EntreLeadership - #342: 5 Buckets of Leadership You're Responsible For with Dr. Henry Cloud

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

If you’re currently in a leadership role—or even if you aspire to be—psychologist and leadership expert Dr. Henry Cloud says you must accept one thing: You can’t do it alone. Sure, as the leader you are ultimately responsible for the bottom line and overall success of your endeavors, but that doesn’t mean you are all your business needs. Tune in as Dr. Cloud explains what he calls the five buckets of leadership—and why your business won’t make it unless all of them are “full.”   entreleadership.com/podcast Episode #288: Dr. Henry Cloud—5 Keys to Future Success Good to Great by Jim Collins The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling Integrity by Dr. Henry Cloud Multipliers by Liz Wiseman Necessary Endings by Dr. Henry Cloud Dr. Henry Cloud’s Leadership University Family Business Session The 6 Major Mistakes That Will Destroy Your Family Business Review this episode for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's been said that if you're leading and no one is following, you aren't actually leading at all. You're just taking a walk. Leadership demands that we be exceptional at working with and through other people. So your ability to connect with others will either be your greatest blessing or your greatest burden. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, Alex Judd, and today's guest is an expert in understanding working with, and leading people. Dr. Henry Cloud is a psychologist, speaker, and bestselling author who has dedicated his career to helping men and women excel in their personal and interpersonal lives.

And as he brilliantly communicates in this conversation, the difference maker in this arena is always leadership. I mean, there are a thousand good definitions of leadership, right? You hear a lot of them, like, it's influence and a lot of different stuff. But I come at it from, a little bit of the scientific perspective, if you will, because I'm a psychologist. And what I'm interested in is how humans are wired and how they're wired to not only achieve things, but how they're wired to achieve things with other people. So it's very personal.

You know, leadership is personal, but it's interpersonal. And so long time ago, I started kind of playing with that question, you know, what is leadership? And where I kind of landed on that was leadership is a path of taking things from here to there. And that always involves people. And so I got really fascinated with how we're designed to do that. And the greatest metaphor, I think, for a leader is the way a human being's brain is constructed. Because you think of an executive, right? Well, the human brain has something called executive functions.

You know, the difference between us and a German Shepherd is German Shepherd barks, but the German Shepherd never sits back and asks, I wonder if that was helpful. Never asked that question. Was it too loud? Was it, you know, will it get me where I want to be on Thursday? And we have the capacity to get above our barking, above our natural patterns, and observe those and do something that no other species can do, and that's leadership,

because you have the capacity to think about a desired future state that doesn't exist. That's pretty remarkable. That's pretty remarkable. Now, there's a lot of words for that, desired future state, and the biggest one we hear is a vision.

And so I started playing with, to get to the definition, I started playing with, okay, now, when the brain has a vision, Right? So I'm standing right here in this room, and I've got a vision. I got a desired future state. I think this interview could go better if we stood over there.

Say, I'm here now, and that's there. So how does the leader, the brain, get that done? Now watch this. You say, okay, brain, go over there. It can't do it. The brain can't do it alone. The brain can't do it alone. And it can't do it for itself.

So the very next thing your brain does is it immediately engages the talent that it's going to need to pull that off. So your brain immediately sends out recruiting messages and figures out what talent do I need on this team. I've got to have a couple of legs. I've got to have some eyes to focus. I've got to have an inner ear to balance me. And it engages the talent. And then the very next thing is, okay, time. to go. Got my team together, right? No. Am I going to walk? Am I going to run? Am I going to ride a

bike? No, I got to figure out the best strategy to get from here to there. Okay, I think in this instance, it's probably the best strategy is I'm going to walk. But that strategy's got to have a plan, and your brain instantaneously comes up with the best plan. I'm going to take seven steps, and they're going to be a certain increments on a certain timeline. It's doing this at the billionth of a second. So this is the neuroscience. This is actually what's going on when you walk from one place to another. In the executive functions of the brain. Fascinating. See, the executive, the CEO, is putting this company together. Where do I want to get to? Who am I going to have to pull together to pull that off? What's the strategy? And then, okay, let's go. Well, you start off

and then what happens. Well, what if I'm wandering off path here? You have accountability measurement and accountability systems that immediately kick in and they measure, am I going at the right heading? Am I going to right speed? Am I going too slow? And then as quickly as they measure those, they adapt. So to me, leadership is about the executive functions of a human. And that involves a clarity of where you want to go, bringing the right talent around you, a clear strategy. And then once you start to execute that strategy, measuring the right things, and quickly fixing and adapting what you find when you measure stuff, that's accountability. That's leadership.

And you can take, I just defy anybody to do this, you take all the leadership content out there in the universe, and they're great books, but they're going to fall in one of those columns. You know, one of the great was, take Collins. Good to great. What did he say? You got to figure out. What are the seats on the bus and who are the people in the seats? Engaging talent.

