What are the great aspects of being a good leader
or a great leader? Oh, what a great question.
Well, I think going back to my childhood, I was
in a program called Army Cadets in Canada. Imagine
Boy Scouts, but kind of on steroids, sponsored
by the military. No military service required
or anything like that. But it's a youth program
that did wonders for taking kids who weren't
going to do much of anything other than get into
trouble. and give them a purpose, give them goals,
things that they could accomplish, let them travel,
all those types of things. And what I ended up
doing through that program was they have a concept
called Acer Acerpore. It's Latin. It means as
the maple, so the sapling. You take a look at
that and drill it down on it. It's straightforward.
It's leadership by example. You cannot be a great
leader without leading by example, plain and
simple. I can't think of a single person who's
been a great leader who doesn't follow that path
and that mantra, if you will. So some characteristics
of great leaders. Something that I think is underrated
is fairness. Another one is decisiveness. You
do not see great leaders who are mulling decisions
over and over. However, the other side of that
is you really need to take a long, hard look
at decision -making skills. The concept of being
a great leader comes part and parcel with making
outstanding, high -quality decisions. President
Eisenhower had the Eisenhower... Did you ever
hear about that? So all decisions were basically
fit into four quadrants. And the the what he
was always working on is like the urgent versus
the important. And if there was anything urgent,
that was a different decision matrix than if
it was important. And it sounds it sounds kind
of interesting. But the whole point is this is
what the president of the United States did.
And this was a fellow who really knew what the
heck he was doing back in the day. So I would
encourage any listeners that are interested in
that, just take a look at the Eisenhower Decision
Matrix. And that's a great tool for helping leaders,
especially young leaders, figure out what to
kind of focus on. That's awesome. Thank you for
sharing that. What would you say that being a
follower has given you? before you stepped into
leadership yourself well that's a boy another
great question i think that from the following
standpoint you get to see i mean it's trial by
fire you get to see high quality leaders not
so high quality leaders and everything in between
the folks that i mean a fellow from my childhood
captain don henry comes to mind he was the the
prototypical person who um led by example in
every single every single way so you you know
as a as a younger leader you and even age doesn't
have much to do with it but as a leader you always
model behavior and that goes just for parents
it goes for any type of leadership work or otherwise
but you model some type of some type of person's
behavior whether you realize it or not and that's
why it's so critical to model outstanding behavior
to your team. So flip that around on the follower
side of things and you say, oh boy, this fellow,
I don't want to be anything like that as a leader.
Well, that's one way to look at it. On the other,
you're thinking, this guy's a great leader. I'd
follow this person or this woman into flames
and fire, that type of thing. So when you're
creating your own leadership style, and it varies
for everybody, i would encourage folks to take
a take a couple minutes um you know away from
the the screens and just think about who these
super strong leaders have been in your life maybe
it's parents or community people or who knows
what but what are those characteristics of each
of them and you think about a whole bunch of
people who fit this uh this role in terms of
leaders in your life and next thing you know
you've got an entire schema created of what an
outstanding leader looks like yes awesome thank
you for sharing that you mentioned something
along the lines of fairness in in a few minutes
ago can you tell me more about that like what
did you what did you mean um by by that aspect
why does it need to be fair or do they not need
to be fair well fairness doesn't mean uh you
know the extreme of that would be communism which
pops the mind like where everybody's treated
exactly equal i think great leaders definitely
do not treat people equal Not at all, because
with a build my team approach, you've got A players
that will do superbly well on your team. You're
not going to treat them the same as you would
C or D players. I mean, those folks have to be
removed from your team. So the fairness side
of things means treating everybody by essentially
the same set of rules and by attacking problems
in similar ways with groups of people. So you
don't end up providing favoritism per se or anything
like that. You treat people similarly across
the board. And that is extremely important for
a good leader. Awesome. Thank you for sharing
that. My next question for you goes along the
lines of you mentioned positivity earlier. First
of all, why do you want to maximize positivity
and how do you do that? Yeah, so who wants to
follow a negative, you know, complain about everything
person? You? I mean, I certainly don't. You can't
be an effective leader when you are trying to
get your own act together. You really have to
focus on yourself first before the leadership
side comes. So on the positivity side, that's
something I've really focused on over the last
couple of weeks. I live in northeastern Pennsylvania.
