IDL67 Season 2: Smart Leadership: 4 Choices to Scale Impact with Mark Miller
Can you commit to always asking questions? Why is vision a leader’s most powerful tool? Why do smart leaders confront reality?
This month in the IDL book club, we’re reading Smart Leadership, written by today’s guest, Mark Miller. In today’s episode, Tyler and Mark reflect on how leaders (from corporate managers to parents) overcome life’s challenges. In his book, Mark identifies four choices leaders can make to help them move out of “life’s quicksand”, choices which he and Tyler elaborate in further detail here.
Mark Miller is a business leader, best-selling author, and communicator.
Mark started his Chick-fil-A career working as an hourly team member in 1977. In 1978, he joined the corporate staff working in the warehouse and mailroom. Since that time, he has provided leadership for corporate communications, field operations, quality and customer satisfaction, training and development, leadership development, and more. During his tenure with Chick-fil-A, the company has grown from seventy-five restaurants to over 2,700 locations with annual sales exceeding $17 billion.
He began writing almost twenty years ago when he teamed up with Ken Blanchard to write The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do. Now, with over one million books in print in more than twenty-five languages, Mark’s global impact continues to grow.
Mark is also an avid photographer who loves shooting in some of the most remote places on the planet.
Visit Mark Miller’s website and connect with him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and LinkedIn. Check out Mark’s latest book, Smart Leadership, Four Simple Choices to Scale Your Impact.
IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
Vision is a leader’s most powerful tool (05:06)
What leaders struggle with today (11:16)
How leaders can overcome their struggles (14:13)
Always ask questions (32:31)
Vision is a leader’s most powerful tool
When a leader has that fuel source which is provided by their vision, the fire that drives them, it is contagious to their team and provides the whole organization with clarity.
If the leader does not know what they are trying to accomplish or achieve, then they cannot lead their team with clarity, they struggle to maintain momentum, and their progress falters.
A vision is a leader’s most powerful tool because it is a source of nearly infinite energy that sustains the leader and their team. The leader’s clear vision provides the mission of the company.
What leaders struggle with today
What impedes leadership effectiveness?
- Busyness
- Complexity
- Distractions
- Fear
- Fatigue
- Aimlessness
How leaders can overcome their struggles
How do some leaders avoid their “quicksand”? And if they fall into it, how do they get themselves out of it?
When leaders land in quicksand, they make one of three choices:
1 – Sink in it. Give up, and resign that this is your fate. If you take this approach, your hopes, dreams, and aspirations will be extinguished.
2 – Swim in it. They resign themselves to struggling with their quicksand, and their success and return dip dramatically, even though they keep going. This option is not sustainable.
3 – Escape it. You can escape your quicksand by making smart choices:
- Smart leaders choose to confront reality.
Confront your reality, face your struggles, and invest in yourself. Make time to rest to allow yourself to work when it is needed.
Always ask questions
Take note of how many questions are being asked and how many statements are being made in the next meetings that you are present for. Remember that you learn more by asking and you encourage blind spots by assuming.
Asking questions and being involved adds more value than you would expect. You are a better leader when you ask more questions, because you learn more, which in turn can inform how you lead for the better.
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
BOOK | Alan Stein Jr – Sustain Your Game: High-Performance Keys to Manage Stress, Avoid Stagnation, and Beat Burnout
BOOK | Mark Miller – Smart Leadership: Four Simple Choices to Scale Your Impact
BOOK | Michael S. Hyatt – The Vision Driven Leader: 10 Questions to Focus Your Efforts, Energize Your Team, and Scale Your Business
Visit Mark Miller’s website and connect with him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and LinkedIn.
IDL63 SEASON 2: STRESS MANAGEMENT: TAKE A FRESH PERSPECTIVE, WITH ALAN STEIN, JR.
Join the Impact Driven Leader Community
Check out the Impact Driven Leader Youtube Channel
Connect with Tyler on Instagram and LinkedIn
Email Tyler: tyler@tylerdickerhoof.com
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.
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A leader sees more in before. The only way to see more in before is to have the time to think with your head up.
Tyler Dickerhoof
Podcast Transcription
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]
Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. This is your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. So glad you're listening in, so glad you're here. I love it, this morning, just to tick this off got a message from one of our listeners, Dana Gentry. She just listened to the recent episode with Alan Stein Jr. She's like, man, this was really good. As I shared with her, as I shared before, that was actually one of the highest rated episodes we've had thus far. We talked about stress management, stress change. If you haven't heard that, go back to that episode. Alan's book, Sustain Your Game, had a great conversation.
