Spring break was last week here in DFW. While I don’t have school-age kids I do have school-age grandkids. More importantly, I have clients who have school-age kids and many of them (check that, almost all of them) took last week off to get in one last vacation before the end of the school year. Quite a few made a trek to Colorado or some other snow-laden environment where skiing and snowboarding happen.

I didn’t operate at full-strength last week (sorry, that’s a hockey reference meaning all 5 skaters are on the ice). Now that we’re into a new week, and folks are back at work, I thought we’d think about the value of stepping away. Vacations. Sabbaticals. Retreats. They’re all forms of stopping the normal, usual and routine. And they’re harder for some than others.

Stepping away. Unplugging. They’re often helpful if we want to more deeply connect. To something or somebody beyond or outside our normal routines. Maybe that’s the power – connecting to something or somebody else outside our routines.

In episode 165 I talked about NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s comments on the mental and emotional health of today’s NBA player. Watch athletes today as they enter the stadiums and arenas. Headphones on. Faces in phones. Connection, which feeds our emotional stability, is increasingly challenged by the need to be plugged in and always ON. But we know this and we’ve all read plenty about how social media platforms are designed to hook us to the rush we get by knowing what’s happening at all times. Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is a real thing.

The irony is we are missing out. We’re often missing out on deeper conversations. We’re missing out on fueling our curiosity about others. A deep enough curiosity that compels us to engage in conversation, to ask questions and to form deeper connections.

Intimacy has given way to more shallow casual connection. I know what you ate for dinner last night. I know the concert you plan to go to tonight. I see the new clothes you bought. I feed on all these details, but I don’t really know you. I just know what you want me, and the rest of the world, to know. I know how you front to all of us. And you can easily see how I front to others, too. That’s the depth of our connection. We just see the storefront without ever taking the time to walk into the store and peruse the real merchandise.

When we stop fronting with a sincere intention on more deeply connecting with others, or even with ourselves, we gain something more precious than shallow knowledge of what food we’re eating, or what clothes we’re buying or where we’re vacationing.

ENVY

a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck

Being so plugged in feeds our envy, which in turn weakens our connections because it increases our judgment and discontentment. “Man, you went to Hawaii during Spring Break? I didn’t get to go anywhere.” So it goes.

No need to connect. No need to figure anything else out about you. I’ve got your whole story figured out.

Or do I?

Flip it around. How many people know your whole story? Come on, think about it. Answer it.

One? Two? Five? I’m betting most of us can’t name 5 people who know our whole story. People who understand the total person we really are. People who know and understand our context. But not just people who know us…people willing and able to help us.

Compassion is where it starts. That’s why it’s the first C on my list....

A couple of days ago there was a UFC fight in Las Vegas for the welterweight title. Tyron Woodley was the defending champion. Kamaru Usman was the opponent. The champ lost. Badly.

But it was what happened after the fight that got all the press. Tyron’s mom, Deborah, a 66-year-old who raised Tyron all by herself while working multiple jobs – as she put it, she did what she had to do – approached the new champion as he limped to his dressing room with the championship belt slung over his shoulder.

Deborah, who has a long history of showing grace to the opponents of her son (she even did it during his wrestling days in high school back in Missouri). Tonight was no different. She hollered at the victor, approached him and hugged him. He broke down crying into her shoulder, apologizing to her. You can read more and see the video here.

“It’s all good, baby. It’s all good. It’s your turn. It ain’t his turn.”

Her kindness clearly moves Usman, who won the contest and was now the current champion. Proving that even champions and winners need encouragement.

Do you have any doubt whatsoever that Deborah and her son, Tyron, are the real winners? Do you have any doubt at all that Usman, now the UFC welterweight champion is the winner? Do you have any doubt that by seeing this story YOU are a winner, benefiting from the grace shown by a 66-year-old mother?

Yeah, me neither. We’re all better for it.

Look at that. Look at the reach. The impact. The power.

Is it that winners also need encouragement or is it that in order to win we all need it? I think the later.

Who benefits more? The person giving the encouragement or the person receiving it?

Does it matter? It’s not a contest where somebody wins and somebody loses. It’s not even a matter of who wins more. It’s a matter of need, opportunity and benefit. The need for encouragement and grace is high. Always. The opportunities to extend grace, compassion and understanding – and encouragement – are equally high. There’s never a time where you’ll struggle to find it. It’s staring you in the face almost at every turn. Daily. And the benefit? Well, go dive into that story and video and then tell me what you think about the benefit. ENORMOUS.

