One of my favorite quotes is, “There are only two ways to fail: Listen to no one or listen to everyone.”  When you are new to a job or business, it is important to find mentors who will encourage and guide you through the rough waters.   Having a mentor is important so choose wisely.  Ensure you are listening to someone who has achieved the future results you desire.   Everyone will offer you their opinion, but sort through the noise and follow your mentors with results.  When you become a leader, the challenge is more subtle.   As a leader, you must be humble enough to hear the truth from your team.  When you stop listening, you stop learning.  It is important to have a subordinate who can speak openly with you.  In the Biblical story – David was blessed with a Nathaniel to speak openly with him and call him out in love.  Every leader needs a Nathaniel to graciously keep the leader living up to the high calling of leadership.  

Robert Greenleaf said, “Even the frankest and bravest of subordinates do not talk with their boss the same way they talk with colleagues.”  I am not suggesting subordinates blast their superiors, but I am suggesting that leaders should find wise counselors who can speak candidly.   Warren Buffet is the greatest leadership investor of the modern era.  When Warren Buffet speaks about companies, other people should listen.  Warren said, “Of one thing be certain: if a CEO is enthused about a particularly foolish acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his stance. Only in fairy tales are emperors told that they are naked.”   I love the animal fable below, because it captures a priceless truth in business.  Most people and organizations do not confront reality.  Instead of addressing reality and thinking through the issues – they pass the buck and cast blame.  I have never seen a long-term success that will not confront reality and accept responsibility.  Here is the animal fable teaching a timeless leadership principle.

Once upon a time a severe plague raged among the animals.

Many died, and those who lived were so ill, that they cared for

neither food nor drink, and dragged themselves about listlessly.

No longer could a fat young hen tempt Master Fox to dinner,

nor a tender lamb rouse greedy Sir Wolf's appetite.

At last the Lion decided to call a council. When all the animals

were gathered together he arose and said:

"Dear friends, I believe the gods have sent this plague upon us

as a punishment for our sins. Therefore, the most guilty one of

us must be offered in sacrifice. Perhaps we may thus obtain

forgiveness and cure for all.

"I will confess all my sins first. I admit that I have been very

greedy and have devoured many sheep. They had done me no

harm. I have eaten goats and bulls and stags. To tell the truth,

I even ate up a shepherd now and then.

"Now, if I am the most guilty, I am ready to be sacrificed. But I

think it best that each one confess his sins as I have done. Then

we can decide in all justice who is the most guilty."

"Your majesty," said the Fox, "you are too good. Can it be a

crime to eat sheep, such stupid mutton heads? No, no, your

majesty. You have done them great honor by eating them up.

"And so far as shepherds are concerned, we all know they

belong to that puny race that pretends to be our masters."

All the animals applauded the Fox loudly. Then, though the

Tiger, the Bear, the Wolf, and all the savage beasts recited the

most wicked deeds, all were excused and made to appear very

saint-like and innocent.

It was now the Ass's turn to confess.

"I remember," he said guiltily, "that one day as I was passing a

field belonging to some priests, I was so tempted by the tender

grass and my hunger, that I could not resist nibbling a bit of it.

I had no right to do it, I admit—"

A great uproar among the beasts interrupted him. Here was the

culprit who had brought misfortune on all of them! What a

horrible crime it was to eat grass that belonged to someone else!

It was enough to hang anyone for, much more an Ass.

Immediately they all fell upon him, the Wolf in the lead, and

soon had made an end to him, sacrificing him to the gods then

and there, and without the formality of an altar.

Assignment:  How many different moral lessons can you identify from the fable?  Which moral lessons can you apply immediately to improve your leadership?  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

I wanted to ensure every knew that this site is our blog and not my blog.  I do not believe one person has all the answers in leadership and life.  This is why I love the connection that occurs on this blog!  The Bible states that, "Iron sharpens iron."  We should all add to the articles and we can with the comments section.  If you haven't offered your favorite CD's yet or your best story from using the LLR book - I encourage you to do so.  Remember, this is our blog and together we will add value to people's lives.  Keep leading and growing everyone! God Bless, Orrin Woodward

I have been watching the traffic increase on this blog.  Within the first couple of days the traffic doubled.  In another week it doubled again.  Within the first month it doubled again.  The site is now approaching another doubling.  I find it fascinating how through person to person contact the word is getting out on mine and Chris Brady’s Leadership Blogs.  The Launching a Leadership Revolution book has taken off and we feel our blogs are a way to give back.  I have been reading about the concept of Six Degrees of Separation and have an idea.   The general theme is that the whole world is connected within 6 contacts.  You know someone who knows someone who within 6 contacts is friends with Michael Jordan.   Here is a short description from this website.

Duncan Watts and colleagues at Columbia University in New York conducted a massive email experiment to test the theory of "six degrees of separation", i.e. that everyone in the world can be linked through just six social ties.

More than 60,000 people from 166 different countries took part in the experiment. Participants were assigned one of 18 target people. They were asked to contact that person by sending email to people they already knew and considered potentially "closer" to the target. The targets were chosen at random and included a professor from America, an Australian policeman and a veterinarian from Norway.

The researchers found that it in most cases it took between five and seven emails to contact the target. Watts says this shows that email has not fundamentally changed the way social ties are created.

"In this experiment, the internet is simply the tool we use to transmit messages," Watts told New Scientist, in an email. "Compared with offline interactions like work, school, family, and community, I don't see email as being a particularly compelling medium for generating social ties."

The concept of six degrees of separation emerged from a similar postal experiment conducted by the social psychologist Stanley Milgram in 1967. Milgram asked volunteers to send a package by mail to one of a hundred people chosen at random.

