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 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 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 its becomes fairly
obvious as to what conditions in which
the machine will perform well and in
what conditions the machine will not
perform well very simply our machine is
a social machine we are social animals
and we respond to the environment we’re
in it’s a 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
thousand years ago there were other
hominid species that existed at the same
time but we were the ones that survived
they died we weren’t necessarily the
strongest we weren’t necessarily the
fastest and yet we’ve done quite well
look at this remarkable world that we’ve
built one of the huge advantages we had
and have is that we are social animals
things like trust and cooperation are
absolutely essential for our survival
they’re not just nice ideas they’re
absolutely essential you can imagine why
when we existed when we lived in
populations that never really got bigger
than about a hundred and fifty people
for forty thousand of the fifty thousand
years we’ve been on this planet we never
lived in populations bigger than 150
people
I understand scale presents some
inherent problems but you can you can
understand the benefits of the group
living what it meant was I could fall
asleep at night and trust that someone
in my tribe would watch for danger if I
didn’t trust the people in my tribe I
couldn’t go to sleep and this is not a
very good system for survival or
performance or anything any other metric
it’s the same at work when we work with
people with whom we trust I don’t need
to double-check your work I don’t need
to see it before it goes out to you no I
don’t need you don’t need my approval
right when we have trust we can let
people go do their work and even if
they’re subordinate we don’t need to
double-check or approve or anything
things will happen because we trust them
because we all have each other’s backs
we all have each other’s interests in
mind the problem with things like trust
and cooperation is that they are not
instructions
I can’t simply tell you trust me you
can’t simply ask people to trust you in
your advertising and you can’t simply
tell people I want you to to cooperate
trust and cooperation are feelings
and this is the problem so the question
is where are 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-toothed 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 worked 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 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 with significant risk the
choice to be a leader comes at
significant risk and this is why not
everyone chooses to be a leader
leadership has nothing to do with rank
it has nothing to do with the title you
have on your card leadership is a choice
that’s it I know many many people who
sit in the senior echelons of a
corporation and they are not leaders
they are authorities and they have
Authority and we do what they say
because they have authority over us but
we would not follow them I know many
people who sit at the bottom of
organizations who have no authority but
they are absolutely leaders and the
reason they are leaders is because they
have made a choice they have chosen to
look after the person to the left of
them and they have chosen to look after
the person to the right of them it
doesn’t always mean they have to
sacrifice their interests but when it
really counts sometimes they choose to
sacrifice their interests because it’s
in the interest of the person to the
left and to the right of them this is
what leadership
is the role of leaders is not an
accident either it’s built into our
anthropology it’s part of our survival
the reason we have hierarchy and we have
leaders for those times when we lived in
these austere conditions we had a little
bit of a problem as a very practical
problem there wasn’t necessarily enough
food to go around all the time you
didn’t necessary don’t have supermarkets
and cars we just go get milk sometimes
there was food readily available and
sometimes not which meant if someone
brought home some food and we’re living
in a population of up to a hundred and
fifty we would all rush in to eat
because we’re all hungry and if you were
lucky enough to be built like a football
player you could shove your way to the
front of the line if you were the artist
of the family you would get an elbow in
the face this is not a good system for
cooperation it’s not a good system for
survival because the odds are that if I
got punched in the face this afternoon
I’m not gonna wake the guy if I see
danger bad system and so we evolved into
these hierarchical animals we are
constantly assessing and judging each
other
whose alpha whose beta we are naturally
hierarchical and we always organize
ourselves in hierarchies so even in
meetings we go to meeting like
everybody’s equal I want you guys to
work together it’s not gonna happen
we are never equals we always assess we
always judge we always allow some others
some deference and the role of
leadership and some of us defer and sort
of take a more subordinate role it
always happens not necessarily a bad
thing and again the reasons are very
practical based on our history because
what would happen was when we would
assess someone as our alpha and let me
be clear your capacity to be an alpha in
any population is not an absolute it is
relative to the population you’re in so
you might be a technologist or an
engineer and you might think you’re the
hottest best most fantastic engineer and
so does everybody else and you walk
around like this and you go take a dance
class all of a sudden you egos not so
big anymore right we’ve all had the
experience right we’ve all had the
experience where we shake someone’s hand
and we’re nervous
you’re not the alpha you know or when we
consents with 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 rays
of mate we let them eat first we may not
get the best choice of meat but we will
eat eventually and we didn’t have to get
an elbow in the face to get that food
good system to this day we are very
comfortable with paying deference and
offering advantages to those more senior
than us there’s not a single person in
this room zero that has a problem with
somebody more senior than you at the
company making more money than you as a
salary by having a bigger salary than
you doesn’t bother you at all you might
think they’re an idiot but it doesn’t
actually bother you that they make more
money than you because they outrank you
no issue it doesn’t bother us at all
that somebody more senior than us has a
bigger office or a better parking space
it is of no issue whatsoever in fact we
very often find ourselves deferring to
our alphas doing nice things for our
foes we open doors for them and call
them sir and ma’am and get them tea and
they didn’t even ask I can promise you
that if as you were walking out of this
room if Steven 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 or your girlfriend you’ll
never believe what happened today I held
the door open for Steven Speilberg how