That's the second column. There's other books about once you got the talent on the bus, how do you engage them? How do you keep them engaged? What signals? What's the messaging? What's the communication? All in that column. And then you look at great measurement and accountability.

Chris's book, The Four Disciplines, the Four Ds. You look at all this stuff, and it's basically, to me, leadership is how you help a person get in touch with and properly utilize the executive functions that they have. And the problem is that we, as humans, all of us are good in maybe one or two of those areas and not as good as in another. So we need other people? Well, not only that, you need other people. But see, if you're leading something, you're going to, by default,

you're going to create an organization or a team or a department in your own image. if you don't watch it. So if I'm good at vision, but I suck at accountability, I'm going to get people moving, but nobody knows how we're doing or where we're going. Maybe I'm conflict-avoided,

so I can't hold people accountable. So now my business starts to look a lot like me, which is great in some areas, but not so good in other areas. So to your point, the leader is not able to do all of it, but the leader's responsible for making sure

all five of those buckets happen. And so just straight down the list for those listening, the five buckets one more time. It starts with vision. It starts with vision. Then it goes to engaging the right talent. And then it comes to getting the right strategy slash plan. Because the strategy without a plan is a strategy.

And a plan without a strategy is just activity. And so, but then once you start to execute that, you know, a lot of people will measure where they are in relation to the goal. That's never going to get you there. If you go on a diet and your goal is to lose 50 pounds, you keep stepping on the scales and that's all you're measuring. You're not going to get there. What you've got to measure is the right activities that are moving the needle. The actions you're taking.

The actions you're taking. And then you have to have systems in place that hold people accountable to those actions. And then the fifth one is quickly fixing and adapting to what you find when you measure things. And what people do is, you know, for example, If I'm kind of open-ended, and I don't have a lot of closure parts of me, I might be measuring stuff, but I might wait six weeks before I address that. And great businesses, especially in today's ever-changing, adapting moment by moment, if you're not fixing stuff as soon as you find it, not only are you letting patterns begin to form,

but worse than that, you're not learning what's working and not working. You've got to be constantly monitoring and changing as a result of what you're monitoring. That's right. And it's like an autopilot on an airplane. When the wind blows it a little off course, it measures that. But it quickly gets you back to where you got to go. And if I can dive a little deeper on the accountability thing. Another thing people do wrong in accountability is they'll measure how somebody is doing it and say,

well, I'm going to hold them account. and they find out, well, you know, we didn't do it. You didn't do what you said you were going to do. The first question you always have to ask is, did we do what we said we were going to do? So here's where ballistic in-charged leader steps in. You didn't do what you said? Come on, I'm going to hold you accountable.

You got to do it. Don't do that. If we didn't do what we said we were going to do, hit pause and ask, why not? Because you're continuing to push something that probably, probably has a root cause as to why that didn't happen. That's so powerful because all the time when we're coaching business leaders, we see they will beat their heads against the wall trying to get something to occur that's not occurring. And the thing they keep saying is you didn't do what you said you were going to do.

You didn't do what you said. So the proper way is to really look at the source of why it's not occurring. Why is it not occurring? Maybe that person's miscast. Maybe you as a leader have given them incompatible. assignments. They can't get both of them done. Maybe they're under resource. Maybe they're lazy and need to be fired. We don't know, but don't continue to do the same thing expecting different results. So find out the why, and then you can fix it and move on. And adapt as needed.

You know, if something's broken, just to keep trying to cram it into the hole, it's never going to work. It's never going to work. You just can make a lot of people really frustrated. And you're losing time. And you're not learning. That's the big deal. You're not learning. I remember Port Shills who built Ritz Carlton, yeah. So they had this one flagship. I heard him tell the story that it's flagship property, and they were getting bad reviews

and mainly about room service. They're a second too long. And so they started driving people in the kitchen, got to get it out faster, out faster, out faster, and they're hitting all these metrics, and the reviews are still bad. And so he himself goes down there, and he goes, he sees they're doing

what they said they were going to do. getting it out faster in the kitchen. So then he says, all right, I'm going to follow an order. So he follows an order out the kitchen, down the hall, gets in the elevator. The elevator goes up three floors and it stops. It sits there. It sits there. It sits there.

And there goes up another floor and it stops and the doors open. And he looks out there and there's a linens guy pulling a truck in, you know, whatever they call. cart, yeah. And he's putting it in the elevator and propping the doors open. He's going, what are you doing? He said, well, we're under a quota to get the linens changed every hour. And the only way I can do it is to block these elevators and load up the cart. See, now we know. There's your root cause. There's your root cause. And so many times we don't ask the question, why didn't it happen? Don't just tell somebody, go make it happen, find out or teach them to think about why didn't it happen. There's no reason. I love the columns that you lay out that describe what

leaders do because it just simplifies. And that's everything that you write about and talk about. It just seems like it gives principles that describe in a simple way that we can all understand this is what leadership is and this is what it looks like. It's simple, but it's not easy. So what is... How do you have a happy life? Well, find meaningful work and have good relationships. Really simple. Yeah, that's right. It's simple. Just go do it now. Just go do it. So knowing that, what are the qualities or what are the actions or what are the hallmarks that stand out and people you've worked with do this really, really well? The leaders that are doing those five things well, what makes them do it well or what is the thread that kind of weaves them all together?

