George Bradt
Managing Director of executive onboarding and transition acceleration group
PrimeGenesis
I have the pleasure this afternoon of introducing for you, Mr. George Bradt, who is the founder and principal partner, I suspect of a company called PrimeGenesis. George literally wrote the book on Onboarding. He--I have been following his work via LinkedIn and other sources for several years. Many of the principals that he is--he will talk about to you this afternoon, we've incorporated into some of the things that we do for our new employees here and I assure you that we will be incorporating more of them as we go forward with this. So I've been following George for about five or six years reading his books as they come out and reading his articles as they come out in Forbes. He's a prolific writer there. I'm going to encourage you to read those. I had the pleasure of meeting him about two years ago at a conference that I attended on Onboarding, where he was one of the prime speakers. I learned a lot from that and have maintained a dialogue with him over those--the intervening time. When we began to look at this Healthcare Leadership Series, recognizing how important it is to get people off and get them started on the right foot and brought into--okay MD Anderson. For those of you who haven't clued into this is not an easy place to learn to work, okay. So we have to do a really, really good job of bringing folks in and helping them to be successful. So, that's what George is going to talk about, that's what he's been talking about for us all morning and he's going to continue that. So, without further delay, George, all yours.
[ Applause ]
People at the back, can you hear me? I just speak [inaudible] microphone, gets it on to yell or anything. Good, okay, if you can't hear me just start throwing things at me. I'm also not allowed to walk past this red line here 'cause I guess the way you're color coded, this is the blue line or something. I don't know whatever it is.
But--guess I'll st--you remember when you were young, you used to play the game follow the leader? Somebody must've played it, come on. It's a great game. It's a happy time. It was a happy game. And if you played it like I did, the kids would follow one kid up, down, over, in, out, around, wherever, and they'd f--and the leader wasn't necessarily the tallest or the strongest or the oldest or, you know, certainly the one with the most hair, the leader was simply whoever those other kids were following at that moment. And they would follow that one kid just so long as he or she would take the other kids to a happy place in a happy way. And I'm here to tell you that leadership is just that simple and just that complicated. It's all about inspiring and enabling others, that's leadership.
The other thing your mother probably told you when you were little was never swim alone. She was right particularly in rough water. You always want to have a buddy. And the other idea here is leadership's about inspiring and enabling others, but anybody going to a new job this days is going into rough waters with the risk of failure because of had bad fit, bad delivery, bad adjustment, so you have to fix that, hence the books. And we're kind of doing these backwards, but the first book we wrote was called The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan. It's for people moving into new positions. That's what we're going to be talking about over the next hour. Second book is the book called Onboarding, which is for bosses bringing people in. We spent some time this morning talking about that, and we'll hint at some of the ideas, but you got to go—talk to somebody who was there. The third book is for the systemic change. That's what we actually started the day with, what, today this talk, this is about you moving into new jobs. And of course some of this will be applicable as you bring other people in, but this is you as a new leader. This is you going to a job. Right? Everybody in the right session? Good.
If I talk straight through, it'll be about 30 minutes, 30, 35 minutes, so I've left a lot of time for questions, so feel free to interrupt with questions or thoughts along the way. I'm pretty good at this. I can control you. You can't throw me off track. So whatever you want to do. Here then is The New Leader's Playbook, and you can get it out of the book, The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan. I also do a weekly article on Forbes about his. So if you Google Bradt New Leader's Playbook or probably New Leader's Playbook, you'll find the articles in it. It goes through this ten steps and it kind of goes around them, but that's the framework. And essentially what you want to do is all the things that I'm not going to read it to you, but I really want you to walk away with three ideas. As you're going into a new job, whether it's a new business, organization, institution, department, division, promotion, whatever, get a head start. Manage the message, build the team. That's the take away. For those of you that don't have a lot of time that need to leave, you can leave now, the rest of you we're going to go on a little more depth.
I do love this slide. And it's about getting a head start. And the thing is this race is already over for a lot of the people in this picture. And it's over because they didn't prepare. It's over because they don't know the course. It's over because they just--they're not--they haven't trained, they're not ready. In other words, doing--they're not mentality into it, and so step one is getting a head start.
Onboarding. Going to a new job doesn't start day one. Doesn't start when the gun goes off. There's this whole series of things that happened even before the first contact between you and whoever is hiring you or promoting you or moving you or whatever. Between that contact and offer between the acceptance and the start, we--the top stuff in blue is what the boss should be doing. We're going to focus on the bottom, the staff in bright yellow. And if you think about this, between the contact and the offer, you're trying to get the job. And there are only three interview questions. Can you do the job? Will you love the job? Can we stand working with you? Strengths, motivations, fit--the good news is, if there's only three questions, there's only three answers. So you only prepare three answers. The bad news is you got to do it in the context of people who you're talking to. So that's how you get the job. And as we get into if people want to ask more about that, we can do that.
