Ep #10: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership with Will Bess Part 2

Welcome to Practicing with the Masters for dentists with your host, Dr. Allison Watts. Allison believes that there are four pillars for a successful, fulfilling dental practice: clear leadership, sound business principles, well-developed communication skills, and clinical excellence. Allison enjoys helping dentists and teams excel in all of these areas. Each episode she brings you an inspiring conversation with another leading expert. If you desire to learn and grow and in the process take your practice to the next level, then this is the show for you. Now, here’s your host, Dr. Allison Watts.

Allison:       Welcome to Practicing with the Masters podcast. I’m your host, Allison Watts, and I’m dedicated to bringing you masters in the field of dentistry, leadership, and practice management to help you have a more fulfilling and successful practice and life.

All right. So, you guys know that Will is a certified speaker, trainer, and coach with John Maxwell and I’m not going to repeat his whole bio every time. I’ll spare everybody that. I’ve had the privilege of being around Will, I don’t know, maybe what, a year now, Will?

Will:            Something like that.

Allison:       Pretty regularly. And he’s starting to rub off on me a little bit. Anyway, he’s in my Toastmasters group and when I watch him, I think, “He’s definitely living these principles.” He just quit his job of 18 years with the government. Is that fair to say? He was a federal probation officer for 18 years and he is a full-time John Maxwell coach now, and he’s a speaker and trainer with John Maxwell.

I sat down with him, didn’t I, Will? I sat down with you a few weeks ago, and said, “What’s your secret? How’d you do that? That’s pretty cool.” Anyway, I’m delighted to have you here with us, Will, and sharing these Maxwell principles and I will hand you the … what’s the saying? I’ll give you the stage.

Will:            The stage, the tape, the phone, whatever you want to say.

Allison:       The stage is all yours.

Will:            Thank you very much, Allison, and I just really don’t know if it’s a good thing that I’m rubbing off on you. So that’s kind of debatable.

Allison:       It’s totally a good thing.

Will:            We are going to have to revisit that, okay?

Allison:       [Laughs]

Will:            But anyway, thank you all for joining and if you’re not on the live call, when you do listen to it, welcome to you as well. I’m glad to have all of you here this morning. As my drill sergeant used to say, “It’s a great day to be alive.”

We’re going to jump right in and talk about these next three laws, from John’s book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. We’re going to start with the Law of Navigation today. This is the law that says, anyone can steer the ship but it takes a leader to chart the course.

Of all the laws in this book, this law is a technical law. It’s more of a technical law. This law is actually closest to management of all the other laws. Last week, we talked some about the difference between leadership and being a manager. This Law of Navigation is leaning toward being a manager because it requires a bit of technical proficiency. Navigation requires preparation, a leader who sees more than others see.

John starts the chapter in this book talking about two explorers. I’m not going to regurgitate the entire story because it’s in the book, but I’m just going to summarize it for you a little bit. But there are two different explorers. They were attempting to go to Antarctica to be the first men to reach the South Pole. One of them was a Norwegian explorer by the name of Roald Amundsen and the second was Robert Falcon Scott, a British naval officer.

Without laying out the entire details of the story, the difference between the leadership between these two men was life and death. Now I know it’s understandably, and thank God for it, that most of our decisions are not life and death decisions, but in this particular case, it was. Amundsen took his team, he was well-prepared, had everything well-planned, he used dogs to pull the sleigh, he made sure that they had enough rest, he made sure that they had enough food, he had the proper clothing, the best gear. They made it there pretty much without a hitch. I believe John said the worst thing that happened was somebody got a bad tooth that had to be pulled. They made it, came back.

Falcon, different story. He tried to use the motorized sled as opposed to dogs, of course with motors, what happens? They break down. So five days into the trip, they broke down, the men ended up having to pull their heavy equipment themselves. They eventually did get to the South Pole, a month after Amundsen’s team got there. And sadly to say, none of his people, including the animals with him, made it back. Everybody perished, everybody died on the trip because of poor planning.

Now, like I said earlier, thank goodness that most of our decision making doesn’t come to life or death. But this was the difference between somebody not making it home and somebody making it home for poor leadership.

You see, followers need leaders to be able to effectively navigate for them. That’s what leaders do. That’s what the purpose of them is, to navigate. And that’s what followers need. Navigation requires preparation. That’s so important because the world changes.  It changes quickly, people change quickly, and you can have the perfect “game plan” but you need a leader who can see things that everybody can’t see.

In sports, you hear the term of the gifted athlete who can actually see the play before it completely unfolds. Well, that’s what a leader does. LeRoy Eims stated that a leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees further than others see, and they see before others do. This is not just by a coincidence, or even necessarily a God-given talent. The leader sees more and further and first because of the preparation.