come you don’t advertise when you hold
the door open for anybody else it’s
because we’re proud to sometimes do
menial labor for those who we perceive
as alphas in our system we’re proud to
work for the groups that they lead and
the organizations that they lead by the
way you can’t lead a company you can run
a company you can only lead people and
so this whole idea of deference and how
we always deference to 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 boosts their
self-confidence we expect that this more
confidence stronger better fed person
when danger threatens the tribe we
expect them to rush towards the danger
to protect us that’s the cost of
leadership that’s why we gave you first
choice of mate because you might die and
we want to keep your genes in the gene
pool we’re not stupid and this is what
it means to be a leader the willingness
to rush towards the danger to protect
those in your care it is a choice you
don’t have to be a leader it is a choice
if you don’t like the costs of
leadership you may not accept the perks
of leadership because they do not come
for free this is the reason why we are
so viscerally offended by some of the
banking CEOs have these disproportionate
salaries and bonus structures it’s not
the money that offends us it’s that we
know deep inside us that they have
violated the very definition of what it
means to be a leader they have accepted
all of the perks and bonuses and
benefits of being the leader and yet
they’re not willing to make any of the
sacrifices for the role that they have
accepted in other words we know that
they allowed their people to be
sacrificed for them to keep their
bonuses and perks and advantages worse
sometimes they chose to sacrifice their
people to protect their bonuses and
their perks this is what so offends us
it’s not the money if I told you we’re
going to give a hundred and fifty
million dollar bonus to Nelson Mandela
does anyone have a problem with that
no how about a 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 we do not feel safe
working 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 organisations like your own who
want to drive innovation and ideas and
new ways of thinking would in the same
breath lay people off because they
didn’t make the numbers in one year you
do realize that those two concepts are
completely counterproductive it’s like
talking to a CEO and I ask what are your
priorities they say we have two
priorities innovation and efficiency not
possible there is nothing efficient
about innovation try fail try fail try
fail try fail try fail try fail succeed
not efficient
it takes so you throw money to try
things out you can be innovative or you
can be efficient you can be efficient 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
inspired do you think they feel to come
back to work every day how do you how
safe do you think they feel do you think
we’re gonna give our best knowing at the
next time if the company doesn’t make
its numbers by the way which may or may
not have anything to do with us remember
all of those outside dangers the ups and
downs of technologies the ups and downs
of stock markets the ups and downs of
economies you think when you have a bad
year you set your children down and say
kids it’s been a bad year we have to get
rid of one of you or worse or worse I
got to keep my Mercedes and so it’s
either you or the car and we’ve picked
you right know we tighten the belt we
work together we figure out ways to make
it happen to see it through the hard
times we cannot judge the quality of a
crew based on how they perform in good
times we judge a quality of the crew by
how they perform in rough waters and
unfortunately we throw our crew
overboard when we hit rough waters what
makes them want to commit to see the
ships make it through the rough waters
what they do is they sit down and watch
their own backs because nobody else is
gonna watch my back there is no
innovation and in a group like that
there is no innovation in a group like
that backstabbing ideas stealing plenty
of that nothing personal
gotta look after numero uno
so number one people come first numbers
are always subordinate to people numbers
will not rescue you in hard times people
will numbers will not come up with new
ideas
people will numbers are not innovative
people are that’s number one another one
which is really really really easy is
honesty it’s really easy to be honest
just tell the truth and if you tell the
truth on a regular basis we will say you
have integrity that’s all it means he’s
a really basic concepts so for example
if somebody calls and a secretary picks
up the phone and says Dave’s on the
phone and you say damn I’m not here
you’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 and 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 their
in a combat situation and his Marines
doubt for one second
that the words coming out of his mouth
are anything but the truth if they
believe for one second that the words he
is speaking are only to make himself
look better or cover his own ass trusts
will break down in the whole group and
people will die now
we are not in life-and-death situations
but the way our minds interpret
information that it’s given to us is in
terms of life and death this is why we
don’t trust politicians they tell us the
things we want to hear we don’t prima
facie disagree with anything we’ve been
told but we know that they don’t believe
the things that they’re saying and so we
as human beings were very very smart and
this 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 gotta be honest with you your
performance has been really bad these
days I love this area we’re supposed to
give sandwiches give them the good news
before you get to the bad news right so
give them something general and generic
that they don’t believe anyway hey
you’re really smart and on this one
project that you did that you’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 did you get an
email that says to you to your Simon 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
would love to catch up and get a cup of
tea sometime by the way I’m if you could
go to this website I’m trying to raise
money for a project I’m doing it would
really appreciate if you could vote for
me or tweet it out thanks a lot Dave and
what do you do when you get something
like that
you’re like you know
right now what have we simply reversed
the information dear Simon I’m trying to
raise money for this project I’m doing
would really appreciate if you could
click on the link and vote for me and
maybe even tweet it out haven’t seen you
in years hope you’re doing really well
congratulations all your success would
love to get together with you for a cup
of tea sometime Dave in other words tell
me the reason you sent me the email
right the niceties are fine but that’s
not the reason you sent me the email it
was dishonest it was disingenuous
honesty is such a simple thing right
it’s such a simple thing and when it is
afforded to us we respond with loyalty
and trust and 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
and is a component of leadership right
allowing others to fail my friend David
