Speak your mind when it adds value

Sol credits his meteoric rise to his brashness and courage to speak his mind. Early in his career, he spoke up about a product’s lack of effectiveness at an executive committee meeting. This got him noticed by the chairman who put him in charge of fixing the problem. He encourages anyone who has an idea that adds value to the company to speak up and to share those thoughts. When asked how he mustered the courage to do that, he said, “I didn’t know any better“. To help you decide when to speak up, ask yourself, “Is there something important that should be said that’s not being said right now?”

Look at everything and learn constantly

Sol cautions that if you do speak your mind, make sure you know what you’re talking about. He strongly believes that amassing knowledge is key to being successful. Whether it’s reading books and journals, listening to key experts, or studying with an institution, find ways to get up to speed on your business. The more knowledgeable you are, the better off you’ll be. This echoes advice from both Alex Gorsky, CEO of J&J, and Mary Barra, CEO of GM. Looking into everything doesn’t mean you’re going to get into the details every time, it means being adept at navigating a conversation at 50,000 feet and at 50 feet when needed.

Understand the rules of the game

Sol recognized early on that the rules of the game in business were not created for a Latino. Although he would be justified to be mad at the unfairness of the system, he knew that would be counterproductive. He understood that for him to win, he’ll need to be 5 to 10 times better than his peers. He also wanted to stay committed to his family so instead of going for rounds of golf, he threw himself into working hard on the business and spent his energy getting better as opposed to wishing the world around him was different.

Get good feedback

“Feedback is really good if you take it and learn from it” – Sol emphasized this point as one of the core factors for how he has been able to sustain his success. As he was rising in his career, he received feedback on his brashness and was able to learn how to get people to perform without the harshness he was using to communicate his expectations. What feedback are you getting from others? What feedback can you give to yourself?

Innovate to grow and compete

When Ken Chenault, former CEO of American Express, spoke at this same conference last year, he said, “if you’re not moving, you’re falling back.” Sol had a similar message where he stresses that every leader must consider two D’s – Digital and Diversity. He talked about the importance to adapt to new technologies and set up a team that allows you to diagnose a problem from different perspectives. To get buy-in for innovation, you must show conviction, passion, and knowledge about the Why and clear thinking about the What. 

What impressed me most about Sol was his courage to stand up for what is right. During his CEO role at Telstra, he faced a number of racist encounters around his Mexican heritage. When his wife asked him why he doesn’t just quit and pursue easier opportunities, he said it’s exactly because of these incidents that he could not quit and didn’t want to allow such ignorance to scare him off.

Photo from Morgan Stanley Senior Multicultural Conference #SMLC19

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Walmart’s phenomenal growth wasn’t because of some secret sauce or tremendous luck, but rather it stems from a consistent application of hard work, continuous improvement, grit, client service, and strong financial management.

If you’re interested in building a sustainable business or career, apply Sam Walton’s 10 rules for success:

1. Commit to your business

Find something you’re passionate about and stick to it. If you’re a top performer, you’ll have many options and it’s easy to be enticed by the different opportunities that come your way. Resist the bright shiny objects in your career path and commit to your life’s work.

If you’re not sure what that work might be or what you’re passionate about, sign up for my free Know What You Want course. It’ll get you moving in the right direction.

Once you commit, be biased towards taking action and expect to win. When you are optimistic about your chances to succeed, it makes it easier for you to be resourceful and to persist until you win.

2. Partner with your team

To succeed, it’s paramount for your employees, peers, and stakeholders to be invested in you and your company or project. To get their buy-in, find ways to share credit and profits with your team so they feel better off when you and the firm are doing well. People follow leaders who will leave them better off.

Walton echoes British entrepreneur Richard Branson, “If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”

3. Challenge your team

To build a world-class firm or career, set high goals and expectations for yourself and those around you. Encourage competition and find ways to keep the score to build accountability. Value hard work, innovation, and integrity and build teams that exude similar values.

As you institutionalize best practices, don’t be too predictable. Always keep things moving forward so your people and firm stay fresh. To hold people accountable, identify measurable performance indicators that connect to the value added to the firm.

