Reconnecting Teams to their Purpose Through Daily Inspiration

/ Jonathan Sachs

One of the most under-appreciated skills that talented transformational leaders possess is the ability to inspire their team daily. Even some of the most challenging and important jobs, like a clinician saving lives or an engineer working on a spaceship can become routine or monotonous.  Talented transformational leaders help team members see the importance of their work even when it becomes regular and normal to them.

Leaders use inspiration to motivate teams and combat the mundanity effect

This phenomenon is known as the “Mundanity effect.” The “Mundanity effect” describes how an activity can begin to feel less exciting or special and instead seem more routine or ordinary. It has been studied in cases like business ethics, emergency rooms, and Olympic athletes, all with negative effects if not addressed.

That is where the leader comes in. Providing daily inspiration can help connect team members reconnect to the exciting parts of their work.

One of the best examples of using daily inspiration in practice is from Ritz-Carlton hotels. Every day, all Ritz-Carlton employees across the world participate in a 10 minute meeting called the “Lineup”.  The lineup consists of four agenda items: Review the Ritz-Carlton gold standards, share stories of great guest service, celebrate birthdays and work anniversaries, and discuss property specific information. The first two topics are standardized and are usually developed at least one year in advance.

One of the goals of the lineup is to showcase memorable examples of exceptional customer service, a hallmark of the Ritz-Carlton. These include stories like Chris Hurn’s about his son’s favorite stuffed animal, a giraffe named Joshie. Chris’ son accidentally left Joshie behind at the Ritz Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida. When the hotel staff found Joshie, they didn’t simply box the stuffed animal up and send it back to Chris’ son. Instead, the Ritz-Carlton ladies and gentlemen (how they refer to their employees) produced a photo book of scenes showing Joshie having an “Extra long vacation,” like hanging out by the pool or driving a golf cart. This story shared an example of incredible customer service and inspired the team to create moments like this one for other guests.

A leader helps to communicate to team members that what they do matters. Leaders show that the work people do every day has meaning, especially for the customer.

The Ritz-Carlton understands the value of daily inspiration to combat the “mundanity effect,” but most organizations to not provide similar resources to leaders. It can be difficult for leaders to find inspiration to share with their teams daily. Luckily, there are variety of resources to help leaders inspire their teams, such as books of inspiration and daily 365 books like the Daily Stoic or the Daily Drucker.

Still, the best sources of inspiration will come from the leader’s and team’s experiences with their customers or with each other. Leaders should continually keep their eyes open for inspiration, collecting customer feedback that can be shared with the larger team. A leader should know their team members well enough to figure out what material will connect them to purpose and seek out relevant examples.

The ability to inspire is an undervalued characteristic of high performing leaders. While it is not intuitive for every leader to find or share inspirational stories, it is a skill that leaders can certainly use more often. Whether it is a customer story or inspiration from a book, leaders should not avoid this responsibility and fall victim to the “mundanity effect.”

Key Takeaways

Leaders use daily inspirational messages to keep their team members connected to purpose. They can find daily inspiration to share with their teams through a variety of resources like customer stories and books.

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3 Ways New Leaders Can Start Strong

/ Jonathan Sachs

Impactful leaders are usually excellent listeners, able to organize lots of information, and communicate effectively. To master those three skills over time, there are a few things new leaders need to know and understand at the outset.

First, a new leader will usually inherit a team and that team’s current results. In these cases, assumptions are your biggest enemy. Do not assume that because the area you are leading is achieving its desired results now, the success will last forever. Do not assume that the team was achieving results because it was being led well. In fact, assume as little as possible. Learn as much as you can.

How New Leaders Can Start Strong

Build Relationships

The first few months for any new leader is about developing relationships and educating themselves on the department. The first few months will be focused on getting to know your team, supervisor, peers, and customers. By approaching conversations with those groups with authenticity and curiosity, letting them also get to know you in the process, you will be off to a great start. Engage with everyone you can during those first few months. Have lots of coffee and lunch dates. Meet with groups and meet with individuals. Ask lots of questions. Listen twice as much as you talk.

