It was a great privilege. Sitting in that room. Rather on that panel - as an interviewer. Somewhere in East Africa. In February 2015. Thank goodness, the panel invited and saw eight candidates - rather grilled eight applicants. Needed just one candidate. It was an unbending competition, right at the outset.
I’ll not hide anything from you. I want you, too, to marshal something and draw a lesson or lessons from this escapade, just as I did, so that as a leader, you take your team to the top. If your team is already at the top, perhaps consider taking it to another, higher hilltop. Was it not the iconic Nelson Mandela who said, “. . . after climbing a great hill, one finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my walk has not yet ended.” The larger point is that we must not rest on our past victories and become complacent. We must always look for new and higher hilltops.
Back to the interview story. The fella that we picked for the job was subjected to a few rounds of cross-examination before recruitment. We wanted nothing but quality. This is what happens when you are ‘quality’ yourself. You do not settle for half-measures. You go for high class. Didn’t the sage from the East assert that “. . . you attract who you are?” To uphold this dictate, the fella was interviewed, again, three times on different dates by different interview panels using the Westpoint Military Academy approach and modality. I’m glad that I was not involved in the last three sessions (and I will explain why I say I was glad to have not been involved in the last sittings). However, I was privileged to have access to the final report by the interviewers. The report was candid, “. . . the young man oozes energy; . . . exudes boundless confidence; . . . demonstrates a deep understanding of the services that we offer, processes, target market; . . . he has the potential to be an asset to and for the company; . . . he is the guy that we are looking for.” It concluded, “. . . we recommend him for recruitment without reservation.”
I’ll be honest with you. Yap, the young man was witty; he had what it takes to convince the toughest of the interviewers that it should be him to be recruited, not the other candidates. Clad in a dark blue Prada suit, matched with a white shirt, a red necktie, and a black pair of shoes, the fella did not only back himself up with lofty academic qualifications and credentials but looked judicious and ready to act. He was an alumnus of Eton of Africa Grammar School and a graduate of Yale University. Would you have doubted his potential? I doubt.
Fast forward – ninety days into his job. I could not believe it. I struggled. Yes, I struggled; . . . to believe that he was the same fella who exuded energy and confidence, who oozed alertness, who expressed no apathy to peddle the extra mile when in service. His manager tried, . . . yes, tried but failed to have him operate at 360 degrees and 100 percent capacity. It wasn’t the same fella that my colleagues and I chanced upon in the interview room 90 days back. Lo! The fella had changed. Put it diplomatically - something had changed.
Does this story sound familiar to you? Why do employees, in their day-to-day work, lose the zeal, or do not show the energy that they showed in an interview? How does that happen? You ask - I am glad that you ask this question. I will tell you. The answer is simple. Read on.
In one of the leadership coaching sessions with the Maharaja that I talked about in an earlier article, I was drilled on a certain concept that shall remain memorable to me: cross-pollination leadership. Thanks to the Maharaja, I use the concept of ‘cross-pollination leadership’ a lot for masterminds.
So, what exactly does Maharaja’s ‘cross-pollination leadership concept’ entail?. . that according to him morphs run-of-the-mill businesses into leading and successful brands. The Maharaja’s teaching centered on a metaphor: ‘. . . take care of the people, the business will take care of itself - the five alchemies that transform followers into leaders that create high-performing teams that achieve high-value targets.’
The number one way to improve our behavior is to surround and populate ourselves with people that are performing at a level that we want to be performing. “. . . we are an average of six people that we associate with,” Jim Rohn said these words many years ago but his point is still valid today. If you want to be a high performer, associate with high performers. If you want to be a gossiper, look for gossipers and associate with no one else but gossipers. The results will astonish you.
You and I, as humans, are built in such a way that we pick on the emotions and model the behavior of the people who influence us - our peers, our leaders, our family, and social group members. If you’re a boss and everyone sees that you’re doing a great job in your role, your subordinates are likely to pick the tendencies from you and start performing at a great level as well. Have you ever noticed that when you find people in a room laughing at something you don’t even know about, you spontaneously start laughing, too? Or let me ask you another question - when you go to a funeral, do you hold yourself in a humorous frame of mind or do you pick a somber mood that envelops the setting? You know the answer. That’s neuroscience at work. We naturally mirror or adopt the behavior of influential persons or social ecosystems in which we find ourselves.
Behavior is contagious, especially that of a leader. Don’t feel bad about it. It’s historical. It dates back to the Stone Age when man was living in groups in caves. The tale is that in every cave, there was a dominant person. Every time the dominant person figured out an invention, such as fire, a new hunting tool, or a new way to survive, the other members of the cave subconsciously copied and emulated him or followed his instructions. This was a difficult time to live in. Ferocious wild animals wandered from cave to cave hunting for prey. Survival, as Charles Darwin put it, was indeed for the fittest.
