Why Great Performers Struggle to Become Great Leaders
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“What you do most naturally, you teach most poorly.” – Adrian Koehler
In this episode of Relationships at Work, Russel chats with culture consultant and leadership coach Adrian Koehler on how to move from performer to leader.
A few reasons why he are awesome — he is a no BS leadership coach and culture consultant, senior partner at Take New Ground, a global executive coaching and training firm introducing the art and sciene of leadership. He’s helped train and develop leaders in Navy SEALs, NIKE, Virgin Hyperloop One, Oprah Winfrey Network and others.
Connect with Adrian and learn more about his work…
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Russel Lolacher: On the show today we have Adrian Koehler, and here is why he is awesome. He’s a no BS leadership coach and culture consultant, senior partner at Take New Ground, a global executive coaching and training firm introducing the art and science of leadership.
He’s helped train and develop leaders from the Navy SEALs, Nike, Virgin Hyperloop One, Oprah Win- you’ve heard of a few of these. Oprah. You’ve heard of a few of those. And he’s here to help us transition from performer to leader. Hello, Adrian.
Adrian Koehler: Russel, so great to be here, man. Love you, love your style, love this show. Thanks for your investment in so many people
Russel Lolacher: Appreciate it, man. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. I’m super excited about the topic ’cause I find it to be a, an important one we don’t pay enough attention to, while also dismissing it a little too much. The right person for the right job kinda conversation. Anyway, I’m, I’m gonna get ahead of myself.
Question I have to start with you, sir, as I start with all of my guests, which is, what is your best or worst employee experience?
Adrian Koehler: Oh my gosh. W- which one’s the juiciest one to tell you?
Russel Lolacher: Oh, it’s always the negative one people jump to. It doesn’t have to be though
Adrian Koehler: I can say, I can speak of the w- of the best too.
Russel Lolacher: Okay
Adrian Koehler: ‘Cause I’ve had four, I’ve had four kind of b-big career shifts in my life. I was a, I was a pre-med guy in college, decided not to go the doctor route. Last minute, decided to get a nursing degree, worked in the Children’s Hospital in Chicago, and there’s the best and worst both happen there ’cause you’re up against the brink.
You’re helping save kids’ lives. Sometimes that works and it’s, miraculous, and sometimes it doesn’t work and you have to, be with people in the worst ever. But then I w- then I moved out to Los Angeles and I was a pastor for many years, mostly a social activist type guy, not one of these, dogmatists from the stage, but more “Hey, doesn’t love make the world go round?
If that was true, what would we be doing with our lives?” And so, like service-based, taking people around the globe. And then I ran a foundation and worked in the prison system. I did leadership trainings with murderers that were dying to get out and have another chance. They’d done something when they were 16, 17, 18, and now they’re 38, 39, 40, and looking for freedom, but needed freedom between the years before they actually got out so they could stay out, ’cause most people didn’t stay out.
And now I do this, been doing this 15 years. So the, my best, my best experience has been the, the the willingness and the ability, I guess, to follow my gut even when all of those are direct turns. It’s like a 90-degree turn or doesn’t make sense to most people. Where it’s like eb- some people are like, “Oh, pick a track and go, build yourself towards that track.”
That’s okay, and that works for some people. It never worked for me. But I had a mentor that, that… And I’ll end here, but my mentor of mine said, “Hey, just if y- experiment, but experiment in the same direction,” if that made sense. So the, the ability to kinda reinvent over time has been my best experience, and although I looked like a fool and I didn’t know what I was doing and I was faking it every single time, but, if, if you’ve got…
Courage looks like competence if you’re good at it. It’s like you’re gonna go figure out who you need to know and who you need to talk to to partner with, that actually d- that is what makes you competent. Not, “Do I know the answer?” but, “Am I willing to go find the answer?” And, that, that was built over time, so I’m just grateful that that, that got to happen.
I’ve got lots of horror stories I could share but, whatever.
Russel Lolacher: so to follow up on that, so you fail and fumble and succeed in a particular direction and keep going that, where do you pivot? Like, where do you go to the point going, “I failed and pivoted and done it enough where I have to go, you know what? I have to go in a different direction.” What was that for you?
Adrian Koehler: Yeah. It wasn’t actually like that for me where I felt like I’d hit the wall enough that I had to go somewhere else. I was just always looking for… I was listening internally to myself, ’cause I didn’t want a job to feel like a job. And, and, and maybe I’m spoiled in that way but I didn’t want that, and some people just sign up for that story as “A job’s a job,” and, “Eh, they wouldn’t call it a job if it didn’t suck,” blah, blah, blah.
All the cultural stuff people sign up for just so they can complain to their spouses and drink a lot. But I didn’t wanna sign up for that. I just wanted to sign up for, okay, does this make me come alive? Am I able to serve other people? Do I like who I’m becoming? And then, and then opportunities happen, it’s opportunities happen or like you get moments of inspiration that, all of us at times, and who knows how many I have, but you can quell those things and think, “Eh, I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t.” I’ve got several of those in my head of, of things that I’ve been excited about and didn’t take action on.