It’s like the quarterback in football and I’ll make some sports analogies throughout this course. You don’t have to be a sports fan, you don’t have to be a student of the game to get what I’m talking about. I hope you can just bear with me, and I’ll get you to where I want you to go. But just like the quarterback who sees the play before it happens, well, it’s not by accident. They’re just not naturally gifted to do that. This is the person who studies. They study game film, and they prepare themselves. So when that situation comes up, they’ve already seen it before. They’ve seen it numerous times so they can predict what’s going to happen.

And that’s what the true leader does. They don’t just go out on a whim and try to use their personality and their natural skill level to do something. They actually prepare. They prepare to lead. It’s principles to leadership and this calls for preparation. Navigation also requires a vision of the future, because we know that people will perish without vision. People will perish without hope.

Something else that navigators do: They draw on past experience. We talked about this last week, so it’s a common theme for a reason. Reflecting on your past experience, that’s what navigation requires. The successful leader, they reflect on the past, and they draw insight from past experiences. Our past can be such a valuable source of wisdom to us if we allow it to be. As good as past success is, past failures, setbacks, are even more valuable.

I don’t know about you guys, but when I look back over my life, I recognize that I’ve had some successes, and I’ve had more successes than I’ve had failures. But the failures that I’ve had, the setbacks that I’ve had, the mistakes that I’ve made, they have taught me so much more about myself, about life, and about other people in general, than have my victories.

You guys know that, we can win well. Everybody knows how to win, you don’t have to teach people how to celebrate when they win. But can you fail well? It sounds crazy, because we grow up teaching people to try to be successful, not to fail, but the fact of the matter is, failure will come. I think it’s necessary. And how you recoup from it, how you recover from it, that’s going to determine how successful you are.

That’s what navigators do, they look back on their past experiences, and they don’t necessarily see the failures as weaknesses, they don’t see the failures as something bad. They see it as growth opportunities. And the opportunity to do something better than they had done it. You can learn from your failures, or you can find yourself repeating the same mistakes over and over and over.

I was in federal probation for 18 years, so obviously, I have a vast amount of experience of seeing individuals who continue to make the same mistakes over and over and over and over again. I’m sure in your own lives, possibly you’ve met somebody like that. Someone who keeps attracting the same types of friends, the same types of intimate partners, and they never learn from the previous experience.

Basically, they’re going through pain, heartache, trials and tribulations for nothing. Because really, if you don’t learn from it, if you don’t grow from it, if you don’t get better from it, then really you went through it for absolutely no reason at all.

John wrote a book some years ago called Failing Forward, and this book really has helped me and it did help me through a significant setback that I had in my own career. Reading that book, and I believe there’s power in the spoken word, that’s why I choose to do what I do, and I’m glad you guys are listening to what I’m saying. There is power in the spoken word.

This book really helped change my life to a certain degree. I would recommend that any of you guys read it, even if you haven’t really went through anything. Go ahead and read it. It’ll give you some insight on what failure actually is, and what it should mean to you. It will also give you some insight on how to recover from it.

John also talks about reflective thinking. He talks about that in his book Thinking for a Change. He says that reflective thinking gives you true perspective. It gives the emotional integrity to your thought life. It increases your confidence in decision making, it clarifies the big picture, and it takes a good experience and makes it a valuable experience.

Talking about navigators, navigator-leaders and what they do, they examine the conditions before making commitments. They don’t just jump out there recklessly or carelessly. They examine the conditions. One of the things that they do, they listen. They listen to what other people have to say. Because a true leader will recognize that they don’t have all of the answers. No one has all of the answers. You have to be willing to learn from everyone.

Navigating leaders, they get ideas from many sources and they listen to members on the leadership team, and they get information from outside the organization. They don’t just rely on themselves. They rely on the team.

I’m going to give you a little football scenario, and like I said, you don’t have to be a fan of the sport or even really understand it to get what I’m saying. In the National Football League, and that’s professional football, if you don’t know that, they’re called a copycat league. And what I mean by that is, if one team does something really well, then the other teams tend to want to emulate that.

If you watched the Super Bowl, you saw two teams, the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers. And the San Francisco 49ers have the young quarterback, Colin Kaepernick. And this kid, he’s a really good athlete. He runs as well as he throws. He’s a new breed of quarterback that they call the mobile quarterback, him, Robert Griffin, Russell Wilson, guys like that.

That means that they can hurt you running the ball as well as throwing the ball. Well, one team in particular, the Seattle Seahawks, played a great number of these so-called mobile quarterbacks this year. They won every game that they played against these types of quarterbacks.

