24. I’ll Buy You Fly

The University of Alabama Crimson Tide’s Men’s Football team is ranked number 1 in the country and is in search of its sixth national championship in the last decade. The head coach Nick Saban has been described as a football genius and a hard driving coach. Like most businesses, you would assume that Saban has built a finely tuned machine within his ranks so that he is able to produce nation’s best quality results year after year. You would expect that from every top echelon company. Solid and consistent leadership throughout the ranks so they can produce consistently superior results. However, the opposite is true with Alabama. What if I told you that all the offensive coaches from last year’s national championship finalist team quit and Alabama is still ranked number one this year?

Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.

Douglas Ready, senior lecturer at Sloan School of Management at MIT conducted a study of 40 international companies that he considered to be “talent factories.” One conclusion he drew was that virtually all of them had an insufficient pipeline of high-potential employees to fill strategic management roles.

Ready argued that even if a company’s practices and technical systems were robust and up to date, talent management will fail without deep-seated commitment from senior executives. Senior line executives may vigorously assert that obtaining and keeping the best people is a major priority—but then fail to act on their words. Other managers believed they could find talented employees by paying a premium (sound familiar) or by using the best executive recruiters (more familiar), while others are distracted by competing priorities.

Passion must start at the top and infuse the corporate culture; otherwise, the talent management processes can easily deteriorate into bureaucratic routines. But is passion enough? For SEC college football?

Ready provided a questionnaire to his companies and asked the responders to rate themselves. Let’s take a minute to answer some of these questions as if we were Nick Saban. The responses ranged from “We’re not doing well enough” at the low end, “We’re OK but not cheering” in the middle and “we’re at or near benchmark status” at the top. No joking. These were on the actual response line. Ok. Ready? You can answer these questions about your company if you want. I’ll be Nick Saban.

Question 1 – Do you know what skills your company needs to meet its growth objectives? Saban here is going to give himself a 10 for the primary reason that he explicitly understands the talents required to perform in each of his assistant positions. He has hired enough assistants and was an assistant for long enough to thoroughly understand.
Question 4 – Do you have a diverse and plentiful pool of leaders who are capable of moving into your organization’s most senior roles? Again, Saban is going to score a ten. One of the bonuses of winning five national championships is that you attract talent – top talent. Saban has exquisitely talented, young coaches and former players seeking him out for opportunities.

Question 7 – Do you offer managers developmental experiences specifically aimed at preparing them for the unique challenges of leading large organizations? Yes. Saban scores a ten. Even from the East German judge! Presently, there are 15 of Saban’s disciples who are in the position of head coach of a Division 1 college football team, or head coach of an NFL team. Many of his former employees compete against him every week.

Last one, number 9 – Have you as a leader unequivocally used words and deeds to demonstrate that you are fully committed to developing talent globally in your organization. I’m going to answer this one for Saban a different way. Alabama was ahead 28-0 in the national semi-final game last year. The co-offensive coordinator called a bad play on third down which resulted in Alabama needing to punt on 4th down. Twelve hours after the game, Saban was breaking the film down with his coaching staff and called out the coordinator for the mistake, using some very spicy Alabama words. The rub here is that the coordinator had accepted a job to become the head coach at the University of Maryland…three days earlier. Saban didn’t care. He was answering question number 9. Saban was fully committed to developing talent in the organization, even for talent that had already given their notice!

I am now going to give you my unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theory on developing your talent. Are you ready? Got your pencils out? Here’s it is. I’ll buy – you fly. You heard it. I’ll buy – you fly. This theory has been endorsed by two licensed teenage drivers in my house.

The theory is simple here’s how it works. After my daughter, Haley, received her license, she was actively seeking ways to use the car. She wanted more responsibility – and specifically more responsibility with the car. As the parents in the audience will appreciate, give your kids the keys to the car and you may not see the teenager for a week, or until they need a meal. Haley earned our trust and I was willing to extend boundaries of control.
On Monday nights in the summer, Newport Creamery has a two-for-one special on milkshakes. Around here, they are called Awful Awfuls. Awful Awful Monday became a great way to transfer responsibility to my daughter. Hales, I’ll buy – you fly. “Chocolate for me, mint chocolate chip for your brother – go and see what your mother wants. Here’s ten bucks. And, I know how much change I should get back.”

Haley reveled in this responsibility. Quick show of hands how many of you as teenagers were on the receiving end of the “I’ll buy you fly” deal from your parents? My magic mirror shows me that….almost everyone has both hands up!

Developing responsibility in your children may not hold the same cache as for a Fortune 500 company or a perennial football powerhouse, but the mindset is the same. Building engagement. Fostering commitment. Ensuring accountability.

Saban puts it this way, “ I actually look for people who have goals and aspirations who are hard workers and very committed to what they do.” This epitomizes Haley. She was driven (bad pun intended) to make sure that we got our Awful Awful…before they melted. And, trust me heads were going to roll if the order got messed up in any way.
Let’s take a minute and go back to our opening question. Saban lost all his offensive coaches after national championship game last year. Saban sees the defections as a sign of his program’s success. He said, “I think if you look at most of the coming and going, it’s people getting better jobs.”

This is exactly what happened with Haley. She defected…well…she went to college. But while I was buying, she was flying! And like many good leaders who develop their assistants that leave for better opportunities, you have a rich talent pool to draw from. For me that was Max, my son, who was itching to take Haley’s spot on the buy & fly deal.

Make your company a talent factory, like the University of Alabama Crimson Tide Football team. Make your company a desirous place to work and you will find that the best talent seeks you out. If you are interested in Douglas Ready’s questionnaire you can find it on the podcast page on my brand new website. www.trenttheroux.com

Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together.
I will be giving a brand new speech in the Providence area on November 21st at the ON Leadership Conference being held at the Crowne Plaza. Search for ON Leadership Conference to view the speaker lineup and buy tickets.

23. Cabin In The Woods

Is it 5:00 yet? On Friday? Man, it’s only 1:30 on Wednesday. How many of us wish is was Friday? Why is that? Why do we hope that days pass us by like a meteor shower? John Lennon was right. “Life is what happens while we are busy making other plans.” So, it’s Wednesday afternoon and you wish it was Friday. Maybe it’s as simple as…you’re bored.

Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.

A 1985 study by the Navy Personnel Research and Development Center found that there are many reasons we are bored at our jobs. Let’s see how many of these apply to you. Under-utilization. People with higher intelligence find tasks boring because they are able to process information too rapidly to fill their time. Repetitiveness. Performing the same tasks repeatedly makes our minds tired and leads to daydreaming. Age. You heard it! Younger people tend to get more bored because their minds work faster than us older folks. Extroversion. Extroverts require more mental stimulation than introverts. Monotonous tasks deprive extroverts of the stimulation they require to remain mentally sharp. Unpleasantness. The more unpleasant the task the quicker tedium sets in to make a worker lose focus.

This boredom is what leads us to think that the clock is moving slow. In a study by McBain of long distance truck drivers – now there’s a job that rings the boredom bell – it was found that an underestimation of time was prevalent. They found that the more narrowly people focused on a task, the slower time seemed to pass. The Navy should stick to running air craft carriers and leave the simple stuff to us. We all know that the more we watch the clock the slower it seems to go. That’s not the question resilient leaders need to address. Resilient leaders need to seek ways to minimize the boredom in their even most monotonous tasks.

I am now going to give you my unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theory on boredom. Are you ready? Got your pencils out? Here’s it is. Go to the cabin in the woods. You heard it. Go to the cabin in the woods. This theory has been endorsed by one transcendentalist living on his own in Walden Woods.
Many of my listeners will probably think that by sending you to the cabin in the woods, I sending you to meet Jason from Friday the 13th. Trust me this isn’t a slasher movie littered with awkward teenage sex.
On July 4th, 1845, Henry David Thoreau set out to live in Walden Woods in a hut he built for himself. Thoreau felt a need to concentrate and work more on his writing. Let’s say that again. Thoreau was bored working in his family’s pencil factory in Concord, Massachusetts. So, he chose to leave to tap into his creative resources.
Thoreau wrote, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live.”

While on his exodus and seeking inspiration at his cabin in the woods, Thoreau wrote what is arguably the most politically charge work of the 19th century, Civil Disobedience. In these pages, Thoreau argues that governments are typically more harmful than helpful and therefore cannot be justified. No, I could rant about government for five podcasts, but this one is about overcoming boredom in our jobs. Thoreau used the extreme measure of living in a cabin in the woods for two years to find his inspiration. I had a similar epiphany… but it took about seventy-two hours.

Last month, I went to a cabin in the woods in North Bay, Ontario to attend an event titled Speaker Jam. The event was hosted by Penny Tremblay, who teaches people to play nice in the sandbox. That’s her skill. She speaks on building productive, peaceful and profitable relationships at work. Also there was a Scott Armstrong, who formerly was an operator of Canada’s largest rehabilitation center for exotic animal and now uses those experiences to speak to audiences about tenacity. Lastly was Roxanne Derhodge. Roxanne is the host of the weekly podcast, Authentic Living with Roxanne Derhodge. Me…well you already know that I Develop Resilient Leaders.

The four of us gathered and each presented an hour long speech. Several friends attended in Penny’s living room to watch some pretty impressive deliveries by virtuosos. This had the feeling of a Led Zeppelin studio session, complete with groupies. So what was the point of going to this cabin in Canada? To create my own inspiration.
The problem many of us have is that we are waiting for inspiration to come to us. It’s tantamount to looking at the heavens and listening for God. We want inspiration to come to us to relieve us of our boredom so we can live more fulfilled lives.

Resilient Leaders know that this works the opposite way. You need to create the environment for your inspiration. Go to the zoo, drive a different way home, listen to a different radio station, try a new vegetable, kiss your lover a different way – these are only a few ways to bring inspiration to yourselves.

Quick show of hands – how many of you have driven the road to work on a Sunday and by hypnosis took the exit you would normally take on Monday through Friday? My magic mirror shows me that many of you have? Why? This phenomenon has a name, it’s called Road Hypnotism and psychologists recognized it almost one hundred years ago…when half the country was still riding horseback. The monotony, boredom and fatigue are the primary factors….the same items that are making us wish it was five o’clock on Friday.
We need to head to our cabin in the woods, physically or metaphorically, so we can create, so we can recharge, so we can be inspired. Because, I’ll tell you – I feel absolutely stupid when I take the wrong exit because of road hypnotism.

Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together. Please check out my brand new website www.trenttheroux.com . You can find my podcasts and some videos. If you enjoyed today’s show, please tell a friend, share the link on your social network…subscribe.

Thanks again for listening. I look forward to getting together next week.

22. Culture Club

Have you ever joined a cult? No? Have you ever had a few youngsters rock up to you and talk about how beautiful the land was, how there was this special community down in the valley teeming with youths from our generation and how there was this really groovy leader who was almost like a mystic. Want to join? What if they there was an awesome soundtrack? No? What if you could earn stock options?
(Music) Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.

Thousands of millennials head to Silicon Valley each year to find their path in the fastest moving cult on the planet. One of the preeminent leaders in the cult of personality was Steve Job, founder of Apple. Much has been written and filmed about Job’s leadership, meaning that many of us feel that we know him and his story quite well. I would argue that none of us really knew him at all. He was a mysterious mystic.

In an interview with UCLA Anderson School of Management professor Maia Young, she said that “the more you saw him as having mystique, the more it wend hand in hand as him being a visionary.” “When mysterious people are successful, we perceive them as if they have a special something endowed to them that most of us don’t have access to.” Young conducted a study in which subjects were asked to assess Job’s potential at predicting government spending, trends in the stock market, and the future of interest rates. The more people saw him as having mystique, the more they ascribed to him the ability to predict those things. It’s a testament to how much people saw in him.

Walking on water was not one of the questions of the survey, though I suspect that over 70% would have agreed that Jobs had that skill covered.

Is this my cheeky way of implying to the developing resilient leaders in the audience that you need to walk on water to gain the love and admiration of your employees and customers? Hardly, I suggest you all have the ability to swim, but we will leave the divine stuff for, well…the divine.

