Your Move

Several years ago, a friend suggested I take Gallup’s Strength Finder test. I discovered my strengths; according to the author, but it didn’t help me in any material way. I’ve also noted after taking most others tests that these generally have a natural bias toward how the taker thinks he or she needs to become to gain acceptance within their group.

Culture has strong norms and tries to conform us to its desires. Unless we are clear about who we are, what gift we bring to our work, and authentically claim the ground we are meant to stand on, chances are that some degree of uncertainty will mitigate our leadership contribution. Today I use a very different process to help leaders get clear on who they are.

In my line of work, being clear on who I am and where I stand is essential. I hope you might say that I am different and to some I may seem polarizing. Leaders are different; leading often means departing from the normal path and can be polarizing.

My Australian friends call this the “tall poppy syndrome.” It describes a social phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticized by their peers because their talents or achievements distinguish them from others.

In athletic events, “breaking out of the pack” is a term used for the person who dares to take the lead. Taking the lead with your gifts is risky and the pack usually doesn’t support this initial move.

Being who you are may mean that you need to change where you are or that you need to risk breaking out of the pack. I’ve made these moves and neither is easy, but life is too short not to try.

I know a gifted CEO facing this awkward position now. He built a company and successfully repaid his investors but now he needs to reclaim the shares he sold to them because they are unwilling to pay him the salary he deserves. They have become greedy. Will he break out of the pack and get this done?

Over the years, I’ve helped a gifted young executive develop to the point that he now runs a complex business. This allows the owners to be relatively inactive, but they haven’t offered him shares. Will he break out of the pack to get this done or move to another ball game?

I recently completed a 360 review for a gifted young woman who leads several managers and her evaluation was exceptional. Will her boss see her as a gem and help her become all that is possible or will insecurity place an unnecessary lid on her development?

Each person has a gift to offer the world but most never fully develop it, so his or her life never serves its intended purpose, and we all lose when this happens. Would you like to stand on firmer ground? I’d love to know your thoughts.  Jim@peer-place.com

Jim

What Matters

Just the other day, I helped a senior management team evaluate the effectiveness of their published core values and I noticed something remarkable – the team was void of emotion.

A few years back, through consensus, this team involved employees and leaders and they designed core values for their company. Did these core values matter?

When something matters, it is not optional. By “designing” their core values these leaders were implying the values were aspirational and therefore living them was optional. Not one of these team members could describe more than two of the values. So were these truly core values?

The true test is asking, “Does it matter?”

The word conviction means “a firmly held belief or opinion” and this is the test. Core values are obvious because you see people living them. When something matters, it is visceral – it comes with strong emotion and conviction. In other words, when something is worth fighting for we clearly see what matters to someone. Conversely, when someone is absent of emotion there is a problem, unless nothing matters.

As leaders, each of us hopes that we matter but deep down we sometimes wonder. We often avoid the risk of finding out and we disguise our real values. This causes us to publish core values that are acceptable but powerless, instead of living the ones that are visceral and personal. Fair warning – hiding becomes contagious.

The real action is living core values.

I asked each member of this team to recall a recent time when they saw someone doing something that made them angry or made them want to celebrate and then each person shared their specific story with the team. Within ninety minutes, they discovered a small group of values that were visceral and core.

As I supported them in their conversation, they galvanized around simple important values that created emotion and life. I could see them reconnecting with “what mattered.” Freedom starts with the risk of being authentic. If you find yourself compromising your core values for being accepted, run!

Core values also need to be clear. Describing the specific behaviors that each value demands helps everyone understand. Explaining the behaviors makes it impossible to clearly recognize “A” players, encourage “B” players, and help “C” players find other opportunities.

Competency and behavior must be required.

Consider the last person you fired. Did you let them go because they were incompetent or because of their behavior? Most would answer behavior, which is another way of saying that the person consistently breached your core values.

Leading will always feel like herding cats until you make your core values and behaviors clear. Real core values are never optional, and once operationalize them you will experience freedom!

What matters to you determines who follows you and how far. Merely posting a list of values on a wall contributes to creative disintegration. I’ll say more about that in my next post.

As always, I’d like to know your thoughts.  Jim@peer-place.com

Jim

Brutal Facts

The capacity to openly receive and process brutal facts is a trait that most leaders of the best companies demonstrate. Facing these facts isn’t easy. How these leaders cultivate this capacity is valuable and fascinating.

Steve owned 50% of a $40+m company and when I first met him, I observed that he was in love with the excitement of competing to win. The excitement of winning feels powerful. It can be addictive and when the competitive thrill drives us, its ugly cousin tags along – a strong inner resistance to brutal facts.

