Read an Excerpt
H3 Leadership
Be Humble. Stay Hungry. Always Hustle.
By BRAD LOMENICK Thomas Nelson
Copyright © 2015 Blinc Consulting, LLC
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7180-2226-6
CHAPTER 1
LET THE TRANSFORMATION BEGIN
There comes a moment in the life of every leader when he or she stands at a crossroads and must ask, "What's next?" This moment for me came in October 2013, when I realized I was personally, professionally, physically, and spiritually burned-out.
The fire of my passion had been red-hot for years during my tenure as president of Catalyst. Our team had grown the organization into a premier conference and content provider for emerging and established leaders. Tens of thousands were participating in our events across the country, hundreds of thousands more were engaging with our content online, and we were making preparations for our first international gathering.
Yet, each morning that I walked into the office, I felt I had less to give than the day before. Less energy. Less creativity. Less passion. Less patience. I was running on fumes, with no filling station in view. My leadership was getting stale, and those closest to me were suffering as a result.
I needed a break, but didn't even realize it.
One day in late summer would be a turning point. It was August 10. I had planned a lunch with a friend named Steve Cockram. We had some surface conversation, then Steve dove deep, asking if I was still passionate about leading Catalyst for the next decade.
After stammering, I admitted I was tired and wrung out.
Steve responded that he had sensed that for some time. He compared me to a heavyweight boxer who is still fighting in the fifteenth round, with no desire to bow out, but is just getting pounded. Throwing in the towel — transitioning out of my role — felt like admitting I was a loser. I wasn't going to do that. At the same time I felt stuck, and that wasn't fun either.
My conversation with Steve continued over the next couple of weeks before he finally dropped the big one on me: "Brad, you need a sabbatical. And you need to take it soon."
I rolled my eyes at the idea. Sabbaticals are for college professors and old people, I thought. But with some more thought, I began to realize that Steve was right. I was having a leadership crisis and needed to gain some perspective.
Seated at my desk in the Catalyst headquarters, I pulled up a new document on my computer and began sketching out plans for an extended sabbatical. I started with the basics: I would travel, reflect, relax, read, and establish a consistent physical exercise schedule. I wanted to re-center myself spiritually, spending more time in prayer, Bible study, and soaking up wisdom from my mentors. The excitement grew with each keystroke.
I announced the decision to my team a week later, and their reactions confirmed my decision. They felt that time away was necessary, having watched from afar as the edges of my life frayed. The Brad they had once seen engaging his work with a fresh resolve each morning was fading into a memory, replaced by someone they liked far less.
Over the next four months I executed my sabbatical plans with precision. I traveled to London to spend time with a spiritual adviser and friend and to Guatemala in partnership with a relief and development organization. I read dozens of books. I prayed a lot — and listened. I reconnected with friends. I spent time with family in Oklahoma. And of course I had to make a stop at the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and Lost Valley Ranch to recharge and relax.
Along the way, I was coming back to life. But something unforeseen was emerging. I began to have a creeping intuition that I was entering a new season altogether, that it was time to move on from the work I was doing and probe God's vision for the next stage of my life.
* * *
Every year I was at Catalyst, a new crop of interns would arrive on the scene, wide-eyed and eager. Their nervousness reflected the seriousness of their task. They'd been handed an opportunity to make their mark with the largest network of young Christian leaders in America.
I gathered them in my office for an orientation of sorts where I laid out the philosophy of our organization and the eight essentials of a "Catalyst leader." After I finished and before they began work, I always gave them the opportunity to ask me any questions they might have. Most years, one of the bolder and more aggressive of the bunch would raise his or her hand and ask the one question I knew would be coming:
"What do we need to do to become the kind of leader you're describing?"
Without hesitation I always replied, "Remember three words: humble, hungry, hustle."
It was time to take my own advice. My leadership crisis required that I return to what I knew as a leader, beginning with my faith in Jesus and walk with God. That was and is foundational. But I also needed to revisit the three H's of leadership: humble, hungry, and hustle. I needed to reboot my leadership by putting these habits back in place.
Leaders will develop a variety of habits throughout their lives, but these three words divide them into categories that help answer three of the most important questions every influencer must ask:
• HUMBLE: "Who am I?"
• HUNGRY: "Where do I want to go?"
• HUSTLE: "How will I get there?"
