"Be less focused on having the exact right goal; be more focused on even just having a goal," Rocky says. Rocky takes an off-the-cuff approach to today's episode by diving into how to not just create a mission statement, but to involve your team in it. As a business leader, Rocky begs us to ask three questions to lead you to creating a more fulfilling and supportive environment for your team while also driving the bottom line.
"Be less focused on having the exact right goal; be more focused on even just having a goal," Rocky says. Rocky takes an off-the-cuff approach to today's episode by diving into how to not just create a mission statement, but to involve your team in it. As a business leader, Rocky begs us to ask three questions to lead you to creating a more fulfilling and supportive environment for your team while also driving the bottom line.
Welcome to this edition of a survivor's journey with rocky destefano. Thanks Larry. I hope everyone listening will be able to walk this journey of leadership with us. As we always say, Larry, the premise of this show is that everybody's leaving something or someone, whether you're a parent, leaving your family, a coach, leading a team, a team leading a few or a CEO leaving an organization were all on a path of being a leader. And that's our title. Do you want to get that? The phone keeps ringing. You were so busy. Now we're going to ignore that phone. Oh, okay. Okay. Epic moment in leadership. Okay. Here's the, here's the deal. I understand that you just went out and purchased for yourself a new automobile. Yes. And what did you get? Um, I got a very normal, very normal. Very, what I would say. It's not a flashy car. It's, it's, it's a very, a good family vehicle. I got a jeep wrangler that's an off road baby. You're going in the sand dunes, right? Well, I have always wanted one and um, you know, realizing that the clock's ticking and uh, you know, you had, you had a fetish for a Mustang at one time though, didn't ya? Yeah, I do. I, I have plenty of car fetishes but this is a, this is my current one and uh, it's a lot of fun to drive. Well, it's a beautiful car and I think we're going to put a picture up on the website, right, for, for you, unless you don't want that. But why is that? Why you were taking a picture of what? I took a picture of you. I thought you were a little crazy. You can see him behind the wheel. If you look closely at that picture. I'm actually mid conversation because I was on the phones. Right? But of course he wasn't driving. That car was not moving. No, listen. Okay. So we're an epic moments in leadership and this is my story now. Okay. Um, I, you know, I just got out of the lease and I had a, I had this issue of you're in a lease and you don't want to go over the miles, you know, the pay the extra fees. Well I turned the car in, in, in record time, in time that I wouldn't be spending any money on the mileage and gone three months practically without getting a bill. Well, yesterday in the mail I got a bill that said the disposition fee, you know, you turn the thing in, you got to pay x number of dollars. Well, someone had told me if I could call them and politely asked them if they would waive that fee, um, they might do that because I'd had two cars before this, you know, have the same brand and I was Kinda like a, uh, on a 100 customer, a loyal, loyal customers. And so I called and all the people on the phone. Can I mention the company share? Well if it. Yeah, I guess you can. Well, the car was Alexis, but Toyota financial issue handled it and they, the people on the phone was so courteous, so understanding, so nice. Of course I went through three people to get to the right person, but that still, it was pleased. Let us help you. We'll go ahead and do this. I'm finally Sheree, who took care of me, came back on the phone and said, sir, you're actually going to get a refund. Oh Geez. So now is it like a, like a life changing refund are, you know? No, I'm not getting a new car with it, but just to that somehow I don't know where that's coming from. So maybe down the road we'll find out if I really get the refund, but I just thought from a standpoint of management, these people have been trained well enough to handle the customer. That's all I can tell you that because we said Nice things about Toyota, we expect them to become a sponsor sponsor. Absolutely. Well, I prefer the lexus side. Okay. Can we just take Alexis instead? So now did you get another car or are you carless? No, no, no, I, I went to a Chevy Chevy. What is it, Alexis? Clearly you can't remember. It's the mid size. It's the midsize Chevrolet. Um, okay. So everybody go by and midsize Chevy. That's the name of the car. That's in a sense is. I can't think what it is. Okay. It's Christmas dress. Right, right. But no one knew the difference that I got a different car because the last three cars I've had have all been white, so everybody thinks I've so got Alexa. There you go. Please. Lexus. I'm, I don't have one. It's. I'm missing you. Yes. Yeah, Alexis. Nice cars. Yeah. But I hate to say the Chevrolet has got some better technology than the technology changes pretty quickly. Pretty well, you know, we appreciate them. Thank you very much. A good leadership there at Toyota financial and I appreciate it. Okay, so let's talk about Larry now. Today's show is going to be a little bit. It's a little bit more off the cuff when we first got to thank acs creative. Oh, forget that. I did. I, I forget. Acs. Creative. They created our website and you're going to be able to see rocky's car on the website there as well. Yes. Do you want a picture of my car to. Maybe we should park side by side and have a, you know, like we're drag racing or something. Yeah, you, you probably would beat me at jeeps. It's a, it can go high and you can go up a mountain. I don't know if it's very quick. Right? Well that's good. Oh, by the way, I've got to go to Montana next week. Could I borrow it? Yeah, sure. What? I got to go up that mountain there and I won't charge much. It's a, it's a small daily fee. But what kind of mileage you getting on that thing? Yeah, let's not talk about. All right. Well let's see. Yes, creative. Great. Our website and we really thank them for it. They were great.