mark hey who wrote an amazing book
called turned the ship around check it
out ma rqu ET was a naval captain’s a
captain of a submarine nuclear-powered
los angeles-class past attack sub and
mark a believed like many of us do that
his credibility as a leader was closely
tied to his competence to his
intelligence you know we believe that we
have to know as much or more than those
in our report because this is what gives
us credibility as leaders right and so
in typical mark a fashion when he was
assigned to one of the great honors of
his career to be captain of his own
submarine the USS Olympia he spent a
year learning every button every switch
every pipe every valve of the submarine
he went through the dossiers of his crew
he knew everything about his crew he was
gonna be prepared and he was gonna know
as much or more than everybody else on
board because he was the captain now he
had to he had no choice two weeks before
he took command of the Olympia he got a
phone call that says yeah you’re not
gonna be the captain of the Olympia
you’re gonna be the captain of the
SantaFe it was a slightly newer
submarine still in Ellis angeles-class
submarine but mark I realized because it
was slightly new some of the things were
different and he didn’t want anybody to
know that he didn’t know everything and
so he kind of kept it to himself and
pretended he knew everything but that’s
okay you know he’s a smart guy as a
competent guy yeah obviously trusted him
enough to be captain he was fine then
there was another little wrinkle where
the Olympia was the best rated crew in
the United States submarine fleet the
Santa Fe was the worst rated crew in the
submarine fleet they ranked last or
close to last and almost every readiness
measurement in the entire some in what
the Navy had right but mark I 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 the into into being
out there you know when they got ready
he’s like barking orders get ready for
this get ready for that and everybody
was following his orders enough they
went up to see 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
the 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 at on the on the on the in
the in the bridge and he was also the
most experienced sailor on board he’d
had two and a half years aboard the
Santa Fe and he repeated the order ahead
two thirds and nothing happened and
seaman Jones junior sailor sitting at
the controls was squirming literally
squirming in his seat
so mark hey piers out from the side of
his periscope and says seaman Jones
what’s the problem and seaman Jones
replies sir there is no two third
setting apparently on this slightly
newer Los Angeles but there was no two
third setting on the EPM so he turns to
his navigator he says did you know this
and the guy goes mm-hmm
he said then why did you give the order
he said because you told me to
and that’s when mark a 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 them 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 to 4 in 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 Abe and the words permission to
aboard his boat and he replaced them
with I intend to the hierarchy is not
affected at all the chain of command is
not affected at all the difference is
psychological
I intend to divert to foreigner fee all
right
all the accountability lies with the
person performing the action now and so
what started to happen was people took
their jobs more seriously and they
started to ask each other for help
because where things went wrong and
instead of wanting to get permission
from the boss now if the 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
depth of course I check the dose what
are the depths 400 you know in other
words you could never be caught
not knowing before you made a decision
accountability went up there are lots of
other things that mark’ 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 would you owe
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 costs some money 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 at 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
Armageddon are nowhere to be seen
that’s the worst and so when we have
leaders that understand that and allow
us to try and fail and try and fail and
understand that if we screw it up it’s
okay the ships not gonna sink now try
again let’s sit down and talk about
maybe what you would like to do
differently next time I want you to
learn I want you to try again kind of
like what we do with our kids and that’s
the final point the closest analogy I
can give to you about what leadership is
is parenting think about what makes a
great parent you know first of all not
having kids is a better life you got you
get a bigger house you take nicer
vacations you can get the car you want
not the car you have to get right much
more sleep right yet we choose for some
reason to have children we choose to
make these sacrifices because in time
it’s kind of worth it to see this little
thing grow up and make something of
themselves that we we got to look after
it’s kind of worth it
the problem with leadership the problem
with parenting is they’re both like
exercise is they cannot be measured in
small discrete chunks I can give you a
compelling presentation about the
importance of exercise and they’ll
change your life and improve the quality
of your life and let people live longer
and you’ll believe me and you’ll go to
the gym and you’ll come back and you’ll
look in the mirror and you will see
nothing but you go the next day and you
come back and you look in the mirror and
you will see nothing and worse you’re in
pain and so you have no metrics to show
there’s any value to anything I’ve told
you so you stop but if you can stick
with it after three months you look at
an old picture of yourself and I can’t
believe I ever looked like that I can’t
I can’t believe it leadership and
parenting the same you have no idea if
you’re being a good 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 and say
well the trend is that people are
spending less and less time at their
jobs now and maybe it’s because they’re
looking for more adventure no it’s
because they don’t feel safe and why
would they stick around there’s no
loyalty it’s not a good trend it’s a
symptom parenting think about what a
great parent is a great parent is
willing to sacrifice givethem type of
themselves you know discipline when
necessary provide opportunities provide
education also this young little thing
can grow up and achieve more than they
thought they ever could for themselves
what’s a great leader somebody’s willing
to sacrifice and give themselves and
provide opportunities education
discipline when necessary sometimes help
them up sometimes make them get up
themselves or is it the so 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
footage Taylor Hicks is the
photographer’s name not the same Taylor
Hicks 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 on to 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 question vast 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 cup of coffees I can make my own
cup it actually would feel bad like we
