Want A Better Business? Improve These 4 Areas | John Maxwell

Success and Adding Value

How to be a real and take that word, a real, success and share with you four things that if you would improve in these four areas, just like I try to improve these four areas in my own life honestly, your business will improve. It really will. Let me give you the background of this teaching, just for a moment. When I was in my 20s, I had a mentor, Les Parrott, who had written five books. I had not written any books. I was not an author. In fact, I didn’t have any desire to be an author. If you’d come up and ask me if you ever wanted to write a book, I’d say, “Well, I like to read them, but I don’t particularly care to write them.” But we’re having lunch one day, and my mentor Les is talking to me about his latest book. He’d written five of them. And I asked him, I said, “Les, why do you write books?” And he looked at me that day and said, “John, I write books to add value to people and influence people that I will never meet.” And the moment that he said that to me, within my heart, I thought, “That’s exactly what I want to do. I want to add value to people. I want to reach people and help people that I’ll never maybe ever personally meet in my life.” And that was the catalyst for me becoming a writer. For the next 18 months, I asked myself a very, I think, important question if you’re going to write a book, and that is, “What should I write about?” And I came to the conclusion that if I really wanted to add value to people, that I needed to ask myself and ask others, “What is it that is so important in their life that would help them to be more valuable and more successful?” And for the next 18 months, I asked questions, I read, I thought, I wrote down my thoughts, and I came to the conclusion after a year and a half that if I could help people do four things and improve those four areas, it would just greatly improve their life. And that’s where the “R” comes from, the letter R. There are four things. The first one, the letter R stands for relationships. And I said to myself, if I can help people really just have good people skills, it’s just going to improve their life. And it’s kind of like this, people won’t really go along with you unless they can get along with you. And so I made a commitment that in my writing of books, and I’ve written 83 now, I made a commitment that I would help people learn how to get along with people. Stanford research says this, your success, my success, anybody’s success in this profession, 87% of our success is people knowledge, and only 13% of our success is product knowledge. In other words, Stanford research basically says that your success and my success is going to be more determined by our.

Adding Value and Building Relationships

How to be a real success and share with you four things that, if you would improve in these four areas, just like I try to improve these four areas in my own life honestly, your business will improve. It really will. Let me give you the background of this teaching, just for a moment. When I was in my 20s, I had a mentor, Les Parrott, who had written five books. I had not written any books. I was not an author. In fact, I didn’t have any desire to be an author. If you’d come up and ask me if you ever wanted to write a book, I’d say, “Well, I like to read them, but I don’t particularly care to write them.” But we’re having lunch one day, and my mentor Les is talking to me about his latest book. He’d written five of them. And I asked him, I said, “Les, why do you write books?” And he looked at me that day and said, “John, I write books to add value to people and influence people that I will never meet.” And the moment that he said that to me, within my heart, I thought, “That’s exactly what I want to do. I want to add value to people. I want to reach people and help people that I’ll never maybe ever personally meet in my life.” And that was the catalyst for me becoming a writer. For the next 18 months, I asked myself a very, I think, important question if you’re going to write a book, and that is, “What should I write about?” And I came to the conclusion that if I really wanted to add value to people, that I needed to ask myself and ask others, “What is it that is so important in their life that would help them to be more valuable and more successful?” And for the next 18 months, I asked questions, I read, I thought, I wrote down my thoughts, and I came to the conclusion after a year and a half that if I could help people do four things and improve those four areas, it would just greatly improve their life. And that’s where the “R” comes from, the letter R. There are four things. The first one, the letter R stands for relationships. And I said to myself, if I can help people really just have good people skills, it’s just going to improve their life. And it’s kind of like this, people won’t really go along with you unless they can get along with you. And so I made a commitment that in my writing of books, and I’ve written 83 now, I made a commitment that I would help people learn how to get along with people. Stanford research says this, your success, my success, anybody’s success in this profession, 87% of our success is people knowledge, and only 13% of our success is product knowledge. In other words, Stanford research basically says that your success and my success is going to be more determined by our ability to get along with people, add value to them, connect with them than anything else in our life. And that is exactly what I’ve discovered.

So, I began to write books on how to be a people person, and just books that would help people understand what I would call people skills, relationship rules. Relationship rules like the Golden Rule, treat others as you would like to be treated. During the Enron scandal in America in 2001, my publisher Time Warner asked me to write a book on business ethics, and I told them I couldn’t. They asked why. I said because there’s no such thing as business ethics, there’s just ethics. And then they said, “Well, could you write a book on ethics?” I said, “I’m not sure, it’s hard to write a book on ethics when there’s no truth or absolutes. But let me give it a shot.” And I did write one, and I wrote one based on the Golden Rule, treat others as you would like to be treated. And the Eureka moment for me in writing that book was I found that in the business community, if the business community began to embrace good values, that they would become more valuable. They become more valuable to themselves, they become more valuable to their customer, they become more valuable to the people in their office. And so, my discovery was that values really help people help other people in a beautiful way, and caring for people and relationship values are just absolutely essential.

I wrote a book several years ago called “Winning with People,” and one of my chapters and one of my people principles is what I call the elevator principle, which simply says, some people lift you up, some people bring you down. And the question for all of us today is, what do I do? Am I an elevator that takes people to a higher level, or am I an elevator maybe with only one button on it with the letter B, which means basement, and I just take people down? Well, here’s what I know about relationships and why it’s so important in your life and my life. Each one of us right now, we’re either a plus in people’s lives or a minus. We’re either an asset or a liability. We either lift people up or, to be honest with you, we kind of bring them down.

One of the things that I’ve concentrated on for several years now and wanting to be good relationally with others is a commitment that I made to intentionally add value to people. Now, I say the word intentionally because I think it’s a key word. And what I mean by that is I think that we are born selfish, which I know I was. And what that basically means is that I want somebody to do good things to me, and I get up in the morning and think, “Wow, I wonder if something good is going to happen to me.” And we just have a naturally have kind of a selfish nature waiting for someone else to do something good for us. The reason that intentionally adding value is so important is that I naturally want people to add value to me, so I have to be very intentional if I want to add value to you. And so I began to ask myself, well, how do I become that plus in people’s lives that really does add value to others around you? And I came to a system, a process in my life that really works for me, and it’s a very simple one. And what’s so beautiful is every one of you can do this, and it doesn’t take much time, but it makes a big difference in people’s lives.

You see, every day, there are five things I do that truly add value to other people. First of all, every day, I value people. That’s the foundation of relationships, valuing the people that are around you. You see, if I don’t value you as a person, I’m not going to add value to you. Why would I add value to a person that I don’t value? So all of the positives of relationships begin with the fact that I just value you as a person. That’s why I’m so delighted today to even be able to share with you for a few minutes in this topic of real success because I value you as a person, and I believe you have greater potential. Even already, you are successful, I think you have potential to even

Adding Value to Relationships

How to be real and achieve real success and share with you four things that if you would improve in these four areas, just like I try to improve these four areas in my own life. Honestly, your business will improve. It really will. Let me give you the background of this teaching, just for a moment. When I was in my 20s, I had a mentor, Les Parrott, who had written five books. I had not written any books. I was not an author. In fact, I didn’t have any desire to be an author. If you’d come up and ask me if you ever wanted to write a book, I’d say, “Well, I like to read them, but I don’t particularly care to write them.” But we’re having lunch one day, and my mentor Les is talking to me about his latest book. He’d written five of them. And I asked him, I said, “Les, why do you write books?” And he looked at me that day and said, “John, I write books to add value to people and influence people that I will never meet.” And the moment that he said that to me, within my heart, I thought, “That’s exactly what I want to do. I want to add value to people. I want to reach people and help people that I’ll never maybe ever personally meet in my life.” And that was the catalyst for me becoming a writer. For the next 18 months, I asked myself a very, I think, important question if you’re going to write a book, and that is, “What should I write about?” And I came to the conclusion that if I really wanted to add value to people, that I needed to ask myself and ask others, “What is it that is so important in their life that would help them to be more valuable and more successful?” And for the next 18 months, I asked questions, I read, I thought, I wrote down my thoughts, and I came to the conclusion after a year and a half that if I could help people do four things and improve those four areas, it would just greatly improve their life. And that’s where the “R” comes from, the letter R. There are four things. The first one, the letter R stands for relationships. And I said to myself, if I can help people really just have good people skills, it’s just going to improve their life. And it’s kind of like this, people won’t really go along with you unless they can get along with you. And so I made a commitment that in my writing of books, and I’ve written 83 now, I made a commitment that I would help people learn how to get along with people. Stanford research says this, your success, my success, anybody’s success in this profession, 87% of our success is people knowledge, and only 13% of our success is product knowledge. In other words, Stanford research basically says that your success and my success is going to be more determined by our ability to get along with people, add value to them, connect with them than anything else in our life. And that is exactly what I’ve discovered. So I began to write books on how to be a people person and just books that would help people understand what I would call people skills, relationship rules, relationship rules like the Golden Rule, treat others as you would like to be treated.

