August 8, 2025 • 17 mins
Welcome back to Tim Stating the Obvious, where we cut through the noise and get to what really works. In this episode, we're breaking down the “DO” principles of leadership—taken straight from the U.S. Army Field Manual 22-100—and translating them into practical tools you can use today in business, life, and leadership.
Core Takeaways You Can Act On Immediately:
Influence with Purpose Don’t just give tasks—explain why they matter. When people understand the reason behind the work, they show up differently. Get input. Praise effort. Influence starts with clear communication and genuine motivation.
Operate with Flexibility Plans are great—until they get punched in the face by reality. That’s why effective leaders build plans that can bend, not break. Trust your team to make decisions, and assess what’s working so you can pivot with purpose.
Improve Through Coaching and Feedback You don’t get better by avoiding mistakes. You grow by learning from them. Give real-time feedback. Build trust. And create space for your team to fail forward. Growth starts when you stop fearing failure.
Lead by Doing The “DO” principle means action. Not theory. Not titles. Action. Real leaders don’t just delegate—they engage. They walk around. They stay human. They coach, connect, and correct with humility.
Whether you're leading in the office, the military, your community, or your own household—these principles apply. They aren’t fancy. They’re obvious. And they work.
If this episode hits home, share it. Subscribe. And tag me @TimStatingTheObvious to show me how you're putting these principles into practice.
Connect with Tim:
Website: timstatingtheobvious.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/timstatingtheobvious
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHfDcITKUdniO8R3RP0lvdw
Instagram: @TimStating
Tiktok: @timstatingtheobvious
#Leadership #ArmyLeadership #FieldManual22100 #LeadershipDevelopment #PersonalGrowth #TeamBuilding #EmotionalIntelligence #GrowthMindset #MilitaryLeadership #PodcastLeadership
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tim (00:00):
Hey, and welcome back to another episode.
We've been talking a lot about the Army's BE, KNOW, DO principles.
In the last two episodes we talked about B being who you need to be, right?
Having self awareness and developing yourself. No.
Do you have the education and specialized knowledge that you need in order to succeed in the job you're at?
(00:21):
And do you know the jobs of the folks that you work with on your team?
Now we're talking about do.
This is the action part of it.
This is the getting stuff done principle.
And I'm talking about these principles because they can apply in any situation, no matter what.
What we're going to talk about in this episode is three core actions for real leadership about
(00:44):
influencing, operating and improving, all followed by the DO principles.
This is Tim Staton with Tim stating the obvious.
What is this podcast about? It's simple.
You are entitled to great leadership.
Everywhere you go, whether it's a chur, whether it's to work, whether it's at your house, you
(01:06):
are entitled to great leadership.
And so in this podcast we take leadership principles and theories and turn them into everyday, relatable and usable advice. And a quick disclaimer.
This show process or service by trademark, trademark, manufacturer, otherwise does not necessarily
constitute an implied endorsement of anyone that I am employed by or favors them in representation.
The views are expressed here in my show are my own expressed and do not necessarily state or
reflect those of any employer.
(01:27):
All right, so we need to stop over complicating things a little bit and get back to what works,
doing the right things at the right time.
So let's get into it.
First up, we have influencing.
This sounds big and lofty, but it's the ability to get people to follow you without force, fear or fake hype.
Influencing comes down to communication, decision making and motivating. Right? It's that simple.
(01:50):
But folks still get it wrong because they overthink it or forget to be human.
At many times I'm reminded about the time where I was stationed in Germany.
I was in a training area and it was during winter and we were supposed to set up a command post
and in the middle of the woods in the field where we typically don't set up.
And there was nothing that we had to do it.
And so I had to figure out how to get the assets and the resources to set up Internet and phones
(02:15):
in the middle of nowhere without, you know, without the appropriate resources.
And so I started thinking about it.
So I was walking around the installation and I found four miles of fiber.
I go, ah, if Only I can get this 4 miles of fiber from point A, get it over to point B, then
I could just run it to where I need to go, and then we could splice it, and voila, we have Internet.
So I started thinking about it, and I convinced, contacted the people who own the fiber, and
(02:37):
I said, hey, do you have a plan for this four miles of fiber?
And they said, well, we did, but the project fell through, so it's just kind of excess right now. It's just laying there. I said, awesome.