want well we want to do these things it
brings us joy to do these things just
like it brings our kids Joy’s joy to
make us proud and it gives us joy to
make our leaders proud we want to do
right by them but we do so with the
knowledge that they would sacrifice
themselves for us back in the Marine
Corps this idea of leadership is viewed
as a responsibility not as a rank you
will never he’ll 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 chat
I’m most junior man eats first most
senior man eats last it is not in any
rulebook and no one tells them they have
to it happens organically because of the
way they simply view the responsibility
of leadership that I as the leader like
a parent would let my child eat before I
eat that’s just what we do and so that’s
one of the ways it shows up I was told a
true story
I was told a story of a Marine officer
who was deployed and they had they were
eating among with the group and the that
officer made sure that his men ate first
as is the custom in the Marine Corps and
they ran out of food the officer didn’t
get to eat so when they went out back
into the field all of his men brought
him some of their food so that he may
eat this is what happens when we as
leaders commit to the safety of our
people our people will give us their
blood sweat and tears and they will make
their own sacrifices to ensure that we
are kept safe and to ensure that our
visions are advanced we cannot sit here
with our arms folded and simply complain
that our leadership doesn’t look after
us that our leadership doesn’t get it
that they would soon as sacrifice us to
save the numbers and they would never
sacrifice the numbers to save us that
they listen to Wall Street they don’t
put people first they claim they drive
innovation but they’re not creating the
environment that would create innovation
we cannot complain
because we must be the leaders we wish
we had we have a person to the left of
us and we have a person to the right of
us that we can take responsibility for
sure you don’t love your job but do they
are you committing yourself to ensuring
that they feel happy that they feel safe
that they have the job they love that
they feel like 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
my sister and you got to deal with me
[Music]
thanks very much
[Applause]
thank you very much thank you very much
we have time for questions yes and back
[Music]
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 and
we’re talking about taking
responsibility the in the military an
especially in the Marines they’re
expected and they’re taught to think for
themselves and the idea of hierarchy is
very much here – 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
and 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 corporations not so
much and so it also goes to the concept
of humility the best definition of
humility I ever heard 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 you
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 a fast-growing mmm-hmm
it’s good for the year right this is we
just talked 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
the camera I’ll make sure it’s on the
camera let’s do it 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 eighteen hundred percent on
your money you know if you invested in
the early 80s this is not investing this
is gambling
this is investing 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 if 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 it’s gonna work
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 $1.00 in General
Electric and $1 in cusco the de 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 I know 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 I’ll stop there and
the joke is that’s better for the
shareholder and it’s stable and it’s
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
yes no I know
[Music]
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 the
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 I
love you know companies do competitive
analyses and yet it’s the competition
they didn’t see that always gets 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 like we’re
so proud to believe that we’ve
considered everything into 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 like 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 whole
housing market would collapse at one
time so there was no plan for that 1%
chance because they’d well 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 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 what 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
industrialization while farming you know
farming did that all the problems start
to arise and so we think that we’re so
advanced cuz we lived to like 74 and 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 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
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 it will 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 Verizon it’s better than the
others and they still lose called
sometimes the calls aren’t clear some
tie can’t 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 if your team or organization is
safe once you’re there yeah when you’re
looking for a new team or looking for
you know changing so the question was
it’s pretty easy to identify if you’re
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 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 like 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
good example someone will approach me
and say we want you to invest in our
company a little startup I 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 there’s little
questions that I can ask you know who’s
in charge me who’s your partner I I
don’t have one mmm 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 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 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 culture so that people will
cooperate better than they have common
eating so that people consume they can
sit on benches together and comments
places to work together all so 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 consider 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 and HPR sometime 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 and
pretty bad at managing now
you’re welcome yes in the back
last question oh wait yes great question
the question was how can you tell if
someone’s toxic because sometimes they’d
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
because it’s an intense
[Laughter]
touch a nerve did I reports we end up
fearing the reorg and they end up doing
all these powerpoints and bringing 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 bulls dozers 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 big so we have a small wall
and a few people who are 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
so yeah
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 social
animals and you kind of go yeah yeah I
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