A large portion of what made the cult of Apple wasn’t Jobs, it was the cool products. A quick example…maybe a history lesson for some of you. When Apple launched the iPod in 2001, it wasn’t revolutionary. No. There were several other products that had a reasonable amount of memory capable of playing all the music in your CD collection. Apple wasn’t the first to market. However, Apple made the connection that music is cool and their product should be cool as well. Their redesign of the wheel-based interface changed a basic mp3 player into a listening experience. The old mp3 players required you to fast forward through each song to get to a song you wanted to hear. Apple’s wheel-based model allowed you to select which artists, which album, which song directly. Apple was brilliant in their marketing. Put 1,000 songs in your pocket. A marketing tagline that immediately let you understand the cult of product you were seeking.

One can argue that more people joined the Apple cult because of the products. Consumers wanted to be a part of something cool, hip, edgy. If the Walkman was your dad’s way of listening to music, the iPod was ours. Quick show of hands. How many of you belong to a cult? Hmmm…my magic mirror shows me that many of you are reluctant to raise your hands because YOU think the word has a negative connotation.

I want to go off on a tangent here. I have an intimate relationship with a cult. I never appreciated that it was a cult until I saw the look in some of the employee’s eyes when they talked about saving energy. The company is RISE Engineering and is based in Cranston. For the past 40 years they have been in the energy efficiency business. They go into homes and businesses and identify ways that the end user can reduce their electric consumption.

For a long time RISE was mainly in the business of upgrading light fixtures and replacement windows. However, over the past decade they have been on energy efficiency steroids. In that time they have hired people with a passion to save the world one home insulation project at a time. Reducing energy consumption is met by today’s youth as a clarion call to improve the planet. It’s hard for some older folks to think past “turn off the lights when you leave” as doing your part. These employees study how their work will impact the globe, how their efforts can be measured in terms of sustainability. It’s magnificent to watch and hear.

So, what can we learn as developing resilient leaders about cults? The employees at RISE are not coming to work for a paycheck, but rather a cause. It is the cause and the mission that drive talented people to work at RISE. It is the culture that has been built to foster employee growth and learning in the energy efficiency space that has helped it thrive and grow over the years. It feeds off itself. The employees feed off it and the customers feed from it as well.

I am now going to give you my unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theory on joining a cult. Are you ready? Got your pencils out? Here’s it is. Get on the bus. You heard it. Get on the bus. This theory has been endorsed by 500,000 youths attending a music and art festival fifty years ago this week.
The theory is simple. Novelist and LSD experiment participant, Ken Kesey wrote “you are either on the bus or you are off the bus.” The Woodstock festival organizers were expecting a crowd up to 200,000. This was a business venture for them. They put up their own money for the acts and sound and stages and marketing. But something happened along the way.

The counter-culture of the 1960s was reaching a tipping point. Hippies once derided by their straight laced parents were now labeled “The Woodstock Generation.” The 200,000 planned swelled to a half a million. Hippies knew that something special was happening, something they wanted to be a part of, something worth getting the bus for. And, that’s exactly what happened. (Play Woodstock)

Maybe it was the time of the year or maybe it was the time of man. Either way, isn’t this exactly the response Apple was seeking? Isn’t this what RISE wants from their employees and customers? A reason to follow and take part in something larger. They want people to get on the bus.

As my good friend the Reverend Jim Ignatowski once said after he learned that there were a half a million people at Woodstock, “It was a good thing that I was at Woodstock. Otherwise, there would have been four hundred ninety-nine thousand. And ninety nine hundred and nine nine people there.

Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together. You can find more podcasts and videos on my website at www.trenttheroux.com. If you enjoyed today’s show, please tell a friend, share the link on your social network…subscribe. Can I help your company talk about adopting culture? Just write to me at
info@trenttheroux.com and let me understand the items you are seeking to strengthen. Thanks again for listening. I look forward to getting together next week.

21. Fighting the Fescue

Imagine that you are Rory McIlroy, a national treasure. A hero to your hometown, your home country. Crowds cheer your name before you make your first swing of the day. You acknowledge your fans and set in to perform your assigned tasks. The last time you played this course you were masterful. Better than masterful, you set the course record. Your chest is swollen to three times its size with the pride in your abilities. You are on the first tee of Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland and you just hooked your opening tee shot out of bounds then slashed the next one into hip high gorse dashing your chances of winning The Open Championship and crushing the hopes of a nation who waited half a century for this moment. It sounds like a Greek tragedy you learned in high school.

Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.

Hubris is the Greek sin of pride and one of the most tragic flaws of a hero or heroine. In the Odyssey, Odysseus’ hubris and arrogance towards the gods causes him to encounter trouble after trouble in a 10-year journey home of the battle of Troy. Narcissus is so prideful of his beauty that he sits staring at his reflection until he starves to death. Achilles is so prideful in his immortality, yet an arrow to the heel kills him.

How does hubris affect resilient leaders? There are numerous examples of hubris amongst CEOs. A University of Missouri study showed that, “Overconfident CEOs, feel that they have superior decision-making abilities and are more capable than their peers. Unfortunately, they tend to make decisions about mergers or acquisitions that can be viewed as risky. For example, CEOs who are over-confident tend to target companies that do not focus on their core line of business. Generally speaking, according to the study, mergers that diversify companies don’t work.”

The study also found that CEOs who are over confident often use cash to purchase or merge with other businesses. They do this because they believe their stock is undervalued. The CEOs are not paying attention to how the market views their stock, they believe that their personal judgement is more valuable. These CEOs are betting millions, nay billions of dollars on these judgements. Some of that may be your 401k or pension money their gambling with. These CEOs are in their current position because they’d proven their worth over the years. Has something changed in them? Are their successes of the past clouding their vision of the future?

Quick show of hands how many of you committed your own sin of hubris? An act of pride based on your newly acquired resilient leader’s skills? Made a decision because you made the same decision a thousand times before? My magic mirror shows me that more and more of you Greek sinners are starting to raise your hands.

Hubris is an ironic sin. Most of us don’t know when we are guilty of it. Most of us don’t know that we are staring at our reflection until we starve to death.

I am now going to give you my unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theory on hubris. Are you ready? Got your pencils out? Here it is: Trust your caddy. You heard it. Trust your caddy. This theory has been recently endorsed by one Northern Ireland golfer with a big swing and impish good looks.