Can I get it and drop it off over at this other location?
And I showed them on the map where I needed it dropped off at, and I run it to this location,
and I showed them where I needed it spliced at.
And if I run it myself with my team, do you think you could splice it for me?
(03:00):
And they laughed at me. I mean, they. They laughed at me.
They're like, you don't have the equipment.
You don't have the training. It's too cold.
It's the middle of winter. You're gon break it.
It's not going to be good.
Then we're just going to waste the fiber. That's okay.
Let's make a little bet.
What if I run it and I don't break any of the fiber? Let's say I don't.
I don't break more than two strands.
If I don't break more than two strands, that's like four pair.
(03:21):
Then you splice it fair.
And they're like, okay, well, what if you do?
Well, I'll get you some Fritos and bean dip. Right?
Because they don't have that on the German economy.
But they really liked it.
The people I was working with, they really liked.
And then, you know, we'll split it up and you win that.
And they're like, okay, bet we'll do that.
So they dropped it off, and I got my team out there, and I was like, all right, we're going to drop this.
(03:42):
We're going to run this fiber from here to here, which was like over two miles.
And they looked at me and they're like, sir, there's no way we're going to be able to do that.
Like, there's like a foot and a half to two feet of snow on the ground. And I'm not exaggerating.
Like, when you stepped on the ground, the snow went up to your knees where we were at.
And so it was pretty deep.
And I said, well, we're going to do it. We'll get it done.
And then so they started explaining every single reason why it wasn't going to work.
(04:06):
So I said, okay, let's see.
So I took the, the.
The lead end of it, and I said, hey, Sergeant, so and so just unreal it.
As I walk with it, I just put over my shoulder and I started walking with it.
I said, just make sure that you kind of feed it to me.
So that way we don't. We don't break it.
And I, I need it fed.
And so we'll just do it slowly.
We'll do it, you know, inch by inch, foot by foot.
It'll take us forever, but we're going to get it done.
(04:27):
I started walking out with it, and they just kind of like, looked at me like, are you serious?
I'm like, yeah, being dead serious.
I'll keep walking with it.
You feed it to me and I'll keep walking.
So it took us forever today.
I don't know exactly how long it took us to do it, but we got it.
And over parts where it was crossing some road areas, we put it up in a tree and we climbed
the tree and we fed it over to the other tree and we brought it back down and did an aerial run.
(04:49):
Then we got to the town and we were like, oh, man, there's roads. This is a problem.
So I was like, ah, but there's culverts in the road.
So we just fed it through the culverts to the building. We need to go.
I called up the fiber optic team.
I said, okay, what do we look like?
And they looked at it, and I said, you know what? You broke one strand. That was it.
I only broke one strand. The whole team did.
(05:11):
And like, the most horrible conditions that you could think of, without the right tools, without
the right equipment, we were able to do it.
And it's not because of anything.
That was super spectacular, miraculous.
It was probably the worst thing you ever saw happen.
But with six people dedicated and determined to make it happen, and with one person who said, you know what?
Everyone says it can't be done.
(05:31):
Just watch me do it and help me do it.
That is a part of influence, that is getting people to follow you.
When you start walking in the direction and say, hey, this is the idea. This is the project.
This is what we're doing.
So your battlefield might be a boardroom or a team project, and they all looks different, but
at the end of the day, it all starts with an action.
(05:53):
We can talk about things and we can pontificate and we can do all these other things, right?
But unless you do it, it doesn't matter.
And leadership is about achieving results and getting results.
And you have do in order to get that.
Another aspect of doing is what I call leadership. By walking around.
I don't like sitting in my office behind a door on a computer, talking to myself or talking
(06:15):
to people on the phone or talking to people via email.
That is just one aspect of a job that you have to do in order to communicate with people are
phone calls and emails and text messages.
The other part is getting up out of your office, behind your desk, walking out around and talking
to everybody and talking to people on your team and finding out what's going on, being human.
(06:36):
Talk to them like, find out what's working.
Find out what's not working.
Find out about their families, what do they got going on. Stay human.
And by leadership, by walking around is doing.
Because you're not just sitting as passive, you're engaging.
You're able to provide coaching tips and mentoring sessions on the fly.
And you're also staying human and relevant.
