#39: How to Move People Beyond Their Excuses

Hi, I'm Sy Wakeman, and you're listening to No Ego, a podcast where I teach you how to ditch the drama, end entitlement, and drive big results in your workplace and in your world place. Today I'm talking with Chris Lapula. He does business development for Dell Technologies, but more important than that, Chris and I have worked together, what, 13 years? 3 or 4 different companies, and it's been a wild ride. I'm bringing Chris on because, Chris, you get stuff done. And, uh, yeah, that's your title. And I just love your approach to leadership. So how would you, like, sum it up? So if you had to do a quick commercial for yourself for our viewers and listeners, what would you How would you describe

yourself? Yeah, if I had to sum it up, I'd say this. Number one, it is so easy to give reasons why things can't be done. Probably my biggest pet peeve. Everybody will give you what's wrong with America today, but nobody will tell you how to fix it. And you know what, if I can tell a brief story. Yeah, absolutely. So I met Cy and I was working downtown at a company and she introduced me to this concept, right? Or you introduced me to this concept of I play favorites. And so I was managing an online group of people doing online banking and things like that. And there was this kid. I mean, when I say kid, he was probably in his mid-20s. Energetic, bright. His name was Matt. Loved him. Everything I asked Matt to do, he's like, yeah, you bet, you bet. Everybody else, right? I don't know if we can do that. Seems hard. Seems hard.

Might not have time.

So I got invited to some swanky golf event, right? And they said, well, you can bring a guest. And I said, yeah, I'm going to bring Matt. And they're like, well, what's Matt's title? And I said, well, he's a developer. Yeah, you need to be a VP or above. And I said, well, then I'm not coming. And so they let Matt go. And so fast forward about a week, and I'm sitting there in my staff meeting, and I let my direct reports convince me that it would be more impactful for the group if they could have their direct reports. We'd all feel more connected. And I said, okay.

At the meeting, if everybody could bring everybody.

At the meeting, oh yeah. That way they could really get, you know, my feedback, my views on things. And so we're waiting for the meeting to start and this guy walks in. I remember it like it was yesterday. And he says, so you got golf for the rest of us or just Matt? And I said, oh, just Matt, because he's one of my favorites. And you know what my favorite people do? They're change agents, can-do attitude, and they don't pull crap like you just pulled. So let's get started.

And that's why I love Chris, because I do say, I'm like, people accuse us of playing favorites. They're like, Cy, you play favorites. I'm like, yes, I do. Do you want to be one? I love that. Nope, we have golf just for Matt.

Yeah, and so I would say, yeah, my approach to things is I am— I've always been very focused on the outcome instead of the process, how to get there, right?

And the hierarchy and the rules. Yeah, it's like whoever steps up to the table, let's run with that,

right? Absolutely. There's a fantastic book that I'm a really big fan of called Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal.

I haven't read it.

Oh, it's awesome. So he— the whole story is it's kind of a 2 pieces that I really like. One, he was the general who hunted down Zarqawi in Iraq, right? Awesome. And the whole reason that we weren't able to hunt him down is because the US military has been structured in this organizational layout since like the 1800s. So Frederick Winslow, he was the father maybe of industrial revolution, of the Industrial Revolution. And, you know, he was really big on measure and top-down and containerized and modular architecture, all of these things. And that worked really well. Up until the point where the world has become far too complex and everything changes far too fast.

It's a very archaic leadership philosophy, not modern at all.

Absolutely. And so it's really kind of— I think we're either on the cusp or we've come over the top of this, that we're changing the way that we live and that we work and we lead people because it's all about— and I would say people ask me a lot, what's your leadership style? And I said, you know what I've hit on, and especially with millennials and how do you manage these people? If you tell people what you want to have done, the outcome, and let them discover the path, that is so much more powerful, right?

Because it's either been years since you've done the work or you've never done that work.

Right.

And so a lot of people, they're like, we should consult people to pick what they want to do. And I'm like, no, tell them what needs to be done, but have them use their signature on what great way to get it done. That's really where they can put their Input.