But then you just fi- you just follow f- you follow an epiphany and go see what’s there. And if you… I’ve always been drawn towards mentors, so that’s always what helped. I’d find somebody I wanted to be close to, find somebody I wanted to be like, and then see if there’s a way to become a lieutenant to that person, to become a, a, an apprentice to that person.
If you can create value, then there’s space in the organization. And then, so that’s how it’s always been for me. It’s “Oh, that’d be cool. Let me go see what’s over there.” And I go see what’s over there and think, “Oh, that’s neat.” And although it’s set it… I mean, when I first got into coaching, I would always fear that people would say, “Hey, how’d you get into this profession?”
‘Cause most people ask that question. And I would always fear at the beginning, ’cause I’m like, I didn’t, I, I didn’t think I had a compelling story for such a long time because it’s like I didn’t like work at Apple for 15 years and now I’m gonna go do this consulting work or IBM or whatever, some science…
But it finally dawned on me, and I’ll end here, it’s oh, there’s a through line for me which was I am good at and I actually love being with people in crisis and helping them have the courage to take the r- effective action to get what they want. That’s like the through line for me, and I can point that out in all the turns.
So it was more like opportunity called me, and then a willingness to go risk and look stupid for a little while again and, break up the chain. My resume doesn’t look great, but my impact is awesome, so that’s what worked.
Russel Lolacher: Fair. And having a curiosity engine doesn’t hurt either. You’re super be- being nosy about stuff is not a bad thing. Leading yourself into the next opportunity is a great one. I
Adrian Koehler: Yeah. Well, and yeah, and, and picking yourself, it’s like just, it’s… I always, I, I I always think about like sixth grade recess. It’s like we got 20 minutes to play basketball, and then you’re standing around or you just say, “Okay, I’m a captain, you’re a captain, let’s go. Let’s, let’s…” You can just pick yourself. just pick yourself,
Russel Lolacher: fair. This does weirdly segue into our conversation a bit though, because when opportunity knocks, sometimes we should answer and sometimes we shouldn’t. And that’s where I kinda wanna understand your ideas around moving from a performer to a leader. But before we get into that specifically, I kinda want your take on what you even mean by the f- a performer and a leader.
What is the difference between the two?
Adrian Koehler: Huge difference. So I’ll speak to it by the folks that I’ve always worked with specifically in this space for the last 15 years. So I get hired to coach leaders now. And all of them are brilliant, all of them are ambitious, all of them are capable, all of them are adventurous in some ways and, curious.
In broad categories, they’re like that. And when I started out, I mean, I’m 45 now, so I was 30 when I started. So I started coaching middle managers when I… Yeah, people like were kind of were, they were my age and middle management at different companies and, and I just started with who I knew, so I knew a bunch of 30-year-olds and I had a bunch of trust with them, and they’re all really impeccable people. And here’s the challenge when you’re talented and when you’re successful at whatever sphere you’re at. When you’re talented and successful you actually get numb to why you are so. And, and by that I mean if you’re used to being the most effective person, the smartest person in the room for some, the most liked person in the room and you’re just used to winning, then when it take, when it’s time to, or you get an opportunity to go take a risk, you actually are thrown out of your equilibrium.
Because all of a sudden now I’ve jumped up to another, another size pool, if you will, to me- use a metaphor, and that’s frightening. And so what people tend to do, so back to the question of performer, is high performers bet on themselves, right? So I know if I’m on a team and we gotta get something done, and if I’m gonna bet on somebody, I’m gonna bet on me.
You know why? I can control me. I know me. I know my history. I know what I’m, capable of, and I’m, influential if I’m in that group or whatever, so I can bet on me. That’s what a performer does. He says, “Give me the ball.” That’s… We use this, I won’t go into it much, but anyway, there’s a paradox between being authoritative, which is give me the ball, and being, collaborative, which is, hey, let me share the ball.
That’s a paradox that every leader, every person on a team has to navigate because it’s safer, emotionally safer, if, if you believe in yourself and you’re really good and all that, it’s emotionally safer to just, I’ll take the ball, using a sports metaphor. That’s what a performer does. Now, a leader thinks collaboratively.
Thinks, if I take the ball, I’m actually failing as a leader Because leadership is generating results through other people. Leadership is generating results through other people. The same, the same results I could generate on my own, if I do it on my own, I’m not a leader. I’m just a doer. I’m a performer.
But if I c- but if I’m willing to take the risk, I have to generate results through other people, which is, there’s a lot more inherent risk, there’s a lot more communication necessary, a lot more awareness necessary, empathy necessary, grace necessary, education. Like you have to give a whole lot.
And that’s why people say, “Oh, if I had more time, I’d hire somebody.” What they mean is a lot more than time, but they have a sense that what time actually means is space. What time actually means is, is humility. Because I say to my clients all the time is, “What you do most naturally, you teach most poorly.” So, and that’s if… You know this from all your background and how much of an expert you are. It’s what… You do it and you just n- you, you, you’re natural at it. But if you had somebody at your side all day saying, “Hey, how do I do this?” You might not even know because it’s just called being Russell.
