By Mark Miller
“You don’t drift to a better place – you make a decision to go to work.” Smart Leadership by Mark Miller will help you “get to work” once you decide to go to work.
Mark Miller, VP of High Performance Leadership for Chick-fil-A draws from decades of experience as he pours out a heaping portion of leadership insight to help us make four smart choices. Why "smart choices"? "Because," says Miller, “your choices determine your impact." (2)
Miller’s premise is simple: Leaders can make four smart choices to scale their impact:
Smart Choice #1: Confront Reality
Smart Choice #2: Grow Capacity
Smart Choice #3: Fuel Curiosity
Smart Choice #4: Create Change
While Miller’s book is titled, Smart Leadership: 4 Simple Choices to Scale Your Impact, these "simple choices" will take effort. Count on it, the number of action steps you will take to apply these principles will far exceed four!
About the author:
Miller began his Chick-fil-A experience more than forty years ago when he started as an hourly team member. He was the sixteenth corporate employee on CFA's path to becoming a $17 billion-dollar company. Miller has authored nine books, with more than one million total copies in print. His books have been translated into 25 different languages.
The book in a sentence (or two):
Leaders can make four smart choices to scale their impact: #1: Confront Reality, #2: Grow Capacity, #3: Fuel Curiosity, #4: Create Change.
My quick take on Smart Leadership:
Highly practical. Extremely valuable to me role as a college president. Get ready, four choices seems easy enough! But there are myriad applications. The work will be hard and the results will be worth it!
Overview and Analysis:
As noted, Miller’s Smart Leadership has been a big help. The thoroughness and insights reflect his leadership expertise and the power of the team working with him. I have a ton of takeaways from the hours I have spent with this book. I wished he would have provided source documentation for his quotes, but worse things have happened in the publishing industry.
For all his great work--and I truly loved this book-- it was an “under the sun” approach: Give it your best during the few days of this life; build your legacy. There was a passing nod to spiritual disciplines, but that was about it. The totality of anything “spiritual” was contained in one paragraph (page 132-33). For a guy intent on wisdom, he never pointed us to the Source -- and I think he knows the Source (See Proverbs). That left me curiously befuddled.
My Takeaways:
Smart Choice #1: Confront Reality
1. Assess carefully:
Miller quotes one of my favorite maxims, that from the pen of Max De Pree, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.” His story about Socrates and “I want air” makes the point very well (pp 36-7). “When you want to know reality as much as you want air, you will find it.” Miller identified ten areas to assess “reality.” His words about Your Team really hit home.
I think it would also be helpful if you knew the unvarnished truth about your team. Are they just good enough? Are they exceptional? Does your day crew rock and maybe your night crew is a little bit scary? How about your leadership team? What is true about your leadership team – collectively and the individual members? (41).
This resonated as assessment is a high priority item in our organization.
2. Genchi Gembutsu: The Japanese phrase means “Go see for yourself.” “Data is good, reports are helpful, but there are few substitutes for leaders going to see for themselves.” Step out of your office. Visit your sites. Get out on the floor! (45)
3. Find Fresh Eyes: I have used and heard used the concept of receiving input from “people with fresh eyes.” Miller is the first person I have read who described some of the attributes that mark fresh eyes: They have a different worldview. They have no direct stake in the outcome. They work in a different discipline. They are from outside your organization. They did not create the existing system or process in question. They are new to the topic or subject matter being discussed. They are known and trusted truth tellers. They are not intimidated by you, your role, or your organization. (46)
4. Improve annually: Each off-season, John Wooden would study one facet of the game. He would dive in: Watch film, read books, interview coaches and top performers. “He was always willing to reinvent his methods and his thinking for the sake of improvement.” Leadership implications: Study vision, communication, conflict management, team building, etc. (61)
5. Provide Absolute Role Clarity: Regardless of who does what, the leader must be clear and explicit as to who does what. The absence of role clarity is not a team failure—it is a leadership failure. (81) ***TK***
Smart Choice #2: Grow Capacity:
1. Responsibility: It’s never your job to do the team’s job. (90)
2. Eliminate the unnecessary: Drucker: Never met a knowledge worker who could not eliminate 25 percent of the items from his calendar and no one would notice. (91) The Effective Executive
3. The Qualified Yes (to eliminate low or non-value-added activities): When invited to a meeting, ask the person who invited you, “Which portion of the meeting would be most helpful for me to attend?” The answer may be only a portion of the day. If that’s the case, only attend that portion. Evaluation Exercise: 1. Review your calendar of the last month and the coming month based on contribution. 2. Flag each meeting: Red – Stop doing; Yellow: Your unsure about it; Green: Keep doing & do your best to only attend the portion you are needed. (92)
4. Design for scale: Miller borrows from T.D. Jakes here. Jakes noted that if a leader is in a sustained period of stress and pressure, he or she doesn’t have the proper structure. Structure, by design, is supposed to lift and support . A lot of leaders are trying to carry too much; they are shouldering weight beyond what they were intended to carry—they need a different structure. Signs you need a different structure: Hard to get the work done. Flow of information is slow, confusing, or nonexistent. Slipping performance. The mindset that the problem is “over there.” (97) Organizations that scale well are designed to scale. (99)
5. Create margin: In my own work on "margin," I have framed it as, “an intentional decision to create restorative time.” Miller frames it around work: “Margin is simply the practice of allocating enough time to reflect, assess, think, create, and plan. We must create sufficient capacity for this critical work. Without margin in our life, we run the very real risk of unwittingly sacrificing the future on the altar of today.” It is the leader's responsibility to create margin in his or her calendar. (95)
6. Expand Your Energy: Conduct an energy audit. Leaders must pay attention to and adjust their schedules relative to their energy levels: physical energy, mental energy, relational energy, emotional energy. (120-133) Miller does not consider "spiritual energy." The prophet Isaiah writes, "those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31 NIV
Smart Choice #3: Fuel Curiosity:
1. Maintaining relevancy: Ask these questions: (1) How have your customer’s expectations changed over the last twelve months? (2) How have your employee’s expectations changed since you first became a leader? (3) How have your organizations strategies changed over the last five years? (4) How have your personal goals and aspirations shifted as you’ve progressed in your career? (5) How has technology impacted your business?