Well, one of the things is I wrote a book called integrity. And a lot of times you think of the word integrity is about morals and ethics. You know, if somebody doesn't lie, cheat or steal or they're the same person in private as impuls. and all this. Well, that's really not integrity. That's a lack of, you know, morality, A, and B, duplicity. But integrity, the word comes from the word integrated, which means whole, an integer, integrated. Integer is a whole number. So the great leaders are people that have integrated the various parts of themselves where they can leave a wake behind them like a bow does on two sides. They're strong on the relationship side and they're strong on the results side.

And there's some real character qualities that load on that. The very first one, the thread that runs throughout all of it is yes. The very first one is what is their ability to create and to maintain trust? Create and maintain trust. A lot of people can create trust. You know, they're salespeople. They can persuade people to come invest and... I'll follow that person anywhere.

That's right, for a minute. That's right. And then I find out who they actually are. That's right. And you find out what it's like to be in their wake. See, a leader leaves a wake behind them in every interaction, every meeting, every season, every industry, everything they do. And this thing about trust to maintain it, there's a handful of components on there. But the most important one is for a leader to be a leader to be a...

able to connect. And what I mean might connect is truly the basis of connection is understanding. You know, people are going to be connected with you to the degree that they feel like you understand them and what they need. And we don't understand. Lots of leaders go, well, I understand him. No, well, you really don't because you don't understand until he understands that you understand.

So it's not enough just that you understand it. They need to know that you understand. That's right. It starts with the deep science of empathy. You know, can you truly, truly, truly, truly, truly understand where somebody is, what they need, what they're feeling, what they're thinking, and have them understand that you really get it? I was talking about this one day, and this guy walks up to me after the talk, and he said, I'm the lead hostage negotiator for the FBI. FBI. He's a guy that goes in when somebody's strapped to a bomb and has hostages in a bank, right? And he said, what you describe is our whole strategy that we train people in.

Because you don't go in as a leader and say, hey, dude, this is a bad idea, man. Don't blow this bank up. That's stupid. You could go to jail or kill yourself. That's not going to be too successful, huh? No, but that's how leaders lead. What they do is they walk in and say, hey, I'm Henry. They sent me in to talk to you. What's your name? Tell me, how do we get here today? What's going on?

And see, the human organism as this entity that we are, the most fundamental question that any human's system, now I don't mean this is in their head. This is all the way down your spinal column. It's in your gut. It's in the microbes of the neurons of every aspect of you. First off, before anything else, every second, you are asking a question.

And that question is, am I safe? Am I safe? And when we're safe, we know that we're understood, then the whole system begins to open up and move towards as opposed to against or away. So when leaders, when they start to understand a customer, when a company starts, when a customer feels like, this company understands my life.

They understand what I need. They understand how I want to be treated. They understand this product understands me. Oh, man, you are just about to blow the doors off of it. Changes the game. Changes the game. So, I mean, you hear the word empathy all the time right now, and it's almost like that thing that kind of gets stuck out in the ether.

And it's like, okay, well, what do I actually do with this? How do I actually show people, I empathize with them, I understand them? What are the practical actions, you would say? The person that listens to this agrees with you, what should they take to actually say, I'm going to make that happen where we work. Well, if I can give you a category of activities, the category is about listening. And it's about listening, though, with an identification.

See, it's not listening. Some people listen to get information so they can make an argument to make their point. Well, this kind of listening is about identifying with where that person is. and when you're listening at that level, remember, there's always three components to it. There's the content that the person is telling you. You know, about your thing that it didn't work, right?

There's the content, okay? We know the content that thing didn't work, right? That's what they're telling you. And then don't say something stupid like, well, it should, you know. Well, that's really helpful, right? They always do that. Have you ever? It should work.

Yeah, it should work. You know, plug it in. Why doesn't it work? I don't know. That's what I'm calling you. That's what I'm calling you, idiot. So there's the content. But then there's something they feel about that.

They're frustrated, they're discouraged, they're confused, but there's an affective component of that. And then this is key. The third thing is there's a consequence that it's causing them. So it would sound something like this. Oh my gosh, you plugged it in. It didn't work, and man, that's got to be, that's got to hold your whole day up.

This is terrible. Okay, I just told that person, I know the problem you're telling me, I know how makes you feel, and I see the consequences. Now you see I'm really getting it. You're literally verbalizing empathy in that moment. You're verbalizing understanding. In three areas. What the problem is, how it feels to them, and what the consequence is.