The second thing is once you've been offered the job, you really want to do due diligence. And sort of buried within those macro risks, there are--there's an organization risk. If you're going to join a department that's about to get shut down, you're going to be in trouble. You don't want to do that. If you're going to a role that's ill-defined because somebody didn't get people aligned around it before hand, that's going to be tough. If you've over sold yourself and you don't actually have the strengths or the motivation or the fit, for this job, you need to know about that.
So in your due diligence, you really want to answer three questions. And the first one is does this organization have a sustainable competitive advantage? Both within the overall institution, outside the institution, whatever. Basically, do you believe it has the right to succeed over time? Until you believe that, you should be very scared about the job.
Second one is the role. And the question there is, who had concerns about this role, and what's been done to make them feel better? It's a two-part question because understanding who had concerns about the role will help you identify who to work with, who to, sort of, get on your side. And what's been done to relay those is where it goes.
And the last one is it's at the personal risk. And the question is "Thank you for offering me the job, but what specifically about me made you offer me the job?" Because if the specifics have to do with a strength you don't have or something they think that you've got that you don't have, you really want to know about it. And you may turn down the job, you may not turn down the job, you may tell them about it, but at least you want to be on the front foot, you want to understand it. So that gets at the questions.
The last bit about the head start is--I mean, you know this preparation breeds confidence. And maybe the most important thing you can do is have a plan. But before you start a job, have a plan. And the plan is the thing laid out there where--maybe if I'd had this to do over again, I would have renamed the book The New Leader's 100-Day Communication Plan, because everything communicates, and actually the actions are just one way of communicating.
And if you're communicating, the people you're communicating to most are the stake holders. So before you can do anything, you need to identify the most important stake holders up, down, and across, inside the organization, inside the institution, outside the institution. Figure out who they are, that's step one. Step two, is create your plan. And the plan's got a whole bunch of pieces around what's your message is going to be, who you're going to take it to, what the message is, what you're going to do before the start, what you're going to do after the start. Get yourself set up. Don't assume somebody else is going to have your office ready, your computer ready, your phone ready, your ID card. Hopefully they will. But you're in charge of your own onboarding. Ask, "Who's made this happen? Who should I talk to, to get this done?"
We have--I was telling Mickey about this last night. We have one client that has just the most amazing system in place. The minute somebody accepts a job, the computer is triggered to spit out an ID, and order a computer and get them a desk or an office or phone or whatever. And it works perfectly well below the director level. At the director level and up, the directors' secretaries have to do that for them. So the system doesn't do it, the secretaries do it. The problem is, if you hire a new leader from the outside, Director, VP, or whatever, the first thing that they're going to do when they show up is, pick a secretary. So before they won, there is no secretary. So there's nobody doing this, so the system falls apart. And what they've got at set for senior managers and below, their directors show up without this done. So working with those people, the question is who's going to get my office set up?
And then the last thing you want to do, last two things you want to do before you get started is jump start the relationships and the learning. And where's Tina [phonetic]? Tina, so I promised you the second part of the nightmare. It's a different scenario this time. Let us imagine that the organization has just hired me to be your boss, which is of course worse than hiring me to work for you. You hired me. So I'm your new boss. And we'll make this a little worse because you wanted the job. So how're you feeling--how do you think you're feeling about me?
So I show up day one and I do whatever I do. I go through orientation and I meet some people. And day two, I go to a leadership meeting 'cause I'm important. So I go to a leadership meeting, but day three I come by and I say, "Hey Tina, they've told me great things about you. I know you were one of the lead candidates for the job inside and I really want to work with you. Can we have lunch together today? I'll buy you lunch. Let's get to know each other." How's that feel? Feels pretty good.
Okay, I'm liking this group. I asked somebody that question in Peru and - same question - and she said, "I hate you." [Laughter] So feeling pretty good's better than I hate you. But so, so it's pretty good.