Speaker 2:Great to work with. Um, you know, the thing I appreciate the most is they really are conscious of budgets and they don't play games with your money. They do brochures, logos, direct mail, AD campaigns, websites. They don't play games with your money. So contact acs, creative on the website are on the Internet at acs and you've got to put creative and you'll get them right away. And the thing I would say too is if you're a podcast and you're, you know, like us of humble means and yes, you're trying to maintain budgets, but you need something professional, I can tell you they're going to work with you work within your budget and they're going to produce some superior work. They understand us. ACS, creative. So rocky, what is the, uh, the, the subject for today's podcast? Yes. So we are going to be, it's a little bit more off the cuff than, than normal, but I had this idea for awhile and we decided to give it a shot. So, you know, most, most every company has a mission statement or a vision statement and we think that's good. But we really think that if you're going to really involve your team, and that's what we're going to talk about. You know, we've talked before about creating a culture and that's really what a mission statement and vision statement, you know, company values. That's really what it's about. But you know, I had a friend who told a story about he was consulting a company and he asked them, well, do you have a mission statement? And they said, Oh yes we do, and this was the high high executives and I'm the CEO said, you know, we had a 48 hour or a tree Tan. We crafted it together and it's a compelling vision. In fact, we have it painted on the other side of this wall here. And um, uh, he asked the next person what's the mission statement? And that person didn't know it. So you know, I'm a, a statement is only as good as good as your people remembering it. And we're going to talk a lot about story today because that's, that's the idea. The idea is that if you stopped talking about mission or vision and you start inviting your team into a story that they can live, that they're going to be a lot more moved by that because people are moved less by mission statement and much more by a narrative. So what makes a great story? Yeah. So let's talk about the elements of a great story and if this plays out and almost if you've seen a movie and you thought it was great, this was probably the narrative it somebody or, or a group of somebody who wants something and then a conflict that they have to overcome to get it. No. What were some of the examples that you were talking about? Well, I mean, you think about like rocky Balboa, rocky, Bobo. I mean, you know, great. He wanted this and he had to overcome great adversity. Rudy, I'm one of my favorite. Yeah, great. Even goonies, it was that group of kids and what do they want? They wanted to stay living in that community and they had to overcome this whole, you know, pirate, you know, x, you know, escapade in order to get it. I'm remember the titans over and over again. All, all movies, all great stories have had those components. So as a leader, how do you find something that people need want in a group? How do you put that all together? Yeah. Well, and, and I think I'm going to talk about this a little bit later too, but so, so as a leader we need to find something that, that we as a group, you know, want, want to do a, the point is the journey. It's not always about the goal. So people want, want to go somewhere, they want to be taken somewhere and a goal invites people into the story where they can help solve a problem. Ah, and so a mission statement is just more than a, than a statement, but oh, well I'm getting it. So if you can take your mission statement and then create a story from that, uh, that, that has a problem that they can come alongside and help you solve because people want to help solve problems. And, and people really, most times they'll go where you tell them to go, which is pretty good. And most importantly, Larry, and this is kind of a learning that I've seen throughout my history, is if you don't lead them somewhere good, then a lot of times within an organization someone else will lead them. And it may not be where you want to go impact. It could be downright a bad, bad, bad spot. Well, it is this. Kind of what Patrick was talking about, Patrick Lencioni. Yeah. He was talking about the politician and the three types of people and. Right? Yeah. And some of them are downright dangerous. And that was in the ideal team player book. Yeah. Check that out. It's right. So again, a direction is better than no direction and a direction that you create is better than one that's created by somebody else who could have evil or ulterior motives. Because without a direction there's a vacuum, a leadership vacuum form a forms and the point leader, what when the point leader isn't leading or setting a direction, another leader is going to step up and it's normally somebody later like you were talking about that politician. It's normally somebody who's prone towards being a leader anyways. Maybe it's somebody who has a vision for the organization and they can begin over time to actually become perceived as the leader, but they just may not have the right goal in line. Yeah. And the narrative, and again, it's not always bad, you know, sometimes it's, it's a, it's a fine goal, but it's, but it's not the leader's goal and it's always causes conflict between the real leader and the leader's direction. So how do you get someone's stronger? How do, how do you get around that? Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about this because I wanted to pull out this it. If you look at, at great leaders, people that we would consider a great leaders, Lincoln, you know, George Washington, if you look at a lot of their rhetoric and their speeches, it isn't that different than what Adolf Hitler said. If you look at the key components that are really around unifying a group of people around, a common goal around a common thing that the differences, and we know this throughout history, is that Washington and Lincoln, they actually lead people to a good goal. And Hitler lead people to a disastrous skull, but it still was leadership. So it, you know, the, the, the fear here is that the better and the stronger that the group that you have around you, the more that somebody could step in if there's lack of direction. So the moment that you as a leader takes your foot off the gas, the moment that you get comfortable, somebody going to step up and they're going to set the pace, the leaders behind you will lead. That's a constant and not always in the right direction, but isn't that something you want, you want the people behind you to lead you on the switcher or setting them up for, yeah, you want the people to, you want to craft a great vision, a great goal, and then you want them to give, give them autonomy within their sub goal, but you don't always want them to create the goal, you know, they can come alongside and help. They can definitely help to achieve it. But a leader has to lead and you have to set a goal. Okay. So in your story, in your store, what is your goal to make their story better? And what does that really mean? So, uh, you know, we've talked about this a little bit where we could talk about the, the tenements of, of a restaurant are good food, fast, good service, but that's kind of boring. The fact of saying, making story stories better. I'm not necessarily telling them how to do that. I'm telling them here's our goal and hey, it's going to be tough sometimes we're going to fall on our face and we're going to fail, but we still want to achieve it. So you have to worry less about setting a wrong goal because there's something worse than having a goal and that's not, uh, having any goal at all. Right? So the, a goal that's not entirely the right, the perfect goal is still better than no goal. So let's talk about, let's give you an example here. Okay, that's what I like. Examples. So Nick Saban, uh, I think it was last year, national championship. You're always talking football. Well, I'm always talking, saving because he's probably one of the greatest leaders of our time, but yeah, so most of us remember the national championship game, but in case we don't, they were being soundly beaten by Georgia at halftime and Nick Saban made a decision that most leaders would not do. He decided to set his starting quarterback. Now this, uh, this quarterback wasn't a scrub. This quarterback I think had gone something like 29 and two. He was a good quarterback that he probably could have started anywhere else in the country, but Sabin benched him for a freshman named to, uh, to, uh, lead them back and lead them to victory and they won a national championship. So. Okay, that's fine. But everybody expected. Jaylen hurt the quarterback that was benched to move. Yeah, to move. He could have started probably almost anywhere else. There were schools that would have clamored for him. Um, he definitely would have started right away probably. But Saban, he sat there and, and he said, hey, listen, if you stay here, you're going to get better nfl training here than anywhere else. Even not playing at Alabama, you're going to learn more about how to be an NFL quarterback than you would going to another school and starting and he just kept saying, stay with us to just stay with us. So he, he gave him a goal and I think a lot of people would have said it was the wrong goal maybe, but it was a goal and to everybody's surprise he stayed. Jalen hurts stayed. So let's fast forward to the most recent. Yeah, so it's the championship game and the SEC conference. Most people believe that the SEC is the best conference in the country. So you know, you could, you could say maybe these are the two best teams in the country playing for the championship and on the line of Georgia wins, they're going to the college playoffs and Georgia looks fantastic and they are ahead in the game. When to a goes down, he gets hurt and guess who steps in hunt hurt. Hurt. Yeah. Jalen hurts steps right in and he leads them back. It's, it's almost the exact opposite of what happened to them a year ago. He Leeds, Alabama back and they win the game and Alabama gets into college playoffs and Georgia gets a goodbye. Nice to know. Yeah. So Saban was putting those goals out there and letting them know, save and gave him a direction he, he, he led, you know, and what I've noticed is that it's even worse for people that are believers because sometimes we spend way too much time looking for a perfect goal. And I think that's because the, you know, in the Bible, God did have specific plans for some people, right? I mean, we talk about, you know, the donkey speaking, you know, that was a clear direction, you know, uh, we, we know that there was a burning Bush when Moses a clear direction, you know, we know that there's been various times when the angels came down and spoke to the man said, hey, do this. Um, you know, so I think as Christians as leaders were saying, we're waiting for our burning Bush, right? But outside of those three where there was a clear goal, the rest of the time, many other people in the Bible and definitely what we see in many, many times in life, we're kind of left to figure it out. And that's kind of cool. We actually have a tremendous amount of latitude in our own personal story. You know, we don't have full control over the story, but we do have some control over our stories in the Bible. Does set out a goal in this American narrative of what we should be doing. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Well, because the narrative is do good, do well, you know, love God, love others. So that gives you the basic framework. Um, but uh, there is some latitude, so again, we have to be less concerned about the exact right goal and more concerned about having a goal. So, and, and I'm going to talk about this too now. So we all know about Viktor Frankl. Larry, do you know Victor Frankel? Louis? So he, well he wrote a book called Man's search for meaning and it was based. He was a psychologist, but it was based on things he learned while surviving the concentration camps in World War II. And then after World War Two, after he, uh, got a chance to really see what motivated people and what kept people alive and, and, and made people happy. He then, uh, after the war went and was a psychologist in Korea and they had a, or I'm sorry, and I think it was the Vietnam and they had a tremendous problem with suicide, just an absolute. And so what he found was that he could stop this depression that was leading to suicide and he could help people fill, fill fulfilled. How did they do that? He, he found three things that, that we need. We, number one, we need a project to work on. Okay. Secondly, we needed a redemptive perspective of our own suffering. And then the third thing was we needed to close unconditional relationships, basically needed people that accept us as we are. So, so as a leader, are you inviting people into this or. Yeah. Remember, you know, you talk about a project to work on. Well, that's a direction, again, even a wrong direction is still a direction and then as you're talking to the people, you're saying, hey, we're going to have some setbacks. It's going to be hard, but we're going to prevail. And then thirdly, you're going to create a community where people are known and loved and where they feel safe. So how do you do this in business? So as a businessperson, you have to really ask these questions and then you have to help answer them for your team. What are the questions? So the first one is, where are we going? The second would be, why does this matter? What's at stake? So you know, if you're a church that's an easy one, hey, people are depressed, people have no hope, and we're going to step in and we're going to give them a hope and a reason to live which is the gospel. And then the third one would be, what is your role? So why are they important in this place that we're going? So let's back that up to your business. Where are you going? Right? Well, you answered that. And so it could be anything, I mean, it could be, hey, we want to be the best drive through in the country and that may or may not be possible. But again, it's, this is where we're going to go and hey Larry, I know that you're the only one that can do this. So, so here's what we're trying to accomplish. People come here, they're super hungry, they are having a super stressful day. They're running their kids from this to that to school to practice. Everybody's in a hurry, they're trying to get home and get some sleep and you get a chance to walk into that environment and satisfy them and make their day. But that's what matters. That's what matters. So you want it. You're going to be the fastest, best drive through, right? But the reason why you're doing that, that we want to satisfy the guest, we want to make, we want to give them a bright spot in an otherwise crazy, hectic day. So why are, why is it important? Yeah. And that's it. And I think more importantly than you're saying, and here's your role in it. So I can do that if you don't do this, if you're not producing food at a quick pace, if you're not, um, you know, Eh, uh, uh, handling the customers quickly, we can't. So if you see, it's kind of a simple things, but you know, it's really about the power of words and us using our words, which, you know, if you look at it, every single thing, every great company, every great country, every great, uh, a victory, it's, it all has been built on words. So we know that words have power. So, and as Christians, we literally believe that God spoke to world into existence. So it's pretty important here. So let's talk about those three again. Viktor Frankl said that you have to give people a project to work on a, you have to help them have a redemptive perspective of their suffering and you have to create a community where they feel loved and accepted. And then in the business world we would say, you have to craft these. You have to help answer these three questions. Where are they, where are we going? Why does it matter what's at stake? And then what is that person's role and why is it important? Another lesson from rocky here on a server's journey, learning to serve.
