Tag / leader

by Nathan Coumbe

Praise the good. Ignore the rest.

If you want to create lasting influence with others, or change for the better, there is really only one way to do it:

Praise the good.

“So long as a person did anything good, he would praise him and use him for the service in which he excelled, but to his other conduct he paid no attention…”

–Cassius Dio writing about Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius

When Emperor Marcus Aurelius wanted to influence other people, to reinforce the behaviors and actions he wanted to see, he would praise the person who did the good deed. This is actually quite Pavlovian in its execution.

Conditioning good behavior

Remember Pavlov from your introductory psychology class? Pavlov would ring a bell before he gave his dogs food; the food caused the dogs to salivate. Eventually the dogs associated the ringing bell with food and would salivate when the bell rang, even when Pavlov did not give them food.

Marcus essentially did the same thing with those in his service: whenever they did something of which he approved, he praised it. This constant reinforcement of the good conditioned his people to do more good work in the future. But there is a second part to Dio’s observation above…

Pay no attention to the rest

Not only did Marcus praise the good, he ignored the behavior and actions he didn’t want to continue. Why did he do this?

There is a wonderful little book who’s first chapter discusses this at length:

“Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.”

–Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

How often have you had a positive outcome after you criticized someone for doing something? I would hazard a guess at 10%.

When you criticize someone, they get angry, defensive, and emotionally illogical. He or she will justify the action rather than accept that it was wrong. It’s a natural human response. We don’t like to be wrong, and we definitely don’t like other people pointing out our poor behavior.

Therefore, the only way to get the results you want from other people is to praise them when you seeing them do the good deeds you want done. Criticizing the bad doesn’t work: it only causes resentment.

“We are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures brisling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.”

–Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

(Of course, there are some behaviors that are dangerous, illegal, immoral, or that might harm others; these behaviors must be stopped immediately. Those sorts of behaviors are not the topic of discussion here.)

Be a model

How do let others know what good actions or behaviors are? You must be a model. Do the things you want others to do; be the kind of person you want others to be.

Seth Godin likes to say, “people like us do things like this.” Invite people to be “people like us,” whoever you think “people like us” should be. Then, do the things you want others to do, and when they follow, praise them for it!

Model good behavior. Praise others when they perform good work. Ignore the rest.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Great power. Great responsibility.

Uncle Ben said it best: “with great power comes great responsibility.” This should be the phrase by which every leader and marketer lives.

Marketing and leadership are two fields primarily focused on influence. Leaders focus their efforts on influencing what work gets done and on what companies place emphasis; marketers focus on what products get made, what gets purchased, and what changes are made in our culture.

With great influence also comes great responsibility. Leaders and marketers have in their hands the power to persuade others towards things that are either helpful or harmful.

Who gets to decide which is which? Technically, it’s the follower, the consumer, or the customer. But we are all human–we know before a customer tells us whether or not our product or idea will harm her.

If you lead others, if you sell, or if you persuade, please take your responsibility–the power you have over other people–seriously.

Don’t take advantage.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Leadership as an experiment

The only way to become a leader, or to improve as a leader if you already are, is to treat everything like one giant science experiment.

Start with a hypothesis: “If I do/try/encourage _____, then ______ will happen/change/get better.”

What are you positing? What are you already presuming? Start with an observation you believe to be true.

Here’s an example:

“My employees feel disconnected from the company’s mission.”(Observation)

“If I meet regularly with them one-on-one to discuss what they believe is most important, then they will feel involved, supported, and I might get some really good ideas about how we can improve things around here.”(Hypothesis and potential solution)

At this point the experiment begins. Set parameters: what do “regular meetings” look like? What sort of questions will I ask? Am I prepared to listen empathically, to really understand how they feel and what they think matters?

You’ll gather data and attempt to put the ideas into practice (another experiment, perhaps). Test the ideas; observe what happens; use the information gathered to make changes as needed; repeat the experiment.

Think like a scientist.

If you think like a scientist, you don’t simply run the experiment and assume that it works. A scientist doesn’t hypothesize something, put on a blindfold, call the experiment a success, and move on to the next idea. The scientist tests, observes, measures, and solicits feedback. When you get that data, it will show either progress or regression – support for your idea or arguments against it. Use that data to adjust your hypothesis and experiment again, until it either works or becomes obvious that your hypothesis was wrong.

You are going to be wrong. Often.

There is only one way to avoid being wrong: don’t try to become a better leader. If you are willing to become a better leader, you must be willing to be wrong. Since you know you are going to be wrong, you need to become comfortable with honesty and transparency.

“This idea that I had, this new way of doing things, it didn’t work. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”

Humility and Trust

A leader must be humble and emotionally mature enough to admit errors and missteps. If you attempt to hide your failure, if you put the blame on anyone or anything other than yourself, if you pretend it all worked out when it’s obvious it didn’t, you will lose the trust and respect of those who serve under you. It will be very hard to get that back.

Think like a scientist. Test, observe, measure, and get feedback on your ideas. Experiment.

Most importantly, don’t ignore the data, and apologize when you’re wrong.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Everything is marketing. Everything is sales.

That’s the premise.

Even on the smallest scale, we are marketing and selling. It might not be products but rather ideas or ways of thinking and being. 

If I have an idea about how people can behave or change to improve their lives, to become the best possible versions of themselves, it does no one any good unless I can persuade them to adopt the ideas. That means that I have to sell to them.

“Making is insufficient. You haven’t made an impact until you’ve changed someone.”

– Seth Godin, This Is Marketing, p. xiv

Marketing and sales are both about influence; each of us must influence others to create change (we will get into the ethics of influence in another post).

Leadership in the modern age is sales and marketing. During the Industrial Age, a leader told an employee what to do and that person either complied or left. In the Knowledge Age, a leader must influence those who follow. You can still attempt tell people what to do, but it rarely leads to enrollment and willing compliance, without which high-quality work does not occur. However, influencing them – by empathizing and understanding what they want, feel, need, and believe, and then having the courage to let them know your ideas for progress – this sort of leadership brings others willingly to your way of thinking. (It also potentially creates better ideas than either party came up with on their own.)

Every career requires sales and marketing. A psychologist is both a salesperson and a marketer. If they do not market, they do not get patients. She cannot rely on her credentials to bring people into the office.

A teacher is marketing each time she sets foot in the classroom. If she cannot get her students to come with her, if she cannot get them excited and willing to go on the learning journey, her knowledge and expertise are useless. She must influence them.

If you coach people on how to level up their careers, personal lives, or get past negative scripting from earlier life periods, you must sell them on the ideas you present. If you fail to do so, or do it poorly, you have failed to create change or the desire for it in the other person. 

Regardless of whom you seek to influence, you must always begin by understanding them, their points of view, their wants, desires, worries, fears, and problems. That is always the first step to influence, and influence is marketing.

We all must influence others to make change happen, and if everything is marketing and everything is sales, you might as well learn to do it well.

Start with this book here.

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