So, you know, golly, I didn't get that report to you on time. And, I mean, well, that's got to be frustrating sitting around. I'm sorry, you know, it probably held you up, right? And then you'll start to see something. You'll see them leaning and go, yeah. And when you get that, yeah, you got them. You've got the connection. And now something happens.

When you understand a customer or when you understand a teammate or you understand an investor and they feel like that, now you have moved over to the same side of the table with them. And the two of you. are now looking at the problem together. Instead of looking at each other. Instead of looking at each other. That's a powerful day when that happens.

We're on the same side of the table. So let's figure out how we can solve this. Okay, so... Doesn't that feel different? It's way better. And Dave talks to us all the time here about using the correct pronouns. And it's like, if we describe someone on our team

as they, we're using the wrong pronouns, right? There is no they in the building. It is we, us, and our. And that's what that does. We're going to sit on the same side of the table and we're going to attack this together. It's not me against you. It's you and me against that problem, against the numbers that are coming up on the P&L or against this delay and getting our products out. We're together on this.

And so then we start to, the second thing is once you're together, you engage them with you. So how can we fix this? What are your thoughts about? Or if you're trying to make a deal, how can I make that happen for you? and we're solving it together. And when you've done that, the other person, now they've gotten out of German Shepherd mode. They're not barking at you.

And they're sitting above this thing, watching the problem with you and the process, and we're problem solvers at that point. That's how leaders engage talent. So it's interesting hearing you talk about that because there can be some personality types that lean into their vices that they lack understanding or empathy.

And so if they're not careful and if they're not self-aware, they will just run over people and not seek to understand and listen. But then there's other sides, and we see leaders, they almost take too much responsibility for other people's problems. Absolutely. And they kind of wear, like, their team is struggling, and the leaders look in the mirror and saying, this is my fault. And instead of holding the other person accountable, which is one of those columns that you mentioned, they're wearing it and they're feeling like a failure. So how do you respond to that person or how would you teach and train that person? But one of the things that's really important is that a leader has got to be very clear.

You know, our relationship's a dyad. There's two of us. And, you know, we use the word boundaries a lot. There's boundaries between me and you. And a leader is really, really clear. This is one of the things that great leaders do. They're very clear in their head about roles. Okay.

Now, if you've got something that you're supposed to be doing, and I'm your boss. And leaders even, I mean, this is like a fish in water. They don't even think about this. We have to think about it to learn it. But once they think this way, they think this way. Yeah. They're thinking clearly about your role is to get this done.

My role is to set you up with resources or, you know, structures or whatever it is. to help you to be able to do what your role is. And the phrase, I feel like, that manifests that is when leaders say, I just thought they'd do their job. Yeah. They say, like, I just hired them and paid them and expect they'd do their job. Right, you hear that. And then somebody's a victim and somebody's a perpetrator.

And so wherever a victim and a perpetrator, you're going to look for a rescuer. And so they're thinking, why are you going to get rid of this person and go hire the new shiny object down the street? Well, they're going to repeat the same pattern probably until they're leading somebody. You know, one of my favorite authors in a friend Liz Wiseman, she talks about multipliers. And leaders, great leaders, they go into a room and they don't diminish the intelligence in the room by thinking they have all the answers and give all the answers. What they're able to do is multiply the intelligence in the room by, lifting those people up to be able, and I don't mean by blowing smoke,

I mean, by helping them, my role is to help you to process this and figure out how you can do this. See, I'm a facilitator. If I'm a football coach, I can't, so I've got to get in my Clemson plug here because my daughter goes,

very good. I can't tell Trevor how to throw that pass. Right. But if I'm a coach, I can work with him on what the obstacles are or reading the defense better or whatever. You've got to know your role and you've got to be as a leader. The person that helps your people multiply. Listen, if they're not better than you at what they're doing, you've hired the wrong person. At their specialty or at their given job. Yeah. I mean, why in the world, why in the world would I want to be. sitting around a table leading people that I can do their job better than them. And then you wonder why you're stressed out and buried in work and worried about leaving for vacation. I almost feel like I should apologize to you because one of the phrases that I use all the time on whenever we're coaching people here is I'm responsible to you, but I'm not

responsible for you. And I just found out recently that that's your phrase. So that's your quote. How about that? I'd love for you to explain what does that phrase mean and why is that phrase so powerful? Because I think it is a mindset shift. It is a mindset shift. You know, when we take responsibility for someone, by definition, the proper time to do that is when they're incapable or incapacitated. You know, somebody can't breathe. They put them on a respirator.

We'll breathe for you. Okay. But if I'm a restatory therapist, I'm not going to breathe for you. I'm going to enter into that dyad, and I'm going to help you become a better breather than me. And see, that's being responsible to someone. You know, God put us on the earth, and he gave us talents, and he gave us abilities, he gives us resources, he gives us principles, and some ways to do this. But he put us here to use all of that and be fruitful at the end of the day.

