Latest / The Action Catalyst / REMASTERED: The Potential Principle and Bettering Your Best, with Mark Sanborn (Leadership, Team Building, Customer Service, Change)

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REMASTERED: The Potential Principle and Bettering Your Best, with Mark Sanborn (Leadership, Team Building, Customer Service, Change) · The Action Catalyst

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  Host: Mark Sanborn is a New York Times best selling author. And
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  has been one of the leading thought leaders of leadership.
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  Mark, my friend, it's been too long. Welcome to the show.
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  Mark Sanborn: It's great to be with you.
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  Host: You know, the concept of potential. So why now why
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  potential principle?
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  Mark Sanborn: Let me explain what the potential principle is.
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  The premise is really simple. We all know how good we become. But
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  none of us know how good we could be. We really don't know
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  what our potential is, I've never met anyone who could say
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  with 100% certainty, you know, this is as high as I can
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  operate, this is as good as I can be. This is the best I'll
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  ever become. And if you think about it differently, and most
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  people don't consciously think this way, but if today, somebody
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  said, you know, today's, the zenith is the high, the high
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  watermark your life for the rest of your life, it's all downhill
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  from here, you would say, are you serious, I'll never have
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  better relationships, I'll never make more money, I'll never
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  experience more joy. So we all at some unconscious level are
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  probably trying to improve, but very few people have a plan or a
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  method for getting better. And people who most need to hear the
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  sermon, often don't go to church, the people who most need
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  read the book often don't go to the library. And what I realized
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  is that my clients are already among the best at what they do,
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  you know, they're the individuals and the companies
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  that are, are rockstars, in their respective market spaces.
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  So I realized I have a bigger challenge than if I was working
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  with startups, or if I was working with mediocre companies,
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  because most of these clients are already among the best
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  depending on how you measure it market share, return on
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  investment, all of those metrics, they're already among
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  the best. And so I realized, there's only one thing harder
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  than becoming the best at what you do. And that is becoming the
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  best at what you do and continuing to get better. In
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  other words, when you're number five, you can go to number four
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  by outperforming your route implementing number four
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  strategies, right? When you're number two, you just watch what
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  number one is doing, and you can match their performance or maybe
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  surpass it. But when you're the top of your game, there's nobody
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  out there in front of you, you know, you're making it up,
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  you're literally plowing new ground. And so I wrote a book
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  for individuals and companies that said, you know, I want to
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  get better, regardless of that up to come, you don't need to be
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  the best at what you do to get benefit from the book. But the
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  good news is, if you're already a high performer, you're gonna
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  get some insights that will help make it a little bit easier to
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  keep getting better.
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  Host: So how do you go about doing that? And what are some of
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  the hands for how do you keep pushing yourself because
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  complacency is a real big issue.
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  Mark Sanborn: Indeed, and I always say that there's only one
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  thing that can keep you from getting better. And that is a
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  lack of desire to do so I can't make anyone get better. It's
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  about creating an environment where you know, if you're a
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  leader where people choose to be motivated, I got to do a quick
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  detour here. And then I'll come back to the four areas and the
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  four principles in the book. But it's always gratifying. And I
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  know you get this sometimes you get an email, or someone will
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  come up to you after an event and say your book or your speech
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  changed my life. And I'm always quick to say thank you. But no,
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  I didn't in the book didn't either you changed your life.
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  I'm not God, I can't take responsibility for positive life
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  change. And others, I'm often gratified that what I said or
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  did or wrote about, influence them. But ultimately, we change
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  our lives. Ultimately, people have to take responsibility for
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  getting better. So no matter how much I may want you to get
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  better if you don't have a desire to get better, you won't.