During the Enron scandal in America in 2001, my publisher Time Warner asked me to write a book on business ethics, and I told them I couldn’t. They asked why. I said because there’s no such thing as business ethics, there’s just ethics. And then they said, “Well, could you write a book on ethics?” I said, “I’m not sure. It’s hard to write a book on ethics when there’s no truth or absolutes, but let me give it a shot.” And I did write one, and I wrote one based on the Golden Rule, treat others as you would like to be treated. And the Eureka moment for me in writing that book was I found that in the business community, that if the business community began to embrace good values, that they would become more valuable. They become more valuable to themselves, they become more valuable to their customers, they become more valuable to the people in their office. And so my discovery was that values really help people help other people in a beautiful way. And caring for people and relationship values are just absolutely essential. I wrote a book several years ago called “Winning with People,” and one of my chapters and one of my people principles is what I call the elevator principle, which simply says some people lift you up, some people bring you down. And the question for all of us today is what do I do? Am I an elevator that takes people to a higher level, or am I an elevator maybe with only one button on it with the letter B, which means basement, and I just take people down? Well, here’s what I know about relationships and why it’s so important in your life and my life. Each one of us right now, we’re either a plus in people’s lives or a minus. We’re either an asset or a liability. We either lift people up or, to be honest with you, we kind of bring them down. One of the things that I’ve concentrated on for several years now and wanting to be good relationally with others is a commitment that I made to intentionally add value to people. Now I say the word intentionally because I think it’s a key word. And what I mean by that is I think that we are born selfish, which I know I was. And what that basically means is that I want somebody to do good things to me and I get up in the morning and think, “Wow, I wonder if something good is going to happen to me.” And we just naturally have kind of a selfish nature waiting for someone else to do something good for us. The reason that intentionally adding value is so important is that I naturally want people to add value to me. So I have to be very intentional if I want to add value to you. And so I began to ask myself, well, how do I become that plus in people’s lives that really does add value to others around you? And I came to a system, a process in my life that really works for me. And it’s a very simple one. And what’s so beautiful is every one of you can do this and it doesn’t take much time but it makes a big difference in people’s lives. You see, every day there are five things I do that truly adds value to other people. First of all, every day I value people. That’s the foundation of relationships, valuing the people that are around you. You see, if I don’t value you as a person, I’m not going to add value to you. Why would I add value to a person that I don’t value? So all of the positives of relationships begin with the fact that I just value you as a person. That’s why I’m so delighted today to even be able to share with you for a few minutes in this topic of real success because I value you as a person and I believe you have greater potential. Even already you are successful, I think you have potential to even be more successful. So it all begins with the fact that every

Equipping Others for Success

Equipping your staff is crucial for achieving highly successful outcomes. When you begin to train and equip people, you compound all of your success. You compound your time because now others are helping you do things. You compound your influence because now others are having a positive impact on people’s lives. You compound your finances because you have other people helping you work in the business, which creates more people to take care of and greater profits. Compounding is a result of training and equipping other people.

Now, I wish I had time today to extensively talk to you about equipping others, but sometimes when I talk about this subject, people say, “Well, I don’t know if I’m qualified to do that. I don’t even know if I know how to do that.” So let me just very briefly, in the next minute and a half, give you my five equipping steps, steps that I take to equip other people.

Step one is very simple: I do it. Before I ever train you, equip you, develop you, I have to do it. Why? Because people do what people see. Leadership is visual. People don’t do what you say, they do what you do. So my credibility of equipping you is the fact that I do what I’m going to equip you to do very well myself. That gives me credibility and it gives me influence to train and develop you. So Step One is I do it.

Step two is I do it, and you are with me. You see, equipping depends upon proximity. Again, leadership is visual. If you’re with me and you’re getting to watch me, you’re going to learn much quicker how to do something very well. So this is where we’re together and I’m visually demonstrating to you what I want you to learn how to do.

Step three is now you do it, and I’m with you. Isn’t it interesting? There comes a time when I literally hand that baton off to you, and you take it, and now all of a sudden you’re doing the work. But I’m still with you. I’m watching you, I’m coaching you, I’m tweaking you. Every time we’re finished doing a project, whatever it is, you and I may sit down for 15 minutes and we may just kind of review what happened. And now I’m sharing with you maybe how you could even do it more effectively. But again, we’re together, but now you’re leading and I’m observing, coaching, and helping you.

Step four is you do it. There comes a time you don’t need to be with me, you know how to do it, and so you go. And that’s always an exciting time for an equipper because now all of a sudden I have not only myself doing this job, but you’re doing it too. So we’ve got two, now we’re starting to add, we’re starting to really compound in a small way our success.

Now, most equipping stops at level four when you can do it what I’ve taught you how to do. It’s kind of like, “Okay, I’ve done my job,” and I go focus maybe on someone else to equip. But there’s a fifth step, and I don’t want you to miss it because this is the magic step in equipping people.

Step five is you do it and someone is with you. In other words, you’re now equipping someone else. In fact, when I begin to train and equip someone, before I ever start, I ask them if they’re willing to train and equip someone after I do that for them. If they say yes, we start. If I see there’s a hesitancy and they kind of just maybe aren’t

make things worse. It’s that pivotal. Now, when I talk about leadership, I want to be clear. I’m not talking about titles. I’m not talking about positions. I’m talking about influence because that’s what leadership truly is. It’s influence. It’s about how you can impact others, how you can inspire them, how you can guide them towards a common goal.

Leadership is about serving others, about putting their needs before your own. It’s about creating a vision, a compelling vision, and then rallying people around that vision. It’s about being a role model, someone others can look up to and emulate.

Now, you might be thinking, “But John, I’m not in a leadership position. I don’t have a fancy title.” Well, let me tell you something. Leadership is not about your title. It’s

Introduction:

Interested in training someone else? We don’t even start. Why? I don’t want my equipping to be a dead-end street. I want to equip you so you can equip others, and that’s where true compounding begins. Really successful people, they get along with people really well. They’re really good with relationships, and they train and develop others really, really well. Let’s go to the third thing that we need to do to be a real success, and that “A” stands for attitude.

Attitude:

Attitude isn’t everything, but it’s the main thing. In fact, it’s so important in your life and in my life that is what I call the Difference Maker. Let me explain to you what I mean by that. If you were hiring somebody in your practice and the two people you were looking at, they both had good experience, they both seemed to have the skill set, and you kind of were wondering, “Well, which one of them do I pick?” They’re very equal. But let’s say one had a terrific attitude and the other one did not. Who are you going to hire? You’re going to hire the person that has a good spirit, a good attitude. Now all of a sudden, when all things are equal, attitude makes all the difference in the world. And I think all of us know that coming through COVID-19, our attitude, our positive life stance, is going to be absolutely essential for us if we’re truly going to overcome adversities such as what we have gone through in our life.

