#9: How Leaders Can Manage Energy with Craig Ross

Hi, I'm Sy Wakeman, and you're listening to No Ego, a podcast where we teach you how to ditch the drama, end entitlement, and drive big results in your workplace and your world place. Hello listeners, I'm really excited about this episode of the No Ego Podcast. I am being joined by a wonderful colleague, Craig Ross, and it's one thing when you come together and you get to enjoy one another professionally and personally, and then you find out that your philosophies really match and support one another, and then you find out that Craig and a couple other folks have written an amazing book called Do Big Things. Now, Craig is with Verus Global, and he is, as I said, a colleague. But what I am really excited about is the ability to introduce you to the concepts that he brings to Do Big Things, his newest book. Because, as you know, I talk a lot about managing energy and that leaders don't manage people as much as they manage the energy of people. And how often we have to really facilitate movement away from why we can't to how we could. and really get people focused on what they want to create. And then how are we going to make that happen? And really preventing how things can stall out in our teams meetings, but also just their work in general. And we're trying to get so much done through teams today. And we assign random people together. We give them a task. And then many times as leaders, because we aren't helping them bypass ego and move into really managing their own energy, we're baffled when things stall. And fizzle out. And so as I read some of Craig's work, I got really excited to bring to you some of his concepts. So welcome today, Craig. I am just thrilled to have you on the No Ego podcast.

Cy, it is a tremendous pleasure joining you. Thank you.

You are welcome. As you know, I talk a lot about energy management and the leader's role and our own role in managing our own energy as we come to the table. And that's why it's so exciting to have Craig with me on this episode of No Ego. is because he really gets this whole concept of energy management and how not just leaders, but individuals have to pay attention to the energy they bring to every project and also conserving your energy and putting it into where it would actually make a difference. So Craig, I want to get us started in this episode. Talk to me a bit about your concepts around energy management. And you give some really great examples in the book about which car I would jump in to drive. And I'm just anxious to hear your take on this whole concept?

You got it. It's a perfect place to start because changing behaviors is not an intellectual exercise. Changing behaviors is the business of the heart. And, and what we're talking about there is the emotional component behind the decisions we're making. And those decisions, of course, are driving everything we're doing. At the root of all our actions, of course, is the energy. And what determines the direction of our energy? That's our focus. And so imagine you have a map, we call it the energy map, and the map has 3 components. Right in the middle, it's what Shakespeare said so long ago. You know, Cy, he could have written a book himself and he did better than that. It's nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

And all waste of energy, right? Because emotional waste is really drama. I love that thinking makes it so. Nothing's good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Precisely. And so what's going to make it so is that focus. And As an individual, as a team member, as a leader, as a father, as a husband, whatever, I can take that focus one of two directions. I can focus on what's not working, the problems in my life, what I don't like about this team, why this project won't work, so on and so forth, which, because that's my focus, takes energy further away from both solutions. But importantly, it drives wedges between us as human beings.

You know, Buddha said that separation is the great delusion. And when we get focused on why something won't work, story about reality is so much harsher than reality, it's usually not reality, but our story about it that our ego is spinning. And our ego would have us protected so that it focuses on what the problems are so that it doesn't place accountability on us for having to succeed, but it blames our circumstances for why we can't. And so I love this concept, which is why I jumped in that, you know, the thinking makes it so. And if you're problem-oriented, you're probably operating out of ego because even if there's a challenge ahead, We can see it in reality, but to think that it's going to doom us is the part the ego adds. It's the rest of the story. So absolutely, go back. Sorry to interrupt. I love it.

Oh no, you don't need to apologize because you're getting me fired up here. So what's necessary— we talk about this in our 7 steps of our Do Big Things framework, and that comes from the study of teams that are doing big things. is, Cy, they function from a shared reality. They're energized by the shared reality. And this is why this map becomes so important, because suddenly collectively we can both identify where we are in our focus together. Am I neutral? Am I backside? Or am I on the front side of the energy map? And then collectively we can decide what are going to be the consequences of our focus as it relates to our energy.

