In 2006 Lady Gaga had dropped out of NYU to pursue music, but then Def Jam Recordings canceled her contract. After crying on her grandmother’s couch, her father gave her one year to figure it out.
Also in 2006, music manager Troy Carter’s star client canceled his contract. Carter’s business suffered, his home was foreclosed, his car was repossessed. He teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.
Right after signing with Interscope Records, Gaga hired Carter to be her manager. They worked nine months developing her music, but Interscope kept giving Gaga’s songs to other artists to perform,relegating her to a songwriter.
Carter and Gaga fought for control of some songs that she would perform, like Just Dance and Poker Face. But radio stations wouldn’t play them.
So they took her songs and performances to global audiences directly via Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. In Carter’s words, “We super-served underground music communities” on these fairly-new social platforms and in clubs until her music caught fire.
And their perseverance paid off.
Throughout their journeys, Lady Gaga and Troy Carter faced many opportunities to claim defeat, blaming a myriad of excuses.
Instead they found a way.
We all have excuses:
But at our core, we are not unlike Lady Gaga…
What lies between the excuse and the way is our conviction!
In 1999 I jumped out of an airplane and I quit a great job. Why?
How could I be fearless and fearful at the same time?
Marketing guru Robert Middleton said it best: Fearlessness is not a place to get to. It’s a place to come from.
Makes sense. Fear is designed to protect us against disappointments and failures that we’ve experienced in the past.
I had never jumped out of an airplane so I didn’t need protection from past disappointments and failures that involved a parachute.
But I had struggled with “difficult conversations” in the past, so from my perspective that seemed scarier that jumping out of an airplane.
Which explains why kids approach many situations fearlessly… They aren’t carrying around decades of disappointments and failures.
So how can we (adults!) come from fearlessness instead of fear?
Purposeful Practice.
Even Olympic Gold Swimmer Michael Phelps admits he was afraid to put his face in the water when he was seven. But then he came from fearlessness and his journey to greatness sparked.
Insights, learnings, and even good stories emerge when we walk out of our comfort zone and into an adventure. Fear be damned.
Research from Professor Paul Zak at Claremont Graduate University reveals 8 boss behaviors that foster trust:
And of these, Zak discovered that our lowest trust scores occur in:
Let’s pause to digest this… as bosses we are better at encouraging autonomy and enabling job crafting than we are at simply recognizing excellence and sharing information with people on our teams.
But when we dig into the reality of our jobs, here’s what’s happening:
But they do care! In fact, Zak’s research shows that high-trust teams are more productive, have more energy, collaborate better, stress less, and stay longer.
So what should we do? Institutionalize recognition and information-sharing:
Arguably recognizing people and sharing information should be organic leadership skills. But until they are…
We need intentional structures that help us strengthen these valuable, best-boss-ever, trust-building muscles.
My grandmother was a telephone operator for Ma Bell in Chicago.
Mike Rowe, host of the show Dirty Jobs, recently reflected, “People I’ve met on my journeys didn’t realize their dream. They looked around for an opportunity. They identified the opportunity. They worked at the opportunity. They got good at the opportunity. And then they figured out how to love it.”
Researchers at Stanford affirmed Rowe’s perspective in a recent study, concluding that following our passion is harmful because it presumes that it’s something to be chased. Instead passion should be developed.
How?
I grew up wondering what my passion is… And then I discovered a business law class. I developed my interest: I sought mentoring, I went to law school, I created internships, and I became a corporate attorney. And I loved it!
Passion is not to be chased. Passion ignites from within.
The question is… what are you doing to fan the flames?
Character actor John C. Reilly shared his take on collaborating in an interview in The New York Times Magazine:
We have the opportunity to create a “third thing” whenever we have a problem to solve. In fact, studies show that collaboration generates better ideas. But how do we spark collaboration?
The Need-Your-Perspective Formula:
Asking for someone’s perspective is powerful:
But people don’t help everyone who asks, so what else triggers their call to collaborate with us?
When I asked Krista for her perspective on leadership for my next book, she instantly agreed. Why? We were connected through a mutual friend; she knew her experience offered a fresh outlook; and she knew she could make a difference by sharing it.
So don’t just ask people to get together for coffee. They will likely say they’re too busy.
Instead, ask people for their perspective on an issue, problem, or project you’re wrestling with.
Give them an opportunity to create a “third thing” with you (a solution!) that was not there before.
It might be truly magical!
When I first heard this neurolinguistics concept, I started seeing it everywhere…
1. I walked into my obscenely-cluttered office and didn’t know where to start. So I closed the door and walked away.
2. I went to a company’s website, but it was congested with conflicting messages. I was confused and left without a purchase.
3. Bob asked me to refer him business, but I am confused about what he does, so I’ve never referred him.
4. Jane asked me for a job, but I am confused about what she could do for us, so I’ve never hired her.
5. I’ve witnessed some mentoring participants flounder, confused by the process or their goal. Typically they withdraw declaring, “I’m too busy.”
