“Overwhelm a problem with talented people” –Rob Morris

Leaders that are outstanding at recruiting, developing, retaining and launching new leaders have a different mindset than those who don’t. Spend ten minutes with one of these leaders and you will quickly see, they simply think differently than most of their contemporaries. Do you want different results? Think different thoughts.

A recent talent summit I got to spend time with three phenomenal leaders who have this growing others mindset in buckets (Rob Morris, Chris Walker & Luke Cook).

Mind-attitudes on developing talent in your organization:

1- “Everything is a journey,” (Chris Walker). Not only is everything a journey, but everyone is on a journey. Some people are headed in the wrong direction and some people are heading in the right direction. If you want to develop leaders, then you better get good at understanding the journey. You also better understand that you yourself are on a journey. So when it all falls apart one day, don’t panic –it’s all apart of the journey.

2- “Courage to do what I needed to do,” (Rob Morris). Because developing people is a journey, there will be some people that don’t belong in your caravan (the journey you are on with others). Far too often leaders lack the courage to confront their own inability to make the tough decision. Developing others takes a courage a mindset because you will have to confront others and sometimes even cut them out of your organization. It takes courage to promote someone new over existing leaders, it takes courage to acknowledge you failed as a leader, and it takes courage to let someone you care about leave the organization for the overall health of the organization. There is no true leadership development without a courageous mindset.

3- “The Key to concentration is elimination,” (Luke Cook). Leaders who are great at selecting and developing talent have a more focused mindset. Your intentions must become intentionality! This means you often must eliminate all the things that are urgent, but not important. Leaders who have this mind set, can more quickly filter through the pressing for the perfect. Simply put if you don’t focus your organization and your own mindset on talent development, then all the other things that are urgent will prevent you from what is important. Elimination is the key.

4- “Don’t forget, you’ll attract who you deserve,” (Rob Morris). If you look around and you don’t have the talent you feel you deserve then you haven’t looked in the mirror lately. If you want to attract better talent, then become more attractive. You are the magnet that will draw or repulse talented people into your organization. If you can’t seem to keep talent and they keep leaving you, it’s your fault. Start looking in the mirror. Start a personal board of directors (mentors & truth-tellers) who can speak into your life on all sides. Listen to them. Adjust. Recalibrate. Change. This mindset makes no excuses and takes ultimate responsibility in the organization for the talent attracted, kept and developed.

5- “Choose adventure everyday,” (Luke Cook). It’s your choice. It’s your mindset. You can choose boring. You can choose mundane. You can choose stagnation. Or you can choose adventure. Leaders who are great at developing talent see the journey as an adventure–really a shared adventure. Leaders who don’t have this adventure mindset get more frustrated, make new systems that won’t work and send their budding talent off on wild goose chases that produce more misadventure than adventure. This mindset is contagious, exciting and shouts “we are going somewhere beyond here…we are going on adventure!” Talented people love adventure.

“Talent isn’t passed down in the genes, it’s passed down in the mindset”
Carol Dweck

Do you find it difficult to hire, recruit, develop and retain great people? 

Good news, you are not alone. It is increasingly more and more difficult to seemingly acquire and keep the best talent. There are many reasons why this is so difficult, but I’m going to share with you the one thing that can change your organization in regards to your talent crisis, regardless of the valid reasons.

This one thing is not a revolutionary idea, a magical concept or a some well-kept secret. In fact, its so obvious that its most often forgotten, overlooked or simply dismissed as too easy. But it’s not easy. It is the game-changer for the crisis you are facing in your organization.

The solution to finding, recruiting and hiring the best people: YOU.

Rule #1 – Unlike magnets like attracts like with people. Good people want to work with other good people. The person they want to work with (and ultimately for is you). If you are having a hard time keeping people that you once thought were great, there is a chance that it’s not actually them. It might actually be you. If you want to attract better people, become more attractive to the kind of people you want working in your organization. Too many leaders are too busy pointing out the flaws of those that work with them, when really are they are doing is projecting their shortfalls on those around them.