Like you're not just the guy or the gal behind the door who only gets out to go to a meeting
(07:00):
or to yell at people or when something's not working right.
You are a human being that they can interact with.
So here's three tips that you can do to get better at this. For influence.
Always explain why some things matter.
And we're going to get into the why part on the next segment.
But always explain why something matters.
People will do more with the why than the what.
Get input from your team. Right. It increases ownership.
(07:21):
If, you know, when I was out there with the fiber optic team, everybody's telling me every way
it wasn't going to work. Cool.
I'm not going to do it the ways that you said, because it won't work.
I'm just going to do it the way it's the opposite of what you said. Because that will work.
And then at the end, praise and effort, not just results.
You'll say thank you to everybody. You know that.
That goes a long way. Say, I appreciate you. Thanks for showing up.
Hey, thanks for doing this with me.
(07:42):
That means something to people and it's not complicated. People just overlook it.
So the next segment that we're going to be talking about is operating.
This just means getting it done right.
It means you plan, you execute, and you assess. Plain English.
You make a plan, you work the plan, review the results.
It's what your mom told you when you had a science project do, right?
(08:03):
Let's talk about intent, because this is where I think it's more important to provide people intent.
The why instead of meeting the plan.
No plan will survive first contact, no matter what.
You can have the best plan in the world and then you're always going to have an issue.
Even if you have a plan to take your family on a family vacation, you're like, okay, we're going
to get up at 3am, going to load the car, going to get on the road, we're going to head down
(08:27):
about six hours from there.
We're going to get gas, going to have breakfast, because all you all are going to sleep while we're in the car.
Then after we get gas and you all have breakfast, you all going to use the bathroom.
We're going to keep going for another six hours and then we'll eventually get to where we're
going to go. 12 hours on the road, total of like 18 hour day. That's the plan.
I know where I'm going to get gas.
I'm going to feed my kids and the family.
I know we're going to get some, you know, some sustenance so that way everyone can eat and be happy. Guess what?
(08:51):
The enemy has a vote and the enemy is time and everything else that is out of your control.
So let's say one of the kids want to oversleep.
Let's say you forgot to put gas in it the night before, right?
It's all about meeting the intent.
So if the intent is to go on a family vacation and have fun and you're going to get from point
A to point B and you're going to do some things, as long as you end up where you're supposed
to go, that is the big picture. That is the intent.
(09:12):
If the intent is, is go to Florida for a family vacation or go to Tennessee or go to Rome or
go to Croatia, wherever, as long as you get there, that's all that matters.
Everything that happens in the middle, that was part of the plan, but now just becomes part of your story.
And now it just becomes part of the experience of being on a team and getting to work together.
(09:33):
And as long as people understand the why and the intent and the big picture, then when things
go wrong, everybody can come together to get to figure out how to do the things to get to the
why and get to the big picture.
I hope that makes sense.
So if you want to get better at this, here's what you can do.
You can plan for flexibility. Things will change.
Things are going to go Wrong.
(09:54):
I used to get so bent out of shape when things didn't go according to plan.
Because I'm like, you don't know how long I spent on this to make sure this plan was going to
do this and this was going to do this.
And I would have spreadsheets and Gantt charts, and I knew exactly sequencing of events, of
when was things were going to happen in time and sequence, and how everything was going to plan out.
And 99% of the time, it didn't happen exactly the way I thought it was going to happen. 80%
(10:18):
happened the way I thought it was going to happen. But 99% didn't happen.
But 80% did happen, right? So be flexible. Be like Gumby.
And if you don't know who Gumby is, look it up, because it's important for you to be like Gumby.
We're going to have a Gumby episode, by the way.
The other thing you need to do is trust your team with small decisions.
This is why we give them the intent.
This is why we give them the big picture.
So that way you can entrust them and empower them with making decisions along the way.
(10:42):
When your plan doesn't go according to plan, and the other thing you can do is always assess, run a quick debrief.
What worked, what didn't work.
This is why you get out of your office and you walk around, you ask people, hey, what's going on?
What worked, what didn't work?
Constantly assess and re engage.
And all of these are actions. They're not passive.
You have to intentionally do this.
(11:02):
And leadership is about a process.
It's not about a guessing game.
