one of the great things that is lacking
in most of our companies is that they
are not teaching us how to lead and
leadership is a skill like any other is
a practice’ balloon able skill and it is
something that you work on it’s like a
muscle if you practice it all the days
you will get good at it and you will get
to become a strong leader if you stop
practicing you will become a weak leader
like parenting everyone has the capacity
to be a parent doesn’t mean everybody
wants to be a parent and doesn’t mean
everybody shouldn’t be a parent
leadership is the same we all have the
capacity to be a leader doesn’t mean
everybody should be a leader and it
doesn’t mean everybody wants to be a
leader and the reason is because it
comes at great personal sacrifice
remember you’re not in charge you’re
responsible for those in your charge
that means things like when everything
goes right you have to give away all the
credit and when everything goes wrong
you have to take all the responsibility
that sucks right it’s things like
staying late to show somebody what to do
it’s things like when something does
actually break when something goes wrong
instead of yelling and screaming and
taking over you say try again when the
overwhelming pressures are not on them
the overwhelming pressures are on us at
the end of the day great leaders are not
responsible for the job they’re
responsible for the people who are
responsible for the job
I think it’s both exciting and
depressing that messages like mine have
an audience you know I talk about really
simple things like how to be fulfilled
you know and like how to do things that
inspire us and how to work for a company
that sort of gets the best out of us and
makes us feel good while they’re doing
it and and you know it’s kind of
upsetting that people are even wanting
to hear that meaning that there’s a
demand for it but it also presents the
most remarkable opportunity in the world
which means there’s an opportunity for
us to
the way work is done so that all of
those things are not the exception but
rather the rule you know it’s it’s it is
the exception when somebody says I love
my job and I say you meet somebody at a
bar is like what do you do I love my job
oh you’re so lucky right it’s like that
that should be something special is
remarkable and so the amazing thing is
is that ability to say I love my job I
love what I do is actually not that
complicated to find and not ironically
it has nothing to do with the work that
we do it has everything to do with the
people with whom we work and you don’t
even have to like the people with whom
you work that’s the most amazing thing
of all if you think about it in the
military there are people who are
willing to risk their lives for people
they don’t even like we don’t even like
to give a credit for things you know so
what is it that creates an environment
in which people care about each other so
much that they would risk their lives
for people that they don’t even like
right sometimes this is remarkable to me
human beings in all their complexity and
all of the nonsense and all the
messiness what drives us is kind of
simple and this is what I like to
research and learn about and write about
which is you understand the very basic
mechanics of this machine called the
human being
it’s becomes fairly obvious as to what
conditions in which the machine will
perform well and in what conditions the
machine will not perform well very
simply our machine is a social machine
we are social animals and we respond to
the environment
we’re in that’s it good people are
capable of doing very bad things if
they’re in the wrong environment and
people who society may have given up on
if you put them in the right environment
are capable of performing remarkable
remarkable things this is the job of
leadership which is to make that
environment the leader sets the tone and
the tone that is set will determine
how we respond accordingly and again we
are relatively simple in our motivations
if you go back to the Paleolithic era
when Homo Sapien first stepped foot on
the planet about 50,000 years ago there
were other hominid species that existed
at the same time but we were the ones
that survived they died
we weren’t necessarily the strongest we
weren’t necessarily the fastest and yet
we’ve done quite well look at this
remarkable world that we’ve built one of
the huge advantages we had and have is
that we are social animals and things
like trust and cooperation are
absolutely essential for our survival
they’re not just nice ideas they’re
absolutely essential you can imagine why
when we existed when we lived in
populations that never really got bigger
than about a hundred and fifty people
for 40,000 of the 50,000 years we’ve
been on this planet we never lived in
populations bigger than 150 people
I understand scale presents some
inherent problems but you can you can
understand the benefits of the group
living what it meant was I could fall
asleep at night and trust that someone
in my tribe would watch for danger if I
didn’t trust the people in my tribe I
couldn’t go to sleep and this is not a
very good system for survival or
performance or anything any other metric
it’s the same at work when we work with
people with whom we trust I don’t need
to double-check your work I don’t need
to see it before it goes out to you no I
don’t need you don’t need my approval
right when we have trust we can let
people go do their work and even if
they’re subordinate we don’t need to
double-check or approve or anything
things will happen because we trust them
because we all have each other’s backs
we all have each other’s interests in
mind the problem with things like trust
and cooperation is that they are not
instructions
I can’t simply tell you trust me you
can’t simply ask people to trust you in
your advertising and you can’t simply
tell people I want you to to cooperate
trust and cooperation are feelings and
this is the problem so the question is
where do those feelings come from now
again we are basic pretty simple in in
our motivation in our constructions you
can imagine what life
what colors they use you can imagine
what life must have been like in these
Paleolithic times it was a world filled
with danger all of these forces working
extremely hard to kill us whether it was
the weather or lack of resources
saber-tooth Tiger nothing personal but
all of these forces were working
together to end our lives and so as
tribal animals we work together and
lived and worked amongst people around
whom we felt safe
we felt like we belonged and when we
felt safe amongst the people with whom
he lived and work the natural human
response is trust in cooperation it’s
just what happens when we do not feel
safe amongst the people with whom we
work however the natural human
inclination is cynicism paranoia
mistrust and self-interest when we do
not feel safe amongst the people with
whom we work if our leaders do not make
us feel safe we have no choice but to
spend our own time in our own energy to
protect ourselves from each other when
we do not fear each other we naturally
work together to face the dangers and
seize the opportunities it’s the exact
same thing in our modern business world
there are forces that are a constant and
beyond our control that are working to
kill you right maybe I’m exaggerating
but there are forces outside things like
the uncertainty of an economy the ups
and downs of a stock market a new
technology that might render a business
model obsolete overnight your
competition that sometimes is trying to
kill you it’s trying to destroy that
product to put you out of business but
at the very minimum is trying to
frustrate your growth and steal your
customers these forces are a constant
and you have no control over them and
never will
the only variable are the conditions
inside the organization and when those
conditions are set in a manner that
allows us to feel like we can trust and
cooperate we do this is what leaders are
supposed to do there is an exact
definition of leadership and it is not
my
piñon you know i-i-i love all the books
that come out and all the articles what
makes a great leader what are the five
things you need to be a leader you need
charisma you need vision you know all of
these things I can tell you right now
those things are sometimes useful but
they’re not essential not everyone has
vision does that mean they’re they’re
not allowed to be leaders you know some
people have remarkable charisma and some
people don’t does that mean they will
never lead of course it’s all nonsense
you can’t manufacture these things some
people are good strategic thinkers and
some people are not some people are just
naturally good at basketball and some
people are not there are skills you can
get better at them for sure but you
either a visionary or not these are not
things that we can manufacture in other
words they’re not essential components
for leadership there’s only one
characteristic that I’m comfortable
saying that all leaders must have to
become leaders and that’s courage
because leadership is hard and it often
requires sacrifice and the the can that
it will happen that you will have to put
your interests your comforts your
advantages aside so that others may gain
and that sometimes really hard in fact
standing up for others may mean that you
might get your head chopped off you know
a leader sometimes loses their job
because they did the right thing
right that comes with significant risk
the choice to be a leader comes at
significant risk and this is why not
everyone chooses to be a leader
leadership has nothing to do with the
rank it has nothing to do with the title
you have on your card leadership is a
choice that’s it I know many many people
who sit in the senior echelons of a
corporation and they are not leaders
they are authorities and they have
authority and we do what they say
because they have authority over us but
we would not follow them I know many
people who sit at the bottom of
organizations who have no authority but
they are absolutely leaders and the
reason they are leaders is because they
have made a choice they have chosen to
look after the person to the left of
them and they have chosen to look after
the person to the right of them
it doesn’t always mean they have to
sacrifice their interests but when it
really counts sometimes they choose to
sacrifice their interests because it’s
in the interest of the person to the
left and to the right of them this is
what leadership is the role of leaders
is not an accident either it’s built
into our anthropology it’s part of our
survival the reason we have hierarchy
and we have leaders for those times when
we lived in these austere conditions we
had a little bit of a problem there’s a
very practical problem there wasn’t
necessarily enough food to go around all
the time you didn’t necessary didn’t
have supermarkets and cars we just go
get milk sometimes there was food
readily available and sometimes not
which meant if someone brought home some
food and we’re living in a population of
up to a hundred and fifty we would all
rush in to eat because we’re all hungry
and if you were lucky enough to be built
like a football player you could shove
your way to the front of the line if you