Rule #2 – Treat those you are recruiting as potentials not prospects. When you treat someone like a prospect all the excitement and attention you give them in the beginning is creating a false expectation of what reality will be like. When you recruit prospects, you are creating possibly false expectations both on your side and their side. When you treat them like potentials, you are always casting a vision to grow towards both for them and for you. Potentials means you are not going to invest too much emotional energy in the process. When you overly invest emotionally in the recruitment of someone you think can be a game-changer and then they don’t work out, it can create a warped-thought pattern in how you will view future potentials. Prospects exist in what they can do for you. Potentials exist for what you can do for them.

Rule #3 – Don’t measure the talent, mold the talent. The question you must be asking yourself, “Does this person have a teachable spirit?” I will go a long way out of my way to work with someone or recruit someone who has a teachable spirit. You mold people and measure results. People get results, people aren’t the results. Now, good people get good results. But, not always at first. So, be careful of using your mental measurement of people. Rather, determine, “Can this person imitate what I do and how I do it to at least the level I can or higher?” If the answer is yes, than by all means move forward. If the answer is no, move on.

Rule #4 – Don’t make it easy to get hired. Easy to get hired sets an expectation of low standards. You have one opportunity to set the high standard and that is in the interview, hiring and orientation process. In fact, through those stages the bar should get higher at each level of engagement. At first, this will be challenging. There will be times that you are so desperate you have to take what you can get. But, as soon as you get some breathing room, keep hiring. Part of the process is that you always hire, always interview and always recruit. Recruiting people should be a mission-critical objective for your organization. Contrary to some belief, there is healthy turn-over in an organization. Be selective. Be critical. Become a place that it is difficult to get a job. You might have to get creative, but it is worth it once you arrive there. Better people are attracted to the hard-to-get hired jobs. Losers take what they can get. Don’t let them get into your organization.

It’s up to Y-O-U.

 (c) 2016

Workers show up. Followers show out. Leaders show the way.

That’s it. Simple really, a statement that defines the three levels of engagement in your organization. Everyone in your organization is showing something, even if they think they are contributing nothing to very little. Leaders must understand this. If you want to be a more effective leader, then you must find ways to engage your workers to become followers and your followers to become leaders. 

Engagement is the elevator to loyalty.

It is the leader’s responsibility to ensure that there is an environment that appreciates those workers and those followers in the organization. Engagement means connecting not catering. The leader must not practice catering to those in the organization. A leader who caters is a leader who is inconsistent and most likely manipulative. Catering is manipulation based on preference. Leaders must serve. Service places the needs of the mission above the preference of people. The leader can’t make anyone anything, but the leader can create engagement that is the platform for transformation. Appreciation is almost always a certain way to get people to listen up. And when your people listen up, you can take them up.

A little bit of thanks from the boss can put a lot in the loyalty bank.

Now, I have a friend who is a phenomenal leader. Yet, he never lost his ability to be the best follower. His name is Jimmy Collins. He went to work for this little restauranteur in Hapeville, Georgia several decades ago. The name of that little restaurant company that would become a world leader in food, hospitality, innovation and talent development: Chick-fil-A.

“As a result of taking care of Truett Cathy and his interests, my absolute loyalty was rewarded by his unwavering support, and I was honored appropriately.“

– Jimmy Collins, former President & COO of Chick-fil-A, Inc.

Jimmy would help guide, lead and serve Chick-fil-A for 36 years. He was with Chick-fil-A founder, S. Truett Cathy though ever major decision in the early years of building what is now a nearly $7 billion a year restaurant chain with over 2,000 units. He reflected on his life’s mission and career and wrote a book called Creative Followership. I highly recommend it.(http://creativefollowership.com/blog/)

I had breakfast with Jimmy several years ago and his wisdom was only surpassed by his humility. Much of what I am writing about today came from his concept of what he shared with me and my leadership team that morning. He explained to us that there are three basic levels of those engaged in your organization: Leaders, followers & workers. 

Loyalty is the key to longevity.

