February 3, 2025 • 23 mins
You track your calories, steps, and tasks but how are you tracking your productivity and fulfillment? The author of Good to Great, Jim Collins, shares his system for rating each day. Lone Rock Leadership co-founder Russ Hill shares the system and why he's a huge fan of it.
• Distinction between activity and meaningful results
• Jim Collins' system after writing Good to Great book
• Evaluating productivity through a personalized rating system
• Practical applications of tracking emotional and intellectual engagement
• Encouragement for leaders to define their own metrics for success
• Importance of aligning actions with personal and organizational goals
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're tracking your calories.
You're tracking your steps.
You're tracking how many tasksyou're getting done each day,
but how are you tracking yourproductivity?
Look if you're actually movingyour career, your organization,
your team forward.
Some great thoughts from JimCollins, the author of Good to
Great, in this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
You cannot be serious.
Strengthen your ability to leadin less than 30 minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It is absolutely one of the ways that you increase
your value in the marketplacefor leaders, for managers,
executives, business owners,whatever it is that you do.
Everybody's busy right, andRoger Connors and Tom Smith,
when they wrote the Oz Principle, when they created the firm
that was Partners in Leadership,where I got started in the
(00:56):
consulting space, one of thethings that they were brilliant
about focusing on was thisdifference between activity and
results.
Like everybody's busy activity,just tons of activity, and know
what?
The truly successful people,the leaders that are in greatest
demand, are those that actuallyfocus on results.
(01:17):
The most successful businessexecutives, founders, executives
, founders, the people who aregrowing organizations are those
that focus on results.
And so in this episode, Iwanted to give you something to
think about and something thatJim Collins said in an interview
that I have studied and studiedand studied in recent days,
(01:40):
that I want to share with youand get you thinking about.
Welcome into the Lead.
In 30 podcast, in less than 30minutes, in each episode, we
give you a framework, a model,an experience, something to
think about implementing or howyou're doing when it comes to
this topic or this area in youreffort to effectively lead other
people.
Nothing impacts your growthpotential, your income potential
(02:05):
, your happiness.
Honestly, when it comes down toit, your fulfillment, then your
ability to lead others, whetherthose people, those others, are
in your family, at your church,in your community, at your
nonprofit, at the corporationthat you lead, at the company
that you just started, whateverit might be.
Your ability to lead othersaffects everything, and so why
(02:27):
not strengthen it?
That's what we're doing inevery episode, or at least we're
trying to, in every episode oflead in 30.
I'm Russ Hill.
I make my living coaching,consulting executive teams of
some of the world's most amazingcompanies we love.
We love the organizations thatwe work with.
We get to choose them becausewe own the company and they're
(02:48):
phenomenal.
They're absolutely amazingpeople.
I learn so much from them, andanything that's valuable that we
as a firm or that I'm bringingto the marketplace is coming
through, observing verysuccessful leaders and doing
that at scale over a lot ofyears, and you see what works.
So we're not studying I mean,there's data involved, but we're
(03:11):
not.
We're not in a collegeclassroom studying academic
principles than publishing booksor or articles or white papers
or videos online about whatseems to work.
No, these are things that areactually causing on-time
delivery quality at factories toimprove.
(03:31):
No, these are things that areactually improving the patient
experience.
These are things that areactually increasing safety
metrics in hospitals.
These are things that areactually you get the point right
and so we get to observe thatand hopefully have a small
impact in it and then share itwith you.
Get the point right and so weget to observe that and
hopefully have a small impact init and then share it with you.
So, anyway, all right.
Um, let's see, what did I forget?
Lone rockio?
(03:52):
Lone rock leadership is thename of our firm.
We've got a training, aconsulting side.
You can find out more about itat lone rockio.
Okay, jim Collins, you know whohe is.
Right, he hasn't been on thescene as, like, I haven't heard
his name mentioned a lot in,I'll be honest, 15 years, 20
(04:15):
years, when he came out with thebook good to great and there
are probably a bunch of you thatare like what, what are you
talking about?
Good to great?
It was.
It was really popular, gosh,whenever it came out, which was
a long time ago and, uh, this isa long before I got in the
consulting, uh, industry.
I was an executive working atan organization.
We actually it was like a bookthat was handed out at one of
our meetings.
(04:35):
We read it and, um, I don'tknow if we had some training on
it or how that worked the levelfive leadership.
And you know the right person,the, the.
The big idea out of good togreat was the.
You know the, the and the idea.
By the way, for those of youthat aren't familiar with it, um
, cause I think it's I, the someof the principles totally apply
today.
There's no question about it,and Jim Collins is brilliant.
(04:57):
He's a really smart guy, um,but you don't hear as much about
him anymore, and when this bookcame out, it was about taking a
good company and making itgreat.
I agree with some of theprinciples that he teaches, but
I disagree with some of hispremise.
In fact, in the interview thisinterview that I've listened to
over and over again recently,along with several other
(05:19):
interviews from other people,and I'll share more about why
later.
