Overcoming Ego to Embrace Collaboration

The 33rd president of the United States, Harry S. Truman once said, “It is amazing what you can accomplish when you don’t care who gets the credit.” Putting that statement into practice is a key difference between the humble confidence and all out arrogance I referenced before. Let’s face it, we can all picture that one person’s face who’s been there and done that - regardless of the topic at hand. They’re the ones that know all there is to know, just ask them! When that’s someone with a lot of authority, it’s just a matter of time until there’s a proverbial train wreck.

Not long after moving into a human resources role full time, the manufacturing facility I had worked at for over fifteen years experienced sweeping changes within the local management team. I’ll spare my opinions on how and why that unfolded but will share that soon after, I was given the task of hiring thirty new team members just as we were moving into what had historically been our slowest time of year. I pushed back as much as I could; I didn’t have a seat in the weekly management team meetings so my input was filtered through my boss, who happened to be one of those new managers. History be damned, the expectation remained and I proceeded to do what I was told. Within sixty days of hiring those new team members, those not-so-omnipotent managers realized exactly why several of us “old timers” had pushed back. Orders had slowed down and we were over-staffed by, you guessed it, around 30 team members…

My next assignment involved having the second most difficult conversations in my career: sitting down with each of those new team members, many of whom left good positions to accept work with us, to explain that through no fault of their own they were being laid off. Just in case you’re wondering, this was a very distant second to dialing the phone to notify someone I had known most of my life that their family member had died in a workplace incident. While far less difficult, I knew the impact this would have on each of them, I knew how infrequent lay-offs had happened in the fifty years the organization operated locally leading up to that point and how it would impact recruiting moving forward, and I knew that it shouldn’t have happened. Those new managers had no relationships with existing team members and had no interaction to speak of with the new employees we were now laying off; everyone was more of a number than an individual. Looking back, all of that could have been avoided had they been less focused on establishing their authority through sheer force. Had they been willing to overcome their egos and embraced the collaboration we offered, that difficult scenario would have likely been avoided - and the downward cultural spiral the facility experienced in the years that followed may not have rivaled something you’d have to be a certain height to go on at an amusement park.

The ones who pushed the hardest to make those ill-timed hires were nowhere to be found when it came time to deliver bad news one-on-one, but I never saw them miss an opportunity to suck up every ounce of credit they could - regardless of who deserved it. I’d guess Truman wouldn’t have respected them any more than those of us who dealt with them directly. 

Let’s compare that to what I shared before about Mark, serving as CEO of the most influential leadership organization in the world but constantly seeking input from every viable source available. It’s one thing when the input is coming from the president of an entire country, the CEO of Delta Airlines, or John Maxwell. For Mark to have the humility to not just accept but to seek input from someone like me, and I know I’m not the only one he does that with, serves as a prime example for how overcoming the slightest bit of ego allows him to embrace collaboration. With that level of humility, he’s able to receive feedback he may never have access to otherwise.

The most important part of all that, at least for me, was how he received that feedback when I offered it. He was gracious, thanking me for what he took as a compliment, and assured me that he’d consider it over time. That showed me how open he was to input. As he provided context for a point in a more recent conversation, Mark mentioned something he had discussed just two weeks prior with the President of Argentina. Soon after, he told me about something he and John were considering, then asked for my input. The details of the conversation aren’t the point. His openness to not only accepting feedback, but to actively seek it is. Unlike the managers who neither wanted it or were willing to act on it, I am very willing to offer input anytime Mark asks. His humility from the beginning proved that I was safe to offer (as if I’ve ever really cared about being safe), and it’s earned him my discretionary effort any time I can provide it!

Just like I saw Mark be a bit reluctant, at least initially, to take center-stage alongside John in more public settings, I’ve known some great people underestimate the value they can add to others through one-on-one mentorship. In complete transparency, I’m raising my hand. I frequently mention how basic my background is. The main reason I work as hard as I do to make time for anyone willing to ask a question ties back to how much the mentors I’ve referenced here, and so many others, have impacted me; I feel a huge obligation to pass that on. That said, humility is crucial for anyone to effectively mentor others.

Humility in Mentoring Others

Make no mistake, the part I was raising my hand about had nothing to do with “the great people” I’ve known - but I have indeed underestimated the value I can add to others through one-on-one mentorship. Later on, we’ll take a focused look at how some of the most humble mentors I’ve had in my life have helped me understand my true worth. For now, we’ll keep it to how their humility served as a tremendous foundation for the value those mentors have added in my life and how that’s helped me recognize the impact I can have on the folks I have the privilege of mentoring.

The reluctance I mentioned seeing in Mark had nothing to do with him being fearful of the spotlight. He’s just been incredibly intentional to always serve John Maxwell the best he possibly can and to never give the perception that he’s trying to replace John. In direct conversations with Mark, he’s said to me, “I’m not the communicator that John is. I’m a practitioner, I’ve worked very hard to apply what I’ve learned from him.” While I understood where he was coming from, I pushed back by explaining how much I’ve learned from him that I hadn’t picked up from anything I ever heard John share.

On a significantly smaller scale, I realize that this is my version of the proverbially pot calling the kettle black. I frequently downplay my background and experience. While I don’t have any fancy degrees, I’ve worked as hard as I possibly could for a very long time and I’ve had a ton of great people to learn from along the way; I’ve referenced several of them here to this point, but there have been a bunch who taught what not to do… Some of that downplaying is to do all I can to help whoever I interact with feel more connected with me, but a lot has often been me just not appreciating that I can truly offer something impactful to many of the individuals we interact with. (Cindy has started politely calling me out on that…) The point I need you to catch here is that it’s easy for any of us to underestimate the difference we can make in the team members around us, whether they report to us directly or they’re our peers. If we’re not willing to pass along what we’ve learned from others along the way, the folks in our sphere of influence may never hear that one thing they need to take their next step.

With that in mind, the humility we’ve been looking at is nothing short of critical. Not only do most of us tune out arrogance - I certainly do, and quickly - I can’t point to many arrogant people in positions of authority who are willing to invest the energy necessary into serving anyone but themselves. Humble mentors prioritize others’ growth. Over time, that creates a lasting legacy. In studying Mark Cole for more than a decade, I’ve witnessed how much he pours into everyone around him. I’ve never seen him take the time and proximity he has with John for granted; that clearly drives him to invest all he can into building future leaders. Again, on a much smaller scale, I feel a similar obligation each day as my feet hit the floor. Had Terry, Kevin, Rod, Chris, and many others not been so quick to sow into me, I’m not sure what path I’d be on, and my daily goal is to do everything in my power to provide that same support to anyone who will act on it. 

The humility I’ve experienced from each of my mentors is exactly why they have so much influence in my life. That influence is what causes me to do everything in my power to take action on the ideas they share. For more than twenty-five years, I’ve heard John Maxwell say that “Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less.” Their humility led to me getting results I likely would have never accomplished if they had delivered the same message from positional authority alone so we’ll pick up soon by working through exactly to do the same thing ourselves.