Why People Worked for Steve Jobs?

As I often do, I was having a conversation about culture and leadership, in what makes a great business. It’s a topic I know well and with a beverage involved the conversation started to get quite deep. The local business leader and I were heavily focused on one of my new theories, The Leadership BELs and here is where the conversation took a turn. His question, which came across in a heightened tone and with some demand was one I had gotten before… However, this was the first time I was ready for it! With respect to business leadership and retention of talent, he asked.

“So then, why did people stay working for Steve Jobs? He was a real jerk!”   

I believe he is right, Steve Jobs was a bit, ok a lot brass and tough on people, maybe even a complete jerk. Even with all that you hardly heard about people quitting under Jobs. Jobs had something that most leaders that have these same behaviors do not. Here are the 3 reasons people stayed working for Steve Jobs:

 1.    Part of something bigger – People want to feel apart of something bigger than themselves, bigger than just the CEO of the company. In fact if you consider Tony Hsieh’s happinessframework the fourth and final piece is “Vision/Meaning (Being part of something bigger than yourself).” Jobs believed he could change the world. Apple certainly did and continues to do so. People stayed working for Jobs because he made them feel part of something bigger.

2.     Proud – People want to be proud of the work they do, what they deliver and what they and their company stand for. Jobs was super critical of the people who built Apple’s products, making no detail too small to focus on. He was notorious for making sure leaks about products didn’t get out. When you see the amount of pressure people we put under during this design, build and pre-release phase, it’s hard to understand why they didn’t all get up and quit?  Was anything worth that level of treatment? However, I can guarantee that there was not a single Apple employee that wasn’t “Proud," gleaming with pride, when Jobs introduced the first iPhone or pulled the Macbook Air from an envelope at MacWorld. People stayed working for Jobs because, in the end, they were very proud!

3.    Always growing – People want to feel like they are always growing, getting better and adding new skills to themselves. Harvard’s Teresa Amabile‘s research found that nothing is more motivating than progress. My own happiness at work theory (Happy @Work = Aligned + Growth + Listened) includes growth. While people might have felt like Jobs ripped them a new one over the quality of their work, Jobs always pushed his people to grow. People stayed working for Jobs because they continued massive personal growth.

Let's be overwhelmingly clear… I am never, ever condoning acting like a jerk. I personally believe that culture begins with civility and simply demanding that people treat each other with respect at all times, especially in front of others. So if you’re a jerk... STOP it, you’re no Steve Jobs!    

“So if you’re a jerk... STOP it, you’re no Steve Jobs!”

When we consider how Steve Jobs, even with his irate behavior was able to draw and maintain such a high quality of talent, it was only with the overwhelmingly, over the top delivery of the above attributes dramatically out weighs his behavior, that this freak of nature was able to be a so successful.

so I’ll ask you… do you really believe you’re the next Steve Jobs (you’re not), and you can outweigh your behaviors or will you just adopt his great attributes? :D

p.s. Personally, I believe that Jobs was an alien or a time traveler… there is just no way one guy delivers all that evolution in just one lifetime. :D

13 Learnings from 2013

Very interesting… before writing this I went back and read last years post 2+10, 12 Big Learnings of 2012, I found it very interesting how different the learnings between the two years were. The good news is I didn’t feel like any of the learnings from last year had diminished any… in fact, I found myself shaking my head “yes” while reading them. :D This year’s learnings seem considerably deeper and more original… but not as spirited as last years. (I might write a follow-up when I figure out what happened here).

Similar to last years learnings, which had two big hits followed by two handfuls of one-offs, this years learning has a single big conclusion and then 12 other independent insights. …I hope you enjoy them, and I always welcome clarifications and feedback. :D

1.     It’s All About Energy – I am not talking about oil and gas or even being green. Work, life, people are all about human energy. The energy that won’t let you sleep at night, wakes you up at 4:30 am. The energy you feel in your heart and gut, that makes you smile even though you are all alone. We often discount it completely (unless you are a yoga instructor and certainly in business) due to not being able to define it clearly and having no clear methodology to working with it, not to mention the scary fact that is can’t be measured. Yet, we all know it exists, feel it personally within and love being around people with it. Human energy is the single most important things in people’s lives, yet most of us are stuck in junked up systems and subsystems (mostly maintained by personal decisions) that we don’t take ownership of it. Human energy is managed through a personalalignment exercise and discipline (maybe even stubbornness) but is absolutely the key to almost everything else (within reasonable control).  The really cool thing about energy is, it is the only thing that can create time! …yes, time!