February is atrocious up here. It is extremely
difficult to do darn near anything. We've had
heavy ice. I mean, packages can't even get delivered
because of it. BPS drivers can't get to where
they're going. Yada, yada, yada. It's just insane.
And it kind of wears a person down over time.
This is not an external, like a work -related
or a personal -related issue. It's just something
where it's a tough month. You got to realize
that it's a tough time and be grateful for what
we all have. Each of us is lucky in all kinds
of different ways. And I think focusing on that
is tremendous. A tool that I learned in the past
comes from Strategic Coach by Dan Sullivan. And
it's a positivity tool that he uses where he
starts every discussion and every meeting with
folks with just a couple seconds of something
they're really positive, excited about. And it
doesn't take long. It really works wonderfully
to frame expectations and frame the... the tone,
if you will, of these discussions that you have,
these meetings that you have, where it's a whole
lot more enjoyable. And I would argue a whole
lot more effective when you approach things like
that. When you say that you don't want to follow
a person who is negative, I understand that.
But just because someone is not positive does
not mean that they're negative. So do you get
your neutral standpoint? what what are your thoughts
on that do you still want to want people someone
who's neutral is not reacting to things or they
don't lead by they don't lead by negativity but
they also don't lead lead by positivity do you
want them to step into positivity and why so
i don't know that that's necessary it's a different
leadership style when i say positivity i'm not
talking about cheerleading or rah rah rah to
the team everybody gets a donut and a free bagel
No, I'm not talking about that. What I'm talking
about is somebody who, on the leadership side
of things, can meet folks where they're at, because
you have to. However, they're doing it from a
perspective of positivity. So if something is
going, like, for example, the gripe that I have
about February, well, guess what? If you count
the days in February, you've got an amazing March
just right around the corner. It's something
really exciting to look forward to. Spring in
Pennsylvania is a lot of fun. And, you know,
just the mindset shift of flipping that around
to want a positivity is really important. Now,
if you're neutral to begin with and nothing flaps
you, like nothing even ruffles your feathers,
that's terrific. That's a great leadership quality
as well. So I think that type of person is somebody
who could very easily have folks lining up to
follow what they're doing because they are a
completely consistent kind of the rock in a lot
of people's lives with that consistent mood,
consistent approach, and neutrality. Very effective.
Awesome. That's awesome. What would you say is
your... your mood like usually are you more the
positive side or neutral side i don't think you're
on the negative side but what would you scale
yourself at uh used to be a lot more on the rah
rah positive side of things and i think about
as i've had some birthdays it's a little bit
more towards a combo between neutral and and
the positivity side of things um i find that
If you're not careful, negativity creeps into
your life. It's subtle and it's invasive and
it becomes malignant. I mean, these are big words
to describe something like that, but that's how
that works. So you kind of have to have a bit
of a force field around you to repel the negativity
and always make sure you're focusing on approaching
things from a great perspective. So tell me more
about that. I think that's a very interesting
point to maybe explore. You say that if you're
not positive most of the time, you put a leeway
of negativity to seep in your experiences or
your leadership. What do you mean by that? Well,
especially in small businesses, you will always,
always, always run into problems. I mean, if
you have a day as a small business entrepreneur
without something going on, Has that ever happened?
I mean, it's just extremely rare, right? So you
have those types of days and you're like, okay,
what's coming tomorrow? If you focus on problem
after problem after problem, sometimes it can
be very easy to slide into that negativity. On
the other hand, if you focus on the achievements
surrounding solving these problems, boy, what
a terrific feeling that is. Like, you know, hey,
we had something go boom in our business. attacked
like the entire team figured out what the problem
was we absolutely attacked it we solved it and
we implemented a bunch of stuff so now that we're
even better than normal that's a great day you
know it didn't start off so great when you when
something goes boom in the business but it's
an absolutely great day and boy did you ever
turn that around that's awesome wow um i would
love to hear some of the stories and experiences
you've had in with this uh this mentality, positivity,
negativity, and being neutral. I think that would
be awesome for our audience to hear. Terrific.