You know, the piece to that too, and it's all easy to say, right? Hey, enable people, empower them, let them find their own way. But as leaders and managers, and I would coach some of my leaders that I've had underneath me over the years, and it's a lesson I've had to learn myself, that all sounds great until one of those people that you've empowered messes up, right? They quote unquote failed, and then your boss comes down on you, and the first knee-jerk reaction is To go kind of beat them down.

Yeah.

Okay, now, now all you've done, you've told them that, hey, things are awesome until they're not, and now you need to fall back in line and do things.

It's like a bait and switch.

So the hardest thing in my mind as a leader, you know, to empower people is you're the one who has to take the slings and arrows and protect those people and let them find their own way and guide them. Yeah, right. Instead of direct them and paint by numbers.

Create that safe space. A lot of leaders get really confused because they want to empower people, but you can't pass off the ultimate responsibility for it. You can pass off some accountabilities for people to step up. But I think that's a good point. So I want to know why you love this book. Back to— how did they capture him? Did they move away from the hierarchy and put together a team?

Absolutely they did. And it was scary, right, for the US military and the US intelligence community because they started getting on these huge calls once a week, or maybe it was once a day, I forget. Details aren't important, but they just shared constantly. And no longer did you have to say, I've got this piece of information and I need to do 3 steps to check on it to see if I can act on it. You were given complete autonomy to go act upon whatever intel that you had. Whatever you heard. Right. And so he takes that story and ties it into the way that we run business and we lead people today, right? And again, he uses all kinds of great examples. Actually, I gave a presentation on this, Leadership in the Digital Economy, that if you look at nature itself, and the great example that I used in this presentation was the Missouri River floods of 2011. Mm-hmm. That the— a natural entity cannot be controlled and should not be. If we allowed the river to find its own way and its own channel, its own discovery, like when Lewis and Clark came up, we wouldn't have had the floods that we had. So we try to, as leaders and I guess as people, parents, leaders, etc., we try to control all the outcomes. And I think it's far more powerful and lasting is probably the adjective, right? It's more lasting to just let things find their natural course as long as you focus on the outcome and the learning that happens along the way. That to me is— it's not about your success, right? It's ultimately about everybody around you's success.

Sure. Sure. And I think what happens is leaders get confused. They overmanage and try and control what is organic or the natural way of things, and they underlead. And so if you know where we need to go and you've got all this energy, instead of trying to control it or be on top of it, which is external accountability, Right. it's more like internal accountability. Like, I need to help you step up into personal accountability. So wherever you are in the natural order of things, I can trust That you're operating at this high level of consciousness.

Right, right. I mean, something you taught me, and boy, it is hard, right? It is hard every day to always try to find the good in people. Yeah, I don't know why it's such an instinct. Well, she did that, and you know why she did it, right?

Yeah, always creating the story.

Always creating the story instead of looking— you know, I'll give you a great example. So we were at a baseball tournament this weekend in Des Moines, and my son's on the mound, and Pretty good pitcher. And the other coach walks by and says, oh, home run derby right here, kids, light them up. And I was like— and the parent in me came out, and boy, I said some things under my breath for a while. And then I sat and I found myself saying, maybe that's what he's telling his team to motivate them. Hey, get up here and be positive. And I'll tell you what, that is such a happier place to be.

Yeah, it's a happier place to sit and watch the game than think that the opponent's coach is out to get your kid.

Yeah, absolutely.

But we default— it's that low self. We just default so quickly into I've got to defend and I've got to fight and I've got to control and I've got to control information and only let it go down a certain way or control the Missouri River. Yeah. There's always repercussions to that ability to control. And I think that's so hard as a leader to really focus on calling the people to greatness. One thing you don't have control over, but you can have high standards and say, you know, People like Matt get rewarded. I'm going to call all of you to this level of greatness, and I expect you to do great work, and we've got to deliver this, but I'm not gonna control this and then beat you up later. And it's a very different way of operating. I think it takes a lot of personal work to, like you said, to always be rethinking your mindset. A lot of leaders come in and they haven't really done that work. They just react to a coach saying something to their kid. They're just reactionary.

I'll tell you some of my own personal journey that I've gone through, right? I think especially highly accountable people, right? You always want to show, hey, I'm accountable, I'm on top of things, I'm going to hold my people accountable. And accountability in my mind is such a negative word. I don't know.