2.     You Have to Train it - Despite what people should have been taught by schooling and society most of us are on different pages. If you want to create something unique like awesome customer experience or a great corporate culture, you have to train people how to meet those expectations.

3.     Blue Ocean Strategy = Education - Blue Ocean strategy is when you create completely new markets as opposed to competing in existing ones. For most of my career, I have been seeking to create Blue Ocean ideas. One thing I didn't understand was how much effort was needed to educate a market to a truly novel idea... its a bunch! :D

4.     The Leadership Equation - Leadership is tough almost magical when you read the stories of the past. I believe that's a good chunk of the leadership problem. Today's leaders are trying to be all leaders to everyone... which would be a super human feat. Truly though people don't expect that, they expect leaders to be really good at just a few things and find others to help with the rest.       Leadership = Authentic (true self) + Consistent

5.     I Can Run - In 2013, I learned how to be a distance runner. I completed a marathon and a few other big runs. I can't tell you how many people told me I couldn't do this ...at times even myself. Even to this day saying that I going to run 26 miles seems insane. What it taught me was that anything can be achieve broken down and with energy.

6.     Create Around Obstacles  - I was exposed to a heavy dose of entrepreneurism this year and in so was exposed to the many obstacles this role faces. As an entrepreneur, your biggest job is to “create” (construct another way) around the "no", "can't have" and the "impossible".

7.     People Change - There is a school of thought that says people (personality) don't change after the age of 30. This is on of my beefs with Strength Finders... People can and do change, sometimes drastically and even after the age of 30. ...btw the change isn't always for the better.

8.     Needed Conflict - I interviewed a person this year and asked how he dealt with conflict... "I avoid it", was his response. At the time,  I thought this was a reasonable answer. It was Pat Lincioni that enlightened me though ...without conflict you destroy teams from the inside out. People still need to give their thoughts on ideas/topics, and when avoid it real-time, people will undermine each other behind the scenes... ultimately destroying trust... and the ability to innovate and work as a team. Without healthy conflict teamwork becomes simple listening.

9.     Culture & Process Accountability - Great cultures are hard to control and are beyond the confront zone of traditional leaders, even as they create amazing amounts of value. I get the question all the time of how do you add process to culture; we want to make sure things don't get out of hand. It's not Culture & Process it's Culture & Accountability. Process says “do it this way”... Accountability says “do what we agreed we would do”. When the fear of loosing control of culture becomes a topic, focus on accountability not process. Oh and the accountability needs to start at the very top. A great quote from Pat Lincioni “If I love somebody, I owe it to them to enter the danger and hold them accountable.”

10.  Mobile First - I don't mean this in just writing applications for phones. When you get people really engaged value starts coming from everywhere all the time... least while sitting at a desk. The ability to capture that value is key. Without a mobile mindset and a supportive infrastructure two things can happen. 1. You loose the value, 2. You loose the person. Organizations of the future must overwhelming embrace mobile.

11.  Everything is Relative – We are all in our own worlds and no matter how aware/self aware you are, its still your starting point to get to reality. In order to work with people you need to first move into their reality (and out of yours). Ya, its great to help people move beyond their reality and see the bigger picture, but the starting point needs to their reality and dealing with that first.

12.  Self Preservation - I am still not sure I understand this one.  I have learned through several direct experiences that there are few people that will put others before themselves. Now, I fully understand putting on your own oxygen mask first, but that not what I am talking about. I'm talking about people who are more committed to the "existing" system and themselves over what makes long term sense or is reasonable fair. I am getting better at reading these people, but just admitting they exist as the majority was a big learning me.

13.  Long Talks - In today’s world everything has been reduced down to the being most “optimized”. I find myself in a state if fear if I am taking up someone time and not getting to the point as soon as humanly possible. Yet, what I have learned is that the breakthroughs exist at the end of long, boring, drawn out conversation. Make time and schedule long, long discussion...   you will miss some emails, but you'll make progress in life.

My own intuition tells me 13 learnings (of this magnitude) in one year are actually too much, and 2013 must have been a turbulent time for me …which it was. The funny thing is I had to cut the list down from 23 and a few others that just never made it on. Nonetheless, I hope you can learn something from these and that you have enjoyed some of the journey with me.

So I’ll ask you… in 2014 will you stay focused on what’s asked of you or will you find a way to do create time …and make 2014 a little longer? :D

Seeking Fair

I have two small children (ages 10 & 11) and at least once a day I hear the words “that’s not fair”. I can remember back to my own childhood and uttering these same words… though I hope not as much. :D My Dad had a response… that, at the time I hated, never understood and certainly refused to accept or embrace. My Dad would say, “Life’s not fair”. Grrr…. What does that even mean? After all don't we have all these rules to make things fair? What about policies, referees, democracy and laws, weren't these things invented to make things fair?

