Why Leadership Is Not For Everyone

Here's what companies believe about leadership:

• If we increase the leadership capacity of our people, we can make them better performers.
• If we offer them leadership training, they will do a better job.
• If we make leadership a priority, our people can become better self-directed.
• If we bring in leadership experts, we can grow our talent better.

But then most organizational training only ever gets an employee to a level of "competence" not excellence. Excellence is what separates mediocre organizations from excellent organizations. Building leadership WITHOUT building excellence means you will continually be training in leadership (year after year) - and your people won't understand why. You're trying to build a house on a shaky foundation.

In order to find your performance average, you take all of the numbers (best and worst) into account. There is a reason that poor performers perform poorly and it has nothing to do with their leadership capacity. Training poor performers to be leaders doesn't improve their performance - in fact, it may inhibit it. When you tell a poor performer that he is being offered leadership training, what message does that send? Keep on performing poorly?

Not everyone is meant to lead and not everyone is meant to enroll in leadership development. Without followers, there are no leaders. Some are just meant to follow. Those who don't display excellence in their efforts should NOT be considered for leadership training. BIG mistake.

Strive for excellence first. Find those who naturally offer excellence in their work, their relationships and their quality of life. Then, offer those people the chance to be come better leaders.

Stop thinking leadership is just another course like Time Management that can solve the problems of your organization. It can't. Trying to turn an average worker-bee into a leader is a waste of organizational resources and a threat to the average worker who is probably happy with just being an average worker.

First, make your organization excellent. Then start looking for the natural leaders who helped you get there. Train only those people.
--  
Kevin Burns - Excellence Attitude/Culture Strategist
Speaking Web Site http://www.kevburns.com  

Creator of Filter-Free Fridays™ 
Creator of the 90-Day System To A Greatness Culture™

Coming Soon Kevin's 8th Book - "Your Attitude Sucks - Finding Your Excellence In A Wasteland of Mediocrity

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Disinfect Workplace Bullies

In walking through the hospital today, I noticed a janitor sweeping up fallen leaves from some of the large plants in the common area. He was addressing the things that visitors to the hospital could see, not the things they can't see - like those who were sick enough to be admitted to hospital who had touched door handles, arms of chairs, vending machine buttons, elevator buttons and counter-tops. How often do you see janitors wiping down the coffee vending machine with disinfectant spray? How many dirty hands touch the daily-mopped floor versus how many flu-infected hands touch the elevator buttons or touch the arms of a chair in the Emergency room?

Now before you go thinking I'm some sort of weird germophobe, let me explain why I point this out.

Every single business and organization runs like this hospital: they spend an inordinate amount of time on things that might address how they are perceived but little or no effort on things that might affect their customers and clients profoundly. A poorly disinfected waiting room could result in a patient's second trip to Emergency in a few days. But if there's litter on the floor, one might perceive the hospital to be unclean. So you clean what they can see and ignore what they can't.

Think about when an organization offers their people a chance to air their griefs as a team-building exercise - but no one does because the staffer they want to complain about is sitting beside them. What about organizations whose front lobbies are immaculate but their shipping department can't seem to get a delivery done on time to save themselves. Then there are organizations who preach a safe and happy workplace but refuse to reprimand workplace bullies for fear of the employee union.

Management's failure to address a workplace's silent issues is no different than a hospital janitor rarely wiping down bacterial surfaces. Either way, someone will end up not well enough to come into work.

And then you have absenteeism which costs you money; big money. Soon it becomes a lousy place to work because your standards are lax. Your culture suffers and your new-hire candidates become more mediocre. If only you had just wiped the doors more often, enforced the rules and dealt with the bullies, you could have kept your good people.

A germ is a germ. Disinfect it before it makes your whole organization sick. 
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


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Would You Still Do It?

If your customers couldn't tell the difference between a sauce of Mushroom Cream Reduction and Campell's Cream of Mushroom soup, would you still do it?

If your clients couldn't tell the difference between Starbucks and Folgers while they waited in your lobby, would you still do it?

If your customers couldn't tell the difference between 128-bit and 32-bit encryption when processing their transactions on-line, would you still do it?

If your boss couldn't tell the difference between you giving 100 percent and 60 percent effort, would you still give 100 percent?

If the rest of the volunteer committee you sit on couldn't tell the difference between you giving the project your full attention or giving the project lip-service, would you continue to accept the accolades for a job well-done?

