CONCLUSION

Career Lessons From Trevor

I’ve learned over the years that your organization is simply a mirror that reflects all of your personal strengths and weaknesses. All the behaviors that you see in your team (things that you both love and hate) are reflections of you and your leadership style. If you’re gregarious but sloppy, probably your team looks that way, too. Sales might be strong, but the inside of the business may feel chaotic. If you’re a buttoned down, by-the-book type, your organization may get things done right, but feel cold and inflexible to customers.

There’s nothing more important than you walking the talk; embodying the right attitudes that you preach to your staff. Speed of the leader, speed of the team.

The 7 Ways to Thrive as a Leader

Having said that, now it’s time to take a good, hard look at yourself. How do you think people in your workplace view you? You know they’ve discussed it. What does your boss think? Or maybe you are the boss, and it’s difficult for you to find honest feedback. Here are my suggestions on how to live, thrive, and survive wherever you work:

1. Score yourself based on the “4 Questions” from Chapter 2.

2. Plot yourself on the Star Chart.

3. Work for challenge, not for money.

4. Focus on being great at your job, not advancing your career.

5. Learn to manage your own emotions.

6. Specialize in creating solutions, not in analyzing problems.

7. Develop perseverance.

1. Score Yourself Based on the “Four Questions” from Chapter 2

Question 1: Would your boss enthusiastically rehire you if she could do it all over again? If you’re the owner, would you enthusiastically rehire yourself in your position, or would it be better to have someone else in your seat?

Question 2: Do you take away your boss’s stress? Or, if you’re the owner, do you cause stress to the team members around you?

Question 3: If you were to resign, how would your boss feel? How hard would she try to keep you? How would your team members feel if they heard you were leaving and they were going to get a new boss?

Question 4: What if everyone in the business was just like you? Would it be a better or worse place?

2. Plot Yourself on the Star Chart

Once you’ve plotted yourself, ask your boss/significant coworkers to do the same. Have an honest conversation about where you’re perceived to be and how you can get better. Remember: when perception differs from reality, reality loses.

If you’re the boss and you’re not a star, that’s a problem! It’s time you upgraded your skills, or adjusted your role so you get to do the things you love and stop doing the things you loathe.

3. Work for Challenge, Not for Money

Taking a job only because it pays well is usually a mistake. The best reason to take a job is because it will develop skills around your natural area of talent. The same goes for leaving a role. The time to leave is when the challenge is gone, not when you can find someone else to pay you more money.

Ironically, when you work in areas of your natural genius, money will follow your passion; and the more you love what you do, the more you’ll be paid for it.

4. Focus on Being Great at Your Job, Not on Advancing Your Career

Consider this quote from Bill Gates, Microsoft founder: “Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger-flipping: opportunity.”

If you’re asking yourself how to make more money or how to get a promotion, you’re asking the wrong question. What you should be asking is “How can I be amazing at what I’m doing right now? How can I focus more on the parts of it that I love?”

Once you are clear on what your unique genius is, work hard to find where that genius can best be used. Then find a role that will shape and develop that natural talent, and turn it into a skill so that it can be put to its best use. You’ll get better and better at the things that you’re already talented at—and what’s more, you’ll love doing it. Focus on blooming where you’re planted, and opportunities will present themselves naturally to you. People always notice (and want) star players.

5. Learn to Manage Your Own Emotions

One of the top reasons that businesses stop growing is because the leader doesn’t want to deal with any more draining people problems. If you become known as a person whose presence consistently lifts the energy in the room rather than lowers it, you’ll be noticed. If you’re one of those people who needs to “vent” to those around them, plan on staying in your current job for a while, or being demoted or moved laterally, far enough away that your current colleagues don’t have to listen anymore.

Your emotions can be your own worst enemy if you let them manage you. Don’t allow this to happen. Your emotions are a servant of your will, not a helpless victim of your circumstances.

6. Specialize in Creating Solutions, Not in Analyzing Problems

Problem analysis is a highly overrated skill. Most people can already see what the problem is. They need to know is how to solve it. Even more than that, they need to know who is going to solve it.

