IDL115 Season 3: Sharpening The Knife
How can you unlock your greatest potential as a leader and a fellow team player? What does it take to safeguard and nurture the strengths of those around you? How can you sharpen your knife as a leader to create a space where your team can do the same?
Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader! Today it’s just me doing a solo episode, sharing my thoughts about figuring out your edge, your defining point. In short, I’m exploring the idea of Sharpening The Knife.
IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
The power of being the sharpest knife - 04:29
The need to sharpen your knife - 06:53
How to build self-awareness to create trust - 09:20
Improve your communication - 14:45
Empowering your team - 19:45
The power of being the sharpest knife
One of the reasons why you need to figure out your edge, your defining point, is so that you can hone it and become a master at it.
When you identify yourself as an outlier and you pride yourself in doing the work that only you can, and doing it well, you create your niche and your own name.
You could be the leader and be the knife in your company, or you could have people that are the knives in your team. Surround yourself with people who are the best of the best at what they do, work together, and get the job done.
The power of being the sharpest knife means that your name is the one that people call when they need something done, and they can trust you to do well.
The need to sharpen your knife
As a leader, there are three questions that you need to answer when it comes to sharpening your knife:
1 – How can you build more self-awareness to create more trust?
2 – How can you improve communication? How can you smooth out and simplify the communicative streams so that everyone is heard?
If you are not a sharp knife, you may struggle to get the job done. As the leader who sets the example, you need to be performing well and authentically rather than expecting your team to do the heavy lifting for you.
3 – How can you empower your team to reach new heights?
How to build self-awareness to create trust
The act of sharpening the knife by grinding away at the dull edge is part of coming to understand who you are, and how you want to use your skills to accomplish your goals.
What tests your sharpness? How can you use your heightened sense of growing self-awareness to isolate and let go of toxic beliefs and mindsets?
Improve your communication
People might speak unnecessarily or without awareness just to produce content to boost their numbers: don’t be like them.
Improving your communication doesn’t necessarily mean that you speak more, it means that you speak when necessary and whenever you do, that it is genuine. Speak with people, not at people.
Approach communication with curiosity instead of critique because curiosity allows for more interpretations, meaning, and information to be shared.
Empowering your team
One of the best ways that you can accomplish more is to go together with a team instead of rushing it alone.
Focus on yourself while creating a space where others can do the same. Help one another reach your fullest potential, and then drive that space forward, together.
Allow others to do what only they can do. Allow people to thrive and become the best version of themselves.
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
BOOK | John Maxwell – The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication: Apply Them and Make the Most of Your Message
Podcast episode mentioned: tylerdickerhoof.com/podcast/episode105-mirror-and-window
Impact Driven Workshop over the 8th and 9th of May 2023: www.impactdrivenworkshop.com
Sign up for the roundtable at: hello@theimpactdrivenleader.com
Check out the Practice Of the Practice
About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast
The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.
Rate, review and subscribe here on Apple Podcasts or subscribe on Stitcher and Spotify.
Part of improving our communication so that people feel heard is not reacting in frustration to what they say, but rather [with] fascination.
Tyler Dickerhoof
Podcast Transcription
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
Hey there. Welcome back to the Impact-Driven Leader Podcast. This is your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. If you are tuning in for the first time, man, I'm excited to share with you today. Glad you're here. If you are longtime listener, excited for you as well. One thing that I'm going to ask of you, could you do me a favor? Could you be a show reviewer? If you can do that, if you could help me be a show reviewer, I would love, if you were to review this episode, give me a rating, let me know, share your thoughts. This is one thing I'm going to start doing every month. Once a month, I am going to, for whoever shares an episode or reviews, I'm going to draw, and you're going to get a copy of the book of the month this month.
In the month of April, we are reading, as you can see the book right behind me, John Maxwell's 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication. If you missed the previous episode with Mark Cole, where I introduced that book, make sure you go back, listen to that. I'm excited for anyone that shares. Again here this month, you will get a copy of the book in the month as well maybe another special treat. So there'll be a drawing for each one of those. If you share, if you review, I'll draw from that and give you a special shout out. So thanks for tuning in. As well. You can also watch this on YouTube. Maybe you are, see a little bit extra, see some body language, see myself and the guest.
