Leadership

Like every other leader I know, my plan for 2020 was blown up when COVID-19 took precedence. Everything changed, including how I was to spend my time the rest of the year. Gone were major trade shows, in-person meetings, and speaking engagements. In was much more time at home and the office.

A few months into the pandemic I started to question my worthiness to the organization. While I was plenty engaged leading operational meetings, providing occasional insights to the sales team, and communicating frequently to the organization; I did not feel like I was leaving much of a mark in those areas.

This bothered me, so I sought guidance from my Executive Coach. On one hand, he reminded me how much of an adrenaline junkie I had become in years past chasing different sales opportunities and building one-on-one relationships. Perhaps what I was feeling was symptomatic to the loss of this, which admittedly was more “exciting” than the activities I was doing in 2020. On the other hand, however, he challenged me to think about the things I could do that no one else could or would do. Without giving me a concrete answer, he challenged me to think and pray about these things. He then challenged me to act on whatever I discovered.

What I discovered was that pandemic or not, the organization was asking me to start working “on” the business and not “in” the business —at least not all the time. This meant that while part of me was still mourning the loss of the “old” reality, I had to adjust my role to focus on what needed attention inside the organization. This meant handling all the things people complain about but either felt like they could do nothing about, or were simply unwilling to. I had to embrace doing the difficult.

I began to make mental notes of all the things I had been hearing our team talk, or even complain, about. I then began having direct conversations with people about things I was observing. While these conversations were almost always centered on soliciting the other leader’s help to address those problems, they were still sticky because they frequently dealt with problems underneath them. I soon discovered that a good judgement of when to have these conversations was what I was thinking about driving home at night. I reasoned that if I was thinking about certain topics while I was driving home, so was everyone else on our team. Was I going to wait for them to act, or was I going to lead? This question often gave me the courage to act.

My Executive Coach later helped me clarify that I should be involved when things were broken, new, or part of our brand. Obviously, all the above falls mainly into the “broken” category. That said, I think the order is intentional. Doing the difficult starts with me. I hope all the other leaders on our executive team feel the same way because it will take all of us doing the difficult to earn the excellence we seek.

I close by reminding that doing the difficult does not change culture overnight. In fact, I do not think the difficult things I have done the last few months are even visible, yet, to most of the organization. But the seeds being sewn now will one day blossom. Change is always slow and then sudden. So, I encourage you to do the difficult. For people love to follow those willing to do what they would rather not do themselves.

There is no pause button in life. Yet, 2020 has felt like there is. We have passed the point where I need to list all the examples of conferences, events, and trips being cancelled or moved. The pauses have made sense in most cases.

But as the summer months wore on, and as COVID-19 demonstrated it was not going away, the message I gave our team was that we had to hit the “un-pause” button. Life must go on differently — with social distancing, masks, and every other possible protective health measure we can take —but life must go on.

I met on consecutive days with our Plant Managers and Sales team in late July. We social distanced and wore masks because we were inside. But we met in person. The sales team even did dinner outside the night before our meeting. Before dinner, one of the sales team members secretly hugged me in the parking lot because she is such a rebel! Admitting all this may tempt you to judge, or even criticize, so rest assured I am not saying that you should do what I am doing. Nor am I making the argument that my actions are right. I am simply making the argument that the time has come to un-pause life.

The job of the leader in any season is to meet people where they are at, connect with them, and care for them. Unpausing is necessary because the health of people, and even businesses, is more than physical. Social distancing is wise, but social isolating is placing burdens on people they were not meant to carry. As relational beings, we need connection to thrive and that is why unpausing is no longer optional.

What this looks like for you, your business, and your home, is probably different than what it looks like for me. Maybe you are less comfortable hugging someone on your team than I am. That is absolutely okay. I am just asking every reader to stop buying into the morality argument being made by many that certain actions are either moral or immoral. While there is probably a list of behaviors all people can agree to in terms of the Pandemic, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. What works for our business might not work for yours. Same with our home. Can’t we appreciate the differences and leave it that without labeling or evaluating each other?

Leaders, I urge you to extend grace. This is gritty, novel, and what we know today might be wrong tomorrow. Therefore, our views need to be flexible.

And finally, we need to accept this new reality. Like it or not, it is here to stay. How long? I have no clue. So, it is best to hit the un-pause button, start living, and start leading your business towards the new frontier.

(Author’s note – I wrote this post in early February and delayed posting it due to COVID-19 and more time-relevant posts)

Should Tom Brady leave the New England Patriots?

While in some ways sports differs from business organizations, here are three reasons to embrace necessary endings.