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  If you do have a desire, what I talk about in the book is I try
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  to make things as simple as possible without making them
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  simplistic. And the first part of the book talks about what I
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  call the potential matrix, a matrix is very easy to
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  understand I, when I work with leaders in the sector, business
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  world, I see that they in the outer world of performance and
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  doing they usually Excel. But if there's a sticking point, it's
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  in the inner world of why do I do what I do? What's my purpose,
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  a lack of clarity, a lack of, of meaning. So I, you know, I can
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  make gains by moving them where I call left to the axis into the
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  inner world. Interestingly, when I work with church leaders,
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  these tend to be in our painting with a broad brush here, but
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  they tend to be people with a very deep inner life, you know,
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  you really have to have a sense of purposefulness, and meaning
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  to drive your faith and spirituality. So the mirror to
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  help help them often is moving them into the outer world of how
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  do you run a good meeting? How do you communicate more
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  effectively, how do you create a team? And so I started thinking
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  about this kind of on Daikon To me, and I added one other one
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  other element, and that is what I would call initiating or
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  responding. We initiate, we take action, we respond, we're acted
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  upon. So if you combine those two axes, what you've ended up
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  with is, is the outer world of performing and learning and
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  performing, you're initiating and learning you're being acted
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  upon by the lessons and ideas of others. And in the inner world,
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  we have thinking, which is where you initiate the thought process
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  planning, visioning strategy. And then what is probably the
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  most interesting and most often overlooked, or least used
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  quadrant, the inner world of responding which I call
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  reflection. Reflection is where ideas come to us. You know,
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  thinking is where we seek ideas, but some of our biggest
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  epiphanies, you know, you don't wake up in the morning and say,
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  Today, I want to have an epiphany about how to improve my
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  marriage, you might read a book for ideas, but the Insight will
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  come through this kind of quiet contemplation and gestation. So
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  those are the four areas and here's the, there's two big
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  messages. When I did this quadrant, I wanted to basically
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  remind people that we all have one of those quadrants, we like
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  the most, for a lot of business people it's performing for me,
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  and you probably won't be initially surprised. It's
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  thinking. In other words, what I enjoy most is books and ideas
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  and creating. But if I just think I really am not very
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  successful, because I haven't translated that to the outer
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  world. But if I just perform, I'm not necessarily successful,
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  because I may achieve great success, but have no real reason
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  for doing so. So my point is, we need to be better in each of
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  those four areas. To the degree you're a better thinker, learner
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  performer and reflector to that degree, you will become better
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  in all the areas of your life. The second thing I wanted to
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  impress upon people is that these quadrants don't exist
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  independent of each other. So if you put a.in, the in the
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  thinking, what most ideas, most projects begin with thinking the
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  beginning of the day, think about what do I have to do
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  today? Well, to really be good at what you do, you have to
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  learn how to do it. So you take that line and you then go down
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  to the learning quadrant? Do I have the skills I need? How do I
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  develop more skills, then you apply those skills in the
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  performing quadrant, you move up. And then after you perform
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  when you think about or debrief or reflect on what you did you
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  move to the lower left. And after you reflect and get any
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  insights, you go back to thinking and it looks like and
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  this is what's cool and infinity symbol. Now, that infinity
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  symbol when you super pote, impose it over the over the
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  potential matrix gives you a primary way of always getting
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  better. Hey, by the way, let me tell you something that's
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  interesting, especially for the your listeners, I know your
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  listeners are movers and shakers, but there are a lot of
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  sales pros. So selling is a numbers and a skills game. So
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  you take somebody who's making 20 calls a day, and you move
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  them down into the learning quadrant where they're better at
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  presenting and closing and analyzing needs, and then you
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  move them back up into performing. Now, they're going
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  to close more of those 20 calls a day they make and if you
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  double the amount of calls they make in the amount of skill they
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  have, then it becomes very, very powerful. So I was tell people,
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  you know, don't go through the motions, I go to the I used to
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  work out in my home gym, and I started going to the gym and my
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  son. And sometimes I have to like bite my lip till it leads
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  because I watch people doing exercises that are not only
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  wrong, but are harmful. And they don't ask me and it's none of my
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  business. You know, it's a mirror right? You're free to do
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  stuff stupid. They're delusional, and they probably
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  Sunday gonna go I don't I go to the gym every day. And why am I
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  so sore? Why do I have a pulled muscle? Or why am I not
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  improving my health. And that's because you're doing it wrong,
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  you haven't learned to exercise. So. So that's the potential
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  matrix, the big insight is, is you've got these four areas
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  where you can get better, don't don't just focus on the easy,
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  the preferable use all four to create synergy for improvement.