And in the last segment, what we're going to be talking about is improving, develop, build and learn.
This is about leaving people and systems better than when you found them.
It's been ingrained in me my entire career that you always leave a place better than when you
found it, than when you left.
If you left a place and things are better when you leave, then you have a lot of reevaluating to do.
(11:27):
If things are better because you were there and you showed up and you helped and you made a
difference and you were of value, that's what we're getting after.
We're getting after making sure that we develop people, we train them, we build trust, and we learn from our mistakes.
That you turn that organization into a learning organization.
I used to tell people all the time, you should be the last one to be trained.
(11:50):
If you're a leader, everyone under everybody on your team should be trained before you.
And then you get trained because you have to develop everybody, your job as a leader, to develop
people to move up and to do bigger and better things, Then we have to build trust, right?
We have to allow for things to happen in order for people to make mistakes and recover from them.
(12:11):
And also we do what we say we're supposed to do.
And when we say learning from our mistakes in becoming a learning organization, that's where
we got to eliminate this zero defect mentality.
And I know a lot of people say, well, I don't have a zero defect mentality, but do you really?
I mean, you gotta really think about that.
I know a lot of organizations who say they don't have a zero defect mentality, but if you make
(12:32):
one mistake, you're gone or you're written off or, you know, they say you've lost all credibility.
I would say if you make the same mistake twice, yes, once, no.
We gotta learn from that.
And, and we have to allow people to learn from mistakes.
And organizationally we have to learn like what worked and what didn't work and improve from that.
So here's how we can get better at that.
(12:52):
We can give real feedback, not when things go wrong, but all the time.
Continuously seek real time feedback from people.
What's going right, what's going wrong.
The next thing we do is build trust, share our goals and time, share our goals and enjoy the
time you spend together with people.
You're going to be spending a lot of time with folks in the workplace, more so than you will with your family sometimes.
(13:14):
So you might as well enjoy the time and build trust together.
And the last thing that we need to do is allow people to fail forward.
Zero defect mentality kills your growth.
Allow people to fail, recover, regroup, and move on.
And if you fail as yourself and you're like, man, I'm in charge of all this, regroup, put on
your big boy pants, recover and move on.
(13:35):
That's how we do, right?
So next time something goes wrong, ask yourself, what's the lesson that I should learn from
this so that way I can turn this mistake into a momentum.
You know, there's a great mentor who used to tell me, what doesn't work out for you works on you.
And I want you to think about that for a minute.
What doesn't work out for you, what you intend to work out, will then work on you to make you a better person.
(14:01):
So then you can then be the person to make it work out.
Just think about that for a minute.
So that in essence is the do principle. It's the action principle.
How to influence, operate and improve.
These are tried and true principles.
With be, no do that, get things into action.
Are you the person you need to be?
Do you know what you need to know and can you get stuff done? Are you results oriented?
(14:24):
Are you a person of action?
And I say this a lot is because, like, are you a man of action or a woman of action?
Or do you just think about things?
Do you just contemplate, oh, I think I might do this or I think I might do that?
No, you need to do it.
You made a plan, do it.
Gonna fail, you're gonna have issues, you're gonna have setbacks, it's okay. Move forward, recover.
I had one this week, I had a major one this week.
I had tons of things this week that did not go according to plan and I started to freak out about it. I said, it's okay.
(14:50):
What I learned, I got my little lessons learned and I'm moving on. Why?
Because everybody who is successful in life moves forward.
Name a person who didn't fail 1001 times on something and didn't succeed, right?
You just learned 99 ways that didn't work.
It was Thomas Edison who said he just learned 99 ways on how to make a light bulb, but 99 ways didn't work, right? Something like that. So again, it's okay.
(15:11):
Do the things, be out there and get it done.
So here's one thing I would challenge you for this week.
Pick one of these, right?
You can explain a why run a quick debrief or coach someone toward growth.
I want you to pick one of those three, explain why, run a quick back brief or an after action
review, find out what worked and what didn't work, or coach someone through toward growth.
(15:33):
It doesn't have to be anything big or miraculous or spectacular, but if you do that and you
put the effort into it, you're going to make the world a better place just by doing one of those
three things, then people are going to find you as a more credible leader as well.
So I'm really also interested in how that worked out for you.