This alliterated trio has become my personal life mantra over the last decade because it encapsulates the philosophy that undergirds what I believe it takes to become a change agent in the modern world. Leading is difficult, and anyone who has been in a position of authority or influence for very long knows this. It's hard work. But leadership is more than hard work; it is habitual work. It is worked out every day in the tasks we complete, the ways we approach our work, and the rhythms we nurture in our lives. It hangs on the hooks of the patterns we create, not just the success we may stumble upon.
In my experience too few leaders recognize the importance of habits in life. One researcher at Duke University, for example, found that more than 40 percent of the actions people performed each day weren't actual decisions, but habits. When you rise in the morning, nearly half of your day will be determined by the patterns you've either intentionally created or passively allowed.
I've had the privilege of working with the best and most respected leaders in America, and almost all of them share a common set of characteristics. They are principled and passionate, courageous and capable, hopeful and authentic, called and collaborative. But that leaves us with a lingering question: How did they get there? The path to being a better leader is paved with the asphalt of the habits we develop.
I think of my friend Lisa, who is a two-time New York Times bestselling author. I recently asked her how she created the magic with her books. "What most people don't know," she said, "is that I wrote multiple books before these that didn't sell well." She is like my friends who have a band that is becoming very successful. They recently performed on the Today show and their music has appeared in major companies' commercials, but they worked for years to put out several EPs that went largely unnoticed. In both cases it took time and hard work to develop the habits necessary to get better at their craft.
Or you might consider Kyle, a friend of mine who pastors a church that runs more than fifteen thousand in weekly attendance. For the first five years the congregation couldn't even pay their bills. Kyle considered getting out of the ministry altogether because he was so discouraged. But today, he shepherds the largest church in their denomination and has launched several successful satellite locations. He'll tell you that creating and sustaining better habits made all the difference.
Patterns are even crucial in sports, as Super Bowl–winning coach Tony Dungy can tell you. When he began coaching professional football, most people believed that teams needed thick playbooks full of unique and complex schemes. But Dungy took the opposite approach. He wanted to simplify the game to reduce the chance of error.
Rather than drilling hundreds of formations into his players' heads, he selected only a handful. But he made his team practice them relentlessly until the behaviors became second nature. Dungy was able to create faster, sleeker teams that ran on the fuel of habits. Often, the other team knew exactly which play his team was going to run when they lined up. But they couldn't overcome it because they couldn't keep up.
"Here are the six reasons everyone thinks we can't win," Dungy told the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after becoming head coach in 1996. He then listed everything the sportswriters and commentators had been saying: injuries among some of their better players, dysfunctional management, a new coach, spoiled players, a weak fan base, and a shallow roster.
"Those are the supposed reasons," Dungy said. "Now here is the fact: Nobody is going to outwork us."
He knew that winning in the game of football takes more than better talent. It takes better habits. Tony Dungy went on to have much success with the Buccaneers, and later, with the Indianapolis Colts, with whom he would win the Super Bowl.
* * *
In 1994, a Harvard study examined people who had made significant changes in their lives. Researchers found that the impetus for change varied. Some had suffered a tragedy, others had witnessed a friend experience something awful and had learned from it, and still others changed because of social pressure. But while the reasons for their change varied, the constant among them was that their habits had shifted.
There's no avoiding it: the patterns we cultivate shape the person we each become.
Unfortunately, most people aren't intentional about the habits they're developing. Our schedules or workloads or coworkers or environments often dictate our lives' patterns, and we end up leading reactively rather than proactively. You must develop habits that create consistency.
Life is about decisions. If you want to change, make a decision. Decisions build habits.
Habits take an idea and convert it into results. A habit is a practice shaped by behavior or daily action that helps turn ideals into action, principles into practice, and concepts into concrete. Habits allow for someone to actually implement ideas that last into his or her life. Leadership for the long haul comes from implementing regular, daily practices into your leadership journey. Habits create standard operating procedures in your life and are the fuel to get to the finish line.
Want to change? Create habits in your life. Want to be a better leader? Establish leadership habits. If you want to get better, work at it. Want to throw a football with a tighter spiral? Practice. Want to be a better putter in golf? Cultivate a habit of putting every night. Want to lose weight? Start eating well every day. Want to row the Atlantic Ocean? Row for several months in advance to build up the habits that will sustain you in the open seas. Habits create sustainable action out of chaotic energy.