This is one of the things that I mentioned to her and I share with you guys. We live in a world with stress. We live in a world that we're coming out of these, COVID pandemic, whatever that may be and look like. As you're listening in, not sure what it's like in your world, but we're evolving through it. Well, this month in the Impact Driven Leader book club, we're going to be reading the book, Smart Leadership by today's guest, Mark Miller. As we talk about it today, as he discusses it in this book, he describes it as leaders are in quicksand. I've shared this with a few people now. I truly believe it's the case. We have leaders, we have parents, we have everyone that right now they're like, I'm swimming. I'm flailing my arms around. I'm just trying to get my head above water. What does that look like? Finances are the way they are, corporate changes the way it is, we have supply chains that are just challenging everywhere. We have global disruptions. How is that affecting your life?
Well, in the book, Smart Leadership, Mark gives forward choices that he identifies really helps leaders get through that quicksand. I'm excited for you to hear him talk about it, but I also invite you to be a part of the book club where we're going to discuss the book. In part of our book club, we have a round table that's going to be opening up later this year, where there's another chance for you to join that. But you can read this book with us. I'd love for you to do so. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Mark today. Remember if somebody shared this episode with you, thank you for listening in. I would love for you to subscribe.
You could watch it on YouTube, make sure you see the YouTube link in the show notes and as well, I love for a rating, review. Let me know how I'm doing. Let me know what value you're getting out of these episodes and these conversations with friends of mine, friends that I've either met or gotten to know. For those of you, just as I cap this off and end it, Mark is the vice president at Chick-fil-A of high-performance leadership. Yes Chick-fil-A, that's where I met Mark a couple years ago. You'll hear me talk about how I met him and the impact he made on me. Get ready to take a few notes. I'll see you at the end.
[TYLER]
All right, Mark. Welcome to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. So excited to have this chat with you. I'm excited, one, because we mentioned earlier, we were chatting, you're sitting at the Chick-fil-A headquarters and I see the cows in the background. I am excited for that. Thanks for joining me today.
[MARK MILLER]
Oh, delighted to. Yes, the cows are here cheering us on.
[TYLER]
That's good.
[MARK]
I think it'll be a great time.
[TYLER]
So you have a new book, Smart Leadership, which I'm excited that is going to be featured in the Impact Driven Leader podcast, actually here in the month of May. So I'm excited for readers to dig through that and great discussions. But one of the things is I mentioned to you earlier, I had the opportunity to be at the headquarters where you're at and actually met you some four and a half years ago. As I shared with you, as we were opening up the image I got of Mark, and I want to use this as a jumping off spot as to the style of leadership is we are in this conference room, a room that I know you guys use corporately for trainings and we had breakfast there that morning.
I saw this gentleman who, bald like me, is carrying a tray around, just smiling and asking, Hey, how can I serve you? What can I do for you? That was the picture and image I got of Mark Miller. To me, that impressed me because this is the biggest thing it did, is it made you inviting. It made you like, oh, I can go talk to him. I can talk to him and have a conversation with him. There wasn't this barrier between us. So I wanted to share that and thank you. That's the first image I learned of you, but also of Chick-fil-A really
[MARK]
Well, it's our pleasure to serve. I mean, that's why we're here. So I'm glad that I was able to do that for you and the others there that day.
[TYLER]
So one of the things that you talked about in the book and I want to use, and sow this seed is you talk actually towards the end of the book a lot about vision. You talk about it in the segment where you're discussing some of the tools and this is my viewpoint, maybe it's how I've been trained is if you have the right tools and know when to use them any situation, you can use it. But if you have a blueprint and saying, hey, this is the only way that you can operate, you get outside of that can be difficult. But one of the things that I heard you share, and I want to label it this way, vision is a leader's most powerful tool. How would you respond to that?
[MARK]
Well, I would say the vision provides energy, it provides focus it enables the leader and the organization to make strategic and tactical decisions. In the absence of strategy, every tactic is of equal value. In the absence of vision there's no way to actually discern which strategic direction you should move. So I think when a leader has that fuel source, that fire burning within them, it's contagious and provides a lot of clarity. I think clarity is missing for many of our organizations and it's needed at all levels on multiple topics. But if you don't know what you're trying to accomplish, if you don't know what you're trying to become, and if you don't know what you're trying to achieve, then you just spin and you're burning energy with really nothing to show for it or nothing good to show for it.
[TYLER]
As you described in the book and that I want to take this like a deeper level is part of that vision can really be in a way having a scoreboard or a score sheet for those that are leading in the business. You shared in a story in the book about taking a group of people to a bowling alley. At first there were no pins and you're just like, oh, go have fun rolling the balls. Then you guys put the pins in. To me that was so a great way to envision this, man, if we're telling our teams to just go out and do today's work, just do today's work and roll the ball, man, how defeated they can be. So I don't know if you want to tell a little bit about that story more or really unpack that in a bigger leadership approach.