I don’t know. I’m good at this shit. You, and great leader or great, performers, it’s so intuitive for them. They don’t know how they know it. And so it’s actually exposing whenever they can’t, and it’s frustrating, whenever they can’t teach the thing that seems so natural to them. So that’s why this jump is, is, is challenging.
Those are my two categories
Russel Lolacher: I c– I’m curious about why it’s so hard for great performers to make that shift. ‘Cause I mean, I call it the Michael Scott problem, where it’s the… From “The Office,” right? He’s– was an amazing salesperson. He was a horrible leader. So basically what we’re seeing is we’re losing a ba- we’re losing a great salesperson, and we’re gaining a crap leader ’cause somebody at head office thought it would be a good idea to move him because he was good at the one thing.
So what are we missing? What is that great performer missing that they’re just not connecting the dot for leadership? Is it just the me, me, me too much?
Adrian Koehler: Well, it’s doing versus being, I would say. That’s the first thing that comes to mind, is if you’re a great performer, you’re good at doing shit. You just know what to do. You might be great at being strategic. You might be great at taking action. You might be great at accessing information. You might be great at all these things, but it usually comes down to action.
What do I need to do to get this thing done? And they usually… If you’re a great performer, you’re a self-starter. You wanna, Gallup uses the word activator. You’re just prone to action. Ready, action, action, action, action. And you’ll stay up late. You’ll burn the midnight oil, and that’s what, great performers do.
But the distinction with being a leader is creating an environment in which great performance happens. Now, that’s kind of odd philosophical language. That’s really what I mean. So what I mean by that is if I’m a great leader, I create the environment. Like I I say this is true for everybody, but we’re all…
E- every individual is a culture. And by culture, I mean a whole set of conversations about what works and what doesn’t work, and what’s encouraged and what’s unencouraged, and what we can talk about and what we can’t talk about. That’s what culture is. So if you’re gonna be a great leader, you must be about being.
Back to a little philosophical, but it’s like this, like this is who Adri- if you use me as an example, this is who Adrian is. This is what he’s up to. When I’m around him, I feel this way. When I’m around him, I get these sorts of permissions. When I’m around him, I feel like that. I, I, I believe in myself in this way.
That’s all, I call it spiritual. I don’t mean it weird and religious at all. I mean it invisible. Leaders are spiritual beings if… I mean, period. Meaning, like I generate a spirit, like a whole environment of being in which people can participate or do- not wanna participate. That’s the thing.
It’s invitational or, or it’s, it’s, it’s expelling in that way. So, that’s a big shift is that if you’ve made your money on doing and now- If you’re doing, you’re losing money, and by that I mean you’re generating value that’s a big jump for folks ’cause it s- for some it seems really squishy.
For some it seems unnecessary, and if you’ve ma- if you’ve gotten to your point in your career by being better than everyone, it’s hard not to keep judging people, right? ‘Cause if I’m, if I’m just fighting on… If you and I are, like, in the same job and my job is to beat you, let’s go kick ass. Let’s do that.
I can look at you, and if I’m better than you, I win. If I’m on a team now and I’m dependent on you, and now my job… Now if I’m judging you, I’m losing. When I used to use that judgment as fuel, now that judgment actually holds me back from actually doing my job. Anything I judge in you, I need to go get close to, not to judge.
I can keep judging it, but I’m not gonna get close to it if I don’t get… So, and then they must f- face their own demons, ’cause most of us won’t get close to the things in others that we still judge about ourselves, and every high performer I know is haunted by being found out. We all have this kind of fraud story, is that maybe someday somebody’s gonna find out.
So if I, if I, if, if you’ve got something that sounds like my biggest shame point or my biggest fear, I’m naturally gonna run from it because I don’t like it in me. if I can come to peace with it and actually put my arms around it, we call it hugging the cactus, if I can put around my own internal fraudulence, then when I see it in you, and when you tell me you’re gonna get something to me by Tuesday, now it’s Wednesday, so therefore you’ve lied, and I know, oh, shit, I’ve done this a lot.
But if I can own it in me, it’s “Oh, yeah, I’m just a chicken sometimes. I’m a coward.” And, then I can get close to you and say, “Hey, man, you didn’t keep your word on that. What’s going on?” And you could easily say, “Hey, what the fuck’s wrong with you?” And, you’re, you start a performance plan.
Or you could care about people as humans, which takes more energy, more calories, and the body doesn’t like to spend calories. The body wants to save calories. Yeah, go ahead.
Russel Lolacher: no, I was just gonna say, I, I’m curious about the tipping point both internally and externally, because the motivation for a lot of high performers to get into leadership roles and positions is money, first off, ’cause I’m not making enough to get to that tier. I need to be a leader.