He could come in and do it all, but then, Why? Why don't even have to make it? What's the point? What's the point? But then we couldn't do it without him either. And so, you know, the leader, I don't mean to make a leader's guy, but there's a dual role of somebody that sits kind of, you know, in this structure of being responsible. The leader is responsible for the whole thing.

And when you're responsible for the whole thing, when your brain sits up here, it's responsible for the whole thing. And it's got to make sure that that team, that organism, that organization is working in a way that's going to get it done. That's the leader's job, not to do the work. And the more you start doing the work, then you're not leading. And that doesn't mean you don't roll up your seats and get in the trenches. Steve Jobs was his baby was designed, right? He loved it. He would get in there, but he didn't do their work for him.

that's what we see all the time is if people aren't careful, they will think they are helping their team by swooping in and just saying, I'll handle that customer problem, or all deal with this issue, or I'll make sure we fix all of this. And it's almost like you're working against yourself in that point. Absolutely. Because what you've just done is guaranteed you'll have to do tomorrow. And one of the things that's hard for leaders, I think, is to kind of take the short-term hit on letting somebody struggle a little bit, you know, and go learn and figure it out. There's power in that phrase, figure it out. Figure it out.

Like some of the best coaches and leaders in my life are the ones that have looked at me and said, that's tough, Alex. You better figure it out. That's exactly right. I'll never forget. My dad was, he was older when I was born. I said a really old dad, you know, when I was growing up. World War II, Sergeant, you know, was in Europe for five years during the war.

but learned a lot of leadership. And I remember I'm 19 years old. I went to visit my girlfriend in Texas. I went to school in Texas. I was from Mississippi. Family invites me over there. I go pick her up. I immediately in her car, do an illegal you turn, and total the car.

Oh, no. Going to visit the parents. Her car. Her car. It's up in flames. We're okay, but I don't know what to do. I'm 19. I called my dad.

Dad, I just had a wreck. Well, are you okay? Yeah, I'm okay. Is she okay? Yeah, she's okay. But, Dad, I totaled the car. He goes, you totaled your car? I said, no, I totaled her car.

Do I call our insurance? Because it's her car, but I was driving. Who do I call? What do I? And he goes, let me get this straight. He says, you got to go meet the father for the first time and shake out your aunt and say, I'm the boyfriend. I just told your car.

So that's the first thing you're going to say this man? I said, yeah. And by the way, he was the governor. The dad was the governor? The dad was the governor. And I'm like freaked out. And, you know, I'm in front of the governor's mansion, the things on fire, and there's fire trucks and all this kind of stuff. And I see my life flashed for my eyes.

I said, Daddy, who do I call? Is it Mr. Wilkinson? Our insurance got to do it. Is it hers? And I'll never forget this. He says, son, if you're old enough to get yourself in a mess like this, you're old enough to get yourself out of it. But call me and tell me how you did it, and he hung up the phone. Oh, my God.

This is a true story. It's true story. Unreal. True story. Okay. So what is, now I think. Was that the right move there? Absolutely.

Okay. I'm 19 years old. If you can drive a car, you can wreck a car. And if you can't do what you do when a wreck a car, you shouldn't be driving a car. Okay. So that's powerful. And if you're dating, you got to manage the relationships. You can't manage it.

Then you shouldn't be dating. That's powerful. So we talk all the time. People act the way you treat them a lot of the time. And if you treated you like a child, you probably would have acted like a child. but he treated you like an adult. And I think the reason, actually, that story comes to mind is I have a daughter who's, she's a sophomore in college, same age I was in.

Last week, she backs up and hits this car. And she calls me and I said, well, you know, what are you going to do? I don't know. I never, you know, I said, well, talk to the person, find out, you know, you got to get an estimate, go get an estimate, and then we'll go from there. Well, can you do it? No, I can't. You wreck the car.

You go do the answer. So she goes, and she sends me the estimate. She says, well, and I think she's expecting me to write a check, right? And I said, well, you got to figure out, you know, when you wreck a car, is it better for the insurance to pay it or should you pay it? Now, I didn't unpack what you meant, but somebody's got to pay for. She says, what do you mean? I said, well, call the insurance company and find out how much of your rate's going to go up if you use insurance versus if you pay for this. And she goes, okay, so then she comes back.

She says, it's going to go up, you know, however many hundred dollars every six months. I said, for how long? She said, I don't know. I said, well, you better ask them because it's that one year, five years. She goes, Dan, I can't call them again. The ladies already annoyed at me. I said, Olivia, that's her job. She's annoyed.

That's her problem. But you better find out. And she goes, well, I'm, I'm, and so she hangs up. She calls back. And she says, you know, gives the years. And so I'm saying at this point, there's one more question I had in there about the paydown schedule of, you know, would it decline? And she goes, I said, do you find that out? And she goes, no, I don't know all these questions.