But what you consume affectswhat you create, right, and so
our job is to create models,frameworks, ideas and and so
night, not 90, 70% of the stuffthat we come up with never gets
the light of day.
It never gets on a flip chartin front of an executive team,
(05:41):
it never gets in a video, it'snever published because it
doesn't meet the quality that wedemand and that our clients
demand, and so, but we'reideating, ideating, ideating
right, and out of that, 30%, 20%makes its way out into the
marketplace and that drives ourconsulting and training company.
(06:02):
So the models that we publishor that we talk about or we do
in webinars or at events orwhatever else, or with our
clients, those are the ones thatover and over and over again,
have proven to be incrediblyeffective.
So, jim Collins, one of thethings that he talks about is he
believes that the power of oneleader and I'm going to say this
(06:25):
wrong, in a way that isn'ttotally accurate, but, um, he,
he in writing good to great.
One of the things he said, uh,he said in multiple interviews
is he wanted to kind of removethe leader from the equation and
make it more about the company.
What does the organization do?
That moves from good to great,and, and.
So he talks over and over againabout trying to remove the
(06:47):
leader from it, and, and, and hefinally came up with this level
five leader idea that I haven'theard mentioned anywhere in
like decades, or at least adecade, but it's just back of my
mind because of um, of, of ofsetting this stuff recently and
um, him, along with 15 otherpeople, okay, and, and so he
(07:10):
finally relented with some ofthe data and said okay, because
the team around him, as heexplained, said no, no, no, the
leader has an impact.
And so he threw in, like thefifth principle or the fifth
idea in one of his books, goodto greater one of the others.
He said, okay, here, here's,here's acknowledgement that the
leader matters.
I totally disagree with that.
Totally disagree with that.
(07:31):
And uh, I'm a huge believer,based on my experience over and
over and over again inorganization after organization,
agnostic of industry, thatactually the leader is the first
thing you can take.
Take an organization that'samazing.
They've gone from good to great.
You put a bad executive incharge of it.
It derails it.
(07:53):
Just, it happens over and overagain.
And the opposite is true.
We take somebody who's highlyeffective, what we call a third
leader.
You put the third leader inthere, in other words, a highly
effective leader, the mosteffective leader who scales, and
it transforms the department.
You're like whoa, we had allthese engagement issues.
We couldn't hang on to talent,we had safety concerns,
(08:14):
everything got elevated,whatever it is, and all of a
sudden it's fixed overnight,overnight.
We see this over and over andover again, and so our effort to
learn and improve ourselves isthat we can be that kind of
leader.
You give us the team, you giveus the organization, you give us
the challenge you put us inthat industry.
(08:35):
You give us, you know, we tryto come up with a service in
that area or whatever else.
And we can, we, we can, uh,achieve phenomenal results
because we're that good of aleader not perfect, work in
progress, but we're that kind ofleader.
So I disagree with Jim Collinson this, but I'm kind of in the
weeds on this is the stuff Igeek out on just debating this.
I I believe that the leadingprinciple, the first idea, is
(08:57):
it's the leader, it's the teamreflects the leader period.
You have a problem with theteam.
You got a leader that has anissue.
The organization reflects theexecutive team, the culture
reflects the leader period.
No leader is perfect, but someof them are trying to model the
(09:20):
right behavior and theyunderstand the, the this
principle of the team reflectingthem, and so they pay extra
attention to it and they spendtime in their meetings and off
sites and quarterly whateverworking on themselves.
Or they've got a coach, orthey've got and not and not
somebody that's just talkingabout all these abstract ideas
like you got to focus thesefolks.
(09:41):
Anyway, I'm going to.
This is going to be lead infour hours if I don't narrow you
down.
Okay, jim Collins.
So that's a little bit about him.
Hasn't been on the scene for along time, but anyway, a
brilliant guy that came up withsome great ideas a while back,
um, or at least some amazingstuff that made a lot of
headlines years ago.
One of the things that he saidin this interview that I found a
(10:02):
ton of value in is this ratingsystem that he's developed for
every day, and he's very I don'twant to say critical, because
you're going to interpret theword wrong he critiques,
analyzes, assesses himself in avery thorough way, and so you
(10:27):
think about this, and many ofyou track a lot of things right.
There are lots of apps.
There are apps that track theamount of calories.
You're taking in One of oursons, our youngest son right now
, like he the other day, helegitimately would not eat the
takeout that I brought homebecause I didn't know the name
of the restaurant, was like awork event and then we had some
leftover.
We had a ton of leftovers.
(10:47):
I brought it home and he's like, what restaurant did that come
from?
Like I don't know, but just itwas chinese.
I'm like, just enter, like thisis Pao chicken, like it's the
same at every Chinese restaurant.
Or this broccoli beef, it's thesame at every restaurant, maybe
a little bit different.
So just find one and then enterit in.
He was like no, I can't track,he ate something different.
(11:09):
Like this was great food, buthe ate something different
because he couldn't track thecalories of it.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
We've, we've, we have derailed,but anyway he's on a big kick
with that and I'm I'm proud ofhim for being disciplined about
it.