The theory is simple. Here’s how it works. Last week I was competing in a golf tournament in Scotland on a wind ravished course named Gullane #2. I was in the middle of the pack but recently started making a move up the leaderboard. I made three pars in a row when I stepped up to the tee a faced a wind strong enough to make my gums flap. An axiom of golf is when it’s breezy swing easy. Unfortunately, this was one of the longest holes on the course and the wind would only make it two times longer. I needed to pound out a solid drive to give me a chance at keeping my par streak alive. As you can expect, I swung too hard and hooked it into the fescue on the right. I’m not talking the cute little wispy fescue. I’m talking the chest high stuff. The kind of fescue you’d find Sandy Duncan making Wheat Thins commercials from.

My caddie, Caleb, and I searched for the ball. The competitors in my group and their caddies helped to no avail. We couldn’t find the ball. The rules of our tournament varied from normal golf rules. If a ball was lost in the fescue we were allowed to drop where we thought it was lost with only a one stroke penalty. I dropped my ball into the fescue and asked Caleb for the yardage. He replied, 225 to the flag.

Caleb handed me my A-wedge, which is a club I would hit typically 100-110 yards, less than half the distance to the flag. I was already hitting my third shot. I needed to put this on the green or very close to have a chance to make par. I commanded my 3-wood. “Mate, you don’t want to do that.” That was the sage advice from Caleb. You don’t want to do that. I did the math in my head. If I used the A-wedge, I would be – at best – a hundred and a quarter to the flag and at best lose one shot to par, maybe two at best. No, I needed to get to the green now. It was the start of the back nine on the final day. I needed to go for the green.

Caleb dutifully handed me the 3-wood and stepped back. For those of you who don’t play golf or have never hit out of this type of heather imagine playing golf with glasses that are not the correct prescription – got it – okay now rub some Vaseline over the lenses. That’s what it looks like trying to hit a ball in thick fescue. You don’t know how high the ball is sitting off the ground. Is it flat to the ground or is it three inches off. Plus, the fescue has a nasty habit of trying to grab your club as it moves through, like thousands of Lilliputians strapping down Gulliver.

I took a clean rip at the ball and made contact with only the fescue. The ball moved – straight down – as I swung under the ball. I screamed – I screamed words that golfers shouldn’t scream and I glared at Caleb. His look was melancholy. The only feature I noticed was his right arm holding out my A-wedge. He was holding it the entire time I set up with the 3-wood knowing that I would need to use it. I took my A-wedge and punched the ball back into the fairway. Made a triple bogey and effectively ended my chances of winning the tournament.

Why didn’t I listen to Caleb when he instructed me to use the wedge? Was I a better golfer than Caleb (the answer I found out was no). Did I know the course better? No, Did I know what happens to almost everyone who tries to swing a wood out of thick fescue? NO! There was one person who did, my caddie.

So, why didn’t I listen to my caddy? Hubris. Hubris. I had more belief in myself than belief in the expert’s opinion. I will tell you that this is common in leaders. There is a reason people rise to the top – they have a belief, a true conviction that they know what to do in each situation. And, many times they are right. In fact, most times they are right. But, there are those situations when we, as resilient leaders, need to accept that we are not the smartest person in the room. Not even average in many cases.

We need to accept that there are people with more wisdom and experience that can help us navigate. We need to listen to our caddies.

A close friend of mine has a more direct way of saying this. Sgt. Harry Callahan, I know him as Dirty Harry and he thinks this way about my hubris.

A man’s got to know his limitations – Amen Dirty Harry – a man’s got to know his limitations before he gets his head blown clean off. Caleb, hand me the wedge.

Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together. You can find more podcasts and videos on my website at www.trenttheroux.com. If you enjoyed today’s show, please tell a friend, share the link on your social network…subscribe. I spent some time last week training college professors in resilient leadership. It was just a few ideas on how to better manage their workloads. If your organization could use some outside assistance, Just write to me at info@trenttheroux.com. Send me a quick message if you have an idea that needs to be looked at through a resilient leader lens. Thanks again for listening. I look forward to getting together next week.

swimming in the flood

20. Jockeying for Position

Corporations invest billions of dollars daily on whether projects will become successful. They will measure the potential for economic value added or market value added. Assessments will be made about the track for success in the marketplace and the hurdles the competitors will face. Investments will be based on the number of the competitors in the field and where they will enter the market. Decisions are often made based on the quality of the manager. Their ability to succeed…or maybe just the color of their silks.

Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.

I recently attended the horse races at Royal Musselburgh Race Course in Scotland. A dozen highly polished friends joined in the restaurant for a fantastic lunch and an afternoon of wagering on horses. Watching the races left me with countless ideas for how to prepare this episode. My mind was rife with metaphors for resilient leaders. So many that I am going to break format and give you ten unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theories. Are you ready? Got those pencils and wagering forms out?  Okay here we go.

Number 1 – The person who wins first doesn’t win every time.

The twelve of us made our initial wagers.  Eleven lost. The sole winner was viewed by the balance as a handicapping savant.  Ten minutes earlier he was enjoying tuna tartar. Now he’s the second coming of Jimmy the Greek. Everyone wanted to know his secret. The truth is he guessed. It is easy to follow someone based on their success. Resilient leaders need to be wary of trendy business models. What works once may never work again.

Number 2 – Horse betting requires an advance mathematical degree.

Each patron receives a book upon entering the track which gives volumes of data about each horse. Data like how much extra weight the horse is carrying or average finishing place on firm tracks versus wet tracks. I was thinking, “It’s Scotland. You can have both tracks in the same race.” Analyzing data you are given will greatly aid your opportunity for success. This is always the case. The more you study the data the better your odds for success.

Number 3 – Bet to win, not show.

We spend hours, years training for our opportunities. Some on the track, some in the office, some in school. Prove the value of your investments by betting on your horses to win. Betting to show – finishing third – shows a lack of confidence in your skills. Be confident…bet on yourself.

Number 4 – Get your horse to the starting gate.

