When or if we "quote, unquote" do not like our work, it is probably because we do not feel safe where we go to work. So when you say, what can we do?, the irony is that the best thing we can do is, well one option, is to quit.
I'm very clear about what I believe.
It's the discipline to understand that the things that might make you rich or things might make you famous are sometimes worth pursuing and sometimes are not.
There's only one of me. With you using the why in the center of your work helps me.
Walt Disney had a very clear sense of why. He was about happiness. Remember when Disney was founded, it was during war. People said that life sucked. And he said, "No." He was an eternal optimist who said: "Life is beautiful. It's about giving. It's about family." Look what happened. His cause grew and people committed themselves to helping him grow the Disney why and it was hugely successful.
I don't consider myself an expert in the why. I don't consider myself an expert in leadership. I consider myself a student of leadership and I consider myself a student of the why. I'm constantly learning and I'm constantly looking for opportunities where it it will fail.
You have to have a patience for relationships.
A great leader will never sacrifice the people for the numbers.
Actions speak louder than words. All companies say they care, right? But few actually exercise that care.
I can't stand those people, speakers in a room, they say this all the time, "If I can just help one person in this room, I've done my job." You have an audience of 500 people and your standard of success is one person? That's terrible. If you help one person in the room, you're an abject failure. You have to change something.
We invest in things like the future, like our children, like education. In other words, we invest in things that we understand we will not see an immediate return of investment but everybody knows it will have a positive impact and you can easily measure it over the course of time. Your why is exactly the same thing.
I cannot tell you on a day to day basis that there's a return on investment. I can tell you if you stick with it, absolutely in a few months things will start to change. It starts to change slowly. Things start to get a little easier. As the momentum builds it becomes bigger and bigger.
What I'm doing is obeying the law of diffusion of innovations.
Leadership is not about being a nice person or not a nice person.
I'm a messenger. I'm one piece of a giant jigsaw puzzle.
Quality effective leaders have the confidence to trust others to try, succeed, and sometimes to fail.
I have to have an impact. That's what drives me to practice to make sure my words are clear and my stories are compelling. Right. Because it matters.
Great leaders state out loud what they intend to do and in doing so, they get things done.
My own career is a case study for what I believe in.
I need an army. I need people out there who are either preaching with me to different audiences that I can't get to or who are implementing the work and helping people actually learn their why or practice their why or implement their why because I don't do that.
Disney is beloved again. They can now attract the talent again and they can hold onto the talent again. People trust them again. It's all return since they went back to the why.
Time and energy. Those are the most valuable sacrifices leaders can make.
I don't consider myself an expert in the why.
I'm simply following the journey.
What I say is join me and be part of the army and find ways that maybe even I haven't thought of I haven't even thought of to help spread this message and inspire people to do what inspires them. That's what I need you to do.