Winning means different things to each of us. For some, it is the absence of failure and for others it’s when they establish a place of status or prestige such as being the owner or CEO. For one CEO I know, winning is the experience of hanging out with an exclusive team of people, while another CEO feels he is winning when he’s in control.

Being a leader creates an opportunity to confront the brutal facts about ourselves but unfortunately, many owners and CEOs unknowingly keep this doorway locked. For many, walking through this door can feel like losing status, losing control, or allowing others to see a chink in our amour. The need to win, combined with the disguised fear of facing reality, is one reason why it’s so difficult to receive the brutal facts. Most of us simply don’t know how to process this information.

Let’s face it; many people want to share the brutal facts as they see them. In my work with senior management teams, CEOs, and owners, cultivating the capacity to receive and accurately process these facts is one part of a multi-year journey. After spending thousands of hours in 1:1 sessions and advisory board meetings, I’m sure of one thing. There is nothing standing in the way of growth and profitability other than ourselves and by simply accepting the facts, this first doorway to freedom opens to us.

Moving into a new arrangement requires receiving from others who bring wisdom and compassion.

As I helped Steve become aware of this obstacle, I watched him go through the same pattern as the others I have helped. Three steps forward and two steps back. We all want change to happen quickly but it never does and without successfully completing this one rite of passage, scaling your company is nearly impossible.

Last August Becky and I completed building our home and the last step to moving in was completing the landscaping. Alan, our landscaping contractor, shared that the first year the new plants would sleep, the second year they would creep, and the third year they would leap.

This natural process also applies to leadership development. In the first year of this journey, a leader marinates with peers on the same journey, in the second year a leader cautiously creeps forward and in the third year, they leap. There is no way to speed up this cycle but there are plenty of ways to prevent it from happening. Are you ready for this second door of freedom to open wide? I’d love to know your thoughts. Jim@peer-place.com

PS – Stay tuned for the next doorway in my next post.

Jim

The Owner’s Burden: First Doorway to Freedom

Terri responded to the ideas in my last post and her words opened a door for me. She invited me to consider reframing the word burden.

A distance runner does not grow in strength and endurance without a challenging terrain. A pianist will not grow in stamina and skill without a challenging score; so neither does the business owner grow in freedom, wisdom, and compassion without experiencing these trials. However, when a person endures these same trials in isolation a heavy burden can build.

Rick Davis, a member of the Vistage CEO advisory board I chair, asked me to meet with his friend Tim, a company owner. Tim started his company years ago and recently revenue and profits have been flat. Some owners might be satisfied, but Tim wants his company to grow.

Tim graciously invited me into a conversation that opened a door of understanding for me. As we visited, he offered several thoughts for changing the patterns in his business and I sensed that Tim had been churning these thoughts repeatedly for months or years. Clearly, something was missing for Tim.

M.C. Richards said, “Symptoms of growth may look like breakdown or derangement; the more we are allowed by the love of others and by self-understanding, to live through our derangement into a new arrangement, the luckier we are. It is unfortunate when our anxiety, over what looks like personal confusion or dereliction, blinds us to the forces of liberation at work.”

Tim is an intelligent business owner so what is the hindrance that causes his company to remain stuck in these unfruitful patterns. According to M.C. Richards, we need the love and support of several others, who have the wisdom and compassion to help us live through our derangement into the new arrangement. But are we are open to receiving this gift?

Rick once fed his over active mind with many new tips, techniques, and ideas. However, once he became an advisory board member, his life and business migrated into a “new arrangement.” Now he would say his life is more grounded and his company’s revenue and profits show consistent growth.

Moving into a new arrangement requires receiving from others who bring wisdom and compassion.

Ordeals serve one very grand purpose: they pry loose the ego’s grip on whatever it’s holding onto, and it holds on to whatever it can. If we set our minds on becoming free, not just feeling secure or winning arguments, then the Velcro mesh of our lives must be pried loose from the ego’s many tiny hooks. Ego only knows how to take and it clings with tenacity.

Needing to be in control allows the ego to dominate and this is the trap door into suffering of all kinds. The antidote is learning to receive from others. In my experience, this is one doorway where every kind of ordeal and trial can lead to joy. Tim wants a new arrangement with his business, but first he needs to share his derangement and marinate in the wisdom and compassion of others!

Stay tuned for another doorway to freedom.  Jim

Jim@peer-place.com

The Owner’s Burden

Sometimes I am amazed how long it takes me to wake up to what’s important, but I’m awake to this now. My advisory board members are teaching me that owners of privately held companies all have one thing in common – deep down, beyond words or theory; they want more freedom.