I wagered on a horse named Honey GG. He looked like a great horse on paper. For some reason, the jockey dismounted before entering the gate and Honey GG backed up, went around the starting gate and galloped along the track. The crowd cheered as the rider-less horse frolicked down the track. Me, I held a useless ticket. You can’t win your events unless you are on the line at the start.

Number 5 – Cheer when someone else’s horse comes in. 

It is easy to be frustrated when you lose a large contract or your book submission is rejected by a publisher. Failure has many faces. Be happy for others around you. Cheer when they succeed. Happiness and karma are easily spread and warmly received.  Revel in someone else’s victories. In time, they will be there to support yours.

Number 6 – Race because you want to be racing.

Watching the horses thunder down the track makes me think how much they enjoy showing off their speed. Resilient leaders need to be in places where they can exhibit their skills. Be in a place that they enjoy working or playing. The more excited you are about your surroundings the greater you will perform on the track.

Number 7 – Throw away your losing tickets.

Movies emphasize how losers at the track will ceremoniously tear up their losing tickets and toss them into the air with disgust.  This point is spot on…save for the disgust. Take the experience and lessons of losing the race with you, but tear up the ticket and move onto the next race. How often have you wallowed in what you lost? What could have been? Worse, how often have you drained the person next to you in the story of your loss. Extracting lessons learned from failures is essential. Figuring out how much you possibly could have won if the three-horse placed on your superfecta will only send you to another strata of unfruitful aggravation.

Number 8 –  Put blinders on your horse.

Horses have enormous peripheral vision. Their eyes are located at the sides of the head allowing him to see a panoramic view of the world. In fact, horses can see a nearly full circle around themselves except for a small blind spot in front of their noses and behind their tails.

Blinders cover the rear and side vision of the horse, forcing him to focus only in a forward direction. The reduction in vision for the horses wearing blinders is significant and can reduce a horse’s vision from 180 degrees to as little as 30 degrees. Sometimes when we are managing projects we need to put blinders on ourselves and our teammates to block out the distractions of social media, competing projects…life in general. Blinders give you focus when it is needed most.

Number 9 – Don’t use the whip.

In the final furlong, the final stretch of the race, the jockeys are permitted to whip their horses. New regulations allow the jockeys to whip their horses up to five times down the stretch. I am not a proponent of this practice. The horses are working hard. The concept of the whipping the horse is to motivate them to finish strong as they are fatiguing. I think it’s barbaric.  Whipping your employees is wrong, completely wrong. I understand the desire. But, it’s still wrong. If you are frustrated with your teammates performance to the point you want to go to the whip you should realize. It’s not your teammates…it’s you.

Number 10 – Put a bed of roses on your winning horse.

I followed one of the horses after he won his race back to a marshaling area. His handlers were cooling him down by pouring buckets of water down his back. People were taking pictures of him and calling out his name. The horse glowed in the attention. Reward your people for a job well done. Reward them directly after their race. Let them bask in glory. Lay a bed of roses across their back.

A quick postscript about picking horses based on the jockey’s silks color. The day I went to Royal Musselburgh, if you bet on all green, if you bet on every jockey whose silks were green, you would have won 5 of 9 races…it’s not scientific, but I’m just sayin’ it is a method.

Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together. You can find more podcasts and videos on my website at www.trenttheroux.com. I recently provided resiliency leadership training to a sales team that was struggling with integration following an acquisition. If I can help your team, please write to me at info@trenttheroux.com. Also, send me a quick message if you have an idea that needs to be looked at through a resilient leader lens. Thanks again for listening. I look forward to getting together next week.

19. What is a 1202 Alarm?

Decisiveness, programming and the moonshot

18. Domesticated Service

Will you picture something for me please? I want you to picture yourself at your desk. It’s getting near the end of long, grinding day and you are looking forward to taking a joy ride in your new convertible straight after the workday. Now, in the minutes before you are ready to leave, your boss bursts into your office. She’s breathing heavily and explaining that she’s late for a pressing meeting, an uber-important summit. She wants to take your car…now! She tells you that you can find your way home and if you were a real company man you’d hand over the keys immediately. Got the picture? That’s the world of competitive cycling.

Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.

I received a recent request from a constant listener who wanted to know if I had some thoughts for developing resilient leaders who are just entering the workforce. And my answer is yes. Yes…hand her the keys to your car. Let me explain why.

The past weekend the most grueling event in sports commenced, the Tour de France; a 21-day, 2,162 mile race through the countryside and mountains of France – and a little bit of Belgium this year. Many of you might view this event as a pack of really skinny guys in colorful spandex moving as one giant blob with rabid fans trying to run alongside. Well, you’re not far off.

But, do you know how a team functions in the Tour? It may be helpful in understanding how we need to develop as resilient leaders, at all stages of our development. The general classification rider is the team leader. This is the individual for whom the team strives to put in the position to win.  There are specialists like the sprinters and the climbers who are afforded the opportunity to attempt stage wins. Then, there are the domestiques.  Domestique is French for servant. Think of the domestique as the individual learning to become a resilient leader. That rider’s responsibility is to serve and protect the team leader. If the team leader needs water, you give him yours. If you are out of water, you drop back to the team car, get water, sprint back to your leader and hand him a bottle. If he wants the granola bar you’re eating – fork it over. During the ride, you are directly in front of the leader. Drafting is when one rider is directly behind another. Drafting reduces up to half of the wind drag from cycling. The team leader gets a free ride while you do the hard work.  You work as hard as you can, for as long as you can and give your team leader the best chance to win.

And, if your leader’s bike breaks or has a flat – without hesitation – you hand him yours. That’s the job.

Starting out in the world is very much like being the domestique; thankless work at the bottom of the ladder. You’re the one helping schlep the bikes with the team mechanic while the leader is on the podium kissing the pretty French models.

But, young resilient leaders here is the good news. The business world, like the Tour de France is an egalitarian society. If you hone your skills properly you can become a sprinter or a climber on the team, or if you become skilled in both you can become the leader with a shot at winning the yellow jersey.

I am now going to give you my unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theory on being a domestique. Are you ready? Got your pencils out? Here it is: Look for the elevation markers. You heard it. Look for the elevation markers. This theory has been endorsed by one Japanese, hot dog engulfing, sport changing pioneer.