So please, if you get a chance to go to any of our social media links links, you can find them
(15:54):
in the description and let us know how it worked out.
Said, hey, I listened to your due your action episode, I tried this out and this is what happened.
I'd love to hear back from you on that.
So thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this episode.
As always, thank you for stopping by and checking out this episode and listening to it.
I really hope that you enjoyed it.
Before we go, I'd like to ask a favor of you, if I could.
(16:16):
If you could please share this episode with one or two people who you think might like this topic.
If you haven't followed or subscribed on the platform that you're listening to, and hit all
the bells and icons and all the whistles so that you know that when we post another episode,
you'll be alerted, please go ahead and do all that before you go.
If you got some value out of this episode, please leave a review or a comment so we can help
(16:37):
spread the show to other people who might be interested in the topics that we've talked about
here today, but may not have found our show yet.
Again, thanks for stopping by. I'm Tim Staton. Staten the Obvious Sam.
Hey, and welcome back to another episode.
We've been talking a lot about the Army's BE, KNOW, DO principles.
In the last two episodes we talked about B being who you need to be, right?
Having self awareness and developing yourself. No.
Do you have the education and specialized knowledge that you need in order to succeed in the job you're at?
(00:21):
And do you know the jobs of the folks that you work with on your team?
Now we're talking about do.
This is the action part of it.
This is the getting stuff done principle.
And I'm talking about these principles because they can apply in any situation, no matter what.
What we're going to talk about in this episode is three core actions for real leadership about
(00:44):
influencing, operating and improving, all followed by the DO principles.
This is Tim Staton with Tim stating the obvious.
What is this podcast about? It's simple.
You are entitled to great leadership.
Everywhere you go, whether it's a chur, whether it's to work, whether it's at your house, you
(01:06):
are entitled to great leadership.
And so in this podcast we take leadership principles and theories and turn them into everyday, relatable and usable advice. And a quick disclaimer.
This show process or service by trademark, trademark, manufacturer, otherwise does not necessarily
constitute an implied endorsement of anyone that I am employed by or favors them in representation.
The views are expressed here in my show are my own expressed and do not necessarily state or
reflect those of any employer.
(01:27):
All right, so we need to stop over complicating things a little bit and get back to what works,
doing the right things at the right time.
So let's get into it.
First up, we have influencing.
This sounds big and lofty, but it's the ability to get people to follow you without force, fear or fake hype.
Influencing comes down to communication, decision making and motivating. Right? It's that simple.
(01:50):
But folks still get it wrong because they overthink it or forget to be human.
At many times I'm reminded about the time where I was stationed in Germany.
I was in a training area and it was during winter and we were supposed to set up a command post
and in the middle of the woods in the field where we typically don't set up.
And there was nothing that we had to do it.
And so I had to figure out how to get the assets and the resources to set up Internet and phones
(02:15):
in the middle of nowhere without, you know, without the appropriate resources.
And so I started thinking about it.
So I was walking around the installation and I found four miles of fiber.
I go, ah, if Only I can get this 4 miles of fiber from point A, get it over to point B, then
I could just run it to where I need to go, and then we could splice it, and voila, we have Internet.
So I started thinking about it, and I convinced, contacted the people who own the fiber, and
(02:37):
I said, hey, do you have a plan for this four miles of fiber?
And they said, well, we did, but the project fell through, so it's just kind of excess right now. It's just laying there. I said, awesome.
Can I get it and drop it off over at this other location?
And I showed them on the map where I needed it dropped off at, and I run it to this location,
and I showed them where I needed it spliced at.
And if I run it myself with my team, do you think you could splice it for me?
(03:00):
And they laughed at me. I mean, they. They laughed at me.
They're like, you don't have the equipment.
You don't have the training. It's too cold.
It's the middle of winter. You're gon break it.
It's not going to be good.
Then we're just going to waste the fiber. That's okay.
Let's make a little bet.
What if I run it and I don't break any of the fiber? Let's say I don't.
I don't break more than two strands.
If I don't break more than two strands, that's like four pair.
(03:21):
Then you splice it fair.
And they're like, okay, well, what if you do?
Well, I'll get you some Fritos and bean dip. Right?
Because they don't have that on the German economy.
But they really liked it.
The people I was working with, they really liked.
