sometimes feel.

Curiosity and lines of inquiry are the greatest tools for leaders. I’ve never had a conflict I couldn’t work out by asking “help me

understand.” Curiosity is the currency of the leadership realm.

As leaders, you can choose courage, or you can choose comfort. You cannot have both. The middle space, the dark space between the

beginning but too far gone to turn back. That’s where leadership is born.

All of the stories we make up, our worthiness as people live inside these stories. When we pretend that the hard things aren’t happening,

the story owns us. As a leader, you don’t get to write the ending of a story you don’t own. The stories we keep making up every day are not

true. As a leader, do you have the courage to say “the story I’m making up about this is this.. let’s get clear.”

The bravest among us will always be the most broken hearted because we have the courage to love. Those of us who have the courage to

engage and care will always have disappointment, and those of us who are innovative and creative enough to try new things will always

know failure. The physics are straightforward. If you are brave enough, often enough, you are going to fail. There is nothing more

dangerous to the critics, fear-mongers, than us because we know how to stand back up.

For all the opportunities I’ve been given, it’s my responsibility to give back. My worst day is

better than some people’s best days.

Companies that have more women on their teams have greater gains.

The number one reason women accept a job is not money. It’s meaning and purpose.

Diverse teams don’t make more efficient decisions. They take longer. They make more effective decisions. Diversity is hard. We

have inherent biases. We’re used to seeing men. We like powerful men. We do not like powerful women. We all fall into a gender

bias trap.

Differences, disagreements, and debates are strengths. Start asking a different question.

How do we drive diversity –

1. Recognize disagreement. There is false comfort in agreement.

2. To improve diversity we need to start asking a different question. When we put a team together, we ask who is the best person

for the job? The best person is always someone like me. The question should be, do we have the strongest team?

3. Really live our values. Financial advisor – my wife is dying – can you help – sent her to Sinai, she died. We value our people –

women are watching, millennials are watching – the other story: reorged a guy and made him read his speech to his team

about why it’s good he’s fired, on vacation, with his daughter… what do you think people said about the company?

4. Watch the microlessons –leadership is the result of lessons. Thousands of points of feedback. We give more feedback to

people like us. We give less feedback to women because we’re scared they’re going to cry. Story: President handing out

diplomas shakes girl graduates hands, but pats the men on the back. Can you imagine all the back pats you don’t get day after

day.

Don’t live for your resume. Live for your eulogy.

Don’t underestimate the power of a dumb idea. You never know when a dumb idea will bring

transformation.

The lie of leadership: give 115%! If we leave everything on the field, we’ve got nothing to lead with

when we get home.

One of the key things we can do as leaders is to pack what we have and get out of the way.

Stop having extra meetings – just get out of the way.

What would it mean if you led in a way where you have something left? We’re not limited to

scarcity. We are called to surrender.

Being on “empty” is not a sign of a good work ethic.

I realized the maître’d was the most important person in the room. He didn’t come to work to work, he came

to work to be excellent in his profession, in service delivery, in caring for the people around him.

To have a great business:

1. Keep the customer. Create loyal customers.

There are three types of customers.

• Terrorists/dissatisfied customers.

• Satisfied customers. Neutral. If the competitor offers a better deal, that’s what they work with.

• Then there are YOUR customers. Loyal customers. A great organization fights for loyal customers.

2. Create new customers

3. Get as much money from your customers that you can, without losing them

4. work on efficiencies – spend less than your competitors

The most important thing is keeping that customer. What is customer loyalty? It means they trust you. You have developed trust – that’s how they become loyal. How do you develop that

trust? By giving your customer what they want.

The consumer wants 3 things –

you want the product to be defect free – that’s your subconscious expectation.

You want timeliness.

You want the people who give it to you to be nice to you and that’s called service.

If they’re nice to you, you’ll forgive the defect or the timeliness.

Service starts the instant you make contact. Essentially important is the first 10 seconds. Service starts with a great greeting – welcome, I’m here for you. Make your eyes say I care, I’m

delighted you’re here. The second part is caring for their needs. The 3rd part is you say farewell.

Welcome, comply, farewell. That’s what the guests want. If in addition I adjust caringly to the individual, call them by name, now I’m moving the customer very fast from satisfaction to

loyalty.

