May 19, 2025 • 11 mins
This episode reframes leadership, moving away from traditional top-down hierarchies. It introduces the concept of the "inverted pyramid," where the leader acts as a foundational coach, bearing the weight of responsibility and using training principles (Competency, Consistency, Intensity) to develop their team and support the frontline. True leadership is about serving the team's success, much like a dedicated coach serves their athletes.
Key Takeaways:
Key Takeaways:
- Training vs. Exercise in Leadership: Leading effectively is akin to "training" – a specific, diagnostic, and systematic approach to improving team performance, rather than just "exercising" authority.
- The C-C-I Leadership Model:
- Competency: Ensuring team members have the core skills and understanding for their roles.
- Consistency: Fostering reliable, high-quality performance from individuals and teams.
- Intensity: Strategically challenging the team to grow and handle greater responsibilities, once competency and consistency are established.
- Leader as Diagnostic Coach: The leader's role is to identify "movement flaws" (weaknesses, inefficiencies) within the team or organization, diagnose the root cause, and prescribe effective solutions (training, resources, process changes).
- The Inverted Pyramid: Effective organizational structure places the leader at the bottom, supporting layers of teams above them, with the frontline at the very top. The leader bears the ultimate weight of responsibility.
- Servant Leadership through Coaching: The leader's success is intrinsically tied to the success and growth of their team members, similar to how a coach's success is measured by their athletes' achievements.
- Purpose: Supporting the Frontline: The entire structure and the leader's efforts are geared towards enabling frontline workers to be highly effective, empowered, and fruitful.
- Sacrificial Aspect of Leadership: Often, capable individuals choose the greater responsibility of leadership (bearing more organizational weight) to develop others, rather than focusing solely on individual frontline contributions.
- Positional Authority Over Coaching: Relying on hierarchy rather than on diagnosing needs and developing team members.
- Ignoring "Movement Flaws": Failing to identify or address underlying issues in team performance or processes.
- Inconsistent Support: Not providing sustained coaching or resources needed for team development.
- Premature Intensity: Pushing teams or individuals into greater challenges before competency and consistency are solidified.
- Top-Down Resource Squeeze: Prioritizing the demands of upper management over the needs of the frontline, leading to an oppressive environment.
- Weaknesses as Diagnostic Tools: Viewing team struggles or mistakes as opportunities to diagnose underlying issues and strengthen the entire system.
- Coaching Builds Capability: Consistent coaching and support transform individual and team limitations into new strengths and higher performance levels.
- Shared Responsibility, Foundational Support: The leader at the bottom takes ultimate responsibility, creating a secure base for the entire organization to take risks and grow.
- Embrace the Coach Mindset: Consciously adopt the role of a diagnostician and developer of talent, rather than just a director of tasks.
- Flip Your Perspective: Visualize the organization as an inverted pyramid and understand your role as its foundational support.
- Cultivate a Healthy "Training Environment": Foster a culture of trust, learning, and mutual support where challenges lead to growth, not oppression.
- Identify a "Movement Flaw": This week, pinpoint one area where your team or organization is struggling or showing inconsistency.
- Apply C-C-I Thinking:
- Competency: Does the team have the clear skills/knowledge?
- Consistency: Are there reliable processes and support?
- Intensity: Is the current challenge level appropriate, or is a foundational issue being exposed?
- Coach, Don't Just Command: Instead of dictating a solution, how can you coach your team to diagnose the issue and develop the solution themselves, with your support?
- Share Your Practice: What organizational "weakness" are you addressing with a coaching mindset this week?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome back to the podcast. Today. I want to talk
about something that's fundamental to how we approach improvement, whether
it's in the gym, in our careers, or in leading others.
And it starts with a key distinction, and that is
the difference between exercising and training. You see, in my opinion,
exercise can be many things. It's movement, it's burning energy.
(00:32):
It might even just be about having fun. And that's
all great. If you want to exercise, fantastic, go for
a run, dance, play a sport casually, you have tons
of options and you really can't mess it up. But
training training is different. Training is specific. It is a
systematic approach aimed at improving particular aspects of performance. It
(00:52):
could be strength, endurance, balanced, flexibility, really any athletic attribute
that you can imagine. It can be highly specific to
a sport, or it can be very general in nature,
but the constant is that it's always seeking measurable improvement.
Training can definitely be fun, and often it is, but
whether or not it's fun is almost beside the point.
