2021 Keynote: Leading with Heart: Purpose

“Ethics and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” – John F. Kennedy

Research shows that putting an emphasis on purpose rather than profits has real benefits. It generates business confidence, drives investment and creates long-term success. Actually just this last weekend, I was reading the most recent edition of HR magazine and it had an article about Hubert Joly who was a former CEO of Best Buy. The article was speaking just about that. In fact, the title was People before Profit. 

Purpose goes hand in hand with decision-making. To lead with purpose means to make decisions that are purposeful. Set it another way. Leaders who are purposeful, make decisions that honor and support a company’s strategy, mission, values, and priorities, as well as its employees. Unfortunately, many leaders don’t buy into this approach. According to a McKinsey survey, 72% of senior execs, said that bad strategic decisions are either as frequent as good ones or with a prevailing norm in the organization. 

Imagine it’s 3:00 AM and you’re a paver repairing a stretch of I-95. It’s tough work, but you’ve done it your entire adult life. You have the right equipment and you take all the normal safety precautions, but suddenly out of nowhere, a driver comes barreling towards you at 60 miles per hour. There is no time to react. Bam, the car hits you. You’re tossed high into the air and then crash down into the ground.

This is a true story, against all odds. The paver was hit by a fast moving car and survived. He’s alive because he works at Allen Myers, a half billion dollar highway construction company that is zealous about safety. The CEO’s commitment to safety is reflected in the company’s values. Better, faster, and safer. Look, many construction companies have safety as one of their values, but this company actually practices it.

The paver who got hit, his boss is a vice-president and a client of mine. He told me that the paver was in the hospital, recovering from his injuries. This guy is going to be back at the job pretty soon. This accident should have been fatal. It wasn’t because of a key decision the CEO made earlier that year. He replaced all the workers’ helmets with a new type of helmet that would better protect their heads in the event of a fall or impact. The new helmets cost the company almost twice as much as the existing ones, they looked different and they were definitely uncomfortable to wear, at least until you got used to it.

As you might guess, there was a lot of pushback from the employees across the organization, especially the pavers. The CEO insisted that everyone in the company wear them, even though they would only increase safety just a little bit. The leader made a decision that valued safety over cost or convenience. The incident I just shared with you, it led to a national movement that improved safety across the entire industry. 

Now think about the seat, your CEO, your senior team, and mid-level managers. Do they all lead with purpose?

We make tens of thousands of decisions daily. Most of them are unconscious. That means we’re not thinking when we make them. Leaders who lead with heart are conscious about the decisions they make. They are purposeful when they make critical decisions and purposeful when they make many not so critical decisions. Their decisions are aligned with five important things: The organization’s strategy, mission, vision, values and priorities as well as its employees.

Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin companies, famously stated that customers come second, while employees come first. Herb Kelleher, founder, and former CEO of Southwest airlines echoed these sentiments after receiving a letter from a disgruntled passenger, stating that he didn’t appreciate the stewards and stewardesses’ playful nature. Saying the behavior is unprofessional. Keller actually wrote back to this passenger, but he did not offer this passenger a free trip or even apologize. Nope. Kelleher stood up for his employees with a simple four word response to the passenger, “We won’t miss you.” 

But even well-intentioned leaders struggle to make the right decision as they try to figure out what’s best for the organization and its people. It’s easier for them to make purposeful decisions, if they first get clear, whose decision is it to make? I developed a tool to do just this, four buckets of decision-making.

This tool starts with a very simple question. Whose decision is this to make? Simply asking this question forces the manager to pause. The decision belongs in one of four buckets and each bucket comes with its own approach to communicating the decision to the team or direct reports.

Now imagine that you oversee one of your company’s business units. Some decisions are clearly for you to make. Either they’re clearly the right decision for the business unit, It came down from above or it’s based on regulatory, or compliance requirements. These decisions belong in bucket number.

The mistake new managers often make. And I’m going to guess that you can relate to this with some of the folks in your company, are they asking the team for input when their team isn’t going to have any real impact on the decision that was made. They might respond “But, aren’t I supposed to ask my team what they think in order to get buy-in?”

And I respond “not if you don’t really need it”. Leaders lose credibility by trying to come across as inclusive, when in fact the groups of input will not have any real impact on the decision that was made. The team can smell this a mile away and will shut down when asked for future input. From the team’s perspective, bucket one decisions are like the weather, they’re out of their control.

Bucket Two decisions are when it’s the Leaders’ decision to make, but also truly seeks input from the team. A good example of this is president Obama’s decision to execute Operation Neptune spear: the Navy seal’s mission to kill Bin Laden. Obama gathered input from his national security team and close advisors, went to bed and made the decision the next day.

The way to introduce Bucket Two types of decisions is to be clear that the decision is yours (the leaders) to make, but also being clear that you truly want to hear your team’s perspective. Gather their ideas, and hear their concerns. As mentioned above, do like Obama did with Operation Neptune spear. Like Obama did, sleeping on a decision can allow for clarity but it also sends the message to the team that you really considered their input. Some decisions are best made collectively by the leader and the rest of the team. 

This brings us to Bucket Three, or our decisions. In Bucket Three, the leader’s voice is given relative equal weight as everyone else. The challenge is of course that the team’s opinion is not really equal to the leaders.

Team members often wait to hear where the leader stands before stating their position. The solution is for the leader to initially withhold input and instead ask the team open-ended questions. Then she waits until others have shared their thoughts before chiming in herself. 

Our fourth and final bucket are decisions made and owned by the team. Here, the leader sets the expectations, clarifies the parameters, then steps out of the way, except of course, to provide support when needed. This is the best decision-making approach for team development, getting diversity of thought and obtaining buy-in. 

It also builds competence and confidence among team members. Both competence and confidence. It’s something that I think leaders often sort of overlook is that it’s also their job to build confidence in their team members. I encourage leaders to proactively identify opportunities for bucket four decisions. 

I have a client now that just took over the CEO role of a large manufacturing company. For decades, the company has been excellent at executing direction from the top. In order to stay competitive, however, managers and leaders need to do more than execute. They need to innovate.

While the previous CEOs made many bucket one decisions, the new CEO is giving his team a lot of bucket four decisions to make. As you can imagine, this has been a heavy lift. The senior team is being challenged in a way that is very unfamiliar and must develop both the competence and confidence  to think innovatively. Using the four buckets of decisions can also work well in your personal life.

A client of mine recently shared something that helped him. When his wife or colleague starts sharing a problem my client will ask, “do you want me to listen, Solve or share? In other words, he asks which bucket does this problem go in before he dives in. The four buckets of decision-making can help leaders make more purposeful decisions while developing and motivating new direct reports.

When you’re clear on your purpose, decisions become easier. I hope you will take the time to reconnect with your purpose. Remind yourself, why you do what you do. What is most important to you and why? Let these questions guide your decisions, interactions, and behavior. Let them guide what you say yes to and what you say no to. Living a purpose driven life and leading with purpose is not always easy, but in the end, it’s always fulfilling.

Be on the lookout for next blog that expands on our second tenet. “Empathy.”