Make it a practice to come prepared with two or three possible solutions to any problem that you or the team is facing. When you see a miserable, unpleasant problem that no one else wants to touch, speak up and volunteer to fix it. There is always, always, a need for the person who says, “Leave it with me, I’ll get it done.”

7. Develop Perseverance

Many younger workers grew up getting everything quickly and easily. When they wanted something to eat, the microwave got it ready in a couple of minutes. Praise came easily in a school system that frowned on competition and that didn’t allow them to fail any class in which they did poorly. Helicopter parents told them that they were amazing and could be anything they wanted. Social media taught them that friendships were superficial and about “likes,” not about relationships. Maybe they also got lots of Christmas presents and a huge haul on Halloween.

These people unconsciously developed the expectation that they would be instantly noticed as a wunderkind and that advancement would come quickly and effortlessly. When it doesn’t, they became baffled and disillusioned.

On a recent tour of Israel, our guide (an ex–Israeli military officer) told us that Israeli leaders are made not in the bustle of the cities, but in the desert. We spent a morning walking in the Negev Desert, and there’s just nothing there. It’s like the surface of Mars (in fact, the movie The Martian was filmed in the Negev). Water and food are scarce, and predators are everywhere. But the desert is where the important lessons of life and leadership are learned. It’s where leaders learn resilience, self-reliance, fortitude, relational depth, and resourcefulness. Cities teach lessons of superficiality, speed, and artifice. Some of the greatest Israeli leaders (including first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion), maintained homes in the desert to center them so they could be effective when back in the city. Success isn’t built on success. It’s built on hardship and personal agony, and failure, and sometimes disaster.

I once worked with a CEO who told me that the most important job he had in his life was leading an installation department of a furniture company. For seven long years, he climbed stairs, carried heavy stuff, and worked long hours doing a really tough job with a team of guys who had few, if any, other options in life. It taught him perseverance, work ethic, tenacity, resourcefulness, and leadership skills. It was the kiln that fired him into a strong, mature leader.

By contrast, a couple of months ago, I spoke with an unhappy young man who had received two promotions in a single year and was considering leaving the company because he was too bored with his progress.

The one quality that all successful business leaders have in common is tenacity. I hope that you develop yours early, doing something that isn’t always fun. Leadership is the hardest and most rewarding thing you will ever do, and things that are worth doing always require perseverance.

Creating a Winning Dynamic

Here’s a true story about a recent, amazing turn-around in the world of sports.

In 2012, the Boston Red Sox lost more than 90 games and finished dead last in the American League East division. It was the worst season since 1965 for this storied team, and many attributed it to the leadership failings of head coach Bobby Valentine. Rumors abounded about staff infighting and dysfunction. Fans were deeply upset and players were unhappy. It was like a return to the bad old days of the “Curse of the Bambino,” a superstition that evolved from the trading of Babe Ruth in 1918, followed by 86 years during which the Red Sox were denied a single World Series victory.

During the 2013 season, however, the Red Sox made the most spectacular turnaround in major league baseball history, winning the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

How did the Red Sox go from worst to first in a single year? By making significant people changes, at all levels of the organization, which resulted in a totally different, winning culture.

First, the owners fired Valentine and brought in John Farrell, who had a completely different management style. Farrell remarked when he started that he wanted to “earn their trust, earn their respect, and create an environment in the clubhouse that is a trusting one.” He made sure every team member knew what he expected, and then set out to support each of them in whatever way he could. “He was more like a father to us than a boss. He let us know from the first day of spring training that he had our backs,” remarked slugger David Ortiz after the winning game.

Farrell also made some significant changes to the team lineup, acquiring Shane Victorino, Jonny Gomes, Stephen Drew, and Mike Napoli—all stellar veteran players with something to prove.

As in any winning season, other factors also contributed to the team’s stunning victory, but it all started with people, as it always does.

As noted in Chapter 10, the right person in the right role is up to 300 percent more productive than an okay person.

In addition, if you succeed in placing stars in every key seat in your business, 90 percent of your HR problems will simply melt away on their own. You won’t have to “manage,” but you will be free to lead. This isn’t an advertising slogan; it really is true.

Good luck as you hone this most-important of all leadership skills!