Transformational leadership: Tortoise and the hare in organisations

We continue our exploration of the principle of Perseverance and look at the "Tortoise and the hare" within organisations.

The tortoise represents that part of our work and  professional lives that can only be accomplished with perseverance and a protective outer shell. The destination is clear and in focus, but it comes forward in baby steps. The hare represents the fast-twitch muscles required to get out of the blocks fast, but that cannot be sustained over long periods of time. You need both capabilities but will remain transactional in your benefits if you try and have your workforce do both.

Let's look at exponential growth!

Additional Resource
Wicked problem Solving
https://youtu.be/6QaVW_nNMaE

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello again everyone, and welcome back once more. Last week
we continued our request if you like, and we're looking
at the perseverance principle, or as the ted Talk would
call it, grit. It's that ability to keep on going,

(00:22):
the inner that we in our chatter box inside you saying, oh,
why bother? Why bother? It's keeping going. So this week
I'd like to talk about the tortoise and the hair
within organization. Tortoise isn't so well thought of in the

(00:43):
world of work. The choice between the slower and more
libert and methodical tortoise and the rocket fast but solitary
and persevering hair. Most leaders prefer the hair I speed.
Its speed is vitally important to every business today. Customers

(01:09):
expect here fast responses their questions, and when they receive
tortoiselike responses, the impression is ough they don't care. What
follows The businesses tortoise like response is a hair Quite
boasts to social media about this slow response. How quickly

(01:34):
does your business respond to shifts in the market or
to customer complaints. When you see a process inside your
organization that needs revamping, do you think about it for
long periods or do you have a hair fast rework
to it. The reality is both the tortoise and hair

(01:57):
responses are valuable, just in different contexts. For example, there
are initiatives that can be that can and need be
implemented hair fast time frames. There's also initiatives they can
only be accomplished. What feels like plotting progress, for example

(02:22):
a personal master process? Does it come blisteringly fast? Yes,
you can make quick gains early in transformational leadership process,
but really radical transformation comes only after long periods of
which seen is mine homing effort with little or no progress.

(02:44):
Let's talk about the benefits of the tortoise and the hair.
Since we're not advocating for the hiring of either long yeared,
fast running hairs or land dwelling reptiles, let's be clear
about the tortoise and hair metaphor. The tortoise represents that

(03:05):
part of our work in professional lives that can only
be accomplished with perseverance and the protective outer shell. The
destination is clear and in focus, but it comes forward
and little baby steps. The hair represents the fast twitch
muscles required car out of blocks fast, but that can

(03:30):
be sustained over a long periods of time. We need
post capabilities, but will remain transactional in our benefits if
you can try and have workers to do both. In
order for you to achieve your purpose, promises and priorities,
you need to value the benefits and limitations of both

(03:53):
the tortoise and the hair. You need to build a
protective a shell to naysayers and those who will suggest
to slow down and not push so hard. You'll have
to embrace running at full tilt without having all the
answers to what seems like mission critical questions. Whenston Churchill

(04:18):
embraced both the tortoise and the hair ways of working.
When he admonished his cabinet that negotiating with Hitler, even
the face of non stop bombing and the death of
British citizens, was futile. He also implored his cabinet members
the success was achieved through the rapid deployment of new ornaments.

(04:40):
He did so well, Germany successfully needed friends and British
troops were in circles at Dunkirk. Some some may say
he was incapable of being persuaded, but deep in the essence,
Churchill knew that victory for Britain. However, perilous was not

(05:00):
a one prong strategy, but a two pronged hortoise, tortoise
and hair strategy. Now, let's talk about the three steps
to building an impervious outer shell to detractors seek respect,
not friendship. In the beginning of the earlier part of

(05:23):
my consulting career, I was involved in organizational change turnarounds.
I spent more reason quite a fair amount of time
trying to be liked as well as respected in Moreau.
At times, I didn't make hard and difficult decisions, and
I tried to make them in ways that would preserve

(05:46):
my goo good standing with the people affected. It didn't work.
At one time, I was told during an organization, Oh,
you're you're the guy. You're the guy from the viper pit. Wow,
we're a label to get to. I found that when