So teams started to go to the Seattle Seahawks’ coaches and say, “Help, let us talk to you guys. What are you guys doing to stop all of these quarterbacks? Because we are having problems with them, other teams are having problems with them. But whenever your team played them, you seem to know how to control them.”

See, I love that. I love that, because the teams that go to Seattle—yes, they are all competing against each other—but they’re not so arrogant and so egotistical that they’re like, “You know what, we’re going to figure it out ourselves.” No. They recognize that somebody else has already seemed to figure out how to do that. So instead of you trying to reinvent the wheel so that you can get the credit for doing it yourself, you put the ego aside and you go to these people and say, “Hey, what are you guys doing? Because it’s working. Can you show us how to do it?” The success is for the team. They want the team to win. Who really cares where the credit comes from? Who cares, if the team wins, does it really matter who gets to stand on the stage and say, “I did it?”

So that’s what the navigating leader does. The navigating leader uses sources, they learn from everyone to put together the piece of the puzzle so they can steer the course for their troops. They don’t really care who’s coming with the bright ideas as long as the bright ideas are coming and you can use them for the success of the team.

Navigators also make sure that their conclusions represent both faith and fact. You have a positive attitude, and positive attitudes are great, they’re necessary. They’re not the only thing, but they are the most important thing. But you do have to couple it with being realistic. You have to call a spade a spade. If something’s going to be a problem, then say it’s a problem.

If there’s a forecast that says something is not going to be good, then say it’s not going to be good. You can say it with a confidence and a positive that we’re going to turn it around, but you don’t have to sugarcoat it. You don’t have to be a gloomy Gus either. There’s a strategy to learning how to navigate, there really is. I’m going to give you some tools to do that.

The first thing you want to do is predetermine a course of action. Know where you want to go. That’s the first thing. If you don’t have a goal, if you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to know when you get there? So know where you want to go. Lay out your goals. Make sure that you get the buy-in from your team, because it’s a team effort.

You can’t live life alone. Whether you work by yourself or you have people under your authority or you work for someone, it doesn’t matter.

Ultimately you’re going to need someone else to help you get to where you want to go. You’re going to need someone else to help you succeed. So make sure you get buy-in from those individuals who you need the help from. Simply saying, “I’m the boss and this is the way we’re going to do it, that’s all there is to it, I don’t want to hear no lip from anybody…” Well, that’s not really going to work too well. It might work for your house or children …

Allison:       It doesn’t work. [Laughs]

Will:            What did you say, Allison?

Allison:       I said, it doesn’t work, I’ve tried it.

Will:            You tried it? [Laughs] See, there you go, Allison can speak from experience that that method does not work. And so what you want to do is make sure that you get buy-in from your team, make sure they understand the path that you’re taking. They may not always agree with it, but at least make sure that they understand this is why we’re doing this. And then you’re going to adjust your priorities. You’re going to listen, you’re going to watch, and you’re going to measure.

Adjust is the key word there, because you might start off with something being a priority, but as time goes you recognize that you need to refocus and reshape it and re-shift it. You may have to adjust your priorities.

Allison:       Will, can you repeat what you said after you said, understand your priorities and you said measure? What did you say? Measure, adjust … ?

Will:            I said listen, watch, because you’re going to listen to what the people are saying, you’re going to listen to what’s going on, and then you’re going to watch. You’re going to watch the progress, you’re going to see how everything is going. And then you’re going to measure it. Is this working? If something’s not working, then you may have to adjust. That’s what adjust your priorities means. Something that started off seemingly that it’s going to be the top priority may not necessarily end up that way. You may have to have the ability to adjust and be flexible.

Allison:       Thanks.

Will:            Just like if you were navigating, if you were on a ship, you were sailing somewhere, and you may be going a certain direction. But a storm may come, the winds may shift, whatever the case may be, and something else becomes a priority. It’s the same thing with leadership. You have to have the ability to adjust your priorities.

Make sure you notify key personnel. Sometimes you need a meeting before the meeting. And it’s not to necessarily undermine the meeting, but sometimes if you let people know, “This is the agenda, this is what we’re going to do, this is what we want the outcome to be,” then you won’t have those long, lengthy, a bunch of nothing …

I mean, maybe it’s just me, but have you guys ever been to a meeting where it was just unnecessarily long and confusing and you came out and nobody was on the same page? And you say, “Okay, that’s just two hours of our lives that we’ll never get back and didn’t benefit anybody.” So notify the key personnel of what you need from them, sometimes before you even have a meeting.

