To Grow Try This…Which Right Things?
If you’re feeling there are more behaviors that move the needle, you’re right. Your experience rightly tells you that identifying the behaviors that help your team to do the right things isn’t easy. How can we leaders be sure we’ve identified the right thing—that moves the needle? Which right things should our employees try to live each and every day?
Try This…Overcoming Invisible Opposing Forces
We like to work backwards from the desired goals. What are you trying to achieve?
And then let’s look for behaviors that your employees perform that could really move the needle toward that goal. Understanding the importance and difficulty of that relationship must not be underestimated. But a good business leader like yourself shouldn’t have any difficulty in putting your finger on that relationship, after a little—or perhaps a lot—of thoughtful contemplation.
Ah, don’t forget that at the start of the Change section, we identified the Invisible Opposing Forces. Now we will deal with them. You’ll likely achieve the best results if you look beyond the obvious relationships and look for the Invisible Opposing Forces! Let us refer you to another sport that some people call football, but you probably call soccer, then see what we can learn from Free Climbers and Southwest Airlines.
If you’ve ever watched soccer matches of the FIFA World Cup and seen tied games decided by soccer superstars taking and yet often missing penalty kicks, you might appreciate what we mean. Sure, they practice very hard indeed. During the training sessions they focus on, what Nick Saban would call, the task at hand. They have probably been playing soccer since they were knee-high to a grasshopper and have no doubt practiced taking these penalty kicks several thousands of times in their careers, some in very high pressure situations. The goal posts don’t move, the spot for the penalty kick is in exactly the same place every time. So, why do they miss the spot kick in the final match itself when so much rides on that single kick?
Maybe Alex can help here. Alex Honnold is one of the best and most inspiring free climbers of the current climbing generation. Free climbers climb without any ropes or other equipment and by themselves. Since 2009, Alex had been thinking about free climbing El Capitan, almost 3,000 feet of vertical (or worse) rockface in Yosemite Valley.
For Alex, it became a goal notwithstanding the fact that five people have died on such climbing attempts in the last four years. Having a future-orientated goal doesn’t mean you’ll achieve it.
Of course Alex did all the right things with the task at hand. To achieve his goal, Alex identified the behavior he needed to exhibit on a daily basis. He spent four plus months specifically doing practice climbs of the most difficult stages of the route—for a climb that on the day took him less than four hours to complete. He planned his route meticulously, prepared for surprises, and also practiced climbs (with ropes) along the entire route for months. He had been climbing most of his life so there’s plenty of practice and experience under his belt. Others that tried and failed to free climb El Capitan had also done the same or similar things in training, yet failed. Alex Honnold achieved his remarkable feat in June 2017 and attracted world media attention in a difficult sport. What was the difference?
Alex not only focused on the visible tasks at hand, but also identified the Invisible Opposing Force of fear. He succeeded at such a challenging task, due to his extraordinary ability to stay calm. In this situation, a lack of calmness could have dire consequences!
Beyond identifying the behaviors of each and every employee that enable the desired effect toward the desired goal, we’re interested in those behaviors that not only move the needle the most but also tackle the Invisible Opposing Forces. It is remarkable to think about any company, especially an airline, running profitably for 43 years—not quarters— and counting. Southwest Airlines has been successful by connecting the employees’ well-being—with a central theme of fairness on a day-to-day basis—to that of the airline’s success.
As the Freiburgs’ write in their book (Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success): The real secret to Southwest’s success is having one of the most highly motivated and productive work-forces in the world. They are motivated by a sense of fairness that says—we want your well-being to be tied to the company’s well-being because, after all, you are the company.
In the last chapter we highlighted how Zappos did so well because the whole organization’s systems were orientated towards allowing their employees to walk the walk of excellent customer service. Such an approach enables the needle to move towards growth. In this chapter we’ve highlighted the fact that sometimes those employee behaviors come from deeply rooted feelings of themselves, particularly if they need to overcome invisible opposing forces. We gave you some examples of calmness (as in taking soccer penalty kicks and free climbing) or feelings of a sense of fairness. Unfortunately, you and not this book, need to discover the magic sauce for your employees.
So what makes your employees tick and want to take the business to the next level? We think you’re probably getting our gist now, knowing that growing your plateau business requires deeper thought and actions than first impressions.
Pause: Did you make notes of things in the Action This Today section in the back of this book? If not, please take this opportunity to review the prior pages to identify again any thoughts and ideas you want to follow up on.