It's a candid exploration of the delicate balance between accepting responsibility for our actions and safeguarding our personal self-esteem, an art that, when mastered, can transform the very fabric of organizational culture.
With Dave's wealth of experience at S.E.E.D. Planning Group, we unveil the power of accountability in creating a work environment where the focus is on forging ahead rather than fixing blame. Holding oneself accountable is not just about acknowledging mistakes; it's a commitment to leading the charge towards innovative solutions and collective advancement. Discover how to cultivate a collaborative atmosphere where every team member feels empowered to contribute to the rebound and development process. It's not just a discussion; it's a call to action for every leader who aims to inspire progress and celebrate the journey towards personal fulfillment and business success.
It's a candid exploration of the delicate balance between accepting responsibility for our actions and safeguarding our personal self-esteem, an art that, when mastered, can transform the very fabric of organizational culture.
With Dave's wealth of experience at S.E.E.D. Planning Group, we unveil the power of accountability in creating a work environment where the focus is on forging ahead rather than fixing blame. Holding oneself accountable is not just about acknowledging mistakes; it's a commitment to leading the charge towards innovative solutions and collective advancement. Discover how to cultivate a collaborative atmosphere where every team member feels empowered to contribute to the rebound and development process. It's not just a discussion; it's a call to action for every leader who aims to inspire progress and celebrate the journey towards personal fulfillment and business success.
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Speaker 1:
This is Unleashing Leadership. I'm your host, Travis Moss, and we are here with our Season 5 special guest, David Nurchi, and we're getting after the lessons learned from the book the Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, and today we are going to get after. Don't take it personally, it is probably your fault, but mistakes are part of the job and that's brought to you by Seed Planning Group fee-only fiduciaries. A wealth management firm that helps people overcome the challenges that are keeping them from personal fulfillment, firm that helps people overcome the challenges that are keeping them from personal fulfillment. So that's actually my and Dave's day job. It's where we spend most of our time, and then we come here and kind of talk about lessons learned. So you can find more information about Seed Planning Group at wwwseedpgcom. I don't know if we got to say that www, but it sounds cool.
Speaker 2:
So we'll throw it in there.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, this is where I miss Steve from Ditch the Suits. He's normally the intro guy and the ad guy and everything like that. So we're suffering, we're suffering, he kind of better that I am OK. Thank you, I feel better about that one. I printed it out this time, Dave, so yeah, so you know before.
Speaker 1:
I was like flipping through screens and yeah. So anyhow, don't take it personally, probably not your fault, but mistakes are part of the job. I was just going back through some old episodes the other day I don't remember why I was doing it, but and I came across Some quotes that we had back in Team of Teams, which was the very first season of unleashing, and I was talking about how, if the the team fails, it's the leader's fault. If the organization fails, it's the leader's fault. When the team wins, it's the leader's fault. When the team wins, it's the team's fault. When the organization wins, it's the organization's fault. Right, and that's. Everybody wants a 10.
Speaker 1:
And this is the difference between real leaders and fake leaders, and I don't mean fake leaders as bad. Sometimes people are in leadership positions or they're quasi leaders, or they're in a position where people are looking up to them, but they're not, by definition, actual leaders. And one of the ways that you know this is because of how they're handling the attention, like when something goes wrong and it starts from the top guy down. So maybe the top guy, maybe I say hey, dave, this is my fault, you go, you know what? No, this is really my fault. And then the guy underneath you or the lady underneath you says no, this is really my fault and everybody takes ownership all the way down. But the top guy has got to take ownership, right? It's like in game of Thrones, where they're up in the north Game of Thrones if you ever watch that show, the very first season, the Ned Stark, the King of the North basically he puts somebody to death and he cuts the guy's head off himself and I think one of the kids asked why'd you do that? And he says well, if I have to dispense justice, I can't have anybody else doing it. It's my responsibility. Right, like it is, it's not even probably your fault. It is your fault.
Speaker 1:
You put somebody else in charge, right? You didn't read the tea leaves. You don't know enough about something to know better, or whatever it is. You weren't paying attention. You let something go on too long, right? You put the wrong person in charge, whatever it is. You weren't paying attention. You let something go on too long, right. You put the wrong person in charge, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:
But that's part of the job. I mean, nobody's going to be right and perfect all the time. Especially, the bigger the organization gets, the more people, the more moving parts and stuff. So stuff is going to go wrong, you are going to screw up, you're going to feel horrible, you're going to be alone and lonely and miserable and like what the hell did I do? But that is literally the reason why you feel like that is because you know that the buck stops with you and that's part of the job. If you don't want that, if you don't want to be in charge cause that's what being in charge is If you don't want to say, hey, that's my fault, I got to do a better job, I got to train more, I got to create better systems, I got to select better people, or whatever Then you can't be in charge, because that's the reality of the situation.
Speaker 1:
And and the other other side, which is the hard side of this, which you know I have to, I struggle with this all the time too is not personal, you know, and at the end of the day, like and this is why I think sometimes business owners struggle too is your business your identity, or is your business a business that has its own identity and you happen to work there and be building it and developing it Right?