In some cases, a new leader will be starting a new department from scratch. The rules here are a little different. Learning as much as possible about the goals and expected deliverables will serve a new leader well in this context. Action planning based on those goals and resources will be an important next step.

Define the Work

Second, define the work. Answer the following questions. If you do not know the answer, start by asking supervisors, colleagues, your team, and your customers for their perspectives. Remember, these are their perspectives, not facts:

  • What results am I responsible for?
  • How are those results measured and in what timeframe?
  • Who are my customers? What would I like my customers to say about their experiences with my team? How is the team currently meeting customer expectations?
  • What is the value of my area of responsibility to the business? If my area of responsibility did not exist, what would it mean for the business?

Change Your Mindset

Third, a new leader must change their mentality from being that of a guest to that of a host. Simply coming to work, doing your job, and going home will not be enough in most leadership roles. To clarify, I am not suggesting that you will be working longer hours or will never have any time for vacation, but you are taking on a much more demanding set of responsibilities.

Instead, when anything happens impacting your new area of leadership, it is your responsibility to identify problems and come up with solutions. When something is going well in your department, you can explain why it is going well because it was intentional on your part. When something is not going well, you own both the problem and the solution to improving it in a lasting manner.

While you are still expected to operate in your scope, your direct supervisor is likely leading multiple areas of responsibility. The good supervisors will count on you to know what you are empowered to do with your team and what requires your supervisor’s permission. In instances where your supervisor has ultimate decision-making authority, most will appreciate giving them multiple options and thinking ahead about the possible consequences, both positive and negative, for each option.

In leadership, especially in a first role as a leader, it is important that new leaders get to know their area of responsibility top to bottom, which means understanding how each part works separately and together. As a leader learns the different parts of the business, they should also focus on the following areas where results may be expected of them and their teams.

Key Takeaway

Strategies for new leaders to succeed include avoiding assumptions, developing relationships, defining goals and responsibilities, and taking ownership of both problems and solutions. Effective communication, learning, and a mindset shift from being a guest to a host will help new leaders have a greater positive impact in their new role.

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How Leaders Attract and Keep Top Talent

/ Jonathan Sachs

In today’s business world, finding and keeping top talent is essential to a businesses’ success. As a result, leaders in some companies are using unique tools to find their newest employees. These companies focus on identifying the best candidates who fit with their culture and values. At the same time, these companies also ensure that their hiring strategies are legal and ethical.

There is also an important economic driver to hiring. For many companies, their biggest financial expense is salaries. Despite recent business norms, like routine layoffs, employee retention is important for leaders when thinking about the financial success of their organization. According to a study from the Center for American progress, it can range from 50%-200% of an employee’s salary to replace them. There are also the costs that are hard to quantify, like the value of the history and knowledge of the organization a current employee may have that could be impossible to replace.

Luckily, certain companies have put together methods to, “Hire for will and train for skill.” This means that they look for a candidate’s cultural fit and then provide robust training to educate them and keep them engaged.

Netflix

Let’s start with Netflix, the popular streaming service.

Leaders can learn from Netflix hiring practices

Netflix has a company culture that values empowerment (freedom and responsibility). The company believes in giving employees the freedom to shape their work and trusts them to take responsibility for results. Netflix has designed an intense hiring process to identify candidates who can thrive in a self-starting culture.

One of the unique practices that Netflix uses in its hiring process is the “keeper test.” The keeper test is a simple but effective way of identifying whether a candidate will fit with their company’s culture. The keeper test works like this: Would the leader making the hire fight to keep this candidate if they were considering leaving the company? If the answer is yes, the candidate passes the keeper test, and if the answer is no, the candidate is not a good fit for the company.

