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 change 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
you know so 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 if 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 very simply our
machine is a social machine
we are social animals and we respond to
the environment we’re in that 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 exist 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 150 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 two 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 color
should I 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
we 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 opinion 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 have 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’re
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 it’s a 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 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
but we would not follow them I know many
people who sit at the bottom of
organizations who have no authority that
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 as a very
practical problem it wasn’t necessarily
enough food to go around all the time
you didn’t necessary to enhance 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
Russian team 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 difference 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
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 is
alpha we voluntarily step back and allow
them first choice of meat and first
choice of may 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 Speilberg 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 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 defer into 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 expense 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 hello sir and
hello ma’am and actually boost their
self-confidence we expect that this more
confident strong or 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
gonna give a hundred and fifty million
dollar bonus to Nelson Mandela does
anyone have a problem with that
no how about a 250 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 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 asked 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 in
hope for innovation and you can be
innovative and hope for efficiency
there’s always gonna be one subordinate
to the other not that 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 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 inspire 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 do 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 pick you right
no 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 concept 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’ve
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 chooses 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 throw him 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 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
with this
is 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
got to be honest with you your
performance has been really bad these
days I love this area where were
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’re really complete 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 you get an email that says – 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 know like you know
right now what if 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 a 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 it 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 made
it worse I know I I don’t I don’t know I
didn’t sorry I you know like we can be
honest about the failings even we can
accept punishments great organizations
that 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
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 there’s a captain of a
submarine nuclear-powered los
angeles-class past attack sub and mark
hey 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
onboard 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
that’s we 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 and almost every readiness
measurement in the entire sum in what
the Navy had right but mark hey figured
that’s okay I have a bad crew that’s all
right 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 and
everybody was following his orders
enough they went out to sea it was great
feeling everybody when they do it 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
this see 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 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
he said then why did you give the order
he said because you told me to and
that’s when Mark K 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 with it when things don’t work
just change the people get rid of the
get rid of the weak links mark a 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 for
defeat 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 a banned 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 dive to foreign feet all
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 of the things went wrong and
instead of wanting to get permission
from the boss now if the bus 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
tips of course I check the notes what
are the taps 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’ 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’ 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 junior
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 bye now I knew what
good was and I knew what it 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 one of the marquee
talks about is the importance of
training and the importance of practice
in 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 a cure
for cancer or 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
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 but I can’t
believe I ever looked like that you
can’t I can’t believe it leadership and
parenting the same you have no idea if
you’re being a good parent on a daily
basis
none in fact sometimes you’re a bad
parent
[Music]