So now, contrast that if you would with I'm named to the new job and at 3 weeks before I start and the day after I'm named I call you up. And I say, "Tina, I know you just saw that I was named to the new job. I'm going to be your new boss. They told me that you were the lead internal candidate for the job. They told me you're fantastic. It just seems to me that it is in your best interest and my best interest and the institution's best interest for us to really figure out a way to work together. It is so important to me that I am not prepared to wait 'til day one to get to know you. I will meet you anywhere in the world, except Louisiana, anytime you want, anytime between now and my first day, but let's spend some time, pick the time, pick the place I just want to get to know you, see if we can make this work."
How does that feel? Better. It's a different game. And that--some of those early relationships are going to be really tense, emotionally filled as we talked about earlier. Some of them are going to be, you know, really important. The relationship between the editor and chief and the publisher of magazine, the relationship between marketing and sales, I'm sure there're relationships within the institution that are really important. It just makes a lot of sense to jump start those relationships. So that's all about getting of--about having the plan.
The second thing you want to do is you really need to get a read on the culture. And ideally before you've accepted the job, you figured out your own preferences, but you want to help understand the culture. And within this culture stuff and anybody that's listened to somebody earlier conversations will know. We can go into excruciating detail on the culture, but as you look at the behaviors, the relationships, the attitudes, the values, the environment, what's most important is how open is the culture to change? That's really what you're trying to get at. Is this a culture that's open to change or sort of stuck? So culture is one. Second part is context. Anybody know what that middle picture is?
A shed.
Sorry?
A shed.
A shed. It's actually a garage.
Okay.
But that's good. It is the garage in which Hewlett and Packard was started. So it's Bill Hewlett, David Packard--one of those guy's garage. It's where the company was started. And the point is as you're looking at the context, you need to understand, you know, the basic business organizational environment. What's going on with these five scenes. You need to understand the organization's history, because I would argue that some of the recent CEOs of Hewlett-Packard may not have fully appreciated what it's like to work in that family company starting from the garage and maybe did some things differently. They just want to understand where it came from. And you want to understand the organization's recent results. And when you put those together, the real question is how rapidly does this organization need to change.
Organizations like this one, it's really doing pretty well. Probably they don't need to make any crazy changes right now. Organization like Twinkie's, Hostess whatever they are, they got some different issues. They got a lot of different issues, so that's a different conversation. So when you put together the context on the left, the need to change, and the culture, our readiness to change, our openness to change, that helps you figure out your entry approach. So if the organization doesn't really need to change and it's--but it's ready to change, well then you can just assimilate in. This is IBM in the 1960s. You know, you're wearing a white shirt, you're wearing a blue suit, period, you're just joining.
If the organization, you know, needs to change, but isn't ready to change, then you can converge and evolve either fast or slow depending about where you are. And if the organization desperately needs to change but isn't open to change, that's where you need to shock it. And the thing to remem--and, oh, by the way, this isn't about just the overall institution, this is about whatever department or team you're joining. And you're going to get different answers with different ones of these groups. But be warned that shocking an organization is excruciatingly dangerous. If you shock an organization, hey, this is a hospital, you get this. You know, you shock an organization, the white blood cells fight back. I'm not going to give you medical analogies, but you know what I'm going for. And so what you want to do is you want to make sure you understand your entry approach.
So, in terms of your plan then, so in terms of getting a head start, what you want to do is you want to have your plan, up the stake holders, up, across and down. Get your message right. If you get your fuzzy fun in, the time between when you accept the job and when you start, have your plan for all those things, figure out what you're doing day one, first week. Figure out how you're going to build the team, get all that in place. Okay?
So, one of the best examples was a guy named Ajay Banga who I interviewed for Forbes. He went on to MasterCard and he did kind of a double start, which was pretty neat. He got named and he went around met people. And then when he started, he started at the--with the organization as president and chief operating officer. He was named a CEO effective whatever was November 1. Started July 1 as president and chief operating officer. Everybody know he was going to be CEO. But as he described it, he spent six months wandering around from office to office, flopping down in peoples chairs and saying, "Hi, I'm Ajay, tell me about yourself." And when he was done with that, he went country by country and office by office and just showed up and said, "Hi, tell me about yourself." So he spent six months learning before he tried to do anything. It's a great example of getting a head start before the start. Not all of you are going to be able to do these double starts in jobs. And if you're promoted from within, it's even weirder
But just even if it's a day or a week or an hour, take a moment. Stop. Think it through. Get people aligned. Jump start those critical relationships. So you're ready to go before the gun. Makes sense so far? Good.
So that's get a head start. Second idea is manage the message. Obviously, everything communicates. Everything you do, everything you say, everything you don't do, everything you don't say, communicates. And on the first day on your new job, everything--it's like being under a microscope. And what happens is anytime you go into a new job, particularly if you're the leader of the team, but even if you're just a member of the team, you change the team. You evolve the culture.