It sounds punitive. It's like, but when you hold somebody accountable, it's like punishment or discipline, right? Or the assumption is they're inferior and you've got to control them. They're feral or something.

Yeah, exactly.

And they aren't feral.

I'll tell you one of, and I think it was truly maybe an epiphany kind of moment. So maybe I've told you the story when I was up in Alaska moose hunting and we're rowing. Uh-uh. So it was a 15-day float trip. They dropped us off out in the middle of the tundra, 15 days to float down this river in the wilds of Alaska. And just you and a buddy in a raft and whatever. And so there was long days. It was one of those rafts where you had to row backwards kind of thing. And the rivers up there, they wind. And so whenever we came to a turn, it was exhausting. And we're rowing and we're arguing with each other about which side of the little island we should go on. I mean, it was exhausting trying to row through that corner. And then I don't know how or what happened, but one day, if you notice a really sharp turn or any bend in the river, there's slack water. And I took 2 rows into the slack water and I came in there and I just drifted and the current picked me up on the other side and I was gone.

Oh, that's a cool analogy.

Wow. You know, and then I, like I said, I'm— there was hours of rowing, right? And you start thinking about things. I'm like, boy, if that's not a great analogy of life. We are so busy rowing hard around the corner. If you just took 2 strokes into the slack water and kind of let things pull you around.

I preach that all the time. If you're at a higher level of consciousness and you're using some of this reality-based leadership stuff we're teaching you, then it becomes effortless. Like, it's not that hard. So much of the work we think we have to do as leaders we create ourselves. Like, I've got to fight the current, I've got to steer this boat, right? Instead of like, let me just get me in the right position and then watch this thing, right, go. Like, using the natural energy of it. Yeah. It's so interesting. So what excuses— I know you don't put up with them very much. I've worked with you long enough. But what are some of the typical excuses you hear? So you work— you've spent most of your career in IT, you've been a CIO, you've been in business, you've been on the sales side. You've been on the ops side, you've been on the architect side, like you've done big stuff, right? And big projects, not a lot of like slack on when you can get stuff done or delivered. And it's always been IT, like banking or construction, where you've got— you can't have systems out. Like you've got to have systems out or money down the tubes, right? Right. So what are some of the typical excuses? And then what would you, besides just pounding on people. Like, how do you get people beyond those excuses? So what are the typical ones?

Because by the way, pounding on people doesn't work.

It doesn't work, right? It doesn't work.

It's— and I love baseball, right? And baseball is such an analogy for me to how life works, right? And it's coaching 13-year-old kids. You can't pound them. You got to let them find their own way. So back to your question about what are some of the excuses. Well, time and money.

Time and money.

I love the money one. Well, that's too expensive. I'm like, How do you know? Did you ask? Well, we don't have the money for that. Do you keep the checkbook? How do you know? How do you know? It's always, they'll never go for that. Did you ask? Right. And, uh, you know what?

Or better yet, did you put together a business case and really use some business discipline thinking to make your case?

Right. I'll tell you what, I would say one of the most constructive exercises that you can go through in business to try to make a presentation to somebody is the whole doing a dry run and having somebody sit there and be the devil's advocate or role-play the person that you're going to present it to and shoot holes in this because it really helps you build and craft the correct—

and overcome those objectives.

Absolutely.

So I think as leaders we've got to practice some of the excuses we hear and having like a ready-made tool in place or how you overcome the objectives just like in a sales presentation You have people be the customer and overcome what you didn't cover.

Right. I will modestly say I have solved, I believe I have solved the unsolvable IT riddle of how do you answer why does this stuff cost so much? I mean, I've made a whole career out of, as you know me, things that annoy me I try to fix, and most things annoy me, so I fix a lot

of things.

