A guy at the gym was coming in from the outside. At the same time I was leaving. This guy I did not know decided to hold the door open for me to exit before he entered. On my way out, as I was thanking him, he said in a genuine tone “have a great day.” This stood out to me because I am a believer in holding doors for others (why don’t more of us do this?). More importantly, to me, it’s a micro expression of the work we all need to put in to lift each other up, to encourage each other. There is plenty of dog sh** behavior in the world. There are plenty of examples of strangers being treated as “less than.” This weekend I would like to challenge you to find one action you can do to lift up a stranger. As simple as holding a door, as picking up their coffee tab. Or, like one lady I observed a few weeks ago, giving a kid a dollar who is coming up short at the cash register. We can never lead from anger and misunderstanding, only from kindness and generosity. Let’s take a moment to demonstrate how it should be done.
With your teams, don’t get out of the way, do this instead
"Get out of the way!" I often hear some version of this sentiment when talking about building a culture to incentivize high performance teams. "You have to find the right people, equip them, and then get out of the way." People who talk about getting out of the way...