The most powerful leadership advice I was ever given

15 years ago the ad agency I was working at, BBDO, flew a bunch of us to LA to talk strategy for three days in a cavernous hotel. My main memory is of escaping a formal dinner for a bar crawl in stretch limos.

I genuinely remember NOTHING that happened on the main stage, besides one talk by Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic.

Zander was wildly passionate and exuberant and made everyone sing Ode to Joy in German, and Happy Birthday with gusto, and played Chopin. This drew a mix of too-cool-for-school eye rolling… and some love. (Ad agency people are cynical and wear black and never take drugs…).

This is what stuck  

He talked about us telling stories where we are our own hero:

“I worked so hard, everyone else was lazy—they weren’t as clever as me, they missed the point, they missed the deadline. They let me down…”

Cue the feeling or irritation, fury, and entitlement that follows.

What he said was that we should take responsibility for all of those ‘failures’.

If you asked someone to do something and they messed it up, why did you choose the wrong person? Why did you hire them? If they missed the deadline, why didn’t you explain how important it was? Did you give them the right tools?

Now I have passed this advice on to people over the years, and some get it, but many have reacted with incredulity. Why would I take that on?? I didn’t screw it up.

Ahh but the magic of Zander’s advice is that it evaporates all of that irritation, all of the indignation, ALL of that entitlement. Because you don’t passively blame yourself—you learn. You work out how to avoid it next time. You call the person and directly address it.

Next week?

Mental health and trees, I have a surprise for you.

Christine