And what’s powerful about attitude is that it’s a choice. You and I get to choose it. I can still remember many, many years ago, I was doing a conference and my wife Margaret, we’ve just been married now for 5502 years, but she was with me at the conference, and we were having a Q&A time. And one of the people at the conference looked at Margaret and they asked her, “Does John make you happy?” And when she asked that question, I thought, “Well, you know, that’s a good question. I think I’m a good husband.” And then Margaret surprised me and everybody by looking right at the person who asked the question and said, “No, he doesn’t make me happy.” I mean, there was just like a pause and a gasp. Everybody kind of thought, “Oh my gosh, Margaret just said John didn’t make her happy.” And I’m over there saying, “Hey, Margaret, honey, explain to them what you mean about I don’t make you happy.” She said, “Okay.” And then she said, “For the first 6 months of our marriage, that’s exactly what I expected him to do, make me happy. I was teaching school, and I would come home, and I’d say, ‘We have dinner together, and we’ll have a wonderful evening.’ And he might call me and said, ‘Honey, I’ve got another business issue I got to take care of, and I’m not going to be home until about 7:00. Go ahead and eat. I’ll be there.’ Or maybe I’d have to grade papers and eat.” And she just said, “I kept saying, ‘It’ll make me happy. It’ll make me happy.’ And she said, about 6 months into the marriage, she said, “I realized it wasn’t going well.” And then she said, “I came to the conclusion, the only person that can make me happy is me. And the moment that I choose happiness, I choose it,” she said, “Then John has added immeasurably to my happiness.” That was close. That was close.

Now, what was Margaret saying? Very simple. It’s a choice. Attitude is a choice. When I see a person that doesn’t have a good attitude, honestly, I really don’t feel sorry for them because they chose that. The attitude that you have right now, the attitude that I have right now, it’s a personal choice. The good news is, if we want to, we can change it. Several years ago, I decided to develop what I call a positive life stance. And a positive life stance goes something like this: Life is filled with good and bad. That’s a fact. And some of the good and some of the bad, I cannot control. It’s just life. And some of the good and some of the bad’s going to find me, trust me, it will. Good will find me. Bad will find me. Now, here’s where the difference begins to form. If I have a positive life stance about not only good but bad, both the good and the bad will get a little bit better. Just as if I have a negative life stance about the good and the bad, the good and the bad will get a little worse. And so, therefore, once I understand the power of the attitude, I choose a positive life stance. And I can promise you, with COVID-19 hopefully now behind us, look back at it and ask yourself the question, what kind of attitude did I have? Because I promise you, there are some people during that very adverse difficult situation they improved their life, and there were some people that their life just seemed to go south. It wasn’t the fact that COVID-19 hit us. It was the fact that our attitude became the Difference Maker. You see, what happens to me doesn’t have to determine what happens within me. I can’t control everything that happens to me, but I can control my attitude, the way that I think, the thing that happens within me. Attitude is essential for success.

Conclusion:

Let’s just review for a moment before I give you the last part of success: Relationships, so important to your success. The ability to get along with people. Equipping, honestly, it’s the only way that you can compound your business by training and equipping the other people around you so they can help you carry this load that you have. Attitude, how I think about myself, how I think about you, how I think about my clients, my employees, how I think about adversity like COVID-19 determines so much whether I grow from it or I don’t. So, the last thing I want to talk to you about, the letter “L” in the word “L,” relationships, equipping, attitude, and you’ve guessed it, you know what the “L” is all about, it’s about leadership. I’m KNN as the leadership expert. I’ve written dozens and dozens of books on leadership. In fact, it’s now a fact that I’ve written more material on leadership than any person’s ever lived in the history of the world. I live leadership. I love leadership. I teach leadership. And here’s why. The reason I started training leaders is because in my 20s, I came to a very important conclusion, of which 50 years later, the conclusion I had as a young, young man is stronger today as an older man. Here’s what I concluded 50 years ago: Everything, everything, everything rises and falls on leadership. That’s a fact. Not some things, not most things, everything. It’s true in the healthcare business, the business that you’re in. It’s true in government. It’s true in religion. It

Leadership Impact:

Be honest with you, bad leadership makes things worse. There’s a rising with good leadership, and there’s a falling with bad leadership. Let me close with this leadership thought: in my book, “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership,” the first law that you read about as you open the pages of that book is the law of the lid. And the law of the lid just simply says how well you lead determines how well you succeed. That’s a fact. That’s true in your business. That’s true in my business. That’s true in every person’s life.

The Law of the Lid:

Let me illustrate it visually. Let’s say I’m an average leader from a 1 to a 10, let’s say I’m a five, okay? And let’s say this hand represents my leadership lid, this is the leadership skill level of John Maxwell, these are my leadership gifts. Okay, this is my lid, this is how well I lead. It’s a five, it’s not a six, it’s not a, it’s just an average, I’m a five. If this is my leadership lid, and this hand represents my business, my business will come under but never go higher, never go higher than my leadership lid. In other words, if my leadership is a five, my business is going to be a four. That’s a fact. You say, “But you know what, I’m very skilled in my work.” You perhaps are, but your leadership lid is going to determine the size of your business.

Are Leaders Born?

Often I’m having people ask me during Q&A, they’ll say, “John, are leaders born?” And whenever they ask me that question, I always give them the same answer: of course they are. Just think about that question. Every leader I know is born. They’re not really asking the question, “Are leaders born?” They’re really asking, are there some people that are born with leadership gifts and skills and so they go to the front of the line, and there are people that are born without them and they go to the back of the line. That’s what they’re really asking, are is there such a thing as a born leader? And there are leaders that have what I would call, there are people that are born that would have intuitive leadership gifts to them, just like some people are born with musical gifts. So, it’s possible you could be born with some gifts that would help you to become a good leader. What I really know is that you can learn how to lead. That’s a fact, because leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. And the moment people break down leadership as influence and ask themselves, “How do I develop and gain influence in my life?” To be honest with you, at that point, they’re going to be very, very successful.

Personal Reflection on Relationships:

You know, it’s fun as John was talking today about the four levels of relationship. I’ve said this often, Becky, I’m sure you’ve heard it, and I’m sure you feel the same way in getting to help carry John’s legacy forward and building just this really clear communication approach to growth and leadership. I am sitting here today because of the relationships, let’s call it friendships, because that’s how John did it, but I’m sitting here today because of the relationships I have made along the way. I stand today on Linda Edgar’s shoulders. She’s been with John for 33 plus years. She knew me and my name before John Maxwell did, and she began to share that with John. And I think about multiple conversations you and I had in talking about how to grow together. It all started with relationships with John many years before.

Importance of Connections:

Yeah, and that’s kind of how we do everything, right?

It is. I really appreciate that John kind of breaks down being able to categorize those relationships, because I think a lot of people, including myself at one point, we struggle with relationships coming and going from our life as if we did something wrong or as if they did something wrong. But I was so relieved when he said you were really only going to have five or six secure relationships in your life, because I thought, “Oh, thank goodness,” because that let me off the hook a little bit. I was worried about that. But I think all of us can relate to that. It comes with seasons, and those relationships do as well, but being able to connect with people is a gift that it’s not something that most people are just gifted with, it’s something you intentionally have to do. I mean, I remember I, and just like you, we have kids that play sports, and we follow them around, and our lives become their lives, and their lives become ours, and our schedules. And I would purposely make an effort to get to know the parents of these kids, and so that there was always a family or a tribe, which we’re all longing for. But it was my way of forcing myself to really make connections to where anything you practice, anything you prepare for, you’ll get better with over time.

anyone else right and I think we sometimes forget that those relationships are the foundation of everything that we’re doing and so to me it’s important that I have people in my life that I can talk to about things that are going on in the workplace and and people that I trust and and that I respect and and I think for a lot of us it takes a while to get to that point where you feel like you have those people in your life yeah you know it’s interesting because when you think about a secure relationship and I I love the fact that John brought this up because you know you think about all the relationships in your life and how many people truly make you feel secure in that relationship and there’s not a lot of them and I think for a lot of us we we try to be everything to everybody and and sometimes we forget that that’s not realistic and that there’s only so much time in the day and so for me being able to identify those people that make me feel secure in my relationship and knowing that I have

