Categories
Face your fears

Confront Your Fears

True, caring leaders know winning begins when you confront your fears. Phillip Kane

May 6, 2011

My daughter, Charlotte, who is ten, has a tremendous fear of thunder, lightning and tornados.  Having been caught in a sudden flash storm as a youngster is at the root of her phobia.  As you can imagine, she was quite concerned about her move to Arkansas which she had discovered via her obsession-driven research had a proclivity for bad weather.

The significant thunder and wind of April, Annie and I feared, might drive Charlotte to her limit.  But a funny thing happened on the way to the safe room.  As Charlotte encountered opportunities to face what she feared and to learn from her experience, the level of her anxiety began to dissipate.  While she’s not over it entirely, she’s dealing with things more constructively with every storm she faces.

When we face our fear, fear fades.

That’s the point for the week.



Whether you’re a ten year old dealing with astraphobia (that’s Latin apparently for fear of storms) or a grown adult facing any other form of anxiety, when we confront that which we are afraid of, we’re often left wondering what we were scared of in the first place.

We learn that we’re bigger than what scares us, or that what we were scared of wasn’t that big, or both.  We discover that we have a built-in capacity to deal with more than we imagined.  We find out that with help there is little we cannot overcome.

When held back by fear, we achieve a state of paralysis that prevents us from becoming all we can be.  Fear gets in the way of positive interaction with others.  Fear becomes a prison with walls so wide and high that our view of the real world fades from sight.

The path forward begins with confronting our fears – figuratively squaring our shoulders, setting our jaw, and stepping in the way of that which imposes limits on our true potential. 

The idea isn’t to put ourselves in harm’s way.  There are after all, plenty of things in life that can hurt us or worse.  The notion is around refusing to let fear of these things keep us from achieving all we want or becoming all that we can be.

When we do, we’ll more often win.  We’ll remove impediments to productive human relationships.  Most importantly, we’ll soar to heights that the weight of fear would never allow us to reach.

Confront your fears.

And win.

If you like the blog, you’ll love the book. To purchase a copy of Phillip’s book, The Not So Subtle Art of Caring: Letters on Leadership, from John Hunt Publishing, London, please follow this LINK. “Letters” is based on 85 story-backed lessons Phillip used while leading actual teams to accomplish extraordinary things. It is an outstanding resource for those who wish to commit to becoming the sort of leader that people WANT to follow.

To learn more about Phillip, please click HERE.

Categories
Courage General Leadership

Be a Hero

To be a hero, one has to have heroes. Andwin.net
Mike Schiotis, Goodyear Highway Hero

March 23, 2011

This week, at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, KY, Goodyear presented the 2011 Highway Hero award to Mike Schiotis of Spring Hill, Tenn.   Mike was among four finalists nominated for the award which, since 1983, has recognized professional truck drivers in North America for extraordinary acts of courage and kindness.

This year, each of the finalists placed themselves in harm’s way to save the life of another human being.  Putting the well-being of others ahead of their own, these drivers all made a choice to make it about someone else.  Mike Schiotis, and his fellow Highway Hero nominees, proved that courage and selflessness go hand in hand.

That’s the point for the week.



To me, courage is quite simply a willingness to set the interests of someone or something else ahead of our own, and to act accordingly in any situation.

Whether a trucker standing between a motorist and a gunman, or a firefighter rushing into a burning building, those we call heroes share one fundamental trait in common – it isn’t about them.  It’s about the greater good and a recognition that in the scope of that, the achievement of our own personal happiness is at once insignificant and paradoxically connected to the happiness of others. 

Being a hero isn’t about what you do.  It’s about who you are.

That’s why – almost universally – you will hear those described as heroes by someone else decry that status by using words such as, “I’m no hero.”  It’s because in their own personal economy, they aren’t.  In any act of heroism, the valiant, to their way of thinking, are simply doing the right thing – what, in their view, anyone would do if given the chance.

But the fact is, not everyone will.  Courage, and acts of bravery, are reserved for those who choose it.  Heroes aren’t born.  They are made, through one choice after another to make it about somebody other  than ourselves and to always travel down the road of right.