Love it. I talk about the idea of getting things visual and conscious so that you can be intentional in No Ego, my book, and that breaks projection. It also gets things out of your head so the ego doesn't control it. And what I love about this map is the accountability it brings to the table. I can be any place I want to be on that map. But I need to consciously understand that if I'm problem-focused, there are some consequences to that. And I have to own it. I look at the map and am I forward-looking or am I problem-focused? And if so, then what are my consequences to that? So that our results are no longer a big surprise. They're just a mathematical equation that came out of our own focus. And I just, I love the intentionality and the— having this as a visual, because when we get things out of our head into the visual space, it really changes what we think of our reality. That's why it's so important to write things down. As you go to write, you may see how ridiculous something is. I just— I read from Warren Buffett. He said, if you're going to invest in something, write down all the reasons that you think you should invest in it, and By writing it down, you'll start to see where you're playing yourself, where you're just, you know, recreating reality. And I loved when he said that and how real it makes it. So this map, folks, is a reality-based tool that you can use to really have people accountable to where they are and make conscious choices about where they would like to go. Am I interpreting that correctly, Craig?

Yep. You're spot on. And it's that ability to address them, it opens up the door for teams. I was just working with, with a leader here just earlier this week, a vice president. I'm going to go ahead and just call him Sam for the sake of this story. You know, at the beginning of the discussion, it's classic. We see this a lot, don't we, Sy? He's got all the typical high-performance jargon. So they've got their charter, of course, and he's got the strategy. He knows he's got the talent. Yet when you peel back the layers a little bit, there's— in fact, I mean, his voice cracks and there's pain in there, right? We recognize it because we experience it ourselves when we flip. And it turns out he's working 60, 70 hours a week. They've just lost a key customer. They don't know if they're going to be able to deliver. And his team has succumbed to— we call it the 3 enemies of fulfillment. Fulfillment as a person and fulfillment as a role as a team. And that's because they've not been able to have that shared reality, and therefore the enemy, if you will, in this case, it's— they're incredibly distracted, they're hopelessly stressed, and they've become disconnected from what matters most. What you're pointing at, Cy, is really, really critical, that as a team we have a common language so that together we can get beyond our individual egos and collectively move on with the work that we're meant to do.

I really picked up in the book the DSD, that the enemies are when we become personally distracted or hopelessly stressed or disconnected from one another. And I see team after team not understand that even though they're following great project management methodology, even though they have good process, what is going on? What is the resistance? What is happening that is really draining their success? And when we came out with our work on drama and the fact that the average person spends 2.5 hours a day in drama, which is being stressed or being distracted or feeling disconnected, you know, judging and story and all of that, that that's this invisible leak that people don't understand why they have all the parts in place, but they aren't creating the results that they desired. And it's invisible to them that there's this drama element. Yes, it is. This emotional waste. It's, it's almost like the leak you don't see in your shower until, you know, the ceiling underneath that bathroom falls in, it's that leak that really is siphoning out all this energy. And I love that you really call it out in additional great words that DSD is the enemy. I think it's a key thing for our leaders to take away. If I find myself as an individual or, you know, a member on a team where we have run into this DSD, are there some ways Besides using the energy map, which is a great tool to bring people back to center, regroup, and align, and really get energy moving forward?

Absolutely. And Sai, you and I are big fans of questions. We often say questions trigger hearts and minds. And so one that I'd like to offer right now, and having coached several executives on this over the years around the world, it always works. It's right in the middle of what we call the energy map. So it's neutral in its energy. And it simply is this. Can we as a team choose to be great? We have some fun with this with our clients because if your team is actually debating that, you might want to find a new team.

And that fits with one of our favorite questions, you know, what would great look like? And then we just say, go be great. But I think it calls the question, are you in or are you out? Can this team choose right now to be great is amazing. And listeners know that questions take us out of ego very quickly into self-reflection. And when you're in self-reflection, your heart's open and your mind's open. And I love how you make the connection between questions open our hearts and minds. I love that. And so you're asking a team, can we choose to be great right now? And what do you see happening or what are some of the next steps?

