What I Never Knew About Leadership
I always thought that in order to be an amazing leader and a successful entrepreneur, you have to be driven, ambitious, extremely creative, and charismatic. While some of that might be true and can definitely help…I am now convinced that great leadership and entrepreneurship rely on a very different set of skills:
People skills.
That’s the takeaway we’ve learned over and over as we listen to the best business leaders: Leadership is no longer about you – it’s about serving someone else. It’s not about how great you are or how well you get the job done. You are now measured by how great your team is and how well they are thriving and doing the work.
So let’s get practical. If you want to be a great leader in your organization, your title needs to change. From now on, think of yourself as:
Chief Goal Officer.
Instead of pushing to be that charismatic, driven, creative person who’s trying to get everyone on board your mission, think about THEIR mission. How can you help the people you work with find the best path for THEM, for what THEY want to accomplish?
The worst advice you can give someone is what YOU would do, not what they should do. You’re not them. The thing that works for you might now work for everyone. In fact, it could actually screw them up really badly.
So what does it mean to step into a new role as Chief Goal Officer? Here are three key elements:
- ONE WORD. It starts by getting to know your people – how are they wired? I’m not saying you’re going to understand everything about them, but start with this: What is their One Word? What is the core value that drives them?
- FIND THEIR AMBITION, If you know what’s motivating them, from there you can look to the future. What is the dream that they’re pursuing down the road? How can you help them get there?
- RUN A PARALLEL PATH. How can you connect their current work to the goal ahead? Make that path visible for them, and be a stepping stone toward their success. So many of us operate like we’re afraid to lose people when we should actually be celebrating – if we do this right, we get to be part of seeing a lot of dreams become reality.
As we wrap up, I would love to hear about what you think great leadership is.
- Who’s a great leader in your life?
- What skills do they possess?
- Why does that make you thrive in what you do?
Please share your thoughts with me and let’s keep learning together!
Everyone Loves An Optimist (But Not A Micromanager)
To truly understand this subject line, you have to take 12 minutes and watch one of the best leadership videos in the history of TED.
In the meantime, I’ll offer you a summary on behalf of all the optimists here at BOS Media: we believe things can be better when leaders step up and stop micromanaging.
Last week, we talked about the difference between a leader and a manager. In his TED talk, Chieh Huang gives a funny but sadly all too true definition of micromanagement:
“What is micromanagement? Taking great, wonderful and imaginative people, bringing them into an organization, and crushing their souls.”
“Crushing their souls” might sound dramatic, but he actually had the data to back it up. A study that followed 100 hospital workers over a 12-hour day found that their level of fatigue was not correlated with the amount of activity during their shift; the ones who felt the most fatigued were the ones who didn’t have control over their jobs.
Micromanagement wears people out.
But as we talked about last week, there is a risk that leaders must be willing to take if they’re going to graduate from being micromanagers. There is a chance that, on their own, people below you might fail more.
But ask yourself: is failure really the worst thing? It doesn’t mean we have to “celebrate failure,” but what if it’s a necessary milestone on the mission toward success? Most of the wisdom we gain over the years comes by learning from our mistakes – is it really so bad to let people have those experiences?
Chieh ultimately came to a realization in his conversion from being a micromanager – while the downside is people might fail more often, the upside is smart, imaginative people who don’t have their souls crushed might come up with new ideas that you would have never thought of. They might not do the job exactly the way you would have… they might do it better.
In the end, the only solution to micromanagement is: to trust.
Here’s to not crushing people’s souls!
Why Your Company Needs A Leader, Not A Manager
Have you ever had a job that you were just crushing? You were so good at it that eventually, you got promoted!! Well, congratulations! You are now a manager, managing people…which is fine, but soon, you’ll realize it’s an entirely different skillset AND mindset. Yikes!
Last week, we kicked off a new series about leadership. It comes after we took some time looking at the origin stories of some very successful companies. Almost all of them “started from the bottom” before reaching their goal; for this month, our question is: What did they learn when they got to the top?
One of the most important things to note is the TRANSITION that needs to occur between the bottom and the top. An executive coach I respect phrases it this way: “What got you here won’t get you there.”
Here’s how the leadership gurus understand it: Most people rise to the top by being good at their jobs. You go to school and get training so you can show up to work and be competent. If you’re good, you get promoted, which means you’re now in charge of the people doing the job you used to do.
And this is how micro-managers are born. The reason they’re over people’s shoulders making their subordinates feel like they can do the job better is because they can do the job better – that’s why they were promoted. But they haven’t made an important transition as they moved from the bottom to the top.
