Transcription
In yourself and in your observation of people that you've worked with, did you ever sense that just being hard driving was kind of, it was great, but it was limiting? Like, did you ever sense that by liking the people you work with, you could perform much better? Um, even if they perhaps were not as hard to kind of borrow the, the common parlance around this, they weren't as hard as everybody else? That because you like each other so, so much that you can kind of do anything?
Well, if you have a team of 10 people and you all have a great relationship and you get along well, and you're going against my team, and we all hate each other, and we're who's going to win? The team that loves each other is going to win. I would hope it's not even close. It's not a matter of fact. If you work for me and you don't like me, what kind of performance are you going to give me? It's going to be tough. What if you love me, and I've looked out for you, and I've done everything for you, and I've taken care of you? What kind of performance are you going to give me? Yeah, everything. Oh, I gotta die for you.
So, yeah, and you know, earlier you, you asked about, um, the human animal and human nature, and this is part of leadership. I got asked this question the other day by, uh, I was working with a company, and the guy says, you know, how do I identify what are the characteristics of someone that can execute? And how do I identify those characteristics in a person so that I can get those people? And I said, well, first of all, the characteristics are the characteristics that everybody's, you know, obviously someone that's driven, someone that communicates well, someone that's going to make things happen. Those are pretty simple to, I, to know. We know what they are. How do you identify them? It's pretty simple as well. I give you a task, I give Andrew a task. It's a pretty simple task. If you get it done, cool. Give you a little bit more complex task. Do you get it done? Yes. I give, give the same task to Fred. He doesn't get it done. He comes back with a bunch of questions, he slow rolls, he's got all kinds of excuses and problems. I give you an even more complex task. You come back, you get it done. And then I'm gonna realize, okay, Andrew's the guy that makes things happen. He's the guy that can actually execute.
And you're a little bit what you said. I mean, there's certain breeds of dogs, but even that is, it's not as, as, as different as human beings are, right? Like there, and there are some. So, so now there are some guys. I've got Andrew who will make things happen. Here's the problem with Andrew. When I say, hey Andrew, here's this nebulous idea that I have, can you turn this into a reality? And you're like, where do I start? I'm not sure where you want me to go. Meanwhile, I gave it to the guy that didn't make anything happen with specific tasks that I can says, you know, I say, hey, I got this nebulous idea, can you see what you? He goes, oh yeah. And all of a sudden, he takes it and he says, hey, figure out a way to make this happen. So you might have someone that's very good at executing, but they're not very creative. I might have somebody that's very creative, but they're not very good at executing. So what do I do? I build a team where I've got Andrew and Fred, and they work together. And Fred comes up with good ideas, and we bring them to Andrew, and Andrew goes and executes them. So that's what we're doing from a leadership perspective is we're letting people's nature execute, and we're putting people into roles where their nature is beneficial. I'm not going to take someone that's shy and introverted and put him out in the lead sales role. I'm not going to take somebody that's boisterous and extroverted and put them into a cubicle where they're going to be looking at spreadsheets all day. Clearly, I'm not going to do that.
So what we have to do as leaders is we have to find the right people for the right role and we place them into those roles. Now, does it mean that I abandon all hope that the guy that's an introvert will ever develop more communication skills? No, I'm still going to work with them and over time, we'll get him a little bit moving in the right direction. But I'm not going to take somebody that's a, a, a, a, a total introvert and turn them into a lead sales guy. That's not going to happen. Any more than I'm going to change the tiger stripes. So that's what we have to do is we have to help people. As leaders, we have to help people find the role and find the thing that they're good at.
Now, does that mean if I have someone that loves their job, they're going to do better at it? Absolutely. Does it mean that if I have somebody that's driven just by achievement, that they're going to be good at their job? No. In fact, well, they can be. There's going to be certain roles I can put them in, right? If I've got a sales number I need to hit, and and Andrew's super into achievement, he wants to be the golden child, who wants to have his picture on the, on the, you know, magazine that we put out about our industry, cool. I can throw this task at you and you're gonna go and get it. The problem is, if there's something that's going to take more perseverance and the reward isn't that high, or it's a long-term goal, you're probably not the right guy for the job. So liking your job is absolutely critical, and if you love your job, you're going to be able to, you're going to be able to most likely excel at it.
Now, you could be an unfortunate person that loves your job and is not good at it. That happens occasionally, right? Yeah, it seems to be pretty rare. It reminds me of your skateboarding career. Yeah, I love skateboarding, but you just weren't that good at it. You know what I loved more than skateboarding? I love the community. I love the community I was in. And I, pro, and you know, I probably would have gone to the industry side or worked on a company side and not been in this actual skateboard side, or just skateboard for fun. So there's a guy in the skateboard community, his name is Jim Thiebaud, and he's kind of the, uh, not so hidden secret in that community. He's an amazing guy, and he's sort of, uh, early on, left professional skateboarding to run a company, Real, Deluxe, a bunch of other companies. He's an amazing guy. And he told me the, we became friends recently, and he said, he realized he wasn't going to be one of the big guys, but he knew he wanted to be in this community. So he found his place. And I think everyone in skateboarding looks to Jim as like the guy who cares. He's, you know, he cares about, he truly cares about the sport and about the people. And so he learned to kind of just wrap his arms and his heart around the whole thing, and it just works. And so I do think, um, everyone has a certain place, uh, in a community or in a team.
I think that as you're describing this, I have to imagine that people are listening and thinking, like, wow, this team thing is awesome. Like, it's just amazing. I wish I had that. Right? I'm fortunate to have that in my podcast. I've had that in my lab, certainly in the, my podcast team. I would, I, I always say these guys go, I go, like, like it's not just, it's the people that press buttons and run equipment, take photos. Like they go, I go, like, they go, it's over. And I'm fine with that. I actually love that because it's, yes, it's about the podcast, but and about the information and getting it out there, but it's as much about the team and working together, just like it was with skateboarding.
[Music]