(06:07):
I worked harder and harder on the great stress, it
caused me great stress because really want to be lighted.
We're a frowned over. Time is the freedom. No one
comes from that, and you'll maybe come to that conclusion yourself.
It's for not trying to be all things to all people,

(06:30):
but be my own person who stands by principles, stand
by my brouthless and I keep, I keep my promises
and what to create great value, sobit creating value from
my clients, from my work colleagues, for for my community

(06:56):
as well. Sometimes it's not always been like to liked,
it's been true to your own purpose. During this journey,
I had learned a great lesson about the difference between
advice and feedback. When I asked for feedback, people oh
almost too willing to provide it, but I didn't really

(07:21):
have an interest in whether it was helpful or actionable,
And many times I learned that the feedback received was
geared more to wars the preserving the self worth and
self extreem of the person giving it. I found that
my desire for success often shadows others desires, and consequently

(07:48):
feedback from others was a different view of success that
was rooted in having me to be less successful. As
you've probably gathered my voice just now, I'm recovering from
a head called there are times and illness it makes
sense to slow up, allow the body to recover. There's

(08:12):
times to push through, push through to a level that
gets you to the other side. What I've found is
that transformational leaders ask for advice instead of feedback. Feedback

(08:34):
doesn't require action once the feedback is given. It's all
too often a one way transaction in which the person
giving the feedback sees the responsibility ending was the shared
feedback advice and the other on the other hand, to
share between two colleagues who respect one another and who

(08:58):
want the real for one another, advice, when asked for sincerely,
generates a substantiality different difference, different response and feedback. Advice
includes a desire another person's part to partner with the

(09:20):
person advise them and how to achieve their purpose or
the require their desired state. Advice is seldom thrown away,
but rather handed personally to the other person with grace.
The third way to be impurpose to detractors is to

(09:45):
court your purpose out of hiding into the daylight of
your everyday life and the purpose principle the word love,
which us to describe more of the essential building blocks
of your purpose. When you fall in love with your purpose,

(10:05):
you will treat it in a similar way to how
you've treated the early loves in your personal life. You
write notes of affection. You'll spend time with the person
and tell them all these things and like and admire
about them. You'll act in ways that in retrospect may

(10:27):
seem sappy and adolescent, but was rooted purely in how
you feel towards other persons. You were imperviose to a
rational part of mine and move by the love towards
other person. The same holds true for your purpose. Treat
it with the care and love you would with the

(10:49):
person you love. Serenade them with words of affection, care,
Spend time in joining their company, share them with gifts
that stow your appreciation, and that each day you feed
your purposes, stronger it grows, and the more of an
inseparable bond that's creating. Now, let's talk about two steps

(11:15):
a building hit like reflexes. Being an improviser, I recently
spoke to an executive about his inability to execute as
fast as he wanted to. He knew the technical aspects
of his work, true and true and true, but it

(11:36):
was stunked as to why he was faltering with execution.
What I heard in that kind of twenty minute talk
was his I need for every action and every response
to be right, to be correct. He'd said, I'd be

(11:56):
thinking that when right, he would be successful when he
was wrong and be failing. He got himself. He wroked
himselves into a corner and in turn had imposed that
on others the same requirement. Wrong actions or decisions were
and his thinking unacceptable. This belief slowed him when his

(12:23):
team down world amount was wow. It was creating fear
of failure. Things they were failing to make, decisions didn't
want to be wrong. At the root of the issue
was a high level of self criticism. He held himself

(12:45):
to such a high standard and one of the standards
at risk of not being met. He did what he
felt was required in order to be right. He unknownly
communicated this to his team in the same high standard
he had for himself, along with the criticism. You may

(13:05):
you may think this needs a therapist to resolve. I
didn't think so. What I've seen them with smart and
intelligent executives is at the moment they see the fallacy
of their thinking, they move naturally towards fixing it. We
discussed using three steps to be more from improvisational. The

(13:29):
first is to shift the thinking from black and white,
right and wrong thinking to the good, better, and best thinking.
For example, a good answer may not be his ideal answer,
but it's good and that it creates a starting point
for creating a better answer, which I follow by experimentation

