How Could qWitting Charge Up Your Team?

The second Friday of each new year is Quitters Day.

And there is no better way to mark the occasion than by consciously quitting (qWitting) poor leadership habits that are holding you and your team back from long-term success.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Happy Quitters Day, and welcometo The Energy Detox coming to
you from outside Houston's NRGStadium, where tomorrow, the
Houston Texans will be taking onthe LA Chargers in the first
round of the NFL playoffs.
And today's setting is chosen inparticular because it ties in
very nicely to today's holidaythat being quitters day. And if

(00:21):
you're not familiar withQuitters Day, well, it occurs
every second Friday of each newyear, because by now, a whole
bunch of people have alreadyquit their New Year's
resolutions. And the reason thattoday's setting ties in nicely
is because a former member ofthe LA chargers quit the NFL
before the start of this season,and that individual is Corey

(00:44):
Linsley, and he had a solid 10year career as a center starting
off with the Green Bay Packersand then on to the LA Chargers.
But unfortunately, a couplegames into last season, he was
diagnosed with a heartcondition, and he was forced to
make a very difficult decisionthat being to continue on with
his career, he could have chosento keep playing. He certainly

(01:06):
had a lot of good years ahead ofhim, most likely, he certainly
had 20, 30, maybe even $40million ahead of him, based on
his existing contract at thetime, and the prospect of a
couple more years of usefulnessto the NFL. But he decided to
walk away. He decided to focuson his long term goals, his long
term desire to be there for hisfamily, his wife, Anna, their

(01:27):
four children. And so he madethe conscious, intentional
decision to quit, to walk away,to retire, and we're going to
lean on Corey's story, because,of course, that's an example of
a very positive thing; to quit,a very again, as I said,
intentional thing to quit.
And here on the energy detox,we're all about intentionality.

(01:47):
We're all about being conscious,witting participants in all of
the decisions that you make foryourself and for those around
you, that being said, we'regoing to step through nine
things that you can considerquitting, that you might not be
fully aware of, but that canhave a huge impact on your
leadership. We're not going tostep through things you can quit
that you might expect to hear ona New Year's related podcast

(02:08):
episode, that of course, beingthings like drinking, if you are
participating in Dry January oragain, other things you might
quit to save you time, energy,money. No, we're talking about
those more subtle things. Andthese are things that aren't
just out of the blue, but thingsthat I get to help people quit
on a regular basis, all 12months out of the year as a
coach in the energy industry. Sowithout further ado, what's the

(02:30):
first thing that I amencouraging you to quit if you
happen to be somebody that isinclined to do these things?
So first one quit saying I got aquick question for you. How
often does somebody come to youand say, "Hey, I got a quick
question for you." Or how oftendo you find yourself saying,
Hey, I got a quick question foryou, and how often does the

(02:51):
person on the receiving end ofthat greeting say to themselves,
is it really a quick question?
Do you really need to introducethings like that? Do you really
need to come to me and basicallyapologize for taking up my time.
I appreciate that you considerit, but again, I got a million
things going through my head,and quite frankly, the last
thing I might want to do isactually answer your quick
question. So why don't you justspit it out and so that being

(03:12):
said, you know what is one ofthe antidotes to this? This
isn't just a pet peeve sessionwhere I'm going to roll through
things that you know, mightupset me or upset you or upset
others, but practicallyspeaking, what can you do? Well,
of course, the first thing is toget to the point. Instead of
saying, I got a quick questionfor you, just jump into the
question. But more creativesolutions that I've seen other
people deploy, and thatPersonally, my favorite is use a

(03:33):
little bit of humor. Next timeyou have a quick question for
somebody, go to them and say,Hey, I got a not so quick
question for you. Change theTone, change the tenor. Get them
in a position where, consciouslyor unconsciously, they're more
open to actually answer yourquestion. Because when it comes
to again, somebody like a CoreyLinsley or any lineman, there's

(03:53):
no time for fluff. There's notime to dance around things. You
need to be direct. You need tobe on point and adding in extra
introductory things unnecessary.
Similarly, item number two, whenit comes to communication and
unnecessary words, quit sayingthe word just, it's amazing how

(04:16):
often, especially when you'relooking for it, you hear people
use the word just, Hey, I wasjust gonna head over here and do
X, Y and Z, or, you know, I wasjust thinking that we can, you
know, maybe attack this problemfrom a different angle. Saying
the word just even if peopledon't realize it, it weakens
your communication. It makes yousound less confident. It's

(04:39):
unnecessary filler. And again,there's all kinds of other
filler words out there, but thatone in particular seems to stand
out, at least for me. And youknow, when I'm on the lookout
for these things. And again,it's also a friendly reminder of
people like Corey Lindsley orother centers who don't have
time for filler, who don't havetime for extra any. Thing,

