I suspect that time did not include actions named such as “not rocking the boat”, “keeping my head above water”, “going with the flow” and, one of my favorites, “shoveling %$#& against the tide”… Yet how often do we hear people describe how things are going at work and/or in their lives with these dreadful status quo offerings?

Earlier this week, I asked a mid-level leader how one of his leaders was performing this month and his words hit me: “he is keeping the ship afloat, not building new ships.” Safe (or seemingly safe) floating = slow and certain death. Period. Cinch up the PFD and hold on? That doesn’t sound like an Olympic best.

Consider this definition: leaders perform their best when their teams perform at their best. Enter: energy, emotion, trust, talent, will to win, purpose…and 5 more of your favorite cool things. Your best leader day builds the space for your team to break records… and they do.

This quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery, one of my favorites, sums up the leadership shift where best-ever results are possible: “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

Wanna float or build a ship? The Sea of Possibility awaits you.

- Mr. Marchetti, a hugely passionate Italian winemaker

Yes. Imagine.

During the course of my day when I ask acquaintances and strangers “howʼs your day?” I often hear the words that make me bite down so hard I create another micro fissure in my teeth: “same old, same old…” or even better, “same $#%@, different day…”

Tragic.

So goes a day, an hour, a minute without passion. Missed: the unique tapestry of environment, emotion, characters, context… time. Time that is today. Now. Nothing is the same second to second on this earth. So why is everything so similar, so “same old, same old”? How can we just go through the motions?

Ever conduct a whole retail transaction without eye contact supported by staccato, dispassionate grunts? This morning?

Ever have a conversation with a peer or a member of your team that was unremarkable at the start AND the end? Today?

Give me ZEST or give me death! These moments matter. A ten second interface matters.

In the brilliant words of Susan Scott: “While no single conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a career, a business, a marriage, or a life, any single conversation can.” Blinded by “same old, same old” we miss every opportunity…every “can”. Tragic.

Imagine if any one conversation could be that One Palette for the year. The one that makes a difference. The one that paints who you are and what you are passionate about. The one that changes everything.

Yes, you can wallow in your mire of “same $#%@, different day”…. OR you can paint with passion, One Palette, one conversation at a time.

Start now.

For the past 9 years a very special gathering has taken place on a large field just outside of San Jose, CA.  Hundreds of boys and girls aged 8 – 14 meet for five evenings of learning, growth and discovery.  I have been a supporter of this event, the Myles Brinson- JR Adams Fundamental Football Camp, ever since the day I learned of it… 6 years ago now.  While I do love football, here football is merely the platform on which the true learning is built.

Myles Brinson and JR Adams are the camp’s heroes. Every camp participant wears a t-shirt with their numbers on it.  These 2 young men were taken from this earth far too soon… Myles at age 8 by leukemia and JR, as high school senior, by a teen-aged drunk driver.  In memory of their sons, their amazing parents have created an environment where character rules over physical ability.  Respect… Discipline… Family… evident in every corner of the field every minute.

Here is a minute I will not forget: on Friday during a skill development session a boy on the team that was practicing closest to me (maybe 13 or 14 yr olds) began bucking against what the team was instructed to work on.  He let out a string of cuss words.  The coach of the team, a young man I recognized from previous years of camp, heard the outburst and called out to the boy.  It took a few calls to get his attention.  The coach is likely just 17 or 18 yrs old and by my estimate a good 50 pounds lighter than the cussing boy.  No worries.  Without hesitation, the coach laid it out there:

• … No, not while you are wearing this shirt
• … We don’t act like that here… we don’t treat each other with disrespect like that
• … That’s not what wearing this shirt is about
• … You need to honor this shirt
• … Don’t forget that

I was blown away… not just by the words/actions but also by the authentic delivery of the message.  The message I heard: the irrefutable stand the coach has for “who we are” and “how it is around here”.  Respect.  Discipline.  Family.

Later during the camp’s closing ceremony I realized the young coach is JR’s little brother… a young man of rare character… one you know will be a great gift to this earth.

Think about your corner of the field.  What is on your “shirt”?   What is behind it?

“Just lay low and drink the Cool-Aid…”

No, this isn’t a quote from a cult leader on some remote compound.  This quote comes fresh from the halls of corporate America.  Perhaps you have heard an echo of this in your own work space.  Drink the Cool-Aid.  Ouch.  I think I know why they call it “punch”.

When our gut is signaling misalignment with our actions it hurts.  Somehow, suggestions about “fitting in… going with the flow… treading softly”, especially from those higher up the leader chain, lose their surface Zen-like qualities and feel more like an integrity typhoon.  Still, staring in the face of personal responsibilities, mortgage payments and looming job scarcity, the Cool-Aid can appear like to obvious beverage of choice.  So today you lay low, do the gut-wrenching deeds… and take a sip.  Gulp.

We have thousands of organizations awash in Cool-Aid: banks, manufacturing plants, mines, oil refineries… you name it.  If only the result of all of the BP “Cool-Aid” drinking was a simple grape drink spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  Tragic.

Tragedies don’t change things.  People do.

Resist.  Don’t take a sip.  Instead of reaching for the Cool-Aid reach inside and find the action that is aligned with your gut.  Then do it.  It might just change everything.

* the “Cool-Aid” name was changed to protect the innocent

What if… everything possible for your team was out of clear sight… and just 1/4” below the surface?  No drill, Baby, drill required here.  How about just an intentional act of discovery? 

A great question: If you had a whole day to step away from your regular duties and work on something you have always wanted to do here at our company, what would you do?

A bold and true statement: I see this amazing gift in you which is “x” (you fill in the gift). 

A journey together: What do you bring to the team that no other team member brings? 

A sense of belonging: Why is the team glad you are here today?

