world. And I've run teams - little teams, medium-sized teams, and some pretty big teams with $30 million to $40 million a year budgets.

Transcription

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2 Well, hello, everyone. My goodness. Have we got a treat in store for you today. We really have. John Maxwell has spent his life in leadership, studying leadership, and he's taken decades of leadership material, all the best stuff from his career, his lifetime leadership content, and he's distilled all of that great wisdom into this wonderful program, Leadership Gold. It's a distillation of all of that wonderful knowledge. And today, over the next 60 minutes, we're going to be looking at some of the very best bits of Leadership Gold. Now when it comes to studying leadership, there's no one better to study of course than John Maxwell, no one better at all. And we're all in the leadership business if you think about it because good leadership is the way to get the very best out of yourself. Good leadership is the way to get the very best out of your team. And good leadership is the way to get the very best out of your organization. So, if you want to improve your results in any area, then I certainly hope that you're going to find this session enjoyable, informative, but also it's going to be immediately practical, so things that you can put into practice right away as we go through. Now before we dig in [laughs] and make a start, if we haven't met before, my name is Roddy Galbraith, and I'm a John Maxwell Team faculty member. I've been working with John for a good number of years. I've been studying him for a lot longer than that. John mentors me personally one-on-one. And for the first part of my career, my leadership career, I worked in the city of London in the finance sector for some of the biggest organizations in the -1-

3 world. And I've run teams - little teams, medium-sized teams, and some pretty big teams with $30 million to $40 million a year budgets. So, I've seen firsthand just how much you can mess things up [laughs] if somebody gives you a leadership role and you have no idea what you're doing. But I've also seen firsthand just what a difference it can make if you take good leadership philosophy, good leadership principles, sound leadership practices, and you implement them in an organization. I've seen the difference that that can make. And my goodness, I've seen just how pleased your team are if you finally begin to work out [laughs] what leadership is and the difference it can make. So, I've really been looking forward to this, really looking forward to digging into this with you today. Now before we kick off, to help you get the best out of this, it would be great if you could let me know who's listening and where you're tuning in from. I'm watching it on the screen as we go through, and it would be great to know where you're tuning in from, where your city is, your country, and also where you're listening from. How is the sound. If you can hear me loud and clear then hit the wow face for me, would you? That would be really useful. And if you can if it's really clear, hit the wow face twice. [Laughs] And if it couldn't be any clearer then hit it three times. That's going to be helpful. [Laughs] Thank you very much. Okay. So, this is going to be great stuff. -2-

4 When it comes to leadership, there's no one better to study than John Maxwell, and that's why it's going to be good stuff. John Maxwell is the world's number-one leadership guru. If you haven't heard that before, he is he's number-one, undisputed champion of leadership. Now I'd heard this before, but it wasn't until we went to Guatemala in 2013 that I really got a sense for what a giant of leadership John really is because John had said, "The president's asked us to come in. He's asked me to bring an army, bring 150-plus coaches to transform Guatemala." And I thought, "Did the president really ask? He must be very busy. [Laughs] Does he really know what's going on? Or did someone just kind of put a memo under his nose and he quickly signed it and that's it, he's really pretty much in the dark apart from that?" Now I wasn't quite sure until we got to the palace in Guatemala. And I'm sitting there watching John side-by-side with the nation's president. And I'm watching him address the nation on national TV telling them that transformation is coming to Guatemala through every different stream of influence within the country. And I'm looking at the TV cameras and I'm looking at John and looking at the president, and I'm thinking, "This is a big deal. It really is. This is a big deal." And then two years later, same thing in Paraguay, even bigger; 250-plus John Maxwell Team coaches went to Paraguay. -3-

5 Next year, 2018, we'll be going to Costa Rica - same thing. Country transformation. It's huge, isn't it? Who else does that? Well, just in case I needed any more convincing that John was the giant of leadership, just over a year ago, Susan and I went to Antwerp, Belgium to see John speak. A John Maxwell Team event was organized there that we were helping out with. During the lunch break, we went back to the green room, had lunch with John, and I said to, "Oh, John, tell us about your audience with the Pope last week. How was that? How did that go?" And he said, "It was amazing. It was amazing." I said, "Well, what happened? How did it work?" He said, "Well, there was a group of us who had an audience with the Pope, but only a couple of us have been selected to speak to him, to ask him questions. And I was one of those who got to ask him questions." I said, "What did you ask him?" And he said, "Well, I didn't get a chance. He said he knew about our work in Guatemala and he wanted to know all about Guatemala and he wanted to tell me just how important the work was and how important transformation in that country was and how it needed to stay on track." And I said, "John," you know, bearing in mind who John is, "John, how does that feel to have your life's work recognized at that high a level like that?" And he looked at me and he looked at my wife, Susan, and he said, "It feels amazing; amazing." And you could see just how important, how much that meant to him. Who does that? [Laughs] If you look at other leaders that you -4-