4. Communicate openly and thoroughly to your team

Proactively empower your team by being transparent and sharing important information about the business. The more your people know the more they will understand how to focus their energy on the right things. Sam Walton believed the value for empowering your employees far outweigh the risk of competitors gaining access to the inner workings of your business.

Communicate often through staff meetings and written updates. Use these touch points to share information in a timely manner, provide a sounding board to your people, and boost your team’s morale.

5. Appreciate everything your people do for you and the business

It never hurts to be thankful.

To effectively show gratitude, be observant and notice when those around you are doing the right things. Then depending on the person, show appreciation either publicly or privately to recognize their specific actions. Specificity shows people you’re paying attention, which also shows that you care.

6. Celebrate your successes (and failures)

When you reach the top of the mountain you’ve decided to climb, take time to soak it in and celebrate. Reflect on what you did right and what you could do better. Thank all the people who helped you achieve your success and share credit with the people involved.

When you fail, take responsibility but don’t take yourself too seriously. Find humor in the situation and have fun. If you’re in a business you’re passionate about (see #1), know that any setback is only a small part of your overall journey. As long as you learn from your failures, each one will be a building block for your future success.

7. Listen to everyone

To be successful, find ways to listen to everything that’s going around you – in your department, company, and industry. Build trust with people around you so they open up to you and feel safe to share what they see is happening. If you have employees who report to you, push power down and pull info and ideas up. When you hear great ideas, share them with others in the firm.

Throughout his career, Sam would often visit his competitors to learn from their best practices and implement them in his stores. Sam’s Club was a direct result of listening to his competitors. Don’t be afraid to build on what others are doing. Everyone has a lesson to teach you.

8. Exceed your clients’ expectations

Give the people you serve what they want and a little more. This means constantly updating your understanding of what matters to your clients. Show that you appreciate them. When you make a mistake, apologize, and don’t make excuses. Just fix the issue and make good on your mistake.

Your business and career grow because your clients support you. Keep looking for ways to serve your customers better than anyone else. What else can you do to guarantee your client’s satisfaction?

9. Control your expenses better than your competition

If you want to succeed in business and in life, manage your finances and operations effectively. Whether it’s your company, department, or project, the ability to understand the drivers of your business and create sustainable profits is what will boost your value to the company.

If you’re not sure how to read financial statements or manage a P&L, take a class or consider an MBA. If you don’t, you won’t be able to compete and competition is unavoidable. To win, be passionate about competing and compete to win.

10. Swim upstream

When you feel strongly about a trend or idea, stick to your convictions even if it means going against the crowd. Leaders lead by changing and improving the status quo. Anytime you’re leading change, there will be dissuaders.

Keep an open mind and don’t be afraid to change your mind if you realize you’re wrong.

If you’re passionate about being successful, take inventory on how you’re doing on these 10 tips. If you found these ideas useful, consider tips from these other top CEOs – Ken Chenault (American Express), Alex Gorsky (Johnson and Johnson), and Mary Barra (General Motors).

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These were the questions I asked myself during Professor Stew Friedman’s Total Leadership program at Wharton. What attracted me to take this course was Stew’s concept that work-life balance doesn’t work because it implies having to make trade-offs. Instead of managing life as slices of a pie that gets smaller or bigger at the expense of each other, his alternative was to consider different areas of your life as independent circles that can potentially overlap with each other.

This new construct helped me unlock the creativity to better optimize my life and it has transformed the way I live and work.

Before this course, I felt at the whim of my goals and the needs of my stakeholders. I felt forced to make tradeoffs in one area of my life because of the demands of another area and instead of leading my life, it was leading me. The process I learned in this live workshop with peer coaching helped me gain control over the important areas of my life. You’ll see below five insights that might be helpful to you as you think about leading all areas of your life:

Lead Your Life: Don’t Use One Area of Your Life to Make Excuses for Another Area

Before this program, I would often feel guilty that I did not get home early enough to spend time with my kids. I would use work as my excuse and rationalize that now is the time to focus on my career and once I’ve “made it”, I can carve out more time for family. Along the same vein, I would use my two young sons as the excuse for not exercising. I would tell myself, “How can I afford to work out if I don’t even have enough time to spend with my kids?” Then I would use the time I needed for work, school, family, and exercise to justify why I slept on average only five hours each night.