Allow time for acceptance. A lot of times for the ideas to marinate in people, you announce it, “This is what we’re going to do.” You discuss it. And then you summarize it. Sometimes leaders, it’ll be a change. Change is difficult a lot of times for people.

They’re bringing something to the table and they’ll give it to their subordinates and then say, “Okay, let’s make it happen.” And they don’t really even give them time to process it and give them time to figure it out in their head. “Okay, this will work, or this is why this will work.” It’s like, “Okay, implement it right now, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.” Sometimes you have to step back and allow time for the idea to be processed. Allow time for people to accept what it is that you’re trying to do.

The next one you’re going to do, you’re going to head into action. You’re going to execute the plan. I don’t really have to go into detail with that, this says what it is. You execute.

Next, you’re going to expect problems. Yes, expect problems. You’re dealing with human beings, there are going to be some problems. That’s just the nature of the beast. Change creates friction, it does. Anytime there’s a change, even if it’s a good change, it’s going to create some friction because you know you’ll never be able to please all of the people. That’s just the way it works.

But you have to be prepared for it. Be prepared for somebody to be a little disgruntled. Be prepared for somebody to be upset because the old way suited them better. It may not have been good for the team or the organization, but it was good for them. So they were happy with it and now they’re unhappy. So be prepared to expect that sort of thing.

Always point to the success. Be assuring, be positive, and be confident. That’s very important because you’re a leader, people are watching you. They’re watching you always, to see how you’re going to handle things, what you’re going to do.

Finally, you’re going to have a daily review of your plan. You’re going to watch and see what’s going on. Make sure that your vision is still intact, that things are working. Sometimes a plan needs to change. If you’re not paying attention to it, you’re not watching it close, a problem comes up and by the time you recognize the problem, or by the time you get to the problem, it has become much larger than it would have been had you been watching it on a continuous basis.

If you look at the first initial of all of those that I just said, it says “P.L.A.N. A.H.E.A.D.” Predetermine, lay out your goals, adjust, notify, allow, head into action, expect the problem, always point to success, daily review your plan. That stands for PLAN AHEAD. That’s a good acronym that you can use.

Again, going back to careful reflection, you’ve heard that thing, “We’ve been burned before?” Just because you’ve been burned before, it doesn’t mean that fire is bad. I remember reading Mark Twain. Mark Twain talked about a cat, he talked about a cat who sits on a hot stove. Mark Twain says, the cat who sits on a hot stove will not sit on a hot stove again. But the cat also won’t sit on a cold stove. The cat won’t sit on any stove again.

A cat is a cat. And hopefully we’re smarter than a cat because we know that there’s nothing wrong with stoves. Just don’t sit on a hot stove. So sometimes something will happen and it doesn’t turn out good for us, so we just want to run away from it and stay away from it period. When it’s not necessarily that thing that was bad, it was something about that thing that was bad. So careful reflection would let you know that, “Okay, just because I’ve been burned before doesn’t mean that all fire is bad. It means that I just have to conduct myself appropriately when I’m around flames.”

Careful reflection means don’t learn the wrong lessons. It’s kind of like, if you have a child, and you know children are sponges and you think they’re not paying attention. And you can say a whole paragraph, but if you say a bad word somewhere within that paragraph, that’s the only thing that the kid is going to hear. Kids tend to want to learn the wrong lessons. They don’t learn all the stuff you’re trying to teach them, they learn the wrong stuff. So make sure you learn the right lesson.

Make sure you fail forward. In your life, you should be either up or in the process of getting up. Also, keep success in perspective. You can celebrate your victories because you’ve earned them, and you should celebrate them. But don’t rest on your laurels. Don’t rest on them. Be constantly trying to improve yourself.

Lead others by knowing your craft and being well prepared. When you’re leading others and engaging, these are some key phrases that you want to listen to. If you hear these permeating around your office or around your work environment, this is when your people are subconsciously telling you that they need some navigation from you. If you recognize that your people would do what you say, but you have to tell them over and over, you have to say things like, “Okay, people listen up, I need you to listen up.” They may need some navigation.

Allison:       Hey, Will, can I interrupt you?

Will:            When you hear somebody saying, “You know what? I’m not even sure what I need to do next.” They need some navigation. When you’re hearing people saying, “I’m overwhelmed, I’m over my head, I’m not sure what I need to do, I keep hitting a wall.” They need some navigation from you. You’re the leader. That’s one of the requirements and responsibility of leading people. It’s being in the position to navigate them when they need navigating. That’s the Law of Navigation. We’re going to move on to the Law of Addition.

Allison:       Will, we have a question.

Will:            Sure.

Lisa:           Thank you. Hi, Will.