Wegmans

Wegmans is one of my favorite places to shop for groceries. The grocery store chain seems to always have what I need and offers great customer service.

Leaders can learn from Wegmans hiring practices

One of the unique practices that Wegmans uses in its hiring process is the group interview. The group interview is a collaborative process that involves many candidates interviewing with the leader at the same time. This approach allows Wegmans to observe how candidates would work in a team environment, especially when the stakes are high.

Wegmans also looks for people who have a track record of providing excellent customer service in their previous jobs. By asking behavioral questions, which are scenario-based questions, companies like Wegmans look to identify service minded candidates to join their companies.

Risks to Keep in Mind

While these companies have achieved success with their unique approaches to hiring, it’s important to remember that some new strategies may not be legal or ethical. For example, some companies use pre-employment assessments that measure cognitive, emotional, and behavioral traits. While this method can be effective in identifying talent, it can also be discriminatory and result in legal action.

Companies that want to stand out from the competition in recruiting and retaining top talent must think in new ways. For many companies, their employees are their competitive advantage. By finding the right people and training them, these companies stand out from the competition.

Key Takeaways

For most companies, their employees are their competitive advantage. For that reason, hiring the right employees is extremely important. Companies like Netflix and Wegmans developed unique ways to increase the likelihood of finding candidates that will fit the culture they want to maintain. When practicing leaders do the same in their organization, they can achieve better results.

Why Dr. Cox is the Leader in “Scrubs”

/ Jonathan Sachs

One of the goals of this website is to make leadership accessible. The world needs more leaders to facilitate solving our most complex problems as a society, and evidence of quality leadership can be found all around us. By analyzing tv shows and movies, I hope more people will want to learn more about what it takes to be a leader and pursue leadership for a noble cause.

Let’s discuss “Scrubs,” one of my favorite tv shows. Scrubs is a medical comedy-drama television show that aired in the early 2000s. Set in the fictional Sacred Heart Hospital, the show follows the daily lives of the medical professionals, including doctors, nurses, and other support staff.

Among the show’s cast of characters are several who embody different leadership qualities. Dr. Perry Cox, played by John C. McGinley, stands out as the leader of the group. In this article, we will explore why Dr. Cox is the leader of the “Scrubs” characters and what we can learn from his leadership style.

Dr. Cox from the TV show "Scrubs" teaches us lessons in leadership
SCRUBS — NBC Series — Pictured: (clockwise from bottom left) Judy Reyes as Nurse Carla Espinosa, Donald Faison as Chris Turk, Sarah Chalke as Elliott Reid, John C. McGinley as Dr. Phil Cox, Ken Jenkins as Dr. Bob Kelso, Zach Braff as John “JD” Dorian — NBC Photo: Paul Drinkwater

Dr. Cox’s Approach to Leadership

Dr. Cox is a senior attending physician and mentor to the show’s protagonist, Dr. John “JD” Dorian, played by Zach Braff. He has a sarcastic and quick-witted personality. For those of you who are reading this and have watched the show, you may struggle to view Dr. Cox as a leader because of his behavior. However, in spite of some of his course behavior, he demonstrates a strong sense of empathy and commitment to his patients and colleagues. He is the kind of leader who leads by example, inspiring others to be their best selves, and he supports the younger doctors over the course of the show.

To start, Dr. Cox teaches us how leaders are relatable people, who have both strengths and weaknesses. Dr. Cox comes off as mean, sarcastic, and demeaning. For example, he calls JD by a different women’s name every time he talks to him in an attempt to belittle him. While that behavior is clearly unacceptable, the characters largely ignore it because of Dr. Cox’s other leadership qualities. Of the characters in the show, there are things to learn from Dr. Cox about leadership despite his behavior on the surface.

One of the key traits that sets Dr. Cox apart from his colleagues is how he is an effective mentor and coach. While he, at times, belittles JD, he is always there to support him. In the pilot episode, Dr. Cox supports JD to insert an IV into a patient and helps give him the confidence to perform that task himself. Another trait he embodies is how to praise people with impact. Since he does not praise the other characters often, it is special and meaningful when he does so.

