This blog post is the tenth in a series that is a deep dive
into what I call The Principles of Truly Human Leadership, from the
revised and expanded 10th anniversary edition of my book, Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family, available now.
There are a lot of similarities between leadership and parenting.
One of those similarities is that they both require patience.
I’m amazed at how often I get asked a particular question as I
share Barry-Wehmiller’s journey of Truly Human Leadership: “What about
the people who don’t get it?”
I say, “It’s easy. Just treat them like you’d like your son or daughter to be treated if they didn’t get it.”
The universal reaction from the person asking the question is to sit back and say, “Well, that would be different.”
But I always reply, “Why would it be different? It’s somebody’s child you’re talking to.”
Certainly there are some who resist a work environment where care,
concern and emotion are commonplace. What do you do about them, they
ask?
We focus on the positive. We focus on those who get it.
As you apply the fundamentals of Truly Human Leadership,
you’ll want to embrace “courageous patience” by focusing on those who
“get it,” knowing that others will follow when they are ready to adopt
the skills of caring for others.
“I don’t trust you at all, lady!”
The truth is, I am an optimist, so I tend to spend my energy on
what’s going right. I always tell people that I am sure there are people
who don’t get it, but I couldn’t tell you who they are.
We simply don’t concern ourselves with them and hope they come around on their own terms.
Our philosophy of “courageous patience” has been a key factor in
our transformation. If you’re willing to be patient and stay true to
your vision, you’ll eventually see sustained results both culturally and
financially. But it takes time to build momentum and get up to speed.
Patience requires the ability to see beyond the immediate to the
greater opportunity that our vision promises. We focus on what is
working and are incredibly patient with those who don’t seem to “get
it.”
Consequently, some have difficulty trusting our leadership
message. That’s okay. We’re all at a different point on this journey,
and we have to be patient and trust that the skeptics will eventually
see the transformative power it can have—on both their work lives and
their personal lives.
Early on in our cultural journey, our Chief People Officer Rhonda
Spencer began having listening sessions with a particularly broken
company we had acquired (or, as we say, adopted) in Wisconsin. In fact,
we bought them out of bankruptcy on the steps of the state capitol. They
had been through a number of layoffs and extended periods of
uncertainty.
Rhonda was committed to repeatedly going to this facility to
listen to all of the team members and help them understand where we were
and understand where they were on our cultural journey. In one of the
sessions, she was talking about trust.
A woman from the back of the room yelled, “I don’t trust you at all, lady!”
She thought for a minute and said, “Well, I don’t blame you.
You’ve been through a lot here, and I imagine it’s hard to believe that
the things we’re telling you are true and that we’re sincere. We need to
earn your trust.”
It was an interesting revelation for Rhonda; having essentially
“grown up" within Barry-Wehmiller and having had the benefit of being
led by so many leaders who she always felt had her best interest at
heart. Rhonda developed a new level of empathy for what people in the
companies we’ve acquired had been through.
In his book, See You at the Top,
Zig Ziglar illustrates this with a parable. If you put some fleas
inside a jar and close the lid, they immediately start jumping and
trying to escape.
After hitting the lid repeatedly, the fleas eventually realize
that they cannot escape and stop trying. They still jump, just not as
high. If you now remove the lid, the fleas keep jumping, but not high
enough to escape the jar. They don’t even notice that the lid is no
longer in place.
We realize that when we adopt (or acquire) a company, the people
within that company are a product of their experiences. They may have
experienced great leaders in their past or, more likely, they have had
some negative experiences.
Even if someone else put the lid on the jar, it’s our job as
leaders to remove the lid and let people know that it is safe to jump
high again.
We encourage people to think about patience in terms of years,
rather than months. It’s worth the wait, because such individuals often
become the most passionate and effective exemplars and advocates for our
culture.
These former cynics often become outstanding facilitators in our
process-improvement journey, celebrated professors in our university,
senior leaders in our businesses,
That’s what happened with Randall Fleming.
Turning Darth Vader from the Dark Side
Randall worked in the fabrication area of our BW Papersystems facility in northern Wisconsin.