[MARK]
Well, absolutely. My fear is that we've got men and women in organizations all over the world who are blind bowling. Basically, they can't see the pins, even if they exist. So in the scenario you're referencing, it was as if there were no pins, but there were pins. The ball would go under, there was a curtain we hung and you couldn't see them, but you could hear it. So you knew that something was happening and people started trying to discern from the sound of things, how am I doing? Somebody would say, I think I got eight. Somebody else would say, I think you got two. There was all this smack talk about, no, no, no, you're awful. People became very disengaged very quickly.
So what happened, as you referenced, we moved the curtains and everyone could see the pins and the entire mood changed. The energy changed. The engagement level changed. The smack talk turned to encouragement. People actually began to keep score. They couldn't keep score before. Everything changed when people understood what is it we're trying to accomplish and I'm able to keep score. So we asked the leaders in that setting, we've done this more than once but that day there were 160 liters. We had a whole bowling athlete. I said, now, let me ask you the difference between round one and round two, round one, when you couldn't see the pins.
They just said, it was awful. In fact, they became so disengaged, at least half of them walked off. Many of them were on their phones. They didn't even want to take their turn. I was encouraging going, no, no, no, no. You're on the clock. We're paying you to roll the ball. They could care less. I said, so what was different in round two? They said, everything changed in round two. I'm thinking everything? Same ball, same activity, same motion, same stinky shoes, same sweaty hands with a little fan, like everything didn't change, but something critical changed. They knew what they were trying to accomplish and they were able to keep score. And I didn't mention, in addition to all the things that changed in the dynamic, they also began to get better and they began to coach and encourage each other. So again, I asked them, I said, how was round one and round two different than the people that you work with who've never known the score? How do you think they feel, how engaged are they? So we try to stress to all of our leaders you need to know what you're trying to accomplish. Everyone needs to know that, and you need to be able to keep score.
[TYLER]
Yes, I think it's a, again, starting with that and starting with this idea of vision, which I'm even more, one of the books that we just read was Michael Hyatt's Vision Driven Leader. I think it does a great job of describing and really makes this idea of vision paramount for leaders, which I totally believe and your book stresses again. As you go through this story about bowling, and to me, one of the other references you made in the book was this idea being in quicksand. I could see if I'm a leader and I'm in that room and maybe I'm not rolling the ball, but I'm trying to help my team score and maybe get to 300 and I can't physically pull the curtain back, and it's deep going, to me, that to me, is a feeling of being a quicksand.
I know there's a lot of leaders today that are listening, that are working out there that feel like they're in quicksand, because they're trying to navigate what does stuff look like? You shared as we were just getting started here, that in your office, you guys have flexible work days that people need to be face to face 10 days out of the month, you said. Well, as a leader, that's a metric to help pull back that curtain but without those things, that could be really difficult. How are you seeing leaders in quicksand today?
[MARK]
Well, thanks for raising that question, because that was the origin for this work. We began to notice, anything I've written over the years there's one thing in common. We either try to identify a current or an emerging need that we can help address. So this happened several years ago, pre-pandemic, we had no idea of what was about to happen because I think it made the quicksand and all the issues around it, even more acute and more pronounced, but the pandemic didn't create the quicksand. So we started trying to figure out several years back, what is it that's impeding leadership effectiveness? We found busyness and complexity and distractions, and all, you can make your own list. We didn't know what to do with all that.
So we said, let's call it quicksand, because we thought it was a really good metaphor Once you're in it, your instinct might be to flail around and you'll quickly learn that doesn't help. If you're in it, based on first hand accounts, you're going to feel a sense of hopelessness. If you are alone, you're going to feel very alone. You just can't do your best work in quicksand. So we began to try and figure out what are those things that contribute to this toxic mix? I will throw this in a little sidebar. Once we got that metaphor and we began to identify some of these things, we began to talk to leaders. It was one of the very first leaders that I talked to. I talked about busyness and distractions and complexity and he said, yes, yes. He said, I get all that. Those aren't my issues. I said, well, do you think there's anything impeding your effectiveness?
He said, oh yes, yes. He says, it's just not those things. I said, well, what's on your list. He said, fear, fatigue, aimlessness. He said, maybe even success. So we went, oh my gosh, what do we do with that? So it was really simple. We just said, those are other elements in the quicksand. What we decided is each and every leader has their own blend or their own mix. It's anything that's impeding your effectiveness is your quicksand. So our team redirected our efforts and we said, we're going to study the leaders who are really good at avoiding quicksand and if they do get in it, they get out quickly. That's what actually led to this project. We ended up calling those smart leaders. We wanted to learn all we could from them that we could apply in our own life.
