Maxwell Leadership Podcast: Four Ways to Equip People

Mark Cole:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. Now I’ve been saying that statement for some time now, but it was never better illustrated to me than recently when I met Bob Fashano. Bob is a very dear friend of mine and John Maxwell and Chris Goede. He actually leads several businesses and is a high influencer in South Florida. He was telling me that every month he and several top level business leaders come together to dissect the podcast, and then to kind of challenge each other on how they’re going to go influence others in their network. And I said, “Bob, that’s exactly what I’m talking about when I say this is the podcast that adds value to leaders who will multiply value to others.” So to Bob Fashano and all of my friends in West Palm Beach, Florida, thank you for living out the purpose of this podcast and taking it, dissecting it, and then making it better so that you can multiply value to others.

Now if you’re new to the podcast, my name is Mark Cole, and I’m the CEO of Maxwell Leadership. Last week we discussed the Three E’s of Developing Leaders. You may remember that one of those E’s was equipping. See the only way to grow your organization is to equip people. That’s why it’s important to develop a strategy for equipping those you lead. Today, John Maxwell is going to teach you and I, four ways to equip people. After John’s lesson, I will be joined by my co-host today, Chris Goede to discuss what we’ve gleaned from our own experiences of equipping others.

See, equipping others is both a challenge and a benefit, so while you listen, be sure to download our bonus resource. It’s a free PDF that accompanies John’s lesson each week. Today’s PDF will help you capture all the points and the key takeaways from John’s lesson. Just visit maxwellpodcast.com/equip and click the bonus resource button. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, you can visit maxwellpod.com/youtube, or you can click YouTube in our link that’s provided in the show notes. That’s it. Now sit back, or lean forward. Grab a pen, grab a paper, here is John C. Maxwell.

John Maxwell:

Great quote, it’s in your notes. “It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed.” Firestone said that, here’s what Maxwell says, “It’s only as we develop ourselves that we have the credibility to develop others.” So all of development and equipping of others begins with me. Now, if you want to become a great equipper, make equipping your number one responsibility. You have to make it your number one responsibility. Look at the quote, “It’s always easier to dismiss people than it is to train them.” No great leader ever build a reputation on firing people. Many have built a reputation on developing them. Get on the positive side. Why make equipping others your number one responsibility? Two reasons, letter A, it’s the only way to grow big. The reason you want to make equipping your number one responsibility? It’s the only way you’ll ever grow your business bigger than yourself is by including others than yourself.

And number two, it’s the only way to keep growing. It’s the only way to grow big and it’s the only way to keep growing. Now, let me teach you from my mistakes. When I went to my first church in 1969, fresh out of college, graduated second of my class, didn’t have a clue. I mean, all my professors thought I was pretty good, but they didn’t teach me anything practical. And one thing I didn’t know how to do when I went to my first church is I didn’t know how to equip people. So therefore, I did everything myself. Nobody ever trained me. Nobody ever taught me. Never saw it modeled. So here I am, a kid right out of college, working hard, trying to grow this church.

Now, here are the results and I wrote these down. Don’t write them down, just think about it. When I look at my first church, watch this, it grew when I touched it. It complained when I didn’t, and it fell apart when I left. So when I went to my second church, I said to myself, “I’ll never let that happen again.” I may build it a little slower. It may take a little more time, but I’m going to put my number one priority of equipment people and when I went to Lancaster, I started looking for the good ones. I started looking for my eagles. I started pulling them apart. I’m going to tell you what happened to Lancaster. I, over a period of five years, equipped 35 people. And they said, “Boy, you’re awfully slow, John.” Those 35 people literally brought, not me, those 35 people brought another thousand people into the organization, that I never touched. They never knew me. They would show up to church and I would never say, “Well, they showed up because I went to see them.”

They showed up because somebody else was doing it. And I learned a long time ago that it’s better to start equipping people and pouring your time into the people that will make the organization then going around trying to make everybody happy, trying to touch everybody and watching it fall. Hey, you go on vacation, the group goes down. Come on now. That’s not what you want. That isn’t what you’re living for that. That isn’t what you’re trying to build for the future in your business. You’re wanting to pour your life through people until when you’re gone that business can continue to grow in your life.