(05:00):
right? When you're on the line,that is a crisp operation to
snap that ball. There's a reasonthat he has snapped the ball
10s, actually, probably hundredsof thousands of times, right?
It's a precision operation. He'sgot a key technique. And again,
you can't afford doing anythingextra. You need to be on point
if you want to have success. Nodifferent for silly little words

(05:22):
like just that can derail ordiminish your communication.
Item number three, non verbalcommunication. So the first two
again are words that you mightconsider quitting. But what non
verbal things do you do thatmight be impacting negatively
your performance. So again, it'smore of an open question for

(05:44):
you, and it's one that, quitefrankly, you might need to rely
on other people to answer,because I know full well that
one of the things I do when Iget maybe anxious or I'm in the
zone, I tend to stick out my jawand I don't even realize I'm
doing it. But fortunately, a lotof times, my wife might be
around and she'll see it, andshe'll point it out to me, and
she'll tell me to stop. Andsimilarly, in my coaching world,

(06:06):
again, when I'm sitting in theback of a room in a meeting,
it's amazing how often I willsee people doing things
unconsciously. That again, I'msure other people are seeing but
it's making them less effective.
For instance, people might sighwhen they respond or before they
respond to a question. You thinkthat's impactful? Well, you bet
it is. Or again, people mightturn away or divert their eyes,

(06:27):
or their posture might be alittle bit off, and they might
not realize they're doing it. SoI encourage you go out, ask
around when you're sitting in ameeting or before a meeting, go
say, Hey, can you take a look atwhat I'm doing? Find somebody.
Find a call. You can say, I wantyou to be on the lookout for any
tips and tells and tricks andthings that I'm doing that might
be ineffective. Because, again,if you are alignment, if you are
a center, like Corey Linsley wasclearly and the impact is very

(06:50):
clear, right? He makes amovement that is not allowed or
at the wrong time, well, it's apenalty. It's going to hurt his
team. So so too for you, whatsmall movements might you be
making that might be havingoutsized impacts.
Item number four, quit invitingevery darn person on your team

(07:12):
to meetings. Not everybody needsto be in every meeting. Not
everybody needs to be in thehuddle, so to speak. So quit
inviting everybody to meetings.
Now, again, this is not a newidea, of course. In fact, Jeff
Bezos popularized, popularizedthe idea of the two pizza rule,
where, if you have too manypeople at a meeting and you
can't feed them all with onlytwo pizzas. Well, again, you

(07:33):
have too many people, you shouldhave no more people in a meeting
than can be fed with two pizzas.
Now, again, when we're talkingabout linemen and centers like
Corey Linsley, who at his peakwas, I believe, 301 pounds.
Obviously this analogy fallsshort, because I think when
you're talking about folks likehim and his colleagues, it's
probably more like a two dozenpizza rule. But nevertheless,

(07:55):
quit inviting everybody tomeetings not everybody needs to
be there, and use this new yearas an excuse to quit doing that.
Item number five, speaking withmeetings, speaking about
meetings, you know, quit beingthe smartest person in the room.
You may very well be thesmartest person in the room in a
given meeting, but take a momentto suspend that for a minute.

(08:16):
Quit being the smartest personin the room. You don't always
have to call every play, so tospeak. And it's amazing what
happens when you take a stepback, when you slow down and you
let other people do a little bitmore talking, let other people
bring up some some pointsomething that, again, you
already have on your mind, slowdown. Quit being the smartest

(08:36):
person in the room. Givesomebody else another
opportunity to do so.
Number six, quit sending outreports and information that
don't add any value. In fact,quit sending out things that
might have negative value. Mightbe a negative yardage play, so
to speak. If we want to keepforcing in this an analogy, New
Year is a perfect opportunity toask, Hey, is this necessary? Are

(08:58):
you or somebody on your teamsending out stuff, going through
the motion, doing things andagain, this is especially true
when it comes to differentreports. Are you sending out
things that are really ofnegative value? They are a waste
of time, they are a waste ofenergy, if they are or if you're
not sure, quit. See whathappens. What's the worst that
could happen?