I need to have people that I’m responsible for. Or it’s just responsibility profile. I mean, these are all the things. So as an individual, I’m looking at it from t- m- micro/macro here a bit. As an individual, how do I know as a high performer or just a performer, ’cause I know some great leaders that were not high performers, how do I m- know that I’m ready to move to that next bic- next bit?
And from the other side of it, how does an organization know going, “You know what? Sally’s ready to move up to be leadership. She’s been a high performer, but I’m seeing something in her.” How do we know it internally and how do we know it externally that there’s that ready for that leap?
Adrian Koehler: Well, I used to talk about a thing I haven’t talked about in a while, but I used to call it the readiness myth, and here’s what I meant by that I don’t know if I’m ready. What is readiness? Readiness is like a, a, a, a projection into the future, believing that if I’m in that situation, I’ll know what to do and I’ll do what it takes.
That’s a projection of the future. So I don’t think we actually ever… I mean, the whole preparedness thing and am I prepared for it, it’s just a superstition, I would say. Now, it’s… I- I- If I think that it’s like that, I think we’re in trouble. But on the other hand, how do I know if I’m ready? If I’m willing to do what it takes, I’m ready. That’s what I– That’s my honest answer for it, ’cause I don’t know what it’s gonna take. I can think I know, but that’s just a superstition. I better have a more of an internal lens saying, “Okay, am I w- ready or am I really, am I willing to do whatever it takes, ask any question in any room, look as much of a fool as necessary, speak up s- d- stop hiding, put my…
be fully exposed, and then utilize all my capabilities to go figure out what the real problem is,” which most people don’t do. They treat symptoms in every area of life. They treat symptoms instead of core issues. And get down to it and then, expose, expose myself that people might not like me.
That’s a big one for most people, especially Canadians. Not like you, Russel. You’re like u- distinct. But, but especially Canadians. And, and then I- I- I’m gonna d- see, learn, do whatever is necessary to get the results, and hopefully do it with great people, and have a heart for I… They aren’t my enemy.
They are my ally. And even if they think they’re my enemy, to me, they’re not. And even if they don’t like me, that’s okay. It’s like I’m, I’m just imagining if I jump up… This happens all the time in, in companies, is like I, I’m a peer with people, all of a sudden I start managing the people I was a peer with, and that’s a tension.
And if they don’t like that, that’s okay, but I’m here to get a job done, and I care about you. I want you to win. If I’m, if I’m, like, talking to my, my, my former peer, now m- my in… The, the person that reports to me is, “Hey, Sally,” or, “Hey, Tom. Hey, Tom. Hey, man, I know this is awkward, but I don’t want any animosity here.
I can’t control it from your side, but I just want you to know it’s weird. I get that it’s weird. I want you to know I’m on your team, and however I can help you win, I’m here for you.” People don’t speak like that. That takes guts to own the room in that way. But if you’re willing to do that, and that’s w- how you set the tone, and then Tom gets to decide, is he willing to work on your team or not?
If he’s not, okay. “Well, Tom, I love you, but y- if you don’t wanna work with me, you wanna gossip about me, that doesn’t work. It’s never gonna work with me, man. So… But, but I get it. It’s a human thing.” Whatever, all that. So you’re, you’re not ready, but you’re willing. And there- not that you ought not be educated and go find mentors and f- that, do all that stuff, but there’s no…
It’s a readiness myth. Just if you’re willing to go be the fool for the sake of the, the mission. And you have to have a personal, I think a personal calling to become the type of person that can get that job done. That would be also another distinction, because it’s also a be- you know me, I’m a being person, so, I have to be willing to see myself in a new way and call myself to a higher standard.
It’s like the next level of adventure, and am I up for that or not? It’s okay if you’re not, but be real with yourself, ’cause if you go chase the dollars, it’s not gonna work anyway. You’re gonna go make a whole bunch of enemies and blame everybody else until it doesn’t work, and then you’ll get fired or whatever and, blame them.
You’ll have reasons instead of results. So that was the first part. I think your second question was as an organization. A Patrick Lencioni book comes to mind. Let’s see if I can remember it. He had three things. Humble, hungry, and something else. It was like three H’s, like Patrick Lencioni does.
But anyway, but as an, as a It’s a bummer I can’t remember that right now. But you guys should… If, if, if listeners haven’t read anything from Lencioni, you ought to. He’s written a handful of New York Times bestsellers. This is, I think, called “The Ideal Team Player: Humble, Hungry, and Smart.” Those, those are he…
Those were his three things: humble, hungry, and smart. So if I’m running an organization, I’m always… There’s two, there’s two buckets for me, and this is how I coach my folks, especially when we’re looking at a breakdown with any kind of employee they’ve got. Is it a competency issue or is it an attitudinal issue?
Usually things fit into one of those two, and it’s the, the, the search is shorter in the competency issue, meaning do they have the, do they have the market knowledge? Do they have the willingness? Do they have the intellect? Do they have the curiosity? Do they have the… All those things. Those are pretty easy to understand.
And then the other bucket is attitudinal, and if the competency hasn’t shown up quickly after the breakdown has occurred, then it’s actually not a competency issue, it’s an attitudinal issue. Because if Russel has a problem, and he cares about the problem, he’s gonna figure out how to solve it in what, a day, two days?