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 are
still waiting for us right 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
discreet 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 love 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
given them time 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 of themselves and provide
opportunities education discipline when
necessary sometimes help them up
sometimes make them get up themselves
also they’ll grow up and build
confidence and achieve 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
was 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
photos Taylor Hicks is the
photographer’s name not the same Taylor
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 and 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 of copies I can make
my own cup it actually would feel bad
like me one 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’m 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
Chow time 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 that
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 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
veil is until 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
they’re 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
tarah 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
thank you very much thank you very much
we have time for questions yes in the
back so the question was why is it that
the military has great leaders where
they have low talent for challenging
Authority where in corporations where we
have culture of challenging Authority we
seem to lack good leaders or there seems
to be a dwindling number when you talk
about challenging Authority what are you
talking about you know when we’re
talking about challenging conventional
thoughts and conventional ideas we’re
talking about taking responsibility the
in the military and especially in the
Marines they’re expected and they’re
taught to think for themselves and the
idea of hierarchy is very much geared to
something they call commander’s intent
right in other words the commander tells
us what they need to achieve but they
they will not meddle in how it will be
achieved the problem in not corporations
is we’re told what we what they want to
achieve and how we’re gonna do it and so
the opportunity to challenge authority
is obvious is because you’re giving us
something to challenge whereas in a well
running unit the commander will say I
need to take that hill and it’s for the
lower level leadership to figure out how
to take that hill and then this will
leave a level of leadership beneath that
to figure out okay this is how we’re
gonna do our component of it and so
there’s a lot of there’s a lot of
respect given to the layers of
leadership here not so much why here I
mean corporation it’s not someone
and so it also goes to the concept of
humility the best definition of humility
I ever heard it was given by Bob Gale or
the former chief Asst Chief Master
Sergeant of the Air Force he said do not
confuse humility with meekness humility
is being open to the ideas of others and
I love that you know you can have the
biggest ego in the room being humble
it’s not like oh no it’s not me you know
that’s not humble humble is when
somebody says I got an idea you go let’s
hear it and actually be willing to hear
what they have to say
that’s humility and and so great leaders
have the humility that they they may not
have all the answers and they don’t know
how to get there and it also goes to a
question of priorities right which is
which is based on bonus structures we
are largely incentivized to grow a
number within the year that’s how we get
our incentives and we are not
incentivized to create something stable
that will last a hundred years and so
what you have is a lot of large
relatively unstable organizations well
that’s what they wanted that’s what they
got we’re fast growing mm-hmm awesome
it’s good for the year right this this
is we just talk about this at lunch this
is the difference between this is this
is this is the this is the folly of the
stock market right make sure this is on
I’ll make sure it’s on the camera dude
in the middle okay
this if you look at like General
Electric in the 80s and 90s this is what
there’s their stock chart looks like so
if you were lucky enough to sell at the
right time you would have made you know
I don’t know 1800 cent of your money you
this is not investing this is gambling
we invest in our children we invest in
education right we invest in something
that we don’t see the result in a year
gambling is about hope I hope this works
out
it’s about betting I bet on your new
product I bet on your new CEO I bet on
your reorg I bet on your acquisition I
invested in you because I hope that that
decision that you just made today I bet
Costco was criticized by Wall Street
year after year after there year by
stupidly prioritizing employees and
customers and ignoring the shareholder
if you had invested a dollar in General
Electric and a dollar in Cusco the day
Cusco in public which was December of
1985 you would have compared to today
you would have enjoyed a 600 percent
return on your investment in General
Electric you would have enjoyed a 600
percent return on your investment in the
S&P 500 and you would have enjoyed a
1200 percent return on your investment
in Cusco that’s investing if you were
lucky enough to get out of GE at the
right time you would have made a little
more but that’s not investing that’s
gambling I got no issue with it I got no
issue with gambling and I got no issue
with taking bets just call it like it is
we’re betting versus we’re investing so
if we’re saying we’re doing something
for our shareholders we don’t have
shareholders animal we have sure
squatters right
think about it just this is this thing
about this for one second we’re gonna
take counsel from a disinterested
outside party that when we do well
they’ll invest in us anyway and if we do
badly they’re not loyal and they’re not
gonna stick with us hmm I’ll stop there
and the joke is that’s better for the
shareholder and it’s stable and its
innovative and people love working there
and they look after each other and they
don’t spend tons of money on churn
because nobody quits it’s good