Relationship Dynamics

You mentioned that standout statement for you that secure relationships, you only got five or six. I loved right there at the end where he said that any relationship that is significant we’re talking about the law of connection, the four levels of deep relationship. He said they’re going to have Seasons or time periods I think is how John said it, of going through each of this surface, structured, secure, solid. And I wonder for me in podcast listeners perhaps this applies to you but I wonder how many relationships that I did not give a chance to because they felt stuck in one of these four levels. Yeah, you know I’m not a surface guy but I love surface things I love to have a good time but I have a better time when I know there’s a little bit more depth to that relationship or potential depth. And then yet I also think sometimes I get so intense in relationships that I don’t enjoy the or I don’t allow others around me to enjoy that surface part of it because I’m just so intense. Yeah, it’s interesting because even surface I think today as opposed to even 20 years ago cuz John even makes a refence friends at the grocery store those kind of things to me today the perfect example of a surface relationship is social media. Yeah, I mean how many times do you have friends or they follow you and they think they know you and you think you know them and I mean you actually someday meet them in person and you feel like you know each other but it really is surface because how do you truly know someone through social media it’s it was an experience or or they they follow you whether it’s because they like what the content or they just find you aining or whatever it is but to me today that’s probably a really great example of a surface relationship. Yeah, and you know the other thing that really struck me as John was talking is this idea of structured relationships. Yeah, don’t we all have this opinion that relationships should just kind of be be we we should let it morph it should just be natural or organic and yet John gives us permission to be structured in our relationships. Yeah, one of the coolest things you’ve been in settings like this as I have one of the greatest things of John in my opinion is how when he’s sitting down at dinner with someone or when he’s preparing for dinner with someone he sits down and now in his phone that used to be a little notepad he would sit down and think of the questions that would Inspire relationship to develop around that table and think of the intention do I mean again and John is the epitome of this he teaches us just by example all the time but how many times do we just sit down on a plane at dinner next to someone and we just we just want to internal we just want to be in our own head and uh to have that intentionality that you’re going to create that conversation who who does that oh wait we’re supposed to do that yeah I had a leader one time phenomenal leader just incredible at certain things but struggled with the relationship side of things at time times um it’s kind of like John Maxwell told on his friend Dan Ryland who’s a dear friend of mine a listener to this podcast a great author if you have not read Dan Ryland but he said one time Dan as his executive Pastor way back when he was in San Diego Dan come walking in one day and walked right past everybody didn’t say hello to anybody didn’t do anything and John just kind of watched him go do that and he went in his office and said Dan you just passed all the people and Dan said I know John I just had so much work to do I had to get a lot of things done today and he said Dan you just passed the people and I and I thought about that because I was working with a leader one time and I said hey I need you to walk slowly through the crowd yeah I need you to spend time with people all the buzzword that you’ve heard John say and he okay I got it I got it and so I’ll never forget one week later I got all of these text I was traveling a lot then as well and I got all these texts and said man you’re not going to believe it this leader was incredible came by today really acted interested in my weekend it’s a new day with this leader the second week you’re not going to believe this the same exact thing it’s almost like a brand new person the third week they C they I got the text said hey you might want to tell this leader to pick a different time of the day because now I’m starting to feel like a calendar schedule rather than anything exactly but the point is this I believe that great leaders great relational leaders are structured in their relationship they’re incredibly intentional you would never know the amount of intentionality John puts into those dinner conversations because while it’s very structured he doesn’t lose the relational component of it yeah and I think he’s practiced that so much that it’s not even practice anymore I mean his intentionality has become a part of his DNA and isn’t that where we’re all trying to get to um I feel like as we do that it’s interesting how John talks in this in this particular lesson even about how leadership is all about the people it’s not about you and it’s very easy to forget those things sometimes and for me the statement that I have to remind myself is if the people are the why sometimes we have to be careful that we make the reason why we do things we also make it the reason why not to do things meaning let’s say um I I want to build a a business because I want it to be able to impact my family and I want to give more options and but then every time they have a book fair sale yeah I have to be there or I I’m not willing to make the sacrific so I make the reason why I do something sometimes that’s the excuse why not to do something because I can’t be I have I can’t take time away from my child in order to go build this business but then I need I want them to be able to someday pick the college they want to go to not the one I want I can afford to go to so there there is a give and take there and I think in leadership we do that same thing with people we say they are the reason why but then sometimes we bypass it because we’re making it the reason why not too yeah you know um it when you when you go to this next point of secure relationship so we talked about surface we get caught up in this man this is not going anywhere and we don’t cultivate it to get deeper and we lose perhaps could be a very long-term relationship but then we go to this structured and we get really intentional with it well now John’s talking about these secure relationships and you’ve already mentioned that there’s five or six maybe in your lifespan but how incredible is it when you’re around that person that just secures you in that relationship there’s nothing better and in in work in work life especially those of us that are leading teams and are part of big teams um it becomes a doggy dog or or it becomes a corporate letter to where we’re trying to climb it faster than

Navigating Relationship Dynamics (Continued)

Anybody else, we’re trying to compete with people rather than complete people, all the buzz words and yet in these secure relationships that John is teaching, these very few, there’s nothing better than feeling secure in a relationship especially even a work relationship. “Hey, we’ve got this, we’re going to make it happen.” I agree. I’ve also found moving from a secure relationship to a solid relationship there’s a difference in because secure we usually surround ourselves with people that like the same things or maybe they’re of the same faith or they have the politics or it’s comfortable and it feels safe as well. I think where you can move secure to solid is you’re not just moving with people that are for you or you fight the same fight. I sometimes it’s the opposite, so there’s an intention around that comfort zone and you and I have talked a lot about that comfort zone because we’ve made a lot of changes in our lives to push us out of that comfort zone whether we wanted to or not it took us that way. But when you’re okay and can feel a safe space with people that you don’t even agree with to me that is probably the most solid of all those relationships where you can disagree about politics you can have different faith systems but how you value people how you conduct yourself and then being okay with disagreeing I can’t think of a more solid relationship let alone a marriage. I mean show me a marriage where they agree on everything and I’ll be like you guys live in make yeah exactly exactly and that sounds amazing but I don’t think it really exists that’s exactly right get your head out of the clouds get your head out of the sand Ling yourself yes because I love it when John talks about uh when he wrote the book failing forward and he was going on a 10day cruise to see the fjords of norways the fjords of Norway and he goes right before we started going I realized it was 10 days and it only took God Seven to create the entire Earth it we’re taking 10 to view the fjords of nor way but then he makes this funny statement that I laugh every time he says and so margan and I talked and we went on the 10day F of nor that was a discussion and he said we had a discussion but she won and then he follows up and says anybody that has not anybody that doesn’t believe in compromise has not been married for very long it’s true so so let’s go now to this last segment which is solid relationships and John made a couple of points here a long-term relationship begins to develop complete trust and confidentiality exist and I know this is where all of us want to get to and can we get to it in a work environment or is that just kind of reserved for solid relationships at a very personal level and I I just believe and am experiencing that solid relationships can work in the workplace as well yeah I mean I think you and I are a perfect example of that I mean obviously some of our experiences allow us to connect to that but I’ve shared with things with you that I’ve shared with maybe two other people in my life and I know we’ve done the same thing so there’s definitely a common connection there but I think the basis of that are because it’s really easy for us to want to surround ourselves with people that just cheer for us all the time agree with us all the time but those that challenge you but do it in a respectful way the feeling of growing with people as opposed to agreeing with people is such a better feeling in the long term and the long run and that’s really where you can put those relationships you know I I would say and you included it’s not just the people that cheer for you the loudest it’s also the ones that can laugh the loudest with you at yourself at mistake I mean mistakes that would mortify the public to know that we’ve made and we can laugh with each other about them because there’s growth in that there’s also a safe space in that we’ve it we’ve experienced it and uh I hope everyone has experienced that what’s really hard is knowing that there are people that haven’t so giving them the tools and and giving them kind of the parameters of what that looks like John just does a beautiful job and which he always does he takes the complicated he makes it simple we can all digest it but the difference is hearing all of these things and what I hope the podcast listeners and our our Maxwell leadership family understand is there’s such a difference in getting information and applying it to man my my husband needs to hear this man my sister needs to hear this my best friend needs to hear this when you get this level of just principles and content the best thing you can do is it it always applies to you and then that radiates throughout you and for me that’s been a an ongoing process there’s still moments that I I still want to fix everybody around me realizing oh no that means I need to fix myself even more that’s exactly where it goes back to well you know and and I and I I’ll close here but let me say