“What got you here won’t get you there.”
The real job of a leader is not being in charge. The real job of a leader is taking care of the people in our charge. That’s the transition that separates a leader and a manager – moving from being responsible for the job to being responsible for the people.
Here’s the challenge: this transition requires great personal sacrifice. It means when things go right, leaders give away the credit to others. When things go wrong, leaders take the blame and give the people whose mistake it was even more chances, even though the leader is the one with the most to lose.
The reality is, it’s easier to micro-manage, accept credit, and pass blame. But that’s not leadership – it’s what Lawrence J. Peter defined as the Peter Principle: when employees rise to “a level of respective incompetence.”
Managers might be able to do the job better. But they need to be able to look back and remember what it felt like to work at the bottom, and what a difference it makes when the people above you have your back. Leaders have made that transition and now create that environment for the people they’re responsible for.
Remember this statement last week? “People don’t leave companies, they leave bosses.” If you want to create a safe environment and culture for your team to thrive, don’t manage, lead. How? Care for your team, protect your team, fight for your team, trust your team, empower your team, inspire your team…that’s the new role that will serve you and your company well in the long run.
That’s leadership.
My Worst Boss Ever
A long, long time ago, I was a young dad with 2 little ones and working for a large company as an engineer. Five years into my employment, our company hired a new director to oversee our department. He was a sought-after, seasoned executive that came from our biggest competitor. He held secrets to our new success and was highly ambitious. We started doing some innovative research & design projects to revolutionize the way our product functioned and looked. He valued my input and seemed to like my work ethic and dedication to my job. These were exciting times.
Do you know what else was exciting? Our planned family vacation to Disneyland was coming up in a few weeks. We purchased the airline tickets and had the entire week planned out in beautiful and sunny Southern California! I couldn’t wait to see Mickey and Minnie and introduce them to my little ones.
Well, the two exciting events came to a crashing halt when he told me that my family might have to go without me. He told me this a couple of days before my vacation. He said he felt uneasy that I was leaving in the middle of our project and he would let me know for sure if I could go when he feels better about it. He dragged on making his decision to allow me to go on my vacation until just 2 hours before the flight. Can you believe that? While I was at work, my entire family was all packed at home, anxiously waiting and hoping for the approval to go. They weren’t going to go without me.
This type of controlling behavior from my boss continued for years. I can honestly say that he was the worst boss ever.
Have you heard of this saying? “People don’t leave companies, they leave bosses.” I believe there’s a great truth to that. I also believe that there are dream bosses who can be instrumental in your own personal growth and job satisfaction. They become unforgettable.
I love good leadership. I also despise bad leadership. Your mental health, your motivation, your productivity, your energy, your happiness, and your success can depend on who is leading you. So, how about we dedicate this month to learning to be good leaders? I look forward to sharing what makes a great boss and how you can positively impact someone’s life…forever.
Excited? Me too. Stay tuned…
When You Have a Dream But the World Says “No”
Vicky Tsai is the founder of Tatcha, a line of Japanese beauty and skincare products.
She might be the most unlikely origin story that we’ve heard about this month, because from the very beginning she was told by everyone there was zero market for her. In the U.S., American retailers claimed they had no demand for Asian beauty supplies, and even in Japan the products were viewed as old-fashioned, like something your grandmother would use. All she heard was NO.
Undeterred, she trusted what she had – a skin-care miracle called “blotting papers.” They’d been used for centuries by geishas in Japan to remove oil from their faces before and after putting on makeup, and all the geishas she’d met had flawless skin. She tried them herself after years of suffering from dermatitis – in just a few weeks of using them and some other related products, her face was healed. Once she ran out of her own supply, she searched everywhere and discovered that Kyoto was the only place where you could find them, and they had no interest in exporting them. Already under a mountain of personal debt, she sold her engagement ring to purchase 10,000 packs of blotting paper and the company was born.
For the next several years, the debt only got worse, and the “no’s” only got louder. Unable to afford rent, she was forced to run the company out of her parents’ garage, and repeatedly had to borrow money just to make payroll. Finally in 20217, her perseverance paid off – following years of growth that everyone had said would never happen, she sold the company to Unilever for a reported $500 million.
A few things I take away from Vicky’s story:
First, no matter what business you’re in, the name of the game is solving a problem. Whether it’s a problem you have (like Vicky’s dermatitis) or a problem you see for others, the biggest question is: what problem are you helping solve?