forget about idealism forget about
soapboxes I’m talking business I’m
talking the free market this is better
for the free market but I digress
based on your 99 Utah where you focus a
lot more kind of on the neurologic
neurobiological reasons why these things
happen where do you see kind of a future
of that going will we evolve as
companies to be better and figure out if
we can actually see you know
scientifically what’s happening or do
you think kind of continue to face the
same problem oh such hubris
yeah we’re not that smart you know we we
I love you know companies do competitive
analyses and yet it’s the competition
they didn’t see that always guessed them
it’s the unsuspecting technology they
didn’t even know existed that comes up
you know myspace was busy studying
Friendster when Facebook showed up out
of nowhere right and so we don’t know
that’s the point like we have to like
we’re so proud to believe that we’ve
considered everything you know the Space
Shuttle blew up because of a bolt okay
you know things go wrong all the time
because one idiot decision about someone
who didn’t see something
look the housing crisis mortgage-backed
securities the actuaries said that these
have a 99% chance of success you know
because the 1% chance of the housing
market would collapse at one time so
there was no plan for that 1% chance
because they were that’s the point it’s
like it’s hubris the human-animal
this machine is a legacy machine living
in a very modern world nothing about us
has changed in 50 thousand years Zippo
the way we interpret information the way
we make decisions our drive to try and
form trusting cooperative relationships
I need to feel safe to feel valuable to
feel like we belong all here it is and
yet we’re forced to operate in a very
very different environment and it
produces some inherent problems I
forgotten his name but he’s a he’s a
really great biologist who he was
explaining how back in this Paleolithic
times you know the average life
expectancy was about 80 85 90 and
there’s no cancer and there’s no
diabetes and there’s no heart disease it
was only with the rise of scale and
industrial is 8 well farming you know
farming did all the problems start to
arise and so we think that we’re so
advanced because we live to like 74 now
we’re in the you know in the Renaissance
they died of like 35 right but what we
completely miss is that the ages were
good and they went like this because we
started short-circuiting this machine
and so now we’ve been able to compensate
for some of the short circuits naturally
and with medicines and things like that
but but if we actually live good live
who we have longer trusting beautiful
relationships happier people live longer
people who are in relationship to live
longer than single people we’re social
animals we need each other right so my
belief is that no matter how smart we
think we are no matter how integrated we
can make the human being in the computer
there is something that we won’t see
that will catch us by surprise and
break you know all of this chips
implanted in brains and stuff I think
it’s cool
it won’t work I mean come on we can’t
even figure out the cell phone you know
pretty imperfect technology my bluetooth
thing doesn’t really work so don’t
really bother with it calls get dropped
and I got the Rison that’s better than
the others and they still lose cold
sometimes the calls aren’t clear some
Tai Chi hear them the handsets are kind
of disposable like it’s kind of junk
technology it’s pretty good it’s pretty
good not great right like we we don’t
build things to last anymore so yeah it
I think it’s nice in theory yeah it’s
good they’ll do some stuff but it’ll
break it’s pretty easy I guess to
identify your team or organization
once you’re there so the question was
it’s pretty easy to identify if your
team is safe when you’re in it but if
you need to change teams how do you
identify if it’s safe great question
it’s called dating called making friends
it doesn’t happen immediately and you
can’t tell you go on a first date and it
feels kind of good and so you’ve got a
second date and it feels kind of good
and after like three which you like this
is ridiculous you know in other words we
make the decision to join teams or you
make hiring decisions too quickly
sometimes had a couple of they met
everybody on the team we liked them
okay now it didn’t work out it is our
responsibility to assess the team we
want to join based on their values and
based on their their beliefs it’s the
concepts of why and the other things
that I’ve that I’ve written about and
there’s some ways to figure that out you
know for example you have to know your
own before you can assess others
obviously but here’s here’s a great
example
someone will approach me and say we want
you to invest in our company our little
startup go great what’s your exit
strategy they go with five your exit
strategy I’m not interested because I’m
not interested in things for short-term
so these little questions that I can ask
you know who’s in charge me
who’s your partner I I don’t have one
hmm I believe in mom and dad
I believe in CEO and CEO I believe in
visionary and operator working in
concert to make it happen when one
person thinks they can do it all not so
much so these are little things where
I’ve learned over time to test my
beliefs but you have to take time you
have to get to know them I’m a great
believer in in in dating and getting to
know somebody and sometimes it’s in the
job you never expect that you’ll feel
like you belong in the first week it
won’t ever happen six months minimum
sometimes longer you know like how long
does it take to fall in love certainly
not a week we know that but if you’ve
been there for seven years and you’re
not in love then it’s time to move human
relationships are human relationships
whether it’s dating whether it’s work
whether it’s sports human relationship
to human relationships we’re always
looking for trust we’re always looking
to feel safe I guarantee you that almost
every single person in this room is
sitting next to somebody you chose to
sit next to why is that
why didn’t you split up and sit
somewhere else this is why we keep the
empty seats blank I know you guys don’t
know each other
because it’s like we go to the movies we