6 might say are John's competition, or other leaders in his same ballpark, I don't think there are any. Other people don't get invited in to transform countries. They don't get an audience with the Pope, and if they do, the Pope doesn't quiz them on their to-do list. [Laughs] That's why I say, John stands alone when it comes to leadership. He really does. So, this is going to be great digging into his stuff in this program, Leadership Gold. We're looking at 50 years of John Maxwell's leadership experience distilled into this great program, 26 golden nuggets, 26 golden leadership nuggets, and we haven't got time to go through them all, so we're going to be looking at the very best bits [laughs] of Leadership Gold, or at least the bits that have meant the most to me and resonate with me on my journey, which I think is the best way to share information often, isn't it? Now, some of you are going to want more. We're not going to be able to cover all of the nuggets. Maybe we'll come back at another point in time. We'll talk a bit about that at the end and see. But some of you probably are going to be sitting there watching as we go through and some of you are going to be thinking, "How difficult can this be? I mean, I'd quite like to do what Roddy's doing. I mean, he's got John Maxwell Team scripts. He's got John Maxwell team PowerPoints. How difficult can it be to look good if you're sharing great information from John Maxwell? I bet I could do that. I'd like to be the person to go and take that information to my organization or my church or my team or my customers," whatever it may be. -5-

7 And you'd be right. You could. So, if that's something that interests you, then I promise I'll save just a minute at the end and tell you how. We make it very easy for you to do that. If you want, I will show you how you can get more information about that at the end. Okay. All right. So, let's look oh, one more thing before we dig into the meat. If you haven't got your workbook yet, you can go to [insert link or location of free workbook or giveaway]. That s to [insert link or location of free workbook or giveaway], to [insert link or location of free workbook or giveaway], and follow along. If you're catching the stream now, and you didn't get the workbook before, now's your chance. So go to [insert link or location of free workbook or giveaway]and you can get it there. [Lane, I don't know if you're listening actually. Could you put the link, attach it to the video somehow or put it in the comments, so that as people join as we go through then they've got an opportunity to quickly grab the workbook and download it? That would be great. And actually, Lane, while I think of it, just in case people only have 30 minutes for lunch or an hour for lunch if we go a few minutes over, could you add the link to find out more about the John Maxwell Team and how they can join and teach material like this then, if anyone needs to duck out early, they're not panicking because they haven't got it. Thank you very much.] -6-

8 Okay, now let's move on. Why is leadership so important? Why is leadership so important? Well, probably John's shortest speech I'm pretty sure it's his shortest speech ever he was waiting to stand up and speak, and at the last minute, he decided, "I'm going to throw out my prepared material and I'm going to use my intuition and go with a different speech." So, when he was introduced, he stood up and he said, "Everything rises and falls on leadership. Everything." And he sat down. [Laughs] And then [cheering] everyone's cheering and that was great. Well, if you really want to impress an audience, finish early. It's good advice. Well, that is about as early as you can finish, isn't it, but still makes a great point. So, "Everything rises and falls on leadership," is a quote that John's well wellknown for, isn't it? "Everything rises and falls on leadership." You might be thinking, "Everything rises and falls " does it? Yes, everything. What? For everyone? Yes, for everyone? Well, all the time? Yes, all the time. [Laughs] "Everything rises and falls on leadership." It's that important. Maybe you're sitting there and you're thinking, "Okay, well, I didn't really know that leadership was a thing, but if it's a thing, what thing is it? What is leadership then?" And this is classic John. Real simple, real applicable, easy to apply; leadership is influence. Leadership is influence. If you don't have influence, you can't lead. Let me give you an example. This is from this Sunday honestly. It was my son, Leon's, birthday. I've got four kids. Leon is -7-

9 number three. He was nine. And we'd had a great day. The house was a pigsty, 7:00 at night, so we're just getting ready for bed. I said, "Okay, stop, everyone. Stop. Tidy everything away. We've got to leave this place a little bit tidy because we need to now start getting ready for bed, okay." And what do you think they all do? Look at mom. "Do we really have to stop now and tidy up?" [Laughs] And Susan says, "Don't look at me. Your dad just told you to clear up, so start clearing up." And then they start clearing up. So, they don't pay any attention to me; in my own home they don't pay any attention to me. So, if I don't have influence, I can't lead, can I? So, no influence, you can't lead. If you do have influence then you can. The next question then is, well, how do you gain influence? You gain influence by valuing people; by valuing people. Can you value people? Yes, of course you can. Can I? Can you? Can everyone on the line, everyone tuning in in the future? We can all value people, can't we? It doesn't mean that we do. It doesn't mean that we necessarily agree that we should. But we can; we can all value people. And because we can value people, we can gain influence with people and we can lead. Why is this important? Well, again, classic John. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. They don't care how much you know. We all know people like this, don't we, who are okay. They're very -8-

