do you love your wife yes right prove it
like what’s the metric give me the
number that helps me know right because
when you met her you didn’t love her
right now you love her right
tell me of the day the love happened
it’s an impossible question right but
it’s not that it doesn’t exist it’s that
it’s much easier to prove over time
right
so all leadership is the same thing it’s
about transitions so if you were to if
you were to go to the gym right sit like
exercise right if you go to the gym and
you work out and you come back and you
look in the mirror you will see nothing
and if you go to the gym the next day
and you come back and you look in the
mirror you will see nothing right so
clearly there’s no results can’t be
measured it must not be effective so we
quit right or if you fundamentally
believe that this is the right course of
action and you stick with it like in a
relationship
I bought her flowers and I wished her a
happy birthday and she doesn’t let me
clearly I’ll give up you know that’s not
what happens if you if you believe
there’s something there you commit
yourself to act an act of service you
commit yourself to the regime the
exercise you couldn’t screw it up you
can eat chocolate cake one day you can
skip a skip a day or two you know you it
allows for that but if you stick with it
consistently I’m not exactly sure what
day but I know you’ll start getting into
shape I know it and the same with the
relationship it’s not about the events
it’s not about intensity it’s about
consistency right you go to the dentist
twice a year your teeth will fall out
you have to brush your teeth every day
for two minutes
what is brushing your day twice a day
for two minutes do nothing unless you do
it every day twice a day for two minutes
right it’s the consistency going to the
gym for nine hours does not get you into
shape working out every day for 20
minutes gets you into shape so the
problem is we treat leadership with
intensity we have a two day off-site we
would invite a bunch of speakers we give
everybody certificate you’re a leader
right
those things are like going to the
dentist they’re very important that good
for reminding us are getting us back on
track learning new lessons but it’s the
daily practice of all the monotonous
little boring things like brushing your
teeth that matter the most she didn’t
fall in love with you because you
remembered her birthday and bought her
flowers in Valentine’s Day she fell in
love with you because when you woke up
in the morning you said good morning to
her before you checked your phone she
fell in love with you because when you
went to the fridge to get yourself a
drink you got her one without even
asking she fell in love with you because
when you had an amazing day at work and
she came home and she had a terrible day
at work you didn’t say yeah yeah yeah
but let me tell you about my day you sat
and listened to her awful day and you
didn’t say a thing about your amazing
day this is why she fell in love with
you I can’t tell you exactly what day
and it was no specular thing you did it
was the accumulation of all of those
little things that she woke up one days
and is as if she pressed a button she
goes I love him right leadership is
exactly the same there’s no event
there’s no thing I can tell you you have
to do that your people will trust you it
just doesn’t work that way
it’s then it’s an accumulation of lots
and lots of little things that anyone by
themselves is innocuous and useless
literally pointless by themselves people
will look at little things that are good
leadership practice and say that won’t
work and you’re absolutely right but if
you do it consistently and you do it in
combination with lots of other little
things like saying good morning to
someone that looking in the eye my
friend George who’s a three-star general
in the Marine Corps he says his test for
leadership and I love this he goes his
tests really a good leaders if you ask
somebody how their day is going you
actually care about the answer and the
number of times were walking to a
meeting we’re rushing we go how are you
not good I gotta get to you later I got
him late for a meeting if you ask the
question you were standing there and
you’re listening to the answer it’s
those little innocuous things that you
do over and over and over and over that
people will say I love my job not I like
my job I like my job means yeah the
challenge is great they pay me well I
like the people I love my job means I
don’t want to work anywhere else I don’t
care how much somebody else was willing
to pay me
I’m devoted to the people here and I
care desperately about the people here
as if they were my family in business we
have colleagues and co-workers in the
military they have brothers and sisters
that’s how they think of each other
right if you really have a strong
corporate culture the people will think
of each other like brothers and sisters
don’t really it’s like a family right no
brothers and sisters deep love fight but
the love doesn’t go away right bicker
the love doesn’t go away and I’ll fight
with my sister but if you threaten my
sister you’re gonna have to deal with me
right right we’ll fight internally we’ll
bicker with each other but nobody’s
gonna hurt each other and if anything
from the outside shows up you gotta
you’re looking at a unified front
brothers and sisters now how do you
create brothers and sisters out of
strangers common beliefs common values
you know parents in other words
executives who care about their
children’s success who care to raise
their children teach them skills
discipline them when necessary help them
build their self-confidence so that they
couldn’t go on and achieve something
more than you could have ever imagined
achieving for yourself that’s leadership
an absolute love and devotion for the
people who’ve committed their lives to
this enterprise that’s such a brilliant
reframe it’s so simple and so beautiful