(01:14):
The point is progress and if you generally want to train,
if you're serious about getting better, you arguably need a coach.
You need someone with an experienced eye who can see
where your struggles are, diagnose the underlying weaknesses, prescribe effective fixes,
and importantly, hold your feet to the fire to make
sure you follow through this training philosophy, especially the diagnostic part,
(01:37):
is what I want to unpack today because it's a
powerful model for effective leadership. At its heart, good training
follows a clear progression. I'm a firm believer in competency,
then consistency, and then intensity. Let's break that down with
a simple example. Most of us can relate to a
basic body weight squad. First comes competency. Can you perform
(02:01):
the movement correctly? This isn't just about bending your knees,
It's about understanding the mechanics. Are you moving correctly through
your hips, knees and ankles? Can you achieve an appropriate
depth for your body maintaining good posture. Do you understand
the start and finished position how to connect them smoothly
and safely? Can you actually squat well? If the answer
(02:21):
is yes, then congratulations, You've demonstrated competency in the fundamental movement.
Next up is consistency. Now that you can do one
good squat, can you do ten in a row where
each one looks almost identical to the first. Are they
all performed with the same good form? Or are the
first three solid? But then by reps seven things start
to get a little shaky, your knees drift or your
(02:44):
chest drops. When you can perform, say ten or fifteen
squats in a row, all with excellent form, you're demonstrating consistency.
You own the movement pattern. And only then after competency
and consistency are established do we introduce intensity. Now, I
might ask you to do twenty reps or perhaps sets
of ten with minimal rest. We're challenging your ability to
(03:06):
maintain that consistency under greater demand. Eventually, your goals involve strength.
We're going to add load. We're going to carefully place
a barbell on your back and see if you can
still squat with the same proper form. We add weight
or reps, or reduce rest times. We increase the intensity
specifically to challenge your competency and consistency. When you master that,
(03:29):
you build consistency at that new level, and then eventually
we can challenge it again by adding a little more
each step along this journey. A good coach is indispensable.
They're constantly observing looking for errors, however subtle. They're checking
to see how your weight shifts, how your body naturally
tries to adapt or compensate when fatigue sets in or
(03:50):
the load increases. A skilled coach can identify the specific
weaknesses in your movement pattern. And here's the critical part.
The coach doesn't just shout. They diagnose the fault. Then
they prescribe a fix. And sometimes the fix is as
simple as an appropriate queue by spread the floor or
chest up. Other times it might involve a course of
(04:11):
targetive corrective exercises to strengthen the weak tissues and improve
mobility and restricted areas. Once the weakness is addressed, what
do we do We retest, We go back to the
movement and see if the correction has improved performance. This systematic,
diagnostic and prescriptive approach is it separates training from just exercising. Now,
(04:33):
let's talk about the role of that coach in this
training dynamic. The coach is, in essence, a servant of
the athlete. A coach's reputation, their professional success, their satisfaction
even is almost entirely derived from the success and improvement
of the athletes they guide. The coach pours their knowledge, experience,
and energy into the athlete's development. They are there to
(04:55):
build that athlete up. This is a direct parallel to
truly readership. A genuine leader's success is not measured by
their personal accolades, but by the success, growth, and achievements
of their team members. The leader, like the coach, serves
their team. So if the leader is truly a coach
dedicated to the team's success through this consistency, competency, intensity process,
(05:20):
what does that mean for the traditional organizational chart. It
means we need to take that old pyramid and flip
it upside down. So imagine this. The very top of
this new inverted pyramid are going to be your frontline workers,
the people directly interacting with customers, building product, delivering service.
They're the ones performing the core work of the organization.
(05:43):
Just above them in the traditional chart, but below them
in our inverted model are their direct supervisors or team leaders.
Their primary job to coach and support that front line,
ensuring they have competency, consistency, and can handle the intensity
of their roles. For those team leaders, you've got managers
or directors who are coaching and supporting those team leaders.
(06:05):
Their responsibility is broader. They're ensuring entire teams of leaders
are effective coaches. This pattern continues as you move further
down this inverted pyramid. The scope of responsibility, the number
of people being supported, and therefore the weight of the
organization being shouldered, increases significantly. Right at the very bottom
of this inverted pyramid, at the single point on which
(06:27):
everything rests, is the CEO, the chief, the main pumba.
This individual bears the ultimate weight of the entire organization.
Every success, every failure, every challenge, every decision made anywhere,
and that structure above them ultimately consolidates onto their shoulders.