10 knowledgeable in a certain area. They might be experts. They might be really good at what they do. But my goodness, are they ever boring, or they're arrogant or they're abrasive. And they talk to you and you're just like, "Nope. I am so not open to being influenced by you." And you don't even want to be in the same room with them. And maybe you don't want to even hear what they're saying. You'd rather suffer than take any of their knowledge and do anything with it because you don't care. You don't care how much they know. Some of you may be sitting next to that person right now wherever you are. [Laughs] That will teach you to get there late, won't it? We all know people like this. We all know people like this. It really doesn't matter how much they know. We have the choice as to whether we're going to allow them to influence us. We have that choice. Now why is this important? And this is where we get right to the heart of why leadership is so important in everything. Think about this question. How much of your potential are you using right now? How much of your potential are you using right now? Think about it. Don't over-think it but think about it without over-thinking it. It's probably best just to go with that first kind of thought that pops into your mind. How much of your potential are you using right now? In fact, write it down. If you have the workbook, there's a space in there for you to write it down. You can just write it. Don't let anyone see. Keep it to yourself. Just write in there what percentage out of 100 percent of your -9-

11 potential do you think you're using? We're going to come back to that later. In fact, we're going to keep coming back to it because this is the key, as I said, to why leadership is so important. About 26 years ago, I studied martial arts for a long time. I'd been training for about a year or two, and I just got to go to the high-grade class for kickboxing and jujitsu and mastery, and the Master said, "Do you want to take the warm-up, Roddy?" And I said, "Yes, yes." It was the first time I'd ever taken the warm-up, but I was ready and I was going to give these people the best warm-up they'd ever had. [Laughs] So I did. Four minutes later, I'm sweating, I'm hoarse, out of breath, and Master Ian comes over with his clipboard and he says, "Well done, but we're not in the army." [Laughs] He says, "Let me give you a tip. People don't like to be shouted at. You'll get much more out of people if you don't shout at them. The only reason people shout at people is because they lack the teaching skill to get their point across in any other way." So, he said, "Just relax a little bit. And it's a warm-up anyway, so chill out." [Laughs] And it's true, isn't it? I thought, "Yeah. That's a good point. People don't like to be shouted at." So always remember that. Now for my first leadership role when I started out, I was a hardware technician in the city of London working for this Swedish pensions fund company. And I was pretty keen and it was a huge company, a global company. And I threw myself at it and was working quite hard and it wasn't long before they said, "Good news, Roddy

12 You've got your own team." And they gave me a young guy to run around, even younger than me. I was a young guy, and he was a really, really young guy to help out. So now we're a team of two. And I thought, "This is great. This is just what I need. Now we can provide a world-class IT hardware support service to our customers." And it was going to be great. And for the first week or so, it was okay. He wasn't as keen as me but he was okay. And then gradually he seemed to be decidedly less keen [laughs] and he was dropping the odd ball and because it was important to me, I'd run around and I'd be picking up the balls that he was dropping, and the more balls that I picked up the more he seemed to drop and the harder I worked the less hard he seemed to work. And it was tiring. But because it was important I didn't mind doing a little bit more so it kind of worked. The people thought that they were providing a reasonable service actually. Now, if we look at what's happening there, there's two people and the productivity from their capacity ought to be fairly straightforward. I was probably initially doing about 60 percent of flat-out and he was probably doing 20 percent or maybe even less than that of flat-out. And so together, it wasn't enough to deliver the service that I wanted to deliver and it wasn't the service that the customers needed. And so, what happened? I did more. I did a lot more. I did a lot, lot more, and that's how we managed to provide the service that people thought, "Yeah, this is good. Those guys provide a

13 good service." It was because I was doing a lot more than him. I was doing all the heavy-lifting really. But I didn't mind because I was the leader. I was the leader. Then they said, "Good news, Roddy. We're expanding. You're expanding. And you've got more people now. So now you've got a team of five." So I thought, "Great. Now my dream of a world-class IT hardware support service can come true. I can really now provide a great service. We've got one weak link but there's enough of us to compensate for that. It's going to be good." Each of them kind of had the areas that they really enjoyed and they were very good at those and they spent time in those, but they didn't really do anything else. [Laughs] And so there were these big gaps opening up between everyone, and more and more balls were falling between the gaps and falling down, and I was trying to run around after all of them now trying to pick up all of these balls. And it was exhausting. It really was. I was working very, very hard and we were going backwards, not forwards. I was tearing my hair out. It was all right up until this point [laughs] but now it was a nightmare. So let's look then at what happened there. It wasn't working for me and it wasn't working for the organization. Now in this situation where you've got two people, you can compensate for a weak team member. If there's just two of you, you can work harder. You can throw yourself at it in order to do