Almost always professionals, you know, they're achievers. They're going to say yes. So then I encourage leaders, I encourage your listeners, then say, let's use some research. Experts are saying that we're making 35,000 decisions a day. Okay, if that— that's a lot of decisions. Okay guys, of those 35, what are the most important decisions we need to make to deliver on our choice to be great? And what we've done is we've broken it down to 3 do big things decisions, and they're easy to remember. And the 3 decisions are these, Cy. Can I share them?

Absolutely.

The first one's what we call the contributor. Decision. And it is a choice where I choose to bring my best to the situation. And in a moment, I'd love to hear— I mean, because talk about a decision to go beyond ego. That's my call to activate the awareness that I have. I know how to function from my values. The second decision is what we call the activator decision. And that's where I choose to bring out the best in you or others in this situation. And I'm telling you what, as we've seen teams literally make that activator decision, now we're setting each other up for success. We've got each other's backs. We are all in. It really is a transformational decision. The third one, third one's the connector decision. So as a team, as we make the contributor decision and the activator decision, now collectively we choose to partner across the business to deliver our shared objectives. That means, of course, that enterprise thinking. Those choices really have delivered transformational results, outcomes for teams.

I love it. And it really is a way for almost teams to edit their story, to get out of all the stuff they've made up about why we can't. And it fits so nicely together with what we know also to be true. And that's when it's a universal principle, folks. When you have a lot of great thought leaders finding similar ideas, but giving you so many ways to implement these ideas, that first decision You know, what can I do? It's really, am I in and am I out, or am I out? Either one. And commitment, we talk about as our first factor of accountability. Am I willing to do what it takes? Am I all in? Buy-in is a verb. Nobody can buy me in. I have to be in regardless of the circumstances. And I love, you know, that contributor question that you have. And then the activator really is all about how can I work for others' benefits? How can I partner and set people up for success? And that really comes out of what can I do to help? And that whole stop judging, start helping. And then when you look up and out, who can I partner with and who can I grab enterprise-wide as a resource? And the difference is, is if I'm committed personally and I'm working for people's benefits, when I reach out to partner, it's not being critical or it's not with order lists of what you have to fix. It really is, I have a dream. And we are in, and we'd love for you to be in as well. And that is a totally different setup to partnership when your own work is done than what we usually do when we're problem solving and we go out to other places in the organization and blame them for what's going on and ask them to fix their part of the world. And a lot of times we ask other people to do that which we're not even willing to do, which is why it fails. Those are just 3 wonderful steps to move through. I love it. Love it. These are great, great things. What else would you add as far as in the book or in your work with so many clients around the world have been just big ahas for them, the things that you love to, you know, watch people's paradigms kind of shift completely?

Working with a client in California in the healthcare industry, and so it's a rather large hospital system. And as we supported their leadership team, one of the questions that I wanted to bring to your listeners is just that question of what role do you play on this team? And this, of course, is another key component in teams that do big things. They again are energized around a shared reality. Well, Sai, you and I both know that oftentimes, almost always, people will say, well, okay, I'm— here's my functional responsibilities. So they relate to the team I'm in finance, or I'm the HR guy, or I'm operations. And then introducing them to that understanding that indeed, for teams that do big things, the most important role on a team is actually teammate.

And the willingness to do that. In Reality-Based Leadership, we talk a lot that willingness trumps function. Because function, we can find a lot of places. We can find it in you at the table, but we can find it on Google. We can get HR information from SHRM. But that willingness to team is the most powerful piece, and our functional expertise comes second. And that's hard for people to get around.