sit next to our friends we leave an
empty space right because we want to
feet we feel sick we’re driven by safety
we want to think we feel safe next to
someone we know and we feel uneasy next
to somebody we don’t know nothing
personal it’s just the way we are same
thing so it takes time it takes time and
I have no app for that
I got nothing that can speed up the
human relationship I do find an ironic
however considering I’m speaking out of
turn I might as well just go with the
flow I do find it ironic that companies
like Google and Facebook and sort of all
these social media companies invest huge
sums of time and energy and money to
figure out ways to organize their
corporate cultures so that people will
cooperate better and they have common
eating so that people’s clues you know
they can sit on benches together and
comments places to work together also
that they can be much better working
together to produce a product that keeps
us apart from each other I just love the
irony of that you know that they know
what gets the best out of people is
cooperation so they can produce a
product that leaves us not cooperating I
just love that yes no the question was
if you posted yourself in a place that
you that you feel unsafe is the best
strategy exit absolutely not the best
strategy is to step up the best strategy
is to be the leader you wish you had the
best strategy is to find someone you
trust and say we have each other let’s
look after each other but let’s also
commit to looking after everybody else
there’s some good research on this as
well there was an article in HP r some
time ago about how to deal with a toxic
leader and if you have a toxic leader
what you can see this in dictatorships
same idea is the same thing right so
what what what dictators do is they seed
paranoia and create separation amongst
the people those dictators no two people
come together they’re out dictators
always feel the fear of the people and
that’s because anthropologically it’s
not the leader that has the power it’s
the group that has the power we’re
social animals leaders have
power over us as individuals but as a
group we control the leader and so in
toxic environments where you don’t feel
safe very often what happens is an
environment of fear and paranoia is
created such that the people no longer
help each other they’re too busy
worrying about themselves maybe you have
one friend who watches your back but
it’s not enough and so they maintain
their control and so what you want to do
is break down these barriers and say hey
guys all we have is each other if we’re
gonna be happy at work and we’re gonna
survive it and we’re gonna do good
things we have to look after each other
and what the research shows is two
things happen one this person becomes
completely emasculated they lose their
power and usually higher ups then start
to notice because they are very good at
managing up I’m pretty bad at managing
them you’re welcome
yes great question the question was how
can you tell if someone’s toxic
sometimes they just say the right things
and they present themselves as these
wonderful leaders again time time and
and this is this is the importance of
consistency right there’s a difference
between consistency and intensity and
consistency always wins right you cannot
be healthy by doing a cleanse once a
month you know I’m gonna cleanse no it
doesn’t work right you know it keeps you
healthy being healthy every day you know
going to the gym and working out for 10
hours doesn’t make you healthy doing a
little bit every day makes you healthy
right so consistency is always king over
intensity which is why reorg don’t work
touch a nerve did I reorge
we end up fearing the reorg and they end
up doing all these powerpoints and
bringing in all these outsiders to tell
us how much better it’s gonna be
and we okay and then we end up they end
up spending all of their time trying to
convince us that it’s good it doesn’t
work because then we end up it’s like
it’s like moving a bulldozer towards a
brick wall because we need to move the
brick wall from here to there the brick
that bulldozers the reorg we’re the
brick wall yeah I know we need to move
over there and I’m sure this might work
but I just see a bulldozer coming not
feeling very cooperative however if
somebody says look slowly is how we’re
gonna do it and we don’t expect
everybody to make the change we’re gonna
take a couple people who want to
volunteer it might not work out if you
want to volunteer and be an early
adopter we’re gonna try and we take one
brick and then we take two bricks then
we take four Biggs I’m have a small wall
and a few people who were kind of
naysayers I go huh I guess it will work
we’ll try to and before you know you
move the whole wall and you can’t move
back again because it’s now the new norm
that’s how thing is that’s how change is
supposed to happen I don’t believe in
revolution which is what reorg czar
there’s sudden there there usually a lot
of upheaval I believe in evolution of
which the results can be revolutionary
was the question oh when they say and do
the right thing okay I like my little
aside though it goes back to the
original thing consistency that’s right
I remember I was gonna say consistency
right which is you cannot tell if
someone’s a good leader by something
they said once or did once or twice or
three times now you can kind of tell a
couple failings are okay we don’t mind
that we’re patient we’re good we know no
one’s perfect as opposed to junk junk
junk a couple good things junk junk junk
a couple good things you know
consistency is what will make our
decisions and we’re very very attuned
social animals we’re highly highly
highly sophisticated and social animals
and you kind of go yeah yeah guess he
said all the right things like if you
have that kind of sense the odds are
they’re probably just saying the things
you want to hear and I agree a lot of
leaders say the right things but the
question is will they do the right
things and the only way to truly test it
though do to the right things is when
their ass is on the line when their
bonus is on the line when their
reputation on the line when their life
is on the line
will they save themselves will they save us that’s the best test of all