Uh, cause it's an area that hecares about and so that's
awesome.
(11:29):
Anyway.
So we track our calories.
Some of you track your steps,you track your workouts, you
track your running, you trackwhatever.
Um, you're tracking tasks thatyou complete all these different
things.
But how do you gauge, how doyou measure?
How do you track yourproductivity?
Like, am I focused on thethings that matter most, and I
(11:53):
said at the beginning of thispodcast activity versus result,
right Results, right.
Said at the beginning of thispodcast activity versus result,
right of results, right.
So less effective, lesssuccessful people met.
Measure their effectiveness.
Did I have a good day at work?
Was that was a?
Yeah, super busy, I got a lotof the tasks done.
I had 19 things on my to-dolist.
I eliminated 18 and you getthis dopamine hit because you're
(12:15):
like, yeah, I got a lot done,but did you focus on the right
thing?
We've got a first principle inour firm that talks about ROI.
Did you prioritize?
And we use the verb publish,which just means ship, which
could mean email, which meansprint, which means do.
Whatever it means.
However you interpret it, it'sbroad.
(12:36):
Did you prioritize and publishor ship or do things that have
the highest ROI today?
That's a really interestingquestion.
So, not volume, but impact, andso many people measure.
So think about it like steps.
(12:57):
Okay, great, you did a, and I'mgoing to make up a number.
You walked a thousand steps andso you're proud of that, but
did you walk the right steps?
You tracking with me?
You understand what I'm gettingat and so no, you don't want to
fall into the trap of I checkedall those boxes and now I feel
(13:19):
really good because I got those10 things done.
That's like the basic level ofeffectiveness, like that's 22
years old and still figuring itout and not really idea.
I mean, I'm still figuring itout and I'm 85 years old, but
you know so, you don't know sothat.
But that's the basic.
That's kind of the entry level.
(13:39):
Oh, I'm just tracking tasks.
Then, as you elevate and youbecome more effective and more
impactful in an organization inyour career, you go oh, it's not
the volume of things that I gotdone, it's did I get the right
things?
The ROI of what I focused ontoday, and and then you get to
the next level.
This isn't this episode, butI've been talking about a lot
(14:01):
lately in the last few episodes.
Did you focus on and get donethe right things?
And the way to get that done isby reducing the amount of noise
, discussion, chatter in theorganization, because we have so
many meetings.
I'm not going to spend too muchtime on this because I just did
two episodes on it, but it's onmy mind, as you well know if
(14:23):
you've been listening.
Um, we.
We spend so much time talkingabout the things we need to get
done that we leave very littletime on many of our teams and
many of our organizations toactually execute.
And so we're.
We're working on efficiency.
Right, that's a popular wordright now in society and and it
(14:45):
makes a lot of peopleuncomfortable, but efficiency
comes from working on the rightthings reducing the amount of
noise and discussion not to anunhealthy, not to an
inappropriate level, cause yougot to have alignment, you got
to bring people along with you,but you're, you're, you're
finding that sweet spot.
So I'm reducing the amount oftime that I spend in meetings
and I'm spending some time there, and then I'm spending time on
(15:06):
executing.
And then am I executing ordoing the things that bring the
biggest ROI for who?
For the organization I work for, to help us achieve the results
that matter most?
On my own personal growth, onwhere I'm taking my career,
because I am not my company, Iam not my position and man, did
(15:26):
I get that wrong for like 15years, totally defined my
individual worth and value inthe marketplace, exclusively
with the organization or theteam that I led and I went and
which, which diminished my valueand it reduced the size of my
world and and and, and and andlimited how much impact I could
(15:48):
be having, because I you knowwhat I mean.
Anyway, I won't go down thatrabbit hole, okay.
So let's talk about Jim Collinsand how he evaluates, tracks,
rate his day.
This is so good.
You can come up with somethingelse.
Maybe you know something betteror different that you use.
So here's how he does it.
Um, and he he said, uh, in thisinterview that he was tracking
his emotional and intellectualengagement, so in effectiveness,
(16:13):
productivity, towards thethings that matter most, by a
plus two to negative two ratingsystem.
Here's how it plays out herates the day plus two if it was
a deeply fulfilling andproductive day.
So that's emotional and hecalls it intellectual engagement
.
I think that's like a lame term, um, so I would say engagement
(16:36):
and productivity, fulfilling andproductivity.
So in other words, did I reallyenjoy the day, did it fulfill
that?
I did it speak to my purpose,did it speak to all of that and
did I get crap done?
That was important, that had ahigh ROI on the results that I'm
trying to achieve personally,professionally, as a team, as an
organization.
He rates the day plus two.
He rates it as a plus one if itwas generally positive, made
(17:01):
some progress.
So plus two is like man crushedit.
Really effective day, notvolume of things done, but I
worked on the things that aregoing to have impact.
I made progress on them.
I'm close to the finish line,by the way.