Exactly. I get so tired of being asked, why does that cost so much money? And as a typical IT person, your answer is, I mean, it's just what it costs, right? And if you start to break down and really understand what the costs are for the systems, it becomes a— it really becomes a multiplication problem, right? Yeah. And so, again, I guess getting back to your question of the excuses and maybe the approaches and the answers, I always say that any problem can be solved with, I don't know what I don't know, so I'm going to go inventory. So understanding cost, understanding time. Once I know what I don't know, I'm going to put a plan in place, and I'm going to execute on that plan, and I'm going to make it measurable. Because that's another thing I don't see people doing very often. I see successful people doing this, that you have to measure everything. And maybe it's— you find out that you didn't do as well as you thought. It's not a negative thing. I mean, to me, I lived my whole life, I think, just the way I was raised, by constantly wanting to see improvement and constantly pushing. You know, and people who work for you take that hard too. You know, it's delicate how you craft that message with them that I care about you and that's why I'm pushing you to try to make you better.

That is the delicate, because a lot of times people know you care about them when you push them, but you can't push them after a slam or a shame. Yeah. It can't be from your ego to their ego where you're like, you stink and need to be better. It's like, I care about you, and so I'm going to call you up and help you understand you're capable of so much more than this.

You know, it's funny. So it's— I keep forgetting one of my favorite lessons that I learned from you is giving feedback. Here's what's working, here's what's not working yet, and here's what's possible.

That's a great way. I wrote that in my first book, The Feedback Frame, and it's just really simple. It's one line. for each of those that really help people understand.

So I'm sitting there Sunday afternoon after we went 0-3 in a baseball tournament, and it just came to me, and I'm like, okay guys, here's what's working, here's what's not working yet, and here's what's possible, right?

And the yet is really important. Here's not what's not working yet, because it shows people you have hope, and that's like you're gonna get there,

right? Yeah. So

I love it because so many of your life lessons, you're a lot like me where I learn a lot and I do a lot in business, but my real reflective moments are either in my family with my kids, or— I love— you have a whole past career. People need to find you on YouTube. You used to do videography and for like big hunts, like amazing. Yep. You have like all these very diverse lives. You know, when you get down to excuses, what I have found is that Excuses are the fog around lack of accountability. Yeah. And so your ego believes them as the truth, right? And your ego does horrible math, and it does— it has a horrible memory, and it has— it's a horrible predictor of the future, right? It's just so— predicts no one will go for this idea, or remembers one time in 1983 where you brought an idea up and somebody shot it down. Yeah. And when you really work with people and they have an excuse and you start to say, Wait a minute, what have you tried and who have you talked to? What data have you pulled? And, you know, how have you applied business thinking to this problem? What happens is those excuses almost just dissolve. They can't be held up like in the light of day.

Right, exactly. Once you have the data, it's the whole reality-based living, right?

Once you edit the story.

What do you know to be factual? For sure. Right? I mean, I do that almost every day. I think about all the stories that I tell myself. I think about the stories that my wife tells herself and And, you know, employees and people that you work with. It's funny because my current job, for some reason, you get to the end of the quarter and everybody's like, woe is me. And it's tough. This time of year is tough for technology sales, just the way that businesses flow. And I've spent more time talking people off the ledge. Well, you know, he's getting ready to leave and you know this. I'm like, no, I don't know that. Do you know that? Have you— do you really know that? How do you know that for a fact? And, and, uh, just really helping to try to bring people back down to, to the reality of what the situation really is instead of all these made-up, uh, things that are happening to them. Nothing's really happening to you.

And the thing is, is that one thing I know for sure is that our story of reality is so much harsher than our reality. When you edit your stories and get rid of your excuses and you strip it down, work is just work, and it's not that much work, right? It's just a problem to be solved. Something to reach out about, something to think creatively about. I mean, it's just like doing a really cool jigsaw puzzle, and nobody really gets stressed about a jigsaw puzzle. You know, we just did one this last weekend, and it was like you just put the puzzle out there, people stop by, they work it a little bit, everybody works as a team, and it's such a simple thing. But at work, we add so much crazy onto just busy. Right. Or you know, for instance, everybody I talk to in technology sales knows that this is a time of year you have to really plan for, and you have to really work to close and work to make sure that your funnel and your pipelines are full. And yet every year people go through like chronic shock syndrome. They're like they're like surprised and panic and blaming, and it happens every year. And going back to to baseball, my kids sometimes would. I had baseball players too, and they'd come and they'd say, you know, well, the ump, you know, threw that whole game. They had that bad call and that screwed up our whole game, and that's why we lost. Right. And my feedback was, you know what, then put enough runs on the board that you can even withstand a bad ump call. Yeah. So in sales, it's like, stop running it so close to the margin that you can't withstand a quarter that you already know is gonna be difficult to close. Right. It's like Make sure you've got that pipeline so full that you're immune to that.

