Agassei and Graf teach us how to take risk beyond the comfort zone

The other day I had an entry of The First Penguin Award for those who take the biggest risks. When we learn to be great competitors sometimes the risks don't even seem so big. Recently Andre Agassi and Stefanie Graf who demonstrated there competitive skills on the court are giving the world another lesson in moving out of their comfort zone and off the court to building lifestyle developement resorts. Their first venture will be with Fairmont Tamarack at the Tamarack Resort in Donnoellly, Idaho. This is not a small step off the iceberg but a large one estimated at over $300 million. The big step is that this is not just opening a resort but being part of creating a community from start in a remote spot where celebraties have been coming to avoid the media.

When have you stepped out of your comfort zone as a leader from something you know well. In Agassi and Graf's case it is hard to be world class in tennis when you are moving into your late 30s. They obviously have been planning the step for some time. We all have changes in our careers and organizations that should cause us to look for the new, new thing. If you sit with your head in the sand like an ostrich you will likely loose your footing as the leader. When will you or your organization win the First Penguin Award?

Do your employees need to know how you pulled the rabbit out of the hat?

A magician practices his craft for years and when he is ready he shows it to his patrons in hopes to mesmerize them with the art of pulling this cute little rabbit out of his hat and making it look easy. As leaders we are often engaged in difficult synthesis of complex situations trying to determine a direction and vision for a project, department, or the organization as a whole. We spend many hours asking questions broadly inside and outside the organization to help create perspective and to begin to align the many different world views that typically exist in and around any organization among its stakeholders.

Unlike the magician the leader does not only have spectators, (they certainly have that, as well as pundents) they have followers who will need to pick up on the leaders vision and carry it through to fruition.

In my work as a coach I have an opportunity to gain great insight into the many things a leader is considering at any given time. Some of those ideas, stories, concepts, may last for many months or years before they feel they have, a well considered approach to whatever they are dealing with in their organization.

Many will craft along with some on their team a communication strategy laying out this chosen path. Some lay it out humbly while others sell the ideas, stories, concepts with great gravitas. Regardless the the way they do it the one common denominator that seems to catch them off guard frequently is how long it takes for them to get buy in to what they consider is a well considered plan.

That is until they remember how long it took them to rap their heads around the ideas, stories, or concept. There seems to be such a gap in translating how long it takes the thought, inspiration to be considerate to an idea and for it to gain weight in our own mind, and the time that you as a leader take to allow these thoughts of the mind to develop in your teams or organizations mind.
Questions you might ask your self are:

• How long have you been developing the mental model that you have been contemplating?


• How different is this idea from the current situation?


• How much resistance is the idea going to have in the minds of those that you will need to gain alignment within your organization that you are leading?


• What can you do to eliminate the barriers to their resistance without loosing ground on the idea, story, and concept?


• What will accelerate the acceptance of the idea, story, and concept?

If you agree that it is the leaders job to get your co-workers to do what you want them to do, and they have to want to do it, ethically. Then as a leader you will have to evaluate how to get them on board and bring reality of timing into the mix. If you don’t you may loose personal strength on your goals because you inaccurately evaluated the time that it would take to close the gap.

Where are you and your employees most productive?

When you see someone walking in the airport with the little Bluetooth bud hanging from their ear and sounding very businesslike, do they seem like they are making things happen. You know the dialogue, “we are 150% over booked, we will need to get this issue resolved tomorrow or we will lose the deal.” No doubts if you are a business person today who travels, you have had similar conversations.

There is a whole language for our productive work life away from the office. If you get on the plane you will call the time from 10,000 feet (when you can start your laptop or other electronic devices) on takeoff to 10,000 feet before landing (when all toys are put away) “Air Time,” that is when you are likely the most productive in your work life. No one can find you, no phones ringing, no one stopping in your office interrupting while you were working on a document – just undisturbed, focused time.

You have likely made calls from your car – they call this “windshield time”. This is when you are productive while driving from one meeting to another. If you a lawyer travelling from your office to a clients you would call this double billing. Then again if you were a lawyer moving from one client to another and talking on the phone with yet another one, this is when you are triple billing. Billing the client you’re leaving, bill the client you’re going to and the one you are talking to on the phone. Don’t laugh too hard, I have known lawyers who bill like this – remember I am a non-fiction writer.