So some questions to ask yourself, very simple. They’re in your notes. How much time do I spend weekly equipping others? Whoa. I mean, hey, in your week, how many hours, how many people do I equip? How many people are they equipping? These are good questions to ask. So number one, make equipping your number one responsibility. Are you ready for number two? Communicate this priority to your people. After you have made equipping number one priority, you begin to communicate it.

Now, by the way, let me tell you something, the greatest way to communicate it to them is letting watch you do it. Huh? People do what people see. It’s the number one motivational principle in all the world. See people tend to stay motivated when they see the importance of the things that they’re asked to do. You never know what kind of a giant you have built, until you leave it alone. Are you all right? If you’ve got to go over there and weed that garden and keep putting water on that garden and fertilizer on that garden, and you got to keep working that baby. After a while, you’ll understand that you don’t have what you want.

Now here’s what you communicate when you communicate the priority of equipping people. Here’s what you communicate. I’m going to spend a lot of time with a few people. Who are they? Committed people. What will we do? Equip. I’m going to give a lot of recognition to a few people. Who are they? Committed people. What will they do? Equip. You start communicating those messages to your groups and you’ll begin to change the whole nature of your group.

Number three, principle number three in equipping, develop a relationship with those that you do equip. What I mean is very simple. Find the heart before you ask for their hand. You probably read the book Iaccoca, did you? It’s a good book. In the book Iaccoca, he talks about an interview that he did with Vince Lombardi, the great coach, the legendary coach for the Green Bay Packers. If you’ll just listen, let me just read a paragraph.

He asked Lombardi what it took to develop a winning team and here’s what Lombardi said, “There are a lot of coaches with good ball clubs who know the fundamentals and have plenty of discipline, but they still don’t win the game. Then you come to a third ingredient, if you’re going to play together as a team, you’ve got to care for one another. You’ve got to love each other. Each player has to be thinking about the next guy and saying to himself, ‘If I don’t block that, man, Paul is going to get his legs broken.’ I’ve got to do my job well in order that he can do his.” He said the difference between mediocrity and greatness, this is what Lombardi said, “Is the feeling that these guys have for one another.” That feeling that the guys have one another is based on a relationship. It’s based on bonding yourself to it.

Now here’s what I’m saying, the people that you equip are the ones you have to bond yourself to. And how do you bond to that people? Connectedness. You build and you bond through connectedness. You’ve got to go home and you’ve got to develop a relationship with the people that you equip and you do it through connectedness.

Number four, the fourth way to equip people is to develop a strategy for equipping people. I’m going to give you a strategy. Don Shula has a wonderful strategy for equipping players, the coach of the Miami Dolphins. He says, “One, tell people what you want them to do. Two, show them what good performance looks like.” That’s very good. “Three, let them do it. Four, observe their performance. Five, praise, progress, or redirect it.”

Here’s Maxwell’s strategy for equipping people, starts with the Ms, modeling, starts with modeling. I model. In other words, I do it. In other words, they watch me do it so they know how to do it. Number two is mentoring. I do it and you are with me. Number three is monitoring. You do it and I’m with you. Number four is motivating. You do it, simple enough? And five is multiplying, you do it and someone is with you.

Commercial:

Hey, podcast listeners, how would you like to be equipped with the tools to continue your personal growth and refine your strengths and weaknesses all while being surrounded by other growth-minded leaders like yourself? You may have heard of our International Maxwell Conference or IMC, it’s our bi-annual event in which Maxwell Leadership certified team members come from all around the world to grow and learn together.

IMC, this August is the first time we’re opening the event to the public by kicking the event off with our first ever personal growth day. This is a one and a half day event on August 29th through the 30th in Orlando, Florida, and it’s designed to dig deeper into who you are and how you tick so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you are unable to attend personal growth day in person, we also offer virtual access to the event. If you would like to participate in a one-of-a-kind experience and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with growing leaders who will sharpen your skills and equip you to create powerful, positive impacts in your life, go to maxwellleadership.com/personalgrowthday, to learn more or get your ticket. We will see you there.

