Instant Leadership Talks
PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in
newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to
the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource
box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is
appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com
Word count: 1700
Summary: The human heart has a great capacity to be changed in
an instant, prompting the people who experience the changes to
take new actions. The author sees this heart-dynamic as a
leadership opportunity, offers examples, and provides a tool,
the Leadership Talk, to help leaders consistently achieve
heartfelt connections with the people they lead.
Instant Leadership Talks by Brent Filson
An extraordinary feature of the human heart is its capacity to
be profoundly changed in an instant. Experiences that take place
in the blink of an eye can propel individuals to radically alter
their behavior and even the course of their lives.
Making use of this inherent quality of the heart can boost the
effectiveness of your leadership. For it is in the realm of
heartfelt words and actions that great leadership results accrue.
For the past 22 years, I've been teaching a process to leaders
of all ranks and functions in top companies worldwide, a process
that can help you take advantage of the heart's great potential.
It's called The Leadership Talk.
The Leadership Talk is a way of making deep, emotional
connections with the people for the purpose of achieving great
results.
You can look at my website for more information on the
Leadership Talk. I've written many books and scores of articles
about it. However, for this article, I want to focus on one
thing: the time it takes to give a Leadership Talk. And that
gets back to the human heart and its ability to be quickly and
deeply changed.
Leaders often ask me, "How long should a Leadership Talk be?"
My reply is: "As long as it takes -- not a moment longer."
Let's be clear about "what it takes." The value of the
Leadership Talk lies in its function. The function of every
Leadership Talk is to motivate people to choose to be your cause
leaders. Only cause leaders can achieve great results
consistently. To make this happen, you must develop a special
relationship with those people. After all, one may do a task and
get average results; but to get great results, one should take
leadership of that task. Taking on leadership is not a
commitment people make easily or lightly. Being a leader
requires one to embrace a higher order of expectations and
achievements. It also challenges one to develop richer, more
results-effective human relationships. A Leadership Talk may
take five minutes or ten or 20 minutes or more. However, because
of the heart's extraordinary dynamics, a Leadership Talk can be
done in a moment. Here are a few "instant Leadership Talks" to
demonstrate this. Note that sometimes no words were involved.
Words are not absolutely necessary when it comes to giving
Leadership Talks.
--Seeing abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison dragged with a rope
down a Boston Street by a pro-slavery mob, Wendell Phillips
became so outraged that he joined the abolitionist movement and
became one of its most effective activists.
--When anti-French passions were sweeping England in the late
18th century, Voltaire who had been living in London for several
years was set upon by an angry mob. "Hang the Frenchman! Hang
him!" shouted the rabble.
Voltaire responded, "Men of England! You wish to hang me because
I'm French? Isn't NOT BEING BORN ENGLISH PUNISHMENT ENOUGH?" The
crowd laughed and cheered and escorted him back to his quarters.
--Doug Collins, member of the '72 U.S. Olympic team that
ultimately lost the gold medal on a disputed call to the Soviet
Union, describes the dramatic moments at the end of the game. .
"We're losing by one. The Soviets have the ball. The clock's
running out. I hide behind the center, bait a guy into throwing
a pass, knock it loose and grab it. A Russian goes under me as
I'm going up for the lay-up. I'm KO'd for a second. The coaches
run to me. John Bach, one of the assistants, says, 'We gotta get
somebody to shoot the fouls." But coach Hank Iba says, 'If Doug
can walk, he'll shoot.' That electrified me. The coach believed
in me. I can't even remember feeling any pressure. Three
dribbles, spin the ball, toss it in, same as in my backyard. I
hit 'em both and got the lead. I didn't know what I was made of
until then."
--a General Electric client of mine in the mid-1980s told me
this. "I was a young Naval officer reporting with many other new
sailors aboard an aircraft carrier. The captain met us in a
formation on the flight deck. He shook my hand and went down the
line greeting many other sailors. I didn't think anything of it
until several weeks later when he passed by me in a passageway.
He said, 'Hi, Herb!' I never forgot that. He remembered my name
despite the fact that he had met scores of new sailors that day.
It's made a tremendous impact on me till this day."
--In the first December of the first World War, Admiral Beatty
received a radiogram from Sir George Warrender from his ship.