The buck truly stops on their desk, which is now
(06:50):
the foundation stone of the entire edifice. This makes the
leader's role, especially at that foundational level, sacrificial. Often these
individuals are exceptionally good workers. They could be star performers
on that frontline, perhaps the most skilled technician or salesperson.
But because of their profound ability, their deep understanding of
(07:11):
the work, and their capacity to develop others, they take
on this far greater, weightier responsibility. They're chosen to leverage
their talents, not just for individual output, but to enable
the output and success of hundreds or even thousands of others.
It isn't just one leader over many people directly. It's
a system of leaders coaching teams who are part of
(07:32):
larger teams led by other leader coaches, all cascading down
to that single point of ultimate support and responsibility and
the absolute number one purpose of this entire upside down structure,
with the leader bearing the foundational load and using that competency, consistency,
intensity coaching model throughout. It's to support the people on
(07:53):
the frontline, to ensure these critical frontline workers have everything
they need. The skills, competence, see the reliable processes and support,
the consistency and the ability to meet demanding goals intensity
to do their jobs exceptionally well. The CEO coaches their
(08:14):
executive team using these principles, ensuring they are master coaches
for their divisions. Those executives, in turn use the same
framework to develop their managers, who then apply it to
their team leaders and so on right to the individual contributor.
If a movement, flaw or a weakness is detected anywhere
in the system, a team struggling a process failing the
(08:36):
diagnostic and prescriptive support flows from the leadership layers below
them in this inverted pyramid, reinforcing and strengthening that area.
So what's the takeaway here? True leadership isn't about climbing
to and sitting at the top of a traditional organizational chart.
It's about fundamentally repositioning yourself. It's about choosing to be
(08:57):
at the bottom of an inverted pyramid, ready to bear
the true weight of responsibility and serve as the ultimate
coach and support system for an entire organization. It is
about diligently applying those rigorous principles of effective training, meticulously
building competency, ensuring unwavering consistency, and then strategically thoughtfully applying intensity,
(09:19):
not just to individuals, but weaving it into the very
fabric of a company's system and its culture. It's about
deeply understanding that your primary role is to diagnose weaknesses
throughout the organization, not to assign blame or to punish,
but to prescribe and implement solutions that build enduring strength,
starting from the frontline and working out. Now, let's be
(09:40):
clear about the contrast between these two models. In a
traditional pyramid, the sheer weight and pressure of the structure
often bears down on the front line. It can feel
like it's designed to squeeze every last bit of resource,
every ounce of energy, out of those very people doing
the core work. The focus can inadvertently become about extracting
value upwards, often to the detriment of those at the base.
(10:04):
But in the inverted pyramid, the one where the leader
is the foundational support, the dynamic is entirely different. Here,
the front line is elevated. They are lifted up, supported
by the entire structure beneath them. The goal is to
put them in a position where they can be truly fruitful,
where they are empowered and equipped to do their absolute
best work, to innovate and to thrive. This structure is
(10:28):
designed to channel resources, support and coaching towards them. Ultimately,
I don't believe it serves any organization in the long
run to be oppressive, just as it doesn't serve an
athlete to have an unhealthy, oppressive relationship with their coach.
A good coach fosters growth, resilience, and peak performance through trust,
support and strategic challenges, not through fear of by constantly
(10:52):
draining the athlete. The relationship must be healthy to yield
the best results. Similarly, an organization thrives when its leadership
fosters an environment of support and development, enabling its people
rather than just exerting control over them. Being that foundational leader,
that head coach at the bottom of the inverted pyramid
(11:12):
is undoubtedly a demanding role. It is a heavy lift
every single day, but it is precisely how you build
an organization that is not only successful in its outcomes,
but is also truly strong, deeply resilient, and capable of
sustained extraordinary performance because its people are empowered. You are
(11:33):
the foundation, the head coach, and the ultimate bearer of responsibility,
ensuring everyone above you can reach their full potential. Thanks
for tuning in. Go out there and beat that foundation.
Welcome back to the podcast. Today. I want to talk
about something that's fundamental to how we approach improvement, whether
it's in the gym, in our careers, or in leading others.
And it starts with a key distinction, and that is
the difference between exercising and training. You see, in my opinion,
exercise can be many things. It's movement, it's burning energy.