Why do we go to work? It’s to create. Excellence should be part of our creation. Leading people to excellence – serving them by leading them to excellence, by demanding excellence, by

creating process that leads to excellence. You were the dummy that hired them.. what is your process?

You are partially defined by the work you are doing and the company you are connected to.

Selecting, orientation, teaching, sustaining.

We have to create excellence and caring. We don’t hire people, we select people. And caring is part of the profile. That’s the first process we do.

We orient. CEO stands in front and says welcome. The president, the bigshot, comes and says welcome. I’m very important, but so are you. Nobody can claim superiority

over another human being. If they’re dishwashers, they are important human beings. As service leaders, we show that. If you don’t come to work, it’s a disaster. If the

ceo doesn’t come to work, nobody will know. We orient them to our heart, our future, and then we tell them how they benefit. We are leaders. We have forfeited the right

to make excuses. You dare to accomplish, you dare to lead. But where are you leading the people to? Is the destination good for all concerned? For the business,

customers, employees, societies? If you can so no in one case, don’t do it.

We hire people to fulfill certain functions. Well, the chair on which you are sitting fulfills a function. You should hire people to help you fulfill a dream! Be part of the

purpose. I set expectations, I measure it, and I don’t compromise my expectations. Orientation for 3 days – I explain what my job is too. Help them to accomplish the

vision of the organization.

24 points in orientation – if these happen, we will have a great hotel. Create value and results for our owners. Obviously, that’s how you run a business. How? By creating

experience to fulfill customers expectations. Deliver reliable, genuinely caring, and timely service superior to the competition. I expect superior. And I measure it. If you

don’t deliver it, I have to make your life miserable. With respected and empowered employees who work in an environment of belonging and purpose. We teach them

the process and the function.

If it’s important we have to repeat it. Every day. We all know what coca cola is – then why do they advertise? Yesterday was number 11 – if you get a complaint, you own

it. If the busboy gets the complaint – he can authorize up to $2000 – he says forgive me, let me buy your breakfast this morning. And I will make sure your tv is fixed.

We are a team speech – so what, what is a team? Come to work to be part of a purpose. You’re partially defined by the work you are doing and by the reputation of the

company you work for.

Two human needs: the need to learn and grow,

and the need to be accepted or respected or loved the way we are now.

We swim in an ocean of feedback.

Feedback is all of the information we have to learn about ourselves and the impact we have on others.

Feedback is my relationship with the world, and the world’s relationship with me.

Feedback is on the leader’s struggle list 100% of the time. People all over the world struggle with feedback conversations. These are the

conversations that don’t just drive individual performance, these influence organizational development, that enable leaders to get the best out of the

people, and people to get the best out of their leaders.

For the first 10 years we taught people how to give feedback. There’s a lot you can learn to be more skillful and more clear, but it wasn’t solving the

problem. Then it occurred to us, in any exchange between the giver and the receiver, it’s the receiver who will decide what gets let in, what they’re

going to hear and actually change.

Receiving feedback is a skill we can all get better at. To get value out of learning, even out of feedback that is unfair, off base, poorly delivered.

Part of the problem is that feedback sits at the junction of 2 human needs: the need to learn and grow. This bumps in to another human need – the

need to be accepted or respected or loved the way we are now. The nature of feedback says I am not enough, or my friends / coworkers would love

some upgrades.

Some of the most important things we learn come from pain – we need to understand the pain to get to the learning faster.

Appreciation keeps us motivated. Coaching helps us get better. Evaluation lets us know where we stand.

3 different kinds of feedback with very different purposes.

• Evaluation: rates or ranks you against a set of criteria or against your peers. It tells you how you’re doing, where you stand,

etc. I want to know where I stand so I know what to expect.

• Coaching: anything that helps you get better at something, something that grows your skill. Mentoring, advice, engine for

learning.

• Appreciation: appreciation says I see you, I get you, you matter around here.

As you become more senior, typically you get fewer and fewer people willing to take the risk of giving you feedback.

An organization needs all three things – appreciation usually drops out.

50% of workers leave their job because they’re not feeling appreciated.