I found myself often saying how much I wanted to do these things but explaining how I couldn’t because of the many legitimate excuses that I had. Looking back, that was a weak way of living. This experience has taught me to either do what I say is important to do or stop saying it’s important to me. Either way is fine but continuing to make excuses is not.

As part of this course, we all conducted personal experiments. For my experiments, I committed to getting 7+ hours of sleep, getting home before 7pm during most of the work week, and exercising daily, which included running 2x a week. I was initially skeptical since I’ve had so many false starts trying to implement similar positive habits but I’m excited to share that so far I’ve not only sustained these habits but I just completed my first half-marathon after never running a race in the past.

What made the difference this time was clarifying the vision I wanted for my life and taking control to bring that vision to life. Essentially, leading myself to where I wanted to go.

Sleep Really Matters

I was lucky to choose sleeping 7+ hours as one of my experiments because there was no habit change that yielded faster and more drastic results than getting 7+ hours of sleep. I used to subscribe to the “you can sleep when you retire” and “I’m successful because I work harder and longer than everyone else” mantra. I’m beginning to see the fault in this thinking and realizing that I may have spun my wheels more often than I am aware of or care to admit.

After consistently getting 7+ hours of sleep, I noticed my mood becoming more positive and relaxed. What surprised me the most was that I immediately stopped craving coffee (I was drinking about 2-3 cups a day for the last few years).

I also found sleeping sufficiently a linchpin habit. The days when I was well rested, I almost always completed every other habit change along with my work and school goal for that day. It allowed me to exercise more self-control and discipline.

Create Constraints to Force Creativity

Forcing myself to get home early, sleep enough hours, and exercise daily meant taking time away from other areas of my life, especially work. Initially, I was worried I wouldn’t get my work done leading to adverse consequences. What I found instead was the most important work was still getting done and since my deadlines were tighter, I became more effective with my time. Having less time for work began to prevent me from over-engineering my work and school projects.

It also helped me to be more creative about my time. Instead of agreeing to drinks or dinner with a client, I would offer to meet for breakfast or lunch so I can keep my commitment to get home early. I started running and working out with other people as a great way to catch up with them. Interestingly, by creating constraints and forcing myself to keep these new habits, the quality of my life has increased at home and at work.

Be the Building Block for Other People’s Goals

One of the key exercises in the Total Leadership process was to set up conversations with the most important stakeholders in the different areas of your life. The goal is to ask your stakeholders about their expectations for you and how you’re doing in meeting those expectations.

Holding these conversations, I realized that I often see people around me as building blocks to my success and drive our interactions in the direction of my agenda and accomplishing my goals. Hearing people’s expectations of me have made me realize that other people have their own needs and aspirations and to create long-term, positive relationships with them, I need to be the building block for their goals and success.

If you want people to see you as a leader, they first have to recognize that their life will be better because they follow you. There is no better way to do that than to become a critical part in their quest for success and meaning.

Grow the Relationships You Take for Granted

Every year I have clear goals to improve and to grow my career. It seems like the natural thing to do. What’s interesting is when I reflect on my closest relationships, I don’t have the same aspirational tendency. I don’t think about growing these relationships and at best, the relationship stays where it is. The only time I pay attention is when the relationship gets strained and I spend just enough energy to get it back to the original level.

Applying the same growth mentality from my career to my personal relationships, I asked my wife, family, and others close to me what we needed to do to take our relationship to the next level. Just by having these conversations, my key relationships are beginning to thrive and grow and it’s having a positive impact on other areas of my life. When you ask people about their needs and truly listen, they often become open to sincerely understanding your needs. Another benefit to this exercise is it allows you to decide which relationships may not be worth investing in because the other person doesn’t want to engage.