Well, I think that I'll give you an example through
Build My Team. When we started out trying to
contact our applicants that were applying through
our process, we used email. Our system was all
built for email. We're talking built. It was
polished. It was ready to rock and roll. And
here comes the but. I was in my office. My assistant
and I shared an office at the time. It took her
about six hours one day of explaining to these
candidates, these applicants to our clients'
positions, that they have to look in a spam box.
Six hours. She spent almost the entire workday
talking to candidates about their spam box and
finding out that even though they said they checked
email every day, most of them checked it about
two times a week on average. That was rough to
hear because we had essentially leaned our ladder
up against the wrong wall and we climbed as fast
as we could. So what happened after that was
a whole lot of. of technical soul searching.
And we turned around and said, this will never
work. We cannot get this off the ground for our
clients if we're contacting people this slowly.
So we scrapped it and built a text -based model.
It took quite a while to get texting down. And
now our system will text these applicants within
five seconds of them applying, and it's all text
-based. It works stupendously well. But when
we started that transition, That was awful. We
were all ready to go. And we realized if we launch
like this, we will get nowhere. Essentially,
this this will not work. And on the text based
side of things, it works optimally now because
people you can communicate back and forth pretty
much instantly with everybody. And there's no
there's no internal app, if you will. It's texting.
So every single phone has that. They don't have
to download an app. They don't have to, you know.
You don't have to go through the app store process
or anything like that. So that, I think, is one
of the things that we made lemonade out of all
the lemons you can possibly, like a truckload
of lemons, we ended up making lemonade out of.
Imagine you were still trying to solve the issues
with fixing the emails. Like, oh my gosh, I can
do something. That would be a terrible approach.
Yeah, our company would have ended up being an
email training platform. Like, here's how you
check your email, folks. Not anything other than
that. And instead, through the texting, we're
able to get these wonderful candidates connected
with our clients and have them go through our
strength and talent assessment so we figure out
what they're good at. With email, none of that
would have been possible. I don't even know how
other, like how corporations that are doing...
assessments of any type get folks to go through
this process i i think somebody's really pushing
on rope when it comes to trying to get these
candidates to do that yeah um i don't think i
remember the last time i actually received an
email actually probably a few months ago but
a lot of times i'm now i'm getting text messages
um like hey we have this opening uh do you want
me to send you more info right so yeah that's
uh people are definitely using that now so that's
awesome yeah it's as close as we we have technology
-wise to direct communication between two parties.
And it's almost always the person that you want
to talk to who's actually looking at the text,
right? I mean, not a lot of people will hand
their cell phone to their assistants nowadays.
Very few people do that. I mean, maybe they have
two cell phones, but a lot of folks don't. So
I think it's quite effective. Yep, yep, you're
right. Thank you for sharing that. One more question
for you before we end today's segment. How do
you feel about having experience when you're
trying to hire people? Well, oh boy. I mean,
okay, so there's some caveats to this. I do not
at all feel that experience is warranted for
entry -level and managerial positions. I cannot...
State that strongly enough. Now, look, if you're
going to be a doctor or I mean, I'm an optometrist.
I can't just be an eye doctor without experience,
obviously. You know, there's training and licensing
that goes into that. But for unlicensed positions,
I can't stress that enough. We have I mean, we've
proven this through through our build my team
approach that hiring somebody for their natural
strengths and talents will always. like always
outperform somebody who just comes in with experience
who is not well suited for the role. Occasionally,
you're going to get somebody who has the natural
strengths and talents for the role and they have
experience. Well, then you move on them instantly.
There's no decision time needed for that. But
that almost never happens. And so you put somebody
in with experience into a lot of these roles,
but they don't have the natural fit. they are
a solid c player and what do you do with a solid
c player most businesses keep them on they're
just mediocre they're trying their best but they're
just not good at it to begin with and they're
never going to be good at it and the other component
of that and this is completely underrated is
that when you put somebody in with experience
in a business especially a smaller business you
have to untrain that So I'll give you an example
in health care. Well, the doctor I used to work
for did it this way. OK, that's right. They did.