At six foot one, this ex-Special Forces soldier was an imposing figure.
“I was probably not the best person, probably not the person you want to be around very often,” Randall shared on our Truly Human Leadership Podcast.
“I was once described by an individual as, you know, the guy you don't
want to meet in a dark alley. He doesn't want to meet me.
“It's hard for me kind of to remember that, but yeah, I wasn't a very nice person at all.”
Randall had a great deal of talent and key technical skills. He
was a craftsman, a welder, and excellent at what he did. He often had
his welding mask on, his shield down, and it earned him the nickname of
“Darth Vader.”
“When Barry-Wehmiller acquired us, obviously it was kind of a
relief, because we were one day from being shut down,” Randall said.
“But what they were bringing to the table as far as a new way of doing
things, I definitely didn't fit into that equation very well. I didn't
like what was happening. From that standpoint, I thought it would just
be the way it was, go back to work, do your job, and they had a
different philosophy. And yeah, I wasn't on board.”
Instead of identifying Randall as a “problem,” two of our
continuous improvement leaders – Ken Coppens and Maureen Schloskey –
made it a regular practice to stop by Randall’s area to not necessarily
pressure him to change, but really, to listen to him.
“They started stopping by and started by saying hi and I wouldn't
respond but they just kept coming back,” Randall said. “They would
always say hi or they'd stop and ask me a question and they just they
started to aggravate me to the point that I started to talk to them for a
lack of a better way of saying it. So, I started to get an interest in
why are these people talking to me? Why won't they just leave me alone?
“And it slowly built from there once I started talking to each one
of them individually and allowing them to hear something from me that I
normally wouldn't share. I started to understand it wasn't such a bad
thing that they actually had my interests at heart, my best interests,
which had never happened before.”
That patience with Randall did more than just lead him to embrace new ways of working, it changed his life.
“And so I started a personal journey of change on my own, just
trying to become a different person,” Randall said. “I don't want to say
a better person. Just I wanted to be someone that wasn't looked at as
to be avoided. I wanted to start trying to help.”
Randall became one of the highest rated professors in
Barry-Wehmiller University, teaching his peers the power of inspiring
passion, optimism and purpose. He also became a valued member of our
team leading continuous improvement events throughout the organization.
“When I reflect on my journey, there's a lot of joy that I can
glean from all of it,” Randall said. “I mean, I look back at even prior
to my change personally, I was given a lot of opportunities or I took a
lot of opportunities as they were presented to me. And so it gives me a
sense of fulfillment, a sense of pride, because I was taught when you're
given an opportunity, take it and make the most of it.”
“So, I look back on my 35 years with this company and yeah, I've
done a lot of things. And I can say that I couldn't have planned a
better career path than what I've had, even through the bad times, even
through the rough parts, because the company was always there.”
Getting on the Bus
If we had given Randall only three or six months, if we hadn’t
shown courageous patience, he never would have had his personal
transformation, and he would’ve never become an exemplary leader, a
shining light for our entire organization.
It has been immensely personally rewarding for Randall and others
like him, and it has had enduring benefits for our culture. People see
that we were willing to have patience with Randall, that there were no
hard feelings, and that he’s now held up across the organization. The
changes in Randall’s life have inspired many others to go through their
own transformations as well.
Our friend, world peace negotiator Bill Ury, uses a vivid metaphor to describe our philosophy of courageous patience:
“It’s like you are driving a bus around the block repeatedly. You
keep picking people up when they are ready, when they choose to opt in.
But you stick to your values and your direction and patiently wait for
people to hop on board.”
People know that the bus will come around again, and there will be
room on it for everyone, and no one will blame them for not getting on
sooner. To extend the metaphor, as I wrote last week,
it is a safe business (a stable business), and the driver (leader)
knows the destination (vision) and the best route to get there (process
and culture).
As you apply the fundamentals of Truly Human Leadership,
you’ll want to embrace “courageous patience” by focusing on those who
“get it,” knowing that others will follow when they are ready to adopt
the skills of caring for others.