were the artist of the family you would
get an elbow in the face this is not a
good system for cooperation it’s not a
good system for survival because the
odds are that if I got punched in the
face this afternoon I’m not gonna wake
the guy if I see danger bad system and
so we evolved into these hierarchical
animals we are constantly assessing and
judging each other
whose alpha whose beta we are naturally
hierarchical and we always organize
ourselves in hierarchies so even in
meetings we go to meeting like
everybody’s equal I want you guys to
work together it’s not gonna happen
we are never equals we always assess we
always judge we always allow some others
some deference and the role of
leadership and some of us defer and sort
of take a more subordinate role it
always happens not necessarily a bad
thing and again the reasons are very
practical based on our history because
what would happen was when we would
assess someone as our alpha and let me
be clear your capacity to be an alpha in
any population is not an absolute it is
relative to the population you’re in so
you might be a technologist or an
engineer and you might think you’re the
hottest best most fantastic engineer and
so does everybody else and you walk
around like this and you go take a dance
class all of a sudden you egos not so
big anymore right
we’ve all had the experience right we’ve
all had the experience where we shake
someone’s hand and we’re nervous
you’re not the Alpha you know or when we
consent that someone’s nervous meeting
us you’re the Alpha right it’s it’s a
relative scale so when we assess that
someone in the population is our alpha
we voluntarily step back and allow them
first choice of meat and first choice of
mate we let them eat first we may not
get the best choice of meat but we will
eat eventually and we didn’t have to get
an elbow in the face to get that food
good system to this day we are very
comfortable with paying deference and
offering advantages to those more senior
than us there’s not a single person in
this room zero that has a problem with
somebody more senior than you at the
company making more money than you as a
salary by having a bigger salary than
you doesn’t bother you at all you might
think they’re an idiot but it doesn’t
actually bother you that they make more
money than you because they outrank you
no issue it doesn’t bother us at all
that somebody more senior than us has a
bigger office or a better parking space
it is of no issue whatsoever in fact we
very often find ourselves deferring to
our alphas doing nice things for our
foes we open doors for them and call
them sir and ma’am and get them tea and
they didn’t even ask I can promise you
that if as you were walking out of this
room if Steven Spielberg happened to
walked in walk in you would hold the
door open for him and then you would go
home and tell your spouse or your
boyfriend of your girlfriend you’ll
never believe what happened today I held
the door open for Steven Spielberg how
come you don’t advertise when you hold
the door open for anybody else it’s
because we’re proud to sometimes do
menial labor for those who we perceive
as alphas in our system we’re proud to
work for the groups that they lead and
the organizations that they lead by the
way you can’t lead a company you can run
a company you can only lead people and
so this whole idea of deference and how
we always deference the volunteer to
these alphas is a natural human response
and it’s a survival instinct and it’s
all about this and that’s the point
none of those perks that you get for
being the leader for being the alpha
none of them come free they come at a
very high
you see the group is not dumb we expect
that the person who’s better fed the
person who’s actually stronger or
smarter than us the person who has a
higher self-confidence has more
self-confidence because of all our our
love and deference in the hello sir and
hello mmm and actually boost their
self-confidence we expect that this more
confidence stronger better fed person
when danger threatens the tribe we
expect them to rush towards the danger
to protect us that’s the cost of
leadership that’s why we gave you first
choice of mate because you might die and
we want to keep your genes in the gene
pool we’re not stupid and this is what
it means to be a leader the willingness
to rush towards the danger to protect
those in your care it is a choice you
don’t have to be a leader it is a choice
if you don’t like the costs of
leadership you may not accept the perks
of leadership because they do not come
for free this is the reason why we are
so viscerally offended by some of the
banking CEOs have these disproportionate
salaries and bonus structures it’s not
the money that offends us it’s that we
know deep inside us that they have
violated the very definition of what it
means to be a leader they have accepted
all of the perks and bonuses and
benefits of being the leader and yet
they’re not willing to make any of the
sacrifices for the role that they have
accepted in other words we know that
they allowed their people to be
sacrificed for them to keep their
bonuses and perks and advantages worse
sometimes they chose to sacrifice their
people to protect their bonuses and
their perks this is what so offends us
it’s not the money if I told you we’re
going to give a hundred and fifty
million dollar bonus to Nelson Mandela
does anyone have a problem with that no
how about a two hundred and fifty
million dollar bonus to mother Teresa
got an issue with that no it’s not the
money it’s not the money it’s that
leadership is a choice and in our modern
day and age unfortunately many of the
people who like to call themselves
leaders are not leaders at all
they are authorities
that’s all they are and we have to do
what they say because they have
authority over us but we would not
follow them and this is a problem
because when we do not feel that they
have our backs we we do not feel safe
work inside their organizations they
force us to spend our time and our
energy to protect ourselves from them
and the organization itself suffers it’s
what happens it’s ironic to me that
organizations like your own who want to
drive innovation and ideas and new ways
of thinking would in the same breath lay
people off because they didn’t make the
numbers in one year you do realize that
those two concepts are completely
counterproductive it’s like talking to a
CEO and I ask what are your priorities
they say we have two priorities
innovation and efficiency not possible
there is nothing efficient about
innovation try fail try fail try fail
try fail try fail try fail succeed not
efficient it takes so you throw money to
try things out you can be innovative or
you can be efficient you can be
efficient and hope for innovation and
you can be innovative and hope for
efficiency there’s always gonna be one
subordinate to the other not bad not
better or worse but let’s not kid
ourselves and think that they can be
equal grounds they cannot it is
impossible but worse an organization
that claims or hopes or desires or
aspires to be innovative must at every
expense commit themselves to the safety
of their people because only when we
feel safe and protected will we
voluntarily commit ourselves to the
support of each other and the
advancement of the vision there are very
simple ways to do this here are just a
few great leaders would never sacrifice
the numbers would never sacrifice the
people to save the numbers
great leaders would sacrifice the
numbers to save the people and so when
we live in a day and age where our
leaders are so comfortable sending you
home to tell your spouse and your kids
I’m sorry I no longer have an income
because the company had to make its
numbers for the year forget about the
people who lost their jobs what about
the people who didn’t get laid off how
inspired do you think they feel to come
back to work every day how do you how
safe do you think they feel do you think
we’re gonna give our best knowing at the
next time if the company doesn’t make
its numbers by the way which may or may
not have anything to do with us remember
all of those outside dangers the ups and
downs of technologies the ups and downs
of stock markets the ups and downs of
economies you think when you have a bad
year you set your children down and say
kids it’s been a bad year we have to get
rid of one of you or worse or worse I
got to keep my Mercedes and so it’s
either you or the car and we’ve picked
you right know we tighten the belt we
work together we figure out ways to make
it happen to see it through the hard
times we cannot judge the quality of a
crew based on how they perform in good
times we judge a quality of the crew by
how they perform in rough waters and
unfortunately we throw our crew
overboard when we hit rough waters what
makes them want to commit to see the
ships make it through the rough waters
what they do is they sit down and watch
their own backs because nobody else is
gonna watch my back there is no
innovation and in a group like that
there is no innovation in a group like
that backstabbing ideas stealing plenty
of that nothing personal gotta look
after numero uno so number one people
come first numbers are always
subordinate to people numbers will not
rescue you in hard times people will
numbers will not come up with new ideas
people will numbers are not innovative
people are that’s number one another one
which is really really really easy is
honesty
it’s really easy to be honest just tell
the truth
and if you tell the truth on a regular
basis we will say you have integrity
that’s all it means
he’s a really basic concepts so for
example if somebody calls and a
secretary picks up the phone and says
Dave’s on the phone and you say damn I’m
not here
you just sanctioned lying inside your
organization that’s what you’ve done you
have said that when it suits you even if
these lies are small you may tell lies
that was dishonest I went to visit
Quantico Marine base where the Marine
Corps choses selects their officers and
on the day I was there true story
I was waiting in a conference room for
the colonel in charge of OCS to come and
give us a briefing on on the base about
about OCS about the selection process
and he arrived late Marines don’t ever
arrive late and he showed up late he
came in and apologized he said I’m sorry
we’ve had an incident with one of our
Marines so I go what happened you know
he said well we’re considering throwing
him out of OCS which means throwing out
of the Marine Corps like I’m thinking
what law did he break what did he do so
I said what did he do and the colonel
said he fell asleep on watch and I said
that’s it he fell asleep on watch in the
woods of Virginia you know I’m like you
guys are tough he said and then he
explained it he said no you don’t
understand
he said when we asked him about it he
denied it when we asked him about it
again he denied it again and only when
we gave him irrefutable proof did he say
quote I want to take responsibility for
my actions
the problem we have he said is we
believe you take responsibility for your
actions at the time you perform your
actions not at the time you get caught
we have another Marine who fell asleep
on watch he admitted it he got punished
we have no problem with him and he went