It’s the power of people. It’s our ability to have a big impact on each other. To help each other, even when it’s not obvious that we may need the help. I mean, come on. The man has her son’s championship belt slung over one shoulder. What does he need from her? Was she driven by what she needed to extend? Was she driven because she noticed something in the man who just defeated her son? Some sadness perhaps? I don’t know.

But just like her work raising her son, she did what she had to. She did what she could.

What about you? What about me?

Are we doing what we should? Are we doing what we can? To serve each other? To support each other? To encourage each other?

I’m proud to have seen the story. I’m sad that such a story gets our attention because that depth of concern, care, compassion, grace and encouragement is too stinking rare. That’s sad.

We need to change that.

Be well. Do good. Grow great!

RC

“I’m not sure it’s ever going to be right,” he tells me. He’s spent the last few minutes telling me about a project that is very important to him. A project he’s as passionate about as anything he’s done in a long time. I ask some questions to make sure I’m seeing and hearing things as they truly are. One of the first things I want to know is how far along he is in the project. That’s when I get a reality check.

He says, “Oh, we haven’t launched it yet.” I press a bit more asking him to describe what has been done so far. He rambles on about planning sessions, timelines established and a host of other details that I’m assuming are important, but certainly not vital to launching because…well, because they’ve not yet launched. So how important could they be?

Last Friday NBA Commissioner Adam Silver spoke with at the MIT Sports Analytics Conference. The topic? The mental health of the players.

Silver reported that social media and headphones are impacting the professional athletes, sometimes making them feel more anxious and isolated. Players fly or board buses with headphones affixed and interactions aren’t what they once were.

Heads down. Music in their ears. Scrolling through their social media.

During the conversation Silver recalls Isaiah Thomas telling him,

“Championships are won on the bus.”

I recently watched a 2014 documentary – The Hornet’s Nest – about a father and son who were embedded with troops in Afganistan. Like most other wartime military documentaries, it’s evident that the soldiers are fighting for each other. Band of brothers is a real thing.

Our lives are enriched by the deep connection we have with comrades, co-workers, family members and the other people in our lives. When those connections begin to slip, so do we.

The NBA Players Association is so serious about the mental health of their members they launched a mental health and wellness initiative last May. In spite of the multi-million dollar contracts, the jet-set lifestyle and the other perks that come with being a professional athlete…these people endure constant scrutiny, criticism and glorification. It’s easy to see how the noise could be overwhelming and foil the best attempts to have peace.

Last week a local radio team on the number 1 station in Dallas traveled one week with the Dallas Stars NHL team. They’ve done it for 14 seasons now. This is a team, like most, with their own team plane, built with every possible amenity to make the players comfortable. These radio hosts get to experience world-class travel just like the athletes, staying at 5-star hotels and dining at the finest restaurants. When they returned they talked about how exhausting it was to be in 4 hotels over 5 days. And they only had to focus on doing a 3-hour radio show each day. Proof once again that all that glitters ain’t necessarily gold.

We’re not operating professional sports franchises. Some of us may want to one day (not me), but we’re operating businesses and organizations that aren’t likely so high flying as the Dallas Stars. Or the Golden State Warriors. Or the Boston Red Sox. What does any of this mean for us?

Just this – isolation is destructive to happiness. And unhappiness is counterproductive to high performance.

Workplace dynamics – or the lack of them – is worth a closer look. That includes how people are set up. The open office concept is increasingly under fire for failing to do the very thing it was designed to do – help people connect and collaborate.

Perhaps people need their own space in order to more deeply connect. Not hard to understand. Look at your home. Inside our families, we all need our space, time for ourselves. Then we yearn to come together. Imagine your entire family having to occupy one big room, together all the time? Food for thought.

But the point is how deeply can we care about each other.

I focus frequently on communication, connection, collaboration, and culture. At the heart of all 4 of these important components is COMPASSION. It’s about our willingness and ability to care about one another.

It’s why I find myself constantly telling folks about

A young man aspiring to get into the big state university neglects high school homework. Weeks before graduation he gets a rejection letter. The University doesn’t grant him admission because his grades aren’t good enough. He failed to understand the consequences of not taking high school as seriously as he could have.