You got, you got 15 people you’re gonna call. You got 100 YouTube videos you’re gonna watch. You got three conferences you’re gonna sign up for. It’s like you’ll solve the competency issue rather quickly if the attitude is there. So if I’m running an organization, I’m gonna listen really for the hungry part and the humble part.
Am I… Is somebody being, teachable, and are they, are they willing to put the work in? And then do they have the intellect to go absorb the information and put it to work? Those are, like, three things that m-my, that, that come to mind. But I’ll bet on attitude all day long. Obviously, somebody can’t be, not have the mental capacity for it, but you know, it’s like I, I don’t have the mental capac- I mean, I coach…
All of my clients are, like, 10 times smarter than I am, and I… It took a while to get over that, but that’s just the case. That’s just the case. They beat me in, in test scores in high school, all of them. But yet they call me to talk about the hard stuff they don’t know how to get through. So I have to be humble enough to own my s- what I do to serve these folks that are more brilliant than I am, and I get insecure about it frequently ’cause they’re all brilliant, and I’m…
Well, I hope they don’t… No. They don’t hire me for that. They hire me for what they… The courage that I provoke in them. So that’s what… So I, I look for attitude in that way, is like what’s somebody’s vision of the world? What’s somebody’s vision of themselves? Are they willing to sure those two things up?
Are they willing to be committed to their own personal transformation? And they’d have to have the chops, sure, but it’s really that commitment to personal evolution and transformation that makes the big difference. And it’s really, I think maybe to your… I’ll, I’ll shut up here. But your… The title of your podcast, “Relationships at Work,” do they see that people are the answer?
The strategy is not the problem. If the thing’s not working, we’ll blame it on the strategy, but it’s actually not that. It’s about what didn’t happen in the room at the strategy meeting. It’s the conversations that didn’t happen, and people were chickens. They, they, they saved themselves from the exposure of being honest about what probably what they saw and weren’t willing to put language to, if that makes sense.
So if… I will take anybody that sees other people as possibility and is willing to disrupt the current system at play for the sake of the future that hasn’t yet been adopted, I’ll take that person all day long because, that person can till the soil, if you will, of a… if there’s a six-person meeting, those are usually a waste of time because somebody’s talking and everybody’s just in Tom’s meeting instead of “Oh, no, no, I’m here to make Tom better. That’s my job. If, if I report to Tom, my job is to make Tom better
Russel Lolacher: How do organizat– so organizations are generally… Now this, I, I, I can’t disagree with anything you’re saying. Here’s my problem, though, with leadership ecosystems, is that we don’t know what leadership is. So we look at people going, “You’re the– you’re humble, you’re smart,” but that’s performative a lot of the time ’cause people know how to manage up.
They know how to be a high performer, and they know to tell you what you wanna hear. Meanwhile, their terms– team’s burnt out, their turnover rate’s crazy, but they’re like, “But they’re still delivering. They’re fine. They’re a great leader ’cause they keep delivering.” But that’s still back to the performative side of things rather than true leadership.
So how do we crack that nut? Because there is that misconception that delivery equals leadership when that is a part of it and not solely all of it.
Adrian Koehler: Yeah. I was gonna ask you when you said that we don’t know what leadership is, I was gonna ask you what you meant by that. I think I know now by the rest of your question. At le- at least it sounds to me and, and correct me if I’m wrong, and you might be speaking from more of a corporate background, and I, I, I feel for corporate folks.
I wasn’t ever a corporate person. I’d get fired immediately. So God bless you all that can, that can play that game. And I’m not a big fan just ’cause for me, there’s not a lot of vitality in like just playing the game for 20 years. And so there’s nothing wrong with you. If you’re good at it, get after it.
That’s great. That’s why I coach mostly founders of companies now. I started out coaching middle managers, and then I realized, oh, I work better with entrepreneurs ’cause they’re usually, what I call Type A dickheads. They’re my favorite people. I get them. I’m… I can, I can be one of them.
You can ask my children. So but to your question, yeah, I, I think, you know- Underlying your questions is, is a, is a nuance in there, which is yes, if you’re part of a, if you’re part of a culture where it’s like results are all there is, that’s what matters. The, the, the, the… What is it? The, the end justifies the means.
Russel Lolacher: Mm-hmm.
Adrian Koehler: And if you live in that way, and if you’re not willing to be a means, then you should get out of that culture, I would say. Because un- I mean, everybody needs to understand the under-the-table negotiation of what the company’s about, right? So what do we care about? What we care about is actually what’s happening. That’s what we care about. So those are… It is results, but it’s also experience. What’s the experience of people that work here? And if you look around, if you feel it for yourself, “Oh, I don’t matter here, I’m a number,” or, “If I’m in a meeting, I can get dismissed or I can get ridiculed and I can get publicly whatever,” that’s– And then that’s– If that happens and nobody talks about it, that is the norm. And so, so to sit around complaining about how someone treats someone, and if I’ve been there more than a year, then you’re a part of the system, because your silence is a contribution to the system. Now, so I, a lot of my work is based on kind of the concept more the reality, I would say, of personal responsibility, is that if you’re in a meeting, it’s your meeting, period.
