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you [Music]
welcome to scaling up h2o the podcast for water treaty I water treaters where
we’re scaling up on knowledge so we don’t scale up our systems hi everybody trace Blackmore here the
host of scaling up and folks I got to tell you it was amazing seen all of the
members of the scaling up nation out at the AWT technical training seminars of
course we were in Vegas and then we were in Cleveland and I gotta tell you it was
amazing having folks come up to me and tell me how much this show means to them
you know I’m just speaking through a microphone on my end but to hear how well things are being received on your
end means so much to me thank you so much for those comments and thank you so
much for giving me more questions to ask on the show as you know my biggest fear
is I’m gonna run out of things to talk about where you guys are not allowing that to happen and you even told me
about some guests that you want me to interview so thank you so much everybody
out there in the scaling-up nation today’s guest is actually the pastor of
my church he is clay Scroggins and you’re probably thinking okay why is he
talking about a church book on scaling up but as you know I’m scaling up I want
to bring materials to the scaling up nation that were difficult for me to
find and because I found them because I was able to do something with them they
have had a positive impact on my career and folks this is this book right here
he wrote a book called how to lead when you are not in charge leveraging
influence when you lack authority and folks let’s face it very few of us out
there are in charge of our organizations and we need to know how do we deal how
do we gain more authority how do we leverage influence when we are not in
charge and his book does a great job with this now I will tell you there is a
lot of Scripture in this book so if you like that great it’s in there if that’s something you
don’t like well don’t stop reading because there is so much good information in there I promise when you
finish reading this book you will have action items for you to work on yourself
to make you a better leader whether you are in charge or not in charge I hope
About Clay
you enjoy my interview with clay Scroggins my lab partner today is clay
Scroggins the author of how to lead when you’re not in charge leveraging influence when you lack authority how
are you doing clay great trace thanks for having me on thanks for inviting me
to be a part of this it’s exciting what you do for other it’s awesome well I
appreciate that and I want to thank you for writing this book because until I read your book I did not think they
wrote anything else but leadership books to the top line management yeah I I
would agree that probably I don’t know it feels like 99% of leadership content
is written to the point leader or to the I don’t know the more senior leaders for
sure so this is definitely a I guess it’s a leadership book for the average
guy average gal I think anybody who reads it no matter where they are in the
management tier can definitely get a lot of a lot out of it clay before we start talking about the
book do you mind telling us a little bit about yourself yeah absolutely I grew up in Tuscaloosa Alabama they
played football there I’ve heard that they’re quite proud of their football I
moved to Atlanta and 1998 to attend Georgia Tech I was an engineering
student Industrial Engineering and while I was it’s well I was in school at
Georgia Tech I found out about this church I I came to college with a fate my faith was a big part of my life at
the time but I had never experienced a church like this it’s called North Point Community Church which is where I
actually work now and I was getting close to done with with college I ended
up co-op Inge at Accenture worked in their supply chain ideas exchange worked at the state capital for a little while
and then ended up graduating the only way I graduated and this is not a joke
or a punchline this is genuine 100% truth I was sitting in the registrar’s
office I struggled with engineering I didn’t feel good at it probably because I wasn’t good at it is why I didn’t feel
good at it but I was sitting in the registrar’s office I said listen I will do you a deal if you will give me this
degree I will promise to never use it [Laughter] and so she said okay and she helped me
figure out a way to get out I struggled with physics to finally was able to
complete it and I graduated moved to Dallas Texas I went to seminary in Dallas met my wife out there and Texas
she is a Texan and we moved to Atlanta it was back to Atlanta for me in 2004
and I started working at Northpoint and I’ve kind of bounced around we’ve got six churches in the Atlanta area and I
have worked primarily at Northpoint which is in Alpharetta which is our original location and then I’ve also
worked at one of our church is called Browns bridge which is in Forsyth County it’s kind of as far outside of Atlanta
as you can go and still tell people you live in Atlanta and I bounced around between those two campuses for a couple
a couple different times I’ve worked in student ministry and then now I am the campus pastor or the lead pastor is I
think technically my title at Northpoint Community Church and we’ve got we just had our we just had a baby four months
ago so we just had our fifth child Wow congratulations thank you so we got a
lot lot going on at home and yeah that’s my that’s my story and then I wrote this