on to explain he says you have to
understand I cannot put this marine in a
leadership position where they’re
responsible for lives of other Marines
because of they’re in a combat situation
and his Marines doubt for one second
that the words coming out of his mouth
are anything but the truth if they
believe for one second that the words he
is speaking are only to make himself
look better or cover his own ass trusts
will break down in the whole group and
people will die now we are not in
life-and-death situations but the way
our minds interpret information that
it’s given to us is in terms of life and
death this is why we don’t trust
politicians they tell us the things we
want to hear we don’t prima facie
disagree with anything we’ve been told
but we know that they don’t believe the
things that they’re saying and so we as
human beings were very very smart and
this was always ingrained in us we
always make sure just to keep a safe
distance from anybody who we don’t
believe is honest because if we were to
find ourselves in a life-and-death
situation with them you know what I’m
gonna if I had to gamble I’m gonna say
won’t go with them when someone is
honest they’re willing to tell us good
news they’re willing to tell us bad news
they’re willing to be upfront with them
even if it’s news that we don’t want to
hear even if it’s not in our interest
we’re okay with it we actually trust
them hey listen I I gotta be honest with
you your performance has been really bad
these days I love this area we’re
supposed to give sandwiches give them
the good news before you get to the bad
news right so give them something
general and generic that they don’t
believe anyway hey you’re really smart
and on this one project that you did
that you really completely like it’s
really specific when they give us the
negative right in other words we didn’t
believe the positive in the first place
we knew they were just biding their time
to get to the negative honesty I’ll give
you another example of honesty and how
we respond to it okay we’ve all had this
happen if you get an email that says to
you do your assignment you you I’d get
that you wouldn’t get that
if you get that send it to me dear Simon
haven’t talked to you in years I hope
you’re doing well congratulations on
your success it’s really amazing
we’d love to catch up and get a cup of
tea sometime by the way I’m if you could
go to this website I’m trying to raise
money for a project I’m doing it would
really appreciate if you could vote for
me or tweet it out thanks a lot Dave and
what do you do when you get something
like that you’re like you know right now
what have we simply reversed the
information dear Simon I’m trying to
raise money for this project I’m doing
would really appreciate if you could
click on the link and vote for me and
maybe even tweet it out haven’t seen you
in years hope you’re doing really well
congratulations all your success would
love to get together with you for a cup
of tea sometime Dave in other words tell
me the reason you sent me the email
right
the niceties are fine but that’s not the
reason you sent me the email it was
dishonest it was disingenuous honesty is
such a simple thing right it’s such a
simple thing and when it is afforded to
us we respond with loyalty and Trust and
the commitment and devotion and loyalty
because why wouldn’t we by telling me
accurate information it helps me better
survive I like that I appreciate that
I’m gonna stand next to the honest one
honesty is king hard but important and
if we screw up be honest about the screw
up I want you to know I wasn’t honest
with you I was in a weird position and I
should have told you the truth and I
didn’t I got embarrassed and then I’ve
made it worse I know I don’t I don’t
know I didn’t sorry I shamed you know
like we can be honest about the failings
even we can accept punishments great
organizations if people scrub you can be
punished but it doesn’t mean you’ll lose
your job if we fear that we will lose
our jobs we don’t work in safe
organizations if we fear getting in
trouble that’s okay when we fear getting
in trouble for my parents we don’t fear
that they’re gonna throw us out of the
house right same thing same thing here’s
another thing
that is easy
to do and is a component of leadership
right allowing others to fail my friend
David mark hey who wrote an amazing book
called turned the ship around check it
out ma rqu ET was a naval cat who’s a
captain of a submarine nuclear-powered
los angeles-class past attack sub and
mark a believed like many of us do that
his credibility as a leader was closely
tied to his competence to his
intelligence you know we believe that we
have to know as much or more than those
in our report because this is what gives
us credibility as leaders right and so
in typical mark a fashion when he was
assigned to one of the great honors of
his career to be captain of his own
submarine the USS Olympia he spent a
year learning every button every switch
every pipe every valve of the submarine
he went through the dossiers of his crew
he knew everything about his crew he was
gonna be prepared and he was gonna know
as much or more than everybody else on
board because he was the captain now he
had to he had no choice two weeks before
he took command of the Olympia he got a
phone call that says yeah you’re not
gonna be the captain of the Olympia
you’re gonna be the captain of the
SantaFe it was a slightly newer
submarine still in Ellis angeles-class
submarine but mark I realized because it
was slightly new some of the things were
different and he didn’t want anybody to
know that he didn’t know everything and
so he kind of kept it to himself and
pretended he knew everything but that’s
okay you know he’s a smart guy as a
competent guy yeah obviously trusted him
enough to be captain he was fine then
there was another little wrinkle where
the Olympia was the best rated crew in
the United States submarine fleet the
Santa Fe was the worst rated crew in the
submarine fleet they ranked last or
close to last in almost every readiness
measurement in the entire some in wood
and that the Navy had right but mark hey
figured that’s okay I have a bad crew
that’s alright I’m a gonna be a good
leader if I give good orders I’ll have a
good ship and if I give great orders
I’ll have a great ship so they set sail
and about two or three days into into
into being out there you know when they
got ready he’s like barking orders get
ready for this get ready for that
and everybody was following his orders
enough they went out to sea it was great
feeling everybody when they do what you
say right and about two or three days
out they were submerged and they decided
to run an exercise so they turned off
the reactor manually and pretended that
they are having a meltdown and they ran
the boat on battery power
it’s called EPM right and mark’ decided
he wanted to add a little tension make
the sea how how well they would do with
with more difficult situation then he
gave a simple order ahead two thirds and
what that means is run the boat 2/3 its
maximum speed to his side was his
navigator who was the second in command
at the time at on the on the on the in
the in the bridge and he was also the
most experienced sailor on board
he’d had two and a half years aboard the
Santa Fe and he repeated the order ahead
two thirds and nothing happened and
seaman Jones junior sailor sitting at
the controls was squirming literally
squirming in his seat
so mark’ peers out from the side of his
periscope and says seaman Jones what’s
the problem and seaman Jones replies sir
there is no two third setting apparently
on this slightly newer Los Angeles but
there was no two third setting on the
EPM so he turns to his navigator he says
did you know this and the guy goes
mm-hmm he said then why did you give the
order he said because you told me to and
that’s when Mark hay realizes he’s
aboard a ship he doesn’t understand and
he has a crew that’s trained for
compliance it’s not like you can just
turn around and ask for a new boat or
change a crew out we in the private
sector think that we have an advantage
because we can hire and fire people
you’re assuming that we’re hiring and
firing the right people we think we’ll
that when things don’t work just change
the people get rid of the get rid of the
weak links mark’ didn’t have this this
is his crew he’s stuck with it and it’s
not like in anything else in the world
in submarines there’s no one person who
dies you either all live or you all die
that’s it those are your options on a
submarine
and sir mark a is forced to literally
re-examine everything he understands
about leadership because bad things will
happen if this is the way it goes and so
one of the things he realized is he had
a permission based society aboard his
boat sir permission to dive to 400 feet
permission granted eyes are diving to
4-under feet in other words all the
authority all of the accountability lies
with the person in charge with the
captain if something goes wrong the
captain allowed it to happen
mark Abe and the words permission to
aboard his boat and he replaced them
with I intend to the hierarchy is not
affected at all the chain of command is
not affected at all the difference is
psychological I intend to dr. foreigner
feet all right all the accountability
lies with the person performing the
action now and so what started to happen
was people took their jobs more
seriously and they started to ask each
other for help because where things went
wrong and instead of wanting to get
permission from the boss now if the boss
asked a question you wanted to be able
to have the answer which means when the
bus says did you check the depths
sometimes he asked and sometimes he
didn’t did you check the depth of course
I check the notes what are the depths
400 you know in other words you could
never be caught not knowing before you
made a decision
accountability went up there are lots of
other things that mark K did which he
talked about in his book within a short
period of time the crew of the Santa Fe
became the highest-rated crew in naval
history not that year not the submarine
fleet in naval history same people same
equipment it’s not the people it’s the
environment it’s always the environment
that people are fine it’s always the
environment and this is what leadership
is one of the things mark k realizes in
most organizations the people at the top
have all of the authority but none of
the information and the people who are
actually performing the jobs have all
the information but none of the
authority and in most organizations they
stride to get the information up no push
the authority down this is what creates
great organizations and what that does
is it
makes us feel that our work and our
lives have value we want to be given the
opportunity to make mistakes we want to
be given the opportunity to work hard
and have responsibility it feels good to
work hard to have responsibly of
something if somebody else we’ve all had
the experience sometimes jr. sometimes
senior in our jobs I can remember in my
own career I used to have a boss who did
the opposite and I would write I would
write something and she would covered in
red pen and tell me to make her changes
and so go make her changes I come back