And then, you know, we'll split it up and you win that.
And they're like, okay, bet we'll do that.
So they dropped it off, and I got my team out there, and I was like, all right, we're going to drop this.
(03:42):
We're going to run this fiber from here to here, which was like over two miles.
And they looked at me and they're like, sir, there's no way we're going to be able to do that.
Like, there's like a foot and a half to two feet of snow on the ground. And I'm not exaggerating.
Like, when you stepped on the ground, the snow went up to your knees where we were at.
And so it was pretty deep.
And I said, well, we're going to do it. We'll get it done.
And then so they started explaining every single reason why it wasn't going to work.
(04:06):
So I said, okay, let's see.
So I took the, the.
The lead end of it, and I said, hey, Sergeant, so and so just unreal it.
As I walk with it, I just put over my shoulder and I started walking with it.
I said, just make sure that you kind of feed it to me.
So that way we don't. We don't break it.
And I, I need it fed.
And so we'll just do it slowly.
We'll do it, you know, inch by inch, foot by foot.
It'll take us forever, but we're going to get it done.
(04:27):
I started walking out with it, and they just kind of like, looked at me like, are you serious?
I'm like, yeah, being dead serious.
I'll keep walking with it.
You feed it to me and I'll keep walking.
So it took us forever today.
I don't know exactly how long it took us to do it, but we got it.
And over parts where it was crossing some road areas, we put it up in a tree and we climbed
the tree and we fed it over to the other tree and we brought it back down and did an aerial run.
(04:49):
Then we got to the town and we were like, oh, man, there's roads. This is a problem.
So I was like, ah, but there's culverts in the road.
So we just fed it through the culverts to the building. We need to go.
I called up the fiber optic team.
I said, okay, what do we look like?
And they looked at it, and I said, you know what? You broke one strand. That was it.
I only broke one strand. The whole team did.
(05:11):
And like, the most horrible conditions that you could think of, without the right tools, without
the right equipment, we were able to do it.
And it's not because of anything.
That was super spectacular, miraculous.
It was probably the worst thing you ever saw happen.
But with six people dedicated and determined to make it happen, and with one person who said, you know what?
Everyone says it can't be done.
(05:31):
Just watch me do it and help me do it.
That is a part of influence, that is getting people to follow you.
When you start walking in the direction and say, hey, this is the idea. This is the project.
This is what we're doing.
So your battlefield might be a boardroom or a team project, and they all looks different, but
at the end of the day, it all starts with an action.
(05:53):
We can talk about things and we can pontificate and we can do all these other things, right?
But unless you do it, it doesn't matter.
And leadership is about achieving results and getting results.
And you have do in order to get that.
Another aspect of doing is what I call leadership. By walking around.
I don't like sitting in my office behind a door on a computer, talking to myself or talking
(06:15):
to people on the phone or talking to people via email.
That is just one aspect of a job that you have to do in order to communicate with people are
phone calls and emails and text messages.
The other part is getting up out of your office, behind your desk, walking out around and talking
to everybody and talking to people on your team and finding out what's going on, being human.
(06:36):
Talk to them like, find out what's working.
Find out what's not working.
Find out about their families, what do they got going on. Stay human.
And by leadership, by walking around is doing.
Because you're not just sitting as passive, you're engaging.
You're able to provide coaching tips and mentoring sessions on the fly.
And you're also staying human and relevant.
Like you're not just the guy or the gal behind the door who only gets out to go to a meeting
(07:00):
or to yell at people or when something's not working right.
You are a human being that they can interact with.
So here's three tips that you can do to get better at this. For influence.
Always explain why some things matter.
And we're going to get into the why part on the next segment.
But always explain why something matters.
People will do more with the why than the what.
Get input from your team. Right. It increases ownership.
(07:21):
If, you know, when I was out there with the fiber optic team, everybody's telling me every way
it wasn't going to work. Cool.
I'm not going to do it the ways that you said, because it won't work.
I'm just going to do it the way it's the opposite of what you said. Because that will work.
And then at the end, praise and effort, not just results.
You'll say thank you to everybody. You know that.
That goes a long way. Say, I appreciate you. Thanks for showing up.
Hey, thanks for doing this with me.
(07:42):
That means something to people and it's not complicated. People just overlook it.