book about six months ago and they’ve had so much fun I guess I wrote it about a year and a half ago but it released
about six months ago and I’ve had a lot of fun talking about this topic okay let me ask what what was the why behind
Why write this book
writing this book well I I stand on stage a lot and talk and that’s
I didn’t necessarily know that was going to be such a significant part of being a pastor but I I have done I don’t know a
thousand sermon type talks kind of trying to help people encourage people
and this is really one of the only talks that I’ve ever done that people have said hey would you come and do that talk
for this group of people and it started at one of our staff meetings when we get
all of our staff together there’s maybe about five hundred people in the room and Andy Stanley who was the senior
leader at our organization Andy was out that day and had invited me last minute to he said hey could you
speak and he had heard that I had done this somewhere else and anyway so I did
it and it just got really good feedback and people said mmm that’s really
helpful and that’s a really interesting take on leadership and it’s a bit different and anyway so then Andy puts
it on his he asked me to be on his leadership podcast and from there it just continued to I continue to get
opportunities to do this talk and now I’ve done it my goodness probably I’ve probably done
this talk 150 times Wow and lots of different and what’s been interesting is obviously my background is in ministry I
work at a church that’s my profession but I’ve done this talk mostly at businesses or organizations nonprofits
or for profits and that’s been real fun to get to see kind of all the worlds in
my own background kind of colliding in this in this one area of content so
that’s kind of the that’s how it happened I mean there’s a maybe a bit of a different reason as to why I think
it’s important for people but that’s kind of how the process happened in your
How you were not in charge
book you take us through your story on how you you weren’t in charge at all to
how now you are in charge and in your book you say sort of at that times but
you do mention a story when you were in school and you were an intern working at
the Georgia State Capitol can you tell us a little bit about that yeah I am
I tell this story a lot when I’m giving this talk because it was the first time
that I had ever seen this idea play out it and I didn’t even realize it at the time it’s one of those things that you
see it and you experience it in the moment and then later on in life when I learned this principle of leadership I
realized oh that was an example of how to not lead well really but that the
setup for the idea is just that most people think that leadership is authority that if you’re in charge then
you’re the one leading and if you’re not in charge you’re just waiting until you get the opportunity to lead but the problem is is that that’s just not true
because we all know people who are in the position but they’re not necessarily leading well and then we know people who
don’t have the title or maybe they’re in the middle of an organization or even at the bottom of an organization or just
came into an organization and they’re the ones that end up making change or
making something happen so the set up for the whole book is trying to differentiate between authority and
influence that leadership is not necessarily authority Authority certainly helps but an authority
typically comes when you lead well they typically you you gain more authority but primarily leadership is influence
so I’m sitting at the State Capitol and I worked in the governor’s office and it
was a it was right it was a huge transition in our state because was the first time and a couple maybe 150 years
that we had elected a governor from this particular party and so there’s a big
change happening and so I applied for this internship and I got this job in the policy department of the governor’s
office and my desk was sitting right next to a conference room where a lot of the decisions happen and as an intern my
primary role was to make copies and get coffee as is accustomed to any any intern but the fun thing about sitting
in that spot is I could hear what was going on in the room and so there was constantly tension come in the room I
mean there was always contingent at this particular day something was a little it was a little more tense and part of it
was the governor was in this meeting about education and I remember voices rising and it’s getting louder and
louder tell there’s some real hot debate going on and then I kind of above all of the voices I hear this kind of a banging on
the table and then this loud voice yells out I am the governor of the state of
I am in charge
Georgia listen to me and I was I remember sitting there thinking oh no
something is broken you have to tell people that then you have somewhere
along the way you have either missed an opportunity to cultivate influence or you have missed an opportunity to
leverage the influence that you have and you’re having to use your authority you’re having to tell people I am in
charge do what I tell you to do I in the book I call it the it’s it’s like a it’s
like pulling out the gun of authority it’s like waving a gun saying listen to me you will do what I tell you to do and
the truth is that does work in the short term I mean if somebody came you know I
would imagine Trace in your company this doesn’t happen because you seem like you’re trying to create an atmosphere
will people feel like they’re choosing to be engaged but we’ve all been in a job where someone said if you don’t get