and and unbelievably hard work it is and
it isn’t
here’s here’s why it is you said it it’s
hard to measure right it’s hard for me
to show hard to measure in the short
term it’s very easy to measure in the
long term
over the long term the traditional
metrics will go up all your revenues
profits market share the traditional
metrics will go up and more importantly
they’ll go up more stable right you will
be able to weather hard times better
because the people will come together
they won’t abandon ship right in the
over the long term the traditional
metrics are just fine
but also over the long term your churn
will go down right you won’t be going
through employees as much right over the
long term you’ll find that loyalty is
much higher that people will turn down
better paying jobs right over the long
term all the tradition
metrics are just fine and then some it’s
only the short-term that it’s hard to
measure yeah I’m gonna say though
there’s something in between those two
in the middle – no because with working
out so to use your analogy if you had to
go to the gym for six months before you
saw any sign of change no one would do
it right and there are so many variables
and working out the number one thing is
to know who to listen to the number one
thing is to know what to look for right
so if you don’t experience muscle
fatigue you’re probably doing something
different that’s immediate right I know
that the next day if you experience
muscle fatigue and don’t notice any
change within a few weeks you’re
probably not eating right so there
really are things that you can look at
as you’re doing the damage to the muscle
but you’re not giving your body the
nutrients that you need to actually
build well that’s all that’s all that
still true so I’m sitting here thinking
kind of really be as simple as like I
have a growing belief that part of what
you could write down as a leaders job is
to connect now how do we connect you’ve
given some very simple examples and
they’re all incredibly real asking
somebody how their day is and actually
waiting to hear the answer and caring
about what the answer is time spent
together right I couldn’t have a very
effective relationship with my wife
there actually isn’t time together and
one of the things that that I have
personally struggled with is as the
organization has grown just time with
any individual becomes more and more
difficult and so then you start focusing
on okay wait it’s just about creating
the environment but as you lose touch
with the real sense of like I know this
person and I can see when they’re having
a bad day and really leveraging like
what we have as humans and this is why
your teachings are so powerful is you
you wrap it in the truth of the human
experience you wrap it in how humans
really connect like looking at each
other sensing that like hey this is
either hitting or it’s not like all of
that stuff is super super real and as an
organization to be able to find ways in
that middle ground where it’s like I’m
pretty sure this is working and I really
believe in it at a macro level but I
just want to know because there’s so
many paths right and you could nudge
sort of one way or the other to create
something that and maybe it’s as simple
as here’s what I’m using this right now
the amount of laughter right here in the
office maybe that’s dumb I don’t know
but I’m really doing it and I really
think all day like how much laughter
have I heard
today and I feel like when everyone is
making an it’s really taking an effort
to connect with each other to provide
empathy and all that there’s a lowering
of people’s defenses and just a sort of
natural outpouring of that is is joking
around and so you hear this laughter
bubble and when things get really tense
and stressful I literally feel like you
could have a decibel meter and just feel
it coming down I mean look it’s it’s a
human it’s a human thing so just as you
know how your body feels after a good
workout you know how your body feels
after a big greasy meal you know you you
know that one is good for you and one is
not you know despite what it may taste
like and that’s the problem with
short-term gains right they feel really
good in the short term so it’s it’s
we’re highly highly highly trained
social animals were highly adapted
social animals you know we we can feel
social awkwardness and we can feel when
things are going well you know you can
sense it you say you have this sense of
laughter you know around the office like
we’re not we’re not we don’t walk around
with blinders when you know we’re like I
said we’re made to do this you know
that’s why we can assess if somebody’s
trustworthy or not you know it’s why we
keep our walls I mean oh yeah yeah his
results are great but I wouldn’t trust
him right you know as opposed to letting
on you but like I trust her for it
anything I trust her with my kids my
money anything you know so so we’re
highly attuned animals and so we’re good
at sensing it but I will say there is a
caveat to to your to your metric of
laughter which is a decent one is that
scale breaks things right in human
beings as I said before we’re not made
for populations bigger than about 150
ish it’s called Dunbar’s number Robin
Dunbar professor from Cambridge
University theorized that we cannot
maintain more than a hundred and about
about 150 close relationships and the
way he defined a close relationship is
if you’re at a bar with a bunch of
friends and somebody comes in would you
ask that person to join you or not and
we it’s about a hundred and fifty that
we wouldn’t ask them to come join us and
if you think about the reason that
actually makes perfect sense which is
there’s two limiting factors one is time
if you only gave two minutes to every
person you know you’d make no close
friends and the other one is memory you
just can’t remember everybody and so
this is where leadership leadership
becomes very
interesting because if you have a
company that has a lot of people five