2. Capture your thinking with a “commonplace book”: Short-term memories are being eroded by the way we receive and process information. We need to think on paper. This is the place for thoughts, unfinished ideas, a quote, book recommendation, a person you want to follow-up with down the road. Capture your ideas in the moment. Do you have a commonplace book? (148)
3. Questions: The leader’s Swiss Army Knife: See pages 161ff. Miller provides a great list. Use “single-barrel questions” as opposed to multi-layered questions. You can always follow up a single question with another question.
4. Industrial tourism: Always attempt to incorporate something you learned from any visit you make or any interview you conduct. “Failure to incorporate some best practice was thought of as “industrial tourism,” not real bench-marking. Don't be an industrial tourist. Be a learner and take action on what you learn. (181)
Smart Choice #4: Create Change:
1. The heart of true leadership is the ability to create change. (188)
2. Responsibility: Leaders understand to their core that they are ultimately accountable for their ability to channel the resources, activities, hearts, and minds of people to create a better tomorrow.” (189)
3. Remember Your Purpose: If you are going to bring change, you must know your “Why?” See “Discover Your Purpose” at SmartLeadershipBook
4. Share what you learn: Seth Godin says his decision to blog daily is one of his top five career choices. (197) What baby step can YOU take today to share what you are learning?
5. About vision: Vision creates focus, followers, and fall-outs (not everyone will choose not to god). Vision sets the stage for strategy. “If you are a leader, you need a vision. You should always have a preferred picture of what you are trying to create. Obviously, your vision should be scaled accordingly. (206)
6. Can you answer it? What would have to be true in the future for you to have changed the face of biblical higher education ten years from now? (my paraphrase) (207)
7. Vision communication: You will need to convey it in ways that will resonate with a diverse audience. Refuse to focus on your preferred method. (211)
8. Communication: John Kotter says that corporate change efforts he studied (more than 100) were under-communicated by a factor of ten! (225)
Miller piqued my curiosity about these books:
The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership
Words to ponder:
1. Urgent vs Important: “If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.” Henri Nouwen
2. Leadership and Titles: “As you know, not everyone with the title fills the role.”
3. You have the power to choose: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor Frankl
4. Get outside your box: “What got you here won’t get you there.” Marshall Goldsmith
5. The best consultants: “The best consultants and executive coaches always tell the truth. The second-rate ones will tell you what you want to hear.” 47 Listen carefully. Note: Feedback is about the past, and counsel is about the future. 49
6. On the difference between mentors and coaches: Mentors work for free, and coaches work for cash. 50 Two key questions for potential mentors: “Do they know more than me on the topic at hand? Are they willing to help me grow?” 50
7. On thinking time: “Leaders must invest enough time in the future to ensure their organization has one.” 60 ****TK*****
8. On solving problems: “When leaders begin to apply yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems, the end is inevitable.” Larry Miller, Barbarians to Bureaucrats
9. Stay Curious: “I made a decision years ago I would rather have my students drink from a running stream than a stagnant pool.” Howard Hendricks, professor 152
10. Questions: "Questions are a leader’s Swiss Army knife; there’s a blade for almost everything.” Mark Miller, 160
11. Interviewing: “The most important decision a leader makes is who does what.” Peter Drucker, 165
12. Wisdom: “Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would have rather talked.” Mark Twain
13. Mindset: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t—you’re right.” Henry Ford
14. A GREAT question: What is your favorite part of leadership? 203
15. Taking the temperature of the organization: “If you want to know the temperature in an organization, stick the thermometer in the leader’s mouth—the rest of the people will be a few degrees below the leader.” 209
16. Do hard things: "All things are difficult before they are easy.” Thomas Fuller 216
Conclusion:
Near the conclusion of the book, Mark Miller relays a powerful incident that illustrates the importance of accountability. Someone approached him asking which part of the kite is most critical for sustained flight. Miller didn’t know and quickly ran out of parts (sticks, paper, tail, structure) to consider. He was told he had it all wrong, it was the string. “Without the tension of being tethered to someone on the ground (accountability), it will quickly crash, if it even gets off the ground in the first place.”
Smart Leadership is a great book full of great ideas. As you can see from reading this lengthy summary review, I think it has SO MUCH to offer, but apart from accountability to act on these insights, it’s just a five-star rating and a breezy ,“Yeah, I read that book; it was really good.” So buy it. Read it. Digest it. And then map and share your plan to put into practice.