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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 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 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 its becomes fairly
obvious as to what conditions in which
the machine will perform well and in
what conditions the machine will not
perform well very simply our machine is
a social machine we are social animals
and we respond to the environment we’re
in it’s a 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
thousand years ago there were other
hominid species that existed at the same
time but we were the ones that survived
they died we weren’t necessarily the
strongest we weren’t necessarily the
fastest and yet we’ve done quite well
look at this remarkable world that we’ve
built one of the huge advantages we had
and have is that we are social animals
things like trust and cooperation are
absolutely essential for our survival
they’re not just nice ideas they’re
absolutely essential you can imagine why
when we existed when we lived in
populations that never really got bigger
than about a hundred and fifty people
for forty thousand of the fifty thousand
years we’ve been on this planet we never
lived in populations bigger than 150
people
I understand scale presents some
inherent problems but you can you can
understand the benefits of the group
living what it meant was I could fall
asleep at night and trust that someone
in my tribe would watch for danger if I
didn’t trust the people in my tribe I
couldn’t go to sleep and this is not a
very good system for survival or
performance or anything any other metric
it’s the same at work when we work with
people with whom we trust I don’t need
to double-check your work I don’t need
to see it before it goes out to you no I
don’t need you don’t need my approval
right when we have trust we can let
people go do their work and even if
they’re subordinate we don’t need to
double-check or approve or anything
things will happen because we trust them
because we all have each other’s backs
we all have each other’s interests in
mind the problem with things like trust
and cooperation is that they are not
instructions
I can’t simply tell you trust me you
can’t simply ask people to trust you in
your advertising and you can’t simply
tell people I want you to to cooperate
trust and cooperation are feelings
and this is the problem so the question
is where are 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-toothed 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 worked 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 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 with significant risk the
choice to be a leader comes at
significant risk and this is why not
everyone chooses to be a leader
leadership has nothing to do with rank
it has nothing to do with the title you
have on your card leadership is a choice
that’s it I know many many people who
sit in the senior echelons of a
corporation and they are not leaders
they are authorities and they have
Authority and we do what they say
because they have authority over us but
we would not follow them I know many
people who sit at the bottom of
organizations who have no authority but
they are absolutely leaders and the
reason they are leaders is because they
have made a choice they have chosen to
look after the person to the left of
them and they have chosen to look after
the person to the right of them it
doesn’t always mean they have to
sacrifice their interests but when it
really counts sometimes they choose to
sacrifice their interests because it’s
in the interest of the person to the
left and to the right of them this is
what leadership
is the role of leaders is not an
accident either it’s built into our
anthropology it’s part of our survival
the reason we have hierarchy and we have
leaders for those times when we lived in
these austere conditions we had a little
bit of a problem as a very practical
problem there wasn’t necessarily enough
food to go around all the time you
didn’t necessary don’t have supermarkets
and cars we just go get milk sometimes
there was food readily available and
sometimes not which meant if someone
brought home some food and we’re living
in a population of up to a hundred and
fifty we would all rush in to eat
because we’re all hungry and if you were
lucky enough to be built like a football
player you could shove your way to the
front of the line if you were the artist
of the family you would get an elbow in
the face this is not a good system for
cooperation it’s not a good system for
survival because the odds are that if I
got punched in the face this afternoon
I’m not gonna wake the guy if I see
danger bad system and so we evolved into
these hierarchical animals we are
constantly assessing and judging each
other
whose alpha whose beta we are naturally
hierarchical and we always organize
ourselves in hierarchies so even in
meetings we go to meeting like
everybody’s equal I want you guys to
work together it’s not gonna happen
we are never equals we always assess we
always judge we always allow some others
some deference and the role of
leadership and some of us defer and sort
of take a more subordinate role it
always happens not necessarily a bad
thing and again the reasons are very
practical based on our history because
what would happen was when we would
assess someone as our alpha and let me
be clear your capacity to be an alpha in
any population is not an absolute it is
relative to the population you’re in so
you might be a technologist or an
engineer and you might think you’re the
hottest best most fantastic engineer and
so does everybody else and you walk
around like this and you go take a dance
class all of a sudden you egos not so
big anymore right we’ve all had the
experience right we’ve all had the
experience where we shake someone’s hand
and we’re nervous
you’re not the alpha you know or when we
consents with 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 rays
of mate we let them eat first we may not
get the best choice of meat but we will
eat eventually and we didn’t have to get
an elbow in the face to get that food
good system to this day we are very
comfortable with paying deference and
offering advantages to those more senior
than us there’s not a single person in
this room zero that has a problem with
somebody more senior than you at the
company making more money than you as a
salary by having a bigger salary than
you doesn’t bother you at all you might
think they’re an idiot but it doesn’t
actually bother you that they make more
money than you because they outrank you
no issue it doesn’t bother us at all
that somebody more senior than us has a
bigger office or a better parking space
it is of no issue whatsoever in fact we
very often find ourselves deferring to
our alphas doing nice things for our
foes we open doors for them and call
them sir and ma’am and get them tea and
they didn’t even ask I can promise you
that if as you were walking out of this
room if Steven 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 or your girlfriend you’ll
never believe what happened today I held
the door open for Steven Speilberg how
come you don’t advertise when you hold
