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It’s crazy. If you want to light fire to all the good stuff happening because you’re aligned, you need to get off your duff and get out there, truly getting to know and care about your people as individuals. In fact, really good leaders are like coaches who stand on the sidelines jumping up and down because they can’t contain their excitement about how everyone’s doing, who hug their players when they come off the court, never mind the sweat, and who know what makes each one of their people tick.
Let’s even take this one step further. The best leaders actually care more about their people than themselves. This concept reminds us of a wonderful interview with Don Knauss, the then CEO of Clorox, which appeared in the New York Times not long ago. In his twenties, Don relates, he had been a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, stationed in Hawaii. One day, he says, “I had been up since five in the morning, and I was pretty hungry. I started walking to get in the front of the line (for lunch), and this gunnery sergeant grabbed my shoulder and turned me around. He said: ‘Lieutenant, in the field, the men always eat first. You can have some if there’s any left.’ And I said, ‘OK. I get it.’ . . . It’s all about your people, it’s not about you.”
What a great story! Great leaders build trust and credibility with words and deeds that prove, over and over again, in ways large and small, that they respect and honor their people.
Can that feel draining? At times, yes, especially when it’s real, as it should be. But if you want your team to win, that should sound OK to you. It should sound like what you do all the time.
Second, Think of Yourself as the Chief Meaning Officer
How often do you think Dave Calhoun and Erik Fyrwald talked about mission and behaviors during their first 18 months at the helm? Every day? Try in every conversation, up and down the organization. That kind of overcommunication is essential, and not just as you’re launching a change process. It’s essential forever.
Leaders exist, in large part, to give purpose to their teams; to relentlessly, passionately explain, “Here’s where we’re going. Here’s why. Here’s how we’re going to get there. Here’s how you fit in. And here’s what’s in it for you.”
Oh, and just as a reminder, once you’re done explaining all that, you need to do it again.
Remember, your people spend more than 40 hours of every week working. If you’re not helping them make meaning of that investment, you’re wasting their time and their lives. Not to be scolds. But this part of leadership is daunting, we know that. Who likes to repeat things to the point of gagging? Exactly no one. But it’s an essential part of engaging your people and caring for them, just as you would in any true relationship.
And one more thing. It’s not just the top person who needs to be a Chief Meaning Officer. No matter what the size of company, it’s every manager’s job, right down to the team leader level, to create context and purpose. Think of how powerful that can be. Think of the alignment it creates.
Third, Remove Blockages from Your People’s Way
Have you ever seen the Olympic sport called curling? With all due respect to the athletes who have dedicated their lives to it, it’s somewhat curious, you have to admit. One player pushes a granite stone down the ice toward the goal, while three others precede him, frantically sweeping the surface with cornhusk brooms. Those players, the ones smoothing the way for the stone’s speedy and accurate approach to its destination, do what good leaders do. They aggressively scrub out anything and everything that stands in the way of the stone reaching its target.
Like what? Well, like the bureaucratic nonsense that’s endemic in most organizations. The rules and regulations that often exist just to make work for the people who enforce rules and regulations. We’re not talking about the kind of guidelines you have to follow for reasons of the law or safety. We’re talking about petty stuff that gums up progress. The CFO who says everyone gets a 2 percent across-the-board increase because it’s been a tough year, performance be damned. The IT manager who’s more interested in process than innovation, or in data collection more than analysis. The corporate lawyer who has a reason why almost anything can’t be done.
A leader’s job is to sweep away that kind of junk.
And while we’re at it, to sweep away those kinds of people in every group—the action blockers, the change resisters, the process obsessives. “That’s not how we do it around here.” “It didn’t use to be that way.” Sometimes it’s OK to tolerate a couple of these individuals—sometimes. They contribute institutional memory, or they counteract a strong culture of acquiescence, which is never to be desired. But most of the time, these people are nothing more than self-appointed, self-righteous scolds who drain energy and waste time. Good leaders know the difference, and effectively use their brooms to prove it.
Fourth, Joyfully Demonstrate the “Generosity Gene”
A scientist would have to tell you if there really is a DNA marker for generosity or whether it’s more of a learned behavior, but it doesn’t make any difference to us. We just know that the best, most effective, most awe-inspiring leaders share one pronounced trait: They love to give raises. They’re thrilled to see their employees grow and get promoted. They celebrate their people in every way they can—with money, more responsibility, and public praise. And it turns them on to do it. We know of a manager, for instance, who was working closely for weeks with one of her employees on a project. It wasn’t going well; even after hours of coaching, the employee couldn’t deliver what the manager was expecting. Then one morning, the employee came to work dragging. “I was up all night,” she told her boss; “check your email.” The boss did, and there, in an attachment, was the project completed to perfection. The boss burst out of her office, calling out, “You did it, you did it!” for everyone to hear. That kind of drop-the-barriers, authentic generosity of spirit from leaders unleashes people to feel great about themselves and do great things for the team and for customers.
Sometimes people ask us about the prevalence of the generosity gene. That’s a hard one. Personally, we’ve seen it, but then again, we’ve worked in and with some excellent companies, which tend to attract, enable, and reward this leadership behavior. In the big picture, we’d say it’s probably less common. Too many leaders like to hold back on raises and promotions; they’re cheapskates by nature or nurture, both financially and emotionally. They often hide their best employees to better the impression of their own performance. We have a friend, for instance, who quit a big media company out of frustration with her pace of advancement. It was only at her exit interview with HR that she learned her boss considered her a “superlative high-potential.”
This manager wasn’t critical of our friend, but he wasn’t expressive, either. “I don’t think he ever said one nice word to me,” she told us. “And when I got my annual raise, it was without explanation. I didn’t even know that it was the biggest in the company until HR told me on my way out the door.”
It could be our friend’s experience is the norm. We hope not, because nothing unleashes performance and commitment like unleashing the generosity in a good leader’s heart—as well as their wallet.
And Fifth, Make Sure Work Is Fun
Can we be completely exasperated for a moment and ask, “What is wrong with people when it comes to fun at work? Really, what?” That is, why do so many—too many—assume that work is only work when it’s hard, grim, dull, or otherwise unpleasant?
It kills us.
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