six seven eight hundred and people a
thousand two thousand five thousand
people clearly you can’t know everyone
and clearly as a CEO look I care about
every single of my people you don’t even
know some of the people you work for a
real but we work for your bastards you
don’t care about that right so the nones
it’s a nonsense statement right right
but what you can say is I desperately
care about the people whose names I know
and whose faces I recognize and I care
desperately about my leadership and I
instill in them everyday that I will
give them the tools and I will take care
of them with one purpose of one purpose
only that they will take care of the
people in their charge and I want those
people to take care of the people and
instill in them that they take care of
the people in their charge and then by
the time you get down to the masses
where the actual thousand exist because
of the seniors it’s like twenty sure
right where the real thousand exist they
feel about a hundred and a hundred and
fifty of them can look to one of their
direct leaders to one of their direct
managers and say that person cares about
me mm-hmm that’s our boss that’s my boss
that’s my leader not the leader it’s the
CEO that’s my manager my boss my leader
sometimes sometimes you get fired
sometimes you get in trouble sometimes
you’ll lose your job and the next guy
will get all the credit it’s all true
and the courage to do the right thing in
the face of overwhelming pressure only
the best leaders have that courage only
the best leaders and here’s the folly
courage is not some deep internal
fortitude you don’t dig down deep and
find the courage right it just doesn’t
exist
courage is external our courage comes
from the support we feel from others in
other words when someone when you feel
that someone has your back when you see
you you know that the day that you admit
you can’t do it someone will be there
and say I got you you can do this that’s
what gives you the courage to do the
difficult thing it’s not going off to an
ashram by yourself somewhere for four
weeks and coming back and finding the
car it’s not what happens it’s the
relationships that we foster it’s the
people around us who love us and care
about us and believe in us and when we
those relationships we will find the
courage to do the right thing
and when you act with courage that in
turn will inspire those in your
organization to also act with courage in
other words it’s still an external thing
that’s what inspiration is right I’m
inspired to follow your example
but those relationships that we foster
over the course of a lifetime will not
only make us into the leaders we need to
be in and hope we can be but they’ll
often save your life they’ll save you
from depression they’ll save you from
giving up they’ll save you from any
matter of you know negative feelings
about your own capabilities your own
future when someone just says I love you
and I will follow you no matter what
like what’s the metric give me the
number that helps me know right because
when you met her you didn’t love her
right now you love her right
tell me of the day the love happened
it’s an impossible question right but
it’s not that it doesn’t exist it’s that
it’s much easier to prove over time
right
so all leadership is the same thing it’s
about transitions so if you were to if
you were to go to the gym right sit like
exercise right if you go to the gym and
you work out and you come back and you
look in the mirror you will see nothing
and if you go to the gym the next day
and you come back and you look in the
mirror you will see nothing right so
clearly there’s no results can’t be
measured it must not be effective so we
quit right or if you fundamentally
believe that this is the right course of
action and you stick with it like in a
relationship
I bought her flowers and I wished her a
happy birthday and she doesn’t let me
clearly I’ll give up you know that’s not
what happens if you if you believe
there’s something there you commit
yourself to act an act of service you
commit yourself to the regime the
exercise you couldn’t screw it up you
can eat chocolate cake one day you can
skip a skip a day or two you know you it
allows for that but if you stick with it
consistently I’m not exactly sure what
day but I know you’ll start getting into
shape I know it and the same with the
relationship it’s not about the events
it’s not about intensity it’s about
consistency right you go to the dentist
twice a year your teeth will fall out
you have to brush your teeth every day
for two minutes
what is brushing your day twice a day
for two minutes do nothing unless you do
it every day twice a day for two minutes
right it’s the consistency going to the
gym for nine hours does not get you into
shape working out every day for 20
minutes gets you into shape so the
problem is we treat leadership with
intensity we have a two day off-site we
would invite a bunch of speakers we give
everybody certificate you’re a leader
right
those things are like going to the
dentist they’re very important that good
for reminding us are getting us back on
track learning new lessons but it’s the
daily practice of all the monotonous
little boring things like brushing your
teeth that matter the most she didn’t
fall in love with you because you
remembered her birthday and bought her
flowers in Valentine’s Day she fell in
love with you because when you woke up
in the morning you said good morning to
her before you checked your phone she
fell in love with you because when you
went to the fridge to get yourself a
drink you got her one without even
asking she fell in love with you because
when you had an amazing day at work and
she came home and she had a terrible day
at work you didn’t say yeah yeah yeah
but let me tell you about my day you sat
and listened to her awful day and you
didn’t say a thing about your amazing
day this is why she fell in love with
you I can’t tell you exactly what day