Embracing Conflict and Growth

When you talk about it, you made a great statement there that I want to expand on just a moment here. You said it’s really important that we determine to grow with people rather than agree with people when we’re talking about the solid relationship piece, and John said this, he said when conflict is handled incorrectly, he said this in the teaching today, when conflict is handled incorrectly, the relationship will digress, it will go back, but when conflict is handled appropriately and correctly, the relationship will always, always go to the next level. And I thought how true is that? One of the coolest things, Becky, I’ll never forget this, when we were trying to figure out how do we structure a way for us to go build something to build John’s legacy together, and you said, “Mark, let me tell you this, when you have a challenge, bring it to me because that’s when I will respect you the most.” Absolutely, and you’ve lived up to that. When there is something that we don’t agree on, and we don’t always agree, when there’s something we don’t agree on, and I bring that with candor like we’ve talked about many times on this podcast, when I bring that in a way, it always strengthens our relationship, it always takes us to that solid place. And I wish everybody could understand that because the people that can’t handle conflict, they think the relationship is unstable in moments of conflict rather than realize the significance. But you realize what that says subconsciously? It says I don’t trust your maturity level to handle me bringing you this. So for me, when you bring that to me, all it does is reaffirm your belief in who I am, what I can handle. It’s actually a confidence builder instead of the same so emotionally getting to a place where you someone trusts you enough to bring that to you, even if it’s at first it stings, knowing that someone respects you enough to bring you some of the biggest problems in their life or the biggest conflicts or the biggest disagreements, you really have to take that as a compliment that someone recognizes what you are capable of. Boy, if that’s so true, it reminds me, I was looking, if you’re watching the video, you saw me, I’m looking through, there’s a helpful quote here from John O’Donohue, he says real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition. And I believe we’re truly recognized when we can, with security, give a point of view that not everybody else in the room is sharing. Yeah, it’s too many times to where we’re not really recognized because we’re trying to fit in, we’re trying not to become chaotic in our opinion or disruptive in a leadership team. And yet what John O’Donohue is saying is friendship is always an act of recognition. Now, he has pushed this to the next level in my opinion of how do we develop solid relationships, our standout statement today for you would be this: working together means winning together. And so now, Becky, I mean, you and I have had the chance for almost a year, we’re coming up on a year of getting to experience leadership in a work environment the Maxwell way. Yeah, and the whole time I’m reading these Five Points: Mutual enjoyment, respect, shared experience, I’m going to try this word as a southern guy, reciprocity, what a great job Mark, and then this idea of trust, and I’m sitting here, Becky, and I’m realizing as we speak how well our team is doing on these. I’m really excited about it. Yeah, I mean, you bring all of these values to the forefront. It’s very easy for us to look at our own experiences and almost rate them and grade them and find out where we’re dipping through it. Reminds me of going to church on Sunday and you’re thinking am I being punked like did the pastor get a note passed that this is directly for Becky and you’re supposed to evaluate all this aspect in your life today. It’s easy to hear that and recognize where the gaps are and where we need to fill in. And I, from somebody who has been in Maxwell’s world but really been in Maxwell leadership world most recently over the last year, it has been so reaffirming to know that those principles really are applied to people and valuing people at the center of all of those. But I think this is a great way to really go back and evaluate certain relationships in your life and it gives you maybe permission to move them from solid back to structure or from secure back to just structured. So it’s kind of a great time and I think it’s important to evaluate relationships either now you decide I need to put time and effort into that relationship or maybe I don’t. And again that phase kind of comes and goes throughout our life. You know one of the things and I love all of you for your comments and you step up to John and I all the time and talk about the podcast and its impact and I never get accustomed to women and men stepping up and saying that really helps me. One of the things, Becky, that I hear often is what you just said and that is we love the practical applications of how you are applying what John’s talking about. And you just mentioned going from solid to structured or and I was reminded both last week and then as I reflected this week on this podcast, I was reminded that surface has a place in relationships too. Yeah, the ability to have fun. In fact, John says in one of the five signs of solid relationship, mutual enjoyment, yeah, the ability to just have a good time. We recently we opened up our Florida offices, we’ve had a team and a presence down there for many years but we felt like we needed to uplevel our team dynamic, our brand, our image, and what we’re trying to communicate in our Florida offices and this idea of mutual enjoyment, Becky, I watched as you flew in from Utah, I watched as Deb and Gino flew in from New York, and I watched as us Converge on our team in Florida as a leadership team and just kind of bring enjoyment, mutual enjoyment to this ribbon cutting experience in the

Enjoying the Journey

Um, all The Umbrellas of Maxwell leadership, but it’s important. It’s important to enjoy the journey, not just the accomplishment or just the process. I mean, the process has to be a part of the goal, not just the outcome. Well, and I watched you, Becky. I watched John, John, John says, “Hey Mark, what are you doing tomorrow? You’re in West Palm Beach.” I’m in his backyard; he lives in West Palm in the winter. And he said, “What are you doing?” I said, “Well, we’re opening our new office. It’s a ribbon-cutting. Can I come?” I said, “Of course you can always come, John.” I said, “I didn’t ask you because you’re busy; you just got home.” He and I have been traveling a lot. He said, “No, no, no, no, I want to be there.” And of course, he came, and he always makes every party so much better. But I watched him pull you aside and talk about something that he and Margaret are working on their new place, and you guys just having this brilliant fun time. And I went, “That’s what mutual enjoyment looks like.” There are just those moments where um, you almost have these inside jokes because you can relate to something. And it is different for everyone. We all have people that we um, just naturally lean towards because there’s just that mutual enjoyment of just simply being in each other’s presence. And then on the other side, do you have a friend? I have a friend like this where some people look at you kind of like, “Why are you guys friends?” Yeah, maybe they’re what I call, which I hate this term, but they’re too much for some people. Yeah, and for me, I love that someone is just authentically them, even if it even if it offends other people to a point. I love seeing someone just own who they are, love who they are. They’re not worried about how other people are processing them. And there’s just that mutual enjoyment aspect. And I don’t know if it’s pure entertainment or it’s just a level of respect, but I, I think it’s important to have people around us like that. Yeah, I’m, I’m that friend, by the way. I’m the friend that everybody goes, “Why are you friends with them?” Yeah, so if you don’t know who that person is in your life, you’re that person. That’s exactly right. If you do not know how that’s you, it’s you.