It is. It's actually— so going back to this hospital, this leadership team I was working with, and frankly, so I'm going to ask you a question. I know you're interviewing me, but I'm going to come back to a question for you. One of the things that we come across, we talk about this in our book and our work, is you think about that contributor decision. I choose to bring my best. What we then— and I'll encourage your listeners to bring this question to their team, this is how it's done— is what does it look like when we make the contributor decision and it becomes the conditional contributor decision? They're part of it. In other words, I'll bring my best if you bring your best. I'll be trustworthy if you are trusting. And so I'm curious to know your thoughts around then what's necessary for me as a leader to get beyond That conditional contributor to being able to say, my number one role is to be the best teammate I can be to make this contributor decision. We see that a lot, and it's fun to see teams get there.

It's a very cool concept. And we, Reality Based Leadership, and I myself have witnessed when people can really commit wholeheartedly and can commit without conditions. And I think the key ingredient if I were to name it, is trust. But I look at trust differently. A lot of people go, I'll commit and trust you all when you deserve it, when you act trustworthy. But trust isn't about how you act. Trust is about my trust of my skill set and my open-mindedness and my ability to team and to use the resources of a team. Einstein said, together we're genius. Trust isn't about whether I can trust you; it's whether I can trust myself around you. So if I can trust myself to act with integrity and to ask questions when I don't know, and to stop judging and start helping, and all of those things, I can commit to really great stuff. And it's amazing to me how often people think trust depends on another person. And I tell them trust is all within you. If my team. waited for me to be perfect for them to trust me, they'd never be able to trust me because I even tell them I will screw something up, but only daily. So if your trust is conditional on my not ever disappointing you or my, you know, giving you all the information you need to do your job, you will be really disappointed only daily and you can't trust me. Trust is not about the behavior of another person. It's about me trusting my own skills around you. And the more you can trust yourself, and trust your own behavior and come to the table clean and having done your work and from a place of no ego, the more freely you can move around to the world, the more you can partner with other people because it's not your circumstances. Those aren't the reasons you can't succeed. They're the reality in which you must succeed. So it really is an empowering stance for folks to be able to work on their own trust of their own skill set around others. I don't know if that makes sense, but—

It does. And your comment then, so we tie this back to energy, and I love where you've gone with this then, because we're seeing this play out at a macro level. And then if we're seeing in our society, we can have a tendency to bring it into our workplace, not the same discussion. What I'm talking about is if focus determines the direction of my energy, and it does, experts like Goleman and Kahneman and everybody else are telling us that. Then, you know, you think about 2 neighbors at the back fence, and one person on one side of the fence happens to start talking about politics and their belief, and the other person on the other side of the fence says, you're absolutely crazy, you're such an idiot, how could you ever believe that? Well, we know that what we focus on is reinforced. It's confirmation bias. And we bring that energy to that belief, and it actually— not the politics, But the same dynamic can occur on teams, and therefore then it breaks down that trust that you're talking about. And so I encourage all of us as team members, as actually responsible citizens, corporate or otherwise, to be very, very mindful of what are we focusing on as we engage with one another, and will that focus bring us to greater energy of trust or divide us?

It's so wise. And we call it co-creation. How I see you will also determine how I act towards you and will determine what we create together. Because once we believe something, we only look for ways in which we're right, not ways in which we're wrong. Mm-hmm. That open heart, open mind piece, and to keep yourselves open-minded and open-hearted is to be able to move beyond defense because defense is the first act of war. And to move into creating that greater pool of shared understanding. This is really great stuff, Craig. I'm so excited. I want listeners to go out and really check out your work. This is Craig Ross, has been our guest. And he's the author of Do Big Things. There's an amazing set of tools that you can add to your toolkit. They align perfectly with what we teach you at Reality-Based Leadership. And it's another set of tools that you can use to take teams beyond ego and into where you can have wonderful happiness at work. People can feel great about the impact that they have, and you can really create a drama-free workplace, which is one filled with results and happiness. So really enjoyed having you today, Craig. Love your work, and I know that our listeners will too. And I thank you for coming on.

Thank you so much, Sai. Thank you.

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.