Many comics missed this opportunity because they were too self-absorbed: “My material. My routine.” I found it shocking. This is critical reflective time.
New and seasoned leaders alike would be wise to spend time with their teams—not to talk but to listen, watch, and observe how their teams, perform, feel, and react. The more mindfulness and attention you bring to this, the more information you can glean on gaps you can close and issues that may hinder reaching objectives.
2. Connect with Your Audience
When you first walk out on stage, you have to be able to connect with the audience immediately. That doesn’t mean you have to be funny immediately. First, you need to create space and be the focal point; in short, you need to have the audience’s permission to be there.
You have about sixty seconds to make that connection—unless you are an A-lister. You can use many effective techniques, but self-deprecation often works best. By channeling all that energy against yourself before you go on stage and then actually taking a hit early, you release the audience’s pent-up “make me laugh” energy. And you do it through laughter. What a powerful tool! It communicates that you are one of them.
Two business examples come to mind.
The CFO of a new client tore into me on the first day, telling me that all consultants were a waste of time, and that he hated paying me to tell him what he already knew. I asked him to give me a chance. He said he was so sure I would fail, he would walk around with a sandwich board singing my praises in public if I added value. Everyone knew about the bet. When he showed up with the sandwich board and wore it throughout the cafeteria for an hour, he won the hearts and minds of the team, while singing my praises. A win-win!
One of my mentors was a big idea visionary. He never failed do communicate in a humorous way that he had no talent for execution. As a result of his self-deprecation, his staff always had his back when it came to execution.
3. Use Callbacks
When things go well, the audience feels aligned and part of the experience, and laughter flows freely. Good comics and leaders build a story and take the group where they want to go. Sometimes an astute leader takes the group where they want to go.
A “callback,” a reference to an earlier line or joke, creates identification and common ground. When I performed stand-up in Sweden, as an American outsider, I deliberately reacted to Swedish culture as part of my routine.
For example, throughout the show, I intentionally over-pronounced their word “nej” (which means “no”) as one of my callbacks. It got laughs the first time because of the way I pronounced it. “I have one word for Swedish fermented fish: ‘neeeeej.’” That laid the foundation for using the callback later in the show.
Later in the routine, when the audience heard me say “I have one word for . . .,” the audience chimed in with me and shouted out, “Nej!” They had anticipated the joke and punch line.
When a comic repeats a callback, the audience typically feels included on the inside joke. In business, “callbacks” create the same effect. For example, in my former company, we often used “connecting the front line to the bottom line” as a callback and slogan.
Good leaders know that callbacks resonate in conversations and include them consistently in their daily messaging and conversations. They work as familiar reminders of the journey you share together and generate a sense of inclusion.
4. Probe, Accept Feedback, and Take Risks
As discussed earlier, probing, reflection, and feedback are critical for continuous growth. I always probed the audience and made sure I listened to their responses—whether crowd chatter before the show or comments during a routine. I had a reservoir of material, but I chose my lines based on the unique makeup of the collective personality gathered at the club each night.
In the course of a show, gaps and flat moments almost inevitably happen. But it’s important not to dwell on them. Robin Williams was a master at this. Because of his rapid pace, he could move seamlessly to the next joke if a line didn’t work.
Likewise, good leaders try new things. They float ideas with people they trust and willingly risk falling flat. Failing from time to time doesn’t matter when you have the skill set and commitment to move on and not get paralyzed. If something doesn’t work, try something else.
Pay attention to feedback because it allows you to adjust quickly when needed. I would write jokes, thinking the punch line would be X, when actually it turned out to be Y. I adjusted it in real time based on the audience response.
For example, I had written a joke for my time in Sweden about blaming the killing of the prime minister of Sweden on Lee Harvey Oswald. The first night I told it, I thought the laughter would come from blaming Lee Harvey Oswald. What was funnier was the path of the magic bullet, and the more outrageous I made it, the more they laughed. It wasn’t the beginning and the end as I had thought.
I taped every show so I could play back what worked and what didn’t, and I noted where I fell flat. You can’t tape every meeting or conversation, but you can take notes (make sure you keep a notebook with you at all times). Jot it all down. Take note of what works in your staff meetings.
Active listening will help you find the right action sooner. Pay attention to the content as well as the emotion in your team’s and employees’ reactions. Don’t get trapped in long sessions of analyzing why things failed. Instead, ask what you need to do next. Taking action toward an outcome always works better than too much focus on why you failed.