As man became more civilized and started living in huts in open villages, the dominant person became the chief. Cave dwellers formed communities or tribes. It became incumbent upon the leader - the chief - to provide security to the subordinates. At sunset, the dominant person or the chief would issue instructions to the subjects on nocturnal security. At sunrise, he would gather subjects together and advise them on how to go about protecting themselves from danger. Subjects were certain that if they followed and implemented instructions issued by the dominant person or emulate his way of living, they would be safe from danger and other uncertainties.
Today, we’re no longer living in groups in caves or huts. But we still practice tribal tendencies. Tribal congruence epitomizes our compatibility with each other. We’re tribe by gender – male or female. We’re tribe by workplace or workmates. We’re tribe by profession - insurers, lawyers, teachers, politicians et cetera. We’re tribe by creed – Hindu, Christian and other. We’re tribe by age. We’re tribe by alma mater - former schoolmates. We’re tribe by color of skin. We’re tribe by nationality. We’re tribe by WhatsApp group. We’re tribe by Facebook, Instagram, and X – formerly Twitter. We are tribal in every aspect of life. Here’s the thing: in every tribe, there is a dominant person. We call them leaders. Members of tribes whose dominant persons are forward-looking or visionary and practice certain leadership tendencies, as espoused by cross-pollination leadership, as promulgated by the Maharaja above, become serial achievers. Trust me on this one.
It’s not by a deity that tribes, teams, organizations, or families with forward-looking leaders become successful. Their leaders simply create certainty for subordinates on what the future holds for them as individuals and tribes. This is alchemy #1 of the cross-pollination leadership of the Maharaja.
The philosophy behind alchemy #1 - offer subordinates certainty about their future as individuals and as a team - is that when people are aware of everything that affects their work, their positions, their career, and their lives, they develop a higher level of trust and motivation to perform than keeping them in the dark. Uncertainty makes people uneasy. Uncertainty triggers insecurity. Insecurity drives teams apart. Leaders should be at the forefront to send reassurance messages on matters that affect subordinates as individuals, as teams, as organizations, and as nations.
A story is told about Akiba Safari Tours, the largest tourist service provider in the region. Akiba, as it was popularly referred to, was sailing in troubled waters – top and bottom lines were persistently below targets - high staff turnover, low staff morale, dwindling volumes of return clients, runaway management expenses, high wastage, and proliferation of fraudulent cases.
Consultants from across the region were contacted, hired, and brought in to try to fix the problems. Akiba’s poor performance never abated. Management reached out to a local leadership and personal development guru, Mzee Ally Talinda. A day was agreed upon and arranged for Mzee’s one-day leadership training. Only for executive and senior management.
Everyone was anxious. Looking forward to learning strategies that would transform and put Akiba back on track with an acceptable performance trajectory.
It was on Friday, February 27, 2015, at exactly 8:00 hours, carrying a black leather briefcase, donning a black suit, and white shirt matched with a red necktie, when Mzee strolled into the magnificent Akiba training center. After some introductions, it was time for Mzee to unpack the strategies and coach Akiba’s management on leadership. He wasted no time to rehash the value of the training. He stood up, took a sip of water from a glass, paced two steps forward, and stood abruptly right in front of the CEO’s table. He looked at the CEO intensely, cleared his throat, reached for a marker, and wrote on the whiteboard the following three letters and four words: ‘. . . TPR - Treat People with Respect.’ For the second time, he keenly looked at the executives who were sitting in the front row with the CEO, thanked the CEO for inviting him to share his leadership insight with management, collected his briefcase, and left the training room. That was the end of the training session. It took 2 minutes. Yes, 120 seconds. Only.
A question. For you. When you interact with your subordinates, subjects, followers, service providers, customers, and agents, as a leader, how do you treat them? Do you make them feel valued, important, and appreciated? Or do you demean them? You don’t need to study at Harvard Business School, Stanford University, or Oxford University to understand the importance of ‘respect’ in business. It’s a virtue that we all crave for.
The number one social need or want of any human being is the need to be appreciated. The need for praise. Every person alive today craves sincere appreciation. Appreciation is basic to everyone including our subordinates. A person flourishes and grows when they know that they and their work are appreciated. When a leader gives more praise, his team becomes stronger, larger, more productive, and fruitful. Zig Ziglar understood this rule better when he said, “. . . when you give people what they want, they will give you what you want.”
Lester Chinyang’anya | General Manager – Operations | Minet Malawi
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