Necessary endings allow for upward mobility in an organization. New leaders emerge when new opportunity is present. While one of the tenets at Bald in Business is leading without a title (because leadership is always influence, to quote John Maxwell), new positions allow people to use their influence in more formal ways. And whether we like it or not, formality is needed for the wholeness of the leader to emerge. Without the title, General Ulysses S. Grant was possibly just another soldier (this oversimplifies the route Grant took in becoming Lieutenant General, but the point remains that opportunity gave birth to the Grant we know from history).

Necessary endings also allow for a change of perspective in leadership. No two leaders see the world the same way. Not only is this healthy, it gives renewed life to the organization. Our Executive Vice President, for example, has recently taken over leading our sales team and sees opportunity in markets and geographical locations that I did not. This opened our team up to possible growth that they were missing under my leadership. No single leader can see all the possibilities, thus an ending is often necessary for an organization to reach its fullest potential.

Finally, necessary endings bring renewed energy to the organization. While organizations fight to maintain status quo with every ounce of their being, the irony is that change brings the kind of renewed energy that propels its forward. This can even push stagnant team members to greater performance because they are renewed as well. Change can also bring a lot of other stuff with it —stress, more work, and all the things that make people unconsciously resist it —but these are the the building blocks of a growing organization. Energy is needed to embrace the building blocks and grow.

Speaking of my personal necessary ending, I am already beginning to contemplate my next one. While I hope this is over ten years out at this point, it is still wise to think of its necessity, and be working at the process of growing the next successor.

Before ending this post, I have to come back to the question posed at the outset about Tom Brady: Should he leave his team? Of course, he should! I’d advise him to retire. But if he wants to keep playing, he should leave and open the door to the next generation. Had he done that a few years ago, maybe Jimmy Garoppolo would have been quarterback of the New England Patriots last year, while Tom Brady would have been quarterback of his hometown San Francisco 49ers? Such are the speculations of an avid sports fan that believes in necessary endings…

(Final Author’s Note: I did NOT see Tom Brady signing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers but I should have. Why? Many NFL Quarterbacks swear that Bucs’ Head Coach Bruce Arians is someone worth following…)

No one could have adequately planned for COVID-19. Not only did it come unannounced, it has changed things at such a rapid pace that what you thought you knew yesterday is outdated by the time you drink your morning’s coffee the next day. This is a crisis, which means you cannot plan for it.

But you can be prepared.

You can always prepare for the eventual disruption, recession, or crisis. You can ensure that your cash flow is positive, that your business serves diverse markets, and that your team has a plan of action for when crisis comes.

And some form of crisis always comes.

Perhaps, you can see this difference more easily in other walks of life. For example, I can be mentally and physically prepared for a golf tournament. But I cannot plan what kind of shot I am going to hit on the 13th hole. Even with the tee shot, I can plan to hit my 3-wood and come to find the weather changed. With new conditions, such as a change in the wind, do I follow my pre-round plan? Considering that I am always prepared to hit a cut shot down the left side of the fairway with my driver, the answer is that I am prepared to hit either.

Golf analogy aside, it is the leader’s job to think through situations and be prepared for anything.

You can plan for little.

You can be prepared for lots.

See the difference?

Whatever we want to call this season we are in (COVID-19, Recession, or something else), the reality is that it is different from the one that roughly ended on March 13, 2020. The previous season can almost be characterized with one word: GROWTH. Words like innovation, technology, robotics, and sustainability, all became commonplace. In return, leaders needed to “embrace change for change’s sake,” be “nimble,” and always (ALWAYS!) be “hustling.” Even on the “side.”

Things change.

The season we are in now seems to be one of SURVIVAL. While Hoffer Plastics future is absolutely secure today, we will have to adapt and survive like everyone else to excel in the “new normal,” whatever that is. To be sure, all the things mentioned above (especially sustainability) will come back quickly, but right now is all about SURVIVING until they do.

With that in mind, here are 3 qualities that your team must embrace in a crisis:

Your team needs to show up. Before you say, “duh,” and move on, think about it. Who is showing up and who isn’t? Who can be counted on, and who cannot? Every leader I am talking to right now can decipher between those they that are sheltering in fear, and those they can count on. For example, our Director of Manufacturing has been in our facility every single day since this began. Feel free to have an opinion on whether injection molding is “essential,” the point here is that we have had to maintain normal production for customer demand and our Director of Manufacturing has not missed a beat. You need people like him on your team during a crisis.