We had a big discussion this morning about whether or not you want to evolve the culture, how you love the culture, whatever it is. But just by you showing up, changes the culture. And you're moving from a current culture to a desired culture, and guaranteed, in any situation, there're going to be some people going, "Yeah. Yeah, let's do it, let's go. How do we go faster? How do I help?" And there're going to be the majority of people saying, "Okay. We'll see. We'll see, let's see what you do." And there'll be a few people that don't want you to succeed, because they don't like change, because they're afraid, and there're ways to identify them.
What you want to do is don't try to turn the detractors into supporters, it's just--it's a lot of work with a low likelihood of success. But if you can move everybody one step, if you can take some of the contributors or supporters and turn them into champions, you can take some of the watchers then and it's in this order by the way. First, get the contributors to be champions, then get some of the watchers be contributors, and then get the detractors out of the way. Get them out of the way by just getting them to give you a chance to--give them a chance to be watchers for a while or moving them off the team, one way or another, just think about moving everybody one step at a time. And it's a communication's exercise.
So, we used to have this ridiculous thing, that wasn't ridiculous, it was wonderful. We have this whole communication plan where you, I mean, you can see the steps and the thought where you had to go through the process and it was a whole program, it was a campaign. And anybody that's read the first or second edition of our book, it's all in there. And then we figured out we were wrong. And the reason we were wrong is because social media completely changed everything.
And if you think about it, you got all these people, all these stakeholders up, across, down, influencers and, you know, whatever and you can read the map. And now, all the sudden, there's all this media. And you can't just do stuff one-on-one. You got to--there's all sorts of different ways to communicate. And when you put them together, it gets crazy. And so not only does everything communicate, but everything communicates 24/7, 365 days a year, forever. You put something in your Facebook page it's there forever. How can we take down Facebook? It's there forever. It's in somebody's server and some computer somewhere.
So what you need to do is get really clear on your message. What are you trying to communicate to your new team? Whether you're leading them, whether they're peers, whoever they are, what are you trying to communicate? What's your message? What's your story? What are your communication points? And how are you going to do it?
Everything communicates. Do you understand that nobody will believe what you say? Words are cheap. You're going to stand up there, you're going to say the right things 'cause you thought it through, you're going to tell your story, and they won't believe you. They won't believe what you d---what you say, they will believe what you do.
Everyone of you looking at that middle picture believes that person with the, you know, the red cross emblem helping that baby, cares about that baby at least for that moment. That's an action. She doesn't have to say a word. And you've all heard this, right? Walk the talk. Your actions need to match your words. You've heard that right? Yeah, you've heard that. I'm here to tell you that's not good enough. Because if your actions do match your words but they don't match your fundamental underlying beliefs, you will get caught. Eventually you will slip up.
And the example I got up here is regarding Martin Luther. For those of you who don't remember, early 1500s, he decided he didn't like the Catholic Church. Kind of ran around Europe, mostly Germany, saying, "Hey! We need to do some new treatises or whatever." "You know there's a new way to do things." And, you know, I don't know if any of you have ever worked for a state government that has its own way of doing things. Catholic Church was like the ultimate state government. They didn't really like this guy trying to reform them. So they pulled him together into what they call the diet, but basically it was a council. And they pulled him in and they--it's was called the Diet of Worms, 1521.
1521.
1521. And they put his writings out on the table and they said, "Listen, we don't really need to have a trial here, because your own writings condemn you." You're toast, except they said it in German, so it's different. You're toast. But we're really nice people 'cause we're the church. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to give you 24 hours to think about it and recant, because, you know, if you recant we'll go easy on you 'cause we're really nice people, otherwise you're toast. So he goes away for 24 hours and he comes back and he says, "Here I stand, I can do no other." He would not violate his principle. And when your actions match your words, match what you really believe, what's really important to you, then people will believe you.
And the story I've got for this is also communication, get your target audience right. Get your message right. Figure out your communication points. Figure out what media how you're going to communicate to people, and measure it. But most importantly, manage it through a series of iterative conversations. And the example I love is, I do love this, I do a lot of work with the Red Cross and I could tell you stories forever, but I--we did this thing and I went down to their national convention last year and they had a new head of disaster response, Charlie Shimanski. He was their new senior Vice President. It was a three day assignment. He was just fantastic. I mean just magnificent. He would get up and give talks and the people go "Wow" and then he'd have side conversations with people and he'd pull in the CEO and he was just kind of everywhere. And I talked to him afterwards and I said, "You know, I was there. And I got it, and it was just this amazing piece of communication. How did you do it? What were you thinking?" And he said, "When I go in a meeting like that, I'm not thinking about what I'm going to say. I'm not thinking about what they're going to hear. I'm thinking about how I want them to feel. And I wanted them to feel that they were at the heart of our mission, that they mattered. I wanted them to feel proud." That was just so cool.