I said, well, you got to go. She says, I'm not calling her again. And I said, Olivia, you are going to call her again. Because let me tell you something. Driving cars is an adult thing. Okay. This is what adults do when they have problems. Now, when you find this out, then you get to figure it out.

And I said, you're learning something. Cars aren't free. It's going to cost you. It costs you a little effort. If you want to drive, this is what you've got to do. So now she knows all about how car insurance works. And I think it's, man. Thanks to her grandfather.

And that happened last week. Is that right? Wow. I think it's almost obvious what they, takeaway is there for leaders, but how does, how did those stories translate to the workplace, to the marketplace, to the office? Well, it begins with asking some questions. You know, you can say, well, I think you ought to do this, or you can say, so what are

some thoughts you've had about how you're going to approach this? And see, one of the things I'm listening to when I ask that question is, are they thinking in the leadership path? because if I ask, so how are you going to approach this? I want to see coming up on their screen, what do I want the end result to be? What talent should I bring to the table? Five columns you get us before.

Exactly. Are they thinking that way? And then I want to walk them through, well, let's look at some of these questions and have them grapple with it. And then what you're going to see is you're going to see lights go on. You know, you take a toddler and hook them up to a brain scan and say, watch this, and you're hitting their little hammers in the pegs, their brain kind of has

a little activity. If you hand them the hammer, that brain goes ballistic. It looks like fireworks because now they have control and now they're learning. Here's the thing that leaders need to remember that there is no learning without a state of arousal. Your system has got to be somewhat anxious because you've got to be out over your skis a little bit. It's got to be a little bit of a challenge. And what that is is the neurochemistry begins to get engaged that is going to bind to the memory banks, the actual behaviors and skills that you're learning in that. And that becomes a new circuitry that creates a skill and a capacity.

So if you're not as a leader, if you're not pushing people a little bit out over their skis every single day, not so far that they break their. leg on the mogul. Yeah. But past the bunny hill, then they're not learning and they're not growing. And part of the thing a leader always has to do is create this ongoing sense of uneasiness, you know, that it's just that it's what a great basketball team feels like right before the initial jump, you know, or a golfer on the first two of the masters. I mean, you are, you're aroused.

If you're not, what are you doing there? Yeah. The best teachers, coaches, professors, speakers, leaders in the world push you just beyond what you think you're capable of. That's right. Did you know there's a neurological basis called a 40% rule? What is that? No, I'm not a neuroscientist, so I wouldn't know that. Okay, so here's the way this works. Your brain will tell you you've gone as far as you can go at about 40%. That is crazy. It does. If you've ever lifted weights, you're... brain and start saying, oh, that's all like to, but you got a trainer there where they did. Come on, one more, one more, one more. Now, ultimately, you're going to hit that capacity, but it's past what you thought.

My brother-in-law was a Navy SEAL, and I used to love to get all the Navy SEAL stories from him. But one day we were talking about the training they do, and he was talking about the stuff in the pool in the beginning, and he said, well, you know, that's before you drown. And I said, what? And he says, oh yeah we all drown i said what are you talking about excuse me seriously he goes well not everybody he said most of us drown i go mark what do you what are you talking about he says he says yeah he said they got a doctor on the side of the pool and you know they'll they'll bring you back he said but after you drown i don't know what percentage i've drowned but he told me you know it's not there are people that drown there are people he was one of them and he said after you drown once you don't fear

it anymore and he said well you find is until you drown, you don't know what your limit is. And what you find is, once you know what that limit is, he says, I can go a lot further than I could before. And that's breaking through that 40%. 40%. So one of the things that you talk about that I think is so powerful is the difference between hurt and harm. And I think that that falls in line exactly with everything we're talking about, figure it out, about going until you drown, about the 40% principle. I'd love for you to explain to the people listening, what is the difference between hurt and harm,

and why does that apply to leadership? Well, there's no learning without pain, right? I mean, if you're a trainer on a football team and, you know, you're taking somebody into the weight room, if they're not sore the next day, you haven't done anything. But if you tour their cartilage, you're not a good trainer, right? That's injuring somebody. So a leader has to make decisions.

that are going to be painful to some people. You've got to demote some people. You might have to take some responsibilities away. You might have to shut down this business unit. Somebody's really invested in. You might have to fire somebody. You might have to. There are decisions that leaders make that other people are going to feel as painful, right?

Yeah. And remember a leader one time, you know, he said, this new strategy, I'm going to have to take some people out of leadership that and reassign them. And I can't do that. And I said, why? He said, well, I don't want to hurt them. He said, I care about these people. And I said, well, it sounds like you think hurting somebody's the worst thing in the world.

He said, well, it is. I don't want to hurt anybody. And I said, have you ever been to the dentist? Did it hurt? He goes, yeah. I said, did it harm you? He said, no, it helped me. I said, okay.

So most of the time, when we have to make a decision, you know, somebody is not performing, for example. and you have to make a decision to move them or recast them or even let them go, that is going to hurt. That's just part of it. It's not going to injure them unless you do it in an injurious way. And I can't tell you how many leaders. I wrote a book about this called Necessary Endings. There are some endings that, you know, there are some things down.