Mark Cole:

Welcome back. For those of you viewing, welcome to the studio. It’s good to be in studio with you, Chris.

Chris Goede:

Good to be here.

Mark Cole:

I’m so glad you’re here, buddy.

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

For those of you listening in, join us sometime and notice that Chris has a voice for radio-

Chris Goede:

That’s right.

Mark Cole:

… and a face for YouTube. I’ll tell you that. Hey Chris, while John was talking, I thought about a Chris Hogan quote that I’ve heard, “Great leaders focus on equipping their teams. It is unfair to expect what you did not equip.”

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

And it brings me to what we really want to deliver to you today, and that is equipping others is the only way to grow big and to become bigger. And Chris, that’s exactly what we talk about here at Maxwell Leadership. We talk about, we want to be bigger, better, brighter. Our best days are not behind us. We’re leaning in, we’re stretching toward the next level of impact. We’ve got the next summit of accomplishment in our view and I think John’s telling us today, you and I, to get there, better start figuring out how to equip people.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, it’s a multiplication of what you desire to do as a leader, right? And John has taught us this along the way where we don’t want to develop followers.

Mark Cole:

Right.

Chris Goede:

It’s back to why we do what we do, right? We want to develop leaders, so we want to add value. I love what you talked about with Bob Early, as we introduce this episode. What I love about that is, Bob’s in his mid 70s and still learning-

Mark Cole:

Love it.

Chris Goede:

… and still growing so that he can develop other leaders. And so, I love that. While he was talking I was thinking about his book, The Leader’s Greatest Return. I was with an organization last week and I brought that book up because everybody’s like, “Man, when you think about business and you think about leadership and you’re like, what is the return on investment?” And what John gets to at the heart of this lesson in that book is, it’s about developing and equipping people.

Now, before we dive in and I pull some stuff just from what you’re experiencing as a leader, I want to share with our audience, those that are watching and those that are listening, some statistics that I think will just kind of wake us up to the importance of the topic today. Gallup says that out of 10 people that are promoted, okay, one out of those 10, they have high talent to be able to lead other people. Okay. Two out of those 10 have functioning talent. The other eight, it needs to be developed in them.

Mark Cole:

Wow.

Chris Goede:

And so when you look at that and you think about your team and your people and those that are on your team, eight out of 10 needs you or your leaders to be equipping them. The other thing it said that I think is just important is they said, only 40% of people feel like they have a chance to learn and grow at work, and only 33% feel someone at work encourages their development.

Now, John talks about the law of the lid and I think in organization and in teams, our lid is this topic right here is equipping. So I want to start off about the fact that John, number one, says that equipping has to be the number one responsibility of a leader. Now listen, you are crazy busy. You’re running multiple companies. Talk to us a little bit about how do you think about that and how do you act on that, of that being your number one responsibility, to be able to build this legacy that you’re standing on the shoulders of John, with our organization. How do you go about that? How do you manage that? How do you find time for that? What does that look like in your schedule?

Mark Cole:

Well, so let me… I want to answer that, Chris, and I want to answer it this way because as John was talking today, and we didn’t even mention this really in our pre comments with one another in our incredible team that helps you and I do these podcasts, but I think first a leader has to really understand what I believe is a big difference between equipping, empowering and delegation.

Chris Goede:

Absolutely.

Mark Cole:

Okay. So we’re going to save equipping because that’s where we want to go today. But let me tell you the difference between empowering and delegation. I delegate the things I don’t want to do that people should be able to do and I want to get rid of that, and I want out of sight out of mind, and so I delegate. You and I have worked for leaders in our past that they were chief delegators. They didn’t care if you had the power. They didn’t care if you had the resources, they just cared that you had the responsibility. They didn’t give you power. They didn’t give you resources. They just gave you responsibility and there’s nothing more frustrating with a leader than to be delegated something to-

Chris Goede:

That’s good.