The theory is simple. Here’s how it works. Ten years ago, I competed in Ironman Nice, in Nice, France. By the way, if you ever want to sell a spouse on a vacation promise to take them to the South of France for a week, all you ask for in return is one day to yourself. Works every time. Ironman Nice is noted in the Ironman circuit for having the most elevation, over 11,000 feet of climbing in total. Now, the race is 112 miles. The first 20 coming from the Mediterrean are as flat as the Mediterranean. The same for the returning 20. The middle 70 are broken this way. 35 straight up. The rest descend. So, all this climbing happens within a very short range.

Many of you know that I am not the slightest man in the world. I am a little thicker around the rump and thighs. My uncle used to call me the Crisco Kid. In short, my body was not made for climbing mountains on a bicycle. Yet, in the late June heat I was out there grinding away. The longest climb of the day was three thousand feet. To put that in perspective, it is the same as scaling the Eiffel Tower three times. The climb that would test everything I had.

The bottom of the climb is exceptionally steep with a grade of near 14% and is a place for hundreds of spectators shouting “Allez, Allez,” “Go, Go,” and similar in other languages. I pedaled through. And pedaled.

Near the middle of the 24-kilometer climb, I was passed by Marie from Norway. She was 25 and this was her second Ironman and the hills here aren’t as difficult as those in Norway and she really liked the pre-race dinner and she likes puppies and duckies. Did you know that she loves duckies? I learned all these things because she was giving an interview to the Ironman media while passing me on a 7% gradient.

I felt my legs first crack just as I noticed a stone marker on the side which read 7-5-0-M. I wasn’t quite sure what its meaning was. Mile marker of some sort. I got distracted when I was chicked by a man named “Fifi” Everyone’s name is printed on their racing number to the fans can call them out. Fifi roared by me as if I was standing still.

I put my head down and kept pedaling. Then I noticed a stone marker reading 7-5-5-m. These weren’t mile markers they were elevation markers – markers indicating how high up we were. My mind raced to calculate that this climb would be nearly 1,000 meters. I was only three quarters of the way up and feeling hopeless about my prospects to ascend. 7-6-0-m these stone markers were taunting me in 5-meter increments. Each one more painful as I passed.

Then, resilient leaders, something in my mind switched. I no longer thought about getting to 1,000, I thought about getting to the next elevation marker. If I can just make the next elevation marker, I’ll worry about the balance of the climb from there. I started counting towards the elevation markers 750, 790, 830, 910, 965 and I crested the climb.

By breaking my task into more manageable assignments I was able to complete what I thought might be impossible. Young resilient leaders – you are now on your climb. Put your head down. Pedal hard. Count the elevation markers. You will get there.

Let me make one comment about the downside of this climb. It’s fun, but by no means easy. You have to be agile and have vision to navigate the steeply pitched switchbacks. The elevation markers are still there on downside of the mountain. They still measure in 5-meter increments, but when you have momentum on your side you don’t seem to notice the same way.

Lastly, while being 50 pounds lighter than me may have helped Marie on the ascent, gravity did her no favors on the decent as I passed her 2 hours later. I quacked as I passed her, in Norwegian of course.

Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together. You can find more podcasts and videos on my website at www.trenttheroux.com.  Music today is from Bensound. If you enjoyed today’s show, please tell a friend, share the link on your social network…subscribe. I would be happy to discuss speaking at your next conference or event. Just write to me at info@trenttheroux.com. Send me a quick message if you have an idea that needs to be looked at through a resilient leader lens.  Thanks again for listening. I look forward to getting together next week.

17. Hot Dogging It

Have you ever seen an innovation which made you think, “I came up with that idea years ago?” On Demand TV is that innovation for me. My mother took me to see The Bad News Bears, the original in its original run in 1976, at the Newport Opera House Theatre. She told me in the lobby that the boys would be using some bad words and if she ever heard me using any of them she would wedge a bar of soap in my mouth. She was right. There were a lot of words I never heard before like crud, turd and booger. The racist and sexist jokes went past me, but I clearly understood that 12-year old boys were making fun of each other. Later that night, I was watching television and thought how cool it would be if I could watch The Bad News Bears again right then. I could watch the movie over and over to memorize the jokes. “What does   Wait, I could do the same for Looney Tunes. I could watch Bugs Bunny whenever I wanted rather than assume mean?” only at 4:00 after school. This was a brilliant idea. I just mentally invented On Demand TV, maybe thirty years too early and definitely several million missing scientific brains cells too late.

Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.

In its purest sense, invention can be defined as the creation of a product or introduction of a process for the first time. Innovation, on the other hand, occurs if someone improves on or makes a significant contribution to an existing product, process or service.

Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming subscription service, and has played a key role in transforming how consumers experience music by offering unprecedented convenience, accessibility, and data-driven personalization to drive discovery and engagement. Founded in 2006 in Sweden, the company over 80 million paying subscribers. Spotify’s streaming access model reversed the industry’s declining revenue trend, unlocking revenue and adding value for consumers, artists, and all players in the music ecosystem.

Let’s remember the world before Spotify. The first wave of internet-based music services, like Napster, facilitated piracy and illegal digital distribution, significantly reducing global music revenues, which declined by 40% from 1999 to 2014. Sixteen years of annual revenue declines coupled with poor and unreliable customer experiences in pirated music created a market where both publishers and consumers were receptive to a new solution. Spotify’s streaming model was a key driver of the music industry’s inflection point; from 2011 to 2017, the streaming category grew from 9% of revenues to 72%. In 2016, global music revenues reached its highest annual growth rate in 20 years, increasing 6% to reach $15.7 billion. Spotify’s revenue represented 23% of the global music market in 2016 and 30% in 2017. More importantly, it now represents 42% of the streaming music market – the largest and fastest growing portion of the market. The company is well-positioned to scale its user base and capture revenue opportunities in recorded music and more broadly in the music industry.

You may also remember that to buy music you could go to iTunes and for a cheap $0.99 you could digitally own a song. Or, if you were really old school you could walk into Strawberry’s and buy a CD. You might have to wait behind someone buying the best of Barbara Streisand. There sure wasn’t anybody in line buying Slim Shady.