Shared Experiences

Hey, let’s talk a little bit about, I, I do want to go. I don’t want to run out of time today before we get to the final two things, but I do want to talk about this concept of shared experiences. You know, one of the biggest things that I love about John and having traveled with him now as of last month, today May 1st of 2022 was my 22-year anniversary. And what I love about John, of all the things, and the top five would be his ability to create memories. Now, in this lesson is shared experiences, but I will tell you there is a bonding that happens. We, we were just recently at a um, golf experience with an incredible, gifted talented human being that’s brought a lot of people of faith into a worship environment. And um, in this environment, we, we began to kind of share a new experience with a new circle of friends. And uh, I posted this, this Facebook post with Chris Tomlin and his wife Lauren, and John, and some of you follow us on social media, whether it’s Instagram or Facebook. And there was this sheer joy was I saw because you saw it because of the shared experience of accomplishing something both of them and what little bit of role I got to play in it as well. What none of us knew that we could accomplish together. We knew we had just accomplished something that was two and a half times greater than our highest hope of accomplishment. Wow. And the sheer joy when that number and that accomplishment was announced, I just was able to capture it. We didn’t shoot a lot of pictures that night. It wasn’t really appropriate. But that one, I was just like, y’all got to do that again. I got to post that because it’s this shared experience. Was the result great, Becky? Absolutely. I could bore you with all the details. It wouldn’t bore you, but I’m not going to take the time here. It was incredible. Yeah. But the greatest part of that evening was the shared experience part. And you got to do it together. Together. You weren’t by yourself. You had a moment where you could see it on their face and your face. And again, that’s the moment that will stick with you forever. Let me, let me, let me tell you this recently. I’m going to talk another moment. Um, I was at High Point University with Neato cubain. And it’s a round table, and you’ve already heard the leadership team meeting. So you know exactly where I’m going. I’ve heard John say often that a leader’s greatest disappointment at the end of a great experience is that they don’t have somebody sitting beside them, right? Right. I mean, we get these things, and maybe you’re even watching this podcast, maybe you bought the book, the new 25th edition, but you haven’t bought it for somebody. I’m telling you, you are missing the joy of shared experiences. I, I said it that Neo cubain round table. And the whole time I could barely even concentrate on how powerful the experience was because I said my entire leadership team should be here with me. Yeah. And that’s what we’re talking about with shared experiences. My, my challenge to you, to me today is what are you experiencing that would go to the next level if you would just share it with somebody? Again, maybe it’s as simple as this book. And for those of you that are listening, I’m holding up the new edition of the 25th edition of the 21 laws of leadership. Don’t dig into that book by yourself. Don’t go through the digital product by yourself. And I know you’re going to go to the show notes and hear more about getting that. Don’t go to events by yourself because the power of solid relationships is in the shared experiences. It is. And you even recognizing having that thought in that moment that you wished your lead team was there very easily moves us into that second sign of respect because of the level of respect that you have for your team and your ability to recognize not only their capabilities but their potential shows that sign of respect. You know, when he actually quotes, “You can’t make another person feel important if you secretly feel they are a nobody.” Almost hurts my heart. Yeah, that not only is that happening, but that we’ve all done it at some point. If we’re honest with ourselves and recognizing that everyone has something to contribute and that we can learn something from everyone, I mean, that’s just the basis of that foundation. But in regards to your lead team, they have proven to you time and time again who

Reciprocity and Trust

Solid relationship you want, because if it’s ever just one-sided, whether that’s you as the leader always feeling like you’re giving, you’re going to want something back at some point, or whether you’re the one always receiving, you’re never going to feel like you’re authentically bringing something to the table. Yeah, and I think over time, you th that’s where those solid relationships happen is you recognize there is a balance between those things. Because if you’re doing and doing and doing and someone’s not returning or even receiving it, there’s going to be a resentment that builds up over time. And then how do you have a healthy relationship, yeah, with that? So, um, I definitely, from what you have modeled, Mark, is the epitome of in our lead team meetings, sitting back and really listening and making an effort to be the last one to contribute. For several reasons. One, he wants to honor the leaders in that room, um, but two, I think because of his level of influence, he tries not to influence someone upfront. Like, he really truly wants to know your thoughts and what direction you would go on this, and creating that space, um, again, it leads into all of those things. I mean, it’s going to have a great experience for the mutual experiences. It shows respect, etc. We’re now sharing an experience that we reciprocated. All of those things. And then we can move into that trust aspect, and it shows that you trust us enough to be in a safe space to even if we don’t agree but to at least voice it. Yeah, I I I appreciate you complimenting me because this last uh, point I’m going to uh just bring myself right back down to ground because John says the five signs of a solid relationship, and he he finishes it with number five, trust. And uh, you were in a meeting with me recently to where I attempted to make right a situation that I feel like not only violated what I say on this podcast, I feel like it violates John’s relationship, uh, John’s T content. I believe it violated some leaders on my team, and I think the ones that really suffered the most were our team members that were lost in the reality of a lack of trust. So let me explain. And again, thank you for saying something nice about me so people won’t tune out now and go that guy is a loser. But I I realized something we we teach around here, Becky, and you know this and you live this, that when you ask somebody to do something, whether you empower them for a project or a position, we established that we vetted everything we needed to vet when we assigned or empowered that responsibility to that individual. And so trust is at the all-time highest it can be. It’s 100%. Yeah, John calls this for all of you podcast viewers and listeners, John calls this putting a 10 on everyone’s head. You have a 10. You have a 10. Is yours to prove that I was wrong in putting a 10 on Your Head. We do the same thing with trust. Yeah, if we have properly vetted interviewed or observed a human being to join the team or to take over own ownership of a project, they deserve 100% trust. Yeah. Well, I violated that. I asked somebody to handle something in our organization, actually Human Resources. I asked them to own it. It was owned differently at the leadership level. It was owned differently with a daily administrative level. And I never could get comfortable that they could treat human resources, treat the culture that I have fought for for 22 years as good as me or a couple of people that had been around me a long time, right? And that’s normal. That’s there’s nothing bad with that. But it’s wrong. It’s wrong. And I and I asked them, I said okay, it’s yours. They talked me into restructuring and reassigning. And I said okay, it’s yours, it’s yours, it’s yours. But the whole time, every time that was a little bump or there was a little challenge or a little Ripple, I’d go, “Hey.”

Leadership and Trust

Have you checked with this other person? Hey, why didn’t you check with me on that? How many love that leader that says it’s yours but check with me before you do everything? Check with me before you think. Not fun, it’s not very fun. Fun, and I did this and I did it over and over again until that leadership Behavior by me began to wear out the team’s ability to feel comfortable in what they knew to do to help people. And we had a huge challenge, a challenge that if you dealt with just the behaviors or the decisions in the situation would have been terrible, right? But fortunately for me, this time, I don’t, I wish I could get it right every time. Fortunately for me this time I went whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. I don’t want to talk about the details of messing it up. I want to talk about what caused the missteps in the first place. And what I discovered was it was my inability or my lack of determination or my lack of commitment to give Trust on the front end. I was waiting for TR trust to be earned. And by doing that and micromanaging that, I, the senior leader who had violated the trust commitment that I make with people, had created the problem. Yeah. Now you said in that meeting, you watched our team really rally around that. But I think my biggest point that I want to make here is that truly for there to be solid relationships for me, Becky, for you, for our team, for your podcast listener, podcast viewer, you will not have solid relationships without this trust factor. It’s true. And I don’t believe trust is earned. I believe trust is given. And I believe trust is established after the leader extends trust, yes. But so many times as Leaders, we go, “You got to earn my trust,” right? And in leadership, I don’t believe that’s accurate. It’s got to be opposite. So, I agree. The same way that optimistically you always give people the benefit of the doubt until they prove you wrong. And you might have to adjust some boundaries. I think trust should be the same way, yep. And when we are equipping leaders, I mean, if you have a team of people that you’re equipping as well being able to give them that um is everything. It’s also how they see themselves through your eyes. So what you’re allowing them to do is what you’re telling them you believe. I’ll give you an example, um, I’m a huge University of Utah fan, my husband is alumni. We go to Every football game, buy way too many tickets, even if they’re winning or losing, but I, I love it, um, Coach Whittingham who is the head coach there was a young man one year his job is to it just punt return like that’s all he does catches the ball runs it back they punt it he catches it they run it back from people that are not football fans I’m just breaking it down uh trying not to get too technical this young man um had broken almost all the records at the school for PS returned touchdowns. I mean a 100 yard uh touchdown Which is almost unheard of in in football altogether well there was one particular game where again punted off he caught it he ran it back and he was it was like a 98 yard touchdown and right before the end zone they sometimes these young men do the celebration thing where they throw the ball back under them and he had done that so in his mind he had crossed the goal line and had thrown the ball back well the ref nobody blew their whistle everybody in the crowd’s going crazy they’re yelling they’re screaming there’s a touchdown and the ball is on the ground it’s a live ball because he never crossed the threshold with the ball which is an actual technical touchdown one of the kids on the other team I mean this is like 30 seconds 60 seconds Ball’s just on the ground ref is just standing there looking at the ball not blowing his whistle and one of the kids on the other team realizes that’s a live ball picks it up runs it all the way down and the ref calls a touchdown wow wow the whole crowd it was silent have you ever been in an arena with tens of thousands of people and it’s completely silent this was that moment now everybody in the crowd after watching it on the on the big screen thought you better kick that kid out of the school let alone off the field I mean they were just ready to take him Coach Whittingham as a leader knew because guess what happens after a touchdown somebody kicks the ball again and you have to return this kick I coach knew to put that kid right back out on the field wow I don’t think there’s a moment he probably been more mortified or questioned his ability or his egoo had been bruised I mean it was probably the lowest of the low moment and Coach Whit said nope this is your job brush it off you get back out there and you should have seen everybody in the crowd like I’m pretty sure they booed their own player when he came back out it was that bad and that kid had to catch the ball but as Leaders it’s so easy for us to say I’ll pick it up or I’ll adjust or I’ll just make other arrangements but imagine what it says to that young man to say no you made a mistake that’s all that was and and to give them that self-confidence and to push them through I mean that gives you so much perspective in life I mean whether that’s your child or that’s you know someone in your leadership team but trust on both sides has to has to work so they’ve proven through time that you can earn more trust I think that you can give them more they’re capable of more you’ve been able to see that with your own eyes but I think the second part to trust is forgiveness mhm because nobody’s perfect I mean the mark koh’s the Becky bcells the John Maxwells as as great intention as we have as much as we’ve learned as many books as we’ve read we’re still going to make mistakes so being around people that also understand that the flip side to trust are that second phase is forgiveness and letting it go and then re-empowering and there’ll be several times that you re-empower re-empower now if you have to re-empower too much you can start to question maybe I’ve given them a little too much trust in that process and the worst thing that can happen is somebody who just gets really good at apologizing and doesn’t get good at changing their actions so trust is it’s a it’s a big category in that aspect the willingness and it speaks a lot to you mark the willingness to recognize that about yourself and then to share that not just with our team but to all the world and the podcast uh I mean you’re just rebuilding and you you you establishing trust you’ve reaffirmed it and it is an ongoing process it’s not something you do once it’s it’s not like you got married at the altar and now it’s fine you don’t have to work on it at all it’s a relationship welcome back uh for those of you viewing uh welcome to the studio it’s good to be in studio with you uh Chris I’m so glad you’re here buddy um for those of you listening in join us sometime and um notice that Chris has a voice for radio and a face for YouTube I I’ll