[TYLER]
So you identify four simple choices, to me that taking from this to help a leader, navigate get through or get out of that quicksand, I'd love for you to just highlight those. We'll just take them and chop along. I have some notes reached, but I want to allow you to navigate this ship.
[MARK]
All right, so let me say one thing first, even acknowledging the quicksand is not enough because virtually every leader has experience with it. When you get in it, you only have three options. The first is just to sink in it, just to give up, just to resign yourself to the fact, this is your fate. You actually, if you take that approach, you die. Now you may not physically die, but your hopes and your dreams and your aspirations can be extinguished. We don't want any leaders to do that. The second group, which unfortunately, I think is the biggest group, are the leaders that find themselves in quicksand and they say, well, I'm just going to swim in it. I know how to swim. I'm a big dog leader. I know how to do this. They keep swimming.
Well, there's several problems. The two primary ones is you've never seen anybody win a gold medal swimming in quick safe. I mean, it's just, you may be going through the motions, but you're not getting the return. You're not getting the payoff from your efforts. Then perhaps the more fundamental problem is it's not sustainable. and if you're not careful, you're going to not only be exhausted. You're going to go to that first group I talked about, and you're going to give up. We hear so much about the great resignation and some of the articles that I'm reading talk about people in a moment of reflection are, are pursuing their higher purpose in calling. I'm not saying some of that's not going on. I think a lot of people participating in the great resignation are exhausted and they just quit
[TYLER]
Well, I think they're ---
[MARK]
That's a huge problem.
[TYLER]
They're probably exhausted because they're working with leaders that are in that that are just like, well, let's just keep fighting. Let's just keep fighting and they're like, I'm tired.
[MARK]
Right. So first option, you just sink in, second option, you keep swimming, the third option is to escape. So that's what we began to pursue. We landed on these four choices. Now, some of your listeners are probably going, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. We make a lot more than four choices every day. You're actually right. The psychologists tell us that we make between 30,000 and 35,000 remotely conscious choices a day. We're not talking about those. We've labeled these smart choices. Here's what a smart choice is. It's a choice that requires a little more energy, a little more effort, a little more focus, but yields a disproportionate return.
So here are the four that we found throughout our research. The first is that smart leaders choose to confront reality. They choose to confront reality. They understand that only when they lead from a position of truth, can they lead from a position of strength? They've got to be grounded in truth. Now I'll just say this, you and I know a lot of leaders who, for one reason or another are not willing to confront reality, but that's the first choice. I will say these choices, there's not a hierarchy and it's not even literally a process, but to confront reality is the first among equals. You've got to be able to say, okay, this is the truth.
[TYLER]
So let's camp out here for a second. Why do you think leaders, what's the driver that makes them reject reality that you've seen? What do you believe?
[MARK]
Well, I've been asking leaders, but, here's the way I do it. I don't say Tyler, tell me why you don't confront reality. What I do is I start by saying, have you ever known a leader that was unwilling to confront reality? Every handle go up or if I'm on a video, everybody will say sure, sure, sure. Yes, yes, yes, work with him right now. So we all know somebody else. Then I said, why don't you speculate? Tell me why you think they don't and they'll make a long list; complacency, success, fear, I mean, ego. I mean, you can make your own list. So smart leaders don't do that. Smart leaders decide, I want to lead from a position of strength. Therefore, I must be grounded in the truth. The only reason you would do it is that you want more influence and you want more impact and you want more opportunity and you want to make a bigger difference in the world because this is the price of admission. This is one of the prerequisites to lead at a higher level and if you want it, this is the first door you've got to walk through.
[TYLER]
There's a belief of mine and I think you allude to it. It's an answer that I see is there's a big part of insecurity in the not wanting to accept reality. It could be again, falling back, if I'm the leader and I don't want to accept reality, I'm just not sure I can survive through it. Either, I don't have the skills to put on myself or maybe I don't have the team. I don't have the support around me. But one of the things that I believe in, and I've seen this and you describe it in a lot of ways in your book is I believe reality starts from the outside in, meaning, whatever I see is not reality.
Now what you see of me in this situation is reality because that's, what's outside of me and whatever I can't see, I have to accept is not real. It's what I believe is real, but is not real to you. I think as if I were to go through this and talking to leaders, like get around people that can help you paint that picture, be in, I love the round table concept. John Maxwell has spoken into my life is well, that allows you to see a perspective that's not your own. So is that a way for leaders to help if they're not seeing reality to start building that?
[MARK]
Sure. In the book I give several ideas. I call what you're describing a strategy to find fresh eyes. Any number of ways, you call it a round table. I've got a group that I have been in for 23 years. There are 10 guys and we meet twice a month and we study leadership and we provide fresh eyes for each other. We even give drafts of our annual development plan to each other for feedback and then we give them the final document. You may not be part of a group like that. Well, you could start one, but maybe that's not your thing. You could hire a consultant. You could hire a coach. You could find a mentor. You could create a personal board of directors. I think it's too important to trust ourselves to really confront reality in its totality by ourselves. I think we need fresh eyes to help us.
