It is humbling to recognize that what got us to this point, won’t move us to our next set of goals … and that as a senior leader I am also part of the ‘problem’ and one of the potential barriers to change. Bringing this new person on board has forced me to look at our situation as an outsider and to remember what I felt like when I first joined the organization challenging the status quo. Organizationally we have plateaued and if we don’t change our competitors will surpass us and eat our lunch. But in some ways we have stalled – we have grown to the point where continuing our current practices will kill our business. I was (and am) very proud of the contributions that my team and I have made to the organization’s success. My first serving of this delicious pie came while onboarding this person. From and egotistic perspective that's hard to swallow. Part of this transformation involves me relinquishing control of over half of the responsibilities that I have had for the last five years as we grew our business double digits year over year. With this change we decided to bring an outsider into our executive team to take over responsibility for a portion of our business. My organization has grown beyond our wildest expectations and as such we need to change in order to continue to grow and dominate our market. The first is very complex and job related. Upon reflecting on my mentor’s example, I too have enjoyed a few servings of humble pie recently that I want to share on social media. In his mind he shared how he was feeling bullied and uncertain– in mine it showed how he was truly disciplined, powerful … and dare I say it human.
Not only did he share these experiences on social media for all to see, he has also bared some personal demons to me exposing vulnerabilities that only a truly centered and confident person could expose. This gentleman is awesome in his field – an expert of the sorts that, as I have written about before, we dream to be but lack the fortitude and commitment to become. One of my mentors recently posted a couple of personal experiences he had in the last week where he, as he put it, ate some humble pie. We are typically our biggest fan and our biggest critic as we go through our life's journey. I once heard Bill Cower, at the time the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, respond to a critic with something to the effect that ‘We are only half as good as we think we are, but fortunately we are only half as bad as we think we are.’ I don’t know if this was original to Bill, but it is a profound statement.
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