In yourself and in your observation of people that you've worked with, did you ever sense that just being hard driving was kind of, it was great, but it was limiting? Like, did you ever sense that like, by liking the people you work with, you could perform much better? Even if they perhaps were not as hard, to kind of borrow the common parlance around this, they weren't as hard as everybody else, that because you like each other so, so much, that you can kind of do anything.

Well, if you have a team of 10 people and you all have a great relationship and you get along well, and you're going against my team and we all hate each other and who's gonna win? The team that loves each other is gonna win, I would hope. It's not even close.

It's not even close. As a matter of fact, if you work for me and you don't like me, what kind of performance are you gonna give me? It's gonna be tough. What if you love me and I've looked out for you and I've done everything for you and I've taken care of you, what kind of performance are you gonna give me?

- I'm like a dog, I'd die for you. - So yeah, and you know, earlier you asked about the human animal and human nature, and this is part of leadership. I got asked this question the other day by, I was working with a company, and the guy says, you know, how do I identify, what are the characteristics of someone that can execute and how do I identify those characteristics in a person so that I can get those people?

And I said, well, first of all, the characteristics are the characteristics that everybody's, you know, obviously someone that's driven, someone that can communicate well, someone that's gonna make things happen. Those are pretty simple to know. We know what they are. How do you identify them? It's pretty simple as well.

I give you a task. I give Andrew a task. It's a pretty simple task. If you get it done, cool. Give you a little bit more complex task. Do you get it done? Yes. I give the same task to Fred. He doesn't get it done. He comes back with a bunch of questions.

He slow rolls it. He's got all kinds of excuses and problems. I give you an even more complex task. You come back, you get it done, and then I'm gonna realize, okay, Andrew's the guy that makes things happen. He's a guy that can actually execute. And it's a little bit what you said.

I mean, there's certain breeds of dogs, but even that is, they're not as different as human beings are, right? And there are some, so now there are some guys, I've got Andrew who will make things happen. Here's the problem with Andrew. When I say, hey, Andrew, here's this nebulous idea that I have, can you turn this into a reality?

And you're like, where do I start? I'm not sure where you want me to go. Meanwhile, I gave it to the guy that didn't make anything happen with specific tasks that I gave him. And he comes back and says, you know, I say, hey, I got this nebulous idea.

Can you see what you, he goes, oh yeah. And all of a sudden he takes it and he says, hey, I figured out a way to make this happen. So you might have someone that's very good at executing, but they're not very creative. I might have somebody that's very creative, but they're not very good at executing.

So what do I do? I build a team where I've got Andrew and Fred and they work together. And Fred comes up with good ideas and we bring them to Andrew and Andrew goes and executes him. So that's what we're doing from a leadership perspective is we're letting people's nature execute and we're putting people into roles where their nature is beneficial.

I'm not gonna take someone that's shy and introverted and put them out in the lead sales role. I'm not gonna take somebody that's boisterous and extroverted and put them into a cubicle where they're gonna be looking at spreadsheets all day. Clearly I'm not gonna do that. So what we have to do as leaders is we have to find the right people for the right role and we place them into those roles.

Now, does it mean that I abandon all hope that the guy that's an introvert will ever develop more communication skills? No, I'm still gonna work with him. And over time we'll get him a little bit moving in the right direction. But I'm not gonna take somebody that's a total introvert and turn them into a lead sales guy.

That's not going to happen any more than I'm gonna change a tiger stripes. So that's what we have to do is we have to help people as leaders. We have to help people find the role and find the thing that they're good at. Now, does that mean if I have someone that loves their job, they're gonna do better at it?

Absolutely. Does it mean that if I have somebody that's driven just by achievement, that they're gonna be good at their job? No, in fact, well, they can be. There's gonna be certain roles I can put them in, right? If I've got a sales number I need to hit and Andrew's super into achievement, he wants to be the golden child and wants to have his picture on the magazine that we put out about our industry.

Cool, I can throw this task at you and you're gonna go and get it. The problem is if there's something that's gonna take more perseverance and the reward isn't that high, or it's a long-term goal, you're probably not the right guy for the job. So liking your job is absolutely critical.

And if you love your job, you're gonna be able to most likely excel at it. Now, you could be an unfortunate person that loves your job and is not good at it. That happens occasionally, right? - Yeah, but it seems, it sure does, but it seems pretty rare. - It reminds me of your skateboarding career.

You love skateboarding, but you just weren't that good at it. - I wasn't that good at it. But you know what I loved more than skateboarding? I loved the community I was in. I loved the community I was in. And I probably would have gone to the industry side or worked on a company side and not been on the actual skateboard side or just skateboard for fun.

So there's a guy in the skateboard community, his name is Jim Thiebaud, and he's kind of the not so hidden secret in that community. He's an amazing guy and he sort of early on left professional skateboarding to run a company, Real Deluxe, a bunch of other companies. He's an amazing guy.

And he told me, we'd become friends recently, and he said, he realized he wasn't gonna be one of the big guys, but he knew he wanted to be in this community. So he found his place. And I think everyone in skateboarding looks to Jim as like the guy who cares, he truly cares about the sport and about the people.

And so he learned to kind of just wrap his arms and his heart around the whole thing, and it just works. And so I do think everyone has a certain place in a community or in a team. I think that as you're describing this, I have to imagine that people are listening and thinking, like, wow, this team thing is awesome.

Like, it's just amazing. I wish I had that, right? I'm fortunate to have that in my podcast. I've had that in my lab, certainly in my podcast team. I would say, these guys go, I go. Like, it's not just people that press buttons and run equipment, take photos, like, they go, I go.

Like, they go, it's over. And I'm fine with that. I actually love that because it's, yes, it's about the podcast and about the information and getting it out there, but it's as much about the team and working together just like it was with skateboarding. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)