The truth of the matter is that life is not fair… at least not in the traditional sense of just and balanced, and certainly not in real-time. Holding on to this expectation (seeking fair) can be incredibly frustrating and can be a huge limiting factor. I often see this creeping into individual’s lives and it affecting their entire life. There is a better way.

OK, ready for this… by being unfair to yourself (consistently), you can actually give yourself an unfair advantage over others, over time. This is true personally, professionally and especially for organizations.  

Some of the happiest people are completely unfair. There are great studies that show that spending your money on others (TEDTalk) can dramatically increase your happiness and that buying yourself more and more stuff can decrease it.

Some of the most successful people in history were completely unfair. Every heard of servant leadership? President Abraham Lincoln is an excellent example of this …we need more examples like this in today’s organizations.

Many of the best companies are unfair as can be. Google is unfair by providing death benefits to employees. Its pretty unfair for company’s to create no layoff policies, even during hard times.

Are there times to fight for fairness? Are there down (rock bottom?) moments due to things not being fair? Sure, but they are a lot more rare than you might think. By taking that unfair moment/action/element and accepting it for what it is, pushing through it and using it as a growth opportunity you might just be able to say, “thank you”, for it. :D

So I ask you? Are you wasting time and energy seeking fair, or will you unfairly add to your own advantage? :D

The Keys to Success, Happiness and Financial Freedom

Wow, what an amazing experience! I had the great honor of giving the commencement speech to the graduating class of ECPI last Friday. What a lively bunch and what great accomplishments. Most of these students completely overcame the odds and received a degree, despite opportunities and having to work fulltime jobs in most cases. I got good feedback and gave the speech below.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement.

I graduated from Kent State University in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a minor in math. I was the first person in my family to ever graduate from college and at the time I swore I would never go back.

I graduated with 3 personal core values…  two of which I learned from being a high school and collegiate athlete and one from a strong Christian upbringing.

When I was 15 I went to the J. Robinson intensive wrestlingcamp for two weeks… a crazy camp in which basic training techniques seemed just to be focused on making young boys call home crying to their parents to come save them…. which I personally witnessed several times.

One evening J. Robinson an U.S. Olympic Wrestler gathered us all around with a promise to the secret of beating anyone at anything… As young boys you have never seen such levels of focus and silence as J. began to deliver his secret.

His response was simple “work twice as hard for twice as long” (as your competition) and you would eventually win. The majority of us were hoping for something much easier…

At that point in my life I adopted two personal core values. Hard Work and Persistence.

The third personal core value was Faith… I believed you needed to believe in something (at a minimal, yourself) that this world was too hard and complex to just be by chance.

And so early on in my life I defined myself through these personal core values Hard Work, Persistence & Faith. These 3 core values served me very well through college and for the next 5 years.

So there I was, just like all of you, graduating from college and ready to take on the world.

I had the great fortune and a Forest Gump level of stupidity to start my first business right out of college… and after 5 years and some success I had a moment of clarity. I realized that despite all my success, I was miserable, I had no real life out side of work…

And so I added a fourth personal core value, Balance… but little did I know, I completely did not understand what Balance was.

So I created a religious like regiment… take lunch at 11:50, leave work at 4:30 and never work on the weekends. And after 9 months I realized that I was even more miserable!

I realized that balance was not a line in the middle between two extremes, but a sine curve oscillating between extremes, never staying at any one for a period too long. This new personal core value of balance did lead to a much better life.

  

And so, for the next 10 years, I defined myself through the personal core values of Hard Work, Persistence, Faith and Balance.

{Pause}

As a motorcycle rider myself, I know there are two types of riders, those that have gone down and those that are going down.

By mid 2009 I was ready for an additional personal core value… within the prior 5 years I had:

Nearly died in a car accident
Almost destroyed my marriage
Lost two jobs
Lost two immediate family members, one being a twin brother

And had gotten raked over the coals by a business partner.

And as I looked at my current situation, in the midst of creating another new company called SPARC, I was amazed that I was on my feet at all…

It was at that moment that I realized… that life is not about falling, we will all fall, but that life was really about getting back up (and how well you could do that)… and so I added Resilience as my 5^th personal core value.

Today I feel like I know myself pretty well and I define myself through these 5 personal core values Hard Work, Persistence, Faith, Balance and Resilience.