When any one of us checks our own desires at the door of each brand new day, the world around us will become that much better, for no other reason that the good guys, like Mike Schiotis, will have two more hands pulling on their side of the rope.

Be like Mike.

Be selfless.  Be courageous.

And win.

If you like the blog, you’ll love the book. To purchase a copy of Phillip’s book, The Not So Subtle Art of Caring: Letters on Leadership, from John Hunt Publishing, London, please follow this LINK. “Letters” is based on 85 story-backed lessons Phillip used while leading actual teams to accomplish extraordinary things. It is an outstanding resource for those who wish to commit to becoming the sort of leader that people WANT to follow.

To learn more about Phillip, please click HERE.

Categories
Caring One Team-One Number Pick Each Other Up

Pick Each Other Up

Pick each other up
Credit: Boston.com

December 17, 2010

This weekend ESPN ran a segment on one of the most enduring traditions in college sports. It wasn’t about touching the sign at Notre Dame or the rock at Clemson. It wasn’t about spearing the fifty at Florida State or dotting the “i” in script Ohio. It was about Butch Varno at little Middlebury College in Vermont. 

Butch has Cerebral Palsy. Now 63, he’s been in a wheelchair since he was a youngster.

For 50 years, students have been “Picking Up Butch” a tradition that started in 1960 when a then sophomore football player literally picked up and loaded thirteen-year-old Butch into his own car after seeing his mother struggling to push his wheelchair down a snow covered road following a Middlebury game. 

Since then, for every football contest at Middlebury, members of the basketball team pick up Butch. Then during gridiron season, football players pick up Butch.  They use their own vehicles, lifting Butch in and out of the car just as on that very first day.  Doing so, these students not only develop life-long bonds to Butch, they learn a thing or two about life. 

They learn that it isn’t about them. 

They learn that the golden rule is both.  

They learn that an entire team is elevated when it picks up one among them. 

And that’s the point for the week. 



On any team, ours included, not everyone will be “up” every minute, day, month or year.  When someone is down, it is up to others to carry them.  

The notion of “one team, one number” is rooted in this fact.  The team wins when the sum of its parts exceeds what is required.  Not every part will win every time. That’s OK, as long as the team prevails.  

The success of the team matters more than individual wins.  Personal success counts for little if the team falls short. 

When we approach every day with a fundamental belief that the team is more important than we are, we’ll act differently. We’ll look out for each other more. The failures of our teammates will bother us more. Their achievements will delight us more.  Together, we’ll win more. 

Put simply, when we give more, we get more.       

Doing so, we’ll build trust by the wheelbarrow-load. We’ll create personal bonds that last forever.  We’ll experience the joy that comes from being a part of something far bigger than we are.   

So, pick each other up. 

And win.

If you like the blog, you’ll love the book. To purchase a copy of Phillip’s book, The Not So Subtle Art of Caring: Letters on Leadership, from John Hunt Publishing, London, please follow this LINK. “Letters” is based on 85 story-backed lessons Phillip used while leading actual teams to accomplish extraordinary things. It is an outstanding resource for those who wish to commit to becoming the sort of leader that people WANT to follow.

To learn more about Phillip, please click HERE.

Categories
General Leadership

The Yellow Broom

The yellow broom and its lesson. Phillip Kane

November 19, 2010

This weekend I was in Lowe’s grabbing a few things to help get our house ready to sell. As I traversed the cleaning products aisle, I passed the broom section. One of them was yellow. It reminded me of my dad and a lesson I learned from him. 

It happened like this:

One day while working in my dad’s shop he walked up to me and asked for “the yellow broom.”  I was, if memory serves, fifteen. 

By way of background, our brooms were known by their color. Each had different bristle strength. The yellow broom was soft-bristled, suitable for use in the showroom or for removing snow from cars in Winter. 

I allowed to my dad that I’d go get it right away. However, when finding it in use, by one of my porter brethren, I returned to what I was working on prior to the interruption from my dad. 