What is that?
What is that principle?
Gosh, darn it.
I can't remember right now it'snot in front of me.
The principle that talks aboutwe will fill the amount of time
(17:24):
given to us.
We will take all the time, um,that is available to us to get
something done.
Oh gosh, I can't think of theprinciple.
It's not.
Some of you are thinking aboutit as I'm talking about it.
Yeah, anyway, I believe in that.
So if you my point in that isif you give yourself hey, let's
take three months to work onthat and in reality, we could
(17:47):
get it done in two weeks, you'regoing to, you're going to fill
on that and in reality, we couldget it done in two weeks.
You're going to, you're goingto fill three months if you give
the team that much time.
So my suggestion to you, basedon what I've seen work most
effectively in my own life andin the careers of others that we
coach or consult is giveyourself less time than you
(18:07):
think.
Give the team less time thanthey, than they want.
Otherwise you could say we'lltake a year and a half on that
Yup and you're going to takeevery minute of it.
You're going to fill it.
So give yourself less time.
So, plus two deeply fulfilling,highly productive day.
Plus one generally positive,made some progress, was
fulfilling, was fulfilling.
Zero, neutral.
(18:27):
I love that.
A neutral day Didn't gobackwards, didn't go forward,
just kind of maintained.
A lot of us have neutral days,don't you think zero that's such
a powerful score rating for aday Zero.
(18:48):
Today was a zero, negative one,a somewhat negative.
Didn't wasn't fulfilling, maybehad some, you know, things
going on that were a bigchallenge, affected you
emotionally, psychologically,whatever it might be, physically
, um, a lot of sickness goingaround at the time.
(19:09):
I'm recording this right, it'sthat time of year.
So negative one is a somewhatnegative or unproductive day.
Didn't really make a ton ofprogress, made very little on
the results that matter most.
Negative two a bad day noprogress, really Wasn't
fulfilling and didn't make anyprogress.
Roi on today very low.
(19:31):
I'm going to use this so I'llreport back in a little while
and maybe there's another system, maybe I'll tweak it away for
me.
That works better for me, but Ilove the suggestion of rating
tracking your um.
I would call it fulfillment andproductivity.
Am I, am I?
Am I working on things thatspeak to my purpose?
Am I, which for me is creating,having impact, um, helping
(19:57):
facilitate movement with theorganizations and the teams and
the leaders that we work with,or making a difference?
That's fulfilling?
And then, are we moving theneedle?
Am I moving the needle on?
The results that we'veidentified are most important,
what we call TKRs right Team keyresults.
So plus two man today crushedit.
(20:17):
Like right now I'm recordingthis podcast after 5 pm, so the
day is almost done.
And so how would I rate today?
I'd put it and you don't haveany context for this I'd
actually put today as I needmore than one and two, because
(20:40):
today isn't a two, it's totallynot a two.
I did not move the needle enough.
I got some things, but I couldhave gotten a lot more done.
I I wasn't efficient, I wasn'tproductive enough.
There's no question about it.
I could have moved the needlemore.
I had some work that wascreative, that I needed to spend
some time on, and so thatslowed me down a little bit and
(21:02):
I got that done and then had todo version two and I got it done
faster than anyone that I know,which is I'm not trying to be
egotistical, it's just astrength of mine.
I got this piece of creativityproduction done and I think it
looked good.
It was a solid B plus a minus,which is what we needed, um.
But I could have made even moreprogress in this evening.
(21:22):
After, uh, after dinner with thefamily and whatever else,
because I love what I do Doesn'tfeel like work, it's engaging.
I'll probably spend anotherhour or two.
That's generally what I doanyway, um, in the evening or
whatever else, if it, you know,if it, if it fits in well, um,
so I've still got a chance tomove the needle, but I guess I'd
put today as a plus one.
(21:43):
It wasn't neutral, I definitelymade progress, but I want like
a, uh, like a 0.5.
That's kind of more what I feellike.
So maybe I'll make this a, aone to five scale and a one, but
that's too many options.
Yeah, it's too many, I don'tknow.
Anyway, you get the point, my,my, what I wanted to share with
(22:08):
you is this rating fulfillment,rating, productivity as it
pertains to results and ROI.
I think tracking that, measuringit some way and you don't have
to do it every day I mean someof you will be into that.
I know I won't.
I won't do it, there's no way,I'll be accountable to that, but
I can do it generally and itmight just be thinking about it.
It might be writing it in anotes app or whatever else.
(22:28):
That would be interesting.
I don't really.
It might be writing it in anotes app or whatever else.
That would be interesting.
I don't really that's how Ijournal.
I don't write sit down andevery day, but rating it, I
think is super valuable.
So something to think about.
You're tracking steps, you'retracking calories, you're
tracking all these differentthings, tasks and everything
else, but are you trackingfulfillment and productivity,
(22:50):
r-o-i and everything else?
But are you trackingfulfillment and productivity R?
O?
I think of the impact on anorganization, on your career, on
the results that matter so much.