this done by the end of the day you’re fired and that works I mean people if somebody said that to you or to me we
would get it done by the end of the day but we wouldn’t stay long we would
probably quickly update our resume maybe try to find our linked and password and
see see what other opportunities are because none of us like working for leaders that have to waive authority in
order to get us to move we all want to be led by people that are leveraging influence and so that’s kind of the I
don’t know that maybe that’s the twist of the book that I didn’t go into it with the idea of but it kind of bumped
into it along the way is that if you’re not in charge learning how to leverage
influence right now is so important because when you get in charge that’s
what’s going to work best that even people who are in charge they don’t leverage their authority they
leverage influence to be able to get people to move that so that’s really the that’s the big idea of the book and
that’s what that’s the that’s the way that story went down at the state capital that day well well let’s stay on that topic because you say
Powerlessness
in your book that many of and you’re right many of us feel powerless when we’re not in charge but then you say
it’s that feeling it’s that thought of powerlessness that really allows us to
be powerless you say don’t do that what do you tell us to do yeah what well this
is my own story I mean this is not me prescribing leadership to anyone else this is just what I have discovered
along my journey is that my tendency is to what you know I think everybody has
one of two things they do they either become passive which is what I too often do I go oh well I’m not in charge of
that they didn’t put me in charge of it they didn’t invite me to the meeting they’re not giving me as much authority as I think I need and so I’m just gonna
sit back and I’m just gonna wait and I’ll just be I just naturally become passive some people become overly
aggressive and they go since I’m not in charge I’m going to try to squeeze as much leadership out of this moment or
opportunity as possible and so it’s what causes people to go out and start their own thing or it’s the people that are
serial job hoppers that just go from one job to the next because they think oh it’s the boss’s problem it’s
management’s problem but the truth is they just want this frontier of freedom
to be able to lead like they think they need to lead and the truth is there’s somewhere in the middle I think that we
can find where we are leveraging the gifts that we’ve been given we’re leveraging the opportunity that we’ve
been given but we’re also working under Authority and we’re working through Authority and I think finding that sweet
spot is really that’s what I’ve been trying to find I mean I at this point in
my career I there are more people working for me than I have bosses you know we can all kind of figure out where
are we on the totem pole based on you know are there more people above me or more people below me and I have received
a couple of promotions and so I’m on the I’m on the maybe the upper end of the organization but I still have loads of
bosses and I’m still not in charge and I’m still tempted to use what I don’t
have as an excuse for what I want to do and that’s that’s really what I am tired
of in my own self and what prompted me to write the book and I want to help other people with it is too
often we use our lack of authority or lack of position or lack of title to to not do to keep us from doing what we
what we know we should be doing when the truth is every one of us has an opportunity to lead today no matter
where we are because we have the opportunity to cultivate influence and to leverage influence to be able to move
a room or to be able to change something or move an idea forward or not to not to
work against the organization but to leverage the organization to accomplish the vision that’s in front of us but
that’s an opportunity that we have to choose it’s not going to passively find us I have learned in life that you will
not passively find what you not what you do not actively pursue that’s good you have to Optive leaper sue this kind of
leadership it doesn’t bump into you clay I’m sure there are many people listening today saying that sounds great but I’m
Im not in charge
not in charge so what can they look for that they might even not even realize
that they are in charge of yeah that that’s that that’s how this really the
whole thing happened for me is I started I got tired of using excuses and going ok well I’m a victim and I’m not and
they didn’t put me in charge and there’s I I don’t have enough authority and unfortunately I learned this through a
couple of promotions because I think when I was maybe a early in my career I
thought oh well if they gave me more authority then I’d be able to lead and then I got more Authority and then I thought oh well I guess I still need
more authority and then I got more Authority and then I became a leader of one of our locations and I still thought
well I have a lot of bosses there’s still people telling me here’s what you should be doing or what you can do or
can’t do and I finally was just like oh okay I get it now or I think I get I’m starting to get it that it’s not about
how much authority you have but it really is how much influence you you can gain you can cultivate so for me I
started asking the question what what am i doing today to cultivate influence which i think is a question every one of