and it was no specular thing you did it
was the accumulation of all of those
little things that she woke up one days
and is as if she pressed a button she
goes I love him right leadership is
exactly the same there’s no event
there’s no thing I can tell you you have
to do that your people will trust you it
just doesn’t work that way
it’s then it’s an accumulation of lots
and lots of little things that anyone by
themselves is innocuous and useless
literally pointless by themselves people
will look at little things that are good
leadership practice and say that won’t
work and you’re absolutely right but if
you do it consistently and you do it in
combination with lots of other little
things like saying good morning to
someone that looking in the eye my
friend George who’s a three-star general
in the Marine Corps he says his test for
leadership and I love this he goes his
tests really a good leaders if you ask
somebody how their day is going you
actually care about the answer and the
number of times were walking to a
meeting we’re rushing we go how are you
not good I gotta get to you later I got
him late for a meeting if you ask the
question you were standing there and
you’re listening to the answer it’s
those little innocuous things that you
do over and over and over and over that
people will say I love my job not I like
my job I like my job means yeah the
challenge is great they pay me well I
like the people I love my job means I
don’t want to work anywhere else I don’t
care how much somebody else was willing
to pay me
I’m devoted to the people here and I
care desperately about the people here
as if they were my family in business we
have colleagues and co-workers in the
military they have brothers and sisters
that’s how they think of each other
right if you really have a strong
corporate culture the people will think
of each other like brothers and sisters
don’t really it’s like a family right no
brothers and sisters deep love fight but
the love doesn’t go away right bicker
the love doesn’t go away and I’ll fight
with my sister but if you threaten my
sister you’re gonna have to deal with me
right right we’ll fight internally we’ll
bicker with each other but nobody’s
gonna hurt each other and if anything
from the outside shows up you gotta
you’re looking at a unified front
brothers and sisters now how do you
create brothers and sisters out of
strangers common beliefs common values
you know parents in other words
executives who care about their
children’s success who care to raise
their children teach them skills
discipline them when necessary help them
build their self-confidence so that they
couldn’t go on and achieve something
more than you could have ever imagined
achieving for yourself that’s leadership
an absolute love and devotion for the
people who’ve committed their lives to
this enterprise that’s such a brilliant
reframe it’s so simple and so beautiful
and and unbelievably hard work it is and
it isn’t
here’s here’s why it is you said it it’s
hard to measure right it’s hard for me
to show hard to measure in the short
term it’s very easy to measure in the
long term
over the long term the traditional
metrics will go up all your revenues
profits market share the traditional
metrics will go up and more importantly
they’ll go up more stable right you will
be able to weather hard times better
because the people will come together
they won’t abandon ship right in the
over the long term the traditional
metrics are just fine
but also over the long term your churn
will go down right you won’t be going
through employees as much right over the
long term you’ll find that loyalty is
much higher that people will turn down
better paying jobs right over the long
term all the tradition
metrics are just fine and then some it’s
only the short-term that it’s hard to
measure yeah I’m gonna say though
there’s something in between those two
in the middle – no because with working
out so to use your analogy if you had to
go to the gym for six months before you
saw any sign of change no one would do
it right and there are so many variables
and working out the number one thing is
to know who to listen to the number one
thing is to know what to look for right
so if you don’t experience muscle
fatigue you’re probably doing something
different that’s immediate right I know
that the next day if you experience
muscle fatigue and don’t notice any
change within a few weeks you’re
probably not eating right so there
really are things that you can look at
as you’re doing the damage to the muscle
but you’re not giving your body the
nutrients that you need to actually
build well that’s all that’s all that
still true so I’m sitting here thinking
kind of really be as simple as like I
have a growing belief that part of what
you could write down as a leaders job is
to connect now how do we connect you’ve
given some very simple examples and
they’re all incredibly real asking
somebody how their day is and actually
waiting to hear the answer and caring
about what the answer is time spent
together right I couldn’t have a very
effective relationship with my wife
there actually isn’t time together and
one of the things that that I have
personally struggled with is as the
organization has grown just time with
any individual becomes more and more
difficult and so then you start focusing
on okay wait it’s just about creating
the environment but as you lose touch
with the real sense of like I know this
person and I can see when they’re having
a bad day and really leveraging like
what we have as humans and this is why
your teachings are so powerful is you
you wrap it in the truth of the human
experience you wrap it in how humans
really connect like looking at each
other sensing that like hey this is
either hitting or it’s not like all of
that stuff is super super real and as an
organization to be able to find ways in
that middle ground where it’s like I’m
pretty sure this is working and I really