What you do when no one is looking is what separates mediocrity from greatness.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


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Greatness Is Impossible To Duplicate

A recent walk through Scottsdale, Arizona this week had me shaking my head a little. Scottsdale's famous "Old Town" is a souvenir-hunter's paradise. There have got to be thirty gift shops within a three block area, all virtually carrying the same Red Dirt T-shirts, turquoise jewellery, Navajo blankets, water-ripple globes of the world and leather belts. All the prices are virtually the same. The hours of each store are the same. The parking issues are the same. The decor of each is virtually the same. All in all, each independantly-owned gift shop is a cookie-cutter version of the gift shop next door.

Did the people who opened the 30th gift shop really believe they were bringing anything new to the table by opening the exact same store as the 29 others on the street? And whose idea was it to make sure that every shop carry the same lines, selection and price? Really, there is no reason for the local residents to shop this area. This is a tourist area whose sole means of survival is by volume of tourists. Get enough tourists through and everyone can do OK - not great - just OK.

And while we're at it, as a tourist, why would you save up and plan a vacation for a whole year only to spend your vacation in the same restaurants you have at home? There are no memories made in eating in ordinary restaurants. The best memories are made when you stretch yourself and experience something different. In fact, the best businesses become successful using the exact same philosophy: be different than everyone else.

Greatness is impossible to duplicate. Copying mediocre? Piece of cake.

--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


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No Effort Required In Being Ordinary

I had a quote of mine make its way around Twitter this week. The quote was, "There's no effort required in being ordinary."

Maybe that's the reason why we are overrun with mediocrity, ordinary, sameness. There's no effort required in just being good enough. That's easy. That's why there's so much competition at the mediocre level because almost everyone competes at that level.

The stretch is when an individual or a company makes a decision to move toward "greatness." That's when everything changes. That's when it get s hard. That's when the scrutiny of those who would throw stones (the secretly envious) arises and that's when you hear from the naysayers in your life, all of the reasons why you can't do it.

"You can't increase your business in a recession."

"You can't have a banner sales month in a market downturn."

"You can't risk renovating your house when jobs are tenuous."

"There's no such thing as a perfect relationship."

"Blah. Blah. Blah."

You can do these things and you most certainly will do these things if you have made the decision to stop being ordinary and strive for greatness. The sideline critics are just too lazy to get off their fat asses and do it themselves and they know it. You're embarrassing them and they will complain about it.

There is no effort required in being ordinary. That's why there's so little competition at the "Greatness" level. The people and companies willing to do whatever it takes to be the standard to which every mediocre person and organization will measure himself are very few.

There's hardly been any effort needed to get your results so far, huh? That means you're capable of more but you're not even trying.
--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


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Your Mediocre Attitude Sucks

It all started innocently enough as I was looking for casters. I had this idea for a piece of exercise equipment and decided to build a prototype but I needed casters - those swivel wheels that go under office chairs, carts, etc. I had to ask three sales clerks where to find them in the big box hardware store before the third clerk actually looked in the computer to figure out where they stocked them. Reluctantly, I purchased four casters from them. It turns out that it wasn't just the service that was lousy. The casters were too noisy, not smooth enough and they marked the floor.

Next day was a visit to Casterland - a store that deals only in casters. They had exactly what I was looking for. I brought them home, installed them with great success. I should have gone to the specialists in the first place. The service was better and the product was top notch. The shopping experience was outstanding. Lesson learned. Oh, and the casters weren't more expensive. They were less expensive than the big box hardware store.

Then that night, while watching an episode of Hell's Kitchen on television, it struck me that out of all of the burned scallops, raw lamb, overcooked steaks, forgotten garnish, raw halibut, contestants sweating in the food and a general willingness to attempt to sneak substandard food past Chef Gordon Ramsay that it dawned on me: one of these very mediocre finalists is going to be head chef at Araxi in Whistler, BC. Are you kidding me? (Araxi should be concerned about this kind of marketing on their behalf.)


You don't even have to be good. You just have to be lucky enough to qualify for the show in the first place. No one on the show seems outstanding in any sort of way. All of them seem to buckle under pressure. All of them have their good nights and their bad nights. The only thing that seems to be consistent is their collective inconsistency. And yet, despite their overwhelming mediocrity, one of them is going to win the big prize. All that's required is to be best of mediocre. There is no contestant who is a clear front runner. They are all equally mediocre.