us should ask what are you doing today to cultivate more influence what are you doing today that is robbing you
of influence and then go figure that out and so I for me at the time I wrote down
four behaviors that I was trying to work on that I was trying to do and that’s really the core of the book or these
four big behaviors and the first two are as you have referenced they are things
that you and I are ultimately in charge of that yes I’m not in charge of my boss or I’m not in charge of that other
department or you know where I find this to be true Trace for a lot of people is they are there in a role where they have
to keep people accountable to a certain code or a certain list of inspections or
certain benchmarks that have been chosen but they don’t have authority over those
people how do you hold someone accountable when you don’t have authority over them well you have to do it through influence you have to do it through relationship and so I I think
finding out figuring out determining what you’re in charge of and doing that well is the beginning of gaining
influence and what I am most in charge of is leading myself and it’s the
attitude that I choose those are the two things that I have most control over is how am I being led today I’m not going
to allow my boss to be an excuse for not being led well and then what is what
attitude my bringing today to work and those are the two things that I think every one of us has the most control
over but it’s not easy to do but it’s certainly I think it’s true clay one of
Being proactive
the many things that impressed me so much about your book was how well it lines up with the seven Habits of Highly
Effective People and you’ve got to be proactive you’ve got to do all the
things that Covey talks about for the private victory and you know that’s
leading yourself that’s being responsible yours for yourself that’s choosing the attitude that you’re going to have and then later in your book you
talk about habit six five and four which is how we can work with others to
actually influence others and it’s it lines up perfectly so I want to talk about being proactive in your book you
mentioned you had a lot of different positions of authority but a lot of
times when you got more authority you felt like you were in charge but you weren’t really in charge
clay there many times when we are either not invited to a meeting or maybe we
missed a meeting and something happened at that meeting that we are now responsible for that we’ve got to go out
and produce we didn’t have I in but now we are expected to make it happen what
have you done in your career in situations like that yeah that’s good to
know trace that that happens in your world that’s not just the church world
but yeah certainly I bumped into a line a couple of years ago that was in
Patrick Lencioni zhh book the advantage where he says when you allow people to
weigh in they’re more likely to buy in which i think is a fantastic line I remember reading it underlining it
starring it circling it writing it on a note card putting it next to my desk because it’s such a great way to lead
other people that the emphasis is yeah I give give people a chance to weigh in and you’re more likely to get their
buy-in however I think as I was writing this book it I bumped into maybe one of
the most significant challenges of leading when you’re not in charge is what do you do when you’re being asked
to buy in yet you didn’t get the opportunity to weigh in so to your to
your example you weren’t invited to the meeting I mean that unfortunately that
still happens to me I used to think that the more promotions that I got the less my feelings would be hurt when I didn’t
get invited to a meeting but it probably works the other way that now my feelings
are maybe more hurt but our our office complex where our central organization
works out of there’s a lot of glass in those offices and so you walk past a
conference room and you just immediately you know or it’s you’re so tempted to
look in the room and do the math of who’s in the room and I usually can based on who’s in there I can determine
what they’re talking about and whenever I walk past it honestly I think huh well
clearly there going to get the best ideas because they didn’t invite me to come exactly that’s
just what I think and then what’s what’s even maybe more maddening is they’re probably making
decisions that I’m going to have to execute they’re making a decision about something we’re gonna do you know in the
next couple of months or what our plan for Christmas is or what we’re gonna do this summer or whatever it may be and
I’m gonna have to execute that and I’m I’m going to have to buy in even when I
didn’t get the opportunity to weigh in and I’ve just learned that that is that is common to every single one of us that
all of us and it no matter what position you’re in you’re you at some point are
going to be handed a decision that you didn’t get a chance to speak into so
then what do you do how do you how do you handle that moment and that’s a that that really is one of the more
challenging things about leading when you’re not charged so I’m just a couple of things for me traits is the first
thing I try to remember is I I am most responsible for my attitude and so I can
based on how I feel about an idea I can either choose to make this idea work or
I can silently sour the idea all of us have that power within us and more
important I have found more important than making the right decision is owning the decision and making it right and I