and she’d covered and repented to me to
make her changes and at some point I
stopped caring about the quality of my
first draft because I knew she’s just
gonna change it all to whatever she
wanted anyway no longer felt valuable or
valued as opposed to telling me the
macro issues she had this is not clear I
know what you’re trying to say but it
doesn’t come across try again
responsibility accountability I remember
the first time that somebody gave me
accountability I had to produce
something that I had to send out to the
client the norm was to show it to my
boss before it went out to the client
except this time he decided to leave
early
and I said well join me to email it to
you before you know before it goes out
he goes no good night make sure it goes
out tonight by now I knew what good was
and I knew what had had to be done and
guess what he was fine and I worked hard
I wanted to do it right one of the
things great leaders do is they allow us
to try and fail and one other thing mark
a torx and one of the marquee talks
about is the importance of training and
the importance of practice and the
points of small projects because you can
punch a hole in the side of the ship
above the waterline and you fix it it
cost some money or whatever but you do
that over and over again so that you
don’t punch a hole in the side of the
ship below the waterline in training
metrics are supposed to go down because
you want people to try hard and fail and
find out where the line is in combat
training you want them to get shot
because you want them to find where
getting shot happens you don’t want you
don’t want to outscore everybody else in
training it’s ridiculous right this is
the time to push the limits or give
people little projects that the worst
think about what we do for a living
right nobody here’s looking for
for cancer we’re working in an ER the
worst thing we can do the absolute worst
is lose a multi-billion dollar
corporation some money and not enough
that will get noticed and it is enough
to get noticed it won’t put you out of
business
like seriously death and destruction and
that’s the worst and so when we have
leaders that understand that and allow
us to try and fail and try and fail and
understand that if we screw it up it’s
okay the ships not gonna sink now try
again let’s sit down and talk about
maybe what you would like to do
differently next time I want you to
learn I want you to try again kind of
like what we do with our kids and that’s
the final point the closest analogy I
can give to you about what leadership is
is parenting think about what makes a
great parent you know first of all not
having kids is a better life you got you
get a bigger house you take nicer
vacations you can get the car you want
not the car you have to get right it’s
much more sleep right yet we choose for
some reason to have children we have
choose to make these sacrifices because
in time it’s kind of worth it to see
this little thing grow up and make
something of themselves that we we got
to look after it’s kind of worth it the
problem with leadership the problem with
parenting is they’re both like exercise
is they cannot be measured in small
discrete chunks I can give you a
compelling presentation about the
importance of exercise and they’ll
change your life and improve the quality
of your life and let people live longer
and you’ll believe me and you’ll go to
the gym and you’ll come back and you’ll
look in the mirror and you will see
nothing but you go the next day and you
come back and you look in the mirror and
you will see nothing and worse you’re in
pain and so you have no metrics to show
there’s any value to anything I’ve told
you so you stop but if you can stick
with it after three months you look at
an old picture of yourself and I can’t
believe I ever looked like that I can’t
I can’t believe it leadership and
parenting the same you have no idea if
you’re being a good pair
on a daily basis none in fact sometimes
you’re a bad parent but you kind of have
a sense of what it should be and you
stick with it and there are these little
glimmers that you get that make you
proud that you’re kind of doing the
right thing that the sacrifice is worth
it like the little things that the kids
do but you won’t actually see a return
on your investment investment for like
30 years you know some of our parents
leadership is the same I haven’t I have
no way of measuring that you’re being a
good leader on a daily basis
even the best leaders are sometimes
terrible leaders on a daily basis
there’s no good metric the problem is is
it’s very hard to measure in short
discrete packets but it’s very easy to
measure over distance over time that’s
the problem
good good leadership is obvious you’ve
measured in things like churn you know
how many and what’s the average lifespan
of your employees I loved reading all
these reports to say well the trend is
that people are spending less and less
time at their jobs now and maybe it’s
because they’re looking for more
adventure no it’s because they don’t
feel safe and why would they stick
around there’s no loyalty it’s not a
good trend it’s a symptom parenting
think about what a great parent is a
great parent is willing to sacrifice
givethem top of themselves you know
discipline when necessary provide
opportunities provide education also
this young little thing can grow up and
achieve more than they thought they ever
could for themselves what’s a great
leader somebody’s willing to sacrifice
and give themselves and provide
opportunities education discipline when
necessary sometimes help them up
sometimes make them get up themselves
all is it the so they’ll grow up and
build confidence and the chief things I
couldn’t even achieve for myself same
thing there’s a photograph in the New
York Times a bunch of months ago you
remember those shootings in Kenya and
the amazing thing was there was a
photographer who is on the scene usually
we see the aftermath right and this
particular one there was a photographer
in the mall and so we got to see
pictures of what was going on and
there’s one photograph you can look it
up it’s online there’s one photo
Taylor Hicks is the photographer’s name
there’s a photographer de Graaff of a
mother lying on top of her child okay
now think about that at the sound of a
gun it’s a mother’s instinct to throw
herself unto her child potentially
risking her own life to ensure that the
life of this young precious thing will
survive her now on other days mom gets
to do what mom says because I’m the mom
and sometimes mom takes the liberties
and enjoys the liberties of being the
leader in being the one in charge but
when it matters when the child’s life
survival are at stake there’s no
question what a good mother does they
throw themselves on top of their child
no questions asked even at personal
sacrifice that’s called leadership
that’s what our leaders do they can
enjoy the trappings enjoy the perks
enjoy the parking spaces enjoy the money
nobody says you have to give them up in
fact we would be upset if you gave them
up because it’s our pleasure to do these
things for you you know can you imagine
if Steven Spielberg you know you made
him a couple copies I can make my own
cup it actually would feel bad like we
want well we want to do these things it
brings us joy to do these things just
like it brings our kids Joy’s joy to
make us proud and it gives us joy to
make our leaders proud we want to do
right by them but we do so with the
knowledge that they would sacrifice
themselves for us back in the Marine
Corps this idea of leadership is viewed
as a responsibility not as a rank you
will never hear the use words spoke in
the Marines you will never hear the
words I am a leader I believe I have
what it takes to be a leader I aspire to
be a leader those words do not exist
here are the words they speak I am a
leader of Marines I believe I have what
it takes to be a leader of Marines I
aspire to be a good leader of Marines in
their own vernacular they view
leadership as a responsibility to
another human being and not a rank to be
attained it’s the same for us you’re not
a leader you’re a leader of people and
to say I am a leader is false I’m a
leader of people I aspire to be a leader
of people I believe I have what it takes
to be a leader of people I want
to be the best leader of people I can
possibly be and we are reminded every
time we speak the words that our
responsibilities to another person like
the word parent I am a parent inherent
in that word is that there’s a child you
can’t call yourself a parent without a
child I’m a parent of a child it comes
with certain responsibilities inherent
as does leadership and so this manifests
in some funny ways in the Marine Corps
if you go to any chow hall anywhere in
the world on any Marine base what you
will see is they will line up in rank
order during chat I’m most junior man
eats first most senior man eats last it
is not in any rulebook and no one tells
them they have to it happens organically
because of the way they simply view the
responsibilities of leadership that I as
the leader like a parent would let my
child eat before I eat that’s just what
we do and so that’s one of the ways it
shows up I was told a true story I was
told a story of a Marine officer who was
deployed and they had they were eating
among with the group and the that
officer made sure that his men ate first
as is the custom in the Marine Corps and
they ran out of food the officer didn’t
get to eat so when they went out back
into the field all of his men brought
him some of their food so that he may
eat this is what happens when we as
leaders commit to the safety of our
people our people will give us their
blood sweat and tears and they will make
their own sacrifices to ensure that we
are kept safe and to ensure that our
visions are advanced we cannot sit here
with our arms folded and simply complain
that our leadership doesn’t look after
us that our leadership doesn’t get it
that they would soon as sacrifice us to
save the numbers and they would never
sacrifice the numbers to save us the day
listen to Wall Street they don’t put
people first they claim they drive
innovation but they’re not creating the
environment that would create innovation
we cannot complain because we must be
the leaders we wish we had we have a
person to the left of us and we have a
person to the right of us that we can
take responsibility for sure you don’t
love your job but do they are you
committing yourself to ensuring that
they feel happy that they feel safe that
they have the job they love that they
feel like
learning that they feel they have
opportunity we have entire sections in
the book shop called self-help we have
no sections called help others and yet
the science is clear our own sense of
happiness our own sense of fulfillment
our health and indeed the success of the
organization itself are tied entirely to
our willingness to serve those in our
tribe to look after those who would we
we would call brother and sister which
we don’t do in companies we have
colleagues in the military they have
brothers and they have sisters we don’t
always like our brothers and sisters but
my goodness you threatened my brother or my sister and you got to deal with me