If you’ve been invited, you’re not, might not be the one, quote-unquote, “running it,” but what a great hiding place. So stop hiding and start owning it. If you’re in the meeting, it’s your meeting. Now, most people don’t take that on ’cause that’s risky to say that my voice matters even if I’ve been giving the me- if I’ve been given the me- megaphone or not.
I decide if my voice matters. I decide if I have integrity or not. So if you have a, if you have a twinge internally that someone ought not to be talked about that way and you don’t say anything, you’re as bad as the bad guy that said it So that’s, that’s a pretty daring idea. So, but if you’re gonna think about culture and you’re gonna think about where you’re going, and you’re gonna think about what’s necessary to move forward I would look at it from a lens of personal responsibility ’cause there’s the most vitality in there.
So to your point, if you’re in a culture that’s just results-driven, you gotta think about yourself. How much do you wanna be a tool? ‘Cause you are a tool. If that’s all there is, then you are a tool. Great. Do I… Th- Am I okay with that? It might be worth the money. It might be. It, I, I just b- or maybe it aligns with my history, of wh- the family I grew up with, and it’s just natural for me.
I like to be a tool. People wouldn’t say it that way, but that’s… Results tell us the truth more than we do. So if I’m used to being what’s the word? If I’m, if I’m used to being abused, then being in an abusive environment is actually the most cul- the most safe environment I know.
Now, they wouldn’t use safe, but it’s the most predictable, which actually e- for our brain, predictability equals safety. I know what’s coming. My boss is a jerk, and I like… My dad was a jerk, so I like working with jerks. Works. I know what to do. I know how to keep my head down. I know how to perform. I know how to have penance.
I know… That’s wh- it just, it’s normal for me. So it’s but there’s a but you’ll, you’ll complain about it just like you do about your dad, like you complain about your boss, all that stuff. But it’s just if to, to… If you wanna get free, you gotta get real about the deal you make with reality.
That’s a weird statement, for most people, but it’s like, what’s the deal I make? So to your point again, the question is, is do we care about people? Now, that is actually… you can quantify that quite simply by saying, “Hey, Russel, how are you doing, man?” But you’d have to be willing to hear the answer, ’cause it might not be h- he might say, “I’m, I hate it here.” And then you’d have to deal with what’s there for him, either what’s, what is, what you agree with, with Russel’s perspective, or the type of care and concern you’d have to have for Russel to challenge maybe some of his concerns, and that takes vulnerability. So I’m speaking about a way to engage reality in a way that’s full of questions instead of full of solutions, if that makes sense.
Like if, if, if you came to, So if you, if, if we worked together and you were upset about something and you, you brought me your complaint, and if I just kept so- cosigning on your complaint without asking you any questions, I’m not your friend, I’m an accomplice. So I, I wanna care about you enough to make sure that you got to the bottom of your issue so you weren’t miserable for the next 10 years. But most folks aren’t willing to do that or don’t, just don’t have the skills to do that, or don’t have the language for it. But m- usually not the internal courage to deal with what’s there and realize that Russel’s issue is Russel’s issue. Does Russel wanna solve his problem or not solve his problem? That’s the first question. Do you wanna solve it or not? And most people don’t wanna solve anything. They’d rather hide, they’d
Russel Lolacher: It’s hard
Adrian Koehler: Rather hide in their complaint. Well, yeah, it’s hard, hard in the sense that oh, Russel would have to take a leap to get out from behind his complaint.
All of our complaints in life are shields that, that, that are meant to protect us from the responsibility we have to the contribution we’re making to the problem we’re complaining about. That’s a weird, long statement. But if I’m complaining about you and you’re my boss, and if I, my complaint shields me from looking at me in the mirror and say, “Hold on, Russel, my boss, I like him for these reasons, I hate him for these reasons.
I wonder how I’m contributing to the things I hate about him.” Most people don’t ask that question because it’s safer and because they can justify it and because they have something to talk about at the barbecue instead of saying, “Hey, you know what? Do I care about Russel or not?” That’s the question.
Do I care about the results or not? And if I don’t and I’m here, then do I like the integrity I’m not living in, or am I willing to take a risk and have some real conversations? That’s, that’s the pain in the ass I am for any client that’s working with me.
Russel Lolacher: It’s funny you bring that up. I talk regularly about the seven blind spots. Yeah, seven blind spots to great leadership ecosystems, and one of the biggest ones is avoidance, is that we just don’t want uncomfortable conversations. We don’t wanna do extra work ’cause we’re busy enough as it is. So why not just not make eye contact?
Why not let’s not do… have those conversations? So I, I completely hear what you’re saying. What this leads me to is to understand your coaching with your clients. Is that… So you’re working with people that are alphas. They’re the people that have made these organizations what they are, being entrepreneurs, building something up.