Exactly. 2 comments on that. Number one, the baseball piece made me think of one of my favorite sayings. So I think it was the last time South Carolina won the College World Series. And I mean, it seemed like their entire season they were cursed with injuries and this, that. Win anyway. And my kids get so tired of hearing that. I love that. Win anyway.

Anyway.

Yeah, well, the—

I call it like succeed in spite of the facts. Succeed anyway, win anyway. Right. I love that.

Yeah, it's, uh—

I'm psychic. I know things. I tell teams— I know, I really am psychic. I tell teams, let me predict something. You won't have enough— psychic or psycho? But I tell them I'm psychic. I can guarantee you this next year you won't have enough time, you won't have enough money, um, you won't have enough, you know, clients just call you up and give you an order, right? You won't have— not everybody will do their fair share. You'll have a stupid boss once in a while. Your corporation will make dumb decisions. Like, you can predict all of this. And as you walk through life, these are all things that hook people's ego and take them into the ditches. And I'm like, or you could just know that you're going to have those things and plan to win anyway. I love that. Is it the Tar Heels? Who was it?

It was South Carolina, the Gamecocks.

The Gamecocks. I love that. Win anyway.

Yeah. So you asked the question at the beginning of all this, how do I get things done? And you hit on something right there. I always plan everything. I mean, always plan everything. And, and it's easy to plan for things to go well. And I've looked at— I love project management. I love project management because I would say if you want to get an MBA in business, become a project manager.

Yeah, just for a couple years. In fact, that's how I got the most credibility with engineers and ITs and all of that. I went out Gateway 2000 a million years ago, and they needed me to help with organizational development. But they're having all these problems on projects. So I got into project management by default. They're like, go to this project. Suddenly I was managing and had to learn PMBOK and all of that. And it taught me everything I ever needed to know about business.

Well, look at it. You've got to understand financials. You've got to communicate to people at all different levels, everywhere from an engineer to an executive to business people. Most importantly, I think you have to lead through influence instead of control. Yeah, you have no control. Yeah, it's, uh—

So you do plan for everything because we've sat down, I've sat down with you and you're like, so Here's what's probably gonna go wrong. And you don't plan for like optimism. You're an optimistic person, but you're like, here's what's gonna go wrong side.

That's called being an engineer, by the way.

Okay. Okay. Is it? Because I'm just like, I'm like, well, I never thought about that. Yeah. And you're like, and when this happens, here's what we can do. And I'm like, okay.

So the reason 99% of project plans go poorly is everybody assumes everything will go according to plan and it never does. Horrible assumption. And by the way, that's just called life. That's not a negative thing. That's just called life. So I get tagged or labeled sometimes as, well, you're always looking at the negative. Yeah, I'm looking at the negative so that I can plan because I know things never go according to plan, right? So you got to plan around that to be successful, to win anyway, right? Instead, people sit there and they go, well, this didn't happen and that didn't happen and life happened to me. Yeah, no, that's just called life. And so you can control it or you can let it control you.

Just know it's coming.

Right.

And don't let it become your excuse. It's like, just account for it and respond differently and just move it right along. You know, we've got to wrap up, but I wanted to make another point because you're such a good example of this. As I go out and I preach reality-based leadership, some people see it as like tough love. And I'm like, you know what? Reality's tough, but leadership's love.

Right.

And because you and I are both really hard-driving and we're enthusiastic and You know, we get stuff done. Sometimes people can interpret that as like hard or uncaring. Yep. I've known you a lot of years. I call you an iron marshmallow because on the outside you're like hard iron and on the inside you're like fluffy marshmallow. And I think that's something I want to end with. It's something you've had to work a little bit on. I have too, because my heart is huge and I just think that's assumed. Yeah. And so I get into getting stuff done, but both you and I have had to back up at times And say, wait a minute, I want you to know I care about you, I care about your family, I care about all of that. Yeah. Any lessons learned in that? Because I think you and I, we come from similar backgrounds where we're just like, yeah, we love you, now get crap done.