[TYLER]
Well, to me, I think it's like any other blind spot. It's we can't see it. The only way to experience that ---
[MARK]
They call it a blind spot.
[TYLER]
Totally. I think as a young leader, emerging leader, sometimes that's the best place to step in and say, let's define reality. Let's not call it what we thought it could or should be. Let's get a definition of reality, but not from our eyes, let's get it from other people. You mentioned that walking through that, it's like who's had a leader that can't confront, well, why start developing that process?
[MARK]
One more quick thought on that, and I tell leaders this all the time, the presenting problem is rarely the real problem.
[TYLER]
Sure. A way that was described to me is the biggest poll in the bucket never leaks the most water, meaning you know the big holes in the bucket. It's all the little holes that leaks all the water that you can't hold. The big hole you know to pass, you know to cover that up. It's all the little holes. Alright, let's move to smart choice number two. Let's go to that one that you had.
[MARK]
Smart choice number two is to grow capacity. This feels counterintuitive, particularly to leaders in quicksand. They're going, if I had capacity, I wouldn't be in quicksand. Well, okay, but this is part of the strategy. This is part of your escape plan. You have got to grow capacity again, it feels counterintuitive. It almost feels like you see somebody drowning and you offer them swimming lessons. It's like, it's not quite like that, but that's how it feels to the person in quicksand. But one reason they're in quicksand is they don't have any capacity. So you just have to accept the fact, this feels weird, but I'm going to actually try to grow my capacity. Again, any number of strategies and tactics, I don't know where you want to go specifically, but you got to have enough capacity to meet the demands of the moment and what's on the horizon.
[TYLER]
You describe a lot of it. I think it's this idea of actually less is more, meaning if I create margin, if I start to identify what's holding me back and, oh, let's set that aside, I can do more of what I'm great at and/or this idea of, as I've here, it's moving beyond yourself. If I'm blank, if I'm stuck in quicksand, all right, I can flail around as opposed to, I'm going to hold on here for a moment. I know I can do this. It energizes me. I believe in you Mark, and you can do this really well. Can you help me out and do more of that? To me, that's the idea of growing capacity that when you're in this quicksand moment, it's put your arms around people. It's to say, what can we do to help each other be bigger than what we are by ourselves?
[MARK]
Sure. Absolutely. I would say another way to express that is when you play to your strengths. That's fantastic. I want to take it a step further though. I would say even tactically, as pedestrian as this sounds is, look at your calendar. For every minute you free up at least for a moment you've created capacity. I don't know, your listeners are pretty young, they may not know the name, Peter Drucker. Peter Drucker I believe was the, is the greatest management and leadership thinker of the last 2000 years, all due respect to John Maxwell.
[TYLER]
I will say this ---
[MARK]
He's a dear friend of mine.
[TYLER]
I learned, and I've shared this on the podcast. I've shared this recently. I have had a couple people talk about it. I learned more about leadership in 2021 from Peter Drucker than anyone else. That's not taking anything away from John and others, but it's very, apropo, it's very at a point where like, man, what he was writing about 20, 30, 40, 70 years ago are on point today.
[MARK]
I know. So here's the reason I mention his name. I do think he is the source of the Nile for most of the leadership stuff in the world today. But I mentioned Drucker because about 50 years ago, he said he had never met a knowledge worker and you could look that up if you want but he's talking to us. We have discretion over our time or a fair degree of discretion, we work on complex problems and we're knowledge workers. He said he had never met a knowledge worker that couldn't eliminate 25% of what was on their calendar with no ill effects. Now I don't know what your number is, but what if it was just 10%? Then you just bought four or five, six hours, depending on how many hours you work in a week. Now you've got some margins. So time is one.
Another is your energy, are you eating right? Are you sleeping enough? Are you drinking enough water? Are you exercising? I know nobody wants to talk about that, but you got to have the physical energy. You got to have capacity physically. Then last but not least, you use the term margin. I want to stretch your listener's definition of margin. The reason I say this is because I've already been confronted with somebody who said, I don't have time for a vacation. Remember they're in quick saying. You're telling me I need a vacation. I said, I don't want to talk about whether you need a vacation or not. I said, I'm asking you about the leadership discipline of margin. They said, well, what's that mean? I said, let me ask you this. When do you purposefully have time scheduled to reflect, to assess, to think, to create and to plan?