the door open for anybody else it’s
because we’re proud to sometimes do
menial labor for those who we perceive
as alphas in our system we’re proud to
work for the groups that they lead and
the organizations that they lead by the
way you can’t lead a company you can run
a company you can only lead people and
so this whole idea of deference and how
we always deference to 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 boosts their
self-confidence we expect that this more
confidence stronger better fed person
when danger threatens the tribe we
expect them to rush towards the danger
to protect us that’s the cost of
leadership that’s why we gave you first
choice of mate because you might die and
we want to keep your genes in the gene
pool we’re not stupid and this is what
it means to be a leader the willingness
to rush towards the danger to protect
those in your care it is a choice you
don’t have to be a leader it is a choice
if you don’t like the costs of
leadership you may not accept the perks
of leadership because they do not come
for free this is the reason why we are
so viscerally offended by some of the
banking CEOs have these disproportionate
salaries and bonus structures it’s not
the money that offends us it’s that we
know deep inside us that they have
violated the very definition of what it
means to be a leader they have accepted
all of the perks and bonuses and
benefits of being the leader and yet
they’re not willing to make any of the
sacrifices for the role that they have
accepted in other words we know that
they allowed their people to be
sacrificed for them to keep their
bonuses and perks and advantages worse
sometimes they chose to sacrifice their
people to protect their bonuses and
their perks this is what so offends us
it’s not the money if I told you we’re
going to give a hundred and fifty
million dollar bonus to Nelson Mandela
does anyone have a problem with that
no how about a 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 we do not feel safe
working 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 organisations like your own who
want to drive innovation and ideas and
new ways of thinking would in the same
breath lay people off because they
didn’t make the numbers in one year you
do realize that those two concepts are
completely counterproductive it’s like
talking to a CEO and I ask what are your
priorities they say we have two
priorities innovation and efficiency not
possible there is nothing efficient
about innovation try fail try fail try
fail try fail try fail try fail succeed
not efficient
it takes so you throw money to try
things out you can be innovative or you
can be efficient you can be efficient 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
inspired do you think they feel to come
back to work every day how do you how
safe do you think they feel do you think
we’re gonna give our best knowing at the
next time if the company doesn’t make
its numbers by the way which may or may
not have anything to do with us remember
all of those outside dangers the ups and
downs of technologies the ups and downs
of stock markets the ups and downs of
economies you think when you have a bad
year you set your children down and say
kids it’s been a bad year we have to get
rid of one of you or worse or worse I
got to keep my Mercedes and so it’s
either you or the car and we’ve picked
you right know we tighten the belt we
work together we figure out ways to make
it happen to see it through the hard
times we cannot judge the quality of a
crew based on how they perform in good
times we judge a quality of the crew by
how they perform in rough waters and
unfortunately we throw our crew
overboard when we hit rough waters what
makes them want to commit to see the
ships make it through the rough waters
what they do is they sit down and watch
their own backs because nobody else is
gonna watch my back there is no
innovation and in a group like that
there is no innovation in a group like
that backstabbing ideas stealing plenty
of that nothing personal
gotta look after numero uno
so number one people come first numbers
are always subordinate to people numbers
will not rescue you in hard times people
will numbers will not come up with new
ideas
people will numbers are not innovative
people are that’s number one another one
which is really really really easy is
honesty it’s really easy to be honest
just tell the truth and if you tell the
truth on a regular basis we will say you
have integrity that’s all it means he’s
a really basic concepts so for example
if somebody calls and a secretary picks
up the phone and says Dave’s on the
phone and you say damn I’m not here
you’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 and 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 their
in a combat situation and his Marines
doubt for one second
that the words coming out of his mouth
are anything but the truth if they
believe for one second that the words he
is speaking are only to make himself
look better or cover his own ass trusts
will break down in the whole group and
people will die now
we are not in life-and-death situations
but the way our minds interpret
information that it’s given to us is in
terms of life and death this is why we
don’t trust politicians they tell us the
things we want to hear we don’t prima
facie disagree with anything we’ve been
told but we know that they don’t believe
the things that they’re saying and so we
as human beings were very very smart and
this 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 gotta be honest with you your
performance has been really bad these
days I love this area we’re supposed to
give sandwiches give them the good news
before you get to the bad news right so
give them something general and generic
that they don’t believe anyway hey
you’re really smart and on this one
project that you did that you’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 did you get an
email that says to you to your Simon 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
would love to catch up and get a cup of
tea sometime by the way I’m if you could
go to this website I’m trying to raise
money for a project I’m doing it would
really appreciate if you could vote for
me or tweet it out thanks a lot Dave and
what do you do when you get something
like that
you’re like you know
right now what have we simply reversed
the information dear Simon I’m trying to
raise money for this project I’m doing
would really appreciate if you could
click on the link and vote for me and
maybe even tweet it out haven’t seen you
in years hope you’re doing really well
congratulations all your success would
love to get together with you for a cup
of tea sometime Dave in other words tell
me the reason you sent me the email
right the niceties are fine but that’s
not the reason you sent me the email it
was dishonest it was disingenuous
honesty is such a simple thing right
it’s such a simple thing and when it is
afforded to us we respond with loyalty
and trust and 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
and is a component of leadership right
allowing others to fail my friend David
