Liarbilities
Liarability. Call it the law of subtraction…a twist on the common accounting term “liability” or by definition: one that acts as a disadvantage. Liars. We know them when we see them, hear them. It is nauseating to see the affect one person can have on a team, a business, a community. To wit: people we trust who stand for themselves first. Current examples: Kwame Kilpatrick, the mayor of Detroit, Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York, healthcare CEOs….open the newspaper and point to one. Liars. We vote for them, we work with them, and probably most tragic, we marry them. We build our community, careers, and lives on seemingly sound foundations only to find no truth beneath the souls of our feet. We fall. The damage is unfathomable. We trusted you. You cost us.
So much promise exists in “trust”. It is the critical element of all that is possible. Think productivity. Think spirituality. Think innovation. Trust is a “force multiplier”. Businesses with it gap the competition. Partnerships built of it are impervious to unwelcomed external forces. Leaders who stand for it create teams that thrive. I don’t mean lean-back-and-I-will-catch-you-before-you-hit-the-floor trust. I mean “being there” trust. I mean your stand trust…your word trust.
It starts with you, leaders.
“The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him” – Henry Stimson
Ask the WL Gore Team, the Google Team, the Whole Foods Team what trust does for their teams.
A couple of weeks ago I worked with a team of 15 highly talented sales and technical leaders. Watching them in action was like watching the movie response to the question: when you are looking out at a team in action that has the highest trust element, what does it look like? Unflappable under stress, appreciative of other’s skills, focused on a common incredible outcome, willing sacrifice self for something so much more. Wow. I witnessed talent fused by trust deliver extraordinary results. Results, you ask? Try this: their business is growing by leaps. How’s 3 billion to 5 billion to 10 billion dollars? They are thriving and hiring. By the way, those with liar-bility need not apply.
I call for unbalancing the balance sheet. What if we could create a zero-liability business model…heck, a human life model…that stood in trust. What if leadership, your leadership, helped create the dream chemistry that sparks talent to explore the “what is possible” universe? What if your leadership could inspire everyone to be committed to something larger than themselves…something that can only be created through trust?
“Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you” -Henri-Frederick Amiel
I submit we don’t know how good we can be.
So let’s do it: stand in trust. Lead from there. Create something larger than you and your team. What if….
What could be created if you stood in trust? Dare you to share.
p.s. Oh, yeah, good-bye liarbilities. Your selfish wake got us here… to this point of magnificent awareness… and for that we are grateful.
on April 13, 2008 on 3:07 pm
Once again, Sue has poked me into a different place. The liarabilities in the world. Interesting. I’m sure we’ve all faced them…..been effected by them……..and even overcome their negative energy. I spent my weekend cutting trees and thinking about how nice it would be if we could identify the liarabilities before we had to deal with them……and cut them down like trees. As in the TV commercial where all the folks walk around with their individual celluar signal strength hovering above their heads, it would be so easy if we could just “see” the liarabilities coming.
How many are there? In the course of a given day, how many do we face? How many do we deal with? At times, it’s obvious who they are. At times, it’s not – as in the case of Elliot Spitzer. Many people believed in him and his rhetoric against crime. Not until his actions were discovered did so many realize the liarability. So, how many then? Do we wake up each morning believing that 5 out of 10 people we will deal with on a given day are liarabilities? 9 out of 10? The fact that we have no a priori knowledge of the liarabilities begs an interesting question? Do we go about the day assuming everyone is a liarability, unless proven otherwise? How would someone prove they weren’t? And, if we assume that social glass is 9/10ths empty, is that belief stifling our ability to do exactly what Sue asks of us? Be bold! Achieve breakthrough performance!
Does the fact that we have all been negatively affected by liarabilities (emotionally, physically, and financially) at some point in our lives change the way we see things going forward? I submit to the readers of this web site that it shouldn’t. They ain’t going away, folks. The trick to transcendent performance is learning to deal with the cards you are dealt in the most graceful manner you can. It’s in that graceful approach to life that we work in a bright light that is heroic to others……….and cause us to be there for them.