While reading a blog post from Seth Godin recently, he made mention of a Washington Post columnist recently laid off because his blog posts didn't get enough web traffic. In the old days, when people read newspapers, there was no way to tell which columns readers were reading. But in today's digital age, a simple hit counter tells the tale. In today's digital age, you can't skate by by just being mediocre. Are newspapers about change? You bet they are. Reporters and columnists are going to have to start writing what we, the customer, want to read - giving us, the customer, what we want instead of just spouting their opinions and not being concerned whether or not we are reading it.

A recent trip to Best Buy illustrates how mediocre service has become. I was looking for a simple desktop microphone for a computer that plugs in through a USB terminal. I asked one of the associates. His reply, "I don't think we sell those."

I asked him if there was someone he could ask to which he turned and did exactly that. He returned several moments later claiming, "No we don't sell those."

His department supervisor happened to be walking past at that moment and I turned to her and asked if she could point me in the direction of desktop microphones that plug-in through a USB terminal. She reached past me down to the bottom shelf and pulled up the very microphone I had been looking for.

I turned to the first sales associate and simply said, "I guess you do sell these."

His reply, "well I asked someone and they said we didn't."

This would have been a great opportunity for the sales associate to simply make the customer happy. All he had to do was smile, apologize for his error and move on. But he didn't. It was more important for him to be right than it was for the customer to be happy. That is so incredibly mediocre. Any organization is capable of doing that and sadly, most do. Best Buy finished below mediocre in that instance.

Then, this morning on the LinkedIn bulletin board came this answer to a question: "There is what is called the 20-80-20 rule of management. 20% of people will hate you no matter what. 80% will have no opinion either way. 20% will love you no matter what."

Is it just me or can you do the math as well? It adds up to 120% doesn't it? The question was answered in this way by a self-professed MBA. He used the letters right after his name in his profile. He seemed proud of his MBA. Sure, we can cut the guy a little slack for making an honest mistake but here's the problem: he didn't check his work before he submitted it. That's a mediocre effort. How many other times does he submit his work without checking it? Putting that answer out in front of millions of people without checking his work made him look sloppy - sloppy with an MBA. That's mediocre.

Had someone without an MBA made the same mistake we would have simply passed it off as though they had no idea what they were talking about. But this guy was an MBA. He should know what he's talking about. He should have checked his work. But he didn't because he gave a very mediocre effort. If you're going to live by the title you had better be meticulous. People are watching. But even with an MBA, "good enough" seems to be good enough.

And that's the problem in corporate North America today. Mediocrity is rampant. "Good enough" has become good enough. But there is good news: to be outstanding, all that is required is to be one step above mediocre. Anyone can win in that market. That should be encouraging news to any organization looking to be the best in their field.

But you have to want to be the best in your field in order to be one step better than mediocre. Sadly, most don't. And so they wallow in mediocrity just like everyone else. They accept mediocre performance from their people. They accept mediocre ideas. They accept mediocre management. They accept wallowing somewhere in the middle of the pack as okay. They train their people to be simply competent -- not outstanding -- just competent - and more often than not miss that mark too.

If your people are good but not great, if your management is good but not great, if your sales numbers are good but not great, if your attrition numbers are good but not great, if your safety numbers are good but not great, if your innovations are good but not great, if your service is good but not great, if your results are good but not great then you have a corporate culture of "good enough." Don't deny it. It's right there for everyone else to see. Your results prove it.

To go from mediocre to greatness requires the adoption of seven attitudes:

• the Attitude of Money, Security and Safety,
• the Attitude of Resilience,
• the Attitude of Connectedness,
• the Attitude of Gratitude,
• the Attitude of Service,
• the Attitude of Leadership,
• the Instigational® Attitude.

The difference between greatness and mediocrity is one step. Sadly, you probably won't make that step because where you are seems to be good enough.

--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

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Satisfied - Is That Enough?

What are Athos, Porthos, and Aramis? No it's not the Olympic motto. I'll help you here, d'Artagnan became the fourth. Musketeers! (Not mousketeers - that was Saturday morning when you were a kid - jeepers read a book already). And now there seems to be a fifth trying desperately to become a musketeer. His name is Mediocrity.

Apparently being satisfied with mediocrity IS enough today. People seem to be satisfied with a "good enough" performance. And you, as a customer or client, when you accept someone else's "good enough," you give their sub-par performance your stamp of approval.

Satisfied people DON'T search for more. Ignorance really is bliss. People seem to be happy not knowing that they can do better. If someone were to tell them that more was expected of them, they then wouldn't be satisfied anymore. I mean, how can you be really satisfied when you're in an argument with a client over the quality of your work and your argument is, "it's good enough."

