Save. Just. One.

The other night I was watching the "Snyder Cut" of The Justice League. Barry Allen (the Flash) was new to the superhero game, and in the midst of a conflict, tells Batman that he doesn't know what to do.

Batman tells him, "Save one. Save just one person. Don't talk, don't fight. Get in, get one out."

So often our teams feel overwhelmed or that they don't know what to do. It's not just any given situation, it can be trying to figure out how their role can impact their team, your organization, or even the entire firm. When you feel overwhelmed or out of control, it is critical to have one or two things that you can control. that you can focus on.

At my last firm, we contributed over $4,000,000,000 in revenue for our business area.? I typed that out for a reason.? It’s a huge number.? When you hear “our numbers are soft,” or “we are trending behind last year” it can be difficult for an individual to wrap their head around how they or we can tackle that. They stare at a number like that and ask themselves:

"How do I, as an individual, impact the attainment of this seemingly inconceivably large number?"

One word: Focus.? While it’s important to continue to work hard and execute on our job as we’ve come to understand it, simply doing what we’re doing today with more effort, more hours a day and hoping that that will pay off with higher performance is a low-odds bet at best!

We, as leaders, need to "save just one" every week, even every day. We need to sit down one-one-one with our teams, understand their level of comfort as to how they can be successful and how they can help the firm be successful. We need to help them choose one or two things that they can do to move the needle in our business.? Maybe it’s to identify the five larges deals in the pipeline of their area of responsiblity, or it could be aligning with a top seller and helping them understand how they can help drive net-new deals if they get them in front of clients.

Or maybe it’s to identify the top three contributing clients and sit down with the sellers and walk through the three key considerations to securing remote access (or some other suitably cool and relevant solution!).

?Then, we need to sit down, help them document the plan, meet with them and measure their progress. We need to help the remove obstacles, build partnerships to simplify the process and accelerate success.

It's nothing revolutionary. It's leadership. But it's our responsibility to take things from "simple" to "easy." Our team will have more faith in us as leaders, be more satisfied with their careers and performance, if we help them understand specifically how they contribute to their success, their team's success, and to the overall success of the Firm.

How will you know if this is working? How will you know if you're making a difference, not only in the business but in the well-being and success of your team? As Batman eloquently told the Flash when he asked him, "and then what?"

"You'll know."

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