Champions Integrate Drive and Empathy

Question your nature if the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile didn’t move you. Millions of lives got rocked from those tragedies and the pictures are gut wrenching. Also gut wrenching is seeing some of my friends’ lives get tough due to recent layoffs. It seems like each day presents new challenges and each business day gets harder.

Today, our leaders are called to be compassionate and driven. Our employees need to feel appreciated, or at least let down easily, and our businesses have to reach new heights despite the obstacles. A question I’ve debated with myself and with others is how to balance drive and empathy. How do I show enough compassion and still I apply the performance pressure? My dilemma is that it’s Sunday night and I’m preparing for my Monday morning at work, but my mind is on Chili.

Do I forcefully transition? If so, how? If not, do I show up unprepared for another challenging day with big demands at the office?

Before answering that question, I believe there are leaders who are naturally empathetic and leaders who are naturally driven.  But I believe champions are both—and both are critical for success.

Champions have a sensational drive for success and an ability to truly connect emotionally with others. Their compassion doesn’t impede their business acumen. Nor does their business acumen impede their compassion. Since a champion is self-aware, they know their natural tendencies and where they need to compensate for their lack of skills. If empathy is natural for the champion, they will compensate for balance and emphasize drive. If a champion is more naturally driven and less empathetic, they will compensate by emphasizing compassion.

My concern for the Chileans shouldn’t keep me from being prepared for my Monday. And my Monday shouldn’t desensitize me to the Chileans.

Below are a few points to consider as you work to better integrate your business drive and empathy as a leader:

1. Know your natural tendencies. Are your natural tendencies more for empathy or for drive?
2. Prepare to compensate the other attribute by being intentional in your actions in order to capture a healthy balance. Too much empathy can stifle progress, and too much drive can create a trail of people debris behind you. Realize that both traits are important.
3. Take a little more time before you react. Try not to always respond at your first notion. Consider [taking] a pause and allow things to soak in a little more.
4. Help others understand the reasoning behind your reaction or position—whether empathetic or direct. Explaining the reasoning helps others overcome their tendency to take things personally.
5. Explain your motives. Explaining your motives not only helps others realize you’re not completely insensitive, or overly sensitive for you empathetic leaders, but explaining your motives holds you accountable for making sure your motives are right.

Champions know in their heart of hearts that the world – in general and in business – is not black and white.  They are keenly aware that a black and white approach will fall short of the results and guiding principles they are committed to. They must be able to integrate their keen business drive with a deep appreciation for the people with whom they work and the events occurring in the world that impact all of us.

Onward!

Tags: champions, compassion and drive, Drive for results, Empathy, Leadership skills, OrganizationalChampions, tragedy and leadership

MotherLetter.com is on a Mission

Seth is a successful attorney in one of the leading law firms in the South. Needless to say, he is busy, and his work is important. Seth had a friend who traded a comfortable life and career in the United States for a benevolent cause in Southeast Africa, helping teach impoverished and disease-stricken communities how to farm and, thus, restoring health to these communities. For years, Seth promised to visit his friend and experience the cause. For years, he put it off because of his busy work schedule. But not last year. He finally made time to spend eight days in Southeast Africa with his friend.

And he was changed forever.

Upon his return, Seth and I had dinner with our wives to hear about the adventures in Africa. During dinner, it was easy to see that Seth was not the same. This professional attorney whose job it is to play it cool couldn’t get through the appetizer without breaking down as he told story after story of his experience with the Africans. He gained new perspectives and insights. His views on life were richer and more profound.

Today, through his experience, Seth is a man on a mission. Seth, as a gift to his wife – Amber, began a movement called MotherLetter, an online community for people to share amazing and personal stories of their moms and their mommy experiences. This movement is taking off and connecting moms and their stories all over the world.

Now Seth and Amber are allowing the MotherLetter movement to fight malaria through Compassion International’s malaria intervention fund. I encourage you to get involved in the MotherLetter movement and to help fight malaria by going to www.motherletter.com. Onward!

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If Seth Haines’ story is inspiring to you, Champ him at www.ChampEm.com.

Tags: africa, africans, amber, attorney, champem, champion, haines, help, helping, letter, mission, mom, mommy, mother, motherletter, movement, responsibility, Seth, social, stories, story

Why Championship Companies Follow Walmart’s Lead

Recent business conversations with leaders have been telling of our times. Fear is increasing in corporate cultures, only the safest options are pursued, and it’s back to the basics for most. Businesses seem to be slowly treading closer to commodity models once again – standard, transactional business as usual.

These companies are following the breadcrumbs to the mouth of the hungry wolf. If they don’t wake up, they’ll be eaten.

That’s why my admiration goes to championship companies. I describe championship companies as those who exude three characteristics:

Agility – a strong hunger and aptitude for change
Vision – able to imagine new possibilities and execute towards them
Culture – committed employees, who personally align with their work, respect and develop others, and share ideas openly and often

I work with many companies, but none of them display these three characteristics quite like Walmart. This may surprise you, but I’ve seen this company transform over the last five years and it’s nothing short of amazing. Walmart, as an organization, has a soul. This company is mission-minded and bold.

Walmart doesn’t experience change; it hunts it down through continuous restructuring. It doesn’t just envision opportunities, it disrupts precious business models. Walmart doesn’t just talk culture, it embraces the unique contribution of every individual.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina was a significant tragedy for New Orleans and the entire U.S. It was also a tragedy for Walmart. Over 30 of its store operations had been shut down and over 10,000 of its Associates displaced. Even more, Walmart saw the suffering in the communities where the Associates lived. When the community hurts, so does the community Walmart store. Walmart immediately went into crisis management roll. But this time, Walmart went further. Walmart donated millions of dollars and provided helpful services to thousands of people.