5. Manage Hecklers (The Curious Case of the Drunk Duck)
At a club outside Stockholm, a drunk stared at me as I took the microphone. I had been watching him sitting up front with his buddies, who had all consumed copious amounts of alcohol well before the show started. As I opened my routine, he began to quack really loudly. At the end of every line I delivered, he said, “Quack, quack, quack.” The audience laughed, and that emboldened him.
I had three options: work past him, challenge him, or defuse him. Those are the same options my clients have during any disruption: ignore, respond, or use the moment to create a different dynamic. I stopped and listen internally—and then I knew what I had to do.
“Ladies and gentleman, it is obvious that this guy is way funnier than I am, so I am going to join you in the audience and please give a warm welcome to Mr. Duck!” The audience applauded as he made his way up to the stage, and I joined his friends in the front row.
He got up, took the microphone, and pulled out his best material: “Quack, quack, quack.” The boos couldn’t have come any faster. As security escorted him off the stage, I turned the mic over to the headliner, a good friend, because even if I had been the funniest comic for the remaining ten minutes of my gig, the audience would remember only the drunk Daffy Duck.
Sometimes you have to give in and let it go to fight another day. It takes being in tune with your audience and choosing not to fight every battle. It works the same for any manager and leader. Every day, leaders face a range of options and need to make choices. You never have enough time to do everything you want, so why would you respond to everything with the same intensity, energy, and stress?
When something out of the ordinary happens, view it as an opportunity to redirect that energy into creating growth and acceleration. Working with energy this way echoes the wisdom of martial arts, such as aikido or judo. Understanding and redirecting energy works for decision-makers too.
In business, you have to deal with hecklers, as well: the market, your customers, your employees. They will challenge you with the unexpected, and you can give them ground, risk making it worse, or bring them into the fold.
For both comics and business leaders to succeed, they must have a strong presence. Achieving that requires elements of rogue leadership: going inward and then responding with purpose to whatever shows up.
In the condensed space of a stand-up routine, th
ere is an opportunity for reflection, action, risk, innovation, and alignment. The immediacy forces the comic, like a leader, to use all those tools. There is no other path to success.
22.
Getting There by Letting Go
Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment—that which they cannot anticipate.
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Every day, events unfold, results and risks emerge, and decisions have to be made. Believing we can stay on top of all that is an illusion.
Managers and leaders must plan ahead and develop strategies. Without good, well-thought-out plans and the actions to execute them, organizations stumble and eventually fall and fail. That goes without saying.
What is also true is that within any plan, there has to be some space for adjustments and corrections. When things go off the rails, many managers are stuck on executing what their plans, and can’t move beyond what structure they had originally set out. In sports, would it make sense for a team who had a game plan to stick with the original plan if they were losing with two minutes to go?
You can’t simply impose your plan on reality—you need to be flexible, open to change, and willing and able to make adjustments as you go from point A to point B. World-class teams spend a great deal of time up front talking through those contingencies and potential risks. They not only prepare for things to change: they expect it.
You will most likely sabotage your project if you adopt the attitude “We will move forward as we have planned, come hell or high water.” Tempting fate like that almost guarantees that “hell or high water” will arrive one day.
A second, more sinister part of the illusion is our attempt to control everything. Pure and simple: you can’t. When you recognize that you will have to improvise at times, and course correct, you actually have more of a chance of being successful.
Frequently, as an improvisation actor, my troupe would play improvisational theater games, such as First Line, Last Line. The audience would give a first line, such as “Mary, the garbage disposal is stuffed up with gunk,” and the audience would suggest a completely unrelated last line, such as “My accountant needs us to review our charitable donations by Friday.” The actors would have to start the scene with the first line and somehow arrive at that last line using logical, natural dialogue during the scene.
We succeeded every time. Why? Because within the structure there was room to change and respond to what was emerging in real time, while still keeping our eye on the goal of completing the scene successfully.
23.
Telling Your Story
Reinventing Who You Are
I am what I am.
—Popeye
Many of the leaders I work with feel trapped by how others view them. Some have arrived at a new job with a reputation that preceded them. Still others were promoted, and now have to lead former colleagues and peers, changing the dynamics of established relationships.
How you show up defines you. The quickest way to change others’ perceptions of you is by shaking things up and behaving in a different and more powerful manner. Words alone won’t do the trick— you must follow through with purposeful actions that match your words.
ALABAMA SHAKES: CHANGING THE STATUS QUO
Jimmy Johns was promoted to Operations Director after being a part of the team for many years. He had a strong understanding of the business, the technical skill set, and engaging partnerships with customers.