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
Today it's just me. Every once in a while, every month or two couple months, I do a special episode, words, either share an idea, share a book, and this, I want to share an idea. I have an upcoming event coming the eighth and 9th of May. It's called the Impact Driven Workshop. It's really focusing for those HR, those VP, those upper management executives who are like, "Oh my goodness, how do I deal with this? We have broken trust, we have low morale, we have communication issues because of everything that's going on." If that's you, I want to invite you to the Impact Driven. Workshop that is on May 8th and ninth, from 12 to two Pacific Time. You can go sign up for that. Go to impact driven workshop.com. You can also find that in the show notes. All right, let's get on with it. Today's topic, sharpening the knife. All right, let me give you a little background here. I grew up on a farm, as you guys may well and understand one thing I always had in my pocket was a pocket knife.
I don't know a day that I didn't have a knife. Actually, I do know a day, and if I didn't have a knife in my pocket, it was a bad today. Why? Because I needed a knife to cut bales. I needed a knife to just do the work that I had to do. Well, one of the things that would often happen is that knife would get dull and I wasn't very good about sharpening it. It was always difficult and whenever it got dull, it just made the job harder or worse and sometimes then you would go find a different implementing tool. I learned this much later in my life that you can actually use a string to cut another string by friction. I wish I would've learned that when I was like 10 or 11. It would've saved me a lot of days of trying to break bales, trying to do those things without the tool, without a knife.
Well, here's another thing that I also want to discuss. Maybe you've heard me share this before. Maybe it's like something new to you. If it's new to you today, that's great. I think you'll learn from this. It's what, it's the phrase of be the sharpest knife in the kitchen. And we're getting to this. We're getting to this topic of sharpening the knife and this idea of be the sharpest knife in the kitchen. Well, why? I learned this from my mentor, John Maxwell. He shared one time in a book just how disheveled he can get sometimes, how I would call him a Mr. Magoo. He owns that as well. And when I listened to that, it gave me validity to say, hey, your value is not in what you know. It's not trying to be valuable to everyone because you know a little bit about everything. Your value is when you're really, really, really, like special at one thing.
I took this lesson away from that, and it's this, I would rather be the sharpest knife in the kitchen. Shout out to my friend John Roland, who always provides sharp knives for the kitchen, his Cutco knife. But I would always, I would rather be the sharpest knife in the kitchen rather than all the utensils in the drawer. Well, let me go with this a little bit farther. like John shares with me, his knives, which have been a gift of those, if you've got those knives they are very sharp. Watch out. But you always, when you need to cut something in the kitchen and you need that special sharp knife you know where to go. It is that one knife that's always sharp, that you know it's always going to get the job done. You go there, you don't even think about it.
Now imagine you go and you're going to eat. I like yogurt. So you're going to have some yogurt, so you take out your container of yogurt, you go to the drawer with utensils, you got your knives, you got your forks, you got your spoons, you got your other size spoons, you got your other size forks, you have all your serving utensils. Now do you look for this special spoon? You know you don't pick a fork. You don't pick a knife. But then you look at the allotment of spoons. Which spoon do you pick? If you're like me, I pick the spoon on top. It's not a special spoon. I remember, this is going way back. This is a good story. Somebody's going to enjoy this story. Somebody is going to go back into the 1980s and relive this memory. I remember as I shared that, totally off the cuff, as I'm sharing this, you're going to love this little inner dude, if anyone has one of these spoons or sees one of these spoons, please send me a link. DM Tyler_Dickerhoof at Instagram because I would love to go get one just as a bit of nostalgia, like this gumball machine I have behind. I'll tell that story another day.
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
There was this special spoon, and it was a Tony the Tigers spoon. Now, my family, we didn't have a lot of frosted flakes, but I remember there was this special spoon that you could get, and it had the emblem, the Kellogg's emblem on the end of it. I can remember just sending away for that special spoon. So that was the special spoon. Now, going back to my yogurt and picking the spoon out of the drawer, you just pick whatever spoon. Here's where I'm going to lead that into us today. The great opportunity in leadership is to be that knife. Now, sometimes we need to sharpen that knife. See, when we're just a utensil in the drawer, we don't know our special use. Now, my Tony the tiger spoon, that was a different story. But if you're just a knife, if you're just a fork, if you're just a spoon in the, like a butter knife, like a typical, at your place setting knife, not a special knife, not a Cutco knife, not a knife that you're going to use to cut the Turkey on Thanksgiving.