Second, don’t underestimate the power of learning from someone who’s different from you. Our own perspective inevitably will have blind spots – what if traveling to another country or listening to another point of view holds the missing piece to your puzzle? In Japan, it was an old-fashioned idea that nobody wanted, a gold mine hiding in plain sight that just needed a rebrand. Could the key to your dream be waiting in some other cultural context that you’ve never explored before?
My favorite part of all is just her refusal to take No for an answer. Even when the odds weren’t in her favor, she just kept showing up and finding a way forward. Part of me wonders if it all traces back to one of her first jobs working for Starbucks Corporate – at one point she was the lead on a massive initiative to launch Starbucks in China, pouring her soul into the job to ensure the campaign was a huge success. At the end of that year during her annual review, the VP gave her an evaluation of “Meets Expectations;” shortly after, she was like, “Nope, I’m out of here.” Like she already knew there was something more in her, no matter what negativity she heard from others.
I love the quote from Vincent Van Gogh: “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” As we wrap up this origin story series, what voices are you listening to? If you’re hearing a no to your dream, or if someone is looking at your best efforts and saying it “Meets Expectations,” I hope this is the year you go out there and prove them wrong.
Vision For 2022, And A Hunger For BBQ
David Anderson is the founder of Famous Dave’s, one of the largest BBQ chains in the U.S., with over 125 restaurants across the country.
Like many of the companies we’ve been examining this month, Dave’s origin story has a humble beginning. School was a struggle for him growing up – he was failing all his classes. Then a teacher came along and changed everything.
You would think that it was some BBQ chef who showed up and gave him some secret recipe, but it was actually an art teacher who made the biggest impact. One day, he set Dave aside to talk about all his failing grades. He said, “Dude,” (I’m paraphrasing here) “I know you are no good at school (including art) lol, but you have a very unique perspective in life. You see things differently and that’s going to take you a long way.”
Have you ever had a teacher like that?
For me, it was Mrs. Thomas my English teacher during my Freshman year. All of my teachers saw me as a troublemaker and a goofball who didn’t care much about anything. She thought I was actually funny and loved my writing. I was an energetic kid – and that energy expressed itself in other ways, like being the class clown. She just laughed along with the kids and allowed me to have my spotlight. She didn’t realize, I was already in training for all the relational connections through humor I would make through BOS Media! Who knew being funny would be an important characteristic in business?
That’s why I love Mrs. Thomas. Where other teachers saw a problem, she saw potential. The same qualities that I was using to disrupt class could also make me a leader.
It was a very similar shift in mindset that shaped Famous Dave’s life. For years, he tinkered with his own recipes for sauces and sides, before finally opening his first restaurant in the last place anyone would think to find a BBQ joint: Hayward, Wisconsin. But he trusted what he saw, and sure enough, the business started to grow.
Once the restaurant had become a success, Dave invested a lot of corporate money to train his employees – I’m sure he looked at them and saw himself at a younger age, just needing someone to believe in what they could become. His executive board was concerned about all this spending and confronted him, like “Hey, why are you training all these people? What if they take all this knowledge and LEAVE for a better job?” He chuckled and said, “But if we don’t train them, what if they don’t learn anything…and they STAY?”
It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Robert Kennedy: “Some see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not.” What if we had that perspective about our own dreams for this year? Or more importantly, what if we had that perspective about the people around us? What might they become if we believed in them?
Here’s to seeing differently. And as Dave says, “May you always be surrounded by good friends and great barbeque.”
The Biggest Question To Ask When You Have A World-Changing Idea
James Park is the co-founder and CEO of Fitbit.
Once upon a time, he was enrolled at Harvard (his parents’ dream for his life), but he dropped out to start his own business. Some time later, he had what he described as a “lightning bolt moment” when he first played the Nintendo Wii. The way they used sensors to track motion made him wonder: how do we take this outside? We now know that question led to the “gamification of fitness,” and put him at the forefront of a multi-billion dollar industry.
We’re kicking off 2022 talking about the origin stories of some of the most successful companies in recent times. It makes me think of this, aka our official origin story theme song. Hopefully you feel inspired knowing that every great success had to start somewhere, usually with pretty humble beginnings. An idea most people wouldn’t have thought much of, but that in the case of Fitbit was ultimately sold to Google for over $2billion.
I have a few thoughts on this…
First of all, how awesome that it all started while playing video games! It just shows, you never know when inspiration can strike. Next time someone gives you a hard time for playing video games, just tell them you’re looking for the next industry-revolutionizing idea.