They looked at me like I was crazy. I said, that's probably why you're in quicksand because that's a foreign concept to you. I just finished a 12 year study of CEOs. I know a lot of your listeners aren't CEOs, but when I hear this, I'm thinking CEOs are women and men with really big jobs and a lot of responsibility. They spend 28% of the typical week alone. Well, what are they doing? Reflecting, assessing, thinking, creating, and planning. So I don't know what your number needs to be, but for leaders that have zero there, you got to create some margin to actually do your job well. That's just another step out of the quicksand. If you're in it deep, that's the first problem you got to think about. That's the first thing you need to reflect says, think, create and plan is what is your plan to escape?
[TYLER]
I think ---
[MARK]
A lot out there about going back.
[TYLER]
Yes. Well, I think there's a part of that is like the adage, you can't pour from an empty pitcher. If your pitcher gets empty and you got nothing in there, then you can't possibly bring the thoughts, ideas. Again, a John Maxwellism, a leader sees more and before. Well, the only way to see more and before is to have the time to think and with your head up. I find this, and to me over the last couple weeks and had conversations with people and talking about this is there are a large number of people, not just leaders, people that right now in life is quicksand. It's getting back into the office. What does this look like? North America, we're now into spring. Well, there's a lot less COVID restriction.
Now all of a sudden everything's opening up. People want everything yesterday. We have supply chain issues. I imagine your stores have seen that. All of your franchise owners have gone through that. To me, coming from a history, a background in agriculture we better understand that's the way life's going to be the next two years. It really is yet that's overwhelming and so it's like, how do we spin out of it as opposed to those are the problems that we have in front of us. Let's just deal with the problem that we can deal with today and we'll get to those problems. I think it's hard for so many leaders, but again, I come back to what you're describing in great detail. It's like, man, if you aren't taking care of yourself, then you know that guy beside you, that's flailing around in quicksand, you got no life preserver to throw.
[MARK]
So right.
[TYLER]
Settle down, let the sand just be around you and say, okay, hey Mark, how do we get out of here? I see a two by four over there you can reach. Let's just work this slowly together. We're going to make progress. That's how I envision it. That's the image that I put together.
[MARK]
Exactly. I mean, leaders just have to have enough capacity to do their job and that includes the time that we're describing right now. That's why, again, the diagnosis for why leaders are in quicksand sometimes, it's pretty easy to figure out why.
[TYLER]
As we get to point number three, which I'll tell the audience here is fuel curiosity, there's a quote that you came up with that I love it because I've had a similar iteration. Again, it's coming from the same sources, from Howard Hendricks is that I'd rather be a leader drinking from a fresh stream than a stagnant pool. I think this idea of, as you bring up a smart choice for leaders is fueling curiosity, it's only when we learn and want to ask questions, it gets back to that previous one of seeing reality because you're like, hey, tell me what I can't see. I think that's the only way to move forward.
[MARK]
Absolutely. I like to think of it as the leaders fountain of youth. For most of my career, I didn't know if there was a fountain of youth. I used to tell people I'm looking for it. Now I actually have the confidence to say, yes, there is a leadership fountain of youth and it's lifelong learning. It's curiosity. It's the choice to be that running stream that you referenced. If you'll do that, you can add value to your last breath
[TYLER]
So you list off quite a bit in the book. I want to talk just from your heart, it's like this idea of asking better questions. How did that, Mark the leader, how has that made you a better leader for those that you serve both up and down and sideways?
[MARK]
Well, I just think it's a tremendous contribution that is often under leveraged. I think if you pay attention in the next meeting that you're in with a group of people and just start taking note of how many questions are being asked and how many statements are being made. I learn more when I ask questions and I think others learn a lot when the leader asks questions as well. So I stumbled on it early in my career. I couldn't even pinpoint it. I mean, in the early, early days I'm asking, because I don't know anything. So it was very self-centered in the beginning, but somewhere along the way, I began to understand that it was actually adding more value than my own learning because often the people would say, well, I don't know. Let me find out.
They'd go learn something and then they'd come tell me and I'd learn something. Then I had, for me, it was a bit of a defining moment. I talked about it in the book and this was probably a decade into my career. The president of our company walked up to me one day and didn't say, hi, how are you? How's your mom and any of that. He just looked me square in the eye and said, how do you add value around here? I was a bit taken back. I asked him about it recently. He's been retired for, goodness, he's been retired for 20 years, but I had breakfast with him. I said, do you remember asking me that question? He said, well, not specifically, but I did ask questions like that to people. I said, well, you asked me, how do you add value around here? I was like thinking, what am I going to say?