It's not the knife that you're going to use to cut the prime rib, it's just a knife. But as leaders, we have the opportunity to be that special knife. We get to do things that other leaders, other people don't get to do. And that's where I want to lead us into today. This topic, this discussion of sharpening the knife. Now, as a leader, what do I describe sharpening a knife? Well, there's three questions here, and what I'm going to answer is this three questions that circle around the idea of sharpening the knife as a leader. And the first question, a statement really, but a question is how to build self-awareness to create more trust. See, sharpening the knife as a leader is building self-awareness. The next one is how to improve communication. If you're, listen, if you're reading along this month with the book club, where we're reading the 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication, you're getting a lot of this information.
Well, this touches a little bit about that, but it's how to improve communication so everyone feels hurt. See, as a leader, if we don't sharpen our knife, we're like, that pocket knife I had when I was younger, it's not working, I got to go find another tool. When you aren't being heard, you're not a sharp knife. And then the last one, how do I empower your team and reach new heights? See, sharpening the knife as a leader is not cutting more things. It's honing that knife. It goes back to that classic Abraham Lincoln comment. Give me six hours to chop down a tree. I'm going to take five to sharpen the ax. So you're more effective when you get there. Now, let me break this down a little bit. Let me go back to the first one. How to build self-awareness to create more trust. See, as a leader, as we sharpen our knife, we must become more aware. We, part of grinding away at the dull edge is understanding what we really are. Because when we think we're aware, when we think we're sharp, man, we're really not.
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
And what tests us? The first time you go try to cut a tomato and you're going to cut that tomato, and it doesn't go through, that knife's not sharp. See, when we think we're aware, we're really not. I had this opportunity and one of the recent Impact Driven Leader round tables, and we got into this discussion of sitting at a meeting. And part of what we're walking through in the Impact Driven Leader, one of the sections is recognizing toxic beliefs and mindsets. As we discussed this topic, we got down the pathway of sometimes it's really hard to reset the mindsets that we know aren't beneficial for people. I made the connection to coaching athletes. So my kids are athletes. I've coached two of them, hopefully soon to coach the third, but I've coached two of them.
And sometimes even as a parent, well, I'm going to step back. It's not about coaching them, but it's, as a parent, and as a parent, you encourage them to do a lot of things. like, try new things. Don't worry about mistakes. And then they go make a mistake and you're like, oh, did they do it again? If you're not on video, if you're not watching the video, I just crossed my, just like, oh, just imagine. Oh man, they did it again. See that body language without the words tells everything. Now let's take for example, this, I'm building my self-awareness to create more trust. What if that moment happened? Say you're in a workplace, you're in a meeting and somebody asks a question. You're just like, ah, okay, and you roll your eyes a little bit. Now say for a moment, you did this. Say, ooh, I caught myself. I just rolled my eyes.
"Hey Mary, man, that was inappropriate to me. I am so sorry. I'm working on that. I'm working on realizing that I need to not make snap judgements. You know what, can you help me work on this? I am sorry for coming across that way." Now, as I shared that within our round table, one member quickly shared this, "You know what Tyler?" He goes, "When you do that, when we ask for grace in those moments, it also invites accountability." See, to build awareness, self-awareness, in order to create more trust, there has to be accountability. If you're a leader, you can't be autonomous. You really can't be. You have to be responsible to everyone. But if you haven't created a platform for accountability, well then how are you ever going to get sharper as a knife unless you're willing to be honed?
See, being honed is the process of taking a knife and rubbing it on a rough surface. You take a knife and you rub it at the right angle on a, on the proper surface, and it's going to wear away the steel that you don't want there. See, when we invite people into our growth, Hey, I'm working on this, please, I encourage you to help me. That is not the response I wanted. Or one member shared, oh, this is things that I do. Like my wife would say, I'm a chopper. Sometimes when I talk and get very intense and I chop and it's making me aware, oh, that's not conveying what I want to convey. That self-awareness, actually, I'm going to say, "Hey, encourage you to hold me accountable here." What's that do? It lets people know that you're not above them and you're not above reproach. And that builds trust.