What if your peek into what is beyond your current line of sight could change everything?

• Enable a sales team member to sell one more gizmo
• Support a peer through a low confidence moment
• Spark a stellar outcome from your team that no one saw coming

Pull the curtain back.  The talent that you are looking for….whether you know it or not…is right there.  It is your job to uncover it.  That work is the art of a rare few leaders you say?  B.S.  You most certainly are an artist, too.  It’s just ¼” down.  Go get it.

 Boss is watching.  In a reckless scramble to ensure “you are doing the thing I told you to do”, some leaders are performing a task they call “inspection” (oh, here come the Officer Candidate School flashbacks).  It sort of goes like this: a leader tells a team member what to do and then she/he comes around to make sure the team member is doing it.  Often, the “inspection” lends itself to another round of the leader  telling the team member what they are doing wrong and what they better start doing to fix it… else…

Any wonder why 80% of our team members are not engaged?  No imagination required here.

High quality comes from actively engaged team members… the ones who have the authority, the tools, the work climate to deliver amazing products and services.  You likely have a few of them on your team.  What if you had more?

The finger is pointing at us: leaders.  Engaging a team member… inspecting a team member… these are juxtaposed actions.  I am willing to put down 100 pushups on engaging leadership to finish first in performance.  You pick the business metric.  For organic, sustained high performance, my money, eh, my pushups are on engaging leadership.

Let’s leave the “inspection” to Inspector #80 at the end of the manufacturing line at the Fruit of the Loom plant.  After all, we are humans, not underwear.

A great story of how engaging leadership directly impacted a business result can be just the spark a leader needs to move away from all of the telling, the one-way communication, and the inspections.  What’s your great story?

We can decide every morning how we want to feel that day.  We can choose an easy, energy conserving, no-ripples-in-the-lake kind of day and after a Mountain Dew for breakfast, lunch with friends and a 2 hour staff meeting in the afternoon we can slip back into our cars and head home nearly untouched.  Sweet!

Perhaps you are like me and most often, without hesitation, you choose a different journey for the day… the one with blind curves, steep climbs, and off-the map hiking… and you know it’s going to hurt.  And if you are feeling really bold, you will plan to take a small tribe of folks with you today…and they will most certainly hurt, too.  Anything can happen.  Sometimes it does….and you know that is why you came.

There is a line.  Behind it sits status quo.  Beyond it: Everything Else Possible.  Albert Einstein saw it (“I am still learning…”).  Seth Godin sees it (“…the line between people who are actively engaged in new ideas, actively seeking out change, actively engaging – and people who accept what is given and slog along.”).   A small crop of leaders in East Texas and Louisiana sees it…. and they have been hurting ever since.  At the end of a grueling day of learning, growth, and leading others to take the journey of change/growth/discomfort as well, a leader from this crop, David, thanked me for the day he called “an uncomfortable blessing”.   Oddly, I am comforted knowing that there is discomfort… because that can change everything… and it will in that TX/ LA corner of the world.  Indeed.

Tomorrow when you wake up you can choose.  Be bold and push the UNEASY button… and get going.

We can’t wait.  Not in this market.  Not in any market really. 

I don’t get it. How can businesses, leaders, and entrepreneurs show up unprepared, disengaged, empty… in this time of careful spending by consumers and demanding time by businesses?  To wit:

• Shopping on line for floor tile I find a recommended site with no less than 26 pages of product displays each with 30 possible product sample photos.  Problem was each page displayed 2 or 3 product photos and 27 or 28 empty frames with the words “image coming soon” set where the cool product pictures should be.  Ugh.
• Navigating through light rail/road construction in my fine city, I make several futile trips to a not-really-brand -new-upstart coffee joint.  First trip found a handwritten note on the door that said “Closed for repairs. Sorry.”  Not a good sign for a busy Friday in this coffee-loving town.  Three days later, desperate for some good beans, my trip results in being told “Sorry, I don’t have any beans to sell.  I barely have enough to make espresso through tomorrow morning.”  Wouldn’t be so bad except this place doesn’t even have seats in it and it only sells beans and coffee drinks.  Ugh.
• Connecting with a middle-level leader by phone I ask how the leading and coaching of the team is going.  First, a couple of scoops of fluff sans substance are offered.  Next comes the all-you-can-stomach excuses about “no time”, “the team sucks”, “reports….”  Trust, my stomach quickly had enough.  Ugh.

Fact: what you have for sure is NOW.  Be there!  Get in the NOW!  Both feet!  Present, prepared, engaged, full….READY!  Don’t let the team look up at you and instead see a sign saying “image coming soon”.

                The TEAM can’t wait.

                The BUSINESS can’t wait.

                The CUSTOMERS can’t wait….

                …. CAN’T and WON’T.

Unwavering focus.

Sight on the impossible as if it were right in front of them.

Resolve.

They know something special, a secret, about the path between earth and our dreams.

They know.

As the colors of their nations floated to the top of the risers, there on the medal stand were eyes of athletes who knew the magic behind vision, plans, and execution.  You could almost see the credits running in their heads of the countless hours, people and events that led to that very moment in their young lives.  Looking into the eyes of Shaun White, you sense there is certainly a sequel.

Look in the mirror today.  Look into the eyes of your team. Getting ready for the next Olympics starts today.  Is it in you?

“We dance around the ring and suppose.  The secret sits in the middle and knows.”     – Robert Frost

When you are getting dressed to go to YOUR dance tomorrow morning look longer in the mirror (I know, a good day for me is a whole day without a mirror but heck, for the sake of learning, give it a try).  Ask yourself one of Susan Scott’s brilliant questions: what are you pretending not to know?

There is untold power in naming it.

Say what you need to say.  Name it.  Bring it out into the open.  Learn.  Move forward.

You can dance in circles or take the bold path and change everything.