Leaning into Difficulty

I believe that both personal and business growth comes from taking the hard path. Leaning into difficulty is where you get the most return on time, and it's also where you “manufacture luck”, or where you get the most “return on luck”. (I made a case for taking the hard path in the last post - Red Pill or the Blue Pill).

Setting difficult, hard to achieve goals comes easy when you are wired that way, I run outside even in a winter storm, not waiting for conditions to be ideal. But, how do create a culture of leaning in on difficulty across the organization?

I follow a three step process.

Step 1: Belief

Step 2: Desire?

Step 3: Capability?

Step 1: Belief

This step can't be skipped over. One wouldn't lean into difficulty if they have doubt that the outcomes are possible. I love this quote:

“Believe you can and you're halfway there.” ?

- Theodor Roosevelt’s

As a leader, you need to instill the belief that achieving tough objectives are possible (while acknowledging that they are the most difficult things that we’ll ever have attempted).

There are two key elements to achieving belief. The first is an overwhelming passion for the “why”, the purpose (as Simon Sinek said in his book Start with Why). At MaxSold, our purpose, our motivating “why”, is to extend the life of things for new generations to love.

Once you’ve figured out your ‘why’, the second element to achieve believe should follow naturally: the vision. For entrepreneurs, the future is convincingly real, they now need to come back to the present and lay the foundation to actualize that future to take their team along on that journey. For MaxSold, our vision is to lead the massive re-commerce movement, becoming the dominant company in the marketplace and a common household name in North America, and around the globe. I show the momentum that's been achieved so far, and the parallels in other industries.

The work that needs to go into instilling belief on a daily basis is not to be underestimated. It’s to be repeated over and over, finding ways to have it stay front and center to remind everyone why we are doing what we do and our vision for the future.

Step 2: Desire?

It’s best if that burning desire towards achievement comes from within the individuals you are leading so you don’t have to constantly motivate them. What you want to do is to create the link between the shared belief they have in the purpose and vision of your organization, and their internal drive and motivation to do well.

As a leader you can create the conditions for people to bring out their best to achieve beyond their own expectations and even when it seems that circumstances are against it. In my experience there will always be conditions working against success; they can only be overcome with a burning desire to succeed in spite of conditions (and with massive discretionary effort.)

Step 3: Capability?

Now you have people who believe in and have a desire to achieve. These alone aren’t enough. As Thomas Edison said...

"Vision without execution is hallucination."

You need A players who are masters in their craft and passionate about their role to achieve difficult things. Many founders and entrepreneurs have ideas and visions, but fail to execute.

Capabilities might be there, but harnessing those is another story. Many geniuses don't apply themselves as they don't want to risk failure (or things have always come easy for them, so hard work is out of the question.) Or worse, they are a tortured genius. (blame placed on being misunderstood when results don't come, feel that their genius is underappreciated by the world, and do not accept criticism).

Harnessing requires asking for solutions (the "how") to be brought to you with actionable annual, quarterly and weekly actions to track progress and to make it a reality (or to respond and change the plan systematically when things aren't going as planned).?Yes, you need to empower, but...

“Successful empowerment, counterintuitively, doesn’t mean leaving employees alone. Empowerment requires leaders to give employees both the tools and the right level of guidance and involvement. Leaders should play what we call the coach role: coaches don’t tell people what to do but instead provide guidance and guardrails and ensure accountability, while stepping back and allowing others to come up with solutions.” - McKinsey

“A leader's place is somewhere in the middle, being free to move and direct attention to critical issues, all while keeping situational awareness.” - Extreme Ownership

I believe capabilities can be acquired by those who believe when coupled with a desire to succeed. All that's required should be ideas, knowledge and introductions. To see if they they have internal receptors to build capabilities, I ask three questions:

1. Do they genuinely lean in on direct, critical feedback? (as a leader, you have the responsibility to be immediate with feedback, and to be direct with feedback)
2. When given feedback, do they quickly course correct to come up with a plan? (if they take too long - or if you have to constantly remind them, they are not ready)
3. Do they ask for help and really lean in when outcomes are at risk taking 100% ownership? (and importantly, not blame difficult targets or a difficult operating environment?)

I had a meeting with Paper.co CTO/COO Roberto Cipriani who said course correction has to be swift because by the time you realize you are off course, there isn’t enough time, so the course correction has to come immediately when in fast growth.

So you now have a team that believes, has the desire to do what’s difficult, and is able to come with capabilities to execute. What’s left is aligning the team with good cascading of company objectives, driving speed and accountability all the way down, so every action focuses on hitting the goals in a highly systematic and organized way.

This is nothing short of extreme execution. The path is extremely difficult - but those who walk their team down this difficult path can make a profound difference in the lives of 100s of Millions of people. Everyone can look back, and be proud of what they contributed to.