Perhaps you made an important call while you were in your hotel room while lying in bed. They must call this “Bed Time,” not to be confused with that time during the evening when you put your kids to bed.

We have become such productive creatures. Technology has allowed us to blur the lines of work and non-work life. This is not really advancement, I would imagine, to our ancestors long ago there was little distinction between work life and home life. It was all about survival. We certainly can’t say this blurring today is about survival.

When you know you can be this productive while on the move, how come we don’t see more activities were we can enjoy our activities away from the office and still accomplish our objectives? Meaning couldn’t we think of our office as more mobile and less of a ball and chain for us to be tethered to. For about eight years I had an office that over looked the north shore of Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. The lake is about three miles in circumphrance. Or about a 50 minute walk. I can only think about a handful of times I would have my meetings while walking the lake. Either get the other person to come along for a walk or do what we all do in the airport and hop on a cell phone for a conference call while walking. What is it about us that make us believe we are any less productive in non-work environments than sitting behind a desk at the office?

This notion of finding more flexibility in the work place and thinking differently about time and productivity is getting a lot of press. Two women in particular Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson who helped establish this movement called ROWE “Results-Only Work Environment” at Best Buy. There recent book Work Sucks – And How To Fix It is all about this phenomenon. Check out their website at culturerx.com.

Are you holding your team more accountable for what time they arrive or stay to each day or more about the objectives that they are accountable for within your organization? Are they mutually exclusive? Where do you fair on this topic?

What can you learn from a mime?

As a leader we often do not see ourselves as we are. The question is what you would do if you got solid feedback to demonstrate what your behaviors were really like. Not the feedback that comes with a sanitized 360 instrument that insures you don’t get the tough love because of the firms concerns over law suites, from indigestible and unwanted assessments of a leaders behaviors. The Mayor of Bogotá may have provided great creative solution to this situation. He provided such feedback to help create a safer place to drive for the citizens of his community.
It was apparent to the Mayor that like many of us the citizens of Bogotá were happy to judge each other but not themselves. People in the community were not paying attention to the road signs. So he hired Mimes to mimic the drivers’ behavior to show them what their behavior looked like when they were mirrored back to them. When drivers behaved poorly in traffic they would get a reflection back.
What if there was a mime in your board room. What would they pick-up on, that your team has known for years but lack the confidence to tell you? How would you fair the silent ridicule of the mimes humor? Would you find it funny, would you feel embarrassed of your behaviors, would you feel shameful? How has power evaded your view of yourself?

How important is status to you?

One of the greatest status symbols we have today is our car. We don't wear it on our wrist but on the road. It is a way to be seen. People may not know the price of the car but they know the ballpark of the price. There was research done on the status of cars where they had a high status car hold up at a traffic light and waited until the car behind them would begin to honk. It turns out that cars take a lot more time to honk a high status car than a low status car. The amazing thing is that we pass the deference on to those that belong to their machines. I would like to say I am above this and yet I live in this world with over 6 billion others. And I like the privilege of membership. I have been driving a BMW X5 for many years and I love it! It is such a guys car. I would like to say I bought it because of comfort (oh yes, that is why I bought it..) and yet the status is such a strong part of the car. It is interesting that when they are selling you the car they don't push the benefit that it will take longer for others to honk at you if you delay moving at a stop light a little to long. Perhaps that is because it is considered the ultimate driving machine.

My eldest daughter recently did a study of the Cohen's CO2 footprint in the world. She came home from school and shared with the family that we would need 7 planets to live on if the rest of the world lived as we did. This gave me pause, and it was as if the GPS device pointed us right to the Toyota dealer to begin changing the status from elite to environmentalist.

Although we have ordered the new car it is not without mental sacrifice. I am so ashamed that this is even bothering me, giving up a symbol. I know we are not our symbols and yet I feel the pull to not want to make this move to a more environmentally correct automobile.

It is my belief that those who can most afford the high status cars must be the ones who make the change. It will be those who stop supporting the high status symbols in favor of the environmentally preferred that will lead our society to see there are more important images for us to lift ourselves up too. This will not feel easy, but as Kennedy said, "We don't do it because it is easy. We do it because it is hard."

Can you elevate above your status symbols?

How is power working for you?