If you and others around youwere tracking that fulfillment
and productivity and then theROI and then making adjustments,
that would be huge.
(23:12):
All right, that's what's on mymind in this episode of the Lead
in 30 podcast.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Share this episode with a colleague, your team or a
friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
You're tracking your calories.
You're tracking your steps.
You're tracking how many tasksyou're getting done each day,
but how are you tracking yourproductivity?
Look if you're actually movingyour career, your organization,
your team forward.
Some great thoughts from JimCollins, the author of Good to
Great, in this episode.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill.
You cannot be serious.
Strengthen your ability to leadin less than 30 minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It is absolutely one of the ways that you increase
your value in the marketplacefor leaders, for managers,
executives, business owners,whatever it is that you do.
Everybody's busy right, andRoger Connors and Tom Smith,
when they wrote the Oz Principle, when they created the firm
that was Partners in Leadership,where I got started in the
(00:56):
consulting space, one of thethings that they were brilliant
about focusing on was thisdifference between activity and
results.
Like everybody's busy activity,just tons of activity, and know
what?
The truly successful people,the leaders that are in greatest
demand, are those that actuallyfocus on results.
(01:17):
The most successful businessexecutives, founders, executives
, founders, the people who aregrowing organizations are those
that focus on results.
And so in this episode, Iwanted to give you something to
think about and something thatJim Collins said in an interview
that I have studied and studiedand studied in recent days,
(01:40):
that I want to share with youand get you thinking about.
Welcome into the Lead.
In 30 podcast, in less than 30minutes, in each episode, we
give you a framework, a model,an experience, something to
think about implementing or howyou're doing when it comes to
this topic or this area in youreffort to effectively lead other
people.
Nothing impacts your growthpotential, your income potential
(02:05):
, your happiness.
Honestly, when it comes down toit, your fulfillment, then your
ability to lead others, whetherthose people, those others, are
in your family, at your church,in your community, at your
nonprofit, at the corporationthat you lead, at the company
that you just started, whateverit might be.
Your ability to lead othersaffects everything, and so why
(02:27):
not strengthen it?
That's what we're doing inevery episode, or at least we're
trying to, in every episode oflead in 30.
I'm Russ Hill.
I make my living coaching,consulting executive teams of
some of the world's most amazingcompanies we love.
We love the organizations thatwe work with.
We get to choose them becausewe own the company and they're
(02:48):
phenomenal.
They're absolutely amazingpeople.
I learn so much from them, andanything that's valuable that we
as a firm or that I'm bringingto the marketplace is coming
through, observing verysuccessful leaders and doing
that at scale over a lot ofyears, and you see what works.
So we're not studying I mean,there's data involved, but we're
(03:11):
not.
We're not in a collegeclassroom studying academic
principles than publishing booksor or articles or white papers
or videos online about whatseems to work.
No, these are things that areactually causing on-time
delivery quality at factories toimprove.
(03:31):
No, these are things that areactually improving the patient
experience.
These are things that areactually increasing safety
metrics in hospitals.
These are things that areactually you get the point right
and so we get to observe thatand hopefully have a small
impact in it and then share itwith you.
Get the point right and so weget to observe that and
hopefully have a small impact init and then share it with you.
So, anyway, all right.
Um, let's see, what did I forget?
Lone rockio?
(03:52):
Lone rock leadership is thename of our firm.
We've got a training, aconsulting side.
You can find out more about itat lone rockio.
Okay, jim Collins, you know whohe is.
Right, he hasn't been on thescene as, like, I haven't heard
his name mentioned a lot in,I'll be honest, 15 years, 20
(04:15):
years, when he came out with thebook good to great and there
are probably a bunch of you thatare like what, what are you
talking about?
Good to great?
It was.
It was really popular, gosh,whenever it came out, which was
a long time ago and, uh, this isa long before I got in the
consulting, uh, industry.
I was an executive working atan organization.
We actually it was like a bookthat was handed out at one of
our meetings.
(04:35):
We read it and, um, I don'tknow if we had some training on
it or how that worked the levelfive leadership.
And you know the right person,the, the.
The big idea out of good togreat was the.
You know the, the and the idea.
By the way, for those of youthat aren't familiar with it, um
, cause I think it's I, the someof the principles totally apply
today.
There's no question about it,and Jim Collins is brilliant.
(04:57):
He's a really smart guy, um,but you don't hear as much about
him anymore, and when this bookcame out, it was about taking a
good company and making itgreat.
I agree with some of theprinciples that he teaches, but
I disagree with some of hispremise.
In fact, in the interview thisinterview that I've listened to
over and over again recently,along with several other
(05:19):
interviews from other people,and I'll share more about why
later.
But what you consume affectswhat you create, right, and so
our job is to create models,frameworks, ideas and and so
night, not 90, 70% of the stuffthat we come up with never gets
the light of day.