Dr. Cox also creates psychological safety for the team. Most characters, including JD, are not intimidated by his prickliness. At one point he tells JD, “I know you’re not technically family, but you’re my family.” This statement shows Dr. Cox’s ability to make others feel valued and included, which is important for building a strong team.

Dr. Cox is also a strong advocate for his patients. He goes above and beyond to ensure that they receive the best possible care. For example, in one episode, he fights to keep a patient in the hospital, despite the fact that the patient’s insurance will not cover the costs. This demonstrates Dr. Cox’s commitment to his patients and his willingness to stand up for what he believes is right.

Why other Characters are not Leaders

In contrast to Dr. Cox, JD does not lead very often during the course of the show. JD, played by Zach Braff, is a well-intentioned but often bumbling young physician, who is still learning the ropes of being a doctor. While JD is a popular and likable character, he does not demonstrate the qualities that make for a successful leader. He is an effective follower though, often following Dr. Cox’s advice.

Dr. Bob Kelso, played by Ken Jenkins, is another character who is not a leader in the show. Despite being the Chief of Medicine at Sacred Heart Hospital, Dr. Kelso’s leadership style is transactional. He is more interested in maintaining his power and authority than in helping his team succeed.

Dr. Kelso is also inauthentic, calling the young physicians nicknames like “Sport” and “Sweetheart,” because he does not want to learn their names. He frequently belittles the other physicians to maintain his power and authority.

Carla, played by Judy Reyes, is a helpful individual contributor, which is noble. The group of characters would not function effectively without her. Carla plays an important role among the other characters usually brokering peace and keeping the group together.

Turk is a surgeon and is probably the most social person in the group. Played by Donald Faison, Turk provides elements that keeps the group together like comic relief, emotional support for the other characters (especially JD), and nurturing his relationship with Carla. Turk is another important member of the group but is not a catalyst for change or a mentor that helps the other characters grow and develop like Dr. Cox is.

Finally, Eliot, played by Sarah Chalke, is not a leader in the show. Eliot lacks the confidence and assertiveness needed to lead others. She is often portrayed as indecisive and passive, and she is not able to take charge when the situation calls for it.

Despite his gruff demeanor, Dr. Cox stands out as a leader among the cast of characters on “Scrubs.” Dr. Cox is a leader because of his ability to connect with his team, his commitment to mentorship and coaching, and his honesty.

He leads by example, setting a high bar for others to follow, and he is unafraid to speak his mind and provide candid feedback when necessary. While other characters may hold positions of authority within the hospital, they are not leaders. By studying Dr. Cox’s leadership style and characteristics, we can learn valuable lessons about what it takes to lead a team to success.

Key Takeaways

Dr. Cox, a senior attending physician and mentor in the show “Scrubs,” embodies certain leadership qualities because he connects with his team, is committed to mentorship and coaching, and creates safety. He leads by example, sets a high bar for others to follow, and is unafraid to provide candid feedback. Examples of leadership can be found everywhere, there are always lessons to learn and reflect on.

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Leader without Authority: The Power of Leading through Influence

/ Jonathan Sachs

As a leader, it’s natural to rely on authority. After all, it’s often easier to make decisions when you ultimately have the final say. Yet, leaders who take their skills to the next level are able to do so by learning to practice leading through influence.

Leading through influence is all about persuading people to act, even if you are not their direct supervisor. It is a valuable skill to have, especially in situations when taking on roles in large, complex, or “matrixed” organizations.

So, how is leading through influence different than leading with authority? The answer lies in the approach. Influential leaders build relationships, create incentives, and find common ground. It is leading people because they want to to follow you, not because they have to.