We do it a completely different way. If you do
it the way that the doctor did, you can't work
here. If you do it our way, you can work here.
And here's why our way is so important. And you
tell them the why behind it. But in that whole
discussion, now you're having to undo bad habits.
You put somebody in without experience who. like
through the build my team system we measure their
natural strengths and talents we measure their
speed of learning they learn super quickly you
don't have to have the second half of that conversation
at all it doesn't exist because you're not trying
to undo a single thing with them you're just
trying to have them very rapidly learn what you
need them to learn and they're remembering it
and they're off to the races with it it's a solid
key for high performers in the current job market
So your approach is, through Build My Team, is
completely eliminating C's and D's, hopefully,
and focusing on A's and B's, and not even worrying
about bringing the C's and D's to being B's and
A's in the future. Not even, yeah? No, that's
the thing that's so, it takes years and years
of going through this before you actually believe
it. You can't take a D and turn them into a C
and turn them into a B and turn them into an
A player. You're not going to be able to do that.
We're not talking about these are folks who don't
they simply do not have the natural strengths
and talents to do that job. They're not going
to become an A. And I'll tell you what, you're
going to spend months or years trying to get
them to be something that is virtually impossible.
OK, so some people like impossible tasks. Well,
knock yourself out because you got one in front
of you. The other option is to take somebody
who has the natural strengths and talents and
they're a B player because they haven't received
enough interaction with you as a leader. They
don't have crystal clear goals. They don't understand
exactly where you want them to go with the role
that they're playing. So if you spend your time
instead on those B players and crystal making
everything crystal clear exactly how not how
you want them to perform, but what you want them
to accomplish and give them the resources to
do that, they're going to pop up to an A in a
heartbeat. That just happens. This happens naturally.
So from a leadership standpoint. You can do one
of those two things. You can either focus on
the C's and the D's and trying to get them to
be better, or you can take the B's and turn them
into A's and take the A's and turn them into
stratospheric superstars. Software is a great
example of that. Anybody who's had a software
company of any scale. will tell you that you
can have a single software developer that is
as productive as 100 not very good software developers
it is a completely and utterly non -linear relationship
and you say well how the heck is that possible
it is i've seen it it is stupendous it happens
there aren't very many of them of course out
there but that's how you get um like for example
these ai teams the self -driving car teams the
um the monster data centers that are set up in
in no time at all nowadays those are not also
the folks that are sending rockets into space
i mean those are not average teams those are
folks who are um just a plus plus plus players
and they get there because the leadership that
they're working with provides them with the crystal
clear goals and the the resources to accomplish
that stuff you'll never you will spin your wheels
in to eternity trying to do that with a c or
d player now they can be an a player in a different
role in a different job that's what i want to
talk to you about so the if you're only hiring
at a base level without any uh like you don't
need a degree for that i'm assuming or maybe
you do need some kind of degree but not is not
important or maybe not required so if you're
only hiring for that um how do you figure out
who someone's an a player or not with such little
requirements of of what someone needs yeah well
for us with using our the build my team system
we have an automated approach to doing exactly
that and it's through a psychometric assessment
multiple psychometric psychometric assessments
that are all done in combination they look like
one to an applicant It takes about 15 minutes.
But imagine a great, big, enormous funnel. We
pour everybody into the top, into this funnel,
and around 97 % of them don't make it through.
And the sorting is done by what their natural
strengths and talents are relative to what the
position requires. So, for example, there are
some very big companies that have figured this
out. I know this fellow is a lightning rod, but
let's say SpaceX. They do not require any type
of experience for virtually all their positions.
And they're putting rockets into space. And you
say, well, how the heck is that even possible?
Okay, you need security clearances. You can't
be a terrorist. You can't be all kinds of like
not good people. But as far as what they require
on the work side of things. These types of companies
have figured that out, that you get somebody
who is stupendous at a couple of things and you
ask them to do those couple of things. And that's
where the magic's made. Thank you for being here
today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to
Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing
your reactions as these episodes continue to
move forward. This is going to get more and more
fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.