Pick up the Roach...and learn from her six legs

The more I spend time with this "roach" concept, the crazier I am becoming. Just today I found myself googling "How many roaches are there in the world?" 

For those of you that care, there has not been a way for scientists to measure that. But I will keep looking...

Then I discovered that if you call a roach she/her instead of he/him/it, then your audience doesn't tend to get as grossed out.

But I digress...

To me, the whole concept of Picking Up the Roach still begins and ends with the "show" element of an organization. If a leader wants to add value and be a part of the organization, then they need to be ready to pick up all the roaches...no matter how dirty that may seem.

I believe you can translate the "show" element into two segments:

1. The Organizational Show
2. The Leadership Show

The "Organizational show" means everything that an employee or a customer can see, touch, taste, hear, smell and so on. It is why Disney pipes in background music everywhere in their theme parks. It is why there are certain smells added to attractions. It is why every sign in every location is meticulously designed to add value to the overall experience.

And this holds true at Disney for both on-stage and back-stage areas. Disney tries to put just as much emphasis on the cast member areas as they do for the guest areas. Granted, the guest areas will always get the prime "show", but you will rarely find a Disney conference room that is not decorated with photos, wall decor, historical graphics, or some type of "show element" that reminds the cast members of how important they are to the overall show.

The "Leadership Show" is the second element, and it is JUST as important (if not more important) than the organizational show. You can work in the most beautiful, well-themed environment, but if your leader is a jerk...well, then nothing else matters.

The three elements to the Organizational Show are:

• Pick Up
• Plus Up
• Word Up

and the three elements to the Leadership Show are:

• Own Up
• Ham Up
• Live Up

Those are the six legs to the show. And roaches have six legs. See what I just did there...

My next blog posts will dive deeper into each of these as I share how a dead roach can take our organizations and our leadership to higher levels of performance than we ever imagined.

...to be continued