Some 30 minutes later, my dad returned, looking for the yellow broom.  I told him that I had gone looking for it but found it being put to good use. My dad asked me to please tell him what it was he asked me for. (My dad was a master of the obvious question.) “The yellow broom?” I answered, as I often did, interrogatively. 

Then came the lesson/rant. “Yes, the yellow broom.  “When I ask you for something, I expect one of two things – either that you deliver what I asked for or that you return to tell me that you can’t deliver it, why you can’t and when you expect to do so.”  He went on, “When others ask you for something and you agree to deliver it, you’ve given your word.” (In an earlier lesson I’d learned that one is born with their word and their back and neither should be broken for anyone. So I understood the importance assigned to the giving of one’s word).  He finished by repeating, “Keep your word or tell people when you can’t.”

That’s the point for the week. 



When we give our word, others plan accordingly. When we fail to either keep it or come back to say we can’t, bad things happen.

While it is never optimal to not deliver on our commitments, things will end up in a better place when those we’ve made promises to know it before we break them.  That’s what my dad was saying. 

We won’t keep every commitment we make. That’s because we aren’t perfect. It’s OK. As long as we let those counting on us know beforehand, so that, together, we can seek the next best solution. 

When we do, we’ll spend less time in the unproductive effort of sweeping up messes. We’ll more quickly find another way. Most importantly, we’ll protect vital trust between ourselves and others.

Bring the yellow broom – or say you can’t.  

And win. 

If you like the blog, you’ll love the book. To purchase a copy of Phillip’s book, The Not So Subtle Art of Caring: Letters on Leadership, from John Hunt Publishing, London, please follow this LINK. “Letters” is based on 85 story-backed lessons Phillip used while leading actual teams to accomplish extraordinary things. It is an outstanding resource for those who wish to commit to becoming the sort of leader that people WANT to follow.

To learn more about Phillip, please click HERE.

Categories
Encouragement

Encourage Others

True, caring leaders encourage others. Andwin.net
Gregg Russell, Hilton Head Island, SC

July 10, 2010

For the last 34 years, Gregg Russell has been singing under a giant Oak tree in Harbor Town on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina – just him, a stool and a guitar.  Oh, and a throng of children who pack the little benches that surround the simple stage. 

Some of you may have seen him. 

Many children bring signs for Gregg – sort of like those you’d see at sporting events. Gregg reads every single one. Some are elaborate, with clever rhymes and colorful drawings. Some are basic. Remarkably, Gregg makes every sign-bearer feel like theirs is a work of art. 

The highlight of the show is the time when kids in the crowd are given a chance to sing. Some are promising young performers. Others are, well, not. But, as with the signs, Gregg Russell makes each child feel special – like a star. 

See, Gregg Russell isn’t so much a folk singer as he is an encourager of children. 

Grown adults remember seeing Gregg Russell as kids and recall watching him from those benches.  That’s because we humans are more apt to remember those who encourage us. 

That’s the point for the week. 



Think about those bosses, teachers, coaches, or counselors that you’ve never forgotten. The people who you’d follow anywhere.  The people who made you feel you could be or do whatever you dreamed of.  

Chances are these people are encouragers. 

Encouragers know a few things to be true.  When we encourage others, they want to win more. They want to keep trying more.  They want to dig deeper more.  They want to do the right things the right way more.  They want to win more.

With encouragement, people believe they are valued – that they and what they are doing matter.

With encouragement, people believe they can achieve anything they set their mind to do. 

When people WANT to win and BELIEVE they can, they become a nearly unstoppable force.  They win…all because someone told them they could. 

Encourage others. 

And win.

If you like the blog, you’ll love the book. To purchase a copy of Phillip’s book, The Not So Subtle Art of Caring: Letters on Leadership, from John Hunt Publishing, London, please follow this LINK. “Letters” is based on 85 story-backed lessons Phillip used while leading actual teams to accomplish extraordinary things. It is an outstanding resource for those who wish to commit to becoming the sort of leader that people WANT to follow.

To learn more about Phillip, please click HERE.