Your team needs to stay calm. It would do our team no good if our Director of Manufacturing was showing up and freaking everyone out. So, in the same breath as above, every leader I know is gravitating to those on their team that are remaining calm. They help steady the organization in uncertain times.

Your team needs to be resolute. While you would not hire anyone that you know is not, a crisis reveals one’s resoluteness. Who can work through just about any difficulty, even personal difficulties, and do good work? Who attacks problems regardless of the time of day, or regardless of the size of the problem? Who is always dependable no matter what else is going on? All this becomes evident in times like these.

These qualities are admittedly basic to understand. But your team must do them to survive in a crisis.

I write these words from my home office. It is Tax Day, or was supposed to be Tax Day. The view I have is to our backyard and the ground is covered with a thin blanket of snow. A week ago, the temperature approached 80 degrees in Chicago. Now winter has reminded us that it always has the last laugh.

Mother Nature often reminds us how uncertain life is. Well, so has COVID-19.

Can

One

View

It

Dutifully?

The leader has to. To be someone worth following you have to keep going no matter the cost. Every single person reading this post knows this, and so do I.

But will we?

There is a small nook on our front porch that is partially hidden from view thanks to the overhanging roof. Expecting birds defy any attempts we make to keep them from building nests there. This spring, however, we did not even try to dissuade them. Shouldn’t they have a spot to shelter in place as well? As I write these words a future mother bird awaits dutifully on her nest in our nook. I would imagine she did not welcome last night’s snow. But the sun has come out which assures the snow’s inevitable demise. She will outlast the cold weather, but will she persist through the perils of spring thunderstorms, and the unknown predators lurking in the surrounding field? Her toughest days may be ahead. If she could talk, would she view this dutifully?

Similarly, this crisis is fraught with uncertainty that will extend into the warmer months and possibly beyond.

Do we, leaders, view it dutifully?

Late yesterday morning I made my way out to our plant. This opportunity has taken sole possession of my “number one task” in my daily planner. But it is not a task. It is opportunity to see the eyes and feel the hearts of our team. It is a reminder of the covenant that we have together. This is what sustains me during times of difficulty. And it is the lifeblood to my leadership. Their strength spurs me beyond what words can adequately capture here.

Every leader needs strength from those around them. Doing this alone will not work.

Each day when I get back to my office, I ask myself the question, can one view it – COVID – dutifully?

Because of them, absolutely!

Like the bird, we must!

Harder times may or may not be on the horizon. I suspect they are. But, people like us will persevere through the snow into the sun because that is our duty.

We will persist.

We will survive.

We will because that is our duty.

Much of leadership content these days is about hustling, doing more with less, increasing productivity in general, and on and on and on. There is even discussion about “side hustles,” “plus time,” or “google time.”

The reality, however, is that no one can do everything.

Conversely, have you noticed that there is a natural rhythm to life? Day becomes night, summer turns to fall, fall turns to winter, and eventually —eventually? —winter gives way again to the rebirth of spring. What’s true in nature is also true in human beings. Human beings develop, grow, age, and eventually pass away.

Limits are part of life.

This probably won’t be one of the most popular posts I have written because limits remind us of our fallibility. We, unlike God, cannot go on without limits because we are human. We get tired, are mistake prone, and have a host of other issues when we push past natural limits. This is why we need to embrace limits for our own health, and the health of our organization.

I have come to realize that my lack of respect for limits is due to my distrust of God’s goodness and provision. If I am not chasing “more,” regardless of what “more” is (work, leadership, parenting, etc.), I feel like a failure. So, I am tempted, and often give in-to the temptation of, blowing off the natural limits set before me. This means I work extended hours, blow the Sabbath off, and suffer health issues because of all this. But “more” is never “enough.”

More problematic to my leadership —and being someone, WORTH following (my emphasis) —I become short with people, and even unloving when I blow past limits. If leadership is awakening the possibility in OTHERS (my emphasis again) than my leadership suffers when my refusal to embrace limits impacts how I treat others. To that end, I have been asking myself lately whether my demeanor, attitude, and attentiveness to other people is characteristic of someone I would want to follow? While this may sound like a lot, remember that leadership is always a privilege and it always comes with a cost. Leaders should be held MORE, not less, accountable for their actions. And we should also be more focused on other people than we are on ourselves.

This brings me back to the statement two paragraphs above about my lack of respect for limits being tied to my distrust of God’s goodness and provision. Regardless of your belief in God, the lack of adherence to limits points to something deeper happening inside the heart of an individual. Could it be that you, the leader, are blowing past natural limits by working more hours, more days, absorbing more content, and overall doing more simply because something inside you is not content? Is it that enough is simply not enough?