Speaker 1:That is fantastic. Yes. Thank you Larry. Now we're gonna. Move to the next session. Section of the program. As we move to the next. We're going to go back to what year was this? Because she was embarrassed me with. I'm not going to embarrass you this time because you know all these answers this year. Okay. The first question is what the last emperor won best picture of the year at the 60th annual Academy Awards and share won best actress for moonstruck. So this was the eighties. Okay, good. Good. Okay. Now this next one. Okay. You don't want to. Do you want to? Okay. You're in. Need a second one for sure. It's an over under. But you're in the right. You're in the right decade. Republican, uh, George Bush. Senior and democratic. Michael Dukakis. Hardly when the New York presidential primaries hardly when hardly win handily. Hardly. You think it's handling? I think so. Oh, okay. I mean, nieces are better than mine. I think what you're saying is that Michael Dukakis and George Bush senior that was in the news. We hardly presidents. Right. Okay. So what year was that? That was, that was just in the news. So I, I'm gonna say it has to be 89. Oh, so it has to be 88. It was 88 percent. Congratulations to that. I got one, got one and only two, uh, to get our two clues to close. Very, very good. I'll take that. Yeah. Well, yeah. I'm going to do this to you once. Oh yeah. I'm going to do keep threatening, but I never see. I'm going to do one on a early two thousands rap music. Oh, that would be good. I know that I know all of that by heart. Exactly. Just like that song a baby. It's cold outside, right? Oh Jeez. Do you want to get into that controversy? So I had an argument with my daughters about baby. It's cold outside. Oh, I did. Yeah. In fact we were, um, it was shocking. It was a terrifying argument in its absurdity because they really, I mean really believe that that song is a bad song and you know, it's one of my favorites. So, and, and I've seen these on the facebook thing, you know, the liners. Have they, has anybody turned the radio on lately? You know, comparatively speaking. Oh yeah, I've heard some rap songs. I've heard some regular songs that are pretty insulting toward women and demeaning. Yeah. You know, I don't think baby, it's cold outside. It's crazy thing. It was, it was written by a married couple, right in the middle of the summer. Yeah. And older songs were written. What was it in the forties or. I mean it's, I don't even know if there were date rape drugs in the forties. No, I don't know either, but anyways, we digress. You know, I think we're getting relaxed here. Added servers journey. We're definitely getting controversial, so. Okay. Well I want to thank everybody for joining us here on a service journey and especially acs creative for being with us, helping us with the website. So rocky, until next time I'm, you're ever faithful companion. Larry. Now give me a, give me a different one of those things. Year, my guacamole to my Taco is that work. I'll take. I'd rather be the Taco, but you'd be the Taco da Da, da. Anyways, we're all on this journey and you know, as always, we believe that it's how you serve in that role and that's why every week we share with you a survivor's journey and I'm rocky desteffano. Thanks for joining us and together with becoming a better leader.