Mark Cole:

… with no power, no resources.

Chris Goede:

That’s good.

Mark Cole:

Now empowering is a little bit better because we don’t just delegate. We actually give you the authority. You have the authority. I have been here with John, he’s now promoted me to the CEO, and Chris, I want you to be over business developing and merging and acquisition with the organization. And I look at everybody that says, “Whatever Chris says, it’s me saying it. He has the power to do that.” And you do quite well sometimes, but then there is a time to where you have been empowered, but you don’t have the resources.

Chris Goede:

Right.

Mark Cole:

I think that’s where equipping is what John’s trying to do. Equipping is giving you the power and the resources and the experience. In other words, we’ll find out a little bit later in the lesson that a really good equipping strategy makes sure that you have experience before you have responsibility. Delegation, there is no experience. You just have responsibility. Most of the time with delegation, resources are not even thought. And so when I’m listening to this lesson, I put it in a very high level of leadership called equipping, not empowering, not delegation. Let’s now answer your question because it’s different every time we get a new role and responsibility. This is true confessions, and by the way, every Wednesday, I feel like its confession time for Mark Cole. The things I need to work-

Chris Goede:

It’s actually an intervention that the organization has decided to implement.

Mark Cole:

… Chris comes in as an ambassador for all of our leadership every Wednesday to try to get me back on track. And today’s really no exception because the pace that I’m running, the pace that we all are running is causing me to shortcut equipping, and you can’t shortcut equipping. Again, John did show us in the lesson a little bit earlier, that there is a distinct process. That’s the five Ms. There’s a distinct process that you have to go through for equipping and you can’t shortcut it.

Recently, we added to our team an operational leader. I’ve never had, for a long time, I shouldn’t say never, but for a long time, we’ve not had a chief operating officer, an operational leader. And I was cautioned by my business advisors before we hired Matt, and they said, “Trust me, you’re going to want to delegate, equip, empower, all those things in six months.” But it’s taken you 22 years of leading operations to get where you are and you can’t do that in six months.

And I’m discovering, Chris, that in my own world of trying to equip, I lose the number one responsibility of equipping people at this stage in my life and replace that number one priority with holding them accountable. But I’m holding them accountable to something that I have yet to equip them and I’m frustrating all of us. And that’s where I think that every leader has to understand when they move to the next level of responsibility and they want to get to doing the things that their new appointment is requiring of them, they still cannot shortcut or reprioritize the fact that all leaders need a number one priority of equipping others.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, it’s interesting you just talked about frustrating others. When you were going through and you were talking about, and I love this, you were talking about the difference between delegation, empowerment and then this equipping. And what I loved about it is, I was like, oh, it’s an aha moment for me personally, because you were talking about these differences. And for me, I was like if I go down this route of someone delegating something or empowering me, there’s more frustration-

Mark Cole:

Right.

Chris Goede:

… in that from my leader to me, that I feel towards my leader then if there is true equipping. And then you just added on top of that, where you talked about not only do I need to equip them, but then I need to make sure I stay in equipping and not just holding them accountable to that and I thought that was a great illustration for that.

Mark Cole:

Yeah. Before we move to the next point, Chris, I mean John gives us three questions here in this point and you may have some comments on this and I want you to make them because you’ve been in the organization a long time. But, I mean think about if every leader that’s listened to this podcast or watching it would do what John challenges to do right now. Mic drop, podcast over, go to work. And it’s these three questions, how much time do I spend weekly equipping others? And Chris, while John was teaching I went back in the Rolodex in my mind, that’s an old word for you young people that means a big old Rolodex thing on your desk of just memories or contacts was what it was most of the time. But I went through and shuffled through my mind really quick and I went last week, how much time did I spend equipping?

