What is a great gift you've received? During my time as a coach, I received lots of great gifts. My favorites were always the framed team pictures I received from the athletic teams I coached. The frames often included an inscription of the mantra for the season or a quote I would encourage the team with. Will Guidara, in 'Unreasonable Hospitality,' declared, ‘Gifts are a way to tell people you saw, heard, and recognized them.’ He goes on to say, ‘The value of a gift is not how much you spent, but you how made the person receiving it feel. And often, the only thing you must do to accomplish this is pay attention.’
Pay attention.
I was commiserating with a wise old coach after his team lost to an inferior opponent, snapping a 6-game winning streak. He quipped, ‘We were too busy smelling ourselves and not busy enough playing the game.’ As a leader, you can get so busy and moving so fast that you stop paying attention to what matters. It happens all the time in sports, business, and leadership. Things start to go well, and the group stops paying attention to what matters, to what leads to success in the first place. Do you know what happens when you keep paying attention? You keep doing better.
Do better.
Pay attention to what they do every day. I am not talking about their weekly meeting schedules or daily to-do lists *though it would be good to know that too* I’m talking about what coffee they drink when they arrive on-site or where their preferred lunch spot is. Things like this are staring you in the face, and if you are paying attention, knowing them and using that knowledge could go a long way to encouraging them. But you can only do better as a leader if you’re paying attention.
Pay attention to what makes them laugh. When was the last time you laughed with your people? Laughing together is essential for developing chemistry. And you’ll never know what makes them laugh if you never laugh together. A stockpile of laughing together makes a group resilient when the not-so-funny things happen to your team. But you can only do better as a leader if you’re paying attention.
Pay attention to what drives them crazy. I wrote a whole post about leaders who lack awareness and drive their teams crazy. Are you late for appointments? Rarely have a meeting agenda prepared in advance? Do you forget to reply to their emails and text messages? If you Pay attention to what drives your team crazy, you can do better by stopping it.
Pay attention to what they are good at it. Your team members have unique skills and backgrounds. In today’s information age of online degrees and certifications, it’s safe to say you have team members who are full-blown experts in certain areas. It’s savvy leadership to know what team members are good at and to give them opportunities to do it on behalf of their team. It validates their expertise and makes you look like a genius leader. But you can only do better as a leader if you’re paying attention.
Pay attention to what moves them to tears. I saw a Twitter post from a world-class education that stated, ‘You can have a Ph.D. and still be a moron.’ The easiest application of that is to leaders who have a vast array of degrees and experiences and have zero empathy. Pay attention to what stirs the emotions of your team. You’ll gain essential insights into two things: 1) What they are passionate about. Sometimes, tears show up when something really meaningful occurs. 2) Their emotional health. Sometimes, tears show up when a person is hurting. Pay attention to the tears of your team, and you’ll do better at showing empathy as a leader.
Will Guidara, the author of Unreasonable Hospitality, runs the number-one restaurant in the world - Eleventh Madison Park of New York City - featuring a one-of-a-kind dining experience, and the check at the end of the night would concur. Guidara’s journey of creating the best restaurant on the planet began with a hot dog. He overheard a table of four raving about their visit to New York City and all they experienced. They mentioned their only regret was not getting hot dogs from a street vendor. So Will rushed across the street to a hot dog stand and returned with four hot dogs. He had his chef cut the hot dogs into bite-size pieces and plate them with fancy mustard. The personal touch blew away the customers. It launched the restaurant on a 7-year journey of providing the best dining experience in the world.
And it cost Will Guidara four dollars.
He was just paying attention, leading him to do better than anyone could have imagined.
Keep on, keepin’ on, friends!
Bite Down and Don’t Let Go is a collection of writings on relentlessly leading yourself and others well. Read about it more here. You can listen to the Bite Down and Don't Let Go podcast here!
Dr. Chris Hobbs is an educational leader with more than two decades of experience. He’s earned a few degrees and won some awards. He’s happily married to his high school sweetheart, and they have three children. Life is messy and complicated most of the time. You can follow him on Twitter for inspirational thoughts and good laughs.
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