Getting better is a waste of time. Growing up is not.
Because we live in a self-obsessed culture where everyone can be everything and do anything based upon how you think or how you feel, “getting better” no longer has the same implications and implicit meaning that it once did. Getting better was once a very objective term. Now, it has become extraordinarily subjective. Once, if I had “gotten better” I had actually achieved something or grown. Now, “getting better” simply means that you or someone around you thinks they see improvement. Getting better is now about getting a response or a reaction, whereas, growing up is about real results.
How do you measure getting better?
You don’t really. You look in the mirror, you take self-assessment or you rate your personal satisfaction. Getting better has become more about feeling that fact. Getting better has become more about perception than progression. Getting better has become more about appearance than substance. You will make some adjustment or a series of adjustments that feel like measurements and you smile a smile of self-satisfaction, yet you still wonder why the others around you haven’t noticed how much better you are, why your influence and your productivity hasn’t increased, why you didn’t get promoted and why you didn’t get the results that you really wanted.
The reason why?
Simply, you haven’t really grown or grown enough to make a difference. So, you take the next step and you hire a coach or get a consultant–you look and find an outside voice that can help you “get better.” Now, you have an “unbiased source” to help you determine where exactly you need to get better and some new techniques and strategies that will assist you in becoming a better version of you. Except this unbiased source is not really unbiased, because you are paying them or they are looking to use your story as their example. Let me describe to you the best outside source…a person that can benefit nothing, but the reward of self-satisfaction of helping you grow. Find someone who will engage you on a brutally honest level and give you the straight facts, who at the risk of damaging the relationship will tell you the truth. I have found this to be the best mirror (outside the Bible) that any leader desiring growth can have.
Focus on Personal Growth
Let me shoot it straight with you, stop focusing on getting better, being a better version of you and start discovering how, where and why you need to grow.
The idea of personal growth has become lost in a raging river of self-improvement, enhancement and initiatives. An organization grows not because it gets better people, but rather, because the people they have are actually growing and developing.
Enter the millennial…there is a mystery in development for the millennial leader and those attempting to develop the millennial leader. But, many organizations are becoming organizations that have adopted a millennial mindset. This too is a problem. Millennials and millennially-minded organizations have a difficult time fathoming why others don’t see the growth in them, the potential in them and how good they can be–even though they feel they are growing. Millennials see growth as a continuous vortex of getting better that contains lots of movement and activity. But, they are missing one thing: growth. And growth means maturity. Maturity has levels, stages and seasons. Maturity is measurable. Getting better is an idea.
Growth = Maturity
Getting Better ≠ Maturity
Getting Better = Perpetual Immaturity
Growth means you have reached a new stage in maturity. Leaders and organizations must reach new stages in maturity, because without the new level of maturity (growth) then they have actually plateaued. The plateau is often where “getting better” gets stuck. When a leader or an organization gets stuck, then getting better means a lot of activity without a lot of productivity. Maturity yields higher productivity. For example, the more mature a muscle is means the more strength it contains and the heavier the load it can carry. Thus, by this analogy, maturity also produces as a by-product strength, force or in the case of an individual or organization, influence.
Getting better doesn’t mean you have more influence. An organization or individual that spends the majority of it’s time focused on getting-better that has developed into self-centered, image management will fail in its environment, community or market to grow influence. Don’t miss this: getting better doesn’t equal greater influence. This is what millennials and millennially-minded 0rganizations don’t understand. This is what an organization that is catering to the millennial mindset of getting better is missing. Your leadership hasn’t grown if your influence hasn’t grown.
Getting better has become a catch-phrase. It says everything, but means nothing. It includes everyone, but hold no one accountable. Getting better has become an excuse for poor performance, a lack of results and at the bottom of it all, justification for immaturity. We can blame Millennials all we want, but first, it’s the fault of their leaders, executives, parents, coaches, teachers, principals and educators for not demanding that they grow up. Second, the fault then lies with the Millennial for not recognizing and responding to their need to grow up. Instead, we have created a climate where getting better has replaced growing up.
Getting better is not a direction nor a destination, growth is. A spirit of continuous improvement is a wonderful thing. However, a spirit of perpetual mediocrity is a terrible thing. The idea behind a spirit of continuous improvement means that you are actually improving or maturing in your development or growth. Sadly, too many leaders in too many organizations, departments and positions have replaced the true spirit of continuous improvement with a spirit of perpetual motion. There is a danger in continuous motion (unless you are the earth spinning on its axis, but you aren’t). Leaders today are confusing motion with maturation. Maturation arrives after the growing pains and once healthy, sustainable production occurs. Too many young, millennial leaders or millennial-minded organizations don’t experience maturity, because at the first sign of pain they retreat or move away from it or they spend too much time diagnosing and re-diagnosing the symptoms without solutions. Healthy organizations and mature leaders accept the pain as part of the process. Unfortunately, many leaders and organizations see the pain as weakness and something that needs to be improved upon or a closed door. Worse they deny the pain really exists, excusing it for part of the process. The reality is the pain signifies that something has or is breaking down.