Equipping Leadership

Team and your people and those that on your team, eight out of 10 need you or your leaders to be equipping them. The other thing it’s said that I think is just important is they said only 40% of people feel like they have a chance to learn and grow at work and only 33% feel someone at work encourages their development. Now John talks about the law of the lid and I think in organization and in teams our lid is this topic right here is equipping so I want to start off about the fact that John number one says that equipping has to be the number one responsibility of a leader. Now listen, you are crazy busy you’re running multiple companies talk to us a little bit about how do you think about that and how do you act on that of that being your number one responsibility to be able to build this Legacy that you’re building standing on the shoulders of John with our organization how do you go about that how do you manage that how do you find time for that what does that look like in your schedule?

Well so let me I want to answer that Chris and and I want to answer it this way because as John was talking today and we didn’t even mention this really in our pre-comments with one another and our and our incredible team that helps you and I do these podcasts but I think first a leader has to really understand what I believe is a big difference between equipping empowering and delegation absolutely okay so let’s let’s we’re going to we’re going to save equipping because that’s where we want to go today but let me tell you the difference between empowering and delegation. I delegate the things I don’t want to do that people should be able to do and I want to get rid of that and I want it out of sight out of mind and so I delegate you and I have worked for leaders in our past that they were Chief delegators they didn’t care if you had the power they didn’t care if you had the resources they just care that you had the responsibility they didn’t give you power they didn’t give you resources they just gave you responsibility and there’s nothing more frustrating with a leader than to be delegated something too with no power and no resources that’s good now empowering is is a little bit better because we don’t just delegate we actually give you the authority you have the authority I have been here with John he’s now promoting Ed me to the CEO and Chris I want you to be over business developing and merging in acquisition with the organization and I look at everybody that says whatever Chris says it’s me saying it he has the power to do that and you do quite well sometimes but then there is a time to where you have been empowered but you don’t have the resources right I think that’s where equipping is what John’s trying to do equipping is giving you the power and the resources and the experience in other words we’ll find out a little bit later in the lesson that a really good equipping strategy makes sure that you have experience before you have responsibility delegation there is no experience you just have responsibility most of the time with delegation re resources are not even thought and so when I’m listening to this lesson I put it in a very high level of leadership called equipping not empowering not delegation let’s now answer your question because it’s different every time we get a new role and responsibility yeah this is True Confessions and by the way every Wednesday I feel like it’s confession time for Mark Cole the things I need to work better it’s actually an intervention that the organization has decided to to implement Chris comes in as an ambassador for all of our leadership every Wednesday to try to uh get me back on track and today’s really no exception because um the pace that I’m running the pace that we all are running is causing me to shortcut equipping and you can’t shortcut equipping again John’s going to show us John did

Equipping Others for Leadership

We’re talking about these differences, and for me, I was like if I go down this route of someone delegating something or empowering to me, there’s more frustration right in that from my leader to me that I feel towards my leader than if there is true equipping. And then you just added on top of that where you talked about not only do I need to equip them, but then I need to make sure I stay in equipping them, not just holding them accountable to that. And I thought that was a great, great illustration for that.

You know, I, before we move to the next point, Chris, I mean, John gives us three questions here in this point, you may have some comments on this, and I want you to make them because you’ve been in the organization a long time. But I mean, think about if every leader that’s listening to this podcast or watching it would do what John challenges, do right now, mic drop podcast over, go to work. And it’s these three questions:

1. How much time do I spend weekly equipping others?
2. How many people are we equipping?
3. How many people are we equipping?

I’ve got in my mindset now I’ve got one or two people that I need to be equipping so that I can get some things off my plate, rather than who can I equip to help me reach for the future. I’m trying to equip a select few to help me with my present challenges. And as CEO, if I don’t keep equipping people for our future, rather than equipping people to get my current schedule in check, I’m going to lose the ability to grow bigger. Yeah, that was convicting to me, dude. And then finally, this third question, how many people are we equipping, goes back to that same thing, man, I’m just equipping just a couple right now, and I am paralyzing or stymieing our growth for the future. The smaller my pool of equipping is, that’s good. I appreciate the transparency. I’m going to jump in this bat with you because as I listen to John and even now just our conversation, I feel convicted as a leader inside the organization when I look at those questions. And so no doubt one of the takeaways for you, whether you’re watching us today on YouTube or you’re listening to us, is to really get alone and answer those questions transparently, then maybe even ask some of your top key leaders to answer them on your behalf and see where there is a gap for that.