mark hey who wrote an amazing book
called turned the ship around check it
out ma rqu ET was a naval captain’s a
captain of a submarine nuclear-powered
los angeles-class past attack sub and
mark a believed like many of us do that
his credibility as a leader was closely
tied to his competence to his
intelligence you know we believe that we
have to know as much or more than those
in our report because this is what gives
us credibility as leaders right and so
in typical mark a fashion when he was
assigned to one of the great honors of
his career to be captain of his own
submarine the USS Olympia he spent a
year learning every button every switch
every pipe every valve of the submarine
he went through the dossiers of his crew
he knew everything about his crew he was
gonna be prepared and he was gonna know
as much or more than everybody else on
board because he was the captain now he
had to he had no choice two weeks before
he took command of the Olympia he got a
phone call that says yeah you’re not
gonna be the captain of the Olympia
you’re gonna be the captain of the
SantaFe it was a slightly newer
submarine still in Ellis angeles-class
submarine but mark I realized because it
was slightly new some of the things were
different and he didn’t want anybody to
know that he didn’t know everything and
so he kind of kept it to himself and
pretended he knew everything but that’s
okay you know he’s a smart guy as a
competent guy yeah obviously trusted him
enough to be captain he was fine then
there was another little wrinkle where
the Olympia was the best rated crew in
the United States submarine fleet the
Santa Fe was the worst rated crew in the
submarine fleet they ranked last or
close to last and almost every readiness
measurement in the entire some in what
the Navy had right but mark I 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 the into into being
out there you know when they got ready
he’s like barking orders get ready for
this get ready for that and everybody
was following his orders enough they
went up to see 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
the 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 at on the on the on the in
the in the bridge and he was also the
most experienced sailor on board he’d
had two and a half years aboard the
Santa Fe and he repeated the order ahead
two thirds and nothing happened and
seaman Jones junior sailor sitting at
the controls was squirming literally
squirming in his seat
so mark hey piers out from the side of
his periscope and says seaman Jones
what’s the problem and seaman Jones
replies sir there is no two third
setting apparently on this slightly
newer Los Angeles but there was no two
third setting on the EPM so he turns to
his navigator he says did you know this
and the guy goes mm-hmm
he said then why did you give the order
he said because you told me to
and that’s when mark a 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 them 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 to 4 in 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 Abe and the words permission to
aboard his boat and he replaced them
with I intend to the hierarchy is not
affected at all the chain of command is
not affected at all the difference is
psychological
I intend to divert to foreigner fee all
right
all the accountability lies with the
person performing the action now and so
what started to happen was people took
their jobs more seriously and they
started to ask each other for help
because where things went wrong and
instead of wanting to get permission
from the boss now if the 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
depth of course I check the dose what
are the depths 400 you know in other
words you could never be caught
not knowing before you made a decision
accountability went up there are lots of
other things that mark’ 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 would you owe
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 costs some money 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 at 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
Armageddon are nowhere to be seen
that’s the worst and so when we have
leaders that understand that and allow
us to try and fail and try and fail and
understand that if we screw it up it’s
okay the ships not gonna sink now try
again let’s sit down and talk about
maybe what you would like to do
differently next time I want you to
learn I want you to try again kind of
like what we do with our kids and that’s
the final point the closest analogy I
can give to you about what leadership is
is parenting think about what makes a
great parent you know first of all not
having kids is a better life you got you
get a bigger house you take nicer
vacations you can get the car you want
not the car you have to get right much
more sleep right yet we choose for some
reason to have children we choose to
make these sacrifices because in time
it’s kind of worth it to see this little
thing grow up and make something of
themselves that we we got to look after
it’s kind of worth it
the problem with leadership the problem
with parenting is they’re both like
exercise is they cannot be measured in
small discrete chunks I can give you a
compelling presentation about the
importance of exercise and they’ll
change your life and improve the quality
of your life and let people live longer
and you’ll believe me and you’ll go to
the gym and you’ll come back and you’ll
look in the mirror and you will see
nothing but you go the next day and you
come back and you look in the mirror and
you will see nothing and worse you’re in
pain and so you have no metrics to show
there’s any value to anything I’ve told
you so you stop but if you can stick
with it after three months you look at
an old picture of yourself and I can’t
believe I ever looked like that I can’t
I can’t believe it leadership and
parenting the same you have no idea if
you’re being a good 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 and say
well the trend is that people are
spending less and less time at their
jobs now and maybe it’s because they’re
looking for more adventure no it’s
because they don’t feel safe and why
would they stick around there’s no
loyalty it’s not a good trend it’s a
symptom parenting think about what a
great parent is a great parent is
willing to sacrifice givethem type of
themselves you know discipline when
necessary provide opportunities provide
education also this young little thing
can grow up and achieve more than they
thought they ever could for themselves
what’s a great leader somebody’s willing
to sacrifice and give themselves and
provide opportunities education
discipline when necessary sometimes help
them up sometimes make them get up
themselves or is it the so 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
footage Taylor Hicks is the
photographer’s name not the same Taylor
Hicks 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 on to 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 question vast 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 cup of coffees I can make my own
cup it actually would feel bad like we