It never gets on a flip chartin front of an executive team,
(05:41):
it never gets in a video, it'snever published because it
doesn't meet the quality that wedemand and that our clients
demand, and so, but we'reideating, ideating, ideating
right, and out of that, 30%, 20%makes its way out into the
marketplace and that drives ourconsulting and training company.
(06:02):
So the models that we publishor that we talk about or we do
in webinars or at events orwhatever else, or with our
clients, those are the ones thatover and over and over again,
have proven to be incrediblyeffective.
So, jim Collins, one of thethings that he talks about is he
believes that the power of oneleader and I'm going to say this
(06:25):
wrong, in a way that isn'ttotally accurate, but, um, he,
he in writing good to great.
One of the things he said, uh,he said in multiple interviews
is he wanted to kind of removethe leader from the equation and
make it more about the company.
What does the organization do?
That moves from good to great,and, and.
So he talks over and over againabout trying to remove the
(06:47):
leader from it, and, and, and hefinally came up with this level
five leader idea that I haven'theard mentioned anywhere in
like decades, or at least adecade, but it's just back of my
mind because of um, of, of ofsetting this stuff recently and
um, him, along with 15 otherpeople, okay, and, and so he
(07:10):
finally relented with some ofthe data and said okay, because
the team around him, as heexplained, said no, no, no, the
leader has an impact.
And so he threw in, like thefifth principle or the fifth
idea in one of his books, goodto greater one of the others.
He said, okay, here, here's,here's acknowledgement that the
leader matters.
I totally disagree with that.
Totally disagree with that.
(07:31):
And uh, I'm a huge believer,based on my experience over and
over and over again inorganization after organization,
agnostic of industry, thatactually the leader is the first
thing you can take.
Take an organization that'samazing.
They've gone from good to great.
You put a bad executive incharge of it.
It derails it.
(07:53):
Just, it happens over and overagain.
And the opposite is true.
We take somebody who's highlyeffective, what we call a third
leader.
You put the third leader inthere, in other words, a highly
effective leader, the mosteffective leader who scales, and
it transforms the department.
You're like whoa, we had allthese engagement issues.
We couldn't hang on to talent,we had safety concerns,
(08:14):
everything got elevated,whatever it is, and all of a
sudden it's fixed overnight,overnight.
We see this over and over andover again, and so our effort to
learn and improve ourselves isthat we can be that kind of
leader.
You give us the team, you giveus the organization, you give us
the challenge you put us inthat industry.
(08:35):
You give us, you know, we tryto come up with a service in
that area or whatever else.
And we can, we, we can, uh,achieve phenomenal results
because we're that good of aleader not perfect, work in
progress, but we're that kind ofleader.
So I disagree with Jim Collinson this, but I'm kind of in the
weeds on this is the stuff Igeek out on just debating this.
I I believe that the leadingprinciple, the first idea, is
(08:57):
it's the leader, it's the teamreflects the leader period.
You have a problem with theteam.
You got a leader that has anissue.
The organization reflects theexecutive team, the culture
reflects the leader period.
No leader is perfect, but someof them are trying to model the
(09:20):
right behavior and theyunderstand the, the this
principle of the team reflectingthem, and so they pay extra
attention to it and they spendtime in their meetings and off
sites and quarterly whateverworking on themselves.
Or they've got a coach, orthey've got and not and not
somebody that's just talkingabout all these abstract ideas
like you got to focus thesefolks.
(09:41):
Anyway, I'm going to.
This is going to be lead infour hours if I don't narrow you
down.
Okay, jim Collins.
So that's a little bit about him.
Hasn't been on the scene for along time, but anyway, a
brilliant guy that came up withsome great ideas a while back,
um, or at least some amazingstuff that made a lot of
headlines years ago.
One of the things that he saidin this interview that I found a
(10:02):
ton of value in is this ratingsystem that he's developed for
every day, and he's very I don'twant to say critical, because
you're going to interpret theword wrong he critiques,
analyzes, assesses himself in avery thorough way, and so you
(10:27):
think about this, and many ofyou track a lot of things right.
There are lots of apps.
There are apps that track theamount of calories.
You're taking in One of oursons, our youngest son right now
, like he the other day, helegitimately would not eat the
takeout that I brought homebecause I didn't know the name
of the restaurant, was like awork event and then we had some
leftover.
We had a ton of leftovers.
(10:47):
I brought it home and he's like, what restaurant did that come
from?
Like I don't know, but just itwas chinese.
I'm like, just enter, like thisis Pao chicken, like it's the
same at every Chinese restaurant.
Or this broccoli beef, it's thesame at every restaurant, maybe
a little bit different.
So just find one and then enterit in.
He was like no, I can't track,he ate something different.
(11:09):
Like this was great food, buthe ate something different
because he couldn't track thecalories of it.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
We've, we've, we have derailed,but anyway he's on a big kick
with that and I'm I'm proud ofhim for being disciplined about
it.
Uh, cause it's an area that hecares about and so that's
awesome.
(11:29):
Anyway.
So we track our calories.
Some of you track your steps,you track your workouts, you
track your running, you trackwhatever.