"Scarborough being shelled. I am proceeding to Hull." Lord
Beatty replied, "Are you? I'm proceeding to Scarborough."
--King Henry II and Thomas Becket, his archbishop of Canterbury,
quarreled for years led over the rights and powers of the church
and the state. When Becket remained steadfast in his
excommunication of Henry's appointees, the Bishops of London and
Salibury, Henry, celebrating Christmas in Normandy, raged, "Will
no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" Four knights, members
of his household, answered the question. They crossed the
Channel, rode to the Cantebury Cathedral and killed Becket at
the altar. Eventually, the Cantebury Cathedral became a shrine,
Becket was canonized, and Henry was made to atone by walking
barefoot in a sack-cloth through the streets of Cantebury being
flogged by eight monks with branches.
--At a public meeting during which he was censuring the recently
dead Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev was interrupted by a voice
in the crowd. "You were one of Stalin's colleagues, why didn't
you stop him?" "Who said that?" Stalin roared. There was a
painful silence in the room . "Now," Khruschev said, in a quiet
voice, "you know why."
--A year and a half after the battle of Yorktown, the
Continental Army was becoming increasingly rebellious. Many of
the troops hadn't been paid in two years. Their promised
pensions were not forthcoming. The troops and its officer corps
contemplated overthrowing the Continental Congress and
installing a military government. On the Ides of March in 1783,
dozens of officers, representing every company in the army, met
in a log hut to vote on taking this action when George
Washington suddenly and unexpectedly walked in. He gave a speech
denouncing the rebellious course they were on. But it wasn't the
speech that carried the day, it was the Leadership Talk at the
end of the speech. Witnesses report that Washington's speech
left many officers unconvinced, and when he was finished, there
was angry muttering among them. To bolster his case, the general
pulled out a letter he recently received from a member of the
Continental Congress. As he began reading, his usual confident
air gave way to hesitancy. Then, unexpectedly, he drew out a
spectacle case from his pocket. Few officers had ever seen him
put on spectacles. Usually a severely formal man, he said, in a
voice softened with apology: "Gentlemen, you will permit me to
put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost
blind in the service of my country."
The deep, human, emotional power of that moment electrified the
officers. Here was their commander who had never taken a
furlough during his eight years of command, who had faced storms
of musketry fire, who through his daring and intelligence had
kept the Army in tact in what most of the world thought was a
lost cause, here was George Washington modestly asking his
officers to bear with him in an all-too-human failing. It was an
astonishing turning point.
As Maj. Samuel Shaw, who was present, put it in his journal,
"There was something so natural, so unaffected in this appeal as
rendered it superior to the most studied oratory. It forced its
way to the heart, and you might see sensibility moisten every
eye."
After Washington left the hut, the officers unanimously voted to
"continue to have unshaken confidence in the justice of the
Congress and their country ...." The result was that the
Continental Army disbanded without incident and thereby set in
motion the relatively peaceful events that led to the creation
of the Constitution.
There are countless more examples of a moment's action or words
having a great effect on people's lives.
--Winston Churchill: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall
fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and
in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never
surrender."
--John Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you ...."
--Muhammad Ali making history in 1967 at an Army recruiting
station in Houston, Texas when he refused to take one step
forward with a group of fellow inductees to indicate his
willingness to be drafted, a refusal which led to his being
stripped of his heavyweight championship title.
--Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095 exhorting the
knights of Europe to set off on the First Crusade to capture the
Holy Land, ending one of the most important speeches in all of
history with this rousing cry: "Deus vult!" ("God wills it!")
--Ronald Reagan: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
--Samuel Alito's wife fleeing the hearing room in tears and
prompting the Democratic leaders to sheathe their critical
knives and end their verbal assault on the judge, paving the way
for his appointment to the Supreme Court.
I am not saying that any instant Leadership Talk will work. The
time has to be right, the situation right, the speaker right,
and the audience right. However, when the right things come
together, all it takes to trigger great change may be -- like a
diamond cutter's single blow precisely cleaving the gem -- a
momentary Leadership Talk. As we've seen, that Talk can be a few
words, one word or no words at all.
Because of the heart's capacity to be changed in an instant, the
length of time you interact with someone to gain their heartfelt
response is irrelevant. When you master The Leadership Talk, you
can make that impact consistently with many people throughout
your entire career. 2006