have it in me I have the power the potential that I have enough influence in me to be able to make an idea work
even when it’s okay and I have the potential to make a great idea not work because I’m not bringing my best to it
and so I think the first thing we’ve got to do is make a decision I’m gonna bring my best even if I didn’t make this
decision even if I didn’t necessarily agree with this decision we I’ve got to learn to disagree at the right time and
then commit to the idea and then the other thing I’ve learned is that all of us are tempted to want to do what we
want to do i I reference the birds and Finding Nemo have you ever seen funny mantras have
the we have little kids and so we’re if it’s not animated we’re not
if it’s not Disney but the birds on the dock on Finding Nemo they fly around
just screaming mine mine mine mine mine mine mine which is such a good it’s such
a great maybe maybe even an indictment on humanity that all of us were all
screaming you know for ourselves trying to get trying to get ours and that’s
that’s what those birds are doing as well and I’ve learned that choosing positivity that choosing to bring the
best attitude to any situation that it really is a it’s a fight for we over me it’s a fight for a common goal versus my
own goal and I’ve got to choose to go hey even if this isn’t what I would have
decided it is better for us all to get behind the idea than it is for me to
just chase after my own because the greatest organizations work not because
they’re revolving around the best idea but they work because they get everybody we’re putting their energy behind the
same idea that’s the way the best churches work that’s the way the best businesses work is they’re all leaning
toward the same thing there’s something powerful about synergy and unity and it really is a choice it’s a choice that
I’ve got to make today to go you know what just because I didn’t get to weigh in doesn’t mean I’m not going to buy in
and then the other thing I’ve got to learn is that I when I said yes to this job that really was my that was my
buy-in and so whether or not I get to weigh in that’s only icing on the cake that I really do I’m not just going to
I’m not going to soil this with my attitude that I’m gonna bring the best I’m gonna bring all that I have today
even when it’s something that I wouldn’t necessarily have chosen and I again the
the goal is to cultivate influence the goal is that that will bring me influence with my boss with my peers
with the people that work for me is if I am the kind of person that’s seen as somebody who’s willing to get behind an
idea that might may or may not be my own so that’s what I think through in that situation but it certainly is certainly
not easy yeah you really did sum it up with your with the second title of the book leveraging influence when you lack
Leveraging influence
authority and it’s all about attitude it’s about how you handle things and people notice that I think so
yeah I think they do I mean it it really the the greatest thing I have to bring to my team is not my ideas or my
experience or my education but it really is my energy and that’s not easy to
bring but learning to bring that on a daily basis is what cultivates influence
that’s what creates the kind of dependability and the kind of
faithfulness that breeds the ability to sway a room or move a room in your
direction or toward the direction that you think it ought to go a few episodes ago I had captain David bar cave the
Challenge your boss
United States Navy he was the commander the captain of the submarine Santa Fe
and he wrote the book turned the ship around a great book about how he took the worst-performing submarine in the US
Navy and made it the best performing submarine in u.s. Navy and it’s so easy
when you’re in command to say I’m going to change these things and everybody
below me has to do it but from the other end which is how you approach your book what can somebody do who’s not in charge
to positively influence their organization using the influence they
have yeah I think at the end of what I
wrote I wrote two chapters on challenging your boss because at some
point if anyone were to apply any of this they would probably get to the point where they would go okay I’m going
to have to have a hard conversation with my boss I mean at some point you know I can bring the best attitude I can lead
myself well I can choose to find value and or choose to bring some value to
what I’m working on but eventually I’m going to have to challenge up I’m going
to have to say hey can we talk about how we’re running that process or how we’re
implementing that system or how we are making decisions or how we’re executing how we’re selling whatever the case may
be at some point I’m going to have to challenge because change doesn’t happen until we challenge
change usually is followed by challenge and so learning to challenge well I
think really is the key you know you can’t just be silent with just a great attitude walking around going though
everything is awesome all the time but at the same time you’ve got to learn to
be positive you’ve got to learn to be forward-thinking and hope filled and thoughtful about the way you challenge
your boss so I think about four things I think about the first thing is they all
start with a but the first thing is to is to affirm my boss how can I begin by
declaring my intentions let them know that hey I’m for you I’m for the team I think you’re doing I can understand why
you’ve made the decisions you made I just want to affirm you and sometimes that’s hard but as best as I can to