Yeah, I'll tell you what. So, um, I will tell you 2 things and an epiphany. I keep using that word, but I think truly it was. But, um, so it was back when I was at the bank and you were coaching me, and you told me that You said, you know what, Chris, everybody knows you get things done. This year you need to focus on relationships and that's it. And you told me I needed to walk amongst the fires, kind of like Moses did with his people. And I'll never forget, so I was working in that online group and I'd always, I'd hate doing it. I sat there at my desk and I saw it on my calendar and I'd get up and I'd always start with the marketing people because they're happy and excited to see you. Yeah, they go, what are you doing here? And I'd work my way all the way down to the programmers because they were sitting there going, What's he want? Yeah, somebody's getting fired. Yeah, this isn't good, right?

Pack your boxes.

And as I've coached people on the same lessons that you've taught me, that is such a hard thing but such a powerful thing to do. And the epiphany that hit me, and I use it on my 13-year-old all the time when he doesn't want to go to a party or— so I found myself this summer and I was just busy and I had things to do and I had people calling me and I was annoyed that they were calling me and I'm like, I've got things. And it just hit me. I said, Chris, People, relationship, friendship are the only thing that matter in life. Everything else takes care of itself. So when my 13-year-old goes, "I don't want to go to that party," I'm like, "Buddy, friendship, relationships, people, love." I mean, that is what that is really. Yeah, is what it's all about. And so yeah, I've had to overcome that. It's not easy for me. It's I had somebody that I was mentoring, and she said, "You know, that's so easy for you. That comes so easy for." And I said, so I whipped out my StrengthsFinders and I said, you know what my bottom 5 strengths are? Communication, relationship, harmony, all these good deal touchy-feely things. And she's like, but you're so good at it. And I said, I work really, really hard at it. I was coached a long time ago that that is the most important thing. And I'll tell you what, I'm so much happier because of it, even though—

That's the key. You can get stuff done and that feeling of accomplishment lasts for like Yeah. 2 minutes. Yeah. But you can help somebody out or grow somebody, and that lasts forever. And I think the most important part— and I'm getting to this point in my life where I am getting— I feel I'm older, where, you know, we were talking like we've known each other for 13 years. And the cool thing about having relationships is no matter where you're working, we cannot talk for 6 months, but that phone rings either way, right? And it's just that relationship where it's like, what can I help you with? And, and it's important if you want to get stuff done, you guys, to have a ton of positive relationships where you've done good things by people, they've done good things by you, because most of the time you're getting things done through people. I'm gonna end with— you remind me of Lou Holtz. Have you ever seen his 3— 100 years ago when Lou was a motivational speaker? Now he's kind of a poor sports announcer.

I was gonna say, which Lou are we talking about?

We're talking about the Lou that slobbers and drools. No, not the one that slobbers The one in his prime. I love Lou Holtz. But he used to go out and give this talk, and he's like, people want to— they— you have to answer 3 questions for people. They have to know, do you care about me? And that has to be a yes. And they have to know, can I trust you? And then, are you committed to excellence? And those 3 questions, if you guys haven't done it, go search YouTube and find Lou Holtz in his prime. His talk was amazing. And 30 years later, I remember Lou Holtz's questions. When I meet people, I want them to know I care about them, that they can trust me. I am consistent. Right. And I'm transparent, and that I care about excellence. I'm not going to go easy on them. And I think if you've got those 3 things— and so that's the assignment for people that have joined us today, is just answer these questions. When you think of the people on your team, are they convinced you care about them? Do they trust you? And Can they honestly say you're committed to excellence, that you will not let them slide with some of those things? So, Chris, I wish we had a day. I wish we were in Alaska on a boat in the slackwaters because we would have a great video up there. But just thanks again for coming in and sharing your success. It's been awesome to see you and how your career has been just amazing. So thanks. Thank you so much for joining the episode today. If you're loving this podcast, just make sure that you check me out on Facebook and Instagram and especially YouTube.