You know, I mean, you guys have one of these fantastic missions that everybody gets and if you don't get it you just don't, you know, it's just not hard to figure it out. It's, you know, it's not about what you say, it's not about what you hear, it's about how you make people feel. That's what I mean by managing the message. And when you go to a new job, bring that passion, bring that power.
Okay, so, idea one, get a head start, check. Idea two and it's the message. Idea three, build the team.
Any bicycle fans here? Anybody? Can anybody tell me who won The Tour de France seven years in a row? Lance Armstrong, thank you. I figured that would play in Texas.
And who else? Yeah! Somebody was listening. And his team. So bicycle racing is a team sport. You know, it wasn't just him, it was him and Postal or, you know, whoever they were, whenever they were, but, you know, there are six guys on the bikes, and of course the team is not just the guys in the bikes. Because the guys in the bikes couldn't have gotten there without the people doing logistics, without the trainers, without the coaches, without people getting them food, without the supporters, without the sponsors. So it's all about the team.
So I was going to, you know, I was going to use, you know, the question is, who won the Republican Primary in New Hampshire?
Mitt Romney and? Well done. Who won the 2008 election, Obama and?
Okay so, what's the application? The application is as a new leader, and you're all new leaders, you're actually all new leaders all the time, because anybody that thinks the next hundred days is going to be anything like the last hundred days, you're in for really a bad surprise. So you're all new leaders all the time. And as new leaders, the only thing any of you can do absolutely all by yourself is fail. If you want to be successful, it's all about the team. And so the third idea is build the team, which is about a aligning your people, your plans, and your practices around a shared purpose. So I--so five steps. We're focused on the middle steps of building the team, which is getting people aligned around this imperative. Getting the milestones in place, delivering some early wins, sorting the team, and underlining the whole thing with communication. So, we, George Bradt's secret of happiness. Those of you not taking notes, remember this 'cause this is important. But we're filming so can--if you forget, then you can come back to this 'cause this is the secret to happiness. Happiness is good.
[ Laughter ]
What? You want more? Evil, evil. So, I actually think I'm writing this one. I think I'm writing a lot of things. That's my problem. But so happiness is good. There are three goods and I suggest that all of you are motivated by these goods in--in different levels, different ways.
So, there is doing good for others. Probably very few of you would be working at an institution that's trying to make cancer history without understanding, okay, oh yeah, patients, they care, you know, in the end, it's--well our prospective patients or non-patients or you know, making cancer go away, that's doing good for others. That's good. That's great. That's good. That makes you happy, not enough.
The second one is doing good for me. I got to get some reward out of here. I got to get some money. I got to be able to pay the rent. I got to feel good myself. I've got to build for a future career. So, good for me.
And in the third one is, doing things that you're good at. And obviously, from the pictures up here, some people are more heavily weighted in some directions than others but if you can balance, get this stuff in balance and find a place like this where you can do good for others while doing good for yourself, while doing things you're good at, you should be happy. So everybody should be happy. Just--that's my message, be happy.
So, we talked about this dam earlier. And the, you know, what's the most important part of a dam? It depends on the purpose of the dam. And if, you know, the purpose of the dam is great recreation, it's to water above the dam. If it's farmland, it's the lack of water below the dam. Creating energy whatever suits the dam.
So as you think about, as the new leader, as you think about the purpose, there--it's about value. It's about value. It's about what are we trying to do for others? Or trying to do for myself. What value are we creating and a lot of what Porter writes is really very good here. What's the value proposition? Who are we serving? Cancer patients. You know, and what's the need? We want them to get rid of cancer. And, you know, what do we do? What's the offer? What's the promise? What's our price and all that stuff? That's a value proposition.
There's the whole value chain, how do we deliver? And the value chain is really useful both internally and externally. As you look at your group, you inevitably have internal costumers, internal clients. Understand how you fit in the broader value chain of making cancer history. Understand how you fit with the next person. What you're going to do for them? How you're going to help them do what they do?
And then the last piece is values. What are you not prepared to do? You know, I stand, I can do no other. You know, you can't live your values if you don't understand them. You can't live them as a team, unless the team agrees to them. Some of these are going to be the same across the institution. Some of these are going to be different by different groups. So the prescription is get that right. This is the first big block, it's a big deal.