The epidemic of accountability is real. It’s not limited to young people. The prevailing thought that the universe owes us, or that we’re victims of somebody else’s doing – it gives us an out that we’re happy to take. It’s not our fault. It’s somebody else’s fault.

Leaders have long struggled to find ways to help educate and train people to properly understand how things work. Namely, how to help people really understand that there are rewards they can gain and consequences they can avoid. “Can” is the big word. Each person has the power to affect the outcome.

First things first. Leaders must first hire people, or train people, to understand that they have command of their choices, their actions, and their outcomes. I’m not a big fan of pushing water up a hill – meaning, I’m not fond of trying to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Converting people, changing people – it’s really, really tough work. Maybe you want to take that on. Maybe not. That’s up to you. I’d rather find people already bent toward accepting responsibility for their outcome. For me, time spent helping them achieve growth is very rewarding. Trying to get people to move from excuse making to accepting responsibility would drive me crazy, so I choose to not do that kind of work.

Grow Great is about just that – improvement, growth, and change. 

Helping people is job one for any leader. Today, I hope to provoke you to think more deeply and thoughtfully about how you can serve your people to gain a better grasp on how they can control their own destiny. By more soberly considering the impact of their decisions and behaviors, people can have a big impact on their own growth. It’s big service leaders owe their people.

But how?

Candor.

That’s it. Candid conversations where you don’t protect people from the truth, but where you insist on sharing the truth.

Let them get punched in the face.

You want to protect the people you lead. And you should. The bigger question is, “From what?”

Protect them from things that could cause harm. Get really clear on what defines harm though. Pain isn’t always harmful. Suffering either. Or struggle. You have to let people fail and suffer some.

A retailer had a staff of buyers. They were tasked with making merchandising decisions for the company. It’s a big role that can make or break any retailer.

One buyer invests $100,000 in a single product that he thinks will be a wild success in the fall. Instead, it’s a flop. The product had a target retail price that was supposed to garner a 40% profit margin. That means the $100K investment should have been successfully sold for over $166K, providing the company with a $66K profit.

That didn’t happen. Instead, months later the product was stagnant and growing less valuable every day. The markdowns began. The company decided to forego making any profits. They just wanted to get back as much of their original investment of $100K as possible. Within weeks they had only sold a fraction of the inventory, less than $10K worth.

Now things were getting really bad. The product was clearly going to produce a loss for the company. They marked it down some more. And some more. And some more. When the smoke cleared the company’s $100K investm...

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”  – Oscar Wilde

It’s funny. And likely very true. But cynical. Here’s a nobler quote.

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”  – C.S. Lewis

I’m a Christian and what Mr. Lewis wrote is congruent with scripture. So there’s my bias and I honestly should share that.

For the last few weeks, forgiveness has come up over and over again in conversations. From personal and family stuff to corporate and business stuff. Husbands struggling to forgive wives. Employees struggling to forgive the boss. Bosses finding it hard to fend off bitterness. It’s one of those universal topics and transcends who we are, where we are or whatever station we occupy in life. Everybody needs forgiveness. And everybody can likely improve their own ability to forgive.

Why is forgiveness important? Because bitterness and resentment are destructive.

They eat us from the inside out. Hatred and other negative emotions don’t help us grow. They certainly don’t contribute toward growing great!

Compassion and forgiveness are the right things to do. That alone is reason enough. Or it should be. But there’s plenty of good reasons by it makes sense IF we’re determined to grow our lives. And our organizations.

How you treat people matters!

It demonstrates your heart, your true character. Sit down with somebody to share a meal and if they’re rude to the wait staff, you have your answer to the question, “What kind of person is this?”

CEO’s sometimes make declarations that I find puzzling. They express exasperation toward their people while simultaneously trying to express great care for their customers. It’s not congruent with growth – growing an organization and a high-performance culture. When pressed, they’ll often admit that it’s easy to hold grudges toward employees who “mess up.” Sometimes they’ll even brag about how they rarely forget such screw-ups. Employees can find it almost impossible to get out of the boss’s doghouse. Sad.

What do YOU gain by not forgiving?

Confidence in the person you refuse to forgive is lost. There’s no hope of it ever returning until you’re able to forgive. If you lack confidence in them, why do they still occupy any space in your life? Do they merely exist now to be the object of your bitterness? That’s destructive for both of you.