Will:            Hi, Lisa, how are you?

Lisa:           Wonderful, thank you. You were talking about keeping success in perspective, and then you said don’t depend on your… something.

Will:            I said, don’t rest on your laurels.

Lisa:           Don’t rest on your what, say that again?

Will:            On your laurels. L-a-u-r-e-l-s—the successes.

Lisa:           What is that? I’m sorry.

Will:            Basically that that’s when you do something well and you’re so busy celebrating and basking in the glow of that, that you don’t improve and that you don’t get better.

It’s kind of like in sports, that’s why if a team wins the championship, it’s so, so hard for them to do it again because they tend not to do those same things to do it again that they did the first time. Because they’re so busy celebrating, “This is what we did, this is what we accomplished,” that they don’t recognize that they need to continue to grow. They need to continue to strive to be better.

So basically, resting on your laurels, that’s what that means. That you’ve accomplished something and so you think you’ve made it, you think you’ve reached the pinnacle, so you stop working hard. And they say you know that you were back to where you were before you won, or even further back than that.

Basically that’s what that means. That you keep your success in perspective. You recognize this worked, this was a good thing, we were victorious, I’m proud of myself, I’m proud of the team. But we have to keep working. We have to keep growing. We can’t just stop here. So essentially that’s what that means. Does that make sense to you?

Lisa:           Yes, that does make sense, thank you. I can definitely see myself kind of on that line.

Will:            Yes ma’am. Thanks for the question. Do we have any more, Allison?

Allison:       No, not right now.

Will:            Okay, all right. We are going to proceed to the Law of Addition. I love this law. There are a lot of the laws I like, some I like more than others, I love the Law of Addition because to me, this is one of the laws out of the 21 that’s really, really going to separate the average from the good, the good from the great, because it requires something of the leader.

He talks about Jim Sinegal, the CEO of Costco, and this book was written some time ago, so I don’t know if that guy is still the CEO of Costco. But at the time, he was, and he was really, really an amazing CEO. He knew his people by name, he added value to them financially. They got paid more than the average person working in their industry. He added value to them emotionally. He made sure he wore name tags so everybody could call him by his name. He knew everybody’s first name. He visited all of his stores at least once a year to get to know the people.

And the thing that really stood out was that the people were glad to see him when he came. That’s because they knew he liked them. And let me ask you, how many people have you worked for, that you were genuinely happy to see them when they came?

I remember when I first started working with federal probation, the chief who hired me, her name was Ruby Lehrman. She was that type of boss. When she came around to the divisions to visit, her office was headquartered in San Antonio, but she would travel around West Texas to visit all the different divisions. When she came and you heard, “Hey, Ruby’s in the office,” people literally would stop what they were doing to go search the building to find her.

And you know guys, many times when we work, especially in some sort of corporation or organization, when the big boss is in town, you are trying to disappear. You don’t want anything to do with them. You don’t even want to see them. So you’re trying to go the opposite direction. But she wasn’t that kind of boss.

We were genuinely happy and pleased to see her when she came. She called everybody on their birthday and sang Happy Birthday to them. She wasn’t exactly Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston, but the effort was there. It made you feel good that she would call you personally and sing Happy Birthday to you.

I remember some years ago, early 2001/2002, or something like that, I don’t recall, but we were going through budgetary problems in the federal government just like they are now. They were talking about furloughing employees, just like they are now. In case some of you don’t know what the furlough means, that basically means you’re going to take some unpaid leave. You’re going to go home, you’re not going to work, and you’re not going to get paid for it, because it saves on salary. We know that salary eats up a large part of anybody’s budget.

We were in that position then, and so she came to East Division office, and I remember her coming to Midland and we had a big meeting. She was talking, and she was rather somber, and she was a really upbeat person normally, but she was really somber. She was talking to us about the budget, and she said, “We really have kind of two options. And I’m going to let you guys have some input in what we’re going to do.”

She said, “We may have to lay off some of our support staff.” That would be the clerical positions and things like that. She said, “We may have to lay off some of them. Or, if everybody volunteers to furlough” however many days it was, a week, or something like that, “then we could save everybody’s job and make our budget.”

She said, “But I’m going to let you have some input because I know all of you guys have family. Most of these people you don’t even know. They work in different offices. You’ve never met them, you don’t even know them. But I’m going to let you guys think about it, and then we’re going to vote and then we’re going to look at it and we’re going to evaluate it.”