So the next segment that we're going to be talking about is operating.
This just means getting it done right.
It means you plan, you execute, and you assess. Plain English.
You make a plan, you work the plan, review the results.
It's what your mom told you when you had a science project do, right?
(08:03):
Let's talk about intent, because this is where I think it's more important to provide people intent.
The why instead of meeting the plan.
No plan will survive first contact, no matter what.
You can have the best plan in the world and then you're always going to have an issue.
Even if you have a plan to take your family on a family vacation, you're like, okay, we're going
to get up at 3am, going to load the car, going to get on the road, we're going to head down
(08:27):
about six hours from there.
We're going to get gas, going to have breakfast, because all you all are going to sleep while we're in the car.
Then after we get gas and you all have breakfast, you all going to use the bathroom.
We're going to keep going for another six hours and then we'll eventually get to where we're
going to go. 12 hours on the road, total of like 18 hour day. That's the plan.
I know where I'm going to get gas.
I'm going to feed my kids and the family.
I know we're going to get some, you know, some sustenance so that way everyone can eat and be happy. Guess what?
(08:51):
The enemy has a vote and the enemy is time and everything else that is out of your control.
So let's say one of the kids want to oversleep.
Let's say you forgot to put gas in it the night before, right?
It's all about meeting the intent.
So if the intent is to go on a family vacation and have fun and you're going to get from point
A to point B and you're going to do some things, as long as you end up where you're supposed
to go, that is the big picture. That is the intent.
(09:12):
If the intent is, is go to Florida for a family vacation or go to Tennessee or go to Rome or
go to Croatia, wherever, as long as you get there, that's all that matters.
Everything that happens in the middle, that was part of the plan, but now just becomes part of your story.
And now it just becomes part of the experience of being on a team and getting to work together.
(09:33):
And as long as people understand the why and the intent and the big picture, then when things
go wrong, everybody can come together to get to figure out how to do the things to get to the
why and get to the big picture.
I hope that makes sense.
So if you want to get better at this, here's what you can do.
You can plan for flexibility. Things will change.
Things are going to go Wrong.
(09:54):
I used to get so bent out of shape when things didn't go according to plan.
Because I'm like, you don't know how long I spent on this to make sure this plan was going to
do this and this was going to do this.
And I would have spreadsheets and Gantt charts, and I knew exactly sequencing of events, of
when was things were going to happen in time and sequence, and how everything was going to plan out.
And 99% of the time, it didn't happen exactly the way I thought it was going to happen. 80%
(10:18):
happened the way I thought it was going to happen. But 99% didn't happen.
But 80% did happen, right? So be flexible. Be like Gumby.
And if you don't know who Gumby is, look it up, because it's important for you to be like Gumby.
We're going to have a Gumby episode, by the way.
The other thing you need to do is trust your team with small decisions.
This is why we give them the intent.
This is why we give them the big picture.
So that way you can entrust them and empower them with making decisions along the way.
(10:42):
When your plan doesn't go according to plan, and the other thing you can do is always assess, run a quick debrief.
What worked, what didn't work.
This is why you get out of your office and you walk around, you ask people, hey, what's going on?
What worked, what didn't work?
Constantly assess and re engage.
And all of these are actions. They're not passive.
You have to intentionally do this.
(11:02):
And leadership is about a process.
It's not about a guessing game.
And in the last segment, what we're going to be talking about is improving, develop, build and learn.
This is about leaving people and systems better than when you found them.
It's been ingrained in me my entire career that you always leave a place better than when you
found it, than when you left.
If you left a place and things are better when you leave, then you have a lot of reevaluating to do.
(11:27):
If things are better because you were there and you showed up and you helped and you made a
difference and you were of value, that's what we're getting after.
We're getting after making sure that we develop people, we train them, we build trust, and we learn from our mistakes.
That you turn that organization into a learning organization.
I used to tell people all the time, you should be the last one to be trained.
(11:50):
If you're a leader, everyone under everybody on your team should be trained before you.
And then you get trained because you have to develop everybody, your job as a leader, to develop
people to move up and to do bigger and better things, Then we have to build trust, right?
We have to allow for things to happen in order for people to make mistakes and recover from them.
(12:11):
And also we do what we say we're supposed to do.