Second, milestones. Get the operating plan in place. Make it clear. Who's doing what, by when, with what support. You know, if the people work for you, you kind of tell them what to do. If they don't work for you, you make sure you're agreeing it, so these things become a contract. Get an early win in place.
As you're going to--so there is a conversation at six months into a job. You have been on every side of this conversation. Where somebody turns to the new person leader's boss and says, "How's she doing?" And if the answer is, "Oh she's fantastic. We love her. She fits the values. She's kind of off to a slow start, but she's just got all the skills, we think she's going to be great." If that's the response, she, like Martin Luther, is toast. She's toast on off to a slow start, because on off to slow start, there is a seed of doubt planted. And the next time she comes back and ask the question, it's like "Oh yeah, she's off to a slow start, she doesn't get it. What's the matter with her?" I mean, the antidote to that is, "How is she doing?" "How is she doing? Let me tell me tell you what she's got and done. She's done this. She's done this. She's done this. And of course she hasn't done squat." 'Cause she's barely found the bathroom, and she still thinks red, you know, R32 should be on the blue line or whatever or the red line, I don't know. But--but her team has, and her team has because she picked an early win and they delivered it.
Worth block is getting a right people on the right roles. Sort the team, figure out who's not well--I'm not suggesting you fire anybody. I'm not suggesting you transfer anybody. I'm suggesting that you a plan and know what you're going to do within the constraints of the reality. You know, what are you going to do? Who are you going to move? Who are you going to support? How are you going to switch people around? I got stories on this one that go--drive you crazy.
And the last piece in--and this was the question earlier, is you have to be ready to adjust, and you have to be able to look at changes there and the surprises. There will be surprises, and you need to understand that if they are major or minor, temporary or enduring, and you need to be able to react. So in terms of building the team, team charters are a very cool thing. Where you lay out for the team? What's the context? What resources do they have? What are the guidelines? What are the accountabilities?
And one of my favorite stories on building the team is--I'm sorry, you can't see the picture. But what you've got, this is Fernando Aguirre. He was the CEO of Chiquita. And it sort of plays off of he was on "Undercover Boss". I don't know if any of you seen that show, but he was undercover boss, he went out. They had him doing all sort of things. And one of them was chopping lettuce or the growing or harvesting lettuce--oh, he's harvesting lettuce. And the guy that he was working with that was harvesting the lettuce was an immigrant of Mexico, as was Fernando. And as he talked to him, the guy said, "What I really want to do is I want to become a US citizen." And so Fernando supported him and paid for the immigration lawyer and helped him do the learning and helped him become a US citizen. He became a US citizen. And in Yuma, Arizona, there was a--this guy became a citizen. They had a big ceremony to there. 84 people there and the mayor of Yuma gave him the plaque and everything. And they had a speaker. And the guest speaker in Yuma, Arizona, which is not so far here but it is very far from Cincinnati, the guest speaker was Fernando Aguirre. He went down and spoke to all these people to honor this guy. You can read the slide. But it's an example of this guy building the team one person at a time and supporting somebody in their--in their needs.
Alright so, we got about 15 minutes left. I wanted to--oops, I wanted to pause here for questions. We got microphones. So if you got--so, there are two ways to ask questions. You can either say, "Hey, George, I don't understand this, tell me about this" or you can say, "George, talk more about." Cause I know stuff.
So somebody needs to say--some of you raise your hands so we can get a microphone to you. And then say, "George, say more about." Thank you. So we'll wait for the microphone because we're recording this, and even though everybody else can here you, the tape can't.
Can you tell us more about how to manage your detractors or to how to avoid managing them?
Thank you. I--
So, let's go back to Tina. Because Tina was a potential detractor. Because she wanted my job, and she might think that if I fail, she'll get the job. So there's a strong risk with Tina. And I only told you the first part of what I'm doing about Tina, but thank you for asking that question. I will now say more about that.
So this is step 1. Step 1 is, invite her to partner with me, preferably before I start or as soon as I understand it that she might be a detractor. And you're going to hate this 'cause this may not fly here. But in the business world, and I come from the business world, so you need to sort of take what I say and modify it a little bit. But in the business world, and I've done this a lot of times, I would give Tina eight weeks. And I would hope that sometime before the end of eight weeks, Tina would come to me and say, "George, you know, I wanted your job and I got to tell you I was little angry that you got it and I felt bad and we had that nice first conversation, but got to tell you that your word sounded nice, but I really didn't believe you. But I get it now. I really am your first best assistant. I know why they brought you in. I can learn from you. I like the direction you're leading the team. Sign me up." That's step 2.