begin with that I found is always better the second thing is to ask to ask as
many questions as possible I think too often we go into a situation thinking that we understand it all when the truth
is there’s something that we don’t know there’s there’s always every situation I
come in contact with there is something that I don’t understand that if I knew better if I understood it more I would
have a better perspective it might even change the way that I see the situation and so as long as I can go into it with
curiosity asking questions I think I can learn something I have learned in my
life that arrogant people don’t ask questions they don’t need to ask any questions because they know it all but
curious people are always looking to learn something so if I can affirm my boss if I can ask as much as possible
and then acknowledge what I’ve heard to say hey I hear you from best I can tell
the risk that you’re worried about is this or the anxiety that’s keeping you up at night is this or the reason why
you started this process in the first place is this is that correct and just acknowledging that let’s your boss know
that you’ve been that he or she is heard and being heard is one of the most
powerful forms of communication most often that’s proud what your boss wants is your boss wants
to know do you hear me do you understand what I am anxious about I feel like part of my job is to manage the anxiety of my
boss what is my boss worried about what is my boss anxious about that that should be what I’m worried about what I
make shits about and I’ve learned more times than not as long as I’m worried about it my boss isn’t worried about it
that as long as I know that you’re concerned about it you’re thinking about it that’s all I need to know that’s great to know it’s the times when I’m
not worried about it but I think it is extra alarming to my boss so acknowledging what I’ve heard
acknowledging what I’ve learned is so important and then the last step is to advise to say okay here are my thoughts
here’s what I think we got to do I try to be solution-oriented and I try not to bring any problem without bringing solution if I’m gonna bring up a problem
I try to bring one or more solutions to the table but too often we start with the advice we start by trying to give
our opinion or give our perspective on the situation and then we end up having to walk backwards through the process we
end up saying okay here’s what here’s what I think you ought to do and then we go oh let me acknowledge that I’ve
actually heard why you’re frustrated about that let me ask what what is it now that I don’t know and then let me affirm so that you’re not as frustrated
as you seem to be about the advice I just tried to give so I have found that process really helpful in challenging up
and challenging my boss on changes that I see or changes that I think we need to
make I love the term you give that challenging up it really does sum up what you’re trying to do but more in the
mindset that you’re trying to build something and not break something down I
want to say this is and I’m not quoting it it’s not exactly how you wrote it in the book but my favorite line and I’ve
used it so many times when I have difficult conversations with people and I’m worried about how are my words
coming out you say words are like bricks they can either build a bridge or they
can build a wall yeah what are some of the things that you do when you’re at
that critical moment you’ve got to have that conversation and there there’s a difference that you
say in the book about being critical and thinking critically how do you put all
of that together to make sure that you’re truly communicating the right message with the other person yeah this
is a little squishy because this is I don’t know I’m a pastor so we talk about love a lot but I really feel like it
starts with love I mean that’s a you know I really feel like you’ve got a you have to choose to love the person that
you’re working for and that’s not easy to do especially if you’re working for someone who’s I don’t know maybe crooked
or unethical or just mean-spirited but I I have just learned in my own life that
I cannot lead anyone that I do not love that if I love essentially I mean maybe
at its basic form love is just wishing goodwill upon someone love is wanting good things to happen to someone and
I’ve got to start there I’ve got to start by going can i muster up any kind
of love any kind of goodwill for this person I mean if they got fired would I secretly be excited or could I find it
in my heart to be sad if he or she lost her job and until I can get there I
don’t feel like I’m ready to have that hard conversation so I feel like it starts there and then next I really feel
like trying to suspend your own judgment trying to suspend what you think and trying to be as curious as possible is
what I try to do in those situations is I just go into it trying to trying to learn I really believe that human beings
that we all are trying to do what’s best for us we’re all trying to do what we
think is right and humans are the only we’re really the only creatures that have the ability to
behave irrationally in the name of love which is but we can actually do
something that seems so irrational yet in our own minds it makes sense and the only reason why I know that is because
I’ve done that loads of times where I look back and go what was I thinking and what’s most bizarre is at the time
it actually made sense it makes sense for me to do what I was doing so I try