Around this same time I created an exercise that has fundamentally changed my life… I call it the "alignment exercise" and I do it every year… I have shared it with 100s of people… I would like to share it with you and challenge you to the same cadence.

Every year I take a piece of paper, fold it in half the long ways and write a title in each column. The first column I call Passion … these are things you would do for free and things that when you do them time disappears.

The second column I call Well… these are things you naturally do well… God given gifts or natural talents… these are the things that if someone woke you up at 3 AM and needed you to do them you would say “no problem” even though half asleep. Fill in these two columns.

{Mine, show… share}

Now turn the paper over. On the backside do the same thing… The first column here I call Suck@… these are things you are comfortable saying you are not good at and are OK living your life with only minimal skills at.

The second I call Hate. These are the things you hate to do… these are the things that suck the energy from you… these might even be things you naturally do well… but simply loose energy while doing.

{Mine, show… share}

Do this personal alignment exercise yearly. Get your family and support group involved, keep it up to date and tweak it all the time.

…Then make sure you stay on the front side of this sheet as much as possible.

Choose the classes you take, the activities you do, the friends you hang out with and certainly the career you choose based on the front side of this sheet.

Share this sheet with your family, friends and your boss and if you do find yourself on the back side of this sheet… that’s OK… just make sure you set a deadline (light at the end of the tunnel) for when you can get off the back side.

Why share this? Why care about knowing your personal core values and understanding your own alignment?

Because these are the keys to success, happiness, and, yes, even financial freedom. By knowing yourself and by knowing what builds energy within you, anything is achievable, anything is possible.

When you choose to do what you are passionate about, not only will you eventually make more money, but you won’t work a day in your life.

So I will leave you with this final thought… we have been taught to think that it is money that will bring us happiness… this is simply not true!

With a clear set of values and continuous personal alignment.

It is happiness that will make you rich!

Thank you all very much!

So I ask you...  are you focused on just making more money or becoming rich? :D

You Know You’re a Leader When…

One of my favorite interview questions is “both your boss and your boss’ boss need you to complete something and you can only do one, who’s do you complete”? It’s interesting to see people mentally work through the exercise and comprehend the question. The multitude of answers I have gotten over the years has been interesting, and few have been correct or at least the answer I believe is correct. The correct answer is at the end of this post. :D

Typically people get hired in an entry level position and work their way up to become some type of leader. Most organizations are actually pretty good at this progression. Along the way most individuals are taught to be increasingly, more and more independent, while increasing output dramatically. This progression typically spans a considerable amount of time; say 4 to 6 years going from junior, to mid, to senior before being considered for leadership.

Along the way you are rewarded for 1. Asking less and less questions, and 2. Needing less and less help. After years and years of being successful at this you get your big shot… a chance at leadership! With a sense of adventure and bump in salary you are thrown into the deep end to sink or swim. You are getting promoted to do more, much more of what has been asked of you to do less and less of for the last 6 years. Yeah, you might want to read that twice, in just a mere moment they did a complete 180 on you and you’re on your own to figure it out.

Now, it wouldn’t actually be that bad if they (your organization) would explain the new rules to you, but typically they don’t. Under normal circumstances you would be able to figure it out on your own, but remember you just came off of a career of learning to be independent. To make matters worse it’s likely you got promoted into a mini tornado, with everyone watching you like a hawk. There is a simple, very simple way out of all this… that will increase your chances of success dramatically. In fact once you become a leader it maybe your only true way to maintain good leadership. What is it?

Ask For Help! :D

You know you have become a leader, a true leader, and one that will last when you have figured out how to continually and sincerely ask for help. Asking for help… despite what some might tell you is a sign of strength, not weakness. Asking for help can be your best way of learning to become a leader and becoming a leader that people want to follow.

I am sure this starts at the point where we are little kids and manifests itself all the way to mid life crisis… most likely a lifetime. We have built crazy belief systems around the idea that we are supposed to always become independent and no longer need help. In fact there’s a great study that shows that new CEOs stop asking for help just 2 years after becoming hired, leading to weaker returns.

The interesting thing that I have found is that most people like to be asked for help… especially other leaders. They relish the opportunity to share their wisdom, give coaching tips and add to your personal success. I have been told on multiple occasions that the person helping me received more (learning/personal satisfaction) out of the help then I did (I helped them???). From a teaming standpoint being asked for help from a leader can be one of the most flattering and biggest confidence boosters ever.

While there might be some natural tendencies, business dogma and fear around asking for help, you know you have become a leader when it freely flows from you and you get good at it.