And if she signs up and--oh, by the way, along the way over the eight weeks, I would give Tina my full support. I would assume the best. I would assume positive intent. I would take this potential detractor and smother her with love, which is Tina's true worst nightmare. But I would smother her with love. I would give her all the support and help I could and waiting for the eight weeks. And so if sometime in the eight weeks, she signs up, then we're good. She is at least moved to--I don't have to watch her.
If by the end of the eight weeks, she didn't come back to me and say, "I get it, sign me up," I would move her off the team. Pretty much as soon as I could. And I would do that by finding her another place in the organization, because I don't know if you remember the early conversation, but Tina was a valued employee. Tina was a lead candidate for this job. Tina is great. Tina just doesn't like me. So she's a detractor because I'm the problem. So I'd find her another place in the organization working for somebody else where she can be a supporter.
You got to get rid of the detractors. You either got to get rid of them by getting them to be watchers, or got to get them off the team, not firing them, got to get them somewhere else where they can be a help. That--now, that's controversial but I'm so glad you asked that.
Very--
Wait, wait. You got to speak into the mic.
Yes sir. You very narrowly defined that situation as a personality conflict. What if Tina actually sees things that you don't see and brings diversity to the group? That at first, you may--kind of annoy you, but once you review what your ultimate goals are for the committee then she may be very, very valuable. So instead of having her as a social club, maybe her diversity is a better thing for the group. Even though you may disagree with what she says, maybe working that out may actually make the group a better and more effective unit.
So you and I are not on the same page because I was talking about detractors. And somebody who disagrees with me and challenges me and comes up with different ideas for the better of the group in line with purpose, in line with our values, that's a major contributor.
[ Inaudible Remark ]
I forgive you.
[ Laughter ]
So one of the things that I've always done is that first person to challenge me as a leader, is so valuable. 'Cause I always say that I want people to challenge me, nobody ever believes me. You know, I mean, 'cause the--one of the questions, it's in that great book, The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan. One of the questions that I have people ask their new boss is, "How do you want me to disagree with you?" And if you think about it, there're kind of five, at least five levels of answer. One is, "Why would you disagree with me, I'm the boss, I know stuff." I'm sure you ha--I'm sure none of you have any bosses that think they know everything, and--but when they do, you know, if they don't want to be this rude, that's fine. Or they might say, level 2, "Oh yeah, yeah, I'd love for you to disagree with me, just do it in private, you know, so that everybody else thinks we're together." Level 3 is the, the Don Corleone Approach, "Hey, disagree with me that's fine. Just, you know, small group. Never let anybody outside the family know we disagree." Level 4 is, "Hey, I'd love for you to disagree with me in public, it means--but just, you know, be polite." And level 5 is, "Gloves off baby, disagree with me in public. That's setting the culture that we want to have the debate, to have it 'cause it's not about you, it's not about me, it's not about me, it's about patient care, you know, if you think we're missing something we need to know." So you ask them, and you get these five levels of disagreement, and then you don't believe them.
[ Laughter ]
Because almost everybody overestimates their appetite for disagreement by one click. So you ask them and then you watch what happens to other people that disagree, and you adjust. So when somebody disagrees with me, 'cause I'm pretty much gloves-off, so that first person to disagree with me, I treat that as the greatest gift and I do everything I can to – forget protect them -- to make them so happy that they disagreed. I'd just say, "Oh, my gosh, thank you that's fantastic." If they disagree in private, say, "Okay, you know, how do we make sure we do this, how do we work it together?" And if somebody disagrees with me--I don't necessarily, I don't have to agree with them, but I have to make them feel really good about expressing that disagreement. So they tell other people, so other people do it, which is why--and Tina, you know, not Tina but other people, the people that disagree with me, but are trying--but in line [inaudible], they're contributors, I love that. I think I got time for a couple more. That was good. Who else? Where do you want to go, I can go to [inaudible] say more about, thank you, and then we got one up here.
Can you say more about, as I look at the slide that you have there about exploiting key milestones, there's always a question about how do you market yourself as a leader. There're certain things that you may do that maybe you're really good at but--and you're really happy about your success with it but you don't really know how to market yourself as leader. How--can you say more about that?
So, what--don't lose that mic yet. Is the question, how do you manage milestones or is it how do you market yourself as a leader?