in most of our companies is that they
are not teaching us how to lead and
leadership is a skill like any other is
a practice’ balloon able skill and it is
something that you work on it’s like a
muscle if you practice it all the days
you will get good at it and you will get
to become a strong leader if you stop
practicing you will become a weak leader
like parenting everyone has the capacity
to be a parent doesn’t mean everybody
wants to be a parent and doesn’t mean
everybody shouldn’t be a parent
leadership is the same we all have the
capacity to be a leader doesn’t mean
everybody should be a leader and it
doesn’t mean everybody wants to be a
leader and the reason is because it
comes at great personal sacrifice
remember you’re not in charge you’re
responsible for those in your charge
that means things like when everything
goes right you have to give away all the
credit and when everything goes wrong
you have to take all the responsibility
that sucks right it’s things like
staying late to show somebody what to do
it’s things like when something does
actually break when something goes wrong
instead of yelling and screaming and
taking over you say try again when the
overwhelming pressures are not on them
the overwhelming pressures are on us at
the end of the day great leaders are not
responsible for the job they’re
responsible for the people who are
responsible for the job
I think it’s both exciting and
depressing that messages like mine have
an audience you know I talk about really
simple things like how to be fulfilled
you know and like how to do things that
inspire us and how to work for a company
that sort of gets the best out of us and
makes us feel good while they’re doing
it and and you know it’s kind of
upsetting that people are even wanting
to hear that meaning that there’s a
demand for it but it also presents the
most remarkable opportunity in the world
which means there’s an opportunity for
us to
the way work is done so that all of
those things are not the exception but
rather the rule you know it’s it’s it is
the exception when somebody says I love
my job and I say you meet somebody at a
bar is like what do you do I love my job
oh you’re so lucky right it’s like that
that should be something special is
remarkable and so the amazing thing is
is that ability to say I love my job I
love what I do is actually not that
complicated to find and not ironically
it has nothing to do with the work that
we do it has everything to do with the
people with whom we work and you don’t
even have to like the people with whom
you work that’s the most amazing thing
of all if you think about it in the
military there are people who are
willing to risk their lives for people
they don’t even like we don’t even like
to give a credit for things you know so
what is it that creates an environment
in which people care about each other so
much that they would risk their lives
for people that they don’t even like
right sometimes this is remarkable to me
human beings in all their complexity and
all of the nonsense and all the
messiness what drives us is kind of
simple and this is what I like to
research and learn about and write about
which is you understand the very basic
mechanics of this machine called the
human being
it’s becomes fairly obvious as to what
conditions in which the machine will
perform well and in what conditions the
machine will not perform well very
simply our machine is a social machine
we are social animals and we respond to
the environment
we’re in that’s it good people are
capable of doing very bad things if
they’re in the wrong environment and
people who society may have given up on
if you put them in the right environment
are capable of performing remarkable
remarkable things this is the job of
leadership which is to make that
environment the leader sets the tone and
the tone that is set will determine
how we respond accordingly and again we
are relatively simple in our motivations
if you go back to the Paleolithic era
when Homo Sapien first stepped foot on
the planet about 50,000 years ago there
were other hominid species that existed
at the same time but we were the ones
that survived they died
we weren’t necessarily the strongest we
weren’t necessarily the fastest and yet
we’ve done quite well look at this
remarkable world that we’ve built one of
the huge advantages we had and have is
that we are social animals and things
like trust and cooperation are
absolutely essential for our survival
they’re not just nice ideas they’re
absolutely essential you can imagine why
when we existed when we lived in
populations that never really got bigger
than about a hundred and fifty people
for 40,000 of the 50,000 years we’ve
been on this planet we never lived in
populations bigger than 150 people
I understand scale presents some
inherent problems but you can you can
understand the benefits of the group
living what it meant was I could fall
asleep at night and trust that someone
in my tribe would watch for danger if I
didn’t trust the people in my tribe I
couldn’t go to sleep and this is not a
very good system for survival or
performance or anything any other metric
it’s the same at work when we work with
people with whom we trust I don’t need
to double-check your work I don’t need
to see it before it goes out to you no I
don’t need you don’t need my approval
right when we have trust we can let
people go do their work and even if
they’re subordinate we don’t need to
double-check or approve or anything
things will happen because we trust them
because we all have each other’s backs
we all have each other’s interests in
mind the problem with things like trust
and cooperation is that they are not
instructions
I can’t simply tell you trust me you
can’t simply ask people to trust you in
your advertising and you can’t simply
tell people I want you to to cooperate
trust and cooperation are feelings and
this is the problem so the question is
where do those feelings come from now
again we are basic pretty simple in in
our motivation in our constructions you
can imagine what life
what colors they use you can imagine
what life must have been like in these
Paleolithic times it was a world filled
with danger all of these forces working
extremely hard to kill us whether it was
the weather or lack of resources
saber-tooth Tiger nothing personal but
all of these forces were working
together to end our lives and so as
tribal animals we work together and
lived and worked amongst people around
whom we felt safe
we felt like we belonged and when we
felt safe amongst the people with whom
he lived and work the natural human
response is trust in cooperation it’s
just what happens when we do not feel
safe amongst the people with whom we
work however the natural human
inclination is cynicism paranoia
mistrust and self-interest when we do
not feel safe amongst the people with
whom we work if our leaders do not make
us feel safe we have no choice but to
spend our own time in our own energy to
protect ourselves from each other when
we do not fear each other we naturally
work together to face the dangers and
seize the opportunities it’s the exact
same thing in our modern business world
there are forces that are a constant and
beyond our control that are working to
kill you right maybe I’m exaggerating
but there are forces outside things like
the uncertainty of an economy the ups
and downs of a stock market a new
technology that might render a business
model obsolete overnight your
competition that sometimes is trying to
kill you it’s trying to destroy that
product to put you out of business but
at the very minimum is trying to
frustrate your growth and steal your
customers these forces are a constant
and you have no control over them and
never will
the only variable are the conditions
inside the organization and when those
conditions are set in a manner that
allows us to feel like we can trust and
cooperate we do this is what leaders are
supposed to do there is an exact
definition of leadership and it is not
my
piñon you know i-i-i love all the books
that come out and all the articles what
makes a great leader what are the five
things you need to be a leader you need
charisma you need vision you know all of
these things I can tell you right now
those things are sometimes useful but
they’re not essential not everyone has
vision does that mean they’re they’re
not allowed to be leaders you know some
people have remarkable charisma and some
people don’t does that mean they will
never lead of course it’s all nonsense
you can’t manufacture these things some
people are good strategic thinkers and
some people are not some people are just
naturally good at basketball and some
people are not there are skills you can
get better at them for sure but you
either a visionary or not these are not
things that we can manufacture in other
words they’re not essential components
for leadership there’s only one
characteristic that I’m comfortable
saying that all leaders must have to
become leaders and that’s courage
because leadership is hard and it often
requires sacrifice and the the can that
it will happen that you will have to put
your interests your comforts your
advantages aside so that others may gain
and that sometimes really hard in fact
standing up for others may mean that you
might get your head chopped off you know
a leader sometimes loses their job
because they did the right thing
right that comes with significant risk
the choice to be a leader comes at
significant risk and this is why not
everyone chooses to be a leader
leadership has nothing to do with the
rank it has nothing to do with the title
you have on your card leadership is a
choice that’s it I know many many people
who sit in the senior echelons of a
corporation and they are not leaders
they are authorities and they have
authority and we do what they say
because they have authority over us but
we would not follow them I know many
people who sit at the bottom of
organizations who have no authority but
they are absolutely leaders and the
reason they are leaders is because they
have made a choice they have chosen to
look after the person to the left of
them and they have chosen to look after
the person to the right of them
it doesn’t always mean they have to
sacrifice their interests but when it
really counts sometimes they choose to
sacrifice their interests because it’s
in the interest of the person to the
left and to the right of them this is
what leadership is the role of leaders
is not an accident either it’s built
into our anthropology it’s part of our
survival the reason we have hierarchy
and we have leaders for those times when
we lived in these austere conditions we
had a little bit of a problem there’s a
very practical problem there wasn’t
necessarily enough food to go around all
the time you didn’t necessary didn’t
have supermarkets and cars we just go
get milk sometimes there was food
readily available and sometimes not
which meant if someone brought home some
food and we’re living in a population of
up to a hundred and fifty we would all
rush in to eat because we’re all hungry
and if you were lucky enough to be built
like a football player you could shove
your way to the front of the line if you
were the artist of the family you would