Speaker 1:
Because if the business has a mistake? Yes, you're the leader, so you're still responsible for it. But that's the business's identity, right, that's the business's reputation, and how can you build and strengthen and fortify that that? But just because the business has, like, an issue with an employee or a product or a customer or something like that, um, or system, or there's some kind of failure that happens within the business, should you personally be of lesser value? And the answer is really no, unless you've done something negligent, right. If you have done something, uh, or willingly to damage the business, then yeah, take it personally because you're a jackass, right. But if that's not the case, you got to understand that's part of the job and that actually belongs to the business.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah. It's an important distinction the business's identity and your own identity. If you start crossing that, that's where it gets tricky right, or that's where you're going to have issues, because if you start taking everything personally, it's going to affect your decision making and your relationships with the people you work with, because you're going to start thinking you know you could, you're, you're going to start speculating everything. You know they're, they're coming after me or they, you know they don't trust me. You're going to start coming up with all this stuff in your head, um, because you're going to create a scenario or scenarios that just aren't true. And then the the bigger problem is, if that's how you're handling adversity or challenges as a leader, it's probably going to trickle throughout the company as well, as people are going to think things are personal and it starts moving away from business itself.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, you almost get like a victim organization, right, like it's. It's uh, if the leaders, if the leader takes everything personally, people think that they can hide it. We know people who take everything personally that are in, have been in leadership roles and, um, that's like an unworkable situation. Number one, because we tend to look up to the people above us, so we're going to act similar to how they act, right. But number two, taking things personally. And the second part of this is mistakes to prepare the job. What we're saying is look, you can personally say I want improvement, it's my job to get better, it's my job to get better, it's my job to make this better. The buck stops with me and stuff. So you are taking personal accountability for it, but taking it personally and becoming a victim or becoming broken because of it. That's what we're talking about. That you need to avoid, right, and so that component there where you become broken when something goes bad, you don't want your subordinates looking up to you or the people following you looking up to you, mimicking that behavior. And you also, like you said, you want to be careful that you don't become defensive or make decisions because you're trying to deal with your own depression, basically Right, or your own anxiety, and it's a slippery slope. I mean, it is.
Speaker 1:
You know, you and I have had conversations before where I call you up and I go. You know I'm looking at this situation. Am I looking at this wrong? And because, also, if you're a compassionate leader, what you're trying to do is you're like I want to fix everything. I'm a fixer, you know you've got a problem, I want to fix it. And if I can't fix your problem, you know, does that mean that I'm not good? And sometimes we have to realize there's just going to be problems. And sometimes other people are just going to have problems, and you know, and sometimes problems are going to, you know, boil up to the surface, and maybe maybe those problems are because of us, Maybe we put the wrong person in the wrong position, like I said, or maybe we made a pivot that went in the wrong direction or something like that, and you got to go.
Speaker 1:
Look, based on the information I had at the time, I did the best that I could. Now I know better. Um, so let's change directions and and and, but let's not sit here and sulk about it. Yeah, let's all be, be be, you know, big people and adults, and let's, let's turn direction and move forward together as a team. And you know the hard part with this is sometimes people don't want to move forward with you. You know what I mean, because they take it personally. And that's where I say, from a leadership standpoint you, you set the example from the top. I want you to be accountable for things, but I don't want you to break because of things.
Speaker 2:
Yep, and I think the more you take things personally, the less you're going to ask for help or reach out or use other people right. You're going to kind of internalize things and try to fix everything yourself instead of appropriately looking for your team to help where they can. So I think that's another factor that the more you're internalizing, the less you're going to be able to actually get out of that, because you're not going to be asking for help where you need to.
Speaker 1:
Especially stronger personalities. We did this round about idiots, right. So I'm a red personality, so my natural inclination is to react to things and to be aggressive with things. And you know, if you're coming from that disposition where you're like I take something very personally, so then my reaction is aggressive, then that's like a wrecking ball just going through a fine China store. It's just smashing everything in its way, and that's why we need to take. It's not a personal thing unless you have purposely made it personal, right, right.
Speaker 1:
And I think that that's also a lesson too for for business leadership, all the way down from the top to the bottom is you have to try I think you do have to try really hard not to make it personal, especially when things go bad. Because when things go bad, what do we do? We look for a reason oh Dave, it's your fault. Oh, travis, it's your fault, right.
Speaker 1:
There's a big difference with me coming out to the, the group and saying you know what I screwed up? I should have seen this. Now we know this, here's how we're going to move, going forward, versus you turn around saying, travis, it's your fault, so, so ideally, kind of what you want to see is so much leadership and so much accountability throughout the organization as people are fighting over who to take responsibility for it, until the top guy comes and says you know what I'm putting you off. Look, I'm taking that you can all be a part of the solution now, yep, you know, and and so that we can. We can all kind of get off our our sad horse and kind of move forward.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and and that's the that's a key there when you take the responsibility, it's then how do you act after that? The solution part is because I need you know people can say that was my fault, because it maybe makes them feel better too. Right, like, well, it was my fault. But if you don't do anything from that point, what do you actually? Why'd you take the blame or why'd you raise your hand and say that was my responsibility? Here's what we're going to do now. Right, that's the important step as a leader of that happened. Here's how we're moving forward.