Mixture of both, because in order for you to determine what milestones you're setting for yourself in a way you have to market yourself and know somewhat what your goals are or what you're setting as a milestone. So it's somewhat a duel question.
Got it. Okay, so the headline is it's not about you. So, hold up a dollar. Come on. Put your hand up. Excellent. And I have a dollar. Toss your dollar over here. And there's my dollar. How many dollars did you start with? I mean do you have now? Nice, okay, put the dollar down. Hold up [pause] an idea. Come on. Ask me the idea. Take mine. How many do you have? No.
[ Laughter ]
You can't give it away. You have two. It's the same thing with credit. As a leader, if you go to your boss and say, "Look what I did." You know, some bosses may like it, it's kind of okay. But if you go to your boss and say, "Look what my team did. Look what they did." When you give that credit away, you as the leader, you're getting credit. So, it's not about you. It's about inspiring and enabling others. And so as a leader, the best way to market yourself is to enable others to do good work, inspire them to do good work, and then let everybody else know about their good work to further inspire them, you will get credit along the way. That's the nice inspiring and enabling stuff. The milestone thing, this is where all the area of very nice lovely stuff hits the road and makes it happen. And discipline milestones are--it's the core of an operating process.
You know, visions are wonderful. Missions are wonderful. You know, strategies are wonderful. But until people get done what they're--what they need to get done, when they need to get it done, it's all useless. So the milestone process is a way of making sure that you're doing things as a team and there are ways of managing as a team that are really cool, and I don't have a lot time to go into that now, but it's not about you. It's not about people coming back to you. They know what they're doing in their milestone. It's about using the milestones to help people get done what they need to get done and then it's about marketing the great things they did. And, oh, by the way, it doesn't matter if those people work for you. The team could be a team of peers. As you're working with them, if you just go and someone says, "Hey look what they got done." You get the credit. Helpful? Love that. And there was one here. We need a microphone and we have microphones. It's all good. What was it?
Right here.
Oh, I'm sorry.
That's okay.
You talked a lot about putting people in the right roles and making the distractors into either watchers or getting rid of them, but what if it's not that easy to get rid of one that you can't turn into a watcher?
[ Laughter ]
Like, there's very many of times where you're not the top person that can make those kinds of decisions. So what do you suggest to do in that type of situation?
Yeah. Everybody heard the question? Microphone works?
It's really tricky and duh, 'cause you wouldn't be asking if it wasn't tricky. And it's, you know, it's--it's particularly tricky if the person that's the detractor is boss, or if you can't move them, or if for whatever reason, it's gonna take awhile to move them. What I do is I shorten the leashes, is the way I think about it. And it goes back into the milestones. So if I'm leading someone and they're doing great and they're making things happen and they're su--I don't care if they detract--if they don't like me. What I care about is whether they're moving towards our purpose. If they're doing that, I lengthen the leash. My check-ins are monthly, quarterly, or whatever. If things aren't going well or if they are a detractor, I shorten the leash, and the milestones become weekly or daily. And I don't give them a lot as much latitude to hurt the team. And it works. It certainly works down 'cause they have to do it. It works across as well. "Hey, terrific. Let's check-in on that next week. Actually, you know what? This is really important. I'll check back with you on Thursday." And you shorten the leash and then you can kind of manage the behavior. And I don't want to oversimplify this 'cause it's awful, and it's painful. And you're sitting there saying, you know what you have to do but you can't because somebody else makes the decision or there's some policy or there's some contract or whatever, but what you want to do is shorten the leash, manage through them, take away some of the things they're doing that can hurt you. Basically, minimize the ability, their ability, to hurt the team. It's not a perfect answer because there is no perfect answer but it's a great question. I--no I don't time for that--one more that I can give a quick answer to or I'll go to my last slide. Going once, going twice, nothing [inaudible]. You look like you got something desperate you want to ask. Nope?
No, I'm not.
Nope, no. Alright, so if I've done this right, I want you to walk away with one idea and then three key points. The first one is it's not about you. It's about inspiring and enabling others. The full thought is that leadership is about inspiring and enabling others to do their absolute best together to realize a meaningful and rewarding shared purpose. The three ideas are get a head start, manage the message, build the team. And what is so cool for all of you and those of you that have worked at other organizations recently, or businesses or companies, what's so fan--what you've got is, you're trying to inspire and enable others to make cancer history. I mean, come on. Is there, you know, what a fantastic meaning from rewarding shared purpose, so I am truly honored to be able spend time with you 'cause what you're doing matters. Thank you.
[ Applause ]
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