You know, there are relationships that should not go forward, and there are alliances and product lines. And that's what I love about that book. too is you say that's not a sign that you're doing something wrong. If anything, that's a sign that you're doing something right. The phrase you use is you're going to produce more than you can sustain. That's right. You're going to create more activity. You're going to hire more people that, you know, some of them shouldn't be there. You find out later. You're going to have more ideas and you can, and if you're not ending some stuff so you have all the resources to go to the stuff that matters,

then you're sideways, right? And one of the phrases that from that book that I think is a good anchor to think about is, you know, we talk about, you know, a leader's got to have hope, sustained hope and all those. But the worst thing you can have when you're headed down a wrong road is hope that is going to turn into the right one. You know, there is. You can keep going down the wrong road. If you have hope.

Blind optimist, misplace hope. Yeah. If I turned left and there's a cliff ahead of me and I'm not getting to my destination, I'm going, I hope this, I hope this is the right road. No, that's, hope. Hope is not helping you because hope spends time. If we have hope, we'll keep going. Now, if you have objective reasons for hope, that's perseverance, and you've got to go

and continue and continue and continue. But there's got to be some reasons, objective reasons, other than you want it to happen. Okay. That's powerful. You know, it's like, well, you know, once you're investing in my company, well, how's it doing? Well, we hadn't made money for, you know, however many product cycles. but next year we're really hoping this thing's going to turn around. I'm really committed to me.

I'm really committed. Exactly. And you're going to tell me or ask me, well, why do you think it's going to be different? Now, if I say, because we're really committed, we're really hoping this next year and we're hoping. And I hear this word hope a lot. What I'd say is, that didn't sound like hope, sounds like a wish. See, hope is objective. So if you say, why do you think it's going to turn around?

And then I say, well, because the guy that was running marketing, was the boss's nephew, and it was worthless, you know, in that job. And so we've replaced him, and we brought in, we hired the best marketing guy from, you know, some great company. And we just signed three distribution deals that we don't. You're telling me what you did differently. Different and new. Those are the two big words. Is it new and is it different?

And now that's an objective reason to keep investing. That's an objective reason to keep going other than, oh, hope this works out. And so sometimes when you make those calls, back to herd and harm, when you make those calls, you know, sometimes, gosh, you can be painful if somebody's poured three years in this project or whatever. But you're not harming anybody. You're actually helping them because you're going to help them get to something that works

for them. You know, if you think about this way, why did it take, think about this, you know, great leaders in the car industry, right, all these smart people. He'd been doing this forever. Why did it take a bankruptcy judge to shut down Pontiac when GM was in bankruptcy? Think about that. This is a brand that hadn't made a profit for four decades. Bankruptcy judge, like I said, he goes, well, shut that down.

We need those resources over here. Well, the reason is, obviously, it wasn't objective. Somebody, you know, they're hoping Pontiac, hoping next year's design, or they're emotionally attached to it, or, you know, living in yesteryear or the GTO or whatever was. It was irrational and it was misplaced hope. Yeah, and it was emotional and relational and all this kind of stuff. But, and so when a leader has to shut that down, there's going to be some sad people.

And that's part of leadership is to have, you got to have the stomach. You know, it'd be like if you're a surgeon, what if you had a surgeon that was afraid of blood? You know, halfway through. Ah, crap, he's bleeding. You know, and a surgeon runs out. I don't want you as my surgeon. Golly. Yeah, one of the, you know, you talk about the threads of great leaders.

They never injure people intentionally. But they're not afraid of having to embrace the mess and to do the things that, you know, we've got to move or we got to remodel the building or we got to shut this division down. or those are painful, painful decisions. And sometimes leaders that don't have the stomach for that, you know, they're going to flounder, you know. And sometimes we've got to lead people, you know, through the pain. I remember one time when one of my daughters had a splinter, you know, and she, I can't walk, I can't put it.

I said, well, let me see it and I'll get it out for you. And I start to touch it, you know, she said, no, don't. You know, no, no. I go, Lucy, you know, you're not going to be able to, and I finally, you know, distract her, yank it out. And she screams, and she goes, oh, I can walk now. Well, sometimes that's leadership. It seems like one of the biggest obstacles that gets in the way of people making those really hard decisions is not an unawareness that they need to make the hard decision. It seems a lot of times people are very aware.