(09:18):
Number six (actually seven),quit reflexively saying yes. Now
we've talked about this on theenergy detox. This is a
controversial thing sometimes inan industry where you get
rewarded for saying yes, whereyou get rewarded for being a go
getter, but if you're a leaderand you're there influencing
others, and you're reflexivelysaying yes to everything. Well,

(09:42):
that's the type of thing thatcan get people hurt again.
That's the type of thing ifyou're doing it unconsciously,
you could damage yourreputation, and, heck, in the
case of Corey Linsley, you candamage your health if he
reflexively said yes, what gotme to where I was was hard work.
You know, I didn't let somesilly health condition derail.
To this point. So why am I goingto start doing that now? I'm
going to keep on moving forward.
Well, again, that's a bit of anextreme case. Maybe it's a

(10:05):
little bit different from sayingyes to some exercise or project
that falls into your lap, butsame idea, are you consciously
saying yes to those things, orare you unconsciously,
unwittingly, reflexively, justgoing with the flow and taking
on things that are going tocause some sort of damage in the
long run.

(10:27):
Item number eight, quit hoardingyour vacation days. Now, again,
this episode here, we're beingrecording this on the heels of
all the holidays. Hopefully,maybe you got a little bit of
refreshment in there. But overthe course of the year. Are you
one of those people that takesgreat pride in hoarding your
vacation days and never taking aday off? Well, if so, quit it.

(10:48):
Quit it again. Not a new concepthere, but it's one that I see
all the time inside oforganizations. I experienced it
myself, and quite frankly, I wasin a position where there was
times where I was that personwho needed to be told, Hey, quit
being this macho man who cannever take a day off to refresh,
to relax, God forbid. So ifthat's you, consider quitting

(11:10):
that as you head into the newyear.
And finally, item number nine,quit assuming. Now on the last
episode of The Energy Detox, wetalked a bit about assumptions,
of course. And so this isanother reminder that if you are
the type that is quick to assumesomething and move forward,
because again, you work in afast paced industry like the
energy industry, quit it. Or atleast quit assuming negative

(11:35):
intent. Again, another topicthat is kind of out there in the
public domain. I see somecompanies that embrace this, but
quit assuming the negative andinstead embrace positive intent.
In fact, some people will go sofar as to use the analogy API,
which, of course, has nice tieins to the energy industry, and
API stands for assume positiveintent. So quit jumping to the

(11:57):
negative, as you know, logicalas that might be at times, and
at least start by assumingpositive intent, A P I.
So with that, as we move toclosing here, on the heels of
those nine items that you mayconsider quitting here as you
head into the new year, I gottwo questions for you, because
this would not be an episode ofthe energy detox, of course, if

(12:17):
we didn't leave you with twoquestions. And the first is,
what would it look like if youquit? What would it look like if
you stepped away? And now I askthis knowing full well that if
you're in any sort oforganization, you do all the
normal succession planningstuff, you have to ask this
question. You know you've gotthe person who's going to come
up next in line, but in a verysimple, non secession planning

(12:40):
way, informal way. How often areyou saying, hey, what would it
look like if I did step away?
What would it look like if Ididn't go to this meeting? What
would it look like if I took aday or two off? What would
transpire? We're not talking inthe macro and succession
planning and all of that type ofstuff we're talking right now.
If you quit doing what you weredoing, what would the impacts
be? What would be learned? Whatwould you do differently?

(13:00):
Now, again, in the case ofsomebody like Corey Linsley,
when he quit, or at least lastseason, when he had a step away
mid season, you know, theimpacts were pretty real. They
were pretty negative. The LAChargers did not have a very
good season. They finished fiveand 12, and as the rushing
statistics showed, well, theyprobably could have used him at
center. But that being said,what would it look like if you

(13:22):
quit?
And then the second relatedquestion is, well, who on your
team is so central? Pun intendedas we again focus on the former
center Corey Lindsley. Well, youknow, who is so central to your
operation that if they quit,things would go south. Now,
again, I know full well thatthis is a question that you are
likely asking all the time,consciously or unconsciously.

(13:42):
But take a moment today, as youkick off the new year, to say,
not just hey, who could we notafford to lose, but what would
the actual impacts be? That'sthat second piece. Because one
thing to say that this person isso valuable, but where you know
people kind of maybe they fallshort when they're challenged is

(14:04):
when I ask them, Well, whatwould the actual implications
be? And many times it's notquite as bad as they might
think. And with that in mind,they're able to actually
approach things moreconsciously, more clearly when
it comes to this question of,well, what would happen if
somebody quit, what would happenif somebody walked out the door?
And so with that in mind, Iencourage you to consider

(14:26):
consciously looking for thingsto quit. Consciously stop doing
things that could hold you back.
And along those lines, if you'relooking for more on this topic,
or you're looking to share thisepisode, I encourage you to go
to a website dedicated toconscious quitting, and that is
qWitting.com. Q, W, I T, T, I N,G.
So with that, Happy New Year toyou, and if you happen to be an

(14:49):
LA Chargers fan watching, Icertainly wish you the best as
you manage whatever impacts youmight be having out there with
the fires in your neck of thewoods. So with that, take care.
And thanks, as always.