Evaluation and coaching – the grade at the end of the paper first, not paying attention to the notes in the margins.

Getting better at receiving feedback doesn’t mean you have to accept the feedback.

We decide too fast. We are incredibly good at wrong-spotting. If it’s wrong, I can set it aside. If it’s right, I have to keep worrying

about it. You will always be able to find something wrong with the feedback you get. It might even be 90% wrong, but the 10%

may be what you need to learn and grow.

Evaluation is the most emotionally loud feedback. Your growth will come in your relationship with others.

Three kinds of trigger reactions:

• Truth triggers

• Relationship triggers, who is giving you the feedback? I will often have a bigger reaction to the who, not the what. It’s why your best friend can tell you

things no one else can. Story about husband – I’ve only been telling you this for 10 years!

• Identity triggers – story we tell about who we are and it’s our wiring.

How people react to feedback differs by 3000%

• Not doing something – not deciding whether feedback is right or wrong immediately. But work to understand what the giver means. Feedback usually

arrives with vagueness – vague feedback labels: more visionary, try a different approach, you need a sense of urgency, step it up, change your sermons,

you’re a mix of charlie’s angels and Martha stewart. Work hard on figuring out what they’re trying to tell you.

• Work not just to see what they mean, but to see yourself accurately. We all have blind spots. Other people have information about you that is invisible to you.

Facial expression, body language, tone of voice, patterns of behavior, impact on others.

• Enlist a friend to help: supportive mirror. This is what you look like on your best day. There’s a second kind of mirror – what’s wrong with the feedback? We

need an honest mirror. What’s right about this feedback? Is there anything I should work on?

When leaders become better receivers – you’ll actually start getting some good feedback. If you don’t know what you need to work on, everyone else does.

Do not ask “got any feedback for me?” this puts people on the spot – they’re thinking ‘how honest am I supposed to be?’

“one thing” – valuable, helpful feedback. Pick a person who matters in your life. Ask them two questions.

1. What’s one thing you particularly appreciate? 2. What’s one thing you see me doing – or failing to do – that you think I should change?

2. Don’t say is there anything? Assume there’s ONE thing.

Even on the darkest days and in the biggest challenges, keep showing up.

Leaders tend to live on the edge and just a little push can send you over the edge sometimes.

During a crisis, a leader still has to lead the organization while dealing with the pain in their own

soul.

In leadership, it’s good to take your time and invest in people. You can only ever build on people

who want to be with you.

Longevity is perhaps the greatest strength anyone can have as a leader.

Leaders do live a different life – they see things others don’t, the toughest decisions get put on

their desks, the expectations are high. We need an antitode – leadership can lead to fear.

Following you should hold the promise of life change for those who follow you.

You will not find the definition of success for your organization until you help the people I sent to you to succeed.

Take the attention off yourself, put the focus on people, and ask – what are their needs? What are their problems? What are their issues?

When we as leaders don’t know why our business isn’t growing, it’s sometimes because of something we’re not examining – it’s self

centeredness.

Hofsteade – power research – there’s a downside to power distance- it leaves followers with low self esteem and afraid to challenge a leader’s

views. When you have hierarchical distance, as a leader, you are so powerful, and the people around you walk on egg shells, and they hardly

will give negative feedback to their leaders. They will agree with everything even though they know it is wrong. They seldom initiate anything

– they wait for permission – approval seeking culture. Leads to leaders being less accountable.

Whatever challenges we have, wherever we are, we need to realize there are opportunities to empower people.

For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table?....

What we know gets in the way of what we don’t know.

We can be so busy that we don’t see the signs of stagnation.

It’s not what we know, it’s how fast we learn that matters.

If you want your team to stay relevant, lead your team into the unknown.

Sometimes it’s when we know the least that we are the most curious and energized about bringing our best work to the table.

I don’t want a job I’m qualitied for – there’d be nothing to learn.

With experience comes some serious upside – you get knowledge, etc. dentist, surgeon. Once we have knowledge we tend to make assumptions,

and we can make bad assumptions.

Inexperience comes with downsides – we’re bound to make some mistakes. When we are new to something we are on a steep learning curve – we

feel inadequate and unproven. We begin backpacker mode – we are unencumbered by assumptions and baggage. We operate in hunter gatherer

mode. Seeking out ideas and expertise from others.