believe in it at a macro level but I
just want to know because there’s so
many paths right and you could nudge
sort of one way or the other to create
something that and maybe it’s as simple
as here’s what I’m using this right now
the amount of laughter right here in the
office maybe that’s dumb I don’t know
but I’m really doing it and I really
think all day like how much laughter
have I heard
today and I feel like when everyone is
making an it’s really taking an effort
to connect with each other to provide
empathy and all that there’s a lowering
of people’s defenses and just a sort of
natural outpouring of that is is joking
around and so you hear this laughter
bubble and when things get really tense
and stressful I literally feel like you
could have a decibel meter and just feel
it coming down I mean look it’s it’s a
human it’s a human thing so just as you
know how your body feels after a good
workout you know how your body feels
after a big greasy meal you know you you
know that one is good for you and one is
not you know despite what it may taste
like and that’s the problem with
short-term gains right they feel really
good in the short term so it’s it’s
we’re highly highly highly trained
social animals were highly adapted
social animals you know we we can feel
social awkwardness and we can feel when
things are going well you know you can
sense it you say you have this sense of
laughter you know around the office like
we’re not we’re not we don’t walk around
with blinders when you know we’re like I
said we’re made to do this you know
that’s why we can assess if somebody’s
trustworthy or not you know it’s why we
keep our walls I mean oh yeah yeah his
results are great but I wouldn’t trust
him right you know as opposed to letting
on you but like I trust her for it
anything I trust her with my kids my
money anything you know so so we’re
highly attuned animals and so we’re good
at sensing it but I will say there is a
caveat to to your to your metric of
laughter which is a decent one is that
scale breaks things right in human
beings as I said before we’re not made
for populations bigger than about 150
ish it’s called Dunbar’s number Robin
Dunbar professor from Cambridge
University theorized that we cannot
maintain more than a hundred and about
about 150 close relationships and the
way he defined a close relationship is
if you’re at a bar with a bunch of
friends and somebody comes in would you
ask that person to join you or not and
we it’s about a hundred and fifty that
we wouldn’t ask them to come join us and
if you think about the reason that
actually makes perfect sense which is
there’s two limiting factors one is time
if you only gave two minutes to every
person you know you’d make no close
friends and the other one is memory you
just can’t remember everybody and so
this is where leadership leadership
becomes very
interesting because if you have a
company that has a lot of people five
six seven eight hundred and people a
thousand two thousand five thousand
people clearly you can’t know everyone
and clearly as a CEO look I care about
every single of my people you don’t even
know some of the people you work for a
real but we work for your bastards you
don’t care about that right so the nones
it’s a nonsense statement right right
but what you can say is I desperately
care about the people whose names I know
and whose faces I recognize and I care
desperately about my leadership and I
instill in them everyday that I will
give them the tools and I will take care
of them with one purpose of one purpose
only that they will take care of the
people in their charge and I want those
people to take care of the people and
instill in them that they take care of
the people in their charge and then by
the time you get down to the masses
where the actual thousand exist because
of the seniors it’s like twenty sure
right where the real thousand exist they
feel about a hundred and a hundred and
fifty of them can look to one of their
direct leaders to one of their direct
managers and say that person cares about
me mm-hmm that’s our boss that’s my boss
that’s my leader not the leader it’s the
CEO that’s my manager my boss my leader
sometimes sometimes you get fired
sometimes you get in trouble sometimes
you’ll lose your job and the next guy
will get all the credit it’s all true
and the courage to do the right thing in
the face of overwhelming pressure only
the best leaders have that courage only
the best leaders and here’s the folly
courage is not some deep internal
fortitude you don’t dig down deep and
find the courage right it just doesn’t
exist
courage is external our courage comes
from the support we feel from others in
other words when someone when you feel
that someone has your back when you see
you you know that the day that you admit
you can’t do it someone will be there
and say I got you you can do this that’s
what gives you the courage to do the
difficult thing it’s not going off to an
ashram by yourself somewhere for four
weeks and coming back and finding the
car it’s not what happens it’s the
relationships that we foster it’s the
people around us who love us and care
about us and believe in us and when we
those relationships we will find the
courage to do the right thing
and when you act with courage that in
turn will inspire those in your
organization to also act with courage in
other words it’s still an external thing
that’s what inspiration is right I’m
inspired to follow your example
but those relationships that we foster
over the course of a lifetime will not
only make us into the leaders we need to
be in and hope we can be but they’ll
often save your life they’ll save you
from depression they’ll save you from
giving up they’ll save you from any
matter of you know negative feelings
about your own capabilities your own
future when someone just says I love you
and I will follow you no matter what
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