Oh, it was that silent in my mind. I don’t think I spent any time last week equipping. In the season that we’re in, foul, throw the penalty, 15 yards back. I’m going to look today at my calendar and say, “How much time am I spending equipping?” And then the other question is how many people are we equipping? I’ve got in my mindset now, I’ve got one or two people that I need to be equipping so that I can get some things off my plate, rather than who can I equip to help me reach for the future. I’m trying to equip a select few to help me with my present challenges. And as CEO, if I don’t keep equipping people for our future rather than equipping people to get my current schedule in check, I’m going to lose the ability to grow bigger. That was convicting to me, dude.

And then finally this third question, how many people are we equipping? Goes back to that same thing. Now I’m just equipping just a couple right now and I am paralyzing or stying our growth for the future, the smaller my pool of equipping is.

Chris Goede:

That’s good. I appreciate the transparency. I’m going to jump in this boat with you, because as I listen to John, and even now just our conversation, I feel convicted as a leader inside the organization when I look at those questions. And so, no doubt one of the takeaways for you whether you’re watching us today on YouTube or you’re listening to us is to really get alone and answer those questions transparently. Then maybe even ask some of your top key leaders to answer them on your behalf and see where there is a gap for that.

Here’s what I was thinking when you were just talking about that. I read an article some time ago where Harvard Business Review said, 85% of the time of most successful leaders, they interviewed and studied 200 leaders across the board, I don’t know the filter of what they decided, but 85% of their time was focused on the EQ side of leadership, the emotional intelligence and connection with their people. 85% of the time.

Mark Cole:

Wow.

Chris Goede:

You and I are sitting here saying we’re convicted because we don’t even know if one day we spent… Now, did we do some emotional intelligence-

Mark Cole:

Sure.

Chris Goede:

… connections? We did. But did we get specific about the equipping side? I don’t know that we have. And so, I would challenge each and every listener and viewer to really have a conversation with yourself about that because that’s how we do multiply the impact of what you want to do. Now-

Mark Cole:

And let me go to that. I’m so sorry.

Chris Goede:

… No, you’re fine. Go ahead.

Mark Cole:

Jake, just pause the clock because we got so much to talk about. But right before, you were a part of this same conversation, Jared Kaggle’s in the studio with us. He helps me with content. He helps us all with content. Right now, he’s helping John with his new book, drum roll, you can’t wait for it. It’s going to be the Laws of Communication. Can’t wait to open that up. And he was talking about John jumping on a plane, we both got an international trip that we’re preparing for currently at the time of recording. And John taking time to make sure that he spends time equipping somebody that is going to give him back some things that he needs on this trip.

I was recently on a trip with John and Jared, where John was laying out with Jared, “These are the things that I need. This is what will help me.” And then he’s following up and saying, “Hey”, as Jared said in studio a while ago, “10:00, 10:00 AM, 10:00 AM.” I’ll tell you it wasn’t news to Jared… 10 o’clock may have been news to Jared, but that the timeline was coming wasn’t, because a month ago we were on a plane and I heard John preparing Jared for that. You never get too established, back to me and you play in the conviction card. You never get too successful in life-

Chris Goede:

No.

Mark Cole:

… that you don’t have to be intentional in equipping.

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

This weekend’s expectation of Jake have it to me by 10, began a month ago on a plane of equipping because there was intentionality around equipping. So you made a point there that yeah, equipping is important, but intentionality around that equipping is the thing that’s going to make it feel less like delegation and unrealistic expectation because intentionality and due diligence was done in the equipping process.

Chris Goede:

That’s good. And not only intentionality, but in that story you’re just talking about, the why behind 10 o’clock is coming, right? Because then if you explain the why to the team members and you bring them along in that process, it doesn’t feel like a project, a timeline, a delegation. They feel part of it, so I love that.

Now I want to move on to point number two, which by the way, we’re not going to cover all four. Jake doesn’t let us cover all the content once we’re in here together. But I love this because I think you have to then communicate the priority of this to the organization. The last question that you just reviewed for us that John talked about is, how many people then are they equipping? So in this conversation, you’re my leader so your question to me is, “Chris, how many people are you equipping in order to help us accomplish this mission, this vision we’re after?”