When challenge level goes up, satisfaction goes up too.

When challenge level is low, satisfaction is low.

Rubber band example – I move forward, figuring it out, doing the hard thing. Herein lies the rookie zone – it’s powerful because we don’t like, we are

so motivated to reduce the tension. How do you keep your team from getting comfortable? Or from contracting a deadly case of hubris.

In a growing company, you’re under-qualified every day.

Signs you’re on a plateau – things are running smoothly. You already have the answers. You get positive feedback. Maybe you’re surrounded in

positive feedback. When we are at the top of our game, it’s when we’re in danger of getting stuck on a plateau. Maybe you’ve become the mentor

and you’re developing the next generation of leaders. What happens when you are mentoring but you are no longer being mentored? Might we be

preparing people for a work world that doesn’t exist. What if you’re busy, but you’re bored? We need something to be easy. It’s demoralizing, soul-

sucking, and it’s contagious. Comfort is a stealthy thing, it enters our house as a guest, becomes the host, then our master.

Can we lead as the perpetual rookie? Master the art of the pivot. Between leader and learner. Throw away your notes. Ask the questions. Shift from

the place of knowing and operate from a place of inquiry. Admit what you don’t know. In a growing company, you’re underqualified every day. These

guys don’t know what they’re doing either. If people are looking up to you, maybe in an act of courage or vulnerability you admit that you don’t

know.

Let someone else lead. I finally felt qualified and it didn’t feel good. Maybe you let someone else be in charge for a day, for a project, or you let

someone junior mentor you.

You might need to jolt yourself by disqualifying yourself. Put yourself at the bottom of a learning curve. When we linger too long on a plateau, a little

part of us starts to die. When we step out of our comfort zone, we feel divine.

This rookie zone and awkward place, we find our best thinking, and we find our best joy.

Girl going down the 40 ft ski jump – 60 seems like nothing now!

If you want your team to stay relevant, lead your team into the unknown. Set the stretch. As you grow as a leader, grow as a learner. All glory comes in

learning to begin again.

As your organization grows, your mindset has to change.

If you want to increase what you do and who you influence, you must increase your capacity.

If you start with 20 and go to 80, that is a significantly different organization. If you don’t change the way you think, you will become the lid to your organization. Anytime my

organization starts to settle or struggle, I assume my mindset needs to change, that I am the lid. I need to expand.

Building your confidence – someone somewhere is speaking the language of the lid. Your words give you away. There are not enough hours in the day. – change your self-talk.

The pathway to your greatest potential is straight through your greatest fear. Take a step forward into your fear into your faith. You are not who others say you are.

Expand your connections – your relationships – if you show me who you listen to, I will show you who you are becoming. If you show me who you’re being influenced by, I will

show you who you are becoming. You may be one relationship away from changing the course of your destiny. Don’t try to copy what they do, learn how they think. The gift of

disorientation – I have never thought this way before. You need someone who will change the way you think.

Improve your competence. Decide specifically some area in which you need to improve. There is something you do that is hindering your effectiveness. Maybe it’s

communication, tone, style. Listening. If we’re not listening more than we’re talking, our organizations are in trouble. Delegating. Giving feedback. Receiving feedback. Work

ethic – what we do demands our very best. Hiring and recruiting. You make a desperate hire because you’re satisfied with the person who’s available instead of waiting for the

right talent to fill the role. Firing. Set their future free. Our ability to cast vision. How we run meetings. Initiating rather than respond.

Strengthen your character. Talent can get you to the top, but only character can keep you at the top. If your character is not strengthening, your future potential is weakening.

We need to check our lives for leaks. Is our marriage shaky even though our business is thriving? Are we lacking in personal passion for god and time in his word and intimacy in

prayer. Are we telling white lies? Putting ourselves before others. Portraying something on social media that we are not. You are only as strong as you are honest.

Increase your commitment. This is the grit part. There’s a big difference between I kind of want this and nothing will stop me from doing this. Your brain does not understand

what your God is capable of doing through you. Step into that commitment. How bad you want something determines what you will do in order to get it.