(13:50):
and roost taking can lead to the best answer. We
also discussed how improve improvisation his high art wires wicked
smart wits that can be developed over time. This line
of thinking resonated with him, as he saw this as
an intellectually appealing you l like wicked answers. He also

(14:16):
agreed to watch, listen, and catch himself have been critical
of himself and others, and to identify when, when he
does it, and under what circumstances. The more light he
can bring to this aspect of his leader, the more
improvisation will happen, and he will be this transformational leader

(14:42):
building muscle memory. I have been a runner and a
tie cheap player most of my life. At times I
enjoy the thrill of fool throat are running, particularly now
is a bit older down hill. I find it's kind
of hard for me to run a group and not

(15:04):
want to, you know, speed up, do this and that,
keeping to the steady prace of the group. But when
I started doing triathlons, the sprinting me learned the hard
way that my muscles needed to adapt to long slow swimming, cycling,

(15:24):
running is completing completing the course with the subjective, not
competing the top trathletes of the successful ones that finished.
It taught me that my muscles could adapt, and that

(15:46):
I confuse sprinting into my trathlons, but only for short,
short bursts. And I found this after years and years
of the training, and once my muscles had learned both
the sprinting and extended durations of the aspects of traveling,

(16:11):
I could choose the appropriate approach, be it to swimming, cycling,
and running at the appropriate time. When you want to
run like a hare, you can't go out and one
day become hair like. I remember in the early days,
I was running a ten miler and I heard this,

(16:35):
you know, this, pap pap, pap, pap pat behind me.
And I looked round and here was this an older
guy much the same as I was just now. Oh,
and I thought I was getting tired and tither. What
I didn't realize what he was slowly, slowly extending his

(16:57):
pace has stride. I tried to run fast for a
little while, and then I just couldn't sustain it, and
I fell away the war I discovered when I was
a bit older and running triathlons. If you can do that,
you can increase your space, increase, increase and increase steady,

(17:18):
steady over a period of time, then you can sustain it.
It's ruling people in, particularly on the races and that,
but that comes with experience, through time, building muscle memory,
and once that's there, you can increase the load in

(17:39):
your muscles for the increased demands. What's more comfortable for you?
Tortoise or the hairway of working? If it's a tortoise,
decide to decrease the amount of time it takes you
to do the least attractive party, they'll work by twenty

(17:59):
p saying, speed it up a bit if you prefer
the hair. We're working. Which area of your leadership do
you see is taking too long to accomplish? Who's the
one person you trust and respect They can go and
ask for advice about how to benefit from working or
slowing down working with the tortoise. Whatever skill set you

(18:21):
want to develop, recognize that when a purpose has grabbed
hold of you and as you fired up about accomplishing it,
there's an unwaverableing spirit that encircles you. You wake up
in the morning visualizing your day and how you're enthusiastically
exemplify your purpose. You'll go through your day actively finding

(18:45):
ways of and fusing your purpose into your voicemails, emails, meetings.
When you think of your critical decisions that need to
be made, you have your purpose operating in the foreground.
But in order to be severe and achieve transformational results
for yourself before you can assist others in doing the same.

(19:10):
You can't have the strength of an international triathlete overnight.
You have the perseverance, the DNA, the talent, skill and
preference for one type of action over another. But you
can become impervious tenasias and obstacles the following these steps

(19:36):
that we've talked about today, you can have hair like reflexes.
Then becoming an improvisor. You can build hairlike reflexes by
being really rapid improvising. You can build your muscle memory.
That's being like the dor toise and the hair the

(19:59):
dor toise the sec respect not friendship. They ask for advice,
not feedback, and the court your purpose and in building
hairlike reflexes, become an improvise old your muscle memory, and

(20:19):
you'll have the ability are heading towards your ability to
do your best work. Yes, next week we'll discuss the
four obstacles in doing your best work and integrate their
learnings from this week to the next section. It's all

(20:40):
we'll look at the full barriers are the key steps
for overcome and this will have living life with passion.

(21:00):
But he didn't put anything went