Categories
Caring One Team-One Number

Make it Personal

True, caring leaders make it personal. Phillip Kane

May 21, 2010

Last Friday, the Philadelphia Flyers did something that hadn’t been done in 35 years. They clawed back from a 3 game deficit to defeat the Boston Bruins to win the Stanley Cup Championship 4-3 in the best of seven game series. Winning 4 straight games in hockey is a big deal. To take 4 in a row from the Bruins, well that’s an even bigger deal. To run the table in a Stanley Cup Final, that’s a breathtaking achievement, particularly when you consider that the Flyers were down 3-1 at then end of the first period in deciding game 7. 

Many credit Coach Peter Laviolette’s talk with the team between the first two periods as having made the difference. After a rough start to the speech that included a disagreement with forward Scott Hartnell about pride, Laviolette told the squad a story about losing with dignity. He told the team that “No matter what people say or do, we have to be ourselves.” He then started around the room asking players who they were and where they were from. Every player said their name and their hometown. Laviolette finished, “Peter Laviolette, Norwood, Massachusetts.”  As he finished, the team roared. In that moment, Laviolette had done something magical. He had made it deeply personal. It stopped being a game. It stopped being a Flyer thing. It became something personal, something those 20 players and 1 coach would go on to do for each other. And they did. They won because it became personal. When it becomes personal, incredible things become possible. 

And that’s the point for the week.



When teammates become personally connected, bonds begin to form that once cemented are not easily broken. The ideals of One Team, One Number naturally take hold as personally connected teammates almost instinctively have each other’s backs, look out for each other and pick each other up.

When leaders make things personal, those they lead feel more valued because their leader says without saying a word that they care, that they are interested in them as an individual, that they are significantly more than just a nameless face in a crowd.  As a result, the lengths that associates are willing to go for their leaders becomes far greater, the amount of change people are willing to endure increases.  And the time that each will spend in the ring fighting for their leader and what matters to him or her rises exponentially – all because their leader cared enough to care about them.

So, make it personal.

And win.

If you like the blog, you’ll love the book. To purchase a copy of Phillip’s book, The Not So Subtle Art of Caring: Letters on Leadership, from John Hunt Publishing, London, please follow this LINK. “Letters” is based on 85 story-backed lessons Phillip used while leading actual teams to accomplish extraordinary things. It is an outstanding resource for those who wish to commit to becoming the sort of leader that people WANT to follow.

To learn more about Phillip, please click HERE.

Categories
Alignment General Leadership

Advancement is a Two-Way Street

True, caring leaders know advancement is a two-way street. Phillip Kane


February 17, 2010

This week, the world of professional basketball celebrated the emergence of unlikely superstar Jeremy Lin.  Made-up words like “Linsational”, “Linsanity”, and others were used in headlines to describe the performance of the 6’3″ Taiwanese point guard of the New York Knicks.  In his debut week as a starter, Lin scored more points in his first five games than any player in recorded history, dominating Kobe Bryant in one game then draining a buzzer-beating and game-winning three-pointer in another along the way. 

No one expected this. Lin was not offered a Division 1 scholarship. Lin was passed over in the NBA draft. After being picked up by the Golden State Warriors in 2010 and sent down to D league ball, Lin was cut. He was signed by the Houston Rockets in December, 2011 then cut again at the close of the pre-season.  Lin was claimed off waivers by the Knicks a week later and sent down to D league again.  On February 3, a week before the Knicks planned to release him, Lin was sent in by Coach Mike D’Antoni to play clean-up in the closing minutes of a horrible loss to the Boston Celtics. The rest is history.

This didn’t just happen  Along his rocky road, which included sleeping on a friend’s sofa,  Jeremy Lin worked tirelessly on the gaps in his game.  Then D’Antoni chose to give him a shot. It was the grand collision of these two choices that enabled the Jeremy Lin phenomenon.  That’s how it’s supposed to be.  In any relationship, the leader and the led play a role in the advancement of the latter. 

That’s the point for the week. 



Personal development is a mutual responsibility.  Whether parent/child, teacher/student, coach/player, or leader/associate, both parties must fully participate in the process. 