They were doers. They were doers for a long time, so there had to be that switch that they went from doers to leaders. How are you helping them realize that that is now their job now instead of being the doer? That, that’s the reason we’re a success is I started this thing, blah, blah, blah
Adrian Koehler: Yeah. Well, that’s why I love these folks. I mean, my experience, and I’m sure if you’re listening here, you’re a leader, and you are responsible for a lot of the great outcomes, and good for you, because the world rises and falls on the backs of leaders. So thank you if you’re a leader here. Also leaders tend to have the experience of being very alone.
They call it being alone at the top. It, it’s not that to me. It’s like the experience of being alone at the top, which is a nuance that most folks won’t make. But the experience actually has its payoffs as well as its prices. We only wanna look at the prices, but there’s payoffs because I actually don’t have to do anything.
I don’t have to open myself up and say something. So but if, if people are in that, that, that situation, in that context, and they, they have created it, it’s almost it’s the, the image that comes to my mind, and I’m thinking about an old mentor of mine that told me this once. It’s ’cause he was into rock climbing, like wall climbing.
It’s like they go to the gym and go do a thing. And there’s a move if you’re doing wall climbing, and I’m not some wall climbing expert like rock climbing, but th-they call it a, a dynamic shift or a dyno, I’ve actually thinked of what they call it. And this is where you skip, you skip a handle, right?
So it’s like you could go one, one, one, one, one all the way up, or you could just jump and do three. And so that’s what comes to mind when you ask that question is even, one of my most fun clients that I’ve worked with for several years now which we talked about a little bit before the, the show started, world-class engineer.
World-class, like built things that everybody would know if I explained it here, that he did. And now the conversation, this week versus six years ago is very distinct. His questions are about what do you think… he’ll, he’ll mention a problem employee or a guy that’s not performing.
He says, “What do you think the conversation is that I need to have that would be worth five conversations in one?”
Russel Lolacher: It’s
Adrian Koehler: by the way. It’s much more personal. We’d love it if it was all X’s and O’s, and it was all very linear and very binary, and it’s let’s just do this thing.
Let’s, let’s give the let’s let’s write the equation. No, there’s actually questions that, that are worth five answers, if that makes sense. And so I think that’s my real answer to your question is, like, when people make that jump, they must be willing to take a lot more risk, interpersonal risk, than they did before.
‘Cause usually they have to risk time, they have to risk energy, they have to risk some level of exposure. But now it’s oh, sh– I have to become, I need to become really nuanced at how to, how to generate the most powerful conversation in the room, not get to the right answers in the room. And that’s, that might sound weird to people listening, which I understand if it does.
But it’s like actually having inquiry that drives performance, not answers, because the brain is looking for answers. It’s called Cartesian inquiry. It’s what do I not know versus what do I know? That’s how we move. That’s how we build buildings. That’s how we, build companies. What do I, what do I not know?
What do I know I don’t know? And how do I move it to what do I know I know? That’s called Cartesian inquiry. It’s built the whole world. Welcome to the Renaissance. Now, this type of thing is what do I not know what I don’t know? Like, where am I blind? And as a leader, it’s intimidating to even think about that, because if people saw what I’m, what I’m blind to, I’m sure I would die, ’cause it’s about ego in that sense.
Instead of standing and, “Hey, there’s something not working here, and I don’t even know the right question to ask. But let’s just sit here awkwardly for a second and talk about what it could be. What am I not seeing that I ought to see?” Most leaders don’t ask that question. If they did, they’d be much more successful.
What am I not talking about that I need to be talking about? What’s, what are people talking about when they’re not around me? That’s a powerful question. What are the rumors about me right now? Can you please help me out? If I could move as a leader, if I could take a big leap, what do you think I would need to understand in order to do that?
That takes some guts to ask that. I always say, like, when a leader comes to an epiphany, they’re the last one to the party, ’cause that’s the, the case for most of us, ’cause there’s, there’s a million conversations about you as a leader if you sign up for the job. And if you wanna engage the fact that that’s not a problem, that’s the gift of being a leader, is that your team is also there for you. If you don’t see them as enemies, if you see their feedback as a gift to you, you don’t have to agree with it, but if you see their feedback as a gift to you, it’s oh, wow, what a… this is great. And if you listen to it and you absorb it, it’s like respect goes through the roof. You make changes based on what they said.
Oh my gosh, trust happens. Their voice matters. Yeah. Go.
Russel Lolacher: the awareness you’re nailing on. No, the awareness, the empathy. It’s just, it’s so funny ’cause a lot of leaders in those positions have no concept of the damage they’re doing by still trying to be doers, because they’re not being their full potential leaders in those because they’re still too busy being in the micro rather than thinking of the macro, right?
So they d- they don’t get it. But, I mean, it, it takes that curiosity, it takes that humbleness, to your point earlier, of shifting the needle going, “But if I just take a moment.” So yeah, I’m thrilled that that’s the work you’re doing because it helps shift that needle and just, it’s a ripple effect to the whole organization ’cause that’s modeling for other people too.