want well we want to do these things it
brings us joy to do these things just
like it brings our kids Joy’s joy to
make us proud and it gives us joy to
make our leaders proud we want to do
right by them but we do so with the
knowledge that they would sacrifice
themselves for us back in the Marine
Corps this idea of leadership is viewed
as a responsibility not as a rank you
will never he’ll 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 chat
I’m most junior man eats first most
senior man eats last it is not in any
rulebook and no one tells them they have
to it happens organically because of the
way they simply view the responsibility
of leadership that I as the leader like
a parent would let my child eat before I
eat that’s just what we do and so that’s
one of the ways it shows up I was told a
true story
I was told a story of a Marine officer
who was deployed and they had they were
eating among with the group and the that
officer made sure that his men ate first
as is the custom in the Marine Corps and
they ran out of food the officer didn’t
get to eat so when they went out back
into the field all of his men brought
him some of their food so that he may
eat this is what happens when we as
leaders commit to the safety of our
people our people will give us their
blood sweat and tears and they will make
their own sacrifices to ensure that we
are kept safe and to ensure that our
visions are advanced we cannot sit here
with our arms folded and simply complain
that our leadership doesn’t look after
us that our leadership doesn’t get it
that they would soon as sacrifice us to
save the numbers and they would never
sacrifice the numbers to save us that
they listen to Wall Street they don’t
put people first they claim they drive
innovation but they’re not creating the
environment that would create innovation
we cannot complain
because we must be the leaders we wish
we had we have a person to the left of
us and we have a person to the right of
us that we can take responsibility for
sure you don’t love your job but do they
are you committing yourself to ensuring
that they feel happy that they feel safe
that they have the job they love that
they feel like 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
my sister and you got to deal with me
[Music]
thanks very much
[Applause]
thank you very much thank you very much
we have time for questions yes and back
[Music]
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 and
we’re talking about taking
responsibility the in the military an
especially in the Marines they’re
expected and they’re taught to think for
themselves and the idea of hierarchy is
very much here – 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
and 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 corporations not so
much and so it also goes to the concept
of humility the best definition of
humility I ever heard 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 you
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 a fast-growing mmm-hmm
it’s good for the year right this is we
just talked 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
the camera I’ll make sure it’s on the
camera let’s do it 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 eighteen hundred percent on
your money you know if you invested in
the early 80s this is not investing this
is gambling
this is investing 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 if 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 it’s gonna work
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 $1.00 in General
Electric and $1 in cusco the de 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 I know 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 I’ll stop there and
the joke is that’s better for the
shareholder and it’s stable and it’s
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
yes no I know
[Music]
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 the
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 I
love you know companies do competitive
analyses and yet it’s the competition
they didn’t see that always gets 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 like we’re
so proud to believe that we’ve
considered everything into 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 like 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 whole
housing market would collapse at one
time so there was no plan for that 1%
chance because they’d well 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 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 what 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
industrialization while farming you know
farming did that all the problems start
to arise and so we think that we’re so
advanced cuz we lived to like 74 and 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 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
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 it will 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 Verizon it’s better than the
others and they still lose called
sometimes the calls aren’t clear some
tie can’t 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 if your team or organization is
safe once you’re there yeah when you’re
looking for a new team or looking for
you know changing so the question was
it’s pretty easy to identify if you’re
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 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 like 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
good example someone will approach me
and say we want you to invest in our
company a little startup I 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 there’s little
questions that I can ask you know who’s
in charge me who’s your partner I I
don’t have one mmm 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 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 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 culture so that people will
cooperate better than they have common
eating so that people consume they can
sit on benches together and comments
places to work together all so 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 consider 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 and HPR sometime 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 and
pretty bad at managing now
you’re welcome yes in the back
last question oh wait yes great question
the question was how can you tell if
someone’s toxic because sometimes they’d
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
because it’s an intense
[Laughter]
touch a nerve did I reports we end up
fearing the reorg and they end up doing
all these powerpoints and bringing 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 bulls dozers 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 big so we have a small wall
and a few people who are 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
so yeah
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 social
animals and you kind of go yeah yeah I
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
[Applause]
[Music]
you
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