Today my 11 year old daughter and I were driving and we noticed 2 police cars hiding behind a sign, clocking speeders on their radar guns. I ask my daughter, "Why do they hide behind signs to catch people speeding verses being out in the open reminding people that they should adhere to the speed limit?" My daughters response was simple and surprising, "Power" she responded. Then she went on about what she had learned about how police use to behave - when they were the neighbor next door. More like Andy Grifith in Mayberry. They were out helping in the community not trying to catch people unaware.

I then described to her that when her mother and I were on the MS150 Bike ride this year we had police stopping traffic giving us encouragement along the way. Is it simply the situation of what the police are doing or is there a change. Do they show up how they need to or are they using power to feel better about themselves and what they do? Have they been put at risk so much that they fear each situation and come in too strong, or is it about there interenal image of themselves?

How is your role in leadership effected by the situation and by your past experience? Do you think that is an effective way to lead?

Are you diving into the deep-end first?

Penguins natural predator is the Leopard Seal. Penguins feed on fish and they must enter the water to feed. It is there that the Leopard Seal hunt the penguins especially when they are alone. There must always be a first of the team of penguins who is willing to initiate the dive into the water first. Going first is very risky in the life of a penguin, because they will be alone if only for a moment. It is in that moment that the Leopard Seal will find his/her dinner. Because of the risks involved the Penguins function as a team. The first one leads and the others do a kind of ritual dance to signal their readiness to jump in together soon after the first one dives in to the water. They jump together because they are much safer being together than they are swimming alone. Just as it is dangerous for the lead penguin to go first it can be equally hazardous for the penguin to go last. Jumping in together is not only about working together it is about surviving.

This behavior is not new to human organizations. Nachshon, according to the Book of Exodus and the Jewish Medrash initiated the the parting of the red sea by walking into the sea before it parted. His name is synonymous with being an initiator.

Todays organizations can't afford to sit on there past accomplishments. Nor can the leaders leading them. It is easy to become comfortable with playing it safe and not initiating new ideas that have a great deal of risk to you as the leader if you believe in them. Just as important is the ability as a leader to make it safe for others to lead and take risks. It may be your courage to allow others to take risks that demonstrates your leadership. Nachshon was not the leader of the jewish slaves out of bondage, that was Moses role. And yet it was Nachson that initiated the parting of the Red Sea by entering the sea first. Some biblical scholars say this is what prompted god to split the seas. God was waiting for the people to initate a solution before s/he would inter-seed.

Professor Randy Pausch from Carnegie Mellon who wrote, The Last Lecture use to give "The First Penguin Award" to those in his class who took the biggest gamble in trying new ideas or technology. Are you rewarding gambles within your organization, or are your words, values, tones, and behaviors keeping greatness bottled up?

How are you as the lead penguin - do you find yourself taking additional risks for the team to safeguard them against the hazards of the free market system. This could be simply protecting your team from the hazards of internal corporate politics or the natural forces of competition. Are you willing to take the high risk of asking the unpopular questions in uncomfortable settings? If you own the business, or have made it to the top of the hierarchical pyramid, are you still pushing as hard as you did in the early years against the status quo? Being a leader within a team, organization, market, or industry is risky business. The good news for you is that it is a lot safer, most of the time, in our organizational life, than it is for the lead penguin. Perhaps it is time to try giving away "The First Penguin Award" in your company.

Am I an elephant hunter or a midwife for an elephant?

Have you ever used the expression "We are going elephant hunting?" I have as well for years up until recently. I was in a board meeting and someone raised the topic of going elephant hunting. And another quipped back I think it is more like waiting for an elephant to give birth. After some laughter from the sheer imagery of the expression it was explained that elephants have the longest gestation period of any mammal. As is often the case I went back and began Googling the topic of elephant hunting and gestation periods of elephants (I must have way too much time on my hands!) It turns out it takes about 14 days to go elephant hunting and about 22 months for an elephant to gestate. My daughter was over looking my inquire and asked how difficult is it to shoot an elephant - how could you miss? "Honey, I'm sure your right and it sounds a lot easier than giving birth to one..." Is your sales force really elephant hunting or being a midwife to an elephant. I would imagine the later bares a lot more ivory with a lot less casualties.