Second, let’s talk about him dropping out of Harvard. Imagine how that conversation with his parents went. But to put it in perspective – they themselves had immigrated from Korea with the hope of finding new opportunities for their family. So you could argue, the risk they took was actually much greater than the one he took to drop out (let’s be honest though, I strongly doubt they appreciated that point).
This made me think: what’s stopping us from pursuing our new ideas? I’m sure we could all come up with excuses – a list of responsibilities that keep us from venturing out and trying new things… seriously, who has time to play video games and have a dream? Has your daily work become a “Harvard” that you wouldn’t dare drop out of?
However, the biggest thing that stood out to me when I heard James Park’s story is one little word that you probably skipped over in the first paragraph above: that he’s the co-founder of Fitbit.
The key question we need to ask about our world-changing ideas is: WHO? Who are you going to do it with?
James would tell you, without Eric Friedman, there would be no Fitbit. I love hearing him talk about their relationship. How in the most stressful times, they were able to help pick each other up, and being thankful that even though there were low moments of feeling down, “luckily we weren’t down at the same time.”
Do you have that person in your life? Maybe what’s really stalling your big idea is not a what, but a who. There might be a partner out there you could collaborate with who would turn your dream into reality. Who is your co-founder?
In the words of our origin story theme song, “We started from the bottom now the WHOLE TEAM here.” Here’s to dreaming big, together.
Why I Love The Origin Story Of Audible
Don Katz is the founder and CEO of Audible.
Now imagine him jogging back in the mid 1990’s listening to a book on cassette tape which was checked out from the library. He put the tape in a clunky Sony walkman, put his fuzzy headphones on and started to run. Now, picture him trying to flip the tape over after 30 minutes of listening to hear the rest of it…while still in motion. Not ideal…and he thought…”there has to be a better way.”
This led him to do some research and find that 93 million Americans drove to work alone every morning. He then extrapolated hundreds of hours of time that people sat in traffic, matched that number with the sociological data that showed the most frustrating and least valuable time of people’s day was…sitting in traffic.
He thought, why don’t I create a device that would allow people to listen to the digital content they wanted, whenever they wanted.
Running the numbers, he realized if he could just penetrate 9% of the people sitting in traffic alone every morning at $10/month for a service that would enrich their lives…how big could this business be? Let’s do the math:
9% of 93 million = 8.37 million
x $10 per person/month
= $83.7 million dollars per month in subscription fees.
So at age 43, with a supportive wife and 3 kids, he decided to ditch his career as an accomplished author and a journalist (for Rolling Stone) and take a 85% pay cut to start his new adventure.
It took Don another 10 plus years of barely surviving the dot-com bust until his luck finally changed with the release of the iPod and the timely partnership with Apple. Then in 2008, Amazon purchased Audible for $300 million. Ummmm….did you hear what I just said? $300 million?
Everyone has a great idea…and that idea and inspiration to start a new business can last a few days, a few weeks, or sometimes even a few years. When asked what motivated him to leave the comforts of a financial safety net and persevere for another 10 years until he finally saw the fruits, he responded with these 3 points:
- His loving father’s sudden passing at an early age marked his life in so many ways…and he sees a lot of patterns of fatherlessness in highly entrepreneurial people…whether from abandonment or early death which sometimes includes taking ridiculous risks.
- He thought it was so interesting that he would daydream more about this idea of digital audio content and player rather than daydreaming about the next paragraph that he was going to write.
- He kept talking and trying to get advice from people that he respected and they all thought he was crazy. This motivated him even more.
What I personally love most about this story is that even after selling the company to Amazon for…$300 million dollars, he continues his duties as a CEO and just recently in 2020 assumed the position of Founder and Executive Chairman of Audible. To me that says a lot about what this work means to him – that it’s less about getting paid, and more about seeing the original idea that everyone said couldn’t happen becoming reality. It’s a different way to think about our work – instead of just making money, we can be making our masterpiece.
I hope that inspires you as we go into this year – maybe 2022 can be the beginning of your origin story as well! It all starts with an idea…
Best Social Media Campaign Winner
First of all, thank you for all the incredible feedback and love from last week’s post. I was overwhelmed by so many of you that responded and shared your own stories…I was deeply touched. See the link below if you haven’t yet read it.
Well, without further ado, I am so excited to share the winner of this year’s Best Social Media Campaign. And the winner is….(drum roll)….Apple!!
Okay, I know what you are thinking…duh…of course it’s Apple…the most innovative, the most creative, and the most over-resourced company in the world. They have an amazing social media team, gather all the brilliant minds, come up with creative ideas, curate and execute engaging content, and throw money at it to make it awesome. Right? No…you are so wrong.