Jeremy Lin didn’t just wait his turn or rely on his leaders to suddenly choose him.  He put himself in a position to be chosen.  Mike D’Antoni didn’t require Jeremy Lin to be perfect.  He took an informed chance on Lin based on his observation of the player’s recent progress. 

As associates, we must actively engage in the process of our development and advancement by sharing our interests with our leaders, then asking for help to identify and improve on the skills and behaviors that we’ll need to accomplish our goal.  Simply believing that our time will come or that advancement is a function of entitlement will leave us disappointed. 

As leaders, we can’t wait until we know beyond any doubt that an individual we’ve been given the privilege to lead is 100% ready. We’ll wait forever. 

But when associate preparedness meets enlightened leadership, magic happens. The unlikely seems suddenly possible.  Small successes beget bigger ones.  Confidence and courage bloom adding pace to the work of the team.  Associates surprise their leaders and themselves by translating built capability into delivered results ahead of plan.

Best of all, trust blossoms as associates and leaders rely on each other more, arriving together in a better place, and finally marveling, arm in arm, at the fact that what they achieved was somehow greater than themselves.

Make associate development a two-way street.   

And win.

If you like the blog, you’ll love the book. To purchase a copy of Phillip’s book, The Not So Subtle Art of Caring: Letters on Leadership, from John Hunt Publishing, London, please follow this LINK. “Letters” is based on 85 story-backed lessons Phillip used while leading actual teams to accomplish extraordinary things. It is an outstanding resource for those who wish to commit to becoming the sort of leader that people WANT to follow.

To learn more about Phillip, please click HERE.

Categories
Belief News

Just Add Hope

True, caring leaders know hope IS a strategy. The just add hope. Phillip Kane

November 5, 2009

The other day as I flew from Charlotte to Kansas City for a meeting with YRC, my iTunes DJ spun up the hit song, Airplanes by B.o.B. 

The opening line (and chorus) from the song struck me in a way it hadn’t before.

 “Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?  I could really use a wish right now.” 

I thought first of my dad, then about a wider point on leading.

It made me think of my dad who, upon hearing my mom or one of his four sons wish for something, was fond of saying, “Spit in one hand and wish in the other and see which one fills up first.” (Except he didn’t say spit) What he was trying to say in his dry-witted way was that activity, not hope produces results. 

Some are fond of saying that, “hope is not a strategy.”

To me, both my father’s saying and the conventional wisdom of the Ken Doll leader set and their tired little “hope is not a strategy” cliché are both too limited in their thinking.  They ignore the value in hope.  They fail to recognize the value that hope plays in forming vision and that vision plays in shaping the future.

And that’s the point for the week.



For our company, our homes, our communities and our world to become all that we want them to be requires that we first envision or hope for something better for them.  It is an absolute certainty that doing the same thing tomorrow as we are doing today, even if we choose to do it twice as hard, will deliver nothing more that exactly what we have today, possibly just a tad more of it.

But hope helps create the vision for where we want to be – the point in the distance we want to achieve. Inherent in hope is the critical belief that things can be different and better.  When we exert hope upon the world it moves. We overcome the inertia of our present path and shape a new one; a road to our own promised land, the destination we envision.

And when effort is added to that vision, our world can actually become all that we hope it can be.  But effort without vision is not unlike banging one’s head off a wall.   Just as wishing without effort is like, well you know.  But hope comes first.

So, hope in all things.

And win.

If you like the blog, you’ll love the book. To purchase a copy of Phillip’s book, The Not So Subtle Art of Caring: Letters on Leadership, from John Hunt Publishing, London, please follow this LINK. “Letters” is based on 85 story-backed lessons Phillip used while leading actual teams to accomplish extraordinary things. It is an outstanding resource for those who wish to commit to becoming the sort of leader that people WANT to follow.

To learn more about Phillip, please click HERE.

Categories
News

Fly Right

True, caring leaders fly right. Phillip Kane
Iron Mountain, MI

May 15, 2009

This week I travelled to Iron Mountain, Michigan in the state’s Upper Peninsula for the 100 year anniversary of Eureka Tire. 