You said this statement, I want to share this with our audience. In one of our leadership team meetings, you came in and you didn’t even say hello, you didn’t even say, hey how’s everybody’s weekend, whatever you came in and you said, “All right, here we go. You couldn’t be here today, who’s sitting in your seat?”

Mark Cole:

Wow. Yep.

Chris Goede:

And all of us were like, “Don’t pick on me.” And you were just like, “Go, who is it? Chris, who is it?” Right. And so, “Becky, who is it?” And I was like, man, yeah, that’s so good. If we were doing this in a way that we should be doing it as leaders of organization, we would have it right there. But what you were doing, was you were implementing and living out this, Hey, I’m going to communicate. This is a top priority for all of our people. So talk about that. Talk about the desire that you have as a CEO of the enterprise, to make sure that your people and that you are continually emphasizing and communicating the power, and not only the power, but the need, because it’s so critical to be developing and equipping your people.

Mark Cole:

Well it’s so funny because our podcast family is going to think that I’m just this cutthroat going to kill everybody, cut everybody out, fire everybody kind of leader. I don’t think I’m like that. Maybe-

Chris Goede:

No, you’re not. No.

Mark Cole:

… I need to go check because let me tell you why I say that though, Chris. A week ago today, I’m in a meeting with two of our leaders. You were not even in the meeting. And I said, “Guys, who’s your replacement?” And they looked at me like, “What?” And I said, “By the way, if something happens to me, who’s my replacement? What are you all going to do if something happens to me?”

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

Now that’s kind of fatalistic, right? And it’s so funny that you just helped reminded me. I’d forgotten about that. You reminded me of a meeting several months ago where I challenged every leader. First thing came into the meeting was, “Hey, who’s your replacement? What are you going to do?” And then I just had that same conversation a week ago. I think, and I justify with this, the law of the bench. Every leader is prepared. Surprises don’t prepare leaders, it reveals leaders. I use all of these illustrations and that was certainly my point seven ago with these leaders. “Guys, who are you training for the unexpected? Who is your law of the bench?” And I began to articulate to them what I may not have articulated in this leadership meeting that you’re referencing.

I believe it’s the responsibility of every leader to know his players and to strengthen the bench of players on the team. That’s not anything earth-shattering or great revealing, I’m sure, to our podcast audience. What’s revealing to me when you asked this question today is, I told both of those leaders last week, who I would replace them with if something happened to them. Now in this meeting, I was really challenging them because we’ve not moving the ball forward as quickly as I feel like that we should. And I was going, “Guys, who is your replacement and be inviting them into it because they probably can make you better.” So it wasn’t just let’s find a replacement. It was who else is brainstorming with you because your replacement may have better ideas than you because you’re too close to the challenge.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, love that.

Mark Cole:

But as I’m listening to you ask me that question today, as I’m reminded that I ask that question again one week ago, which means I may be asking that question way too much. I realized that while I have a plan on who would be their replacement, I have no intentionality on how I am equipping them today. So what am I going to do, Chris? Am I going to wait to equip my bench when they’re actually in the game, or am I going to equip them while they’re on the bench, so that if an injury happens, they’re able to get right in?

Your son plays football, you played football. No coach waits until the injury to equip the second string. The second string is making the first string better by learning the game plan by scrimmaging with them. In the leadership game, in mine and your company, podcast listeners, are we scrimmaging enough with the backups to make sure that they are equipped when they become a starter?

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

And I’m telling you this right here, I need to quit recording a podcast and go equip some people because I’ve got a plan.

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

I just am not backing that plan up of equipping to make sure they’re ready for game day.

Chris Goede:

That’s so good. Yeah. To further that illustration, and then I’m going to move on to the last point, you look at, now we’re biased, we’re in the south so we’re big SEC fans. When you look at the level of schools at the highest level in the SEC, the reason they’re successful is they have a bench that is ready to step in at any point in time.

Mark Cole:

Yep.

Chris Goede:

Injury, draft, next man up. And they talk about that and they talk about it. So do we run our teams like that? Do we run our companies like that? You and I are sitting there shaking our head, no, together. And so-

Mark Cole:

But I’m doing that just for our viewers, not for our podcast listener. I didn’t want the podcast listeners to know.