Freedom manifests itself in many ways. A smoking addiction held me in bondage, but for more than 30 years, I’ve been smoke free. I also struggled with a painful foot problem, but now it’s gone and I move freely again. While these examples represent the relationship between a burden and freedom, they don’t come close to describing the business owner’s riddle.

While a riddle seems puzzling or confusing it quietly draws us toward solving it. Conversely, a dilemma is a problem offering two possibilities, neither of which is practically acceptable and that’s why we tolerate it year after year.

Traditionally, we describe this situation as “being on the horns of a dilemma,” neither horn being comfortable. A more colorful phrase is, “finding yourself impaled upon the horns of a dilemma,” referring to the sharp points of a bull’s horns, equally uncomfortable (and dangerous). One horn of this dilemma is the idea that building a successful company should automatically produce freedom. On the other horn, we believe that increasing accountability or selling the business is the only way to enjoy the freedom we crave.

Desiring more freedom while carrying the burden of being a responsible business owner can create a dilemma that quietly attaches itself and exacts a great cost; over time, it can slowly diminish the owner’s creativity and joy. You would think that the wealth and discretion that comes with owning a company would epitomize freedom, but for many the burden remains ponderous.

Business owners are a courageous lot because they willingly occupy the space between hope and fatigue.

The smart energized CEO’s, owners, and executives that sit on the boards I chair are hungry for deeper freedom. Their courage leads them to explore ways they can achieve it together and during a recent meeting, they made progress.

For most owners, a hunger remains buried in the recesses of their hearts where it stays until something special occurs. It’s easier to react to this desire by pushing it down then to unleash what might be uncontrollable. When this reaction becomes habit, we fool ourselves into treating our desire like a dilemma, when in fact it’s a riddle inviting us on a courageous adventure.

Starting now, I’m asking for help. I want to know your thoughts and reactions around my ideas in this post, regardless of what they are. In my next few posts, I’ll try to develop a description of three doorways that will lead owners into a space designed to transform this burden into a gift. If you are a business owner, I’m asking you to respond to me and forward this post to other owners that would like to interact on this topic. In other words, let’s find a way to help each other!

This concept is exciting and I can’t wait to develop it with you! Jim@peer-place.com

Jim

The Gap

“Once I get there, I’ll be able to enjoy more balance in my life.” Spoken by a new member of an advisory board I chair, these same words are present in the hearts and minds of many business leaders.

The “gap” controlled much of my life and like many of you, I couldn’t see it and didn’t have anyone to help me. Let’s face it; the “gap” drives us more than we think.

So what is the definition of “there”? When I asked this new board member to describe this elusive place he couldn’t, but he did say, “I will know it when I get there,” and he believed this.

This reminds me of a time I was with a religious minded person who was adamant that I should believe what he believed. When I asked why, he answered with something he had read. His intense need for me to embrace his belief left no room to explore his personal experience. In other words, he was present to his ideas, but not to me or to himself and a relationship was impossible.

Beliefs are essential waypoints and milestones that evolve and mark our life journey, yet many of us treat them like base camps. We attach our identity to them and are tempted to stay within the comfort zone that our limited beliefs provide.

This temptation is powerful. I experience temptation’s power when I first pick up that piece of chocolate fudge and then it owns me, for a while. Business leaders also experience temptations but they are not so easy to spot as chocolate fudge.

Their temptation is to retreat to the base camp when things feel threatened. Their base camp is that familiar ground of their own ideas, plans, dreams, and the patterns that instinctively channel energy into action when beliefs feel threatened.

The proverbial “there” that everyone is seeking is not a dollar amount, a revenue number, a market share percent, number of employees, personal income or any common American benchmark. Simply put, it is a state of inner freedom.

When we have inner freedom work becomes play, creativity flourishes and life seems abundant. We become present in our daily life, where reality calls us to grow and expand. Hundreds of invitations to let go and experience inner freedom are available and at first, they come as a whisper. By responding just a little, our heart, mind, and soul start to wake up from our deep patterns of incarceration.

What base camp are you invited to leave this year? Are you ready to enter into a new leadership threshold? I’d love to know your thought.  Jim@peer-place.com and Jim@LinkedIn.com

Jim

Turning Work Into Play

Leading an enterprise is certainly a unique domain. In the millennium-old currents of thought, effort and tradition, there are certain things that are necessary to know in order to be fruitful.