14 that. But as your team grows, you can't just work harder. You can't just do the same old things. You need different skills. You can't just throw yourself at it, and work harder to compensate for a weak team, when it s anything over just one or two people really. So, I was struggling. It wasn't working. But if I had different skills, if I could just get a little bit more out of each of them, then that adds up to so much more than I can do on my own. That's what I needed to do, but I didn't have the skills to do it. Now if it's evident at this level when you have a small team, and I didn't get to this point for another couple of years in the next organization I moved onto, then by the time your team grows, you've got direct reports and then indirect reports under them, so you've got people who report to you and then people that report to them, and you're trying to get results through others but you're trying to get results through others who are trying to get it through others who are going through others and through others. If it's difficult with direct reports, it's much more difficult with indirect reports. There were different skills to learn that I didn't have. And that's why it was such a struggle. So when we are trying to get the best out of a team, different skills are needed. Now, John says in Leadership Gold [laughs] I love this - if all you have in your toolbox is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Doesn't it? Because wherever you look you've got your hammer and

15 you're just going to smash these nails, and whatever they are, they're nails to you. They just need smashing in because, if that's the only tool you've got, everything needs smashing with your hammer. In our business, it s my wife, Susan, and I, and at the moment she's reading a book on branding that she loves, and to her, that's her hammer. Everything we discuss needs branding, [laughs] branding. We use the branding system on this. We use the branding on that. Everything is branding. But for me, my new baby is Facebook Live, so whatever we talk about in the business, I say, "You know what we could do? I could do a Facebook Live for that." [Laughs] To me it is definitely Facebook Live that we need because that's my tool. So, whatever it is if you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Well, going back to my story, at this point in my career, the only tool I had in my toolbox was enthusiasm. So, all I could do was throw myself into it and work really hard. And it wasn't enough. I couldn't do it. The team was too big. I couldn't work hard enough to compensate for a team of people who were underperforming. Now before I got that promotion, that position, my boss at the time who left shortly after that and was a mentor of mine for years, a great, great guy, and really good mentor, he said, "I don't think you're ready for this, Roddy." And I said, "I am. I can do it." He said, "You can't." I said, "I can." He said, "You're struggling with one person, let alone more. You're just now beginning to

16 realize that there's something else other than technical skills. You're just scratching the surface of leadership. I think you need another year before you get this opportunity and we should find someone else." And he told the organization, the exec and the CEO that I wasn't ready. But because he was leaving, they didn't pay too much attention to him. Instead, the CEO went and spoke to a very good friend of mine who is also a very good friend of his, and he went to her and said, "Do you think we should give Roddy this opportunity?" And she said, "Yeah, I do." And he said, "Are you just saying that because you're friends?" And she said, "No." He said, "Well, why do you think we should give him the opportunity then?" And she said, "Because he will camp here day and night, all weekend. He'll be here all the time if he needs to because he won't allow it to fail. He'll do whatever it takes to make it work." And she was right. I would've done whatever it took to make it work. But I didn't have the skills to do it. All I could do was throw my enthusiasm at it, to work harder, and that wasn't enough because I didn't have the skills needed to get the results out of the team, which is what it took to provide the service. That's what leadership is all about, isn't it? Now luckily, before he moved on, he said, "If you're going to give this role to Roddy, you need to send him on some training." And he gave them a 10-day residential leadership training program. He said, "You've got to send him on this as a minimum for him to even have a chance."

17 And I'll never forget the first day. It was a great, great program. The first day we got there and there was the guy sitting at the front, and there's 22 people in a crescent all sitting around, and the guy who is leading it, he says, "How many of you are in IT?" Twenty-two hands [laughs] up in the air. He's like, "How many of you are in technical roles within IT?" And 21 hands go up. And he said, "I just I just don't get your guys' fascination with technology." He said, "You go on technical training and somebody shows you how to do something, and then you do it, and they say, 'That's it.' And then they show you the next bit and you do it, and they say, 'That's it. Well done.' And then the next bit." He said, "It's monkey see, monkey do. Monkey see, monkey do." [Laughs] He said, "What's the fun in that? All it takes is attention and anyone can do it. I don t get what's fun in that?" He said, "But leadership, leadership is results through other people, and other people aren't logical like computers [laughs], like software. Other people are emotional beings. They're irrational. They're motivated for their own reasons and you need to try and get results out of other people. There's a magic to that because it's not simple and everyone's different. You need to understand people and like people to get the best out of them." And it's so rewarding and it's better pay than just about anything else

18 Now that got my attention. [Laughs] So I thought, "Right, that's it. I'm done with technology. Maybe my old boss was right. Leadership, that's it." And then I was like a reformed smoker. You know how you give something up and you're like, "Ugh, you're not still doing that, are you?" I was that with technology. "Leadership is the way forward, I said, Leadership." And I'm so glad, actually, that it went that way, because it does make a big difference. It really does. And it is very rewarding. So just before he went on, my boss said to me, "What you've got to realize, Roddy, and why I'm worried about you in this role, is that you've got to realize that leadership is a skill set of its own. It's a different skill set. It's technical skills and you're comfortable being an expert in your area and you're very, very good at what you do. But you need to let go of that if you're going to move into leadership. You're going to need to embrace a new set of skills and you're going to need to move into an area where you know nothing, whatever you may think you know about leading other people. And you need to embrace a new skill set. And most people don't make that transition because they feel secure being the expert and they feel naked letting go of everything that gives them their security and embarking on a new skill set." And he said, "If you do it, you'll go on and on and on, and life's about that, isn't it, letting go and embracing new things? But my worry is that you're too attached to technology and you're not going to be prepared to let go of that