So I ask you...  have you become a leader or are you still teaching yourself to swim? :D

ps… so you might have guessed it by now, the interview question above is actually a trick question. The correct answer or at least the answer I like best is “you do both by asking for help”. :D

Incivility…

Toward the end of 2012 I had a great honor of doing several very senior level Team Members' annual reviews (more like annual alignments). I had a pretty interesting way of opening the meetings by giving a full laundry list of disclaimers. I would disclaim that it was not about coming up with a performance score, that I might be missing context, and that it was all about alignment and self-awareness. I would end with my favorite disclaimer of, “just because I believe you might want to grow in this area, doesn’t mean that I believe I am any better at it”. :D

Incivility… when I first read the word I couldn’t figure out what it even meant? I asked the person I was with and while we could break down the pieces, we didn’t fully capture its true meaning until looking it up and having a discussion about it. This might actually be some of the problem… in that we are missing common vocabulary to describe it. 'Incivility' actually means actions (behaviors) lacking in civility. For the rest of us non-English majors: lack of good manners, rudeness, lack of respect or niceness and at the company where I work “No Hug-Factor”!

Incivility or “No Hug-Factor” is likely costing your company a ton of money and is certainly, over time, leading to a lower performing organization with a crappier culture.

We first created the term Hug-Factor to explain how we should be treating each other within and beyond the company… Everyone (EVERYONE: Team Members, Candidates, Clients, UPS Person…EVERYONE) we interacted with whether in email, chat, phone or in person should feel better after interacting with us. You know that feeling you get after a great big hug from someone you know cares about you? They should feel like that, like just being hugged, just virtually. This might seem extreme, but it gave us great context to discuss interactions, educate new Team Members and hold each other accountable. I can’t begin to count the number of times the term Hug-Factor has been thrown around at our company to suggest civility wasn’t present enough… we also recognized it when someone does it extremely well. As I look back this might be one of the biggest things we got right early on. Due to it, you are typically excited to get to work, talk to people, share ideas, voice your thoughts… simply (and at the most basic level) because you know people will be nice to you.

I have worked with many management teams over the years… and they have almost all completely dissed the idea. Interesting how they all believe, to different levels, that incivility should be accepted, and the higher you climbed in the organization the more acceptable it should become. WTF? Was there some equation between the amount you got paid and the incivility you were to accept or deliver. When challenged, there was always some justification of optimization or performance that the leadership felt excused the behaviors. Most certainly, over time this transferred to other areas of the organization, even when it was coached to remain only at the management level.

So does it really matter? Well.

^*50% of employees surveyed deliberately decreased their efforts or quality when they felt disrespected.

^*63% lost work time avoiding the offenders of incivility.

^*78% said that their commitment to the organization declined after acts of incivility.

^*People treated rudely were 30% less creative and generated 25% fewer ideas.

^*People whom simply witnessed incivility were 50% less likely to volunteer.
^*Managers and Executives at Fortune 1000 firms spent 13% of their time dealing with the aftermath of incivility (That’s 7 whole weeks… way more than the vacation being giving).

Just ONE habitually offensive employee critically positioned in an organization can cost you dearly in lost employees, lost productivity, lost customers, and loss revenues. Having a way to focus on building and maintaining an organization with lots of Hug-Factor is super critical to success. While there are lots and lots of things you should be doing to weed out incivility and promote Hug-Factor in your organization, below are my top 3:

1. Name It – Personally we would be honored if others adopted the term Hug-Factor, but feel free to come up with whatever name you like. I personally believe the terms civility/incivility are too complex and people will not adopt them even if they understand them. Simply by naming it, you give your organization a way to discuss it.   

2. Train It – During our orientation we explain the term Hug-Factor and do some brief training on what it means, when it should be used, and what the expectations around it are. That’s a good start, but I have challenged our on-boarding team to turn this into a full-blown training session on Hug-Factor.   

3. Demand It – Require that ALL employees treat EVERYONE simply as nice as possible. This needs to start at the leadership level and roll down. We have it directly referenced in our Core Values and several action statements in our Corporate Guidance documents; and the Team Members hold each other pretty accountable to it… our CEO as well! :D

While none of this stuff is rocket science, putting time, effort and energy into it, at a constant and continuous level, can be weary. I hope that by understanding its payoffs, as well as, its negative effects, more organizations might break the equation and commit to it. I certainly believe that at the most basic level it is the single most important thing you can do to secure the long term success of your organization.

So I ask you...  will you pay more for incivility? Or optimize based on Hug-Factor?  :D

^*The Price of Incivility - Harvard Business Review (January - February 2013)