If you desire a long career, a long shelf life or a long ride in the organization that you are in, then start with loyalty. Loyalty is the measure of how healthy your organization really is. Loyalty is the measure of the strength and sustainability of the attachment of the heart strings to a thing. The greatest loyalty is always found coming from the heart. Many people in your organization are simply loyal to their position in the organization. Workers are people and people are necessary. Let me remind you, you need people. You just need to move more of your people from worker to follower.

Workers want recognition and reward.

Workers are those in your organization that are more loyal to their position than to their leaders. Workers are worried about benefits and salaries and money. Workers want promotion because they want recognition and reward. This is not inherently wrong, but it exposes the motivation of many in your organization. They are simply there to do their job, put their time in and go home. They may do a wonderful job, but loyalty does not extend to the deepest level: the heart. They may like their leaders, they may like their job and they may even like who they work with, but that’s it. It’s a “like it or leave it” mentality.

Followers want responsibility.

The best followers I have ever worked with didn’t want more money and didn’t want more benefits. What they really wanted was more responsibility. This is a great test for those in your organization who say they want to “grow” with the organization. If they are primarily concerned with growing their income over their output, then most likely you are dealing with a worker and not a follower. If you want productivity to go up in your organization, aside from getting better organized, put your best followers in the most critical positions. Followers increase productivity, because followers love to produce. 

Followers are the best producers because of influence. Followers are highly influenced by their leaders. Workers are marginally influenced by their leaders.

Why? Simple really, agenda.

Workers have their own agenda. Followers execute another’s agenda.

An agenda is a plan, a motivation or a mission. Present in body, doesn’t necessitate presence of heart or mind. Workers are great at going through the motions. Followers don’t just want the motion, they pair it with emotion! Followers begin to love who they work with or where they work. This is because they don’t have a competing agenda. Workers want to get something out of where they work. Followers want to put something into who they work for or where they work.

Leaders show the way. 

Leaders themselves must follow. Even if they have reached a pinnacle position in the organization, they must always have the attitude of a follower. The way to greater loyalty in the organization is paved on the path of humility. You can perceive yourself to be the best, most creative, most talented and most appropriate person in the organization. And you know what? You might be right. But, you still might get passed over for promotion. You might not get the appreciation you deserve. You might get frustrated by your leader. You might demonstrate absolute loyalty and still not get where you want to be. It is humility that will lock your loyalty in place. The way leaders must show is the way of humility. Lower yourself to bring others to higher places. Being right is not as important as getting it right and getting the right people in the right places. 

If you remember that you are there to serve your organization, then it is easier to follow. But, when you want the organization to serve you, following gets a lot harder. The best leaders serve. The best followers serve their leaders. Workers want to be served. 

“Loyalty makes a person attractive. It is better to be poor than dishonest.”

Proverbs 19:22, NLT

(I love hearing from you or how this article is helping your or organization.)

Leaders go to work. 

If you are a leader, then you have work to do. Your work never stops. The reason your work never stops is that your influence doesn’t stop. Your influence may fade or it may flicker, but until you lose your influence, your work doesn’t stop. You do get to rest, but you rest so you can get back to work.

Leaders are always departing. Losers are always arriving.

In my 38 year leadership journey, I have seen this principal to be true over and over again. There is a secret that sets great leaders apart from those who hold great positions: Great leaders never arrive. They don’t land. They touch down, refuel and take off again. Great leaders are always departing. There is a myth, a lie that says when you arrive as “the” leader, then you get to relax. A leader born of position will always seek perks instead of purpose and will trade apathy for passion. This is why organizations stagnate and drift–the leaders get lazy. Lazy and leader must never come together for then the organization and all the people associated will begin to suffer. Great leaders get up and go to work, because there is always work to do. The work may change, but the mindset, the mentality of this leader never changes: let’s get to work. Leaders born of purpose become passionate and they don’t rely on their position. Leaders are drivers. Losers are passengers. Leaders are chauffeurs. Losers want to be chauffeured.

Losers are always arriving. You know why? Because they are late. Leaders are not on-time, they are early. Being early signifies preparedness or readiness. Losers are on-time, because the leader was already there. You want to grow in your organization? Arrive earlier than everyone else—it costs you nothing but sleep. Leaders are always departing. Because they were already there. They came. They saw. They adjusted. They worked. They rested. And they departed.