get an elbow in the face this is not a
good system for cooperation it’s not a
good system for survival because the
odds are that if I got punched in the
face this afternoon I’m not gonna wake
the guy if I see danger bad system and
so we evolved into these hierarchical
animals we are constantly assessing and
judging each other
whose alpha whose beta we are naturally
hierarchical and we always organize
ourselves in hierarchies so even in
meetings we go to meeting like
everybody’s equal I want you guys to
work together it’s not gonna happen
we are never equals we always assess we
always judge we always allow some others
some deference and the role of
leadership and some of us defer and sort
of take a more subordinate role it
always happens not necessarily a bad
thing and again the reasons are very
practical based on our history because
what would happen was when we would
assess someone as our alpha and let me
be clear your capacity to be an alpha in
any population is not an absolute it is
relative to the population you’re in so
you might be a technologist or an
engineer and you might think you’re the
hottest best most fantastic engineer and
so does everybody else and you walk
around like this and you go take a dance
class all of a sudden you egos not so
big anymore right
we’ve all had the experience right we’ve
all had the experience where we shake
someone’s hand and we’re nervous
you’re not the Alpha you know or when we
consent that someone’s nervous meeting
us you’re the Alpha right it’s it’s a
relative scale so when we assess that
someone in the population is our alpha
we voluntarily step back and allow them
first choice of meat and first choice of
mate we let them eat first we may not
get the best choice of meat but we will
eat eventually and we didn’t have to get
an elbow in the face to get that food
good system to this day we are very
comfortable with paying deference and
offering advantages to those more senior
than us there’s not a single person in
this room zero that has a problem with
somebody more senior than you at the
company making more money than you as a
salary by having a bigger salary than
you doesn’t bother you at all you might
think they’re an idiot but it doesn’t
actually bother you that they make more
money than you because they outrank you
no issue it doesn’t bother us at all
that somebody more senior than us has a
bigger office or a better parking space
it is of no issue whatsoever in fact we
very often find ourselves deferring to
our alphas doing nice things for our
foes we open doors for them and call
them sir and ma’am and get them tea and
they didn’t even ask I can promise you
that if as you were walking out of this
room if Steven Spielberg happened to
walked in walk in you would hold the
door open for him and then you would go
home and tell your spouse or your
boyfriend of your girlfriend you’ll
never believe what happened today I held
the door open for Steven Spielberg how
come you don’t advertise when you hold
the door open for anybody else it’s
because we’re proud to sometimes do
menial labor for those who we perceive
as alphas in our system we’re proud to
work for the groups that they lead and
the organizations that they lead by the
way you can’t lead a company you can run
a company you can only lead people and
so this whole idea of deference and how
we always deference the volunteer to
these alphas is a natural human response
and it’s a survival instinct and it’s
all about this and that’s the point
none of those perks that you get for
being the leader for being the alpha
none of them come free they come at a
very high
you see the group is not dumb we expect
that the person who’s better fed the
person who’s actually stronger or
smarter than us the person who has a
higher self-confidence has more
self-confidence because of all our our
love and deference in the hello sir and
hello mmm and actually boost their
self-confidence we expect that this more
confidence stronger better fed person
when danger threatens the tribe we
expect them to rush towards the danger
to protect us that’s the cost of
leadership that’s why we gave you first
choice of mate because you might die and
we want to keep your genes in the gene
pool we’re not stupid and this is what
it means to be a leader the willingness
to rush towards the danger to protect
those in your care it is a choice you
don’t have to be a leader it is a choice
if you don’t like the costs of
leadership you may not accept the perks
of leadership because they do not come
for free this is the reason why we are
so viscerally offended by some of the
banking CEOs have these disproportionate
salaries and bonus structures it’s not
the money that offends us it’s that we
know deep inside us that they have
violated the very definition of what it
means to be a leader they have accepted
all of the perks and bonuses and
benefits of being the leader and yet
they’re not willing to make any of the
sacrifices for the role that they have
accepted in other words we know that
they allowed their people to be
sacrificed for them to keep their
bonuses and perks and advantages worse
sometimes they chose to sacrifice their
people to protect their bonuses and
their perks this is what so offends us
it’s not the money if I told you we’re
going to give a hundred and fifty
million dollar bonus to Nelson Mandela
does anyone have a problem with that no
how about a two hundred and fifty
million dollar bonus to mother Teresa
got an issue with that no it’s not the
money it’s not the money it’s that
leadership is a choice and in our modern
day and age unfortunately many of the
people who like to call themselves
leaders are not leaders at all
they are authorities
that’s all they are and we have to do
what they say because they have
authority over us but we would not
follow them and this is a problem
because when we do not feel that they
have our backs we we do not feel safe
work inside their organizations they
force us to spend our time and our
energy to protect ourselves from them
and the organization itself suffers it’s
what happens it’s ironic to me that
organizations like your own who want to
drive innovation and ideas and new ways
of thinking would in the same breath lay
people off because they didn’t make the
numbers in one year you do realize that
those two concepts are completely
counterproductive it’s like talking to a
CEO and I ask what are your priorities
they say we have two priorities
innovation and efficiency not possible
there is nothing efficient about
innovation try fail try fail try fail
try fail try fail try fail succeed not
efficient it takes so you throw money to
try things out you can be innovative or
you can be efficient you can be
efficient and hope for innovation and
you can be innovative and hope for
efficiency there’s always gonna be one
subordinate to the other not bad not
better or worse but let’s not kid
ourselves and think that they can be
equal grounds they cannot it is
impossible but worse an organization
that claims or hopes or desires or
aspires to be innovative must at every
expense commit themselves to the safety
of their people because only when we
feel safe and protected will we
voluntarily commit ourselves to the
support of each other and the
advancement of the vision there are very
simple ways to do this here are just a
few great leaders would never sacrifice
the numbers would never sacrifice the
people to save the numbers
great leaders would sacrifice the
numbers to save the people and so when
we live in a day and age where our
leaders are so comfortable sending you
home to tell your spouse and your kids
I’m sorry I no longer have an income
because the company had to make its
numbers for the year forget about the
people who lost their jobs what about
the people who didn’t get laid off how
inspired do you think they feel to come
back to work every day how do you how
safe do you think they feel do you think
we’re gonna give our best knowing at the
next time if the company doesn’t make
its numbers by the way which may or may
not have anything to do with us remember
all of those outside dangers the ups and
downs of technologies the ups and downs
of stock markets the ups and downs of
economies you think when you have a bad
year you set your children down and say
kids it’s been a bad year we have to get
rid of one of you or worse or worse I
got to keep my Mercedes and so it’s
either you or the car and we’ve picked
you right know we tighten the belt we
work together we figure out ways to make
it happen to see it through the hard
times we cannot judge the quality of a
crew based on how they perform in good
times we judge a quality of the crew by
how they perform in rough waters and
unfortunately we throw our crew
overboard when we hit rough waters what
makes them want to commit to see the
ships make it through the rough waters
what they do is they sit down and watch
their own backs because nobody else is
gonna watch my back there is no
innovation and in a group like that
there is no innovation in a group like
that backstabbing ideas stealing plenty
of that nothing personal gotta look
after numero uno so number one people
come first numbers are always
subordinate to people numbers will not
rescue you in hard times people will
numbers will not come up with new ideas
people will numbers are not innovative
people are that’s number one another one
which is really really really easy is
honesty
it’s really easy to be honest just tell
the truth
and if you tell the truth on a regular
basis we will say you have integrity
that’s all it means
he’s a really basic concepts so for
example if somebody calls and a
secretary picks up the phone and says
Dave’s on the phone and you say damn I’m
not here
you just sanctioned lying inside your
organization that’s what you’ve done you
have said that when it suits you even if
these lies are small you may tell lies
that was dishonest I went to visit
Quantico Marine base where the Marine
Corps choses selects their officers and
on the day I was there true story
I was waiting in a conference room for
the colonel in charge of OCS to come and
give us a briefing on on the base about
about OCS about the selection process
and he arrived late Marines don’t ever
arrive late and he showed up late he
came in and apologized he said I’m sorry
we’ve had an incident with one of our
Marines so I go what happened you know
he said well we’re considering throwing
him out of OCS which means throwing out
of the Marine Corps like I’m thinking
what law did he break what did he do so
I said what did he do and the colonel
said he fell asleep on watch and I said
that’s it he fell asleep on watch in the
woods of Virginia you know I’m like you
guys are tough he said and then he
explained it he said no you don’t
understand
he said when we asked him about it he
denied it when we asked him about it
again he denied it again and only when
we gave him irrefutable proof did he say
quote I want to take responsibility for
my actions
the problem we have he said is we
believe you take responsibility for your
actions at the time you perform your
actions not at the time you get caught
we have another Marine who fell asleep
on watch he admitted it he got punished
we have no problem with him and he went
on to explain he says you have to
