LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it." Lord Kelvin

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

Thanks for indulging me last month on the Rocky Journey. I'm looking forward to seeing the "I Play Rocky" Movie that comes out this week!

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I wanted to explore an idea around IMPACT over the next few weeks, so I'm starting that with this simple quote from Lord Kelvin that lays a foundation to our conversation.

This quote and idea has been attributed to a number of people, but what I found is that it all circles back to Lord Kelvins statement that many have just adopted.

Sometimes it's said...

"If you DON'T measure it, you CAN'T improve it"

"You can't IMPROVE what you do not MEASURE"

"If you can't measure it you can't CHANGE IT."

"If you can't measure it, you can't MANAGE IT."

All are basically saying some version of the same thing, and the takeaway is this:

We have to MEASURE what's IMPORTANT,

and this is often our IMPACT.

Looking back on my life and leadership, there have been times that I've been laser-focused on defining our organizations desired impact and driving everything towards that. There has also been times that my approach has been, "I just want to keep doing MORE GOOD" and don't need to measure that or even define it.

There's nothing wrong with doing MORE or doing GOOD, but for me I've found this lack of focus allows me to settle for mediocre results and undefined goals.

What does this idea stir in you?

Are you struggling to define "measurable impact" through your leadership or your organization?

What have you learned about this that helps you define it and evaluate it along the way?

What's ONE Impact Measure you've adopted and revisit regularly?

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"Every champion was once a contender who refused to give up." Rocky Balboa

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

OK, this is the final quote and thought from Sylvester Stallone. Next month I want to talk about IMPACT and I'll share some great quotes that will get you thinking.

Today though we'll finish with this final thought from "Rocky Balboa", and it circles back to the core of the Rocky franchise: Never Give Up!

I think that's the message that I first experienced when I watched Rocky, it's the idea of Rocky doing something that everyone else said was impossible, and he just refused to believe that, instead, he kept working towards the impossible until he was able to achieve it. He just wanted to go the distance.

"Yo Adrian, I did it!"

That's the cry of success.

This quote reminds us that we will never have a chance of succeeding if we don't try.

I remember the day I decided to "run for office" to be the Student Body President my senior year of high school. I had always wondered what that would be like, to go through a campaign, an election, and then serve as a representative.

I signed up on a whim, told my parents about it, forgot to mention it to my friends, and off I went, creating a campaign based on some promise I can't even remember.

I don't remember the other 2 people I was running against, but I don't remember being afraid of losing. If I had lost, I would have just found something else to do, so it wasn't fear that kept me from jumping in, it was the honest belief that I could make a difference.

I jumped into the campaign, and I won.

And honestly, I learned a lot about leadership that year from those in office with me and from our staff advisor, Randy. It was a great experience and I felt that we did some good, so I ran again in college and again, had a great experience.

Watching the election campaign process here in the U.S. right now is crazy, and I often wonder what would compel someone to dive into a public race and have it thrown all over the world to see. I hope it's that same idea that they can make a difference someplace!

I'm glad I took the risk and ran for office. I'm sure there are other opportunities that I missed along the way for a variety of reasons.

What's something you jumped in to do, maybe against some great odds? How did that turn out for you?

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"Success is usually the culmination of controlling failures."Sylvester Stallone

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

I'm going to continue some quotes from Sylvester Stallone this month simply as a way to prompt some deeper thinking.

I shared about his book I just read, The Steps, and I shared about how at the age of 12 years old, this movie had a profound impact on my life. It's been fun to revisit it a little bit and I look forward to Stallone's new movie coming out in November, "I Play Rocky", which is his story.

You can read my past few posts on Rocky HERE.

Thanks for letting dive into this for a few weeks. It's been fun and inspirational to camp here a little bit.

The quote above really summarizes Stallone's perspective on life, and it's really a story of resilience. In his book, he talks a lot about his failure. He talks about ideas he had, opportunities he messed up, dreams that died, risks he took in life and in reading his book, I realized that his journey was not a jump to success quickly. What we saw and heard was a long-shot movie idea that caught the attention of the world and won an Oscar. What we didn't see was the journey it took for him to get there, to write that screenplay, to pitch the idea, to fight for it, to have it almost thrown away over and over again.

He talks about his failure.

I'm not sure we talk about that enough. I know for me, I want to "manage the narrative" around my failure so that it doesn't sound so bad or so that I can spin it into the positive.

Here's the reality: Failure is Hard.

I used to say to leaders, "If you fail, then....." I'd give them some canned advice or some inspirational quote.

Some years ago, I switched to, "When you fail, then....".

WE ALL FAIL. We don't all get it right all the time. We make mistakes, we say the wrong thing, we make the wrong move, a decision backfires, we hurt peoples feelings, we invest in the wrong person or the wrong company, we miss the communication and we do this over and over again.

I like these 2 words from Stallone's quote:

First he says CULMINATION. I think what he's saying is that success or victory usually comes at the end of a long series of events. Very seldom does something just work great the first time. It's usually the result of a lot of hard work, many failures and pivots, and then as we gain perspective, we find our way, which might lead to a win. It's a process.

The second word he uses is CONTROLLING. I think he's telling us that how we respond to these failures, how we navigate through them, around them and beyond them is really important. We can't avoid failure, but we can control how we respond and react to failure. This is true for our own failure and that of those on our teams.

If you have experienced failure, WELCOME! You are not Alone! Now what are you going to do with what you've learned?

Are you able to talk about your failure freely or are you embarrassed by it?