Leadership Gold Part 5 of 10: Don’t Send Your Ducks to Eagle School
February 20, 2009 by dr. lam · 10 Comments
I love this one. Despite his best intentions, Maxwell said he learned a valuable lesson during his lifetime as a leader: you can’t change people. Certain people like to get up late, barely get by in life, and are satisfied with their lot. There are also others that wake up early, challenge themselves, and want to continue to improve themselves daily. There are also many shades of gray between these two extremes. You can make slight changes to someone what Maxwell calls “2 notches up or down” but that is about it, i.e., in a 10-point scale for humanity, most people can change about 2 points one way or the other but that is about it.
He recounts a story that whenever he drives by a Krispy Kreme donut store he looks for a red light to see if there are any fresh donuts being made right then. Although he does not frequently splurge on this indulgence, he decided at that moment to enter the store to procure his sinful delight despite the absence of a friendly light to alert him to a new batch of donuts. To his surprise when he entered the store, he saw that a fresh lot just came off the conveyer belt, so he asked the woman working there, “Why didn’t you turn the red light on? I see that you have fresh donuts coming out right now.” She replied, “Well, we have fresh donuts coming off all the time. But whenever we turned the light on, too many customers would come in.” Maxwell thought, “Wow, if the owners would have heard that.”
I like what my mentor said to me, “You can inspire people but you can motivate them.” People that read my blogs want to get better and are naturally inclined toward inspiration. However, those who read these blogs and get nothing out of them may not be easily inspired and they certainly can’t be motivated. That comes from within, deep within. Maxwell recalls that whenever he finishes giving a lecture that someone would come up to him and say, “Wow, that’s the best thing I’ve heard. I’m going to change my life because of it.” He says others would say, “I’ve heard it all before. What a waste of time.” I hear these kinds of remarks at my meetings. I always try my best to get a single, solitary pearl for my patients. I believe that a small pearl can radically change the welfare of my patients in both the short- and long-term, and I find great reward in it.
Back to ducks and eagles… Clearly, some people are very happy to be a duck, but as a leader don’t try to send them to become an eagle. Eagles who are used to soaring will resent you for putting them with ducks, and the ducks will resent you for putting them to do eagle work when they are ducks. Ducks are good creatures; they swim hard and travel long distances slowly but surely. Eagles soar over the waters but really do not steadily progress over the water like a duck. The world is made of ducks and eagles. It is important when you lead to recognize who is a duck and who is an eagle and keep them in their assigned roles. Are you a duck? Are you an eagle? If you are a leader, have you been sending your ducks to eagle school?
Leadership Gold Part 4 of 10: Working Within Your Strength Zone
February 19, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
Too many times we spend our energies trying to improve our weaknesses, which may be a good thing, but what are our true strengths? It is best to spend most of your time improving your strengths and making sure that you are better at it than anyone else. What are your strengths? What are your talents?
Maxwell argues that people do not pay for mediocrity. They only pay for excellence. Only excellence survives and flourishes. A leader works within his strength zone and gets to the core of what makes him special. People will follow someone who thrives in his strength zone, but people will not follow someone who exemplifies only mediocrity.
An audience member challenged Maxwell and said, “I think Tiger Woods proves an exception to your rule. He always works on the weaknesses in his swing.” Maxwell countered, “Au contraire, Tiger Woods is working on a weakness in his strength zone, which is golf. If he were trying to practice accounting or gardening, that would be working on weaknesses outside of his strength zone.” Maxwell goes on to say that no matter how many hours of golf that he played he would never come close to Tiger Woods. So he works within his strength zone, which is leadership and communication.
A great leader not only knows his own strength zone but he knows the strength zones of every member of his team. He knows how to cultivate the strength zones of each team member and how to avoid any weaknesses that each team member inherently possesses. In the past, I have referred to this as a staff member’s “scorecard”. I know each person’s scorecard. When a leader develops his own strength zone, he can more readily recognize the strength zones of those around him. In addition, he hires people whose strength zones are different from his own to complement rather than repeat his own strength zone.
How do you know your strength zone? It would help to get feedback from those around you. Perhaps you think you are good at something, but that is not the consensus out there. You must marry your passion with your talents. You can’t just have one or the other. Passion without talent will not lead to success. Talent without passion won’t get you very far. Once you have found your strength zone, work on developing it in every facet that you can…all the time…relentlessly. That is what I do with facial plastic surgery and with leadership/self growth. Those are my strength zones and I work tirelessly within them. I work harder than most if not all of my colleagues, and I work more creatively. I live, breathe, eat, and sleep it. Do you know your strength zone and are you relentless in your pursuit at getting your strength zone better?
Leadership Gold Part 3 of 10: Passion
February 18, 2009 by dr. lam · 8 Comments
This is not the first time I have talked about passion and it certainly won’t be my last. Passion underscores everything that I do, and everything that I stand for. I had a hair transplant consultation last year with a gentleman who asked me, “Why are you better?” It took me about 30 minutes to go through the artistry, the way that I harvest the hair, not outsourcing a team, how I protect the tissues, etc. But I said, “I can summarize it in one word, passion.” That is why I’m different. People know that the moment they meet me. And if they don’t, they will when they finish talking with me.
I like to say that when you chase money, money will leave. When you chase your passion, money will come. There was a study that looked at 1,500 business-school graduates between 1960 to 1980 and they divided the group into those who followed their passion at all expense and those who wanted to make money then be able to use that money to chase what they wanted. Twenty years later, there were 301 millionaires from the original group. Out of the 301, 300 attained their wealth through chasing their passion at all cost. One attained his wealth by chasing money first.
