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Okay, so today we're going to talk a little bit about what on earth are we doing?

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And we're going to get into this idea that clarity and simplicity drive speed.

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Jack Welch famously called it the triple S. You have to have self-confidence to be simple

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and simplicity drives speed.

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It does take boldness to be simple because when we're sophisticated, when we're complicated,

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we think we're being sophisticated.

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One of my favorite stories about bringing unbelievable clarity to your organization

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is the story of the Ritz-Carlton.

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They looked at some of their best practices.

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And I love what this, I mean, these people have won so many awards, I'll just skip past

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all that.

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But just to say, these achievements came from one very simple framework.

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And this is what they did is they, when they were doing initial training in their group,

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they had a simple training motto.

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They reduced the whole of running a high-end hotel group, does anybody know what they reduced

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it to?

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Does anyone know what their one line was?

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So we weren't servants cleaning the rooms.

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We weren't bellhops carrying the luggage.

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We weren't receptionists checking people in.

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None of that.

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They reduced their entire organization down to, we are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies

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and gentlemen.

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We're ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.

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Can you just see the 10 things that got upgraded right there?

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You're not servants.

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And so because you're ladies and gentlemen, that means we're going to trust you.

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So you get every single person in their organization gets $2,000 to spend at their discretion to

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make a guest happy.

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So somebody came in and said, oh, my car got really messed and got dinged, send it off

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to the body shop around the corner or get it detailed or whatever.

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Oh, my television broke, just go and get a new TV and install it.

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They can spend $2,000 and it just solves problems.

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Now you can say, well, I can't do $2,000, but you can do 50 bucks.

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Just that little message that you're sending to your team.

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Now here's the question.

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It's 2 a.m. in the morning and we knock on the door of each of your employees.

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We wake them up and we say, what's your motto?

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What on earth are you doing?

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And everybody at the Ritz-Carlton says, we're ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.

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Right?

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Here's how you know you've got this sorted or not.

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If I came there, didn't ask you, but I asked your team this question, would they talk for

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three to five minutes?

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That means they're clueless.

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If it takes lots of sentences, right, why do you do what you do in your organization

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has to be that clear that it tells everybody what the guardrails are right away.

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So the brilliance of this simple statement has three key elements in it, right?

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It clearly states the goal is to serve ladies and gentlemen, right?

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That's very, very clear.

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But it's also full of possibility because it makes it clear that the staff are not merely

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employees or staff, they're serving customers.

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They're not just serving customers.

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In fact, they're serving ladies and gentlemen.

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So embedded in this simple, simple statement is an invitation for every member of the team

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to see themselves as a lady or gentleman.

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And it speaks to the sophistication and the grace of the level of service they want from

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their organization.

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It carries this embedded compliment to every team member, but it also positions and sets

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them up in a different posture so that they can take, you know, a different way at a different

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grace level and a sophistication.

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So it didn't matter if you're part of the cleaning staff, the bellhop, catering, you

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know, reception didn't matter.

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It's all the same thing.

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We're ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.

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Now if I asked the average company, especially big companies, what's your mission?

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And it's just the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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We're here to provide a superior service to our customers and blah and give a higher

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return on blah, blah, blah.

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It's like you went to mission.com online and just generated something or another.

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OK, we got that check.

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It doesn't inspire.

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So you know, you've nailed down your clarity point.

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You've nailed down your mission statement when it postures.

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your team. It sounds like an invitation to be something, to be someone. It explains what

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you're trying to do. And it makes it clear how to go about doing it. It's got a permission

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built in it. The clarity is so powerful. Now you say, well that's really brilliant. I don't

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know if we can come up with that. Hey, I will tell you, it takes months to get these things

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sorted. It takes months. So don't say, well, we're going to do one deep work session. We're

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going to get the whole team together in four hours. We're going to come up with it. You

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might start coming up with it. Does anybody feel right now that, hey, I've already got

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that. I already know what that is. So in the worksheet, if I ask you to give that worksheet

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to every employee and ask them to write it out. If it's not word perfect across the board,

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you've got work to do, which is great because it means you can also upgrade it. Maybe you've

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got one, but it doesn't have that inspirational element. Look, it's a powerful way to enroll

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your team in why you exist. If your business went away, would anyone notice? And so that's

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part of the why you exist. So this clarity is really critical. I love the way Andy Stanley

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says this. He says, the mist in your mind becomes the fog in the organization. The mist

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in your mind becomes the fog in your organization. So remember, what's the first rule of leadership?

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First rule of leadership is, what am I being that this exists? Not why are these people

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not listening to me? Why did my team not do what I tell them? What am I being that this

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exists? So clarity, this mission is about clarity around an unreasonable commitment

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to something that should be. That's something really important. So bold leadership refuses

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to back down just because we don't know how. Don't how the idea to death. Yeah, yeah, but

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how are we going to do that? How are we going to be ladies and gentlemen serving ladies

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and gentlemen? Don't how it to death. Just write out what should be and then figure out

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how to go there. So I know we've made this comment very many times and it's this simple

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idea. If you're in complexity, you're still the student. If you're in simplicity, you've

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become the master. Because when you can simplify complex concepts so that they're accessible

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to everyone, you have leadership. This becomes the foundation of your leadership. Because

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complexity is the enemy of clarity. Now we get it. When your organization is growing,

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complexity comes. I don't know if this is a well-documented level, but in my personal

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experience, you know when it's just you and under five people, it has a different level.