I said, I ask challenging questions. He said, keep it up. He turned around and walked off. I said, I guess that's a pretty good strategy then and that was probably the moment that I tried to become more intentional. Here's the deal. This is selfish, but I'm a better leader when I ask more questions. So I want to be a great leader so I'm going to ask more questions because I lead better when I ask more questions. So think it's a win-win when the leader can get past their own hubris and the assumption, the false assumption that we need to know all the answers. That's insane, particularly as complex as the world is today. I mean, I might argue it's been insane for a long time, but in the world we live in today, the smart leader understands that they don't know all the answers. That's part of the reality that they're willing to confront. So it's just a powerful, powerful leadership tool.
[TYLER]
I think, as I found, and you mentioned in the book is if the leader can come in and solve all the problems, then they don't need anyone else, but they also put themselves in a very vulnerable position, meaning, oh, you're going to come in and solve the problems. Well, I don't have to do anything until Mark shows up to solve all the problems as opposed to walking in and asking questions like, oh, why is it like this and encouraging others to solve problems. It really gets back to one of your, that's how you grow your capacity. When you start, to me that comes back to the, one of the things I said earlier is the tools that you had and I very much believe in the, give me the tools and tell me how to use them and then I'll have to trial and error figure out when to use them, but I'll be better off that rather than you tell me every time, because then I got to come back to you and say, all right, I got a new problem, what tools do I use here? How do I do it? I'm not learning it. I'm not growing, I'm not asking the right questions.
[MARK]
Sure, sure. And it is probably the most insidious consequence of command decision making is, as you said, people will check their brain at the door and just wait to be told what to do. Then they're just hired hands. I think that's just awful stewardship when, when you've not engaged the head and the heart and you just want people to serve as hands. I think I've got issues with that at multiple levels.
[TYLER]
Well, and I think that is a, to tip the scales here, to show the, pull back the curtain is that the last change you have, the last choice you have is create change. I think that's a great opportunity because as we discuss this and I think about the generations that I've studied and talked about in this podcast, there's a lot of times people said, just do this, just do this, give me a checklist. What do I need to do? There's generations that have been taught that. I think as I go back through and I think about these things, the greatest leadership things we can do, as I'm taking from your book, and I'm trying to flush this out and would love for you to point me in the direction is have such a vision and be willing to create change and see reality, and then ask people to be a part of it and saying, what can you do that's going to add value to that and allow them to maybe throw their hands up. Or if they don't know to say, Hey, this is what I see in you, Mark. This is what I know you can bring to the table. I think if we do that as leaders, we encourage people to start to grow and, or identify, make their own choices, as opposed to I'm just going to show up and do the job today, just whatever they tell me. Give me your thoughts on that layout as it relates to our workplaces today.
[MARK]
Well, we believe here at the Chicken that one of the key fundamentals of leadership is the ability to engage and develop others. I think that's what you described there. It's about getting clarity on the need, clarity on the role on getting an appropriate and proper fit so that people are in a place where they can contribute and make their full contribution. It's encouraging, it's challenging, it's supporting. As we started, it's keeping score so we know when we're winning and know when we need to make adjustments. All of these things will engage people. So absolutely, but engage them for what?
We often describe it like a tug of war and let's pretend all of your team is on your side, which again, that's quite a trick to get everybody on your side. But I tell people you're still in a tug of war. Now you're pulling against the competition and towards your goals. Well, what if your people aren't aligned? What if they don't know where they're supposed to be pulling? I mean, can you even imagine a scenario where you've got all these energetic, high capacity engaged people pulling in different directions? That's what vision does. It also will help filter out some that don't want to go where you're trying to go. So I think you described it well. There's so many things that we can do once the vision is clear. Now I'll say clear vision to me is a lot like a Polaroid image on film. Your audience may have seen, I'm certain that retro Polaroid.
[TYLER]
Yes, Retro.
[MARK]
You shoot it and you can't see it and you shake it and you blow on it. You look at it and it gets clearer and clearer and clearer. I think that's the way vision is. It may not be crystal clear in the beginning, but it can be directionally clear. People want certainty, but they'll settle for clarity. So tell them what you know. Don't tell them what you don't know and rally around what you know and where you're headed. All you can promise people is intent and effort on your part. That's all you can ask from them. Again, the destination will become clearer and clearer over time, but without vision again, what do you align people to?
[TYLER]
You mentioned as we started, getting to a point to wrap up here, it's asking these questions. What are the challenges, the current and emerging need? You came up with quicksand. I believe quicksand is still very appropriate today. What's the thing that you see coming next. What do you think is, as listeners are listening now it's like, hey, this is where we need to do some investigation to help people solve this next need. What do you think that is?
[MARK]
Well, I've got two, a bonus for you. The first is a project we started a couple of years back on culture. Again, we didn't know what COVID was going to do to the world. I think it's exacerbated the problem and the challenge. I talked to so many leaders who say, they've got questions, they've got concerns, they've got anxiety over culture. Some are saying COVID has destroyed their culture. I meet a few who would say it has strengthened it, but I meet many, many more that are saying, we're not sure what our culture was before and we're really not sure what it is that we haven't been in the same building in two years. So I've got a team that's been working, including we did a global study. We talked to 5,000 leaders in 10 countries on the topic of culture. So I think that's a current and emerging need.