The reason too few leaders invest energy into developing better habits is that so many leaders have so little energy to invest in changing them. "Habit is a very powerful force that makes organizations get stuck doing things the same way over and over again," executive and bestselling author Patty Azzarello wrote in Fast Company. "Habits become ingrained (good and bad ones). And then everyone gets too over-busy to think about how there might be a better way to do something."
Our work and friends and families can stretch us thin, and habits are not easy to create. Someone once told me that it takes about thirty days to create a habit. But this is false. Research has demonstrated that if you want to develop a habit of doing fifty sit-ups after morning coffee, for example, it will take as many as eighty-four days to implement. If you want to develop a habit of walking for ten minutes after breakfast, you might be able to implement it in as few as fifty days. The time and energy required to create better patterns varies, but regardless, almost always exceeds a month's time.
So we must begin by preparing ourselves for the effort this task demands and committing ourselves to the long road required.
Because as leaders, there is no shortcut. The environments in which we live and the people around us will often push us to develop patterns that can stall, sidetrack, or shipwreck us. You don't have to lead for long before you will be tempted to make poor decisions, to cut corners, or to follow the money rather than the mission. The decisions you make when you're faced with these temptations will determine which road you take and whether or not you'll develop the traits you need to succeed as a change maker. As New York Times bestselling author Ann Voskamp says, "do the next thing [even] when it's not the easiest thing."
In discussing the formation of habits, we cannot ignore the shadow side of the conversation. The process of becoming a better leader is fraught with obstacles. As Nadia Goodman of Entrepreneur magazine points out, anticipating challenges is one of the keys to making sure habits stick. Every temptation is an opportunity for transformation.
* * *
My sabbatical did me a world of good. I felt free. Free to discover what God had for me next. Free to start a new season in my life and work. Free to rebuild my leadership approach from scratch, this time with more insight into which leadership habits work and which don't.
At the tail end of that four-month sabbatical, I booted up my computer and opened a new document, just as I had when I first felt a stirring to take a break after that August lunch meeting with my friend Steve. I began thinking about the greatest leaders I've had the pleasure of knowing over the years and what they did that made them so great.
Then I thought about my own leadership journey and which habits most propelled me forward. As C. S. Lewis once said, "people need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed." Typing furiously, I listed the most important habits under each of my mantra's three categories:
HUMBLE
• Self-Discovery: Know who you are
• Openness: Share the real you with others
• Meekness: Remember it's not about you
• Conviction: Stick to your principles
• Faith: Prioritize your day so God is first
• Assignment: Live out your calling
HUNGRY
• Ambition: Develop an appetite for what's next
• Curiosity: Keep learning
• Passion: Love what you do
• Innovation: Stay current, creative, and engaged
• Inspiration: Nurture a vision for a better tomorrow
• Bravery: Take calculated risks
HUSTLE
• Excellence: Set standards that scare you
• Stick-with-it-ness: Take the long view
• Execution: Commit to completion
• Team Building: Create an environment that attracts and retains the best and brightest
• Partnership: Collaborate with colleagues and competitors
• Margin: Nurture healthier rhythms
• Generosity: Leave the world a better place
• Succession: Find power in passing the baton
Twenty key habits reestablished for me my core leadership foundation. These are habits that provide the practical playbook for the next thirty years of my leadership journey. Ironically, these are habits that all great leaders have in common.
As I always told our interns, the characteristics of a Catalyst leader are vital. But so are their patterns. Better traits are the desired destination, but better habits are the road map. As a leader, you are responsible for putting these pieces into place and making them sustainable. Becoming a better leader personally doesn't happen on a whim. Or by accident. You have to work at it. You don't develop leaders by accident. You have to be intentional. Remember, leadership is hard work, and thus must be habitual work.
Since you're reading this, I suspect you're like the interns I sat down with every year. You may not be a recent college graduate who is willing to work for an hourly rate that borders on ridiculous, but you're eager to succeed. You're willing to learn and committed to doing whatever it takes to be a good steward of the calling you believe God has given you.
If that's you, consider the things I learned in a time of clarity and perspective. Then let's begin the process of change together. After all, becoming a better leader begins with building better habits.
Let the transformation begin.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from H3 Leadership by BRAD LOMENICK. Copyright © 2015 Blinc Consulting, LLC. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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