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
See, another factor here is something I shared a couple months ago. I invite you to go back and listen to that episode where I talked about the window in the mirror. I'm going to quickly interject it here, make sure it's in the snow, show notes where you can go back and listen to that episode, but too often our intentions are what we see in the mirror. We look in the mirror, people say, "Hey, hold a mirror up. What do you see?" It's like, oh, yeah, I see my intentions. Okay, I meant to do. But the window, the piece of glass that separates you from everyone else shows something much different. It shows your actions. See, it doesn't reflect, it doesn't change. It doesn't create an image that we're used to seeing. It's a real, see, in order to become a sharper knife and build trust, create more self-awareness, we got to spend a lot more time in front of the window and not the mirror.
Let's move on to point number two in sharpening the knife, and that's improving your communication so everyone feels hurt. There's a piece, an element in the book, 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication. You're going to hear about a couple times this episode. It's a great book where John describes this situation to often speakers just turn our hurry to get their content out. They're going to speak at people, they're going to tell them all the things that they know. Yeah, it's one of those interesting attributes. When I look back and think about my own evolution as a communicator, I'm working on it, that's what I'm doing here, is wanting to speak with people, not at people. See, there was a point in my life where my insecurity overwhelmed me so much that I was just trying to prove the value that I had. So I would speak at people and that wasn't very much fun.
I learned through my mentors, I learned through other people, there's a whole lot more fun to just have a conversation. That's what I do with the podcast. I love to have a conversation with people. Like be curious, ask questions that are like, oh, okay, tell me more. See, I believe this, when a leader speaks with people, they're inviting them into that conversation. When they speak at people, people walk away thinking, oh, I'm not worthy. Oh, I have nothing to add. Oh, they don't really need me. As a leader trying to sharpen your knife, in other words, improve your communication so everyone feels heard, you need to make sure that they're willing to sit at the table and have the conversation with you, as if not, then you're on a journey all by yourself. See, part of this as well, improving your communication fool, so people get heard, is being agenda focused, not agenda focused, excuse me, being progress focused.
Let me restate that. Instead of being agenda focused, be progress focused. You're going to hear this in a couple weeks. I posed it to one of our future guests and I'm going to share it again here. Would you rather meet a deadline and lose your entire team? But you met the deadline, you may have to replace half your team, but you met the deadline. That's one option. But would you rather have your team and stand the chance to miss the timeline? As I posed that, I posed that to several people, and it's an absolute, but yet it's not absolute. And this is what I believe, when you become agenda focused or you are agenda focused, the people no longer matter. But when you're progress focused, the people, all matter, their development, their growth, they're making sure they're moving down the right path. They're collectively going the right direction. Well, the only way to do that is to communicate in a way that everyone feels hurt. Because if you're speaking to people and they're below, you you're speaking in a way that they don't feel like they belong, and then you're going to hit that deadline and no one's going to be there with you. The reality is you probably won't hit that deadline. And the other reality is if your entire team's with you, there's a great chance you're going to hit the deadline, timeline or even surpass it.
See, part of what I mentioned earlier when we talked about the window and the mirror and being aware, not aware, when I share about the facial expressions, that's really saying what we're not saying. Part of improving our communications so people feel heard is not reacting in a frustration to what they say, but rather a fascination. Oh, with curiosity, tell me more. Why do you, well, why does it appear that way to you? Why do you feel that way? What made you ask that question? Oh, what experience do you have that led you to that conclusion? See, that fascination, that curiosity changes communication instead of being one way to two ways. When it's a two-way communication and it's actually a conversation, but when it's one way, you don't need anyone else. You're talking to dead air.