And I remember somebody raised their hand and said, “Ruby, when do we vote? Can we vote right now?” She’s like, “Well, yeah.” This person was like, “Well, I’d vote that we furlough.” And everybody else raised their hand like, “Yeah, we should furlough. We should furlough.” And she was like, “Wow, I appreciate that, guys, that you’re doing this.” Somebody said, “We’re doing it for you, Ruby.” And she got teary-eyed, and she was really touched, but that’s really what it was. The type of leader she was, we were willing to make the sacrifice for her.

When you’re leading people, and you’re adding value to people’s life, I’m telling you, you’ll get it back. They will do things for you because of who you are, not because of your position, not because of your title, not because you’re signing the checks. But because of you. That’s what happens when you invest in people. So when you focus on serving others, because that’s what the Law of Addition is about, it’s about serving people. That’s why I really like this law, because that distinguishes the great leaders from other people.

Sometimes when people get to a certain position in life and they’re elevated, they have a mindset that they should be served now. That they‘ve made it. Then they don’t have to do those things because they’ve already done it to get to this position. But no, it’s the opposite. The higher up you go, that’s when servanthood comes in. Your focus is on serving others and adding value to other people’s lives.

So John asked the questions, “Do motives count? Do leader’s motives count? Or is it about getting the job done that’s important?” We have to ask ourselves as leaders, “What’s the most important thing to you? The bottom line or the person?” Many people view leadership the same way they view success. They hope to go as far as they can and to climb the ladder to achieve the highest position possible for their talent. But leadership is not about advancing you. It’s about advancing others.

Remember, as we talked about last week, leadership is influence. The ability to positively influence others. Many of us have what it takes to be successful ourselves. We can train ourselves up, coach ourselves up, get ourselves in the position where we can excel ourselves. But true leadership is asking, do you have the ability to take somebody else with you?

As a leader, you’re either a lifter or you’re a leaner. You’re lifting somebody up or you’re leaning on them. You’re adding or you’re subtracting from a person’s life. There’s no gray area. There’s no gray.  You’re either adding value or you’re subtracting. You’re either having a positive or a negative impact.

A critical question that you can ask yourself as a leader: Are you making things better for the people who follow you? Is their life better because you’re in it? If you can’t answer that with an unhesitant yes and then also get some evidence that backs it up—because we can all say, “Yes, yes,” but how do you know? Do you have evidence of that?

If you don’t, you may have to look in the mirror and acknowledge that you may be a subtractor. It’s not an ugly thing because most of the time it’s unintentional. You’re not trying to subtract from people. But nonetheless, it happens. When a leader is a subtractor and they don’t change their ways, they go from subtracting to dividing. We’re not talking about math.

Have you ever worked for anyone like that? It seems like everything that they did was to their benefit. They make sure their vacation is taken care of first, then you go ahead and fill in your days when my days are taken care of. “Oh, I need to get off early next week, so you guys need to make sure you turn in all your work and get it to me so I can leave early.” Everything is to their benefit. Everything is to them making sure that they are taken care of first. Those are subtractors.

On the other hand, 90% of the people who add value to people, they do it intentionally. It’s intentional. Leadership is intentional. Because you know what guys? We’re selfish. We are. All of us, all of you guys listening to this, including myself, we are naturally selfish. If you guys took a picture of yourselves at work and somebody handed you the picture, what’s the first thing you’re going to do? You’re going to look for yourself on that picture to make sure that you look okay. And you know everybody on that picture could be looking drunk, they can be looking like they’re high on drugs, but if you see yourself and that you look good on that picture, then you consider that to be a pretty good picture. You don’t see the reason that you all need to do a retake.

Don’t feel bad, we can’t help it. We came out of the womb crying and screaming. I mean, look at babies. If you guys have children, I’m assuming most of you probably have children. They may not be small now, but you’ve been through that process. When your children are small, they don’t care if you’re sick, they don’t care if you’re tired, they don’t care if you’re sleepy, they want what they want when they want it. They want to eat when they’re hungry, they want to be changed when they got poopy diapers, they don’t really care what your situation is. They need you to take care of them.

Look how we raise children. We don’t have to teach them not to be selfish, do we? Yes, we have to teach them not to be selfish. We don’t have to teach them to not share their toys, we have to teach them to share their toys. Because that’s how human beings are built. We naturally look out for ourselves, and we have to untrain ourselves to do that.

So to be a leader, to be an adder in somebody’s life, you have to do really what’s not natural for you. That’s put somebody else’s needs and wishes in front of yours. It’s not natural, it’s not. But that’s what makes the leaders the leaders. You see, leaders do the things that other people won’t do. They don’t necessarily enjoy doing a lot of things but they do it in spite of that. They’re committed to it.