While I cannot speak for you, the truth about me is that I blow past limits because I have low self-esteem and am an “achieve-a-holic.” I distrust a loving Father who assures me that he will provide what I need when I need it. Notice that this does not mean my wildest dreams will come true. I may never shoot under par consistently, write the New York Times’ Best-Selling Book, or have a hair like Brian Urlacher (just kidding, I want to stay bald). It also might mean that I am unrecognizable in the injection molding space, our business is good but not great, and I am largely forgotten in fifty years.

The contemporary advice continues to be “blow past limits” so that you assure the things mentioned in the last sentence are not true of you.

Limits, however, are necessary because blowing past those limits, as good as your intentions may be, eventually cause irreparable damage to you, others, and especially those you love most (family and friends).

It simply is not worth the cost.

Hence, I am embracing limits, embracing less, and letting the chips fall where they may.

I am also increasing my trust in God and his provision.

Even if that last statement does not jive with you, I am imploring you to consider the natural limits in your own life and leadership.

My conclusion for this post is that in order for you to be someone WORTH following, you need to embrace limits so that you have the emotional health to positively impact the lives of other human-beings. Leadership is always about doing this work, the work of enhancing lives of OTHERS.

We can only do this through the embracing of our natural limits.

On January 1 of this year our father moved into a new role as Chairman of the Board. This meant that he had to pick one of his three kids to run the business. Except that is not how it went down. Instead, the three of us spent the last few years growing our work relationships and determining how WE were going to run the business together. As unconventional as this sounds, it was brilliant in hindsight because it forced the three of us to learn how to relate to one another in the most difficult of subject matters: who is going to run the business?

We came up with an unconventional model of shared leadership. One sister would be Chief Financial Officer, one Chief Cultural Officer, and I would be Chief Revenue Officer. We then named 10 other people chiefs and Vice Presidents – of course I am kidding but we got really tired of the title game. In fact, after several meetings we decided that the only thing that really mattered was running the business well without jeopardizing our relationships.

Remember how I said above that talking about succession was the “most difficult of subject matters?” I was SO WRONG.

COVID-19 had the audacity to come to town less than 90 days into our new structure. It did not RSVP. Nor, did it send an “outlook” calendar invite to ZOOM. It just showed up unannounced. When crisis hits, we were previously asked when planning our new structure, who would make the decisions if you don’t have a President? The rest of this post shares how we are navigating this reality. I would be remiss not to say that I am writing this on April 8, 2020. In other words, we are closer to the beginning of the challenge than we are to the end.

One last note to leaders in more “traditional” workplace hierarchies: Everything I share below is applicable to leadership because leaders are those worth following. They are not dictators. People want to follow those that are humble and willing to change.

Without further ado, here are 4 key things my sisters and I are doing to work through this crisis:

1. We listen. Listening is hearing the entirety of the other person’s point of view. It is openness to changing your perspective because of it. For example, I wrote a memo last week to the company that both my sisters thought needed some editing. My intention in the memo was to lead boldly. They both said the wording was too bold however. My choices were to insist on “my way,” or listen to their counsel. Reading what I wrote I could see their point. While I was attempting to be candid and honest, I was sharing too much. By softening the tone of the letter, it was received with positive feedback from the organization.
2. We communicate in person or ZOOM daily. In times of crisis people are obviously very stressed. Higher stress should equal more frequent in-person meetings to ensure everyone is on the same page. Being able to see and hear the person simultaneously protects one from misinterpreting tone. My sisters and I have used this time to ensure relational harmony and make decisions together. To date we have yet to get to the point where one of them has me in a headlock and the other is tickling me like they did in 1980 something…
3. We assume the best in each other. High stress also equals higher chances to say something that ticks someone off. Remember that time your sister or brother said something during the holidays that made you sneak sip some beverage of choice? COVID-19 is WAY MORE STRESSFUL than the holidays! So, considering my sisters and I work together, we are assuming the best and apologizing if we must.
4. We are attempting to laugh and have fun when we can. Laughter is a healthy coping mechanism for stress. Let’s face it, there is not much to laugh at these days. So, attempting to laugh can mean entertaining the silly in the pursuit of a momentary diversion from the crisis. Some examples include MEMES about Joe Exotic and YouTube videos about ZOOM, etc.

I would imagine that 99% of readers do not work with siblings. That said, these ideas: listening, communicating daily, assuming the best in one another, and laughing together, can be applied to ANY Executive team.

They also can apply to your next holiday gathering.