effort

Effort and Leadership – 3 Tips to Motivate your Employees

I am very proud to be able to train in ATA Martial Arts with Chief Master Niblock at his school here in Austin, Texas (Round Rock).  Today, like many other days, Chief Master Niblock gave us not only a great physical workout, but also great lessons in life and character.

[paraphrased] “You have students or employees who don’t give 100% effort, but have you looked in the mirror.  YOU, the leader, need to be giving 100%, or  you can’t expect it from your students.” said Chief Master Niblock.  “It has to be every day.  Nobody wants an employee who only gives 100% on Mondays, so you have to give 100% every day if you expect it in return.”

I was inspired, as I often am when getting to train with such an awesome instructor.  We all need our mentors and people to look up to, and Chief Master Niblock is that to me.   Without further ado, I give you 3 tips to motivate your employees, inspired by Chief Master Niblock.

  1. Lead from the Front  –  You need to be giving 100% effort every day, not just on Mondays!  You cannot and should not expect more from your employees (even in a Startup) than what you are willing to give yourself.  And you need to give this effort “from the front” so that everyone can see you.
  2. You set the Tone – If you are down, or having a bad day, it’s likely they will too.  Somehow, you’ve got to find silver linings, shiny day’s ahead.  Positivity is contagious too… you just have to set the tone.
  3. Be Fanatical about your Vision – Especially for a startup, you have to be absolutely focused on your vision and achieving it.  This means saying ‘no’ to all the distractions that come up, and saying ‘yes’ to anything that might move your vision forward.  Every day, you need to share your vision with the team, loudly, proudly, and with that Positivity.  Your vision will become contagious too.  Suddenly people will start making decisions in an empowered way that will move forward your cause, not just “work for work’s sake”.
Harlan Beverly Training in ATA Martial Arts
Bonus Tip for Investors/Board Members – This tip is for board members and investors…  you need to make sure you consider the Agency Problem.  You cannot expect your startup Management Teams to put forward 100% effort if they are not incentivized to do so.  That means believing in their vision/mission, and making it worthwhile if they succeed.  The trickle down effect of an improperly incentivized management can lead to an entire organization that’s not giving 100% or is giving it to the wrong things.

Redefining Intelligence

Yesterday I was lecturing to a bunch of awesome UT Students and I was asked for an example of one of ‘my’ lighthouse principles.  I said ‘fairness’, because I do believe in fairness; primarily fairness of opportunity.   When I said this fairness principle applies to ‘grading’, the students were quite happy about that!

A similar value of mine is ‘effort’.  That if people will apply enough effort they can achieve anything.

So, how does this relate to intelligence?

Well, two things, a child can be intelligent, but not given equal opportunity (fairness), and thus fall behind others… and specifically fail to learn how to effectively learn (i.e. they might be quick to learn, if they had the opportunity).  Thus when that child does poorly in school, and drops out, and stops learning new things, are they less intelligent?  Society says no… I think the answer should be ‘yes’.

Second, and opposite, a child can be considered a ‘slow learner’, but who puts in maximum effort, and learns how to learn (for them), and gains average grades in school but sticks with it.  This child learns advanced mathematics, science, history, and more… is this ‘slow learner’ still considered as not very intelligent?  Society says yes… I think the answer is no.  This child is MORE intelligent than the quick learner who (for reasons in or out of their control) does not put in enough effort to continue learning.

Here’s what this all means:  I believe that intelligence should be a measure of the knowledge that a person has gained and retained.  This is not how fast or how easy it is for that person to learn new things, because with enough effort, that can be overcome.  This is instead how MUCH that person has learned, whether by whatever amount of effort it might have taken.

The quickness of how fast someone can learn (or memorize or problem solve), is a totally separate trait, barely worthy of consideration (e.g. IQ is useless).  Thus we must not call the lazy quick learner who does not apply themselves as intelligent.  We must not accept the messed up education system that does not give the quick learner enough opportunity.   Even more so, we must not call the ‘not as quick’ learners less intelligent, instead we must give them ‘fair’ opportunity to apply effort to gain intelligence.