Some of his colleagues viewed him as a good-ol’ boy who took care of his network and based a lot of his decisions on long-term relationships. Rightly or wrongly, people at work believed that Jimmy played favorites.
When an Israeli firm purchased his company, the change forced him out of his comfortable bubble. He had to demonstrably break old habits to let people know the old Jimmy had moved on, especially in his new role. The change scared him, but he also knew he had to do it.
When we discussed his strategy for going forward, I emphasized the wisdom of shifting things slowly. We chose to tackle Jimmy’s perceived favoritism as the first target. Any abrupt about-face would likely have backfired. I call this “micro change”—gradual and consistent change that moves forward, but not abrupt. Shaking things up, but at a slower pace.
Over time, Jimmy found he could shift his approach by adjusting his communication style, listening more actively, expanding his open-door policy that was previously selective on who he saw, and hold more powerful conversations on the shop floor. This approach might not work for everyone or in every situation—but it’s a good option to add to your leadership tool kit. In doing so, he grew as a leader, and strengthened his ability to drive performance.
THE VISIBILITY TRAP
For years, leaders have tried “management by walking around.” In the seminal The One Minute Manager (William Morrow, 2003), Ken Blanchard emphasizes that what you do as a manager carries more power than the amount of time you walk around. Powerful leaders understand that how they show up makes the biggest impact.
But visibility can backfire, especially when it doesn’t work as intended or when it isn’t authentic.
How often have you heard the well-worn lines “I have an open-door policy” or “I’m on site every day”? Those words and habits mean nothing if the boss doesn’t listen, cuts off communication, or dominates the conversation.
Here are other complaints I’ve heard from employees: “She only shows up for the barbecue but couldn’t care less about us”; and “He’s here just because the boss is in town.” The workforce and middle managers know a dog and pony show when they see one.
SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT
Many leaders lament that how they are seen is not fair—the workforce doesn’t know them, and changing that is out of their control. But nothing is further from the truth.
You might think, I’m not going to change who I am—my people should take the time to get to know me. Why waste energy and time waiting when you can accelerate the effort by getting out there?
My client Brent was whining that he was recently placed in charge of a workforce that saw him as an asshole and didn’t give him any credit. His frustration grew every day. I told him the solution was simple: Stop being an asshole. He rarely spent time with his team, never had a true open-door policy, and communicated by email whenever possible, versus making personal visits or phone calls.
Take some time to think about how you want to be seen, and what that looks like. Then start being that person. Pretty simple, but often ignored.
If you want to earn your workforce’s trust and respect, be purposeful when you show it. Take charge. Authenticity, combined with accessibility, is powerfully effective.
24.
Creating Presence and Visibility
My presence speaks volumes before I say a word.
—Mos Def, musician
Two fields of energy occur simultaneously in all of us. The one that we present to the world is mostly rehearsed, masked, and habitual. The inner field, often hidden from ourselves, influences our perception of reality.
—Kati Pressman, author, Simple Presence
People underrate presence. It has to do with not only the way we show up, but also the “echo” or after effect that stays behind when we leave. Think of how a room feels when someone has left—you can still feel their presence, even in their physical absence.
Presence acts as a driver and guide, a motivator and influencer—all day, every day. This applies in the world of business as much as it does elsewhere in our lives. Effective leaders do not have to be physically present every moment to have an impact and fill the “visceral space” within their organizations.
So, we can categorize presence in two ways:
&nb
sp; Present presence: how people perceive you as you physically interact with them
Absent presence: how you influence people when you’re no longer physically present
PRESENT PRESENCE
You can physically be in a room talking to someone, but not be mentally present. We have all had similar moments with our loved ones. Just ask my first wife.
As the cliché says, “Showing up is half the battle.” But it’s not enough to just show up. When mentally and physically present, you listen better. You hear more. You notice things you might otherwise miss. Being fully present gives you access to more information.
That’s why active listening tops the list of important skills for any leader. Be an observer first, before acting as a player in the scene. The time for action comes later.
Top tips for being truly present:
Seek to understand.
Confirm and reconfirm what you think you heard.
Ask lots of questions—and make sure most of them are open-ended. Open ended questions and careful listening are a part of being present with someone.
Have a conversation, not an interview.
Surprise people in their workplace and ask for a few minutes of their time.
Ask people what worries or concerns them and get their input on decisions you have to make.
Participate in informal non-agenda “hall chats,” which often bear the greatest fruit.
Make eye contact.
Always express thanks at the end of a dialogue, whether in formal meetings or an informal chat.
Rogue Leadership Page 8