to suspend my judgment and go into it as curious as possible going this person is trying to do what’s best and so if I can
learn something ask if questions be a little bit curious and try to care for this person it’s going
to help me I mean I think in seven Habits he talks about seeking to be to
understand and not to be understood which that’s such a great principle that that has permeated our organization for
years and years and years so those are just a few thoughts on those difficult conversations but yeah but those are
those high stakes there’s a lot on the line tensions are high kind of
conversations to me that really makes or breaks somebody’s ability to have influence so it’s extremely crucial even
Think like the owner
with the seven Habits you said it was squishy but he says it the same way he
says it a little bit differently he says it’s got to be win-win if I’m not winning and you’re not winning then you
know it’s never going to be a contract that either parties going to uphold and you have to care about that person to
even even identify that so I don’t think it’s squishy at all I love it that’s
great that makes total sense clay you mentioned that when you’re challenging up it’s important to get on the same
mindset and think like the owner can you talk a little bit about that yeah I
think that was a huge shift for me is when I finally tried to start training
myself to think like an owner to own the job I was I was hosting an event for
another organization and I asked the leader of the founder of the event I
said hey how do you want me to handle this moment it was the first time they had ever had somebody other than this
person host one of their events and he I will never forget he said oh I want you you need to own it you need to own it
like it is yours when you stand on stage and talk about the event you need to own it like it’s your job on the line like
you sat in all the meetings like it was it was your decision to even hope to have the event and that caught me off
guard because that’s not what I thought he was going to say and I’ve just learned that the more we can the better
we can do at promoting ourselves and thinking of ourselves not more highly than we should but definitely not more
not lower than we should I think the better will be actually caring about what we’re doing and sometimes that
means climbing the ladder of perspective and trying to see from a broader view I would imagine tres since you own your
business that you see things in a way that no one else can ever see it but
people could ask questions people could be curious about how you do see and with a change in perspective people really
can climb the ladder and they definitely can see it higher than they’re currently seeing it and I found in my own story
that the higher I see the broader my perspective is the more I’m able to think like an owner the more I’m able to
engage at a level that I am not otherwise able to engage the story that
Case study
you talk about that really embodies this in your book was about the chick-fil-a milkshake do you mind sharing that story
yeah that was probably my favorite part of this whole process was bumping into this case study Shayne Todd is a local
operator Shane is in Athens Georgia are you are you a dog term I am NOT a dog but I’m not opposed to the dogs either
okay so you’re you’re Switzer Shane
works he runs the the chick-fil-a in Athens and I had talked to a few people
I was looking for a story I was looking for somebody who had exemplified this and somebody one day told me I said oh
you ought to talk to Shane Todd Shane was selling the milkshake before
chick-fil-a had even launched the milkshake which I don’t know I don’t think any one of us can actually grasp
how I don’t know how much gasp that may cause in chick-fil-a circles to put a
product on your menu that the corporate office is that the central team had not
authorized yet but he did it in a way that the more I talked to him I ended up
interviewing his boss at the time who was the VP of wasn’t his boss but it was
the one who would have approved this product a guy named woody Faulk who’s the VP of menu strategy at the time
and the way Shane did it the way he navigated the complexity of a large organization to be able to try something
in a way that could have easily been shut down or could have easily set him back in regards to his influence but
because he had led so well because he had cultivated so much influence he had the change in his pocket to be able to
try this and so as I was talking about the story he it all culminated in this
one particular day where Tim to stop list he’s now the president of chick-fil-a drop by the local store that
Shane was running and wanted it he had heard about the milkshake at this point they were selling a couple hundred
milkshakes a day and Shane said Tim drops by says hey I want to see this
thing on here what you’re doing and so Shane and the big concern Shane knew because he had done his homework the big
concern was whether or not this was going to slow down their drive-through and so Shane challenged Tim to stop
Alice to a duel as he was telling me I was like this is like an old western but if instead of a
drawing their guns basically Shane said I’ll make a milkshake and why don’t you make two diet cokes and he said I
challenged him to two diet cokes because I knew diet cokes had the most fizz and it takes the longest to be able to make
those to make those drinks and he said if I can make this milkshake before you can make the two diet cokes I win and so