Um, you're tracking tasks thatyou complete all these different
things.
But how do you gauge, how doyou measure?
How do you track yourproductivity?
Like, am I focused on thethings that matter most, and I
(11:53):
said at the beginning of thispodcast activity versus result,
right Results, right.
Said at the beginning of thispodcast activity versus result,
right of results, right.
So less effective, lesssuccessful people met.
Measure their effectiveness.
Did I have a good day at work?
Was that was a?
Yeah, super busy, I got a lotof the tasks done.
I had 19 things on my to-dolist.
I eliminated 18 and you getthis dopamine hit because you're
(12:15):
like, yeah, I got a lot done,but did you focus on the right
thing?
We've got a first principle inour firm that talks about ROI.
Did you prioritize?
And we use the verb publish,which just means ship, which
could mean email, which meansprint, which means do.
Whatever it means.
However you interpret it, it'sbroad.
(12:36):
Did you prioritize and publishor ship or do things that have
the highest ROI today?
That's a really interestingquestion.
So, not volume, but impact, andso many people measure.
So think about it like steps.
(12:57):
Okay, great, you did a, and I'mgoing to make up a number.
You walked a thousand steps andso you're proud of that, but
did you walk the right steps?
You tracking with me?
You understand what I'm gettingat and so no, you don't want to
fall into the trap of I checkedall those boxes and now I feel
(13:19):
really good because I got those10 things done.
That's like the basic level ofeffectiveness, like that's 22
years old and still figuring itout and not really idea.
I mean, I'm still figuring itout and I'm 85 years old, but
you know so, you don't know sothat.
But that's the basic.
That's kind of the entry level.
(13:39):
Oh, I'm just tracking tasks.
Then, as you elevate and youbecome more effective and more
impactful in an organization inyour career, you go oh, it's not
the volume of things that I gotdone, it's did I get the right
things?
The ROI of what I focused ontoday, and and then you get to
the next level.
This isn't this episode, butI've been talking about a lot
(14:01):
lately in the last few episodes.
Did you focus on and get donethe right things?
And the way to get that done isby reducing the amount of noise
, discussion, chatter in theorganization, because we have so
many meetings.
I'm not going to spend too muchtime on this because I just did
two episodes on it, but it's onmy mind, as you well know if
(14:23):
you've been listening.
Um, we.
We spend so much time talkingabout the things we need to get
done that we leave very littletime on many of our teams and
many of our organizations toactually execute.
And so we're.
We're working on efficiency.
Right, that's a popular wordright now in society and and it
(14:45):
makes a lot of peopleuncomfortable, but efficiency
comes from working on the rightthings reducing the amount of
noise and discussion not to anunhealthy, not to an
inappropriate level, cause yougot to have alignment, you got
to bring people along with you,but you're, you're, you're
finding that sweet spot.
So I'm reducing the amount oftime that I spend in meetings
and I'm spending some time there, and then I'm spending time on
(15:06):
executing.
And then am I executing ordoing the things that bring the
biggest ROI for who?
For the organization I work for, to help us achieve the results
that matter most?
On my own personal growth, onwhere I'm taking my career,
because I am not my company, Iam not my position and man, did
(15:26):
I get that wrong for like 15years, totally defined my
individual worth and value inthe marketplace, exclusively
with the organization or theteam that I led and I went and
which, which diminished my valueand it reduced the size of my
world and and and, and and andlimited how much impact I could
(15:48):
be having, because I you knowwhat I mean.
Anyway, I won't go down thatrabbit hole, okay.
So let's talk about Jim Collinsand how he evaluates, tracks,
rate his day.
This is so good.
You can come up with somethingelse.
Maybe you know something betteror different that you use.
So here's how he does it.
Um, and he he said, uh, in thisinterview that he was tracking
his emotional and intellectualengagement, so in effectiveness,
(16:13):
productivity, towards thethings that matter most, by a
plus two to negative two ratingsystem.
Here's how it plays out herates the day plus two if it was
a deeply fulfilling andproductive day.
So that's emotional and hecalls it intellectual engagement
.
I think that's like a lame term, um, so I would say engagement
(16:36):
and productivity, fulfilling andproductivity.
So in other words, did I reallyenjoy the day, did it fulfill
that?
I did it speak to my purpose,did it speak to all of that and
did I get crap done?
That was important, that had ahigh ROI on the results that I'm
trying to achieve personally,professionally, as a team, as an
organization.
He rates the day plus two.
He rates it as a plus one if itwas generally positive, made
(17:01):
some progress.
So plus two is like man crushedit.
Really effective day, notvolume of things done, but I
worked on the things that aregoing to have impact.
I made progress on them.
I'm close to the finish line,by the way.
What is that?
What is that principle?
Gosh, darn it.
I can't remember right now it'snot in front of me.
The principle that talks aboutwe will fill the amount of time
(17:24):
given to us.
We will take all the time, um,that is available to us to get
something done.
Oh gosh, I can't think of theprinciple.
It's not.