19 to move on." So, it was very, very interesting. And that was why I stuck with him, went to have dinner with him regularly for years after that because he was the one that got me to see that leadership is a skill set of its own and I would need to let go of what I was comfortable with. I was reluctant. [laughs] I have to say, I was reluctant. It took a little time. The thing is, most companies don't see leadership as a separate skill. I've seen this over and over, and I'm sure many of you have as well. Most companies don't see leadership as a separate skill set. Let's use this team as an example. Here is the big hat she's the manager of the team. She's a very good manager. She's a very good leader. And the team are happy. Let's say they're accountants. So, this team of accountants are happy. The trouble is, she gets another job. She's good. She's poached. Off she goes. Now the team of accountants say, "Oh, no, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? What are we going to do?" Big boss man comes along and says, "Don't worry. We're going to promote from within. That s what we ll do. We will promote from within." And who do you think they promote within the team? The best accountant. [Laughs] Isn't that true? In most organizations, when somebody needs to be promoted, what do they look for? The best. Who's the best? Who's got the most skill in this organization? What's the trouble with this? The best technicians, the best accountants, the best experts often make terrible leaders because they're attached to the technology, aren't they?

20 So, these people now, this team of accountants, have a new person that's their manager, their leader. They are the best accountant. And this person does exactly the same thing that they did before when they were on the team except now they're paid more and they do it in an office. [Laughs] It's true, isn't it? I know some of you have seen exactly the same thing. I've seen it over and over again. So now the team are unhappy. And when the team are unhappy, what happens? People leave. When they're unhappy, people leave, don't they? And who leaves first? The best people, the 10's, out the door, and the 9's out the door. The best people leave, and then the 8's. And what does that leave you with? Very often not always, of course - but very often, the people that are left are the people who can't leave or won't leave. Now the team is significantly diminished in strength. The leader's not happy. It's not long before big boss man comes along, "You idiot. I trusted you. Give me that hat. You're not a leader anymore. Get back in the ranks. There's going to be some changes around here. I'm going to take control. It's time for some new blood. Let's get some strong team members in. I've got to find a new team leader." "There. Thank goodness I was here. Saved the day." What happened? [Laughs] What happened? Three of the team's top talent left the organization. All that skills, knowledge, and experience out the door. Two

21 new people come in, probably overpaid for what they do because we needed to get them in in a hurry, and similarly, a new leader for the team, probably an overinflated salary because we needed a safe pair of hands to come in and take control of things. And we used up some of the boss man's important time or the boss lady's important time. And on top of all of that, the best accountant in the team now has a bad attitude because of the way they've been treated. Could it be any worse? [Laughs] It's true, isn't it? All because leadership wasn't recognized as a skill and technical excellence was considered to be the same thing as leadership when it's not. Now this great book, Leadership Gold, covers what is leadership distilled down to what you need to know to really make a difference as a leader. Twenty-six golden nuggets, twenty-six chapters on what it takes. So, we're going to look at some of these and see how you can use them either in your organization as a team member or team leader or just in your life. First thing to consider: In Chapter 16, John gives a whole chapter saying that people quit people, not companies. People quit people, not companies. If we look at this organization chart, this person here, let's say they're not happy, and if they're not happy, what are they not happy with? The company. I've worked in companies like this, and I m sure many of you have, with like 60,000, 70,000 employees around the world, and you hear people say, "This company's rubbish." [Laughs] 60,000 employees around the world and

22 they're saying, "This company is rubbish. The whole thing is rubbish. This company is rubbish. This company doesn't treat people properly. This company doesn't train its people. This company doesn't look after its people. This company doesn't care." When people say things like that, what do they mean? What are they saying? Well, John says people don't quit companies, they quit people. Very often, it's because they have a problem with a person in the organization that's taken out of all proportion. And very often, who is that person? This person is their line manager, their leader, and to them, that person represents the company. There may be a big company behind them, but they can't see it. It's in their blind spot because they're just focusing on that relationship. They're just focusing on that particular leader, that person. So, to them, that is the company. To your internal customers, to your staff, if you have an organization, your managers or middle management, depending on how big it is, they represent the company to your people, to your talent. It's interesting, isn't it? So, to that person, to that little hat is the company, the big hat is the company it goes all the way up, doesn't it? People represent the organization. So, when they say this company is rubbish, it's a reflection of their relationship with their line manager very, very, very often