John talks about some Nobel Peace Prize winners: Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Bishop Desmond Tutu. These were people who were more concerned with positively influencing other people than themselves. Schweitzer made the comment, “Seek always to do some good somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. For remember, we don’t live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.” That’s basically how leaders of addition live their life. Looking to serve and looking to add value to other people.

Because it’s reciprocal. Just like Zig Ziglar says, “You get what you want by helping other people get what they want.” It’s reciprocal. The best place for the leader isn’t always at the top position. Recognize that. If you’re not in the top position of your organization, it doesn’t matter. The leader doesn’t always have to be there. It doesn’t have to be the most prominent or powerful place. It simply has to be the place that you can best serve. And you can add value to other people.

There are some benefits to adding value and serving others. It benefits those being served, because you’re helping someone. It’s fulfilling to you. It gives your life meaning, and it gives you the right attitude about life. It allows you to lead with the right motive. You don’t have ulterior motives saying, “Okay, I’m going to do this because there’s something in it for me.” No, you’re doing this because there’s something in it for the other person. Serving develops leadership culture and the leadership team.

I’m going to give you four guidelines to add value to others. We add value to others when we truly value others. It’s not so much about not harming people but it goes into intentionally helping them. You don’t need to try to make anybody feel important, what you do is truly believe that they are important. Then you treat them accordingly.

The second one, we add value to others when we make ourselves more valuable to others. We cannot give what we don’t have. If we don’t possess it, then how can we give it to someone else? How can I teach you skills if I don’t have the skill? How can I give you opportunities if I don’t have the opportunities to give you? You need to be more intentional by growing yourself personally and that way you will continue to have things to offer and benefit other people.

Third. We add value to others when we know and relate to what people value. Get to know people. Listen to people and to what they value. Sometimes an inexperienced leader will try to lead without even knowing about the person they’re leading. How do we know what people want, if we don’t know them? How can I add value to you, if I don’t know what’s important to you? You listen, you learn, and then you lead.

You listen to people, find out about their hopes and dreams and aspirations. Listen to their stories. You pay attention to the emotions of people. Then you learn what’s important to them. How can you motivate someone if you don’t know what motivates them? Because people have different motivations. You get to know them. You learn what’s important to them, and then you lead them based on what you’ve learned. Always remember to seek first to understand, then be understood.

Lastly, and John always mentions in his books and his trainings, he’s a man of faith and he doesn’t want to push his faith on anyone. So I’m just going to add this last one that he says, but I’m not going to go into detail, because I’m doing the same thing that he does. I don’t want to push my faith or his faith on someone else. But I’m going to read you what it is that he says is the fourth thing to add value: “We add values to others when we do the things that God requires. God requires us to treat people with respect and actively reach out and serve people.”

So in applying the Law of Addition to your life, just ask yourself, do you have a servant’s attitude when it comes to leadership? What are the times that you get impatient or resentful? Another question to ask, are there tasks that you think are beneath your dignity, your position? Then ask yourself, do you make it a practice to perform small acts of service without seeking credit? Look at the people in your life. Look at the people closest to you and ask yourself, do you know what they value? Do you know them? Do you know what they value?

The last law we’re going to talk about this morning is the Law of Solid Ground. This is the law that says trust is the foundation of leadership. How important is trust? Trust is the most important thing. It is. It is the foundation of leadership. Trust is like change, and John uses this analogy. Trust is like change in a leader’s pocket. Change as in coins, as in money. Each time you make a good decision, you earn more coins, you earn more change. Each time you make a poor decision, you pay out some change.

So as you’re leading people, you’re either building change in your pocket, or you’re depleting the change that you have. I’m here to tell you today, don’t ever empty your pocket. You cannot ever make change if you don’t have any change. I’ll say that again. You can’t make change if you don’t have any change. When you run out of change, you’re out as the leader. And it doesn’t even matter if that last mistake was big or small. When you run out, you’re out.

Consequently, if you’ve spent much time building change, accumulating coins, even if you do make a mistake, even if it’s a huge mistake, you still have plenty of change left over. So you can continue to lead. You build trust in people by consistently exemplifying competence, connection, and character.

People will forgive you if you make the occasional mistake based on your ability. Especially if they see that you’re still growing as a leader and you’re trying to do the best that you can. People can forgive a mistake, if they see that you’re trying to grow. As far as connecting, people will give you time to connect, to get to know them, for them to get to know you.

But people don’t trust someone who has slips in character. If you violate somebody’s trust—and we can probably relate to that just in our own lives, whether it’s professional or personal—either we violated someone’s trust, or they violated ours. We know when that happens, it’s hard to regain it. It’s very hard to regain it.