And when we say learning from our mistakes in becoming a learning organization, that's where
we got to eliminate this zero defect mentality.
And I know a lot of people say, well, I don't have a zero defect mentality, but do you really?
I mean, you gotta really think about that.
I know a lot of organizations who say they don't have a zero defect mentality, but if you make
(12:32):
one mistake, you're gone or you're written off or, you know, they say you've lost all credibility.
I would say if you make the same mistake twice, yes, once, no.
We gotta learn from that.
And, and we have to allow people to learn from mistakes.
And organizationally we have to learn like what worked and what didn't work and improve from that.
So here's how we can get better at that.
(12:52):
We can give real feedback, not when things go wrong, but all the time.
Continuously seek real time feedback from people.
What's going right, what's going wrong.
The next thing we do is build trust, share our goals and time, share our goals and enjoy the
time you spend together with people.
You're going to be spending a lot of time with folks in the workplace, more so than you will with your family sometimes.
(13:14):
So you might as well enjoy the time and build trust together.
And the last thing that we need to do is allow people to fail forward.
Zero defect mentality kills your growth.
Allow people to fail, recover, regroup, and move on.
And if you fail as yourself and you're like, man, I'm in charge of all this, regroup, put on
your big boy pants, recover and move on.
(13:35):
That's how we do, right?
So next time something goes wrong, ask yourself, what's the lesson that I should learn from
this so that way I can turn this mistake into a momentum.
You know, there's a great mentor who used to tell me, what doesn't work out for you works on you.
And I want you to think about that for a minute.
What doesn't work out for you, what you intend to work out, will then work on you to make you a better person.
(14:01):
So then you can then be the person to make it work out.
Just think about that for a minute.
So that in essence is the do principle. It's the action principle.
How to influence, operate and improve.
These are tried and true principles.
With be, no do that, get things into action.
Are you the person you need to be?
Do you know what you need to know and can you get stuff done? Are you results oriented?
(14:24):
Are you a person of action?
And I say this a lot is because, like, are you a man of action or a woman of action?
Or do you just think about things?
Do you just contemplate, oh, I think I might do this or I think I might do that?
No, you need to do it.
You made a plan, do it.
Gonna fail, you're gonna have issues, you're gonna have setbacks, it's okay. Move forward, recover.
I had one this week, I had a major one this week.
I had tons of things this week that did not go according to plan and I started to freak out about it. I said, it's okay.
(14:50):
What I learned, I got my little lessons learned and I'm moving on. Why?
Because everybody who is successful in life moves forward.
Name a person who didn't fail 1001 times on something and didn't succeed, right?
You just learned 99 ways that didn't work.
It was Thomas Edison who said he just learned 99 ways on how to make a light bulb, but 99 ways didn't work, right? Something like that. So again, it's okay.
(15:11):
Do the things, be out there and get it done.
So here's one thing I would challenge you for this week.
Pick one of these, right?
You can explain a why run a quick debrief or coach someone toward growth.
I want you to pick one of those three, explain why, run a quick back brief or an after action
review, find out what worked and what didn't work, or coach someone through toward growth.
(15:33):
It doesn't have to be anything big or miraculous or spectacular, but if you do that and you
put the effort into it, you're going to make the world a better place just by doing one of those
three things, then people are going to find you as a more credible leader as well.
So I'm really also interested in how that worked out for you.
So please, if you get a chance to go to any of our social media links links, you can find them
(15:54):
in the description and let us know how it worked out.
Said, hey, I listened to your due your action episode, I tried this out and this is what happened.
I'd love to hear back from you on that.
So thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed this episode.
As always, thank you for stopping by and checking out this episode and listening to it.
I really hope that you enjoyed it.
Before we go, I'd like to ask a favor of you, if I could.
(16:16):
If you could please share this episode with one or two people who you think might like this topic.
If you haven't followed or subscribed on the platform that you're listening to, and hit all
the bells and icons and all the whistles so that you know that when we post another episode,
you'll be alerted, please go ahead and do all that before you go.
If you got some value out of this episode, please leave a review or a comment so we can help
(16:37):
spread the show to other people who might be interested in the topics that we've talked about
here today, but may not have found our show yet.
Again, thanks for stopping by. I'm Tim Staton. Staten the Obvious Sam.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.