23 John says, "People quit people who devalue them. People quit people who devalue them." Now to turn this around, it's more than just devaluing them. We want to actually value people, don't we? How simple can that be to value people? Remember we said at the beginning it is important to value people. Well, John gives a great example in Leadership Gold where he talks about this couple who have a long, happy marriage. And somebody says to the guy, "What's the secret to your happy marriage?" He says, "Oh, my watch." They're like, "What?" He says, "Yeah, my watch. I carry it with me everywhere." And he takes the watch out of his pocket. He says, "My fatherin-law gave me this watch when my wife and I first got together." And then he up and shows it. There sitting on the front it says, "Say something nice to Mary Lou." [Laughs] Isn't that great? So, every time he takes his watch out of his pocket, it s like this: "Oh, you look nice today, dear. Oh, I like your hair. New dress? Suits you!" Now, of course we want it to be genuine, but very often, that's not the problem. It's not that we don't have genuine compliments to give to value people and let them know how important they are, how well they're doing. It's not that we can't do that with integrity and authenticity. It's that we just forget. We're too busy doing other stuff to remember to be nice, to remember to be kind, to remember to build people up

24 It's not that we're doing it what's the word insincerely. It's not that if we do it, it's insincere. It's that we just don't do it at all because we don't think about it. So, it's important. I'll give you another example. We've just finished up Global Youth Initiative, where the John Maxwell Team members take John and Nick s materials and are going out. They're taking great material like bullying awareness and how to deal with bullying and strong self-image, those types of topics, great topics for kids they are going out and holding events to reach youth. And I think over the last 13 months from the 2 events that we've done, we've reached nearly half a million children with those fantastic core messages. It's great, isn't it? So, during the month when we were doing this, I was encouraging people that I was on the phone with, "Go out. Do an event." And I shared something that I heard another speaker say because it was good. He said, "Do you realize, when you're talking to someone, when you see someone new, most people have never been told they're special; never been told they're special. Isn't that sad? Most people have never been told that they are special. And if they have been told they're special, then it was a long time ago." So, if you haven't been told you're special, you're special, and I mean that. [Laughs] You and me, everyone, we're all special. It's not that we're not special. We are. It's just that we forget, and it's nice when people remind us that they see that in us, that they see that we're special. So, I said to the

25 coaches going out and doing these events, you could be that person to take that core message to the youth. You could go out and you could reach maybe just one child who really needs to hear that message, that they're special and someone sees more in them than they see in themselves, someone believes in them and believes in them more than they believe in themselves Wow, what a difference you could make! What a privileged position to be in to be able to do that. It's epic, isn't it? Well, it's exactly the same for a line manager, for a team leader. That's why leadership is such a great responsibility because you could be that person for people on your team. You can tell them, "You're special and I see in you maybe more than you see for yourselves. I see a brighter future. YoI can see that you're going to grow and then grow and you're going to go beyond your current role and beyond that into another one and then beyond that organization and keep growing with a better and better life unfolding for you. You can be that voice of hope for people. What a privilege to be able to do that! But too often, it's squandered, isn't it, because we don't think of it. We don't realize. So more than just not devaluing people so people don't quit, valuing people is so important. We haven't got time to go through all the other points unfortunately. But just think about this for yourself. When was the last time someone told you you were special, and then you realized how important this is?

26 Let's look at the next chapter, Chapter 5, Never Work a Day in Your Life. This is all about passion. John gives a whole chapter on passion. He quotes Thomas Edison; "I never did a day's work in my life because it was all fun. Enjoyed every minute of it. It wasn't work at all." Now, it doesn't mean he didn't work hard, of course, does it? He worked hard. But because it was fun because he was working in something he's passionate about he enjoyed it so it didn't see it as work. John says following your passion is the key to finding your potential. Following your passion is the key to finding your potential. Now, [laughs] this always makes me laugh. Howard Hendricks said: Don't put live eggs under dead chickens. Your team, your team members and your talent, when they are young and they're hungry and they've got fire in their belly and they're going to go and do great things, the last thing you want to do is have a leader who's lifeless, dull, a loser as a leader [laughs] for that team. The last thing you want is to put that talent under dead chickens. Don't put live eggs under dead chickens because a passionless leader is certainly going to extinguish any passion there is in the team, aren't they? No, we don't want that. We don't want dead chickens. What do we want? John says, "Well, the world belongs to passionate, driven leaders, people who not only have enormous amounts of energy, but who can energize those who they lead." Isn't that great? They can energize those who they