So I wanna wrap it up with a question around for leaders that may not realize they are causing that damage. They may not realize they are half-assing leadership, to be completely honest, because they’re still doing that doer role because they’re so easy and good at it. What would you tell them tomorrow if they wanted to take that first step into self-realization, that curiosity?
What would you recommend they do to start down that path of really embracing what authentic leadership is?
Adrian Koehler: Yeah. That’s, probably ask a whole bunch more questions. One of the things that comes to mind first is this. ‘Cause it, there became a conversation in culture probably I would say maybe, I don’t know, eight, 10 years ago, where micromanagement was like the curse word. It’s “Oh, my boss is micromanaging me.”
And they probably were, because they didn’t trust you. And but what’s necessary is what I call like m- micro accounting And here’s what I mean by that, is like most leaders don’t build a culture based on agreements. They build a culture based, based on guesses or, or, b- based on assumptions would be the better word.
Is that, is that, okay, because Tom’s smart, Tom went to a great school, Tom’s done this and that, then when I ask Tom to do this, he’ll do it. And that’s, that’s an assumption, and that fails both parties. Fails both parties. Actually isn’t good for Tom. Now, but if you’re asking Tom details, he’s gonna feel like you’re micromanaging him.
So you gotta generate a whole conversation about why I’m interested in both results a- and him as a person. Two things. And if I’m a, if I’m a leader that wants to make the shift, I gotta own that tension. It is a tension. It’s if you get close to results, people are gonna feel like you’re in their business.
And by the way, if you’re a leader and you’re responsible, you’re paid to be in their business. Now, if it comes off, if, if you are a person that doesn’t trust people and isn’t willing to bestow trust… And I, I… Trust is a gift, not something people earn. We could do an hour on that. But trust is a gift. I’m gonna trust you.
And by the way, how will I know if I ought to trust you is if what you said was gonna happen, happen. Period. That’s what an agreement is. It’s a promise. Like a promise is somebody sends forth the future that’s gonna happen. That’s what a promise is. And with that is commitment. I’m sending with my promise myself.
That’s what commitment means. Pr- permittere committere in Latin. I can nerd out about that. But anyway, I’m gonna send with my promise myself. Therefore, back to what I said earlier, I’m gonna do whatever it takes. Now, if I don’t deliver, it means I wasn’t willing to make the requests in the meantime to renegotiate my promise or to let the person that I’m responsible to know that it wasn’t gonna happen, and then renegotiate the promise.
Now, most people aren’t willing to be this surgical, which I understand, ’cause it- it’s a pain in the ass. I’d rather just judge Tom instead of get to know Tom and see what Tom needs to have happen for him and what his issues are. And if you’ve got… If you’re a leader with a bunch of high performers, they are scared to death to be normal. Like high performers want to stand out from the crowd, so if they’re f- if they’re failing, they’re probably gonna hide it. That’s what high performers do. We hide it until we figure it out ourselves. So if you’re a high performer that wants to get into this next level of leadership, first off, own all that.
See all that yourself, by the way, so when you see it in somebody else, you don’t judge it, you get close to it. And don’t lower the bar Raise the bar. It’s hey, communication and interdependence is the goal here. I need you, you need me. Everybody needs each other. Can we stop faking it like we don’t?
And if you perform, I like you. That’s what, that’s what the transactional mind wants to do. If you give me what I want, I’m your friend. If you don’t, you’re my enemy. That’s the way the brain works. Instead of a commitment to say, “We’re gonna need each other, so we’re gonna need to be a lot more vulnerable.”
And if you don’t have what it takes in the moment… ‘Cause you never know what’s going on for people. Somebody’s parent might have died, or somebody’s dog might be sick, or somebody, whatever the thing. They might be going through that, but they won’t bring that to the surface and let you know so you can help intervene or bring somebody else to the table.
But you can create that kind of culture where let’s just deal with reality and what’s wanted and needed to make it happen. As if, Russel’s a killer guy that executes, but not this week because he had a baby, and so he’s busy. And he might fake it, but he’s not gonna deliver, and he’s gonna make up all these excuses probably.
Or he could just say, “Hey, man, I’m having a baby, so I need a bunch more help than normal. Can we do that?” And so, if you create that type of environment where people speak about what’s wanted and needed versus what they wanna look like, which is human. The human being wants to look good, feel good, be right, be in control.
That’s human being, like period. That’s gravity for humans. So you need to create a conversation where people can prioritize both the outcomes and the relational dynamics over just looking good or being right or being in control or that kind of thing. So that’s what I would do. That might be a little bit mystical for people listening to it, but, call me.
We’ll talk about it.
Russel Lolacher: It’s a lot of work to get to for tomorrow. Adrian Koehler is here. He is a no BS leadership coach and culture consultant, senior partner at Take New Ground. Thank you so much for being here, Adrian.
Adrian Koehler: You’re amazing, brother. Thank you, man. Thanks for the conversation. So dynamic. Love what you’re up to