“…laziness brings on deep sleep.” Proverbs 19:15

Losers are drifters. They will soon drift asleep causing their responsibilities and their organizations and their followers to follow a similar path. This creates great frustration in the organization and is often an unexpressed reason why talented people jump ship. Leaders are sentries. They are always on guard. Sleep is not precious to them, but time is. The worst thing for an organization is for the leader to fall into a deep sleep–erosion, implosion and destruction will not be far off.

A leader has power. 

But, what will the leader do with that power? Sadly, too many leaders born of position use their placement to elevate their personal status, explore their appetites and benefit their friends. This creates a power vacuum where are the power is held on high. Power on high is dangerous for humans. It creates an unstable organization. Power must flow throughout the organization. An organization is like a circuit board. The power must be distributed appropriately through the circuits in order for the board to function properly. When a leader hoards power, it actually short-circuits the organization. Because like a power surge, the leader wields the power sporadically creating upheaval and unnecessary strain in the organization.

Leaders empower others. 

Great leaders empower others. Empowering means to pass the power. Because leaders are always working, they realize it is mission-critical that those working with them have that ability to make decisions and the freedom to execute those decisions, regardless of success or failure. Power is authority, not position. Leaders don’t ever give all their authority away, but they allow others to carry and make decisions. Despite that, leaders still hold themselves accountable for their followers actions. The leader is always accountable. Losers are dismissive of accountability because they are held by their belief in their position or title. Leaders are dependent on accountability because they are held by their belief in their people and are dependent on those people.

Leaders expect to work. Losers expect the work to get done.

This is why leaders go to work, there is work to be done. Losers show up with the expectation that the work will wait on them. This is why the best leaders seem to have the best timing–they aren’t taking time off. And when you are available, when you are present and working, then when opportunity comes knocking, the leader has the insight and foresight to open the door.  They are fully engaged in the organization or operation. I didn’t say the leader has to have his or her hands on everything, but that mentally they are aware and active of what is or isn’t transpiring in their organization. Losers make excuses, point fingers and blame others. Losers are people who consider themselves leaders or important, but depend on seniority, status, title or a position for their leadership authority.

There is a massive difference between showing up to work and going to work. People who show up to work are those that arrive and say, “I’m here.” As if their presence alone is enough to justify their existence. When you just show up for work, you are actually signifying that work is not that important to you and you’ll leave excellence to someone else.

But, when you go to work, your attitude and mindset are different. Your approach is that you are taking responsibility for your work. You own your work. When you show up, you are saying “someone else owns this, but I expect to get paid.”

Leaders go to work. Losers show up to work.
You want to make a difference in your job? Then, arm yourselves with the attitude that you are going to work. This means that you are going to get something done and make a difference. Those that go to work are owners. Those that show up for work are renters. Renters want everything done for them. Owners get stuff done. Owners change the world–their world. Renters watch the world change and make comments. Leaders are owners. Losers are renters. Organizations where leaders don’t take ownership of issues, problems and concerns, yet take the credit for success, results and positive trends are shallow and self-centered. If you want to be a leader, if you want more responsibility, don’t wait for someone to give it to you–act like an owner and take it. I didn’t say steal it. I didn’t say usurp or undermine your leader. I said, get to work and and out work all those around you. Leaders don’t get out-worked. I didn’t say leaders are work-a-holics. No leaders are owner-a-holics. They own everything in their purview and their organization. This is not co-dependency, this is responsibility.

Where else can this principal be applied?

Apply this to your marriage, your relationships, your parenting and your activities. If you just show up in your marriage, then you are heading for trouble. You have to go to work. This is love. Love is ownership. Love is not renting space.Stop showing up and expecting things to be great. Make them great by going to work. Leaders get stuff done changing their world in the process. You can’t change your world and not be changed yourself.  Losers show up and expect stuff to get done by someone else.

You have a choice. Leaders don’t need permission to get work done. Now, get to work.

(c) Redwall Leadership. 2016.