Chris Goede:

… Yeah. And so I love this, right? You got to be communicating this because it has to be a priority, not only to you as a leader. I’m not going to cover point four, but John lays out an incredible model, and the first one he talks about is model it. So leaders, before you go communicating this, you need to be modeling it so that then your people understand what that looks like. And that’s the first step of the five Ms that John gives us.

Okay, now last point. All right. I really want to hear from you on this because you and I, we have a bent towards this and John talks about, we have to develop a relationship with those that we equip, and I think this is critical. This is the foundation, I think to all influence, we call it… John calls it level two in the five levels of leadership that increase your influence by developing relationships.

You cannot equip somebody and you cannot pull the best out of them and have them lead at higher levels unless you build a relationship with them. Which is why, leaders, you have to be very careful depending on the size of your organization, how many direct reports you do have.

Mark Cole:

Right.

Chris Goede:

Because everything we’re talking about here today, you can’t do seven, eight, nine, ten times be your direct reports, so be careful about that. Talk about you and how you lead and equip people by starting, because I know you do this so well, with the foundation of building a relationship with people and why that’s so important.

Mark Cole:

Yeah, and thank you for giving me a lot of kudos on it because I do believe that it is a strength of mine. I, today in admitting that and hopefully not coming across as cocky or got all of that together, I must also admit that while it’s the strength of mine, I’m not so sure it’s a discipline of mine right now. And I believe that if you find something that you’re very good at, you got to have the strength and recognize it’s the strength, but you’ve got to have the discipline to keep it present when situations, responsibilities begin to shift around you.

I was reminded of that recently. I was invited to stand in with somebody that used to work on our team, Chris, and I got to be in his wedding. And I went out with one of our teammates that also was in the wedding and I got to spend, it was an hour and a half from our lodging to the event venue, which is where the rehearsal and the wedding was, so it was about six and a half hours worth of drive time. And in this six and a half hours of time, I had one of our leaders on our leadership team in the room or in the car with me. And what occurred to me as I was on the plane coming home from that experience, it occurred to me how little I had been spending in cultivating that relationship.

Now was the relationship fine? Did we pick it right up where we left it the last time we went to play golf or ski or whatever we have done together recently? Absolutely, we did because of years and years and years of operating in my strengths. But here’s what I discovered, you can have the strength, but not the discipline. And without both of them-

Chris Goede:

That’s good.

Mark Cole:

… you will not be effective in equipping-

Chris Goede:

That’s good.

Mark Cole:

… without both the strength and the discipline to stay in that strength. And thank you for complimenting me. I do think I’m pretty good at that. How long have you and your wife and me and my wife been trying to get on the calendar for a dinner? Don’t answer the question. It’s been a long time, listeners. It’s been a long time. But that’s really important because you and I both want to invite our better halves-

Chris Goede:

Yes.

Mark Cole:

… let’s be really clear that, that’s the case-

Chris Goede:

Yes. Yeah.

Mark Cole:

… into what we do on a daily basis, because you and I both travel a lot. And yet today, as I’m telling this, I have the strength to do that and sit down with you and Sarah and me, you and Stephanie and Sarah would have a brilliant time, but do I have the discipline? And that’s the question on this. You may have the strength or not, but you better have the discipline whether-

Chris Goede:

That’s good.

Mark Cole:

… you have the strength or not to keep it present in your leadership.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, and listen, leaders, Mark brings up a really good point here. The discipline part of this is, leaders, we default to saying, “I don’t have time to do that. I can’t put that on my calendar.” And so not only do you have to be intentional and disciplined about it, but you be creative about it. You are already making trips. You are already in meetings. You’re already going to lunches. Mark just used a great example of, he was intentional, it may have been unintentional, but he used the time of this car ride as intentionality to be able to help and equip, invest in and build a relationship to a deeper level with one of our key leaders.