The Last Lecture on a Kindle

If you are an avid reader you might want to try a kindle. You may be like me and love the written page. You may even say "There is no way I will ever convert to an electronic book." For me the move was much easier - I am what they call an early adopter. I love technology. To me the kindle solves many problems for a person who devours books. The largest problem is in our bedroom the floor has stacks of books and my night stand looks more like a library designed by a person with ADD. The kindle does a great job of changing Atoms to Electrons. It was incredibly easy to down load a book it uses some cellular network. This a very straight forward intuitive device. It is easy on the eyes but not on the wallet. Although given my love of books it will not take long to make up for the cost of the device because the books all sell for about $10 and no shipping charges. If you are ecologically minded changing your reading habit to that of electrons will sure save a lot of trees. Over all I am very satisfied with my new tool, toy, instrument, educational device.


I just finished my first "book" on the Kindle on a flight back from North Carolina (Another big benefit, I no longer have to decide which book to bring on the trip with me - I get to bring them all). The book was the The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch a professor from Carnegie Mellon University who is dying of cancer. It was very appropriate book given that he spent his life teaching others about technology, he even spent time on a sabbatical fulfilling his dream of becoming an Imagineer at Disney.

The video which I have attached is his actual last lecture he gave at the University. It is a time honored tradition that a professor who is leaving the school has an opportunity to give his parting words. What makes this one so meaningful is that his leaving is not about retirement, it is about leaving his family and the world he loves behind. It is both touching and practical. He provides us advise on what he has learned in his 47 years rotating around the sun and what it means to him to live a "good life." It is a message to his children one of which is only 18 months old and will likely not remember him at all. This was his legacy that he could leave his family. The book is a sequel to the last lecture and the things he wanted to include and did not have time for given the contraint around his speech. In some ways I am reminded of the book Tuesdays with Morrie. Although this is not as much about dying as it is about living. A short read with a couple really good reminders of what is important.

The Last lecture is about one and a quarter hours and it will be worth your time and elevate the life your living by watching it. So far well over two million people have watched it.

Leadership Defined

Leadership sets direction, puts the right people in the right positions, and ensures resources are allocated to the highest priority, while engaging people to perform at their highest levels to maximize results. And doing it ethically.

We accomplish this by asking quesions.

Team Performance - Are you working like a team or a group of individuals?

This past weekend my wife and I along with some close friends, road in the MS150. This was a 150 mile ride from Duluth, Minnesota to Minneapolis Minnesota. We trained for approximately four weeks (I would suggest to anyone thinking about this six weeks would have been better).

Throughout our ride our friends were both behind us and in front of us. Mostly in front of us. The only coordination between us and our friends was an occational check in with one another about energy and if we were going to stop at the next rest stop. What you could not help notice while riding for six hours a day, was these energized teams of bikers, coordinated in both their communication with one another and their syncranisity of pedling among the team members. It was amazing watching them speed by us, yelling out quite appropriately, "On your left!" Most all the teams used all the biking language that was taught to us on our way up to the event. To them the communication was essential. To us novices it seemed only a good idea.

As we watched team after team pass us we began to gain curiousity about how and why they do what they do. It seems these biking teams work a bit like geese flying in the air where the leader of the team takes on the toughest position because of air resistance. The others find that they are enveloped into free air in which they gain speed and ease the resistance. Some of these teams like geese will change out leaders when the leader becomes more fatieged, while others will have the leader stay in the position for the entire ride.

As interesting, is that the team must set its pace against the slowest rider not against the strongest. If it set its pace against the fastest the team would fall apart or spread out and loose all the benefits they gain from acting as a group. Much like the novice bike riding group we had formed to paritispate in the MS150.

No matter how much you are driven to meet a certain time as an individual you start and end together. When one of your team members pops a tire, the entire team stops to help. How many organizations do this for their team members? How many of our organizations work with the entire group in mind rather than working like a group of individuals coming together to collectively to accomplish something. Is your team functioning like an effiecient team or a group of individuals?

When should I stop asking questions and make a decision?

I asked a number of high-profile leaders when they shifted from information-gathering to making a decision. While there wasn’t uniformity among the responses, most leaders acknowledged the need to stop asking questions at a certain juncture.

Walter Isaacson, President & CEO of the Aspen Institute and former President & Chief Operating Officier of CNN, waits for about 60% of the input to come in, then stops asking questions and makes a decision. If you wait for everyone to respond, or all data to be assembled, you might miss your window to act. Besides, you don’t want to aggravate your coworkers by over-asking questions. If you do, they will eventually tire of your approach. On the other hand, you want to be careful not to give the impression that everyone’s input isn’t needed or welcome.