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 change 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
you know so 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 if 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 very simply our
machine is a social machine
we are social animals and we respond to
the environment we’re in that 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 exist 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 150 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 two 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 color
should I 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
we 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 opinion 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 have 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’re
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 it’s a 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 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
but we would not follow them I know many
people who sit at the bottom of
organizations who have no authority that
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 as a very
practical problem it wasn’t necessarily
enough food to go around all the time
you didn’t necessary to enhance 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
Russian team 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 difference 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
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 is
alpha we voluntarily step back and allow
them first choice of meat and first
choice of may 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 Speilberg 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 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 defer into 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 expense 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 hello sir and
hello ma’am and actually boost their
self-confidence we expect that this more
confident strong or 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
gonna give a hundred and fifty million
dollar bonus to Nelson Mandela does
anyone have a problem with that
no how about a 250 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 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 asked 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 in
hope for innovation and you can be
innovative and hope for efficiency
there’s always gonna be one subordinate
to the other not that 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 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 inspire 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 do 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 pick you right
no 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 concept 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’ve
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 chooses 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 throw him 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 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
with this
is 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
got to be honest with you your
performance has been really bad these
days I love this area where were
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’re really complete 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 you get an email that says – 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 know like you know
right now what if 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 a 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 it 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 made
it worse I know I I don’t I don’t know I
didn’t sorry I you know like we can be
honest about the failings even we can
accept punishments great organizations
that 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
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 there’s a captain of a
submarine nuclear-powered los
angeles-class past attack sub and mark
hey 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
onboard 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
that’s we 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 and almost every readiness
measurement in the entire sum in what
the Navy had right but mark hey figured
that’s okay I have a bad crew that’s all
right 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 and
everybody was following his orders
enough they went out to sea it was great
feeling everybody when they do it 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
this see 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 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
he said then why did you give the order
he said because you told me to and
that’s when Mark K 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 with it when things don’t work
just change the people get rid of the
get rid of the weak links mark a 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 for
defeat 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 a banned 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 dive to foreign feet all
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 of the things went wrong and
instead of wanting to get permission
from the boss now if the bus 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
tips of course I check the notes what
are the taps 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’ 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’ 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 junior
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 bye now I knew what
good was and I knew what it 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 one of the marquee
talks about is the importance of
training and the importance of practice
in 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 a cure
for cancer or 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
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 but I can’t
believe I ever looked like that you
can’t I can’t believe it leadership and
parenting the same you have no idea if
you’re being a good parent on a daily
basis
none in fact sometimes you’re a bad
parent
[Music]
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 are