Digital music existed before Spotify. It was the innovative business model that changed the market. Spotify leveraged music’s inherently social nature to drive sharing and discovery amongst users. Unlike earlier music piracy services that destroyed value for music industry revenues with each share, Spotify created a viral loop that increased the value of the market and network with each new user. Spotify’s growth-oriented social features such as shared links, shared playlists, and aggressive integrations with social networks connected to a market ready consume music in a different way. Truthfully, when was the last time you purchased a compact disk? Do you still own a CD player, other than maybe in your six year old car?

Resilient Leaders are innovative. They are constantly seeking opportunities to build better mousetraps for their companies and for themselves. By the way, there is a misnomer that all innovation needs to be driven by technology. I contend that this statement is false. It is correct that some of the most economically altering events were driven by technology. However, we should not dismiss those innovation driven by heart and desire and simplicity.

I am now going to give you my unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theory on innovation. Are you ready? Got your pencils out? Here it is: Soak the bun. You heard it. Soak the bun. This theory has been endorsed by one Japanese, hot dog engulfing, sport changing pioneer.

The theory is simple. Here’s how it works. Takeru Kobayashi, on July 4th, 2001 won the Nathan’s Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest. To say that he just won the contest is a disservice to Kobayashi, he destroyed the field. The contest measures how many complete hot dogs a person can eat in twelve minutes, bun and all. This was Kobayashi’s first attempt at the contest and he ate fifty – 5-0 hot dogs in twelve minutes. That doubled the previous record of 25. The record was so unexpected that the organizers ran out of signs indicating how many dogs Kobayashi had eaten and had to resort to handwritten signs.

Now, most of you probably have an impression of a competitive eater as some obese biker type wearing a sleeveless t-shirt. Not so. Kobayashi is closer in size to the nerd you knew in junior high school algebra. He’s small. 5’ 8” Maybe 125 pounds. Your basic beanpole. Yet, Kobayashi took down the obese biker types in a food eating contest. The simplest question is how? Innovation, resilient leaders. Innovation.

In an interview on Freakenomics Radion, Kobayashi said, “the other competitive eaters were asking themselves: “How could I fit more hot dogs in my stomach?” I asked a different question: How can I make one hot dog easier to eat?”  A brilliant way to consider the flip side of a coin.

Kobayashi said, “The key to me was that I had to change the mentality that it was a sport — it wasn’t having a meal.” Kobayashi noticed previous competitors in the hot dog eating contest ate as if a friend had dared them to eat a bunch of food, whereas he saw an opportunity to dissect the physical action of eating and optimize it for speed and efficiency.

Kobyashi began intensely experimenting with different techniques for sausage (and bun consumption. It was during this time he crafted the game-changing bun dip, where he dipped the hot dog bun in a cup of water to break down its starch, squeeze out the excess water, and toss it into his mouth as a ball. It wasn’t appetizing (or visually appealing), but it worked.

His technique revolutionized the sport of competitive eating. He dipped the hot dog bun to innovate and dominate his field.

Man, this discussion is making me hungry. I’m going to go off on a quick tangent. This 4th of July week, I am going to have a juicy hot dog. I prefer mine with spicy mustard, some celery salt, onions on top and I’m going to wash it down with an ice cold coke. Then, I going to watch The Bad News Bears on my On Demand TV.

Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together. You can find more podcasts and videos on my website at www.trenttheroux.com. Music today is from Bensound. If you enjoyed today’s show, please tell a friend, share the link on your social network…subscribe. I would be happy to discuss speaking at your next conference or event. Just write to me at info@trenttheroux.com. Send me a quick message if you have an idea that needs to be looked at through a resilient leader lens.  Thanks again for listening. I look forward to getting together next week.

16. Fly In Orlando

I recently watched the Best Picture award winner, Midnight Cowboy with Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. The final scene is very touching. The two men are riding a bus to Florida to get out of the grimy New York street life. Overplaying the action is Harry Nilsson’s Everybody’s Talkin’. The song’s opening lyrics – Everybody’s talking at me. I can’t hear a word they’re sayin’. Only the echoes of my mind. It made me think about a recent business meeting. Six people at the table with six agendas. Each participant with one mouth and no ears. Side conversations took over the general discussion – everybody was talking at me. At the conclusion – well, there really wasn’t a conclusion – the meeting just ultimately ended. At the end, I was unclear what direction we wanted to follow. The messages were mixed in my mind. The intentions of the team were chaotic. Is your business chaotic or is it chaos theory?

Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.

Chaos in a system was discovered by American mathematician Edward Lorenz. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Lorenz modeled the weather using twelve differential equations. He wanted to save time on one occasion and started the program in the middle, rather than at its initial conditions, and stored computer data to three decimals rather than the usual six. Instead of getting an expected close approximation to his result, Lorenz got a very different answer.

Lorenz rationalized that a small change in the initial conditions can drastically change the long-term behavior of a meteorological system. He called this phenomenon the “butterfly effect.” In its extreme case, Lorenz contended it was possible for the flapping of butterfly wings to cause a massive storm a half world away. His 1972 paper “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas?” originated the term Butterfly effect. Based on his results, Lorenz stated that it is impossible to predict the weather accurately.

Did we seriously expect endless studies to tell us anything other than when the weatherman predicts a hurricane I should look in my front closet for the snow shovel? Heck No.

Can you imagine that this happens in organizations? Can you imagine how the butterfly effect can move a company off its course? It happens virtually every day. One set of directives are passed down through the organization ranks to the next generation where they are interpreted then passed down one management level where pieces are missing and by the time it gets to the mail room the message is nothing like when it left the boardroom.

This is the same telephone game we’ve played since we were children. You and your kindergarten friends sit cross-legged in a circle. One child whispers a sentence to the next. The objective is to repeat exactly what the one before said. Exactly what they said. Do you remember how this worked out – I do – miserably. The teacher would whisper – “Sally wears red shoes in the classroom” and the sentence would make it back “Bobby pooped in the bathroom sink.” Or some variation. The difference between kindergarten and organizations is that there is a political component to the conversation.