It seems like fear gets in the way. So if you were sitting down with someone candidly say, Henry, I'm afraid. I'm afraid about the future that this is going to create and the ramifications this is going to have for my leadership and my business for me to take these moves. What would you tell that person? Well, first of all, I'm glad you're afraid of that because we wouldn't want somebody impulsively willy-nilly just making hard calls, right? But one of the things that you really have to get them in touch with is, okay, I understand that you would be afraid of that. It's hard to go through this and this and the other. but let's look at what is right now and let's look at this question do you want to be having this

same conversation six months from now a year from now because if you don't do this that's what we know based on it you've tried everything right there's nothing else to bring to the party here so are you not afraid of signing up for another year of what you're already experiencing. And you've got to get people in touch with really owning the decision to continue to be stuck, owning the decision to continue to be not profitable. And if you say, if that's the decision that you want to make, it's your call. But know when you're avoiding this other thing, that is the decision you're making.

So just sign a piece of paper. I'm signing up for another year of misery intentionally and own that. So either way, it's a decision. Every movement and not movement is a decision. To go or no go. That's a decision. What is the final word of encouragement you would give to, we've got a bunch of growth oriented people here.

We've got a bunch of people that are leading within organizations. and also people that own and run organizations. Final word of encouragement from Henry Cloud. The final word of encouragement, I would say, is you're comparing yourself. I know you. You're out there and you're looking at people that build things and they got successful and all this. And what you're doing is you're looking at a snapshot and you're thinking, gosh, look at Tiger Woods

or look at, you know, whoever it is, you're seeing a snapshot. what you're not seeing is the movie that got to that particular frame. Now, here's what I want you to learn. Obviously, there are certain people that when God made them, he just put an extra 50 gallons of something, right? I mean, there are not a lot of certain kinds of people. But by and large, people that do, really well, they aren't smarter than other people.

They don't know more about marketing or more about finance. I'm talking about, you know, once you kind of have the permission to play, you know, aptitudes. What they've done is, and this is the hope and encouragement I don't give people, what they've done is they've learned the principles and the laws of how this works. and they started to get, you know, you can sail a boat. I couldn't sail a boat because I don't know how to get the stupid sail to catch the wind in the right way. But just like a plane flies, once you learn the laws of physics,

then you can do this, okay? That's why we study leadership. You know, I've got this online thing called Leadership University that takes people through this path. because if you learn certain principles, that's how Tiger got there. He didn't get there by magic, but there are certain aspects of leadership.

Once you start to, just for example, get your vision, engage the talent, have a strategy and plan, measure the right things, adapt to what you're fine. Once you learn certain principles and you start to move down that path, you're going to find out that there are ways that this works,

and you can learn those ways. And once you know that, I think one of the most powerful things in life is when you wake up one day and you're not afraid of what you don't know because you've learned the most important thing, and that is, I've learned that I can learn. And once you know,

when you run up to something that you don't know, first thing that kicks in is the curiosity of, I can go to learn about that. Somebody knows how to do this. Somebody has done this before. Somebody, and you learn that you can learn, there's no limit. You can learn it.

You can figure it out. That's powerful. Well, thank you so much for your time. I know I learned a lot. I know our audience did as well, so we're super grateful to you. Well, it's good to be with you. I always, I love what you do here

and always just feel so privileged to get to, you know, tag on. Thanks so much, Dr. Okay. See you all later. I think one of the hallmarks of a great communicator is their ability to take the complex and make it remarkably simple. And Dr. Cloud is one of the best of this. Did you see how he took the topic of leadership, this topic that we spent all this time talking about, and he boiled it down into five steps? If you're like me, you know this is worth writing down I'm putting on your desk. Number one, cast a vision.

Number two, engage the right talent. Number three, get the right strategy and plan in place. Number four, measure the right activities, and then finally, hold people accountable to those activities. Well, why don't we just all go do that right now? It's almost frustrating how simple he makes that, but I think it's frustrating because we all know that it's not that easy or that simple in practice. We all deal with imperfections, pitfalls, and mistakes at every single step along the way.

leadership is hard. And here's the deal. One of the things we know to be true is running a business is hard. And anytime you take any of those things and bring family into the mix, you just multiply the difficulty by a factor of about a hundred because the stakes are so high. This is why we're passionate about family business because we know when it goes well, it can be incredibly lifegiving. But when it goes poorly, it can ruin Thanksgiving. So that's why I'm really excited because for the first time ever, we're hosting a full day family business session on November 8th here in Nashville. And it's going to be taught by our founder, Dave Ramsey. So if you want to get more information about this, or if you want to register because you're part of a family business, you can text family business to 33444. That's family business, all one word, no spaces to 33444. Or you can click the link that's in the show notes. And since the event is over a month away, we've got something for you right now. If you're in a family business, we've got a free resource that's going to help highlight and help you avoid some of the mistakes that we see all family businesses are prone to making. If you want to get this resource, text Family Biz, B-I-Z to 33-444.

Again, that's Family Biz, B-I-Z, no spaces, to 33-444, or you can click the link that's in the show notes. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Entre Leadership Podcast. If you did, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe. For a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card, you can review this episode by clicking the link that's in the show notes. And be sure to follow us on social media at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull and was edited and mixed by Will Rutter. I'm Alex Judd, and on behalf of the entire Entree Leadership team, thanks for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.