Tim Welsh, a Principal of McKinsey & Company, stops asking questions when the matter needs an immediate response or he simply runs out of time. If an organizational rule or guideline is breached, for example, he feels it should be addressed quickly. In that instance, questions might be used to establish the reason for the breach, but a quick and firm decision ensures the rule or guideline is upheld in the future.

Bob Senkler, CEO of Securian, believes that no answer is an answer. In other words, if an acceptable decision can’t be reached, a decision should not be made. If this is the case, however, those invested in the decision should be notified of the reason for the impasse.

Richard “Dick” McFarland, retired Chairman and CEO of Dain Rauscher, believes that a decision should always be made and relatively quickly—provided the stakes aren’t very high. His rationale is that the lack of a decision and the consequences of making the wrong decision are often less than inaction. “You can always change the decision as long as you’re not betting the farm,” says McFarland. “It is about small betting, not the whole farm, but maybe an acre here or an acre there.”

Organizations aren’t typically democracies. Decisions must be made and often by leaders. Your coworkers will expect consistency and fairness from you. When do you stop asking questions and make a decision? What’s your rationale and are your coworkers aware of it?

What are HR departments going to do with all of their time?

Last night Dan Pink, author of Whole New Mind (excellent book) spoke at Ted Mann hall at the University of Minnesota. As he was speaking Obama was giving his acceptance speech. Some how the connection between what Pink was speaking of and the fact that the Democratic Convention was happening a few miles a way, got me thinking.

It dawned on me that many of the ways that an employee files a suite against a company will soon be history if Presidential candidacy is any sort of litmus test. We protect our employees rights from being violated on grounds of racial discrimination, gender discrimination and age discrimination.

When you look at the final contenders for the Presidential nomination it would seem all of those classes of discrimination are soon to be a thing of the past. It is difficult to say that when all three classes are represented in the Presidential race that these are three classes that need protecting. Because Blogs are a great way to get debate stimulated it would be wonderful to hear why these comments albeit interesting are nieve as a toddler learning to walk for the first time.

Breaking into publishing

Just returning from the Book Expo America (BEA) in LA. Wow! It is overwhelming how big this book industry is when observing it as a whole at the Staples Center. Last year over 400,000 books were published, so far this year 395, 405 books have been published this year there is a tidal wave of new books coming to market. The bridge between book writers and book readers may becoming smaller. Soon we may see that each writer is only writing for one or two readers a float in this rising tide. Given that it has taken me over three years to get all of my thinking out on the subject of why exceptional leaders use questions to lead - it would be amazingly inefficient to think only a few people will read the book. Thanks in a large part to David Brake at Content Connections the marketing and book development firm that I have been associated with on this project, I don't think this book will have a difficult time seeing the light of day. At least we know that over 300 people have already been part of the review process and have read all or part of the book.

At BEA we were inundated with the concepts around social networking.
We learned about blogging, widgets, texting, book video trailers, who knew there were so many ways to reach out to the audience. Then a group of authors began a debate between, should the author be involved in his or her own marketing or should it be left to the publisher. To me, a marketer, I never understood the idea of having such a debate in the first place. Ben Franklin became known because he marketed his publishing works through his own publishing business, and Mark Twain use to rent halls to tell stories to become known. It seems that those of us who would like our thoughts to be read, heard, reflected upon will need to take responsibility for shouting out to the world to pay attention to us. It would be nice to think that it could be another course - just think, write and let the publishers carry our banner. Perhaps there was a time, and it was not at the beginning of the publishing industry and it is certainly not now. Which to me says those of us who would like to share and love to market may have a better boat in a flood of authors.

David Brake introduced me to the folks at McGraw Hill and Wiley at the book fair. Both had a very active interest in becoming the publisher of Just Ask - Greatness Happens When You Ask. When the folks at the publishing company heard that Jonathan Lazear was representing me as my literary agent the credibility of the offering went up multi-fold. The lessons learned so far from this experience is no different than the lessons we all learn over and over again.
Get the best people on your team and listen to them. Ask for their advise and take it. At BEA there was a lot of talented people and getting time with those decision makers was difficult at best and yet for David things just happened.

As our country moves further down the road to producing more and more commodities the one thing that can't become a commodity is ideas, concepts, skills and experience. If you surround yourself with folks who have an abundance of mind then you will find you get more lucky more often and certainly hope to get more mind share from others.