still waiting for us right 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
discreet 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 love 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
given them time 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 of themselves and provide
opportunities education discipline when
necessary sometimes help them up
sometimes make them get up themselves
also they’ll grow up and build
confidence and achieve 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
was 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
photos Taylor Hicks is the
photographer’s name not the same Taylor
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 and 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 of copies I can make
my own cup it actually would feel bad
like me one 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’m 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
Chow time 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 that
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 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
veil is until 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
they’re 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
tarah 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
thank you very much thank you very much
we have time for questions yes in the
back so the question was why is it that
the military has great leaders where
they have low talent for challenging
Authority where in corporations where we
have culture of challenging Authority we
seem to lack good leaders or there seems
to be a dwindling number when you talk
about challenging Authority what are you
talking about you know when we’re
talking about challenging conventional
thoughts and conventional ideas we’re
talking about taking responsibility the
in the military and especially in the
Marines they’re expected and they’re
taught to think for themselves and the
idea of hierarchy is very much geared to
something they call commander’s intent
right in other words the commander tells
us what they need to achieve but they
they will not meddle in how it will be
achieved the problem in not corporations
is we’re told what we what they want to
achieve and how we’re gonna do it and so
the opportunity to challenge authority
is obvious is because you’re giving us
something to challenge whereas in a well
running unit the commander will say I
need to take that hill and it’s for the
lower level leadership to figure out how
to take that hill and then this will
leave a level of leadership beneath that
to figure out okay this is how we’re
gonna do our component of it and so
there’s a lot of there’s a lot of
respect given to the layers of
leadership here not so much why here I
mean corporation it’s not someone
and so it also goes to the concept of
humility the best definition of humility
I ever heard it was given by Bob Gale or
the former chief Asst Chief Master
Sergeant of the Air Force he said do not
confuse humility with meekness humility
is being open to the ideas of others and
I love that you know you can have the
biggest ego in the room being humble
it’s not like oh no it’s not me you know
that’s not humble humble is when
somebody says I got an idea you go let’s
hear it and actually be willing to hear
what they have to say
that’s humility and and so great leaders
have the humility that they they may not
have all the answers and they don’t know
how to get there and it also goes to a
question of priorities right which is
which is based on bonus structures we
are largely incentivized to grow a
number within the year that’s how we get
our incentives and we are not
incentivized to create something stable
that will last a hundred years and so
what you have is a lot of large
relatively unstable organizations well
that’s what they wanted that’s what they
got we’re fast growing mm-hmm awesome
it’s good for the year right this this
is we just talk about this at lunch this
is the difference between this is this
is this is the this is the folly of the
stock market right make sure this is on
I’ll make sure it’s on the camera dude
in the middle okay
this if you look at like General
Electric in the 80s and 90s this is what
there’s their stock chart looks like so
if you were lucky enough to sell at the
right time you would have made you know
I don’t know 1800 cent of your money you
this is not investing this is gambling
we invest in our children we invest in
education right we invest in something
that we don’t see the result in a year
gambling is about hope I hope this works
out
it’s about betting I bet on your new
product I bet on your new CEO I bet on
your reorg I bet on your acquisition I
invested in you because I hope that that
decision that you just made today I bet
Costco was criticized by Wall Street
year after year after there year by
stupidly prioritizing employees and
customers and ignoring the shareholder
if you had invested a dollar in General
Electric and a dollar in Cusco the day
Cusco in public which was December of
1985 you would have compared to today
you would have enjoyed a 600 percent
return on your investment in General
Electric you would have enjoyed a 600
percent return on your investment in the
S&P 500 and you would have enjoyed a
1200 percent return on your investment
in Cusco that’s investing if you were
lucky enough to get out of GE at the
right time you would have made a little
more but that’s not investing that’s
gambling I got no issue with it I got no
issue with gambling and I got no issue
with taking bets just call it like it is
we’re betting versus we’re investing so
if we’re saying we’re doing something
for our shareholders we don’t have
shareholders animal we have sure
squatters right
think about it just this is this thing
about this for one second we’re gonna
take counsel from a disinterested
outside party that when we do well
they’ll invest in us anyway and if we do
badly they’re not loyal and they’re not
gonna stick with us hmm I’ll stop there
and the joke is that’s better for the
shareholder and it’s stable and its
innovative and people love working there
and they look after each other and they
don’t spend tons of money on churn
because nobody quits it’s good
forget about idealism forget about