27 lead. They can draw the energy out of the people that they lead to get them to be all they can be. Look at this quote by Martin Luther King Jr. It is so applicable here and in so many ways, so many places. "If you can't fly then run. If you can't run then walk. If you can't walk then crawl. But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward." It's true, isn't it? Now we see people, all of us, and others, they see people who are flying and they think, "I can't fly." So, what do they do? Nothing. [Laughs] They can't fly so they don't do anything. They don't do the little they can do. What is Martin Luther King Jr saying here? If you can't fly, okay, run. If you can't run then walk. If you can't walk, crawl. But for goodness sake, do something. You've got to do whatever you can. No man made greater mistake than to do nothing because he could only do a little bit." I don't know who it was that said it, but it it's good, isn't it? No man made a greater mistake than to do nothing. Just 'cause you can't fly doesn't mean that you can't do something. You've got to do what you can, and you've got to do it where you are right now. It doesn't matter if you're a leader. It doesn't matter if you're a team member. It doesn't matter if you're on your own doing whatever you are doing, be the best you can be. Do what you can do. It's all about personal growth and throwing yourself into that. Just because you can't do absolutely anything you want, it doesn't mean that you can't do significantly more than you're doing. That's true, isn't it? We

28 can all do significantly more than we're doing. And it's easy to look at something that we'd like to be able to do, but we can't do or we can't do yet, and think, "Oh, well, I can't do that. What's the point? [Laughs] What's the point? Might as well not bother. What's the point? Just because you can't do anything doesn't mean you can't do significantly more. John says the key to releasing your potential is following your passion; following your passion. Okay. So, the next chapter then, Chapter 7, How Do You Find Your Passion? John says to get in the zone and stay there. This is all about your strengths - finding your strengths, working in your strengths. Get in the zone and stay there. Oh, this is so good. [Laughs] It's all good stuff, but that's the thing with John, isn't it? It's difficult to differentiate between one thing and the next because they're all so good. But this one is particularly clever. I really like this. Organizations exist to make peoples' strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant. Well done, Frances Hesselbein. Great stuff. Make their weaknesses irrelevant. Isn't that clever? Because it doesn't say, "Organizations exist to eradicate weaknesses of people." No, it doesn't say that. It's not that you can't have weaknesses. It's like, "So you've got weaknesses, so what? It doesn't matter. That's irrelevant." Isn't that nice? [Laughs] That we don't need to fix all of the things that are wrong with us? We can still make a difference. That's huge

29 Look at this simple graphical example. It's another diagram. [Laughs] I used to work for this huge French bank and they called me, "Diagrams Galbraith," because I always had a diagram for whatever we were talking about. That was my hammer at the time. [Laughs] A diagram. That needs a diagram, another diagram. Here's another diagram. So here's their big hat with their team and this team is doing stuff. And in the book, John talks about the Pareto Principle. Now I'm not going to go into this in detail. We haven't got oh my goodness. Time is flying by, isn't it? We've got 15 more minutes. I'm not going to go into this too much we don't have time. But it's basically 20 percent of your activities produce 80 percent of your results. You wear 20 percent of your clothes 80 percent of the time. You probably see 20 percent of your friends 80 percent of the time. So, it's that 80/20 rule, okay? Google it if you've never heard of it or we'll come back to it another time maybe. So, here's the team. Now if you work in your strengths because 20 percent of your activities produce 80 percent of your results, if you work in your strengths, that means you're 16 times more productive. John says that in the book, and I thought, "Is that right?" So, I spent ages trying to work it out. [Laughs] And I do understand this, I promise. But we haven't got time to go through it

30 So maybe somebody that understands this can just explain how that works in the comments if you're one of those people that understands that. Put it in the comments so that people can see. And then if they do, everyone go and like it, let them know, "Good work. Good work." [Laughs] So, 20 percent of your activities produce 80 percent of your results. These people all have different strengths just like in life. So, Mr. Red is very good at red activities. That's why he's called Mr. Red. Mrs. Blue, you guessed it, is very good at blue activities. And Ms. Green, very good at green activities. But big hat has got them doing a bit of a mix of everything, and that's probably typical for most organizations, isn't it? But that's no good because like we just said, 20 percent of our activities produce 80 percent of our results. We want everyone working in their strength zones. Now if we look at a breakdown of Mr. Red and if we look at those different strengths, different activities, Mr. Red is very, very good at red activities. Very good. Won't be long before he's world-class at red activities. But he's not very good at green and he's hopeless at blue. [Laughs] Hopeless at blue. What if we take the view that, Come on, you've got to grow. Blue tasks, that s it, you've got to get better at blue tasks. This is the limiting step for you. You're letting the side down. We can't have that. You've got to get better at blue things. You're a disgrace to your unit. Get better at blue things. You've got to get better at blue things

31 If we force Mr. Red to work on blue activities, how does that make him feel? It makes him feel sad, doesn't it? Aw. And even green thinks he's a little bit then but that makes him sad as well. Surely we want Mr. Red working on red activities. We want him working in his strengths, don't we, because he's so much more effective there. So, we want Mr. Red working on red activities. Now the reason I like that quote so much is because she says, "We want to make the weaknesses irrelevant, not eradicate them. We want to make them irrelevant." How do we make Mr. Red's activities irrelevant? We give them to somebody who's good at those things. Give them to somebody who enjoys doing those things. Do you know, my dad was the accountant for our business for years, and when he died about six years ago, seven years ago, do you know what I thought? Biggest mistake in my life well, maybe it's a bit of an exaggeration but not much. I thought, "I'll do the accounts. I'll do the accounts." And I struggled doing the accounts for three years. And it was a nightmare. But I think probably the most vicious arguments that Susan and I have ever had were around the time every year when I was doing the accounts. It was a nightmare. It was really unpleasant. It was really stressful. And the best thing we ever did was get a professional accountant to do that area that was obviously a weakness for us. And once you've done it, you can't believe that you didn't do it a long time ago because it's such a relief. So, the things that you don't like doing, there's someone who enjoys doing those and there's