Then the bonus, the project we are undertaking now that will follow that is on organizational change. We believe the nature of change has changed. It's no longer something that you can afford to do in a sequential programmatic, step by step, that's not the world we live in. It's a world of iteration. It's a world of continuous change. It's not a change of, we've got two strategic priorities. It's rather we're trying to manage a hundred changes, many of them, we did not instigate. So we have a project underway to try to figure out what's the new paradigm for dealing with change, unprecedented change in the history of the world? We're excited about some of that work as well.
[TYLER]
That last one is just as a note, as I think about the leaders, the businesses that are able to embrace change, move forward the fastest. I think as I just contemplate, as I'm thinking that is it's like understand what's the most important change in a sea of a sea of a lot of change needed so you can continue to move forward as opposed t, as I heard from you, it's like that sequential. It's like, all right, well, let's figure out the sequence. Like there's no sequence. It's like, we need to make a change. Let's change it. Okay, what's the next change? It's how I think about that one.
[MARK]
Well, and we're still trying to get our head around it. We're about to field a global study on that topic as well, but here's a metaphor we're playing with right now. Change used to be a lot, managing change used to be a lot like the old plate spinner. But you had a finite number and you could watch them all and you could divert your attention as needed.
We think change today is much more like juggling, but not juggling with three or five or 10, but juggling with a hundred balls. How do you do that? Is that humanly possible? We're studying some organizations that manage an extremely high number of change projects and initiatives and they don't think about it like the plate spinner; that there are only six or seven of them and we can watch, them all we can touch the all, this one's wobbling, go over here. That's actually what we're trying to explore, is how do you do it in today's world? So more to come on that.
[TYLER]
Yes, I mean, there's just, there's one little thing that I think there that you, if you throw a ball up in the air it's going to come and it's going to need to be dealt with. If you put a plate and it's spinning and if it could spin forever, it'll just spin there. I think that's this idea of change and again, creating change, smart leaders create change, is you're going to grab that ball. You're going to throw it up in the air. it's going to come back down, you're going to have to change it again. It's not set it, forget it. It's going to spin forever. I think that's the idea that I really as I think about to me, that's opportunity. That's exciting as a leader because you're like, oh, what was done today was done today. Great. What's next? But it's that constant movement forward.
[MARK]
We're exploring both those topics and excited to share that with the world.
[TYLER]
Well, Mark again, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for this book, Smart Leadership. Thank you for describing even more of it. I appreciate the leadership model that you've been a part of and you're developing and exposing because it is helping myself and other leaders that are now emerging as leaders to say, "Hey, how do we do this? How do we do this in a way to be healthy, to be a leader that is making sure that we're seeing more and before in the right direction. So I appreciate it.
[MARK]
Oh, glad to do it. Listen, I've got a free assessment if anybody wants to do a smart leader assessment. It's at markmillerleadership.com. It just goes deeper into the individual tactics and practices and might give you some direction for your next steps.
[TYLER]
Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, I appreciate it.
[MARK]
My pleasure.
[TYLER]
As I mentioned in the opening, as I introduced this episode, as I talk to people, as mark and I talk about this, I see so many leaders dealing with quicksand. It's whether you're in water, 60 feet over your head, you're just trying to get out of it. I want you to know that as, Mark talked about in the book, as we talked a little bit about it, it's finding those that you can put your arm around and swim with. As I described if the two of us are in quick sand and I just stop flailing around and I say, "Hey, Mark, you see that too, we can get out of this together." I believe that is the way out. I believe that's why communities such as the Impact Driven Leader community are powerful.
I've already seen other people that have been dramatically affected by it. I invite you. If you're a challenged leader that feels like you're in quicksand, reach out, love to have you as a part of the community, but also know tools like what Mark brought in this book and what he talked about today. That's your way out, that's your way out and you can do it. I believe in you. I want to be your partner in that. I want to make sure that you can get through it. If you're having a challenging time confronting reality, or maybe it's like, how do I fuel change, how do I grow my capacity, how do I make sure that I'm able to show up as a better leader, I think it comes back to asking great questions. It's honestly, I need to be better at it. I need to make less statements, add more questions. That's what I need to do to be a better leader. I recognize that. I'd love for you to just take time to say, I can add value in better ways here. If there's something I'd love for you to share with me, I'd love to be your champion in that cause.
Again, thanks for listening in. Love for you to subscribe on YouTube or wherever you listen to these episodes. Thank you for being a part of the community, supporting the podcast. Until next time have a good one.