This was no flash in the pan effort for Walmart. Experiencing the calamity of Hurricane Katrina impacted former Walmart CEO, Lee Scott, personally as he walked the devastation and worked side by side with Walmart Associates to lend a helping hand. So much so, that on October 2005, Lee delivered a bold speech to Walmart Associates at Walmart’s annual kick off meeting. Bold, because the speech was the beginning of a departure from Walmart’s honored “Every Day Low Prices” practices. Below is an excerpt from that speech.

Katrina asked this critical question, and I want to ask it of you: What would it take for Walmart to be that company, at our best, all the time? What if we used our size and resources to make this country and this earth an even better place for all of us: customers, Associates, our children, and generations unborn? What would that mean? Could we do it? Is this consistent with our business model? What if the very things that many people criticize us for – our size and reach – became a trusted friend and ally to all, just as it did in Katrina?

Walmart is walking the talk. And it’s paying out. Walmart has added 100 new product lines and saved millions of dollars in store operations through their sustainability and diversity efforts. “It’s smart business” says Doug McMillon, CEO of Sam’s Club. “This is business in the 21^st Century. Being a successful business AND a good corporate citizen.”

Walmart’s heritage is respect for the individual, strive for excellence, and serve the customer. But the top global company also understands that its heritage, though timeless, must be made relevant to the times; and therefore, Walmart’s heritage is masterfully being expressed to ever-changing customer needs. And because of it, even today the brand is growing stronger around the globe.

Image Credit: NASA

Tags: championship, Katrina, responsibility, social, Walmart

Power Through Love, Not In Spite of It

One’s pursuit of power undermines the ability to love. But conversely, the willingness to love manifests power. For the champion, power is achieved through love. For the old-style leader, power is often sought politically in spite of love.

Martin Luther King, Jr. taught me this principle through his words, his character, and his actions. King had the pressures that you and I will never face. He stood squarely in the middle of a war zone everywhere he went. He had every reason to hate, and yet he never did.

Never have I observed a more compassionate, humble and courageous man. He was a consummate champion—a faithful man at his core and a protector of all human rights. King was no egoist. He sacrificed daily and carried the dream for a better tomorrow.

King wasn’t defined by his circumstances. He rose above them. His ability to love, in spite of the hatred that surrounded him, manifested his power. And because of it, his legacy will always be honored.

Tags: champion, dream, king, love, luther, martin, martinlutherking, mlk

The Value of Taking On a Social Cause

In a previous post, Mike discussed the value of closing your doors and giving back as a business. SVI had the opportunity to go to Torreón Mexico to work in a food bank. This food bank is in a city where there is abject poverty and an inability to effectively address it. This video is what we saw and learned while in Mexico.

Even Small Businesses Have a Social Responsibility

Last week I learned a very valuable lesson – even my small company is on the hook for social responsibility.

For a couple of years now, I’ve been preaching to large corporations the importance of being socially responsible. I was able to preach this without personally embracing it because, after all, we weren’t a $30 billion company. What could we do? And no one really expects us to do anything anyway, right?

In 2007 we decided at SVI, my company, that we were going to be a socially responsible company who served social needs. Therefore, our plan was to identify one mission every year and our entire office would be shut down so that everyone on the SVI team could serve.

Easy enough … to say, yeah. Executing it was completely different. Early this year, our clients have been preparing for a recession. So we’ve been working with them to reduce budgets and drive payout as it relates to organizational development. Needless to say, this caused SVI to reduce our budgets, drive payout and get creative.

During this budget reducing time, SVI has been connected to a food bank in Torreón, Mexico through a 21st Century Leadership program we’ve been responsible for with one of our clients. For a number of reasons, this food bank was losing some of its support. Not only were they losing support, they were a few months away from closing their doors if something significant didn’t change immediately.

SVI could provide that support, but not without it hurting. SVI was very busy, February was a very tight month financially, and we had to figure out how all of us could get to Mexico with one week’s notice. It would have been easy to say that this snuck up on us, that we weren’t prepared or that we couldn’t afford it. But in service, need sometimes approaches you in the most inappropriate times. We had a decision to make.

Were we going to be a company of integrity operating on values and principles – or were we going to be a company driven by short-term profits?

My hope is both.

One statement rang clear to me at the point of decision – the mission chooses us, we don’t get to choose the mission. There was no decision, only a charge. Our office shut down the following week and all nine of our team members went to Torreón, Mexico to support and help sustain a food bank there.

This was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It was a hugely productive trip with several great outcomes for the food bank. But it was so much more than that too. Our team came together like never before. Engagement increased. Commitment increased. Pride in each other increased. Our team’s agility, creativity, patience, energy, emotions, and intelligence were all tested to the extreme and pushed to the max. We saw who we were under the most intense circumstances in some of the most challenging times.

Our entire team got to participate in a “clothing drop” in one of the most poverty stricken areas in all of Mexico. This gave us incredible perspective and appreciation. But it also did one other thing. It taught us that there is no way anyone can argue that businesses have a responsibility to social causes and issues. Those who argue against this point have never participated in social responsibility causes as a business.

Since our return from this trip, we have received numerous calls and emails of encouragement from many of our clients, partners and friends.

The hard decision to serve in a tough business climate helped build our brand, strengthen our culture and build our business acumen. Great lesson!

Tags: 21st Century, corporate responsibility, Leadership, mission, organizational development, service, Social Responsibility, triple-bottom line