(00:32):
It might even just be about having fun. And that's
all great. If you want to exercise, fantastic, go for
a run, dance, play a sport casually, you have tons
of options and you really can't mess it up. But
training training is different. Training is specific. It is a
systematic approach aimed at improving particular aspects of performance. It
(00:52):
could be strength, endurance, balanced, flexibility, really any athletic attribute
that you can imagine. It can be highly specific to
a sport, or it can be very general in nature,
but the constant is that it's always seeking measurable improvement.
Training can definitely be fun, and often it is, but
whether or not it's fun is almost beside the point.
(01:14):
The point is progress and if you generally want to train,
if you're serious about getting better, you arguably need a coach.
You need someone with an experienced eye who can see
where your struggles are, diagnose the underlying weaknesses, prescribe effective fixes,
and importantly, hold your feet to the fire to make
sure you follow through this training philosophy, especially the diagnostic part,
(01:37):
is what I want to unpack today because it's a
powerful model for effective leadership. At its heart, good training
follows a clear progression. I'm a firm believer in competency,
then consistency, and then intensity. Let's break that down with
a simple example. Most of us can relate to a
basic body weight squad. First comes competency. Can you perform
(02:01):
the movement correctly? This isn't just about bending your knees,
It's about understanding the mechanics. Are you moving correctly through
your hips, knees and ankles? Can you achieve an appropriate
depth for your body maintaining good posture. Do you understand
the start and finished position how to connect them smoothly
and safely? Can you actually squat well? If the answer
(02:21):
is yes, then congratulations, You've demonstrated competency in the fundamental movement.
Next up is consistency. Now that you can do one
good squat, can you do ten in a row where
each one looks almost identical to the first. Are they
all performed with the same good form? Or are the
first three solid? But then by reps seven things start
to get a little shaky, your knees drift or your
(02:44):
chest drops. When you can perform, say ten or fifteen
squats in a row, all with excellent form, you're demonstrating consistency.
You own the movement pattern. And only then after competency
and consistency are established do we introduce intensity. Now, I
might ask you to do twenty reps or perhaps sets
of ten with minimal rest. We're challenging your ability to
(03:06):
maintain that consistency under greater demand. Eventually, your goals involve strength.
We're going to add load. We're going to carefully place
a barbell on your back and see if you can
still squat with the same proper form. We add weight
or reps, or reduce rest times. We increase the intensity
specifically to challenge your competency and consistency. When you master that,
(03:29):
you build consistency at that new level, and then eventually
we can challenge it again by adding a little more
each step along this journey. A good coach is indispensable.
They're constantly observing looking for errors, however subtle. They're checking
to see how your weight shifts, how your body naturally
tries to adapt or compensate when fatigue sets in or
(03:50):
the load increases. A skilled coach can identify the specific
weaknesses in your movement pattern. And here's the critical part.
The coach doesn't just shout. They diagnose the fault. Then
they prescribe a fix. And sometimes the fix is as
simple as an appropriate queue by spread the floor or
chest up. Other times it might involve a course of
(04:11):
targetive corrective exercises to strengthen the weak tissues and improve
mobility and restricted areas. Once the weakness is addressed, what
do we do We retest, We go back to the
movement and see if the correction has improved performance. This systematic,
diagnostic and prescriptive approach is it separates training from just exercising. Now,
(04:33):
let's talk about the role of that coach in this
training dynamic. The coach is, in essence, a servant of
the athlete. A coach's reputation, their professional success, their satisfaction
even is almost entirely derived from the success and improvement
of the athletes they guide. The coach pours their knowledge, experience,
and energy into the athlete's development. They are there to
(04:55):
build that athlete up. This is a direct parallel to
truly readership. A genuine leader's success is not measured by
their personal accolades, but by the success, growth, and achievements
of their team members. The leader, like the coach, serves
their team. So if the leader is truly a coach
dedicated to the team's success through this consistency, competency, intensity process,
(05:20):
what does that mean for the traditional organizational chart. It
means we need to take that old pyramid and flip
it upside down. So imagine this. The very top of
this new inverted pyramid are going to be your frontline workers,
the people directly interacting with customers, building product, delivering service.
They're the ones performing the core work of the organization.
(05:43):
Just above them in the traditional chart, but below them
in our inverted model are their direct supervisors or team leaders.
Their primary job to coach and support that front line,
ensuring they have competency, consistency, and can handle the intensity
of their roles. For those team leaders, you've got managers
or directors who are coaching and supporting those team leaders.