They don’t grow because they know you have no confidence in them. No matter what they do, there’s just no way out except to exit your life.

Maybe the relationship is worth destroying. You and they must decide. Or maybe just you. Or maybe just them. But either way, your unwillingness to forgive them seals the fate of the relationship (even if neither of you sees it right away).

Bitterness, resentment and hatred grow. I’ve not yet come across anybody who grew great by harboring those things. Maybe you’ll be the first.

Two months down, ten to go. If you’re like me, you feel like 2019 is a rocket ride…going super fast.

Speaking of fast, instant is about as fast as you can get. Small business owners lean into their core strength – being nimble. It’s why so many giants have been disrupted by little guys who could move blindingly fast compared to the lumbering aircraft carrier speed of some gigantic competitor.

But instant? Well, that’s way beyond being nimble and highly maneuverable. Seems kinda ridiculous. But it’s not. Let me tell you a quick story to prove the point, then we’ll review the lessons we can all learn from it.

Gibson Brands, Inc., the world’s most iconic guitar brand, appointed their new leader – James “JC” Curleigh – as president and chief executive officer effective last November. JC joined Gibson from Levi Strauss & Co., where he served as president of Levi’s brand. Gibson also appointed a new Chief Merchant Officer, a new Chief Financial Officer, and a brand new c-level position, Chief Production Officer.

It’s important to understand the context behind these massive changes at the top. This Gawker article can tell you more, but the previous CEO had a terrible reputation and guitar players worldwide complained of the quality of the instruments. This 117-year-old company lost its way. Leadership let them – and their customers – down.

Enter JC and the new leadership team who took over the day the company emerged from bankruptcy. Right about now you’re thinking – well, of course things happened quickly. They had to. And you’d be right. But just because things need to happen quickly does not mean they do happen quickly. Look in the mirror at your company before you start throwing rocks at Gibson.

I’m an operator. I’ve never shied away from that title. A VP of a supplier first called me that when I was about 23. He meant it as a compliment. And I took it that way.

It’s not as sexy as being called an “entrepreneur,” but I think it’s more indicative of the work. The work of operating an enterprise.

Not everybody can look at an organization and see it operationally. To each his own. I look at all the people, the moving parts and the systems and naturally begin to think of ways things can be improved. That’s why I’m so intolerant of pathetic customer service where companies like DIRECTV make customers jump through every hoop possible to make things as difficult as possible.

Greasing the wheels to make things work better – more efficiently and effectively – is good business. I don’t care what business you’re in.

Ray Kroc purchased the hamburger stand from the McDonald boys and figured out how to make a pattern, a template for efficiency. McDonald’s growth mushroomed unlike anything before, in large part, because Kroc figured out operational efficiencies and how they could help each store replicate food quality and service with predictable success. When you start focusing on how many steps it is from the front counter to french fry machine, then you’re concentrating on operational efficiencies.

They claim 10,000 daily steps is good for our health. That’s roughly 5 miles. In business, we’re constantly trying to reduce our steps. If our current process involves 5 steps, how can we reduce it to 4? Or 3? Eliminating a step saves time, money and effort.

Saving steps also reduces friction. Friction is the resistance that can ruin business success. How difficult are we making it on our clients? How difficult are we making it on ourselves?

I’m sure DIRECTV and ATT (their owner) are intentional in their client experience. It pays. Well, they think it does because they’re only measuring things, it seems, in dollars and cents. Complex pricing structures, unable to be understood by any paying customer, benefit them. It’s a shell game they enjoy playing with customers to squeeze all the profits they can. But the friction has a cost. A cost the folks at the top aren’t looking at. Client happiness!

Google them and you’ll see blistering reviews. I’ve been a customer for over 20 years and I’ve never had a phone call last under an hour. Friction is intentional because they’re betting on a lack of breakage. Namely, they’re betting (and they’re right) that most folks won’t notice bill creep and if they do, they won’t complain about it. The dollars drop to their bottom line and they’re happy, even though customers aren’t. Operational inefficiencies at the level of a multi-billion dollar enterprise can pay off handsomely.

You can’t likely pull that off with your $10 million a year company. It would bog you down in execution and billing. Which is why people are leaving DIRECTV in droves and opting for streaming – even the newer DIRECTV NOW service, which has more straight forward pricing and no contracts. Simple is more cost effective and makes customers happier.

