It’s been over a decade since I sat in front of Bernie Ebbers and told him that he had 13,000 sales people and he needed 3,000. I told him that our biggest competitors were the other WCOM sales divisions.
He told me something very close to this…
“Chester,” he began with his typical good old boy southern drawl, “I refuse to leave the dance without the boys that brought me.” This was a “Kairos moment” for me.
He would not make the tough call. And, his company is now extinct. Today, as I told this story to a young stud client of mine he took it all in. He asked some good questions and extrapolated to his system. A decade from now, I will remember this week with this client. Wednesday, my client experienced a “Kairos moment” that he will remember for the rest of his life.
He made a tough call and began to make this a durable discipline. He told his team the truth about his expectations and why he’s holding them all accountable to perform. He is building a BTL system that is all about performance and all about caring deeply for those that brought him this far. The BTL builder always struggles with being tough, fair, and deeply caring for their team. They just do.
OPUS is the one this builder wants and his disciplined PoP combined with his sCORE is the shortest way home. Funny that it feels like the long way ’round…
BUILT TO LEAD 
Toto’s post was brought to you by “2D” & “28-55-17″…
2D is “defend, deny (do nothing). . .” It’s the PASSIVE version of “defend, deny, DESTROY” because the destroying still happens, but it happens to yourself & your team by OMISSION.. .e.g. failure to ACT.
2D logic is the same as that followed by those in disasters who have not taught their brains to PERCEIVE REALITY, PROCESS ALTERNATIVES, and choose PRODUCTIVE ACTIONS from a strong CORE — 3P, not 2D, is the one you want.
The average team is 28-55-17 b/c the average leader won’t do the real, hard work to hold themselves & their team accountable to the real sCORE. OMISSION to “rock the boat” leads to 55% of the team falling asleep to “rock-a-by baby”, and the best 28% saying “rock-a-BYE baby, see ya LATER”. The other 17% becomes actively disengaged because of perceived injustices but they WON’T leave. . .
leaving the 2D leader with EXACTLY the team he or she deserves.
Great post, Toto, and reminder that unless and until the leader STARTS BE-Lieving, the BEST of the team will soon BE-Leaving.