To start this journey, craft the vision for your life and clarify your values. You choose the life you want to have and the key idea is to align your actions to bringing to life your vision. Stay attuned to how you’re tracking to your vision and continue iterating with experiments to find overlap in the different circles of your life.

If you would like to dive in deeper, check out Stew’s Total Leadership book, which outlines the exercises in his process. You can also take the Coursera version of the course.

Photo by Brooke Lark

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His practical and authentic lessons show why Ken is one of the most successful and respected CEOs of our time. As you read his insights below, you’ll see that he really means it when he says, “It is a privilege, not an entitlement, to lead.” An excellent reminder for anyone who leads or aspires to lead their organization.

Be Compassionate and Decisive

Great leaders understand that it’s important to take care of their people and stay accountable to the business when they make decisions. Leaders sometimes shy away from compassion because they confuse it with being indecisive or unable to make tough decisions. Ken showed his ability to balance these two qualities as he recounted the tough decision he made to lay off 15,000 employees after the economic downturn.

He believes that in these tough situations, people don’t deserve what’s happening to them but the circumstances demand it. In these critical moments, it’s up to leaders to show that they care and to take care of their people. Despite having to make this difficult but necessary business decision, Ken displayed compassion by devoting resources to help displaced employees find new jobs and opportunities. He held his executive team responsible for employee engagement and tied their compensation to an employee satisfaction survey sent to both existing employees and those who were let go. His actions during this time were given high ratings by both these groups. Ken reminded all of us that leaders who fail to take care of the business and its people will lose their privilege to lead.

Constantly challenge the status quo

“If you’re not moving, you’re falling back”. Ken stressed the importance of being innovative and striving to become the company that will put your current company out of business. He argued that it is not just about managing competitive threats, it’s about understanding what customers want and to focus the firm on better serving those needs. His litmus test for whether a leader or company is serious about innovation – look at the organization’s actions and the size of their R&D investments.

Know and run your business well

“Stay liquid, be profitable, and selectively invest in growth.” This fundamental lesson has come up in talks from both Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson and Johnson, and Mary Barra, CEO of GM. It’s worth paying attention to and as a leader, Ken believes that it is your job to think through the consequences of your decisions. As echoed in billionaire investor Ray Dalio’s Principles, you want to have a strong sense of your reality and go beyond 1st order consequences. The ability to look at the 2nd and 3rd order impact of your decisions will help you better lead your organization and yourself.

Strive to be a better leader, not to be CEO  

Ken never aspired to be CEO when he first agreed to work for American Express until he was approached with the possibility later in his career. He just focused on adding value to the company. If you are great at what you do and ambitious, you are probably on the fast track to the top. Once you recognize that, it is easy to play it safe and be more calculated and self-focused in your approach. Avoid this tendency. Don’t be a “maintainer” – keep taking risks and focus on helping the company and those around you succeed.

It is hard to get 1) the top spot if you’re just managing what already exists and 2) people to follow you if they feel like your actions are just about you and forwarding your agenda. No one cares if you get promoted unless it helps them achieve their goals.

Place a high premium on integrity and trust

Ken values these two qualities above many others because they are the basis for forming your reputation inside and outside your company. Periodically ask yourself,

“How consistent are my words and actions?”

Your answer to this question will tell you whether you are leading your life or your life is leading you. Ken ends his talk by emphasizing that all leaders should clarify their values and know their priorities. What do you live for? What’s the inspiring vision you have for your life?

Ken’s vision for himself is to “be successful as a person who stands for something”. What’s yours?

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For many of us, work makes up a big part of our waking hours. One of the most common pitfalls is getting stuck in the wrong job especially when the compensation and benefits are comfortable and the job is easy for you to do.

Then something happens.

Something that triggers you to reconsider whether your current job is the right one for you. Maybe your leadership team was inflexible with one of your requests, or you hear that one of your peers is rising much faster in their career than you are or you just have a boss that is overbearing. Whatever the reason, it’s helpful to periodically assess whether you are in the right role. This is particularly true if it’s a role you’ve been in for a long time.