It is hard to ignore that there are personal motivations in the corporate telephone game. I know that the resilient leaders listening attempt to steer from these obstacles, but it is challenging. Political and self-serving motivations skew and obfuscate corporate messages delivered from the board room.

Johnathan Swift wrote that “Falsehood flies and the truth comes limping after.” It is sad, but it is true and to be expected that nearly every organization suffers from the butterfly effect in corporate messages. This chaos is set upon organizations with the intention to disrupt the unity and harmony of an organization. Chaos is a devious beast because it attacks us from the inside and cannot be fought with normal weapons.

I am now going to give you my unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theory on chaos. Are you ready? Got your pencils out? Here it is: Fly in Orlando. You heard it. Fly in Orlando. This theory has been endorsed by one highly-motivated, Jamaican born former Toronto Argonaut.

The theory is simple. Here’s how it works. Resilient leaders often face the urge to pass along data and information they gather throughout their networks. Some of this information is valuable others are just plain crap. For those organizations who are getting mixed messages from the leaders. Conflicting corporate messages that make your actual objective ambiguous?

You need to Fly in Orlando. This theory does not include mouse ears and hours in a queue with screaming children. But, you should consider flying in Orlando – Bowen. Orlando Bowen. Orlando is a game changer equipping people to get off the sidelines and make a difference. Orlando’s message of One Team – One Voice – sends a message that organizations should rally to a clear message to move forward. A clarion call for the objectives and intentions of organizations. Orlando speaks to corporate audiences with a passion reserved for rabid zealots. Yet, within seconds he snaps an audience to attention with his shout “ONE TEAM”…you were supposed to respond “ONE VOICE”  Let’s try it again. “ONE TEAM” “ONE VOICE” There, that’s better.

Too often our corporate directives – our projects devolve into corporate Towers of Babel. Quick show of hands how many of you are involved in projects where it feels like the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing. Hmmm? My Magic Mirror shows me that quite a few of you have both hands raised.

The Tower of Babel you may remember from the Book of Genesis was one of the world’s first major engineering undertakings and one of the world’s first management failures. God advised them that as long as they are one people with one language, nothing would be impossible. However, the language and semantics changed. Teams couldn’t talk effectively with each other and consequently lacked coordination. This deteriorated relationships, resulting in jealousies, with different groups isolating themselves. And the project failed. They became masters of babbling in Babylon.

If only the project manager could Fly in Orlando. ONE TEAM – ONE VOICE. Resilient leaders need to find how to communicate in a unifying voice.  One clear voice that listens to all and can speak for all. One voice that is unwavering in its intentions. One voice that can raise the bar and raise the floor at the same time.

Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together. You can find more podcasts and videos on my website at www.trenttheroux.com. Music today is from Bensound. If you enjoyed today’s show, please tell a friend, share the link on your social network…subscribe.  I would be happy to discuss speaking at your next conference or event. Just write to me at info@trenttheroux.com. Send me a quick message if you have an idea that needs to be looked at through a resilient leader lens.  Thanks again for listening. I look forward to getting together next week.

15. The On Deck Hitter

Did you watch the royal birth last month? It was beautiful, regal and proper. I was fascinated by how perfectly orchestrated little Archie Mountbatten-Windsor was fit into the family. First, the queen. She’s been the queen for over 60 years. Then there’s Charles in his fake military garb. William stood proud and tall followed closely by his children; George, Charlotte and Louis.  Next is the groom Harry. Prince Harry. In some respects this is his day. But in my eyes his still only sixth in line for the crown. Don’t you love a good succession plan?

Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.

Succession planning in the house of Windsor is serious business. Did you know that if you are one of the first six in line it is required to have the sovereign’s consent before you marry? Without such consent they, and their children, would be disqualified from succession.

The formal succession planning extends quite a bit. Did you know that the fiftieth in line to the crown is Maud Windsor?  Neither did I. Daughter of Prince Michael of Kent (48th), son of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent (37th), whose grandfather would be the same as Queen Elizabeth’s.  It get gets a little confusing. And gosh forbid you marry a Catholic. That throws the whole matrix off – except following the Succession Act of 2013, they now tolerate Catholics and will put you back in line. (No cutsies.)

That’s not how resilient leaders would design succession planning. I’m more a fan of an egalitarian approach. Succession planning based on merit rather than the lucky… club…you know which one.

General Electric’s succession planning approach requires six years to make a transition at the top. Their process starts with moving new leaders throughout the organization to give them stretch experiences.

I am now going to give you my unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theory on preparing for succession. Are you ready? Got your pencils out? Here it is: Kneel in the on-deck circle. You heard it. Kneel in the on-deck circle. This theory has been endorsed by thousands of sunflower chewing, eye black wearing, Louisville Slugger swinging baseball players.

The theory is simple. Here’s how it works. When an inning starts, the batter due up digs in into the batter’s box and takes his turn at bat. The next batter steps out of the dugout and into the on deck circle. The batter in the on deck circle is there for two reasons. First, to get his body loose to swing, but more importantly to take a measure of how the pitcher is pitching to the guy at bat. The on-deck batter is watching for changes in pitch velocity, determining if the pitcher is getting tired or if he’s losing control of his pitches. This is all valuable intel for the on deck batter. The same approach holds true for resilient leaders. There is going to be a time when we are at bat, when we are going to be pressed into action, when the succession plan falls to us. The amount of preparation you have for you turn at bat will correlate directly to how well you will swing when the pitches are thrown to you.

There are several predictive algorithms which can mathematically express this theory. Sorry, I can’t explain them because the math is a little beyond my comprehension, but I believe their conclusions to be true.

Quick show of hands how many of you asked more than five questions today? My Magic Mirror tells me that not many of you did?

Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together. You can find more podcasts and videos on my website at www.trenttheroux.com. Music today is from Bensound. If you enjoyed today’s show, please tell a friend, share the link on your social network…subscribe. I would be happy to discuss speaking at your next conference or event. Just write to me at info@trenttheroux.com. Speaking of writing to me, I want to thank my favorite CPA, Judith Ventura Enright for giving me the idea for this podcast. Send me a quick message if you have an idea that needs to be looked at through a resilient leader lens. Thanks again for listening. I look forward to getting together next week.