Getting better misses the mark of mastery. If you really want to be outstanding or excellent then your focus must be on mastery. Mastery is based on an apprentice/master model. Historically, someone wanted to learn a trade and would apprentice themselves to a “master” or expert for 7, 10 or 14 years and sometimes even longer. The length of time depended upon the trade or craft or the ability of the apprentice to learn. Some trades today still use this highly effective model. Unfortunately, with the pace that most organizations are moving, younger leaders are not given time or a path to grow effectively in an organization. Thus, the game of “getting better” escalates. Information does not signify mastery. Knowledge does not signify mastery. Wisdom is the best indicator of mastery. Maturity is also a pretty good sign.
If you want to do something valuable for your organization, then grow. Don’t waste your time on the continuous cycle of getting better. Don’t use buzzwords and catch-phrases that make you sound more intelligent, but haven’t given you any more wisdom. Don’t walk around the gym, change your diet, get new work-out clothes and never get to work. Don’t wash the car, clean the windows, get new air-freshner, shine the seats and vacuum out the floor, but leave the gas tank empty!
Growth takes time, which explains why it is so unpopular. Getting better can happen right now or yesterday. Getting better can act as a great cloak of deception or a subtle fog of delusion. If all your focus, attention and metrics are focused on your perceived notion of measurement, then all you are doing is practicing the art of self-fulfilling prophecy. Growth takes commitment, which explains why else it is so unpopular. There are no magic pills to actually have expertise in a field, but there are many self-anointed experts with plenty of magic to share. Talk to any aged and learned leader that had any modicum of success and what you will find is lots of hard work, lots of time, lots of struggle and lots of lessons and different seasons of growth were apart of the journey. Getting better doesn’t teach us lessons, it lessens our teaching.
10,000 Hour Rule
Malcolm Gladwell in his popular book Outliers: The Story of Success says that if you want to have mastery of a skill, an instrument or anything really, mastery in such a way that it becomes “second nature,” then you have to perform that activity for at least 10,000 hours. It also can’t just be the same motion, but it must be a deliberate progression under the guidance and tutelage of another who has already achieved. This is not a consultant, but an instructor.
Communicating with people is a skill. Leading people is a skill. Conflict resolution is a skill. All the facets of leadership, including influence, are not achieved because we’ve “gotten better.” Growth, these 10,000 hours, requires discipline, direction and a price to be paid. If I practice something just 1 hour a day, then it will take me a little more than 27 years to learn something. Okay, let’s say in regards to leadership and communicating, by proxy in your work environment, you spend 4 hours a day of real interaction and leadership training & development with others (not in a cubicle or behind a computer screen or smart phone), then (minus weekends) it will still take you almost 10 years to achieve 10,000 hours. This is why we don’t see great leadership everywhere all the time, despite the fact that we think we are “getting better.”
Little Girls & Cornets
I can get better at something by only spending a few hours at something. I listen to my two youngest daughters play their cornets almost every weekday around 6:30am (it’s certainly a way to wake the household up). They get better each week (most of the time) by very slight degree. It might take them several weeks or a month or an entire semester to prepare a piece for a performance and they’ve been doing it for two years. They are fortunate in that they have an excellent instructor and they started young, so they are progressing, growing rapidly. I encourage them, but I lack the skill to instruct them. Today’s millennially-minded organizations and leaders are mistaking encouragement for instruction. We tell them that they are “getting better,” but they haven’t grown until they can pass the test that their instructor gives.
Why have I said all this?
Because, getting better no longer means the same thing that it once meant. “Getting better” has become an anecdote, a catch-phrase and organizational jargon. I encourage you to strike it out of your vocabulary. It simply doesn’t carry the same weight or meaning that it did for years. Instead, talk about maturity, talk about growth. Consider for a moment your health. You can get better and still be sick. But, if you are growing, then you are getting healthy. Getting better no longer means you are getting healthy, although we often think it does. Getting better has become a delusion and a deception for many that think they are growing, but are not. Stop focusing on getting better and start working on growing.
Find a Giant
Find a giant and learn from them. A giant is taller than you will ever be and always shows you that despite how good and how much you think you have gotten better. When you measure against a giant you always fall short, but you still keep measuring to chart your growth. The giant represents someone that has achieved results, maturity and health that is worthy of emulation. Giants humble us, but they help us. They help us grow up. They reveal to us where our weaknesses, our opportunities and our immaturities are. The danger for many millennials and millennially-minded organizations is they believe they have become the giant. There is great danger in this mentality, because it is filled with pride and that is when “giants fall.” Giants who don’t consider themselves giants, stand strong and firm for a long time (but that’s another lesson for another day).
Too many of our young leaders today are measuring themselves against dwarfs, not giants. You need giants in your organization. You need giants in your life. You need giants to surround you. Giants, in this example, represent where you want to go and how much you need to grow. If all you ever do is surround yourself with dwarfs, you will be deluded into thinking you are much taller, much more mature than you really are and much more able than you really are. Find a giant and you will either realize how much you have to grow or you will run the other direction back to the land of dwarfs.
Conclusion
Success is not found because we desire it, but because we work for it and we measure for it–often for a very long time. We can get better and never achieve success. However, it is hard to separate growth from success. It’s not the desire for success that will sustain your growth trajectory, but your discipline, your 10,000 hours, your unrelenting measurement against giants that will keep you humble enough to work harder, stay longer and listen better than your contemporaries.
“Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for 22 minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after 30 seconds.”
~Malcolm Gladwell
(c) Redwall Leadership Academy. 2017.