In Dan Pink’s book, When, he outlines 5 questions you should consider if you’re not sure whether you should stay in your current job. If you answer “no” to a few of these questions, an exit might be exactly what you need.

• Would you choose to stay in this job during your next work anniversary?
  • Another question you might ask is: knowing what you know now, would you have taken the job that you currently have?

• Is your current job both demanding and in your control?
  • Do you feel challenged and are you offered autonomy over how you achieve your goals?

• Does your boss allow you to do your best work?
  • Do they encourage and support you? Are they willing to take responsibility or do you find ways to take credit and shift blame?

• Are you within a 3-5 year window to get a salary boost or promotion?
  • If not, you have a higher likelihood of a bigger title or salary by leaving.

• Does your daily work align with your long-term goals?
  • Where do you want to go professionally and does your current role give you the skills, exposure, and experiences to get you there?

Again, if you have at least 2-3 no’s, start exploring your options because your job is probably not working out. If you want more certainty around whether you should quit your job, see if these warning signs exist. If you have no idea what you want to do next in your career, take this course.

Inspired by Dan Pink’s When.

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Beyond workaholics, this phrase puts off more people than it excites. When people think of the grind, they envision their routine commute and their brainless, repetitive tasks. Not exactly a motivating image.

Yet, the grind is needed for success.

Most of your working life will consist of the grind with achievements peppered throughout. Your career is similar to a watch that keeps running and only gets recognized when you’re looking for the time or when your alarm goes off. It’s not glorious but it’s the way things work. You can’t shortcut the time it takes to get great at something.

With that said, surviving the grind isn’t as bad as you think as long as you choose something you want to do. A nostalgic example that comes to mind for me is Super Mario Brothers (the original version on the Nintendo Entertainment System). Like most young children, I had a short attention span. Yet I would spend countless hours repeating the same exact stages over and over again because I wanted to “beat” the game and impress my friends. That was the grind.

What allowed me to keep going with this seemingly mundane task was making progress in the game. As long as I was moving ahead, the grind was paying off.

If you begin to question your daily grind, there is a good chance that you’re not seeing improvement or progress anymore. This should alarm you because you’re probably on the cusp of burning out or you’ve already disengaged from work. Neither one of these outcomes will bring you long-term success.

To succeed professionally, find meaningful work that will help you grow. How willing you are to embrace the grind will help you determine if you’re on the right track. Below is an excellent reminder from Paul Graham’s fantastic article on the shortness of life:

“Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That’s what you do when life is short.”

– Paul Graham

Photo by Joe Madonna

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I wish I could say no to everything that didn’t move me closer to my goals but it’s just not easy for me. I have a hard time saying no. I fear missing out on a life-changing opportunity or disappointing the people who come to me for help.

As I balance work, two young kids at home, and an Executive MBA, I find that I’m forced to prioritize and make trade-offs. One mindset shift that has helped me better manage requests is to view my time as a valuable currency that can be invested in activities.

Every request is a pitch for my time and as with all investment decisions, it’s important to do my due diligence. A few questions I find helpful to:

• Ask the person making the request:
  • Why did you come to me with this request?
  • What exactly do you need from me? By when?
  • Who else have you asked?
  • If the other person is my boss, I might ask:
    • How would you like me to prioritize this task?
    • What other projects should I delay or stop doing? 

• Ask myself:
  • Will this activity give me the most return towards one of my key goals or enhance a relationship I want to build?
  • What will I give up if I take this on? What are the opportunity costs? 
  • How else can I help this person without investing too much of my time?

Running through this checklist of questions allows me to slow down the decision process and hear the other person’s reasons for his or her request. If it’s a thoughtless request, it’ll be much easier to say no. If it’s an interesting or worthwhile ask, then I won’t feel guilty taking it on.

Managing my time as investable currency has helped me say no more easily and live life by design and not by default. Hopefully, if you have a hard time saying no, these questions can help you better manage the countless requests that come your way.