Client: "Your work sucks!"

You: "Oh yeah? Well, ... well, ... uh ... you suck. Na na na boo-boo!"

The sad truth is that many of you, some reading this right now, don't think you need to improve. You are still out looking for new customers, new opportunities, new promotions and new accolades in spite of your knowledge that there are others who are better than you are. Regardless of that fact, you still try to offer you your sub-standard self knowing full well someone else is better, more proficient and more knowledgeable than you. Apparently you've decided that your clients, customers, bosses and co-workers aren't worthy of more from you. You won't work on yourself and instead you sit in front of the TV at night and wonder why business or the state of your career isn't better.

"Oh, but wait Big Brother is coming on. I NEED to watch this episode just in case my customers ask me about it tomorrow."

You blame the economy for your poor performance (regardless of others who are still succeeding in spite of the economy). You blame the price, the design, the color, the delivery, the opportunities, the financing, your bosses and your competitors for your "good enough" performance.

"When the economy, the price, the color, etc., gets better, then I'll get better," you say. Nothing but a load of excuses. That's like waiting for all of the traffic lights to turn green before you leave for work in the morning.

"Good enough" has become epidemic in the workplace. You should never be satisfied. "Good enough" is an awful attitude to approach your work with. Hell, any moron can achieve "good enough." It's what's beyond "good enough" that makes you special and stand out.

I believe it was Bob Dylan who said, "Just when you thought you had nothing left to give, you find out you did."

So what have you got that you haven't shown yet?

--
Attitude w/ ATTITUDE

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Greatness Is a Choice

I will admit that I am a huge movie buff. In fact, most times, if there isn’t a movie or a hockey game on TV, it’s probably off. I have a few favourite movies that I will re-watch: Sahara (Matthew McConaughey), The Usual Suspects (Kevin Spacey), The Rookie (Dennis Quaid), Finding Forrester (Sean Connery), anything with Gene Hackman and a movie that my friend and mentor Ken Larson turned me onto, The Hunt For Red October (Sean Connery). Ken can recite the dialogue from the movie doing the Sean Connery accent rather well. “Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.”

This weekend, The Replacements with Gene Hackman was on the tube. I’ve seen it many times before but this time, at the end of the movie, Gene Hackman’s character, Coach Jimmy McGinty, narrated a line that I had missed in previous viewings: “Their lives had been changed forever because they had been part of something great. And greatness, no matter how brief, stays with a man.”

That’s a powerful statement. Greatness, no matter how brief, stays with a man. Do something great at some point in your life and you develop a thirst for more or at the very least, you can remember the times when you were great. It does stay with you, either in drive or in memory.

There are two choices that every person faces in life: in their work, their relationships, their pursuit of dreams, their lifestyles, their personalities and their contribution in all they do. Those two choices are 1) greatness, and 2) mediocrity. Everything in life fundamentally comes down to one of those two choices and choosing which side of the equation you will sit on. Will you be great or will you be mediocre? It’s one simple decision really.

Greatness, throughout history, has been fundamentally challenged, violently opposed and systematically dismissed as idiocy by those with mediocre minds - people who don't get it and don't want to get it because when faced with their own mediocrity, it seems as though there is a great deal of work involved in doing something about it. So they attempt to tear down those who would be great in the hopes that by deflating the greatness within someone else, they somehow magically elevate themselves.

In fact, the mediocre have, throughout history, attempted to disparage, discourage and disprove greatness in all forms. So my question here is this: what side are you on? Make your decision right now. You've been, throughout your life, playing for one of two sides. Everyone has the chance to do something great, but you must first decide if you want to be great. If not, save us all a bunch of wasted time and find the door or at the very least, keep it to yourself.

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Greatness is not for everyone. If everyone were great, greatness would be considered mediocrity. No, in fact, we need people to be mediocre. Without mediocrity, there would be no comparison point that would allow us to recognize greatness when we see it. No one would ever stand out as a leader. Everybody would be blindly bumping into each other looking for someone to follow. They would just try to get through each day without having to face anything difficult because the thought of facing something difficult paralyzes the mediocre.

The mediocre are so busy keeping up the appearance of being great that they don’t have any time to do something great. In fact, attempting to appear great is far more work than actually doing something great. Reasons and excuses are in the tool chest of the mediocre. Getting things done are in the tool chest of the great.

So the challenge you must face up to today is to simply answer this one question and answer it truthfully: have you, by default, allowed yourself to become mediocre or will you choose to do something great?