32 someone who's very good at those. We can make our team's weaknesses irrelevant by giving them to people who are good at them, people who enjoy doing them. Now all of these people are 16 times more productive and they're all doing what they enjoy, and that's good for them and it's good for the organization, of course, isn't it? Working in their strength zones, that is. So, John says following your passion is the key to finding your potential, and your purpose in life is always connected to your giftedness; your giftedness. Following your strengths, working in your strength zone. Now we haven't got time to go through all of these, but I found this in a book a couple of days ago, and I thought I'd hastily put a slide in. A Gallup poll of 55,000 workers, and they found that 4 attitudes are strongly correlated with higher profits, which is good obviously, isn't it? Strongly correlated with higher profits. Look at number one. The people feel that they are given the opportunity to do what they do best every day. Everyday they're working in their strength zones. They feel like they have the opportunity to do their best working in their strength zones. Now if the Pareto Principle applies to the individual, and it does, then it applies to the team as well. So, look at this. These are the weakest performers on the team. These are the kind of middle performers. And these are the top performers. So, Pareto's Principle says that 20 percent of your

33 people produce 80 percent of the results; 20 percent of the people produce 80 percent of the results. Also, 20 percent of your people take up 80 percent of your time. [Laughs] So when you look at it like that who's producing the results? The top people, so that's obviously up here. But who's taking 80 percent of our time? Hmm. Who's high maintenance? Hmm. What do you think? [Laughs] It's these people, isn't it? They demand all of the attention. They're high maintenance and they're poor performers. It's a huge mistake, although it's urgent and they're calling on your attention, it's a huge mistake to allow the weakest performers to take all of your time and then for you to ignore your highest performers who are not needy and not high maintenance and more selfsufficient. It's a misallocation of your resources because you can get so much more bang for your buck with your top performers. So, we need to not allow ourselves to be drawn into spending all our time with the weakest links in the team, the lowest performers because we'll only get a tiny return for our efforts there, whereas the highest performers, if we spend time with them, can give us enormous returns for our effort. Real quick a bit more research. Again, I found this a couple of days ago and I think it's worth throwing in here. This is a study of the difference motivated employees makes in low, medium, and high-complexity roles. And it compares a motivated person, so kind of the top, to the average. And in lowcomplexity tasks, the motivated person produces 52 percent more; does

34 percent more; they're 52 percent more productive. Okay. For highly-complex tasks, it's just over double; 127 percent. That's huge, isn't it? [Laughs] So, a motivated employee is 127 percent more effective than the average. But if you compared the most motivated people in the same study, the most motivated people to the least motivated, to the bottom performers, then for low-complexity tasks it's 300 percent, and for medium, 1,200 percent, and for high-complexity tasks, it was too large to be able to be measured. That's huge, isn't it? There's nothing more compelling to say, "Don't spend all of your time with your lowest performers. They might be high maintenance, but you've got to find a way to still spend time with your high performers." Okay. Let's come back to this key question. How much of your potential are you using right now? How much of your potential are you using right now? Let's look at what it is for most people. So here, you're using let's say this is you - you're using some of your potential, and that is reflected in your productivity. Okay. Whether it's you on your own just doing your thing or whether you work for an organization and you're doing it for the organization, the degree that you're using your potential is reflected in your productivity

35 Now if you work for an organization, then they probably gave you a contract of some kind, and in that contract, it probably said, "Well, these are all the things that you need to do." So, your contractual obligations are all documented. Your job description, if you like, your job specs. And, your contractual obligations are also reflected in your productivity, aren't they? Because you need to do those things. [laughs] Because if you don't do those things then they're likely to kick you out, aren't they? So, you need to do those things. They're your contractual obligations. Probably there's a high correlation between your contractual obligations and the amount of your potential that you're using and therefore your productivity. So, you have to meet your contractual obligations, but that may be all you re doing most people are not doing too much more than that. The blue is a little higher because you're doing a little more here and there. In some areas you're going a little over, because you don't want to go under too much. If you go under then that's where they can kick you out because that red line is the line of fire, isn't it? If you don't deliver on what you're supposed to deliver then they're going to get rid of you. And they should, of course. You've got to deliver. So, you go over the line a little bit but not too much. Now, the downside of this is that it means you're doing these things. You're doing these things. So you're doing just enough not to get fired. Think about that. You're doing just enough not to get fired. But this line of fire is also the line of reward. So,