beBetter 

The high energy, meaningful dialogue, and engaging personal visits I get from deliberate face-to-face time pumps me up beyond description. These meetings remind me of the importance of face-to-face time and how critical it is to building high-performing teams and establishing strong relationships with clients and one another. 

Today, we have some awesome technology tools, including web access, social media apps, and video capabilities, that make it convenient to skip or question the face-to-face meetings. I realize how important all of these tools are to our future, to our innovation, to improving our processes and effectiveness, and to making it easy for our clients to communicate with us. I know being “connected” is the “in” thing.

But have you ever noticed how difficult it is to joke or really experience the fun stuff unless we are face-to-face? We miss out on those joys when we fail to make face-to-face time a priority.

Why do some of the funniest things happen in church? When Brandon (our oldest child) was four–years-old he was banging a hymnal against the pew in front of us. I had threatened him several times, and after a really loud bang, I reached out, trying not to draw attention, and popped him quietly on the back of his hand. He turned around and smiled at me, and said in a too-loud-voice, "Daddy, you hit like a sissy!"
 

A team member recently shared a compliment that he received from a client. What really struck me was he said, “You know, Joey, a client compliment never grows old.”  These words rang true to me and helped me to realize how closely client compliments should tie to living the mission of our organizations.

I think it’s time we focus on earning more compliments as leaders by focusing on living our mission statements. And I think it’s time we celebrate them with our teams when they come.

I can remember early in my career, one of the things that motivated me was a team effort. I liked seeing how my results made a difference for our team and clients. I liked being close to the action.  
 
I have been at HORNE for 30 years, and I have had a sense of belonging that has grown stronger with time. I have been rewarded for my growth and proactive leadership on teams. Only later in my career did I also realize how much self-satisfaction I get when I help others reach their full potential, or do things that they did not have the confidence to do.

The terms The Naysayer, The Skinner, The Backhand & The Dumper are not originals of mine, but I am unsure of who to give proper credit. Once I read them, the terms just stuck with me as I identified very quickly that these are situations that slow me down.   
 
Some things just really weigh me down. I call them anchors, because they cause my forward momentum to stop. Now, I am not sure why some things bother me more than others, but they do. I try to recognize these pet peeves and respond in a manner that is appropriate, but also honest. Sometimes I do a pretty good job, and sometimes I don’t. My wife is especially good at letting me know when I don’t. I might as well have dropped an anchor on my toe when that happens.  
 
What are some of these anchors for me?
 

Yes, I am a college football junkie. I love it. I am also a very loyal fan of the Ole Miss Rebels. In some ways, only an Ole Miss fan can appreciate or understand how painful that can be. There have been years that I have had to work hard not to let my frustration with the Rebels ruin my Saturday, or my entire weekend. Sometimes, I’ve had to focus on being an SEC fan, instead. As my wife says, she loves to see college football come, but she also loves when it’s over. 

As I reflect on years when my Rebel football teams have struggled or taking a deep dive, it’s never really clear what the root problems were. What is abundantly clear in those painful years is the unrest within the Rebel Nation which leads to a lot of finger pointing. 

As I move up in leadership, I am confronted with more and more things that I just don’t have a lot of experience with. I find myself wanting to make sure that I ask very direct questions and make fewer and fewer assumptions. 

On some matters, I want to know what the norm is. What is the "rule of thumb," so to speak? I hear some leaders express various financial metrics as our rule of thumb. I guess that helps, but unless I ask the right questions, I really never know if that "norm" fits our situation or not, and it really can leave me questioning myself. 

Ross Perot made the saying, “Kill the Snake,” popular during his run for president. He used a story to relay how organizations and government get so consumed by bureaucracy and red tape that they can’t accomplish the simplest tasks that are critical to the mission. 

For our illustration, since I love to fish, we will use the example of killing the snake in reference to us being in a boat. If suddenly a snake drops into the boat with us, what do we do? Kill the snake! However, if we were in the wrong boat, it might require organizing a committee to study the snake. What kind is it? What color? What are our other options to killing the snake? Who are our best snake killers? When should we kill the snake? What should we do with the snake after we kill it? How should we kill it? Is this the environmentally correct solution?

At HORNE, our recent growth, combined with a leaner organization we have created, is causing a capacity problem. I am thankful that our plan is working and we are experiencing smart growth, but with this growth and the accompanying capacity issues, I worry about the R.O.T.

What could be rotten about growth you may ask?! Limited people capacity gives me worries about Retention, Opportunities, and Training…R.O.T.

If we do not understand this challenge and address it aggressively as a team, our organization begins to ROT and the decay comes from several areas that are critical to having a high performance team.

One of the crucial building blocks in leadership is RESULTS. This building block is very important, because it represents one of the things elite leaders must value very dearly: high performance. We will only build great teams if we pursue our journey of greatness by valuing high performance. 

It’s my experience that people confuse working hard and being loyal with high performance. “I work more hours than Miss So So and she got the promotion.” “I’ve been here longer than he has been, and he still got the promotion before me.” Have you ever heard any of this in the break room? Run away from that conversation, even if it means you are talking to yourself!

It’s easy to get so busy, stressed, down or sometimes “self-important,” that we forget who we are and what’s really important to us.  I know that I experience those feelings sometimes and one of the tricks that I use to bring myself back to earth or pull myself out of a slump is to simply laugh at myself.  We all really do some funny things when you stop to think about it.  On one of my recent trips, I started thinking about the stupid things I had done at airports.  Unfortunately, there are several stories I could tell you, but today I will just share the most recent incident. 

When my youngest daughter turned 21, my wife and I took all three of our girls to Las Vegas to celebrate.  As you might expect, I had my hands full with the baggage that these four ladies were taking.  I needed a U-Haul truck! We were on time to the airport (a small miracle in itself) as we pulled next to curb in front of the Delta unloading area.  

Can you imagine working in an organization where each team member is passionate about their ability to serve a higher purpose? Passionate about the opportunity to grow their skills and develop as leaders? Diligently pursuing their full potential? 

The first step on the journey to becoming a leader is to recognize our purpose as individual team members. I challenge you to prioritize your time to begin to discover your life's purpose. Reading The Seed by Jon Gordon is a great place to start. This book helped me connect the dots around purpose as powerfully as any I have read. 

The Seed is a story about Josh, who has become complacent and somewhat disenchanted with his work. It’s a story that teaches us to search for our higher calling, our true purpose.