What they did was beyond great. This is why I chose them to be the winner:
- First of all, they decided to make their campaign UGC (User-Generated Content). They didn’t hire anyone to create content. They simply launched a campaign for anyone to submit their photography or videos captured on their personal Apple products. I love this because one of the determining factors of a successful campaign is engagement. By making it UGC, it automatically created engagement by just allowing the general public to participate.
- Each entry had its own unique storytelling of how and why the content was created. Not only did they get to share their work with the world through Apple’s brand and platform, but they also got to add their voice. They were potentially seen by over 27 million followers and each post received around 75K to 275K likes.
- Each post has a link to the creator’s Instagram handle. Again, Apple uses its strong brand, its fame, its credibility, and its platform to make others famous and known. I think this is really awesome.
- Apple’s Instagram feed is simple and beautiful. And it captures their brand message of “Think Different”. It’s a two-tiered promise to create products based on seeing the world a little differently and inspire their customers to do the same.
Are you inspired to launch your own Social Media Campaign in 2022? I hope this example can offer a simple guideline for your success as well. I know we may not all have 27 million followers yet like Apple, but I know we all have creative and unique ideas and the desire to make a positive impact in the world. It all starts here. One small step at a time.
I Learned My Best Life Lesson Last Week…
I’ve been busy planning and thinking through the Best Of series hoping to share some important lessons I’ve learned in Business and Marketing. It started out with the “Best Business Innovation” talking about how a business overcame challenges by removing the barriers in their process. We also presented our “Best Commercial” which highlighted Jessica and her emotional journey that touched the hearts of many.
Getting ready to award our third Best Of 2021, something very unexpected happened. I got a phone call from my mom. This is pretty common since I am her IT department for all the electronics at their house. I run over to fix things all the time. Wifi issues, cable issues, TV issues, phone Issues…oh, sometimes plumbing issues, and even car issues…but her voice was shaky. She said, “You should come over now and take dad to the hospital, he’s having severe chest pains.”
Quick history. 5 years ago, through a series of tests, we found out my dad had over 90% blockage in his heart. We also found out that his heart had a severe plaque build-up which made it very difficult and risky to operate. After my sister and I advocated for his heart to be fixed (they were going to send him home with medication because the hospital didn’t have a surgeon that was willing to operate), he was flown in a helicopter to Keck Medical Center at USC to have 4 stents put in his heart. This saved his life and we were grateful for the surgeon, the medical science, and the prayers of many for his miraculous second chance at life.
When mom called, everything felt familiar as before…a flashback of uncertainty and fear. When we arrived at the emergency room, they took him in right away. They administered morphine for his pain and after a few tests, there were extreme levels of troponin which indicated that his heart had a severe injury…a heart attack. After his pain was managed, he was taken to his room to be monitored and figure out the next steps. We dropped off mom back at home that night, and as I walked around the house, I saw a handwritten will on the kitchen counter. Dad knew this was his last visit to the hospital.
Now, my dad and I don’t have a great history. I don’t know about many of you, but my dad was a source of deep pain for me growing up. As dad was navigating through his own difficulties in life, he made our lives pretty challenging. My childhood memories are filled with physical and verbal abuse resulting in very low self-esteem for me followed by a lot of rooted anger towards him. I blamed him for many of my own insecurities and failures. But the past 5 years have been different. As he’s nearing the end of his life, especially after the big scare, he’s been more open to sharing his own regrets and expressing his gratitude for me and my sister. He said, “I don’t know if I would still be alive if it wasn’t for you two”…and he kept thanking us for our care and love toward him and mom.
I sat in my comfy chair in my home office the next morning thinking about dad. And I did something I’ve never done before. I wept. I wept for my dad. And in the depth of my soul, I knew that I loved him. And that he loved me. And I came to a realization for the first time in my life that I have forgiven him. It was a slow and gradual process of healing but I think I can actually say that out loud now. I have forgiven him.
I’ve always heard stories and examples of the power of forgiveness. And I am beginning to believe that it’s real. It comes with a sense of freedom and peace which I would like to declare as this year’s “Best Life Lesson.” I know this is a bit unconventional as I am sharing something so personal with you, but I think it’s worth it.
We drove dad home last week after another successful and risky operation on his heart (now his 5th stent). We are all grateful for another chance. We are grateful for having more time to heal and having more time to find joy as we work to create more lasting and beautiful memories together during the final chapters of his life.
Forgiveness. That’s the word for today. Please help spread the word. It will change everything.