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  It basically is pointing out to people that if you only continue
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  to get better in one area, you're leaving a lot on the
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  table, there's so much more opportunity to improve your
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  thinking, your learning your reflection, as well as your
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  performance. But then what I do I talk about four things to do
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  the path to improvement is the potential matrix, the means of
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  improvement are these four techniques. And the first one is
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  probably my favorite, because it's used a little out of
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  context. You know, Clay Christensen talks about
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  disruptive innovation. And you hear a lot about the word
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  disrupt or disruptive and it's usually applied to things and
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  processes and to companies. But in the book, I say the first
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  step to getting better as disrupt yourself before somebody
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  else does. You know, it's a play on the idea that most people
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  change only when they have to, you know, leaders change before
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  they need to. And it's about looking at the areas of your
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  life that have become outdated, that have become stale, that
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  could be better. You know, we find things that work and
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  because they work we keep doing them and we keep doing them
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  until they don't work as well. And so what do we typically do
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  when they don't work as well? We do we do more of it right? And
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  it's like An engine that's you know, got sand in the
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  transmission, you know, the more power we apply, the slower, you
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  know, the more the gears grind, and the slower we go. So the
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  first key is to ask yourself who are what in my life needs
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  disrupted, meaning if you got, you got to have somebody on your
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  sales team, you've given them every opportunity to get better,
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  you've invested in them, they haven't, maybe it's time to
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  disrupt them and let them pursue their bliss somewhere else. Or
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  maybe you've got somebody in your sales team that is
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  frustrated you but you've never explained why maybe it's time to
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  positively disrupt them and the relationship so that it can get
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  better. So the first tool is disrupt yourself. But it's more
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  than complacency. Complacency says, you know, what, where am I
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  too comfortable, disrupting yourself looks for areas that
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  you may not even have considered before. So it's not just about
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  disrupting the known, it's about looking for that, you know, that
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  better or game changing practice, the next principle is
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  refocus. And this is interesting, if you disrupt
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  yourself, you've got to refocus. I work with clients that say,
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  you know, we want to do this, and we're gonna change our
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  culture, and we want to improve these processes, and they come
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  up with all these disruptive ideas, but people keep doing
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  what they did before. And then they say, why, why are they
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  changing? What because you never refocus. You know, we're people
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  of habit, right. And if you say you want me to do something
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  different, but the next day, I don't know how much time to
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  devote or what to do differently. I'll default to
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  what I'm habitually been doing in the past. So I will
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  perpetuate the pre disruptive behavior. So refocusing says,
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  and this this is something that's taken me I mean, maybe
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  I'm a slow learner, it's taken me a while to to realize, too
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  many people, even effective leaders have very clear focus,
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  but they don't refocus as things change. So they're playing by
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  kind of an outdated focus scorecard, if you will, if you
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  don't refocus and say, okay to do these things, what needs to
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  be done differently? Or who needs to do them instead of me?
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  Or how do I reallocate my time, that's the mismatch, till you
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  really get clear on how to reallocate and refocus your time
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  and energy, you'll inevitably slip back into those previous
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  patterns, they'll keep the disruption from becoming
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  effective.
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  Host: That makes a lot of sense. Hey, I know that you said there
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  are four, but we are running out of time. And if you guys want
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  the other two, you're gonna have to go by the potential
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  principal.
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  Mark Sanborn: I gotta tell you, no books are like kids. You
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  know, we love all our kids. Books are also like kids, and
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  not all of our kids behave the same way. But I'm excited about
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  this book. Because really, for me, it has been kind of a
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  compilation of bringing together the last 31 years of my work
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  into how have I you know, approached life and how have I
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  seen others who I've taught these principles to approach
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  life and succeed. So it's a distillation, it's a short book,
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  it's not an aeroplane book, you can read most of my books before
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  you push back from the gate, but I really think for the people
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  who are into bettering their best, this will be a worthwhile
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  investment for them, and I do hope they'll check it out.
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  Host: Mark, I appreciate you so much. Thank you for making some
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  time here and we wish you all the best.
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  Mark Sanborn: Thanks for having me on the show.