Adding steps adds costs. Reducing steps reduces costs.

First, save steps for your customers.

Save them time and hassle. They’ll love you for it.

We can all tell when a company is putting customers first. We feel it. It permeates their intentions and every aspect of their operation. Companies that put us first stand out and apart from the rest.

Be one of those companies. Demonstrate how much you love your customers by focusing on your operati...

Do you hate networking? I do. Always have.

I’m the guy who happily admits that if faced with two doors from which to choose – one that leads to a room with 300 very interesting people (all strangers) with whom I can spend 3 hours and the other that leads to a room with 6 random people (also strangers) with whom I can spend 3 hours – I’m inside door number 2 before you can finish the proposition. It seems infinitely more fun for me to really get to know 6 people than to go on a network fishing expedition hoping I can somehow run into a person – or a small collection of people – who will go deep enough that I can really understand them.

But that’s me.

I hate small talk. I hate shallow conversation. I hate pleasantries.

I love getting to know people, including their back story and what they hope will be their future story. It feels human and right to me.

Study after study have proven that people tend to feel dirty about “networking.” It feels icky.

I’ve read plenty of networking books. 100% of them were a waste of my time. While I’m highly motivated to grow – which necessarily means, to change in ways that benefit my life – I’m completely disinterested in trying to be somebody or something I’m not. Or trying to be something or somebody I don’t want to be. Namely, “that guy.” You know what I’m talking about?

It’s why I don’t get out much.

“To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.”  -Benjamin Franklin

Judgment is easy. Jumping to conclusions. Making assumptions.

Evidence is hard. Curiosity often difficult to satisfy.

When people have a problem with somebody it’s just easier to tell everybody but the person you have a problem with.

Over the weekend I posted this graphic…

But many of us tend to do exactly this.

The absence of facts or context doesn’t often enough prevent us from knee-jerk conclusions. Conclusions we’re convinced are spot on.

Leaders aren’t immune. Sometimes the power goes to our head, squeezes the logic right out of our brains, and causes us to think we’re invincible in our judgments. It’s another reason – a BIG reason – why we need to be more careful about the people who surround us so we can improve our vision, foster deeper curiosity and find more accurate evidence – all the things that can drastically fuel greater growth.

The solution may be counter-intuitive. Be MORE selfish. Think MORE about yourself.

No, not in some “I’m better than you” way, but in a more genuine way.

Are you going through something extraordinarily tough right now? If so, then hold that thought. If you’re not, then think back to a really bad time. A time when life was really knocking you in the dirt and stomping on your guts. A time when your confidence was setting record all-time lows. A time when you had no idea when this trouble would end, or IF it would end. Get that in your mind right now.

It’s a time that’s embarrassing to you, even though it may not be the result of anything you did. Embrace how you felt (or how you may be feeling right now if it’s happening to you right now).

You want to hide, right? You don’t walk to talk to anybody? And if you do, you want to complain or make excuses so you can explain it all away.

Put yourself in that place.

Now, let me walk into your life at that very moment. Let somebody else – perhaps somebody you think would know you well enough to understand your context – walk into your life at this moment. Friends and family who may have known you for a long time, let them walk in on you at this moment.

For the sake of this exercise, let’s assume these people judge you the way you judge people. We’ll assume harsh judgment is easy…because it is. Each of these people are going to think the worst. Mostly because people seem more tempted to think the worst than the best. Today, all eyes are on you and they’re judging your life by this moment. Not your finest hour, but it’s this chapter of your life where people have now opened the book of your life. You know it’s just a single chapter. They don’t.

How are you feeling? Better?

Hardly. You’re thinking how unfair it is. You’re thinking, “This isn’t the total sum of who I am or what I’ve done. It’s completely unfair to judge my whole life based on what I’m going through right now.”

Welcome to the world of full opinions, half facts. And I’m being generous to spot you with half facts. My experience is that people need far fewer facts than half in order to form a full opinion!

Arrogance, pride and hubris. That’s why we do it. Our own arrogance, pride and hubris.

We feel better about ourselves and our lives knowing that you’re going through something we feel currently immune from. Judging you harshly makes us feel superior to you. Better than you. If only for a moment, we’re able to lift our head higher than yours giving us a feeling of greater suc...