Let’s do our own version of the six degrees of separation.  We can connect the whole world to leadership training by utilizing the power of the internet and six degrees of separation.  Let’s see how quickly we can double the traffic coming to this site.  (I have never been accused of small thinking!) Everyone has hundreds of email addresses in their email address book.  Let’s select 10 leaders from different communities: church, work, hobbies, friends, families, etc.  Send them an email with the link to this blog.  Tell them why you are reading this leadership site and encourage them to create the habit for themselves.  If they enjoy the site encourage them to send an email link to ten leaders from their communities.   If our goal is to change the way people think—how much easier than a free website with leadership principles can we get?   If everyone participates, I believe we can double several more times.  This will help us influence and learn from a bigger and bigger community.  Who knows, but some of the top known leaders in the world will start contributing to this site. 

I have loved the comments added and have read every single one of them.  Keep up the great work and let’s see how many different countries and people we can route to the site utilizing the six degrees of freedom.  Over 20 different countries are visiting this blog regularly already.  Stay tuned for some more leadership principles coming over the next week!   Please share when you complete the assignment and let’s see how many degrees of separation the emails will go.  If we get to six degrees, we have theoretically reached the world!   God Bless, Orrin Woodward

As a student, I attended GMI-EMI (now Kettering University) and learned about the standard history of General Motors in the library.  Alfred Sloan and a litany of other top leaders are referred to, but the founder was mentioned only in passing.  A name that has been relegated to a footnote of history is Billy Durant the founder of General Motors.  Why would the name of the founder of the largest corporation in the world for many years be hardly recognized?  How many of you have never heard of Billy Durant?

Billy Durant grew up in Flint Michigan and attended the local Flint High School and from humble beginnings accomplished incredible things.  I feel it is my responsibility to remind people of the incredible visionary leader—who was responsible for much of the growth of Flint.    You want to talk about vision?  Billy founded Buick, Chevrolet, General Motors, and Durant Motors.  Billy Durant stated in the early 1900’s that highways would stretch across the United States.  J.P. Morgan; the wealthy financier, thought Billy and his dream for the automobile was insane and refused to give him money.   As a visionary you must expect the criticism of smaller minds that cannot see as far.  It is a given in any large undertaking.  It has been said, “The biggest minds with the biggest ideas will be criticized by the smallest minds with the smallest ideas.”   Billy received this critical treatment in spades.

Henry Ford two times sold Ford to Billy Durant and it was only Ford’s refusal to accept anything but cash that nixed the deals at the last minute.  Think about how different the story would have turned out if Billy would have bought Ford and joined it to General Motors.   Henry Ford willingness to sell to Billy Durant displays who had the real vision for the automobile.  The Big 3 automobile firms for years were GM, Ford and Chrysler.  Billy founded GM, nearly bought out Ford twice, and hired Walter Chrysler at Buick.  All three major US firms were affected by the entrepreneurship of Mr. Durant.  Billy made and lost his fortune three times in his life.  He died near penniless in Flint Michigan during World War II.   Approaching death—he stated in the early 1940’s that fast food restaurants and bowling allies would be big and began developing them!  Billy’s vision has always inspired me personally.  I won’t tell you the whole story, but you can read it for yourself in a couple of books finally written about Billy Durant. 

The following article is an epilogue from Lawrence Gustin’s phenomenal book on Billy Durant.  The epilogue was written by Clarence H. Young who was the assistant director of the Manufacturers Association of Flint.   He has been cited as a leading authority on Billy Durant and his tribute to Billy Durant is one of the best I have ever read.

In the creation of the Mass Production Age, Durant was not only the presiding genius; he was, indeed, the Titan—and, as was the fate of the original Titans, he was destroyed by the Olympians whom he had created.

It is almost poignant now to tell the beads of carping criticism reiterated against Durant: He lacked or ignored technical mastery . . . . . he was a good promoter, but no administrator. . . .He had no organization. . . . He could not delegate authority. . . . He made poor choices of executives. . . . He was a promoter, a gambler. . . . He was wrong in believing in himself. . . .

It is completely true that W. C. Durant had a weakness: He was human.  His humanity included love and trust of his associates—the not-always-correct assumption that they were as honorable as he.  He gave a degree and quality of loyalty to “his people” beyond any measurement; he expected the same magnitude of loyalty from them.

He surrendered the control of General Motors in 1910 to preserve the company for its investors.  In 1920, his loyalty to his company and its stockholders drove him to spend more money than he had preserving the value of the company’s name, reputation, and stock.  As for his feckless choice of executives, he hired and developed Charles W. Nash, Charles F. Kettering, Alfred P. Sloan, (also Walter Chrysler and almost Henry Ford) and a few thousand others.

What was Durant? . . . . A small-town boy from a broken home who had no advantages at all except his own character.  With a borrowed $2000 he built up the largest carriage company in the world.  With a debt-ridden, faltering motor company, he created the world’s largest corporation, providing millions of jobs all over the world in the past 65 years. (Over a 100 years now)

Small in stature, W. C. Durant was larger than life in every aspect of his thought, spirit, and practice.  He was, indeed, so much larger in concept that he made the lesser men who surrounded him uncomfortable—he was unpredictable as an elemental force of nature.

Durant was an original genius who escapes classification and definition; he had an almost godlike prescience; he had the creativity to translate his vision to reality, not only for himself but for his fellow men.  He was compassionate, gentle, charming, delightful, considerate, brilliant, generous, ingenious, and infinitely loyal.

Mass production—the greatest servant ever tamed to the uses of mankind—was still only an idea when Durant grasped it.  He more than any other man, implemented this great multiplier of goods and good for mankind.  He was, indeed, what Dickens called, “The Founder of the Feast”—and we are still eating at his bountiful table, although we have forgotten his name.