How Does a Lion Hunt?*

First a quote: “If you want to understand how a lion hunts, don’t go to the zoo. Go to the jungle.” – Jim Stengel, former Global Marketing Manager, Proctor & Gamble

Hello and happy Monday,

I hope you’re not too disappointed. If you were hoping to learn how a lion hunts this morning, I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer you. I do, however, like Jim Stengel’s quote. I submit there are valuable leadership lessons within that quote from a variety of perspectives.

If as leaders, we are leading a company that has customers, then truly understanding how those customers choose, and use, our products and services is of major importance. Simply watching our customers at the point of sale or talking to them on a sales call is like watching how a lion hunts within a cage at the zoo.

Helpful; perhaps, but does nothing to help us learn how they hunt in the jungle, which is obviously very different than being fed in a cage. We must go into our customers’ environments to see what they see, do what they do, and feel what they might feel.

Understanding how to lead our employees is much the same. While taking engagement surveys, and the like, may yield helpful data, it is not nearly as insightful as spending time in their plants, offices, stores, or other work locations.

We must experience their challenges, understand their stress points, or at a minimum, see their worlds from the inside out. Spending a day in the life of your associates may be an insightful investment of your time.

I have come to believe one of leadership’s primary responsibilities is to help our teams and associates remove barriers, improve work processes, and break down walls. To do that well, we must see those barriers and walls firsthand.

We also can’t inspire our teams, or ignite passion around our organizational goals, without first doing the hard work of identifying team values, purpose, and vision. We must strive to provide a "reason for being" that goes beyond monetary profits alone. None of this is easy. All of it is worthwhile.

If we’re going to lead people through a jungle, we must know what it is truly like to live, work, or sell in that jungle.

Spending a couple of hours in the zoo may be nice, but you won’t learn much about life in the jungle without going to the jungle.

How will you live, love, or lead, differently, or better, this coming week?

Sincerely,

Bryan Yager

“Expanding Your Capacity for Success”

* Revised and updated, originally published on January 20, 2020.

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Bonus Quotes:?

• “Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.” – Unknown
• “When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.” – Simon Sinek
• “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” – Martin Luther King, Jr
• “We think we listen, but very rarely do we listen with real understanding, true empathy. Yet listening, of this very special kind, is one of the most potent forces for change that I know.” – Carl Rogers
• “We must understand before we judge.” – Unknown
• “You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.” – John Steinbeck