When you are beset with problems all around you, the only thing that will stand the test of time is passion. Passion will drive you through the hard times and carry you over the good times. It will help all those around you carry that same passion. It is infectious. Maxwell says he has never seen a leader who was not passionate about what he or she did. Passion must be the starting point and the defining point of everything you seek.
Maxwell says find something that you would do even without compensation, then go and pursue that passion. (Obviously, get paid for it.) The easiest way to find a work you like is not to work a day in your life because every day at work should be fun and enjoyable. It should not be work. If it is work, it is not your passion. It should be your passion and underscore everything you are and you do. I am a passionate person, and if you have no passion in your life, it is much harder for me to relate to you. If you don’t have a passion, find your life’s passion, then live it!
Leadership Gold Part 2 of 10: Leading Yourself
February 17, 2009 by dr. lam · 8 Comments
Most oftentimes a leader is focused on leading other people without truly realizing that the most important person to lead and also the most difficult is himself or herself. The reason that I write these blogs is as an exercise to get myself better as a leader. They are life lessons for me first. If I cannot lead myself, I will have no followers following me.
Most oftentimes, we do not work at self-improvement but look at everyone around us as needing work. Maxwell says that when we criticize someone else, that is called constructive criticism. However, when someone criticizes us we call that destructive criticism. I am certainly not perfect at taking criticism, but I am a lot better today than I was even last year and last year I was better than the year prior. Remember from the 4 agreements, “never to take anything personally”. That is very important in this case. Too often when we judge others, we judge them by THEIR actions, whereas when we judge ourselves we judge ourselves by our intentions. This two-tier system of criticism leads us to failure because we never meant anything by what we did or so we rationalize, but that person certainly should have known better. We must strive to create a harmonious congruity by how we perceive ourselves and others.
Maxwell, a former preacher, still says that he ultimately does not trust himself to lead himself. That is why he has established external accountability for his actions. That is why I wrote about accountability a couple of weeks ago and why I emphasized how I am accountable to other business leaders/owners in my EO forum group. How have you made yourself accountable? To whom? What interval?
We as leaders (and that means all of you too!) must hold ourselves to a higher level of accountability. Linda, who is my spa director, asked me last year why I have apologized to my staff for seemingly small infractions, and I explained that as a leader I hold myself to a higher level of accountability of who I am and who I should aim to be. There is no other person that can truly hold you to that level of accountability than yourself.
When we first lead ourselves, we can then have a chance at leading others around us. I have learned a lot about real-life leadership this past year and have worked even more diligently at becoming a more centered leader. By virtue of that, my patients and my staff and everyone around me has benefited. I must start with myself. You must start with yourself. We must start with ourselves. I look at my readership as part of my extended team at LFP because I would love for all of us to grow as humans in our common fraternity.
Leadership Gold Part 1 of 10: Relational not Positional Leadership
February 16, 2009 by dr. lam · 10 Comments
I simply love John Maxwell. I have read many of his books but his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, has been a cornerstone to the way that I think and practice my leadership. He wrote Leadership Gold at the age of 60, which he turned 2 years ago, summarizing many of his leadership principles. I would highly encourage anyone out there interested in leadership to read both books or many of his books on the subject. There is so much “gold” in this book that I have decided to mine the gold over the next 2 weeks so that I can treat this important subject with more depth that it rightfully deserves.
Now many of you out there may be thinking, “I’m not a leader.” I have no interest in reading these blogs, but YOU ARE! Everyone has the potential of being a leader. If you are a parent, you are a leader. If you have friends, you can lead them by being who you are. I like what Maxwell’s objective of what a leader is for, to help others (more about that on another day). I want to encourage, exhort, and inspire all of you to be daily leaders to all of those within your proximity and perhaps even for those who are only within a more remote reach. More importantly, you need to lead yourself first. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. That is tomorrow’s blog.
His opening thoughts were that leaders should not be lonely at the top. They are if they do not have any relationship with those who work on their team. When leaders separate themselves from their team, they no longer have a team at all. That is why I encourage the idea of “Team LFP” rather than subordinates. I know every spouse, child, and animal name for everyone in my organization. I take personal interest in their personal lives. Not prying but asking and being open to receive anything that I can help them with in their personal lives if they need it. I encourage them to call me at home and on weekends if they need me for any reason. It is the same offer that I extend to my patients on whom I have worked. (I in return do not call them during their personal hours and spend very little time on the phone if I must absolutely call them at home.) My team works with me and not for me. They are my lifeblood and they are as vital a part of Team LFP as I am. I like what Maxwell said, “A team does not care about how much a leader knows, until it knows how much he cares.”
I like what John Maxwell said about a “self-made man” who came to him and said, “I did everything myself, and I made it myself.” Maxwell wanted to respond, “I’m sorry. You must have not accomplished much then.” There is no such thing as a self-made individual. Anything worth achieving is achieved as a team not in isolation. Don’t kid yourself please in thinking that you made it on your own. If you think that, please don’t bother talking to me. I don’t think you have the clarity of vision of what a leader really is or does.
I am still learning myself in becoming a leader. Last year, my staff despite being very happy with LFP was not happy enough. I did not project the right leadership mindset and was not as approachable. I am working on that, and I am now fortunately more approachable. It was not that I was aloof. My staff simply did not perceive me as being as part of the team as much as I should have been. In 2009, I have made the promise to my staff and to myself to be a more vigilant and present CEO of this company and of all the businesses that I own. I am working on that mission every day, and I have encouraged my staff to tell me when I fail in that mission. I would encourage whatever position you have in life (personal or professional) to look and see whether you inspire followership. I let go a staff member last year that had many good leadership skills but also very poor ones. Simply put, that individual had no followers. If you have no followers, you are not leading. To lead, you need 2 things: direction and followers. I hope we all can assume a level of personal leadership for those around us. This world is truly crying out for good leadership. I hope you can be the one to provide it.