Some of you are thinking aboutit as I'm talking about it.
Yeah, anyway, I believe in that.
So if you my point in that isif you give yourself hey, let's
take three months to work onthat and in reality, we could
(17:47):
get it done in two weeks, you'regoing to, you're going to fill
on that and in reality, we couldget it done in two weeks.
You're going to, you're goingto fill three months if you give
the team that much time.
So my suggestion to you, basedon what I've seen work most
effectively in my own life andin the careers of others that we
coach or consult is giveyourself less time than you
(18:07):
think.
Give the team less time thanthey, than they want.
Otherwise you could say we'lltake a year and a half on that
Yup and you're going to takeevery minute of it.
You're going to fill it.
So give yourself less time.
So, plus two deeply fulfilling,highly productive day.
Plus one generally positive,made some progress, was
fulfilling, was fulfilling.
Zero, neutral.
(18:27):
I love that.
A neutral day Didn't gobackwards, didn't go forward,
just kind of maintained.
A lot of us have neutral days,don't you think zero that's such
a powerful score rating for aday Zero.
(18:48):
Today was a zero, negative one,a somewhat negative.
Didn't wasn't fulfilling, maybehad some, you know, things
going on that were a bigchallenge, affected you
emotionally, psychologically,whatever it might be, physically
, um, a lot of sickness goingaround at the time.
(19:09):
I'm recording this right, it'sthat time of year.
So negative one is a somewhatnegative or unproductive day.
Didn't really make a ton ofprogress, made very little on
the results that matter most.
Negative two a bad day noprogress, really Wasn't
fulfilling and didn't make anyprogress.
Roi on today very low.
(19:31):
I'm going to use this so I'llreport back in a little while
and maybe there's another system, maybe I'll tweak it away for
me.
That works better for me, but Ilove the suggestion of rating
tracking your um.
I would call it fulfillment andproductivity.
Am I, am I?
Am I working on things thatspeak to my purpose?
Am I, which for me is creating,having impact, um, helping
(19:57):
facilitate movement with theorganizations and the teams and
the leaders that we work with,or making a difference?
That's fulfilling?
And then, are we moving theneedle?
Am I moving the needle on?
The results that we'veidentified are most important,
what we call TKRs right Team keyresults.
So plus two man today crushedit.
(20:17):
Like right now I'm recordingthis podcast after 5 pm, so the
day is almost done.
And so how would I rate today?
I'd put it and you don't haveany context for this I'd
actually put today as I needmore than one and two, because
(20:40):
today isn't a two, it's totallynot a two.
I did not move the needle enough.
I got some things, but I couldhave gotten a lot more done.
I I wasn't efficient, I wasn'tproductive enough.
There's no question about it.
I could have moved the needlemore.
I had some work that wascreative, that I needed to spend
some time on, and so thatslowed me down a little bit and
(21:02):
I got that done and then had todo version two and I got it done
faster than anyone that I know,which is I'm not trying to be
egotistical, it's just astrength of mine.
I got this piece of creativityproduction done and I think it
looked good.
It was a solid B plus a minus,which is what we needed, um.
But I could have made even moreprogress in this evening.
(21:22):
After, uh, after dinner with thefamily and whatever else,
because I love what I do Doesn'tfeel like work, it's engaging.
I'll probably spend anotherhour or two.
That's generally what I doanyway, um, in the evening or
whatever else, if it, you know,if it, if it fits in well, um,
so I've still got a chance tomove the needle, but I guess I'd
put today as a plus one.
(21:43):
It wasn't neutral, I definitelymade progress, but I want like
a, uh, like a 0.5.
That's kind of more what I feellike.
So maybe I'll make this a, aone to five scale and a one, but
that's too many options.
Yeah, it's too many, I don'tknow.
Anyway, you get the point, my,my, what I wanted to share with
(22:08):
you is this rating fulfillment,rating, productivity as it
pertains to results and ROI.
I think tracking that, measuringit some way and you don't have
to do it every day I mean someof you will be into that.
I know I won't.
I won't do it, there's no way,I'll be accountable to that, but
I can do it generally and itmight just be thinking about it.
It might be writing it in anotes app or whatever else.
(22:28):
That would be interesting.
I don't really.
It might be writing it in anotes app or whatever else.
That would be interesting.
I don't really that's how Ijournal.
I don't write sit down andevery day, but rating it, I
think is super valuable.
So something to think about.
You're tracking steps, you'retracking calories, you're
tracking all these differentthings, tasks and everything
else, but are you trackingfulfillment and productivity,
(22:50):
r-o-i and everything else?
But are you trackingfulfillment and productivity R?
O?
I think of the impact on anorganization, on your career, on
the results that matter so much.
If you and others around youwere tracking that fulfillment
and productivity and then theROI and then making adjustments,
that would be huge.
(23:12):
All right, that's what's on mymind in this episode of the Lead
in 30 podcast.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
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friend.
Tap on the share button andtext the link.
Thanks for listening to theLead in 30 podcast with Russ
Hill.
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