People tend to broadly fit into two categories, those that refer internally, and those who refer externally. Simply put, this means if you want to put a point across in a debate you can access a list of supporting arguments crafted from your own experiences and studies, or you can quote from bodies of work from respected individuals in their field. There are pros and cons for both, and of course it’s best to be practiced at both as extremes in referencing (for example always quoting others, or yourself) should be avoided so as not to give the impression that you are either completely devoid of original thought or arrogant.
So to help out, we’ve put together our top 5 quotes from popular works for you to fit into your business life, take with a liberal pinch of salt.
1. “A leader can’t lead if he doesn’t know where he’s going.” Locke, Series one of Lost
John Locke, the spiritual leader of the island has a pretty amazing story arc within the series. When trying to convince Jack that he should be the leader of the group Locke tells Jack not to return to the beach until he has finished seeking the reason behind the visions of his dead father. ‘Why?’ asks Jack. ‘[Because} a leader can’t lead if he doesn’t know where he’s going,’ replies Locke.
As trite as this might be at first reading you would be surprised how many people there are that blunder from one ‘objective’ to another. Colin Powell once said that leadership is inspiring people to follow out of more than morbid curiosity. I think many of us have been in the position where our leaders have said’ ‘this is our strategy!’ So we’ve picked up our bags and dutifully followed, only to find a short time later they turn around and say. ‘No, this is our new strategy.’ So we all change direction and follow again. This doesn’t have to happen often for many of us to put our bags down and say, ‘we’ll wait here; they’ll be back in a minute.’
At infinite pie we talk about SOSTT quite a bit, that is defining your situation and objective before you can think about your strategy and what comes next. If you don’t define where you are you can’t work out how to get to where you’re going.
Leaders understand and define where they or their organisation is going, and then communicate it to those in their teams. It is the first step in leadership and is so frequently forgotten.
2. “You don’t need eyes to see you need vision.” Maxi Jazz, Reverence
Faithless, one of the true pioneers of 90’s electronica have written more cod philosophy than anyone else I know. People tend to use the term cod philosophy with a negative connotation, but I think it should be encouraged. The lyrics to Reverence talk about growth and change, something that we all face with varying degrees of success.
In any organisation, it’s easy to see the facts, and communicating them is relatively simple. Our objective is to turn over (x) millions in the next financial year; we will ship 19 million flugelbinders to emerging markets in the next 6 months, and so on. How inspiring are these things to the people that work within our organisations? Especially if the popular theory is that the company is only making money for the shareholders. In order to lead we need to learn how to communicate our vision. This should be a real, tangible vision that can be measured for sure, but it also needs to inspire people to follow. This can be based on a financial incentive that everyone in the organisation can subscribe to, or it can be more altruistic, but whatever it is it needs to be communicated and stuck to.
3. “For there is nothing good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.” Hamlet, Hamlet
It’s in keeping with the theme that in the play Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard the characters often stumble across quite complex philosophical ideas, but then skip past them as quickly as they find them. Shakespeare wrote the line above to demonstrate that two people can see the same thing and call them differently. In this instance Hamlet comparing Denmark to a prison and Rosencratz disagreeing but I’ll go one better, I think we can have that dialogue internally and depending on what else is influencing us at the time is how we will colour our perception. Sounds simple, but we need to make a concerted effort to look for the hidden opportunities.
We are faced on a daily basis with information; it usually comes with a back story, a supporting cast and dramatic intent. We didn’t turnover (x) millions last year, the emerging markets are manufacturing their own flugelbinders, I’ve just been promoted, the coffee machine has broken down. It would be simple for us to say that’s bad news, bad news, good news and bad news in that order, but if we stop for a moment to think about it these are none of those things until we apply our own sensibilities to them. They may very well bring opportunities to adapt, to grow, to discover that something that we didn’t know was broken needs fixing, or cut back on our caffeine intake. Sometimes the urge to look at something new bleakly is overwhelming, gut wrenching at first glance, but take some time, look at whatever it is again and remember you have the ability to change it from bad to good.
4. “No such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.” Billy Connolly
Life just is. It is neither good nor bad. This follows on from the previous point. We can stand at the water cooler and blame the weather, the recession, the boss, the team, but eventually we are going to have to take responsibility for our own actions. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, but how we react to it is what sets us apart from those that can take no responsibility for what they do.
You will also hear people bleat on about how they are just not very lucky, but again I have found that the harder we work, the more prepared we are the luckier we get. That’s simply not true in itself, it’s just that as we prepare the greater chance we have of taking advantage of things that come our way.
5. “Back off man, I’m a scientist.” Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters.
There’s only so much you can do about process. It’s a model, it’s a diagram or it’s a quote from a respected business school. The application of the process is what makes it something that we can communicate to our teams and inspire them to follow us. For all external referrers this can be an issue as the application of a quote or a model is invariably not part of the quote or the model. For internal referrers this causes an issue if it is all application and no process. You have to have both working in synergy. We work with processes to give us a common tool kit and language to work towards a common goal; inspiring people to follow us out of more than morbid curiosity.
I wonder if there are any quotes out there (notwithstanding the Star Trek Next Generation school of Leadership) that I have missed.
MD
infinite pie