So think about it creatively, because I know everybody’s answer is, I don’t have time to do that. Figure out time to do it because it’s key. All right now listen, I’m going to throw it to you to close up, but I want to give you one last statement to let you react to. I deal with this, I know a lot of leaders probably deal with this as well. We have to… We have a little campaign around here called Freemark. Okay?

Mark Cole:

Yeah.

Chris Goede:

And he’ll talk a little bit about this. But we have to, as leaders, let go of our desire to have direct control over situations inside our organization. John has taught us if someone can do something 80% as good as we have, give it to them. It’ll create a natural mentoring, equipping conversation and then they’re probably going to be able to do it better than you. As you wrap up for us, just react to that comment about us wanting to, especially with your change in leadership and owning the Maxwell Leadership and the shift that you and John are making in your relationship of having some key decisions and key part of our P&Ls and different things that you have to relinquish control of to get above all of that, to continue to equip and develop people and get out of the weeds of it. So I’ll let you, as you’re smiling at me, I may not ever be invited back to another podcast, but react to that to our leaders because we all deal with it as you wrap up this lesson for us today.

Mark Cole:

Well, and let me say this, the reason I’m smiling is because this is a whole lesson-

Chris Goede:

It is.

Mark Cole:

… right here. In fact, we need John sitting in here mentoring us with his incredible wisdom. Freemark should be the rallying cry of every leader. Now I’m very aware that in our podcast audience, there’s people that work for somebody else that needs to be freed up. There’s somebody that is-

Chris Goede:

That’s right.

Mark Cole:

… an entrepreneur that has nobody to help free them up. But I want to really capture this concept because it really is the essence of why we equip people. You’ve got to give up to go up. You got to free yourself up and allow others to step up, if you’re going to continue climbing yourself. It is absolutely true when people, you hear leaders say it all the time, work yourself out of a job.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Cole:

And it’s true, and that’s what’s kind of been driving this Freemark campaign that we have within our leadership team, that says there’s a new level of responsibility. There’s a stepping out, it feels like, or a stepping up that is required of me that is causing me to say, don’t let me be encumbered or paralyzed with the responsibilities of yesterday. I think that’s the essence of what we’re talking about with equip. With what we’re saying that equipping is the tool that will allow us-

Chris Goede:

That’s right.

Mark Cole:

… to empower others so that we can do what only we can do.

Chris Goede:

That’s great.

Mark Cole:

And again, I want to be very sensitive to the fact that many of you, you’re not at a place to where you can have a team of people around you. But at the same time, if you will find people that will catch your vision and maybe its significant relationships in your life that will free you up to get more focused on doing what you can do no matter who it is, volunteer, paid or an executive that can command people to free you up. No matter where it is. There is a process John has given us in this lesson that is called equipping people if you want to be effective in freeing podcast listener up. And that’s what our goal is for you. That’s our challenge. That’s what we spent today about.

Hey, there’s one other podcast that we did that just kind of caught my mind as we were listening today. We’ll put it in the show notes. It’s a relevant episode and it’s called Motivation: How to Inspire Effort, and I think if you want to go a little deeper this week, after listening to this podcast and you would like to do that, we’ll put that in the show notes. You will love that. I want to close today, Chris, with what I love to close and that’s a listener comment. In fact, it’s Joseph, and Joseph was listening to the Law of Connection series and he said, “I’m using the 17 Laws of Teamwork with my team of senior agents. The feedback from my team has been awesome.” He said, “I also shared the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership with them,” which by the way, we’ll put it in the show notes. John just released the 25th Anniversary Edition of that. In fact, we’ll give you a 15% discount with a link there if you’ll go and take advantage of that book.

And Joseph, if you know somebody that took advantage of that 15% discount, make them take you to lunch, dude. You saved them some money. But Joseph went on to say, “These laws are really awesome and we started to get the names and the ways that we could do things that when we used them, we would be able to start growing immensely in our area.” And Joseph, I want to tell you that, that’s why we do what we do. You know why? Because the world needs powerful, positive change. The world needs leaders that can create powerful, positive change because everyone deserves to be well.