One of the principal features of Iron Mountain as well as of the history of the Wedin family, owners of Eureka Tire, is the Pine Mountain Ski Jump. 

At 176 feet tall, the Pine Mountain jump is one of only a handful of K120 jumps in the United States and is among the highest jumps in the world. K120 denotes the distance of the critical landing point in meters.  Jumpers leave the end of a K120 jump at speeds in excess of 55 mph, landing more than 400 feet down the hill. 

While distance is the principal scoring factor in ski jumping, a jumper’s final score is also determined by style points. It is very possible for a jumper with the greatest distance to lose to one with less distance but better form. 

As I stood at the top of the jump contemplating the difficulty of not only flying to the bottom, but flying right, it occurred to me that life is a lot like ski jumping. 

How we conduct ourselves in our daily work is as important as what we achieve.  Put another way: how we win is just as important as winning. 

That’s the point for the week. 



Selling the most, like jumping the farthest, is important only insofar as it’s done correctly.  Exceeding our EBITDA target matters only if we do the right things to beat our number.  Excelling at anything in life, whether here, at home, or in our communities, makes a difference only if we play by the rules along the way. 

It is no coincidence that our performance management process equally weighs results and behaviors.  They are equally important. 

Achieving the wider goals of our company requires that each of us is aligned not only around our numerical objectives but also around the means of achieving them, with complete commitment to winning the right way.  I’d rather lose, than win the wrong way.

When every one of us focuses on winning the right way, we will almost assuredly win more often, because more of us will be focused on the right, same behaviors for winning and just as importantly, we’ll waste less time cleaning up the messes that always result from doing things the wrong way.

So, focus on “style” points.

Fly right. 

And win.

If you like the blog, you’ll love the book. To purchase a copy of Phillip’s book, The Not So Subtle Art of Caring: Letters on Leadership, from John Hunt Publishing, London, please follow this LINK. “Letters” is based on 85 story-backed lessons Phillip used while leading actual teams to accomplish extraordinary things. It is an outstanding resource for those who wish to commit to becoming the sort of leader that people WANT to follow.

To learn more about Phillip, please click HERE.

Categories
Service

Be Attendant to the Needs of Others

True, caring leaders know to be attendant to the needs of others. Phillip Kane

April 2, 2009

This week, we hosted nearly 200 folks in St. Kitts for our Champion level Spirit of Goodyear trip. 

We brought 89 of our participants on a charter plane from Miami. 

During the three-hour flight, Doug Whittington and I had an opportunity to act as flight attendants – stewards if you will.  We served food and drinks to our customers and otherwise attended to their every need. We were even briefed on the safety aspects of the plane and were there for the security of our pax as well. 

In almost no time, it seemed, we had arrived in St. Kitts. The flight was a barrel of fun.  Except for take-off and landing, Doug and I never sat down – scuttling back and forth along the aisle offering this, fetching that, or answering questions about the flight or our arrival procedure. We spent all of our time assisting others and had more fun than anyone. 

Life is like that. The greatest enjoyment comes not from serving ourselves, but in serving others. 

That’s the point for the week. 



Whether in our job – selling tires or leading people – or away from work –  raising children or building community – the end result is almost always enhanced when we first care for and serve others. 

Think back over a year, or five, or ten of your life and consider your most fulfilling achievements or experiences. I expect that many, if not all, included something you did for someone else. 

The old Christmas cliche is true (that’s why it’s a cliche). We DO get more when we give than when we receive. 

It’s part of who we are. It’s how we’re made. 

When we do things for others we grow as individuals, those we offer help to prosper, and the end result of any endeavor we’re involved in improves. 

Serve others. 

And win.

If you like the blog, you’ll love the book. To purchase a copy of Phillip’s book, The Not So Subtle Art of Caring: Letters on Leadership, from John Hunt Publishing, London, please follow this LINK. “Letters” is based on 85 story-backed lessons Phillip used while leading actual teams to accomplish extraordinary things. It is an outstanding resource for those who wish to commit to becoming the sort of leader that people WANT to follow.

To learn more about Phillip, please click HERE.