Inspired by Bill Jensen and The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier

Photo by XoMEoX

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With an ever-growing to-do list, your commitment to complete your tasks can make you prone to “shoulding” on yourself.

“Shoulding” is the act of turning what you want to do into what you “should” do. This nuanced change in both language and outlook can hurt your ability to complete your to-do’s. When you use “should”, you are essentially changing your desires into obligations. There is nothing more demotivating than obligations.

A good sign that you’re “shoulding” yourself is if your task list keeps growing and you find it hard to get started. When this happens, remind yourself of WHY you are doing these tasks and how they tie into your ultimate goals. When you’re in execution mode, it’s easy to keep crossing tasks off your list but forget why you’re doing what you’re doing.

If upon closer inspection, the tasks you’ve set up for yourself no longer help you get to where you want to go, remove the task from your list.

Remember:

Shoulds decrease motivation. Wants increase motivation.

What is on your to-do list that is making you feel guilty for not completing it? This is a good sign that you’ve changed your WANT into a SHOULD.

Inspired by Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles.

Photo by Dennis Hamilton

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As a high-performer, you’ll have more opportunities than you know what to do with. As you continue to grow in your career, you’ll have to make tough sacrifices. When you give things up all the time, it’s easy to begin feeling guilty, resentful or depressed because sacrificing often focuses you on what you’re losing.

If you feel that you’re giving up too much but find it necessary to continue doing so, consider reframing sacrificing as investing instead. This simple shift helps you to focus your attention on what you gain as opposed to what you lose.

This can be used for personal sacrifices as well.  For example:

When my son was born, I went from playing basketball weekly to stopping completely. I initially saw this as a sacrifice I would gladly make for my son but then it seemed like my life was shrinking. This made it easy to blame my son any time I wanted to play but couldn’t.

What changed my perspective was reframing the act of giving up basketball into investing in being a better father. No longer was I being punished but rather I’ve made the conscious choice to invest my time and energy to reach my aspirations. This allowed me to take back the power that I was giving up when I thought I was sacrificing and the negative feelings dissipated.

Remember: When you can, think invest rather than sacrifice.

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski

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Here are the elements you may want to consider to do work that you love.

1. Set your own goals …

… not ones determined by biological needs or social convention. Don’t let others tell you what’s important. When you are the one to decide, you give meaning and sense for every action you take whether that action is inherently enjoyable or not.  This will give you staying power. When you know your actions are not random, it helps you overcome the naysayers.

2. Identify and work on skills needed to meet goals

Once you’ve set your goals, think about and list the skills you’ll need to achieve them and work on honing those skills. Talk to those who have gone before you, take courses and read books and articles. When you work on your skills, remember to practice deliberately daily and the earlier you get started the faster you’ll get there.

3. Get feedback on how you’re doing

To stay motivated when learning new skills, get accurate feedback on how you’re doing. One way is to set measurable metrics for success and monitor your results. Another is to work with someone who has already mastered the skills you’re learning and get their perspective and guidance for how you’re doing.

4. Engage in activities to achieve your goal

When you’ve filled the skill gaps, use your skills to complete the tasks that will bring your goal to life. When you surf the sweet spot between the boredom of an easy task and anxiety of an overly difficult one, you’ll need to fully concentrate.

5. Savor the immediate experience

This concentration on the present moment will help you enter the enjoyable “flow” state where time begins to melt away and you crowd out self consciousness. Once you’re in flow, the enjoyment comes on its own – there is no need to do anything else.

If you ever flow out of flow, ask yourself the following:

• Are you working on a goal that YOU chose?
• Are you clear on the skills you need to achieve your goal?
• Do you have the skills you need?  If not, what are you doing now to learn them?
• When taking action towards your goal, are the activities challenging your highest skill level? If it’s too hard, you’ll get despondent. If it’s too little, you’ll feel stagnant and bored.

The more obstacles you overcome to achieve your goals, the more valuable the goals become to you. Choose a worthwhile goal and invest the effort to attain it.

Inspired by Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Photo by Jules Minus

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