Knowing something means the knowledge is actively present inside of us, without thought or effort. When this happens, we are much more capable of making discoveries, engendering fresh ideas, and conceiving new subjects, without effort. When this happens, we become fertile in our creative pursuits and work actually feels like play.

Recently, I was chairing an advisory board for a company management team and a debate broke out about what differentiates “A,” “B,” and “C” players. As I listened to their lively contest, a fresh idea emerged without effort, so I offered it to them and said, “An A player is “always,” a B player is “usually,” and a C player is “sometimes.” This new idea aligned everyone instantly.

Facilitating an advisory board can be a bit like being a tightrope walker, initially. Have you ever watched a tightrope walker? She seems completely concentrated on her task because her life is at stake and only perfect concentration keeps her from falling. Do you think that she calculates and plans each step on the rope?

If she did that, she would fall immediately. Instead, she must eliminate all activity of the intellect and the imagination in order to avoid falling. The over functioning desire of the intellect must give way to active relaxation where work becomes play. All of her knowledge and training is contained in her entire being so when she is actively relaxed, everything she knows is available to her when she needs it and without effort.

Unfortunately, the CEO’s tightrope becomes longer and higher as the number of employees increases. The way you lead 10 -25 employees is much different then 50, 100, 500 or 1,000. Each new level requires a major shift as a leader that most can’t make successfully.

Did you know that real learning, the kind that becomes actively present in our entire being, which manifests without effort, requires concentration, repetition, and a place to relax? That’s exactly what the monthly advisory board meeting provides.

Concentration is the act of fixing maximum attention on a minimum amount of space – ultimately, this is how we integrate learning into our being. In the business of chairing advisory boards, I start this process by inviting members to work on their business instead of in their businesses for one concentrated day every month.

The business of “doing” is intoxicating but authentic learning produces the greatest yield. Investing one concentrated day a month is hard, but it is good. As always, I’d love to know your thoughts.  Jim@peer-place.com  or  Jim@LinkedIn.com

Jim

A Whisper

When an owner, CEO, or executive becomes a member of an advisory board that I chair, they really don’t know what to expect. Their intellect is capable of constructing and deconstructing what they already know, but this new experience is unknown. Their instinct is initially blinded by unfamiliar feelings and emotions and their ego, which needs to contribute to feel secure, cannot immediately find its place.

The new member valiantly resists these limited faculties with the hope that something better will materialize, and it always does. Eventually, they learn to get comfortable being uncomfortable, which is when deep learning begins. I was once a new member too.

Hope is the catalyst for all of this. After all, it is hope that moved the new member into this foreign setting and its hope that keeps them, while something new quietly forms within.

The problem: hope speaks with a whisper.

A successful executive I know has managed to leverage a set of unique circumstances into a sizable venture over a relatively short period. The relationship between the venture and the executive is troublesome, as the venture seems to be the master and the executive the slave.

In another scenario, Jason, the founder, owner, and CEO of a thriving southern California company, knew that he wanted to see himself more clearly. He responded to a whisper when he asked me to complete a 360 review and this led to him asking me to connect him with a California Advisory Board. He acted on another whisper, when he became a new member.

Jason sent me this message about my blog post last week, “Great article! Now that I have been in a Vistage board for a while, I can vouch for what you are saying! It is the single best investment I make in my career and myself each month. Thanks for connecting me.”

Inside each executive, owner and CEO is hope for something better. It starts as a whisper, but for many that’s a problem. The first executive, who is an amazing person with unbelievable talent and character, can’t act on the whisper yet. The business venture shouts with more fires to put out, more people to make happy, more transactions to execute and more guilt to quell. The second CEO is enjoying the promise hope brings as he was able to act on the whisper.

Many of us deal with these competing demands that shout loudly every day, but the best things always come through whispers. So why do some act on the whisper while others don’t? I can’t claim to know the answer, but as you might imagine, I do have an opinion.

To a busy person, speed and busyness eventually construct a persona that falsely claims a portion of their identity. I was talking to an executive yesterday who told me, “I learned that my wife sees me as very busy, so she hesitates to ask me for help.” There is a whisper in this message!

Slowing down can seem like a terrible price to pay, but if hope is the agent of change that starts with a whisper, then what option do you have?

Investing one day a month with an advisory board is not easy, but it’s good. What message of hope is whispering to you? I’d love to know your thoughts. Jim@peer-place.com or Jim@LinkedIn.com

Jim

What Moves You Forward?

I find it stimulating to pause and reflect on how I got where I am today. Like you, my career started at a much different place, but I’m certain I’ve been moving in this direction for a very long time.