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Everybody knows everything. It's a bunch of generalists. Think about it this way. When

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you start, you do everything. Then you grow a little bit and then you've got a team who

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does everything. Then you grow to the next level and now what you're doing is you're

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now getting more people in their lane and not everybody knows everything. So with complexity,

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it seems like when we get to about 15, that gets to a new complexity level. I know some

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of you have about 25 employees, that gets to a new complexity. When I hit 50 in my company

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for the first time, I hit 50 employees. It's like what happened? It's like the wheels started

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falling off. The reason is, the systems you put in place to support 15 people cannot support

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50 people. The mode of operation, when you were 15, you were still small enough to let

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everybody know what was going on. When you're 50 people, you don't have that. I remember

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one day, we got to about 85 people and I was sitting with a leadership team. So I had a

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president and I had eight people on my management team. CFO, I even have a chief legal officer

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because we were working with big insurance companies, multi-billion dollar insurance

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companies and I was spending 30, 40k a month on legal fees. So I thought, hey, let me get

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that in. I'm looking around at all these things. My chief operating officer, we brought in

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from Washington DC. He was the retired general who led one of the electronic warfare part

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of the first Iraqi war. So I brought in this general. He was one of the best operations

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guys I ever worked with. I had this amazing team, but you know what I knew? I realized

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I started to suffer from

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depth perception in the organization. I couldn't see deeply into the

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organization anymore and I was relying on these people telling me stuff. And so

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one of the things that you can solve that depth perception problem as you

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grow is to make your mission so simple that everybody gets it. And so I would

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just walk around and ask people if they didn't have our mission statement

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memorized. Then I knew that we still had work to do. So we want to get rid of that

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that fog in the organization by clearing the mist in our own minds. Having it more

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or less doesn't count. It doesn't produce the effect. So what we're trying to do

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here over the next 12 months is want to pick your organization up and see you

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get 200 to 500 percent increase in productivity. And we want to build a

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culture that can deliver it. But the starting point for that culture has to

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be what on earth are we doing? And so I want to say this to you. Look I remember

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being part of a transaction. At one point we were partly owned by the largest

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privately held life insurance company that in the United States. And I was

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speaking to the owner and I used to fly with him on his jet and we'd go and see

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CEOs big insurance companies. That's how I got to all the top insurance companies.

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And he would phone the CEO of some you know big insurance company like New York

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Life or these big companies. Hey we want to show you some technology while you're

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having lunch. I want to bring in a young guy. I was young then. And we will

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and we'll do the presentation. And then he sits down and he tells me the story. I

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said hey you know because they just flew back from something else. And he said well

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we are down in Texas and we're buying an insurance company. And they'd bought 13

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insurance companies at that stage. And he said and I met this good old boy.

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And the good old boy had a very simple way of doing business. And sorry they

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were selling a piece of their business to this guy. And so the guy just looks at

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them. They do their whole presentation and the CFO and you know the investment

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banker. And they do all the stuff. And he just sits there and he listens. And when he's

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done he says I just want to know one thing. Is what I'm buying and what you're

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selling the same thing? He's what I'm buying and you see you go but he this is

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a billionaire right? Well what you find is as you get higher up the ranks people

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get simpler not more sophisticated. They leave the sophisticated to the people

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they hire. Well hire an investment banker or hire the attorney and the CFO. I want to

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get it really really tight. So here's what I want to yes where I want us to

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land with this. I want us to ask three questions and I want to give credit to

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Andy Stanley for these three questions. They were so helpful. I've implement this

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in every single business that I've run. And one time over breakfast with him I

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said I'm so glad you don't charge royalties on this because I'd owe you a

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lot of money. And here's what I do. In every single company we take some time

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and we'd answer three key questions. And this is to bring that level of clarity

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about you know what are we doing? What on earth are we doing? The first question is

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what are we doing? Second question why are we doing it? Third question how do I

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fit in? So in next week's video I'm going to talk through a one-line job

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description that makes it super clear how everybody fits in. So for today let's

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talk about what am I doing. Well we are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and

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gentlemen right. Why are we doing this? The why by the way you can normally find

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is the passion behind you know why the founder started. The passion behind why

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we exist and it's important that we exist. That's the passion. That's the

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extraordinary aspect. Now I know Simon Sinek says start with why. I'm totally

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fine if you want to do that. You can certainly start with why. So whatever it

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is whether you start with why and then what it doesn't really matter. But the

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question is what are we doing? What are we doing here? Remember is what I'm

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buying and what you're selling the same thing. We need to reduce. If you want to

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become a great coach to your team remember we're building a team of

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leaders. Well that takes a different leadership you know if you're if you're

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leading a team of leaders than if you're just leading a team. So a team of leaders

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means you start becoming a more and more of a coach. I think that you know I some

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of the best CEOs spend a good percentage of their time. Jack Welsh evidently spent

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70% of his time coaching and training. So if you say well I'm too busy for that

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You may need to hire someone to offload stuff from you so you can do this

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critical function of being the coach. What are we doing? Why are we doing it?

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Can your team answer those two questions with the exact same phrase across the

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board? Or do they have to stumble? Or do they have to talk for five minutes? So I

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love that this clarity will produce so much. That simplicity will drive so much

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speed in the organization. It's almost like a magic pill. Every time we've done

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this in an organization, it's extraordinary what's come out of it. So

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when we have, you know, this level of simplicity, then it tells us if we're

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making progress. It informs us and tells us how to do our jobs. How to, you

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know, how to be ladies and gentlemen serving. It tells us how to serve. And

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finally, it directs us on how to build the business. We know how to contribute.

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We know we want to get other great ladies and gentlemen to help us serve

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ladies and gentlemen. We want to learn new techniques, new processes. We want to

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simplify the process of serving ladies and gentlemen. So I hope that was really

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helpful on getting really clear and let simplicity drive the speed in your

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organization by knowing exactly what are we doing and why are we doing it.