soapboxes I’m talking business I’m
talking the free market this is better
for the free market but I digress
based on your 99 Utah where you focus a
lot more kind of on the neurologic
neurobiological reasons why these things
happen where do you see kind of a future
of that going will we evolve as
companies to be better and figure out if
we can actually see you know
scientifically what’s happening or do
you think kind of continue to face the
same problem oh such hubris
yeah we’re not that smart you know we we
I love you know companies do competitive
analyses and yet it’s the competition
they didn’t see that always guessed them
it’s the unsuspecting technology they
didn’t even know existed that comes up
you know myspace was busy studying
Friendster when Facebook showed up out
of nowhere right and so we don’t know
that’s the point like we have to like
we’re so proud to believe that we’ve
considered everything you know the Space
Shuttle blew up because of a bolt okay
you know things go wrong all the time
because one idiot decision about someone
who didn’t see something
look the housing crisis mortgage-backed
securities the actuaries said that these
have a 99% chance of success you know
because the 1% chance of the housing
market would collapse at one time so
there was no plan for that 1% chance
because they were that’s the point it’s
like it’s hubris the human-animal
this machine is a legacy machine living
in a very modern world nothing about us
has changed in 50 thousand years Zippo
the way we interpret information the way
we make decisions our drive to try and
form trusting cooperative relationships
I need to feel safe to feel valuable to
feel like we belong all here it is and
yet we’re forced to operate in a very
very different environment and it
produces some inherent problems I
forgotten his name but he’s a he’s a
really great biologist who he was
explaining how back in this Paleolithic
times you know the average life
expectancy was about 80 85 90 and
there’s no cancer and there’s no
diabetes and there’s no heart disease it
was only with the rise of scale and
industrial is 8 well farming you know
farming did all the problems start to
arise and so we think that we’re so
advanced because we live to like 74 now
we’re in the you know in the Renaissance
they died of like 35 right but what we
completely miss is that the ages were
good and they went like this because we
started short-circuiting this machine
and so now we’ve been able to compensate
for some of the short circuits naturally
and with medicines and things like that
but but if we actually live good live
who we have longer trusting beautiful
relationships happier people live longer
people who are in relationship to live
longer than single people we’re social
animals we need each other right so my
belief is that no matter how smart we
think we are no matter how integrated we
can make the human being in the computer
there is something that we won’t see
that will catch us by surprise and
break you know all of this chips
implanted in brains and stuff I think
it’s cool
it won’t work I mean come on we can’t
even figure out the cell phone you know
pretty imperfect technology my bluetooth
thing doesn’t really work so don’t
really bother with it calls get dropped
and I got the Rison that’s better than
the others and they still lose cold
sometimes the calls aren’t clear some
Tai Chi hear them the handsets are kind
of disposable like it’s kind of junk
technology it’s pretty good it’s pretty
good not great right like we we don’t
build things to last anymore so yeah it
I think it’s nice in theory yeah it’s
good they’ll do some stuff but it’ll
break it’s pretty easy I guess to
identify your team or organization
once you’re there so the question was
it’s pretty easy to identify if your
team is safe when you’re in it but if
you need to change teams how do you
identify if it’s safe great question
it’s called dating called making friends
it doesn’t happen immediately and you
can’t tell you go on a first date and it
feels kind of good and so you’ve got a
second date and it feels kind of good
and after like three which you like this
is ridiculous you know in other words we
make the decision to join teams or you
make hiring decisions too quickly
sometimes had a couple of they met
everybody on the team we liked them
okay now it didn’t work out it is our
responsibility to assess the team we
want to join based on their values and
based on their their beliefs it’s the
concepts of why and the other things
that I’ve that I’ve written about and
there’s some ways to figure that out you
know for example you have to know your
own before you can assess others
obviously but here’s here’s a great
example
someone will approach me and say we want
you to invest in our company our little
startup go great what’s your exit
strategy they go with five your exit
strategy I’m not interested because I’m
not interested in things for short-term
so these little questions that I can ask
you know who’s in charge me
who’s your partner I I don’t have one
hmm I believe in mom and dad
I believe in CEO and CEO I believe in
visionary and operator working in
concert to make it happen when one
person thinks they can do it all not so
much so these are little things where
I’ve learned over time to test my
beliefs but you have to take time you
have to get to know them I’m a great
believer in in in dating and getting to
know somebody and sometimes it’s in the
job you never expect that you’ll feel
like you belong in the first week it
won’t ever happen six months minimum
sometimes longer you know like how long
does it take to fall in love certainly
not a week we know that but if you’ve
been there for seven years and you’re
not in love then it’s time to move human
relationships are human relationships
whether it’s dating whether it’s work
whether it’s sports human relationship
to human relationships we’re always
looking for trust we’re always looking
to feel safe I guarantee you that almost
every single person in this room is
sitting next to somebody you chose to
sit next to why is that
why didn’t you split up and sit
somewhere else this is why we keep the
empty seats blank I know you guys don’t
know each other
because it’s like we go to the movies we
sit next to our friends we leave an