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
The third point in regard to sharpening your knife is this, it's how to empower your team to reach new heights. African proverb, probably familiar with it, one goes fast, many go far. The only way for you to accomplish more is not by you working harder, knowing more, being, going faster. It's by helping those around you accomplish more. It's being the sharpest knife in the kitchen and allows someone else to be the special spoon, because it's only then can each of you meet your potential. I learned this rule, and it's from, I believe one of my mentors, Craig, Rochelle, I believe, and he shared this, it's the 80% rule. If someone can do a task or job 80% as well as you, they need to be doing it because they'll never get to a hundred percent if you're waiting for them to be at 100%. And the same point, if you're waiting for someone else to be at 100% for you to pass it off, well then you're going to be stuck with it a long time.
The only way for people to go from 80 to 100 is through guidance, repetition and mentorship. The only way for you to help someone go from 80% to 100 is through you allowing them. I've also heard it this way, 10, 80, 10, meaning I offer 10% to start, the other person does the 80%, I do the 10% to finish it. It's what John Maxwell calls, putting the cherry on top. I start the idea, you take and run with it and make it better than I could ever make it and then I just put the little cherry on top. It's a team effort. Here's the other lesson that I had in regard to empowering your team in reaching new heights. This happened when I was 18, 19 years old. I had a summer internship. It was in between trips. I believe it was after I studied abroad in New Zealand and before I went back to college.
And I worked at a local farm. I worked at a farm that knew the individuals. My parents had known them. I had worked there a little bit before during a break and that summer day, I remember Carl, he was the, one of the owners, and I show up for work, it's early work and do our normal chores again, dairy farm and after that, he said, "Tyler, I'm working for you." No, just a little time out here. I was at that point, maybe 19, Carl was roughly my dad's age, so he's somewhere in his late 40s, early 50s. He's the owner of the farm, very large operation and he tells me, "I'm working for you today." I was like, oh, okay. He had given me a project. He had given me a project, he allowed me to control this project. I had no financial stake in it other than I was doing the job and he taught me an amazing lesson that day. You're never too big to work for someone else on your team.
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
It's a lesson I talk about now 20 some years later. I'm thankful Carl taught me that day. You're never too big. Here's what I did, left that day with man. I felt empowered. I felt fulfilled. I felt like I mattered, that Carl would allow me to be the project lead at 19, and he would work for me. However, I needed assistance. He was there to help me, to guide me. It's a lesson again that I share with you because it's impacted me. I ask you this, when was the last time you asked someone else, maybe 20 years, maybe extremely less experienced to you, say, "Hey, I'll work for you today. How can I help you? What can we do here?"
The other part to empowering team and reaching new heights is allowing others to do what only they can do. The facet of sharpening a knife is everyone's a different knife. Some people are carving knives, some people are pairing knives, some people are butter knives, some people are serrated knives. You can continue on that. But yet, when we become such a specialized knife and realize that every one of us are a unique knife with a unique purpose, we realize there's a special job for every single person. Now, you can be like some people in my family that they use a serrated knife for every single thing. Oh, it doesn't matter what. Want to cut, open a new box? Oh, go grab the 12 inch serrated knife. It happens. See, you can try to do that, but then you understand, hmm, some knives have an absolute best fit. And when they're most fulfilled is when they do what only they can do, where you reach into that drawer and you say, today's a special day because you are the knife for me today.
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
Sharpening the knife as a leader is learning and building self-awareness to create more trust. It's improving your communication so everyone feels heard. It's empowering your team to reach new heights. Learning to sharpen the knife too, the process of sharpening the knife as a leader will never get old. You can absolutely see knives that have been whittled away and whittled away and whittled away. The sharper they are, the more useful they are. I encourage you to sharpen your knife. Thanks for being here.
Again, as always, man, I'd love for you to leave a review. I'd love for you to give a rating, or even better, if you got value from today's episode, share it with someone. Maybe sit down, listen to it, go over it with your team saying, "Hey, where are we hitting the mark here?" Asking from a self-awareness, where am I missing? Say, I'm working on this. Help me work on this. And lastly, I want to invite you to the Impact Driven Workshop. Again, it's for VPs, executive, HR directors, upper management, who are left in this point right now to say, how do we do this? How do we lead effectively with everything coming at us, I want to help you sharpen your knife. Go to impactdrivenworkshop.com. It'll be in the show notes as well. Until next time, thanks for being here. Thanks for being a part of the audience. Have a good one.