Building Effective Relationships

The most impactful way to influence people is through building genuine relationships. People are more likely to work with someone they know and can trust than a stranger. In other words, influential leaders will make lots of deposits into the “Bank of goodwill” before making withdrawals. This happens through listening and looking for ways to help others work to achieve their own goals.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader without authority

Case Study: Martin Luther Kind Jr. was a Leader Without Authority

Martin Luther King, Jr. is an iconic figure in the history of leadership, particularly when it comes to leading without authority. King inspired and influenced others through his words, actions, and relationships. He brought people together to fight for a common cause, even though he did not have any formal authority over them.

One way that King led without authority was through his powerful speeches, which inspired and motivated people to take action. His “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered in 1963 during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, is one of the most famous speeches in history. In it, King shared a vision that others easily understood. He painted a vivid picture of a future where people of all races would live in harmony. He called on Americans to work together to make that vision a reality.

King also used his relationships with other leaders to influence people and effect change. For example, he worked closely with President Lyndon B. Johnson to push for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This law outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. King’s relationship with President Johnson helped to build support for the bill among lawmakers and the public. King was able to influence the passage of the law, even though he had no direct authority to make it happen.

Finally, King led without authority by organizing peaceful protests and marches that brought attention to the injustices faced by African Americans. He and other civil rights leaders, including John Lewis, staged sit-ins, boycotts, and other nonviolent actions that disrupted the status quo and forced people to pay attention to their cause. By engaging others and refusing to resort to violence, King was able to win the hearts and minds of people across the country and around the world.

In all these examples, King demonstrated the power of leading through influence rather than authority. By building relationships, inspiring others, and finding common ground, he was able to effect change on a massive scale, despite not having any formal power or authority. His leadership style is still studied and emulated by people all over the world who aspire to make a positive difference in their communities and beyond.

Creating Incentives

Another way to influence people is by creating incentives for them to act. For example, let’s say you’re trying to get your team to adopt a new process. You could use your authority to force them to adopt the process, but that’s not likely to be effective in the long run. Instead, you could create incentives for them to adopt the process on their own. For instance, you could help them discover how the new process would benefit them. You could also give a bonus to whoever follows the new process most often. By creating these incentives, you make it easier for them to follow your lead.

Transparency is also a great way to create incentives. When you’re transparent about your decision-making process and the data you’re using to make your decisions, people are more likely to trust you and follow your lead. For example, if you’re a CEO trying to get your company to adopt a new sustainability initiative, making your sustainability data transparent and showing how it can benefit the company in the long run would make it easier for your employees to get on board.

A Member of Congress is a Leader Without Authority

Most members of Congress are leaders without authority

I was fortunate to have the opportunity early in my life to intern in the United States House of Representatives in Washington, DC. Most members of Congress are leaders without authority. In the House, each member casts 1/435 votes (0.2% of the vote), but it takes at least a majority of members of both the House and the Senate to pass most pieces of legislation. Further, when the legislation is implemented, Congress has no voice, except for oversight of the Executive branch of government to implement the new law.

Before the time of polarization present in Congress today, I would frequently see members of Congress “Cross-the-aisle” to work with members of the opposite party. These members would argue vigorously on one vote and then vote together on the next vote. The best of the bunch could disagree without being disagreeable. We rarely think about taking lessons from politicians, but in leading through influence, most are fluent and talented in that process.

Leading through influence is a valuable skill for any leader to have. By building relationships, creating incentives, and finding common ground with the people you’re trying to persuade, you can achieve great things even without formal authority. Just remember to avoid the pitfalls, and always be sincere and transparent in your approach. With these skills, you can become a leader without authority that people will follow willingly.

Key Takeaways

Leading through influence, rather than authority, is a valuable skill for any leader and becomes more critical as leaders take on more responsibility. To lead through influence, leaders should focus on building relationships, creating incentives, and finding common ground with the people they are trying to persuade. It is important for leaders to avoid pitfalls and be botsincere and transparent in their approach.

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