Here’s where I was thinking when you were just talking about that. I read an article some time ago where Harvard Business Review said 85% of the time of most successful leaders they interviewed and studied 200 leaders across the board. I don’t know the filter what they decided, but 85% of their time was focused on the EQ side of leadership, the emotional intelligence and connection with their people. 85% of the time, you and I are sitting here saying we’re convicted, we don’t even know if one day we spent. Now, did we do some emotional intelligence connections? We did. But did we get specific about the equipping side? I don’t know that we have. And so I would challenge each and every listener and viewer to really have a conversation with yourself about that because that’s how we do multiply the impact of what you want to do. Now, let me go to that. I’m so sorry. No, you’re fine, go ahead, Jake just paused the clock cuz we got so much talk about. But let me, right before you were a part of this same conversation, Jared Kagel’s in the studio with us, he helps me with content, he helps us all with content. Right now he’s helping John with this new book. Drum roll, you can’t wait for it, it’s going to be the laws of communication. Can’t wait to open that up. And he was talking about John Jumping On a Plane we’ve both got an international trip that we’re preparing for currently at the time of recording. And John taking time to make sure that he spends time equipping somebody that is going to give him back some things that he needs on this trip. I was recently on a trip with John and Jared where John was laying out with Jared these are the things that I need, this is what will help me. And then he’s following up and saying hey as Jared said in studio a while ago, 10 o’clock, 10 o’clock a.m. I’ll tell you it wasn’t news to Jared, 10:00 may have been news to Jared, but that the timeline was coming wasn’t because a month ago we were on a plane, and I heard John preparing Jared for that. You never get to establish back to me and you playing the conviction card. You never get too successful in life that you don’t have to be intentional in equipping. Yeah, this weekend’s expectation of Jake, have it to me by 10 began a month ago on a plane of equipping, because there was intentionality around equipping so you made a point there that yeah, equipping is important but intentionality around that equipping is the thing that’s going to make it feel less like delegation and unrealistic expectation because intentionality and due diligence was done in the equipping process, that’s good. And not only intentionality but in that story you just talking about the why behind 10:00 is coming right because then if you explain the why to the team members and you bring them along in that process it doesn’t feel like a project a timeline a delegation they feel part of it. So I love that.

Now, I want to move on to Point number two, which by the way we’re not going to cover all four Jake doesn’t let us cover all the content once we’re in here together. But I but I love this because I think you have to then communicate the priority of this to the organization. You know, the last question that you just reviewed for us that John talked about is how many people then are they equipping so in this conversation you’re my leader so your question to me is how many, Chris, how many people are you equipping in order to help us accomplish this Vision we’re after? You said this statement, I want to share this with our audience, um, in one of our leadership team meetings, you came in and you didn’t even say hello you didn’t even say hey how’s everybody’s weekend whatever you came in and you said all right here we go, you couldn’t be here today who’s sitting in your seat? Well, yep, and all of us were like don’t pick on me and you were just like go who is it Chris who is it right and so Becky who is it whatever and I was like man like that yeah that’s so good if if we were doing this in a way that we should be doing it as Leaders of organization we would we would have it right there but what you were doing was you were implementing and living out this hey I’m going to communicate this is a top priority for all of our people so talk about that talk about the desire that you have as a CEO of the Enterprise to make sure that your people and that you are continually emphasizing and communicating the power and not only the power but the need cuz it’s so critical

Developing Relationships for Effective Equipping

In the meeting, I was really challenging them because we’ve not moving the ball forward as quickly as I feel like that we should. And I was going, guys, who is your replacement and inviting them into it because they probably can make you better. So it wasn’t just let’s find a replacement, it was who else is brainstorming with you because your replacement may have better ideas than you because you’re too close to the challenge. Yeah, love that.

But as I’m listening to you ask me that question today, as I’m reminded that I asked that question again one week ago, which means I may be asking that question way too much. I realized that while I have a plan on who would be their replacement, I have no intentionality on how I am equipping them today. So what am I going to do, Chris? Am I going to wait to equip my bench when they’re actually in the game, or am I going to equip them while they’re on the bench so that if an injury happens, they’re able to get right in? Your son plays football, you played football, no coach waits until the injury to equip the second string. The second string is making the first string better by learning the game plan by scrimmaging with them in the leadership game in minding your company podcast listeners. Are we scrimmaging enough with the backups to make sure that they are equipped when they become a starter? Yeah, and I’m telling you this right here, I need to quit recording a podcast and go equip some people because I’ve got a plan, yeah, I just am not backing that plan up of equipping to make sure they’re ready for the game.

To further that illustration and then I’m going to move on to the last point, you look at, now we’re biased, we’re in the South, so we’re big SEC fans. When you look at the level of schools at the highest level in the SEC, the reason they’re successful is they have a bench that is ready to step in at any point in time, yep, injury draft next man up, and they talk about that, and they talk about it. So do we run our teams like that, do we run our companies like that? You and I are sitting there shaking our head no together. And but I was doing that just for our viewers not for a podcast listener. I didn’t want the podcast listeners and so I love this, right? You got to communicate this because it has to be a priority not only to you as a leader, you got to back. You know I’m not going to cover point four but John lays out an incredible model, yeah, and the first one he talks about is model it. So leaders before you go communicating this, you need to be modeling it so that then your people understand what that looks like. That’s the first step of the five M’s that John gives us. Okay, now last point all right, I really want to hear from you on this because you and I we have a bent towards this, and John talks about we have to develop a relationship with those that we equip, and I think this is critical. This is the foundation, I think, to all influence. We call it John calls it level two and the five levels of leadership that increase your influence by developing relationships. You cannot equip somebody and you cannot pull the best out of them and have them lead at higher levels unless you build a relationship with them, which is why leaders you have to be very careful depending on the size of your organization how many direct reports you do have right CU everything we’re talking about here today you can’t do seven 8 nine 10 times be your direct report. So be careful about that. Talk about you and how and how you lead and equip people by starting because I know you do this so well with the foundation of building a relationship with people and why that’s so important.

Yeah, and and thank you for giving me a lot of kudos on it because I do believe that it is a strength of mine I today and admitting that and hopefully not coming across as cocky or got all of that together I must also admit that while it’s the strength of mine I’m not so sure it’s a discipline of mine right now and I believe that if you find something that you’re very good at you got to have the strength and recognize it’s a strength but you’ve got to have the discipline to keep it present when situations responsibilities begin to shift around you. I was reminded of that recently I was in invited to stand in with somebody that used to work on our team uh Chris and I got to be in his wedding and I went out with one of our teammates that also was in the wedding and I and I got to spend it was an hour and a half from our lodging to the event venue which is where the rehearsal and the wedding was so it was about 6 and 1 half hours worth of drive time and in this 6 and a half hours of time I had one of our leaders on our leadership team in the room or in the car with me. And what occurred to me as I was on the plane coming home from that experience it occurred to me how little I had been spending in cultivating that relationship. Now was the relationship fine did we pick it right up where we left it the last time we went to play golf or ski or whatever we have done together recently absolutely we did because of years and years and years of operating in my strength but here’s what I discovered you can have the strength but not discipline and without both of them you will not be effective in equipping without both the strength and the discipline to stay in that strength and thank you for complimenting me I do think I’m pretty good at that how long have you and your wife and me and my wife been trying to get on the calendar for a dinner don’t answer the question it’s been a long time listeners it’s been a long time but that’s really important because you and I both want to invite our our better halves let’s be really clear that’s the case to into what we do on a daily basis CU you and I both travel a lot and yet today as I’m telling this I have the strength to do that and sit down with you and Sarah and me you and Stephanie and Sarah would have a brilliant time but do I have the discipline and that’s the question on this you may have the strength or not but you better have the discipline whether you have the strength or not to keep it present in your leadership and listen leaders Mark brings up a really good point here the discipline part of this is leaders default to saying I don’t have time to do that I don’t I can’t put that on my calendar and so not only do you have to be intentional and disciplined about it but you be creative about it you are already.

Closing Thoughts on Equipping and Empowering Leaders

Mark just used a great example of being intentional, utilizing the time of a car ride to help, equip, invest in, and build a deeper relationship with one of our key leaders. So think about it creatively because I know everybody’s answer is, “I don’t have time to do that.” Figure out time to do it because it’s key.

Now, listen, I’m going to throw it to you to close up, but I want to give you one last statement to let you react to. I deal with this, I know a lot of leaders probably deal with this as well. We have a little campaign around here called “Free Mark,” okay? And he’ll talk a little bit about this. But we have to, as leaders, let go of our desire to have direct control over situations inside our organization. John has taught us if someone can do something 80% as good as we have, give it to them. It’ll create a natural mentoring, equipping conversation, and then they’re probably going to be able to do it better than you.

As you wrap up for us, just react to that comment about us wanting to, especially with your change in leadership and owning the Maxwell leadership and the shift that you and John are making in your relationship of having some key decisions and a key part of our PNLs and different things that you have to relinquish control of to get above all that, to continue to equip and develop people and get out of the weeds.

Music starts

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results.