6. I had a team member not start a project because he didn’t understand what I needed.
7. I read an article about research that reveals the foundational cause of procrastination: confusion about where to focus one’s attention and energy.
A confused mind takes no action.
When we are confused about what to do, where to go, or where to focus, we tend not to act.
But action cannot depend on clarity. We gain clarity only through action. And not even the right action – just any action, no matter how granular:
Because the reality is that we cannot be in action and stuck at the same time.
So consider…
Ultimately the ability to take action in spite of confusion distinguishes the fruitful from the foiled.
Are you a stakeholder in a mentoring program and need to solve the challenge of scaling, sustaining, and measuring success while also making a difference to your organization and your people?
We get it!
The administrative burdens of managing and growing a mentoring program make the success and impact of it a challenge. Especially when leading a mentoring program is not your only responsibility at work!
Most manual programs struggle with growth, accountability, and demonstrating success. And the more programs you have, the harder it is to manage, measure, and magnify their impact.
Mentoring can be instrumental in on-boarding, retention, engagement, leadership development, and succession… but not if it gets mired in administrative challenges around execution, effectiveness, management, and growth.
We help companies make mentoring matter and then make it magnetic! The MentorLead Platform mitigates the inevitable frustrations and roadblocks from growing and managing programs.
We take their mentoring aspirations and transform them into mentoring solutions that are strategic, scalable, sustainable and successful. That means mentoring is helping you accomplish your organizational goals (such as on-boarding, retention, engagement, leadership development, and succession), while helping your participants accelerate their own success.
We’ll bet you have incredible goals for your organization and your people. And we bet you envision a culture that exchanges wisdom (mentoring!) and leverages the power of peers (mentoring!). But scaling and sustaining a mentoring program while also driving those goals and managing your own job is challenging. And when your program is dependent on you and an excel spreadsheet, it’s no wonder it is limited in its impact or flounders in its execution.
And you likely cringe when your boss asks, “How are you measuring success of the program?” or “How is this helping the organization?” To end the pain, you might distract with a few anecdotes or a survey.
What you need is a mentoring solution,
not just a mentoring program!
The good news is that you can solve the problem of strategy, scalability, sustainability, and success measures, and drive organizational goals and create a culture shift, all while managing your own job.
It’s the beginning of January – the time we all pledge to a “new you in the new year!”
The top New Year’s Resolutions for 2018 (as compiled by YouGov, a polling firm) include:
But researchers at University of Scranton suggest that only 8% of people actually stick with their New Year’s Resolutions. yikes…
So, what’s the issue? Too many, too lofty, no accountability? All of it.
Essentially we have resolutions, but not solutions. We have aspirations, but not action. And as a result, we have transactions, but not transformation.
Solutions have the power to shift our aspiration to action.
Solutions require 3 things:
1. Trust: we need to trust ourselves and find others we trust to support us through change (like a coach or a mentor)
2. Goals: we need specific, actionable goals with clear measures of success
3. Structure: we need a structure that will dictate action (even when we don’t feel like it)
What do solutions look like?
We don’t need a calendar change to implement new solutions. We just need more intentional commitments and less perfunctory pledges.
Here’s to a year brimming with solutions!
The end of the year offers a delicious pause to reflect upon and celebrate what we’ve each created, discovered, initiated, and achieved over the past 12 months.
As I reflect upon the Flash! articles I created for you in 2018, I’m resending the ones that generated the most conversation:
Teenager Turned a Transaction Into a Transformation
https://www.anntardy.com/this-teenager-turned-a-transaction-into-a-transformation/
Was I Kind Enough? (Reflections After a Colleague’s Death)
https://www.anntardy.com/was-i-kind-enough-reflections-following-a-colleagues-death/
UPS Driver’s Advice Can Inspire Our Own JobLove
https://www.anntardy.com/ups-drivers-advice-can-inspire-our-own-job-love/
Do You Bring your Shoshin? (like CEO of Salesforce)
https://www.anntardy.com/do-you-bring-your-shoshin-like-ceo-of-salesforce/
Do You Lead with Ubuntu?
https://www.anntardy.com/flash-do-you-lead-with-ubuntu/
Don’t Judge One’s Story by the Chapter You Walked In On
https://www.anntardy.com/dont-judge-ones-story-by-the-chapter-you-walked-in-on/
I Carried a Buffalo Trophy Through the Airport and Here’s What I Discovered
https://www.anntardy.com/i-carried-a-buffalo-trophy-through-the-airport-and-heres-what-i-discovered/
Thank you for reading, responding, and engaging with me throughout the year! I look forward to continuing our quest together to become bigger, better, bolder versions of ourselves.
Wishing you a watershed year ahead!