I’ve been growing and chairing advisory boards for CEOs, executives, owners and management teams for 13 years. I enjoy my work tremendously, but what I have today is much better than what I imagined at the beginning. So what moved me to this place?

Every virtuous vocation, company, institution and all of the great world religions and philosophies originate with inspiration.

During a recent advisory board conversation, an executive said to his CEO/owner, “We’d like less inspiration from you and more execution.” Like many, this CEO is expressive, creative and often verbalizes his ideas in an inspirational style. Ideas that wrap themselves up in inspired style make it harder for others to say no, and that can be catastrophic.

On the other hand, all virtuous initiatives flow from authentic inspiration.

Wherever you find authentic inspiration, you will experience an active flow. Flow is the state of simultaneous collaboration between two or more people that are open to a third presence. Before you write me off as “woo woo”, consider this – the last time you experienced authentic inspiration, the kind that moved you to virtuous action, what was the source? What setting were you in? Most likely, you first noticed an energy surge inside you when the words of another ignited a flame of inspiration.

Even more likely, a third presence, in your being, generated something that moved you toward thinking about, “What could be?” The thought or idea followed the feeling. As the word inspiration declares, it is a spiritual experience. The Latin root of the word is inspirare = to breathe in.

To breathe in deeply requires expanded openness especially while swimming in a current of strong feelings. Humility is the posture we take that sponsors openness. In other words, humility helps me chew on new thoughts that are not mine, without reacting.

Because humility was present, this CEO was open to the executive’s message and he was inspired. He sensed that “in that moment” the executive’s thought would lead him to a greater place, so he opened deeply, chewed on it, and was moved.

In recent months, I’ve watched this CEO embrace execution and made it his central role, and now the temptation of bright shiny new ideas holds less sway. His capacity to lead is growing rapidly, way beyond what charisma and style can offer. I would describe his change as transformational and the results he is getting are monumental.

Imagine if the executive who was inspired to share, had instead encountered a hurried lack of openness or even a sense of being dismissed, which so often is the case. Would the outcome be different?

Inspiration is what moves us along our path and we all need it on a regular basis. Living life without inspiration feels mechanical.

No product or technique can produce inspiration. Openness and vulnerability are the birthplace of creativity and connection, and connecting with the right people in the right environment produces inspiration. This CEO’s Vistage advisory board has created that space for him, and without it, he would be way behind where he is today. Would an advisory board help you or your senior team?

I’d love to know your thoughts. Jim@peer-place.com or Jim@LinkedIn.com

Climbing Out of the Fog

As Puget Sound hides in a dense layer of fog for several consecutive days, I’m reminded of how the members of the advisory boards I chair unknowingly make decisions in a fog, even when they don’t need to.

My friend John, who lives around the corner, pointed out to me that the ferryboats I see from my office window, that carry traffic from Edmonds to the Olympic Peninsula, are blowing their foghorns every thirty seconds. While my ears are aware of the ferryboat’s horn, I had unconsciously filtered out the sound during my mechanical routines and missed their import. When dense fog reduces visibility, the ferryboat crew uses a beacon to alert sea travelers with their resounding foghorn. In a sense, I often see members in the fog of their business routines, blinded to the import of potential problems and possibilities.

Recently I was facilitating a conversation for a senior management team that is transitioning the senior leader of an important business unit. This leader will leave the company on December 31, 2013. In the fog of their routines, this team assumed that one of the direct reports could successfully take the helm, but now realize that no one has the gravitas to unite the powerful energies that make the whole unit a high performing business.

That’s only part of the story. While reflecting on his departure this leader discovered an important fact. Since company owners had invested in leadership development for them and the senior management team, creative energy was rising and the excitement was undeniable. Through collaboration, this management team was climbing out of a fog that had them over functioning and underperforming. They were enjoying amazing results beyond what they once thought possible and now he was going to leave?

This company is now exceeding sales and profitability targets and gross and net margins are climbing, but twelve months ago, the opposite was happening and their turnaround is exciting. Their story began when the two owners became members of two different Vistage Advisory Boards. Once a month they each climb out of the fog of their daily routines, to work on their business for a full day with peers.

Every management team is chock full of latent potential but instinctively, reacting and responding each day without much reflection, they settle for much less. This business unit leader is wide awake now, all because the owners led the way.

Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” In my experience, latent possibilities are present in every leadership team but so is the fog. Working on your business with a peer advisory board changes everything. Would you like to experience this?  I’d love to know your thoughts. Jim@peer-place.com

Jim

Jim@LinkedIn.com