empty space right because we want to
feet we feel sick we’re driven by safety
we want to think we feel safe next to
someone we know and we feel uneasy next
to somebody we don’t know nothing
personal it’s just the way we are same
thing so it takes time it takes time and
I have no app for that
I got nothing that can speed up the
human relationship I do find an ironic
however considering I’m speaking out of
turn I might as well just go with the
flow I do find it ironic that companies
like Google and Facebook and sort of all
these social media companies invest huge
sums of time and energy and money to
figure out ways to organize their
corporate cultures so that people will
cooperate better and they have common
eating so that people’s clues you know
they can sit on benches together and
comments places to work together also
that they can be much better working
together to produce a product that keeps
us apart from each other I just love the
irony of that you know that they know
what gets the best out of people is
cooperation so they can produce a
product that leaves us not cooperating I
just love that yes no the question was
if you posted yourself in a place that
you that you feel unsafe is the best
strategy exit absolutely not the best
strategy is to step up the best strategy
is to be the leader you wish you had the
best strategy is to find someone you
trust and say we have each other let’s
look after each other but let’s also
commit to looking after everybody else
there’s some good research on this as
well there was an article in HP r some
time ago about how to deal with a toxic
leader and if you have a toxic leader
what you can see this in dictatorships
same idea is the same thing right so
what what what dictators do is they seed
paranoia and create separation amongst
the people those dictators no two people
come together they’re out dictators
always feel the fear of the people and
that’s because anthropologically it’s
not the leader that has the power it’s
the group that has the power we’re
social animals leaders have
power over us as individuals but as a
group we control the leader and so in
toxic environments where you don’t feel
safe very often what happens is an
environment of fear and paranoia is
created such that the people no longer
help each other they’re too busy
worrying about themselves maybe you have
one friend who watches your back but
it’s not enough and so they maintain
their control and so what you want to do
is break down these barriers and say hey
guys all we have is each other if we’re
gonna be happy at work and we’re gonna
survive it and we’re gonna do good
things we have to look after each other
and what the research shows is two
things happen one this person becomes
completely emasculated they lose their
power and usually higher ups then start
to notice because they are very good at
managing up I’m pretty bad at managing
them you’re welcome
yes great question the question was how
can you tell if someone’s toxic
sometimes they just say the right things
and they present themselves as these
wonderful leaders again time time and
and this is this is the importance of
consistency right there’s a difference
between consistency and intensity and
consistency always wins right you cannot
be healthy by doing a cleanse once a
month you know I’m gonna cleanse no it
doesn’t work right you know it keeps you
healthy being healthy every day you know
going to the gym and working out for 10
hours doesn’t make you healthy doing a
little bit every day makes you healthy
right so consistency is always king over
intensity which is why reorg don’t work
touch a nerve did I reorge
we end up fearing the reorg and they end
up doing all these powerpoints and
bringing in all these outsiders to tell
us how much better it’s gonna be
and we okay and then we end up they end
up spending all of their time trying to
convince us that it’s good it doesn’t
work because then we end up it’s like
it’s like moving a bulldozer towards a
brick wall because we need to move the
brick wall from here to there the brick
that bulldozers the reorg we’re the
brick wall yeah I know we need to move
over there and I’m sure this might work
but I just see a bulldozer coming not
feeling very cooperative however if
somebody says look slowly is how we’re
gonna do it and we don’t expect
everybody to make the change we’re gonna
take a couple people who want to
volunteer it might not work out if you
want to volunteer and be an early
adopter we’re gonna try and we take one
brick and then we take two bricks then
we take four Biggs I’m have a small wall
and a few people who were kind of
naysayers I go huh I guess it will work
we’ll try to and before you know you
move the whole wall and you can’t move
back again because it’s now the new norm
that’s how thing is that’s how change is
supposed to happen I don’t believe in
revolution which is what reorg czar
there’s sudden there there usually a lot
of upheaval I believe in evolution of
which the results can be revolutionary
was the question oh when they say and do
the right thing okay I like my little
aside though it goes back to the
original thing consistency that’s right
I remember I was gonna say consistency
right which is you cannot tell if
someone’s a good leader by something
they said once or did once or twice or
three times now you can kind of tell a
couple failings are okay we don’t mind
that we’re patient we’re good we know no
one’s perfect as opposed to junk junk
junk a couple good things junk junk junk
a couple good things you know
consistency is what will make our
decisions and we’re very very attuned
social animals we’re highly highly
highly sophisticated and social animals
and you kind of go yeah yeah guess he
said all the right things like if you
have that kind of sense the odds are
they’re probably just saying the things
you want to hear and I agree a lot of
leaders say the right things but the
question is will they do the right
things and the only way to truly test it
though do to the right things is when
their ass is on the line when their
bonus is on the line when their
reputation on the line when their life
is on the line
will they save themselves will they save us that’s the best test of all
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