We really have to treat trust as our most precious asset, we really do. We may fool the boss, but the people who see you every day, the people that you work with, your colleagues, your subordinates, the people who work underneath you… they can tell. They know.

So one of the things that we have to do to increase the Law of Solid Ground, we have to build our character. Character communicates the following: it communicates consistency. Followers need to know what they can count on, they need you to be consistent in your behavior.

I’ve always said, when I was working in an organization, to my supervisor, “I really don’t care if you’re crazy. I really don’t. The only thing I ask is that if you are crazy, just be crazy all the time.” Be consistent in your mood so I’ll know where I stand. I can’t deal with a person who is crazy one day but they are not the next day. That drives me crazy. Just be consistent. So followers need to know what they can count on. Now, don’t be crazy, okay? Don’t be crazy, but be consistent in your behavior and in your moods.

People need somebody with inner strength. Somebody who won’t fold under pressure. Jerry West, the NBA legend, stated that, “You can’t get too much done in life if you only work on the days that you feel good.” Be consistent. Successful people don’t like doing things any more than anyone else, but they do it anyway. Be consistent.

Next thing you want to do, potential. You can’t go beyond the limits of your character for very long because talent is never enough. It’s not. It must be bolstered by the person’s character.

John talks about Terrell Owens, he’s a Hall of Fame football talent, wide receiver, played on a variety of teams. But he always had the inability to get along with the other players and the coaches. And he always divided a locker room because of his attitude, because of his character. His talent was legendary, he’s one of the best receivers ever. But his character was lacking in the sense that he did not know how to get along with other people. He was selfish, so that was his downfall.

You can’t build trust by talking about it, you have to do it. I’ve always been very wary of the person who has to verbally convince somebody to trust them, “Please trust me. Please trust me.” No. When your character is strong, people will trust you, and they’ll trust your ability to help them. They’ll see it.

The next one is respect. It’s about the team, putting the team first, ahead of your own personal gain. Admit where you’ve made a mistake. In the book, John talks about Vietnam, and I don’t know if any of you guys on this call was alive during that time period, but he talks about Vietnam. And not to talk about the whole story but he talks about the administration of President Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, and the Secretary of State, Robert McNamara. During that time period, and McNamara wrote a book about this subsequently, and he said that they were consistently deceptive and misleading to the American people about the success of the war.

See, they didn’t have the technology we have now. They didn’t have the World Wide Web to stay updated. They had to depend on the words of those in charge to let us know how the war was going on. And they consistently lied to the American people, saying that the war was going much better than it was.

So trust in that administration eroded tremendously and it carried on into the Nixon administration. And we all know what happened to Tricky Dicky, who took mistrust to a whole other level. But that’s what happens when you put yourself first and don’t think about the entire team, and you don’t admit when you’ve made a mistake, it erodes trust. It erodes trust.

A few little things you want to do in leading others to the Law of Solid Ground, make sure that you earn trust with people. One of the ways you can do that, measure if your team or the people around you, are holding back, if they’re not giving their all. You know they have more in them but you’re not seeing it. If you have a difficult time rallying the troops, getting them to do what needs to be done, you may need to have some sit-down one-on-ones. It might be a trust issue. They may not trust you enough to give you all that they have. So pay attention to that.

We always want to focus on our character, by focusing on integrity, authenticity, and discipline. We commit to being honest, we don’t tell little white lies, and we don’t fudge numbers. If you have broken trust, whether it’s in your private life or your public life, commit to regaining it. Commit to regaining it, it’s important.

Lastly, be authentic. Be yourself. Everybody else is taken, so be yourself. Have you guys ever known anybody who was the chameleon? I mean, whatever group of people they are with, whatever situation they’re in, that’s who they were. They would change themselves to fit into wherever they were. Don’t be a chameleon. Be who you are, be yourself. Yourself is good enough. You don’t need to play politics with people, be who you are. Be authentic, be true to yourself. And be true and consistent in your treatment with other people.

To strengthen your discipline, do the right things regardless of how you feel. Do the right things. Day in, day out. None of this is saying be perfect. Because we’re not perfect, we’ll never be perfect. But if you set your sights on these efforts and trying to do these things, you’ll find yourself being an exemplary leader. I think that’s what we all desire to be.

So with that, to respect everybody’s time, that’s where we’re going to end today. If anybody has any questions, please let Allison know and I’ll be happy to talk with you about anything that you may have. Thank you very much for listening to me this morning. God bless.

Thanks for listening to Practicing with the Masters for dentists, with your host, Dr. Allison Watts. For more about how Allison Watts and Transformational Practices can help you create a successful and fulfilling practice and life, visit transformationalpractices.com.