understand I cannot put this marine in a
leadership position where they’re
responsible for lives of other Marines
because of they’re in a combat situation
and his Marines doubt for one second
that the words coming out of his mouth
are anything but the truth if they
believe for one second that the words he
is speaking are only to make himself
look better or cover his own ass trusts
will break down in the whole group and
people will die now we are not in
life-and-death situations but the way
our minds interpret information that
it’s given to us is in terms of life and
death this is why we don’t trust
politicians they tell us the things we
want to hear we don’t prima facie
disagree with anything we’ve been told
but we know that they don’t believe the
things that they’re saying and so we as
human beings were very very smart and
this was always ingrained in us we
always make sure just to keep a safe
distance from anybody who we don’t
believe is honest because if we were to
find ourselves in a life-and-death
situation with them you know what I’m
gonna if I had to gamble I’m gonna say
won’t go with them when someone is
honest they’re willing to tell us good
news they’re willing to tell us bad news
they’re willing to be upfront with them
even if it’s news that we don’t want to
hear even if it’s not in our interest
we’re okay with it we actually trust
them hey listen I I gotta be honest with
you your performance has been really bad
these days I love this area we’re
supposed to give sandwiches give them
the good news before you get to the bad
news right so give them something
general and generic that they don’t
believe anyway hey you’re really smart
and on this one project that you did
that you really completely like it’s
really specific when they give us the
negative right in other words we didn’t
believe the positive in the first place
we knew they were just biding their time
to get to the negative honesty I’ll give
you another example of honesty and how
we respond to it okay we’ve all had this
happen if you get an email that says to
you do your assignment you you I’d get
that you wouldn’t get that
if you get that send it to me dear Simon
haven’t talked to you in years I hope
you’re doing well congratulations on
your success it’s really amazing
we’d love to catch up and get a cup of
tea sometime by the way I’m if you could
go to this website I’m trying to raise
money for a project I’m doing it would
really appreciate if you could vote for
me or tweet it out thanks a lot Dave and
what do you do when you get something
like that you’re like you know right now
what have we simply reversed the
information dear Simon I’m trying to
raise money for this project I’m doing
would really appreciate if you could
click on the link and vote for me and
maybe even tweet it out haven’t seen you
in years hope you’re doing really well
congratulations all your success would
love to get together with you for a cup
of tea sometime Dave in other words tell
me the reason you sent me the email
right
the niceties are fine but that’s not the
reason you sent me the email it was
dishonest it was disingenuous honesty is
such a simple thing right it’s such a
simple thing and when it is afforded to
us we respond with loyalty and Trust and
the commitment and devotion and loyalty
because why wouldn’t we by telling me
accurate information it helps me better
survive I like that I appreciate that
I’m gonna stand next to the honest one
honesty is king hard but important and
if we screw up be honest about the screw
up I want you to know I wasn’t honest
with you I was in a weird position and I
should have told you the truth and I
didn’t I got embarrassed and then I’ve
made it worse I know I don’t I don’t
know I didn’t sorry I shamed you know
like we can be honest about the failings
even we can accept punishments great
organizations if people scrub you can be
punished but it doesn’t mean you’ll lose
your job if we fear that we will lose
our jobs we don’t work in safe
organizations if we fear getting in
trouble that’s okay when we fear getting
in trouble for my parents we don’t fear
that they’re gonna throw us out of the
house right same thing same thing here’s
another thing
that is easy
to do and is a component of leadership
right allowing others to fail my friend
David mark hey who wrote an amazing book
called turned the ship around check it
out ma rqu ET was a naval cat who’s a
captain of a submarine nuclear-powered
los angeles-class past attack sub and
mark a believed like many of us do that
his credibility as a leader was closely
tied to his competence to his
intelligence you know we believe that we
have to know as much or more than those
in our report because this is what gives
us credibility as leaders right and so
in typical mark a fashion when he was
assigned to one of the great honors of
his career to be captain of his own
submarine the USS Olympia he spent a
year learning every button every switch
every pipe every valve of the submarine
he went through the dossiers of his crew
he knew everything about his crew he was
gonna be prepared and he was gonna know
as much or more than everybody else on
board because he was the captain now he
had to he had no choice two weeks before
he took command of the Olympia he got a
phone call that says yeah you’re not
gonna be the captain of the Olympia
you’re gonna be the captain of the
SantaFe it was a slightly newer
submarine still in Ellis angeles-class
submarine but mark I realized because it
was slightly new some of the things were
different and he didn’t want anybody to
know that he didn’t know everything and
so he kind of kept it to himself and
pretended he knew everything but that’s
okay you know he’s a smart guy as a
competent guy yeah obviously trusted him
enough to be captain he was fine then
there was another little wrinkle where
the Olympia was the best rated crew in
the United States submarine fleet the
Santa Fe was the worst rated crew in the
submarine fleet they ranked last or
close to last in almost every readiness
measurement in the entire some in wood
and that the Navy had right but mark hey
figured that’s okay I have a bad crew
that’s alright I’m a gonna be a good
leader if I give good orders I’ll have a
good ship and if I give great orders
I’ll have a great ship so they set sail
and about two or three days into into
into being out there you know when they
got ready he’s like barking orders get
ready for this get ready for that
and everybody was following his orders
enough they went out to sea it was great
feeling everybody when they do what you
say right and about two or three days
out they were submerged and they decided
to run an exercise so they turned off
the reactor manually and pretended that
they are having a meltdown and they ran
the boat on battery power
it’s called EPM right and mark’ decided
he wanted to add a little tension make
the sea how how well they would do with
with more difficult situation then he
gave a simple order ahead two thirds and
what that means is run the boat 2/3 its
maximum speed to his side was his
navigator who was the second in command
at the time at on the on the on the in
the in the bridge and he was also the
most experienced sailor on board
he’d had two and a half years aboard the
Santa Fe and he repeated the order ahead
two thirds and nothing happened and
seaman Jones junior sailor sitting at
the controls was squirming literally
squirming in his seat
so mark’ peers out from the side of his
periscope and says seaman Jones what’s
the problem and seaman Jones replies sir
there is no two third setting apparently
on this slightly newer Los Angeles but
there was no two third setting on the
EPM so he turns to his navigator he says
did you know this and the guy goes
mm-hmm he said then why did you give the
order he said because you told me to and
that’s when Mark hay realizes he’s
aboard a ship he doesn’t understand and
he has a crew that’s trained for
compliance it’s not like you can just
turn around and ask for a new boat or
change a crew out we in the private
sector think that we have an advantage
because we can hire and fire people
you’re assuming that we’re hiring and
firing the right people we think we’ll
that when things don’t work just change
the people get rid of the get rid of the
weak links mark’ didn’t have this this
is his crew he’s stuck with it and it’s
not like in anything else in the world
in submarines there’s no one person who
dies you either all live or you all die
that’s it those are your options on a
submarine
and sir mark a is forced to literally
re-examine everything he understands
about leadership because bad things will
happen if this is the way it goes and so
one of the things he realized is he had
a permission based society aboard his
boat sir permission to dive to 400 feet
permission granted eyes are diving to
4-under feet in other words all the
authority all of the accountability lies
with the person in charge with the
captain if something goes wrong the
captain allowed it to happen
mark Abe and the words permission to
aboard his boat and he replaced them
with I intend to the hierarchy is not
affected at all the chain of command is
not affected at all the difference is
psychological I intend to dr. foreigner
feet all right all the accountability
lies with the person performing the
action now and so what started to happen
was people took their jobs more
seriously and they started to ask each
other for help because where things went
wrong and instead of wanting to get
permission from the boss now if the boss
asked a question you wanted to be able
to have the answer which means when the
bus says did you check the depths
sometimes he asked and sometimes he
didn’t did you check the depth of course
I check the notes what are the depths
400 you know in other words you could
never be caught not knowing before you
made a decision
accountability went up there are lots of
other things that mark K did which he
talked about in his book within a short
period of time the crew of the Santa Fe
became the highest-rated crew in naval
history not that year not the submarine
fleet in naval history same people same
equipment it’s not the people it’s the
environment it’s always the environment
that people are fine it’s always the
environment and this is what leadership
is one of the things mark k realizes in
most organizations the people at the top
have all of the authority but none of
the information and the people who are
actually performing the jobs have all
the information but none of the
authority and in most organizations they
stride to get the information up no push
the authority down this is what creates
great organizations and what that does
is it
makes us feel that our work and our
lives have value we want to be given the
opportunity to make mistakes we want to
be given the opportunity to work hard
and have responsibility it feels good to
work hard to have responsibly of
something if somebody else we’ve all had
the experience sometimes jr. sometimes
senior in our jobs I can remember in my
own career I used to have a boss who did
the opposite and I would write I would
write something and she would covered in
red pen and tell me to make her changes
and so go make her changes I come back
and she’d covered and repented to me to