(06:05):
Their responsibility is broader. They're ensuring entire teams of leaders
are effective coaches. This pattern continues as you move further
down this inverted pyramid. The scope of responsibility, the number
of people being supported, and therefore the weight of the
organization being shouldered, increases significantly. Right at the very bottom
of this inverted pyramid, at the single point on which
(06:27):
everything rests, is the CEO, the chief, the main pumba.
This individual bears the ultimate weight of the entire organization.
Every success, every failure, every challenge, every decision made anywhere,
and that structure above them ultimately consolidates onto their shoulders.
The buck truly stops on their desk, which is now
(06:50):
the foundation stone of the entire edifice. This makes the
leader's role, especially at that foundational level, sacrificial. Often these
individuals are exceptionally good workers. They could be star performers
on that frontline, perhaps the most skilled technician or salesperson.
But because of their profound ability, their deep understanding of
(07:11):
the work, and their capacity to develop others, they take
on this far greater, weightier responsibility. They're chosen to leverage
their talents, not just for individual output, but to enable
the output and success of hundreds or even thousands of others.
It isn't just one leader over many people directly. It's
a system of leaders coaching teams who are part of
(07:32):
larger teams led by other leader coaches, all cascading down
to that single point of ultimate support and responsibility and
the absolute number one purpose of this entire upside down structure,
with the leader bearing the foundational load and using that competency, consistency,
intensity coaching model throughout. It's to support the people on
(07:53):
the frontline, to ensure these critical frontline workers have everything
they need. The skills, competence, see the reliable processes and support,
the consistency and the ability to meet demanding goals intensity
to do their jobs exceptionally well. The CEO coaches their
(08:14):
executive team using these principles, ensuring they are master coaches
for their divisions. Those executives, in turn use the same
framework to develop their managers, who then apply it to
their team leaders and so on right to the individual contributor.
If a movement, flaw or a weakness is detected anywhere
in the system, a team struggling a process failing the
(08:36):
diagnostic and prescriptive support flows from the leadership layers below
them in this inverted pyramid, reinforcing and strengthening that area.
So what's the takeaway here? True leadership isn't about climbing
to and sitting at the top of a traditional organizational chart.
It's about fundamentally repositioning yourself. It's about choosing to be
(08:57):
at the bottom of an inverted pyramid, ready to bear
the true weight of responsibility and serve as the ultimate
coach and support system for an entire organization. It is
about diligently applying those rigorous principles of effective training, meticulously
building competency, ensuring unwavering consistency, and then strategically thoughtfully applying intensity,
(09:19):
not just to individuals, but weaving it into the very
fabric of a company's system and its culture. It's about
deeply understanding that your primary role is to diagnose weaknesses
throughout the organization, not to assign blame or to punish,
but to prescribe and implement solutions that build enduring strength,
starting from the frontline and working out. Now, let's be
(09:40):
clear about the contrast between these two models. In a
traditional pyramid, the sheer weight and pressure of the structure
often bears down on the front line. It can feel
like it's designed to squeeze every last bit of resource,
every ounce of energy, out of those very people doing
the core work. The focus can inadvertently become about extracting
value upwards, often to the detriment of those at the base.
(10:04):
But in the inverted pyramid, the one where the leader
is the foundational support, the dynamic is entirely different. Here,
the front line is elevated. They are lifted up, supported
by the entire structure beneath them. The goal is to
put them in a position where they can be truly fruitful,
where they are empowered and equipped to do their absolute
best work, to innovate and to thrive. This structure is
(10:28):
designed to channel resources, support and coaching towards them. Ultimately,
I don't believe it serves any organization in the long
run to be oppressive, just as it doesn't serve an
athlete to have an unhealthy, oppressive relationship with their coach.
A good coach fosters growth, resilience, and peak performance through trust,
support and strategic challenges, not through fear of by constantly
(10:52):
draining the athlete. The relationship must be healthy to yield
the best results. Similarly, an organization thrives when its leadership
fosters an environment of support and development, enabling its people
rather than just exerting control over them. Being that foundational leader,
that head coach at the bottom of the inverted pyramid
(11:12):
is undoubtedly a demanding role. It is a heavy lift
every single day, but it is precisely how you build
an organization that is not only successful in its outcomes,
but is also truly strong, deeply resilient, and capable of
sustained extraordinary performance because its people are empowered. You are
(11:33):
the foundation, the head coach, and the ultimate bearer of responsibility,
ensuring everyone above you can reach their full potential. Thanks
for tuning in. Go out there and beat that foundation.
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