make her changes and at some point I
stopped caring about the quality of my
first draft because I knew she’s just
gonna change it all to whatever she
wanted anyway no longer felt valuable or
valued as opposed to telling me the
macro issues she had this is not clear I
know what you’re trying to say but it
doesn’t come across try again
responsibility accountability I remember
the first time that somebody gave me
accountability I had to produce
something that I had to send out to the
client the norm was to show it to my
boss before it went out to the client
except this time he decided to leave
early
and I said well join me to email it to
you before you know before it goes out
he goes no good night make sure it goes
out tonight by now I knew what good was
and I knew what had had to be done and
guess what he was fine and I worked hard
I wanted to do it right one of the
things great leaders do is they allow us
to try and fail and one other thing mark
a torx and one of the marquee talks
about is the importance of training and
the importance of practice and the
points of small projects because you can
punch a hole in the side of the ship
above the waterline and you fix it it
cost some money or whatever but you do
that over and over again so that you
don’t punch a hole in the side of the
ship below the waterline in training
metrics are supposed to go down because
you want people to try hard and fail and
find out where the line is in combat
training you want them to get shot
because you want them to find where
getting shot happens you don’t want you
don’t want to outscore everybody else in
training it’s ridiculous right this is
the time to push the limits or give
people little projects that the worst
think about what we do for a living
right nobody here’s looking for
for cancer we’re working in an ER the
worst thing we can do the absolute worst
is lose a multi-billion dollar
corporation some money and not enough
that will get noticed and it is enough
to get noticed it won’t put you out of
business
like seriously death and destruction and
that’s the worst and so when we have
leaders that understand that and allow
us to try and fail and try and fail and
understand that if we screw it up it’s
okay the ships not gonna sink now try
again let’s sit down and talk about
maybe what you would like to do
differently next time I want you to
learn I want you to try again kind of
like what we do with our kids and that’s
the final point the closest analogy I
can give to you about what leadership is
is parenting think about what makes a
great parent you know first of all not
having kids is a better life you got you
get a bigger house you take nicer
vacations you can get the car you want
not the car you have to get right it’s
much more sleep right yet we choose for
some reason to have children we have
choose to make these sacrifices because
in time it’s kind of worth it to see
this little thing grow up and make
something of themselves that we we got
to look after it’s kind of worth it the
problem with leadership the problem with
parenting is they’re both like exercise
is they cannot be measured in small
discrete chunks I can give you a
compelling presentation about the
importance of exercise and they’ll
change your life and improve the quality
of your life and let people live longer
and you’ll believe me and you’ll go to
the gym and you’ll come back and you’ll
look in the mirror and you will see
nothing but you go the next day and you
come back and you look in the mirror and
you will see nothing and worse you’re in
pain and so you have no metrics to show
there’s any value to anything I’ve told
you so you stop but if you can stick
with it after three months you look at
an old picture of yourself and I can’t
believe I ever looked like that I can’t
I can’t believe it leadership and
parenting the same you have no idea if
you’re being a good pair
on a daily basis none in fact sometimes
you’re a bad parent but you kind of have
a sense of what it should be and you
stick with it and there are these little
glimmers that you get that make you
proud that you’re kind of doing the
right thing that the sacrifice is worth
it like the little things that the kids
do but you won’t actually see a return
on your investment investment for like
30 years you know some of our parents
leadership is the same I haven’t I have
no way of measuring that you’re being a
good leader on a daily basis
even the best leaders are sometimes
terrible leaders on a daily basis
there’s no good metric the problem is is
it’s very hard to measure in short
discrete packets but it’s very easy to
measure over distance over time that’s
the problem
good good leadership is obvious you’ve
measured in things like churn you know
how many and what’s the average lifespan
of your employees I loved reading all
these reports to say well the trend is
that people are spending less and less
time at their jobs now and maybe it’s
because they’re looking for more
adventure no it’s because they don’t
feel safe and why would they stick
around there’s no loyalty it’s not a
good trend it’s a symptom parenting
think about what a great parent is a
great parent is willing to sacrifice
givethem top of themselves you know
discipline when necessary provide
opportunities provide education also
this young little thing can grow up and
achieve more than they thought they ever
could for themselves what’s a great
leader somebody’s willing to sacrifice
and give themselves and provide
opportunities education discipline when
necessary sometimes help them up
sometimes make them get up themselves
all is it the so they’ll grow up and
build confidence and the chief things I
couldn’t even achieve for myself same
thing there’s a photograph in the New
York Times a bunch of months ago you
remember those shootings in Kenya and
the amazing thing was there was a
photographer who is on the scene usually
we see the aftermath right and this
particular one there was a photographer
in the mall and so we got to see
pictures of what was going on and
there’s one photograph you can look it
up it’s online there’s one photo
Taylor Hicks is the photographer’s name
there’s a photographer de Graaff of a
mother lying on top of her child okay
now think about that at the sound of a
gun it’s a mother’s instinct to throw
herself unto her child potentially
risking her own life to ensure that the
life of this young precious thing will
survive her now on other days mom gets
to do what mom says because I’m the mom
and sometimes mom takes the liberties
and enjoys the liberties of being the
leader in being the one in charge but
when it matters when the child’s life
survival are at stake there’s no
question what a good mother does they
throw themselves on top of their child
no questions asked even at personal
sacrifice that’s called leadership
that’s what our leaders do they can
enjoy the trappings enjoy the perks
enjoy the parking spaces enjoy the money
nobody says you have to give them up in
fact we would be upset if you gave them
up because it’s our pleasure to do these
things for you you know can you imagine
if Steven Spielberg you know you made
him a couple copies I can make my own
cup it actually would feel bad like we
want well we want to do these things it
brings us joy to do these things just
like it brings our kids Joy’s joy to
make us proud and it gives us joy to
make our leaders proud we want to do
right by them but we do so with the
knowledge that they would sacrifice
themselves for us back in the Marine
Corps this idea of leadership is viewed
as a responsibility not as a rank you
will never hear the use words spoke in
the Marines you will never hear the
words I am a leader I believe I have
what it takes to be a leader I aspire to
be a leader those words do not exist
here are the words they speak I am a
leader of Marines I believe I have what
it takes to be a leader of Marines I
aspire to be a good leader of Marines in
their own vernacular they view
leadership as a responsibility to
another human being and not a rank to be
attained it’s the same for us you’re not
a leader you’re a leader of people and
to say I am a leader is false I’m a
leader of people I aspire to be a leader
of people I believe I have what it takes
to be a leader of people I want
to be the best leader of people I can
possibly be and we are reminded every
time we speak the words that our
responsibilities to another person like
the word parent I am a parent inherent
in that word is that there’s a child you
can’t call yourself a parent without a
child I’m a parent of a child it comes
with certain responsibilities inherent
as does leadership and so this manifests
in some funny ways in the Marine Corps
if you go to any chow hall anywhere in
the world on any Marine base what you
will see is they will line up in rank
order during chat I’m most junior man
eats first most senior man eats last it
is not in any rulebook and no one tells
them they have to it happens organically
because of the way they simply view the
responsibilities of leadership that I as
the leader like a parent would let my
child eat before I eat that’s just what
we do and so that’s one of the ways it
shows up I was told a true story I was
told a story of a Marine officer who was
deployed and they had they were eating
among with the group and the that
officer made sure that his men ate first
as is the custom in the Marine Corps and
they ran out of food the officer didn’t
get to eat so when they went out back
into the field all of his men brought
him some of their food so that he may
eat this is what happens when we as
leaders commit to the safety of our
people our people will give us their
blood sweat and tears and they will make
their own sacrifices to ensure that we
are kept safe and to ensure that our
visions are advanced we cannot sit here
with our arms folded and simply complain
that our leadership doesn’t look after
us that our leadership doesn’t get it
that they would soon as sacrifice us to
save the numbers and they would never
sacrifice the numbers to save us the day
listen to Wall Street they don’t put
people first they claim they drive
innovation but they’re not creating the
environment that would create innovation
we cannot complain because we must be
the leaders we wish we had we have a
person to the left of us and we have a
person to the right of us that we can
take responsibility for sure you don’t
love your job but do they are you
committing yourself to ensuring that
they feel happy that they feel safe that
they have the job they love that they
feel like
learning that they feel they have
opportunity we have entire sections in
the book shop called self-help we have
no sections called help others and yet
the science is clear our own sense of
happiness our own sense of fulfillment
our health and indeed the success of the
organization itself are tied entirely to
our willingness to serve those in our
tribe to look after those who would we
we would call brother and sister which
we don’t do in companies we have
colleagues in the military they have
brothers and they have sisters we don’t
always like our brothers and sisters but
my goodness you threatened my brother or my sister and you got to deal with me
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