sure enough the rest is history and Shane did win and the the milkshake that chick-fil-a now sells is not exactly the
one Shane was making they ended up bringing it in-house and changing it a bit making it maybe a little bit more
easier to roll out to all the stores but the big idea was he didn’t he didn’t
take no for an answer he worked the channels of the organization to be able to leverage the idea that he knew needed
to happen in order for him to lead out on something that he didn’t have the authority to lead out on and to me it’s
a very inspiring story and it certainly will make you crave a chick-fil-a
milkshake if nothing absolutely I mean if he was passive about this we wouldn’t have had the wonderful amazing
Summary
chick-fil-a milkshake and would that be a world we would want to live in not not
now well clay let’s sum up with you have four behaviors of a good leader what are
they yeah I rolled out the first two a little bit earlier but it is to lead
lead myself that I’ve got to lead me I can’t wait to be led but I’ve got to go ahead and start leading me and then I’ve
got to choose positivity that’s all about the attitude that I’m bringing and then the third one is to think critically it’s to bring value to to
whatever it is that I’m working on and that’s something that can be cultivated the great thing about a skill is you can
learn a skill and you can get better at a skill but in order to do that you’ve got to practice and so to be able to
think critically well I really do think it requires practice it requires space to be able to do it and then it requires
rehearsals requires us actually sitting down with a maybe a blank notebook or a
blank Word document or Evernote file and asking the question what can I do to
make this better today whatever it is I’m working on and then the last one is to reject passivity the
greatest thing that may be the greatest enemy of anyone who’s not in charge is
passivity because when whenever you’re not in charge you’re the feeling of being out of
control goes up because someone else is making those decisions for you and handing them to you and it’s just very
easy to get passive but in the book I’ll talk about learning how to reject
passivity on a regular basis and allowing that to become part of your normal routine even if it feels like
wasted effort refusing to be passive is to me is so much better than then then
the alternative which is just sitting back and waiting on someone to hand you something so those are the four big
behaviors that make up the heartbeat of in my opinion of learning how to lead
when we get right down to it these are the things that other leaders are looking for in future leaders that’s
exactly right and that’s the whole that’s the whole idea is that if you can if you can lead yourself well if you can
choose positivity if you can think critically and reject passivity then you will become a leader that probably is
being handed more authority there’s a quote that I use in the book that I just love by a guy named Tom Watson former CEO of IBM not the
golfer but he says nothing so conclusively proves your ability to lead
others as what you do on a day-to-day basis to lead yourself but if you want to prove to other people that you’ve got
what it takes and you can handle more then you start by leading yourself well you start by owning your own attitude
and choosing to bring value to whatever it is you’re working on and to reject passivity and it will it will be the
greatest evidence that you have what it takes to be able to leave more clay we have just scratched the surface of all
Lightning Round
of the great information that you have in your book I know you have a very
tight schedule today do you have time to answer a few lightning round questions yeah clay if you could go back to the
first day when you were in charge and speak to your former self what advice
would you give to yourself I would probably say wake up earlier has been
the most life-changing behavior for me what are the last three books that you’ve read predictable success by
lesson queuing let’s see I just read
this is silly but I read a mo bettah blues by Questlove the drummer and the
roots and I read tech wise family by
Andy Crouch nice who plays clay Scroggins when they make the movie about
clay Scroggins definitely Matt Damon and then finally you have the ability to
speak with anybody throughout history who would it be with and why I’m pretty
enamored with dr. King I would love to have sat down with him I think the way he navigated the civil rights movement
was pretty stellar I’m actually going next week as I guess from the time we’re recording this next week is the 50th
anniversary of his death and I’m going with a group of pastors to Memphis with Bernice King his daughter to have some
meetings on racial healing and try to figure out some ways that the church can help and what is a pretty complicated
conversation but that I would say dr. Martin Luther King great answers claice
thank you so much for coming on the show and thank you for writing the book it’s a great book
well thanks Tracy thanks for using your spotlight to shine your light on my
world I genuinely appreciate it it was my pleasure folks I got to tell you when I mentioned
we only scratched the surface of all of the great tools and nuggets and ideas
that are in clays books I truly meant it so I’m gonna have an affiliate link on
my show notes page so you can go and get it off of Amazon or audible as you know
one of my goals is to read 35 books a year and the only way I can do that is
through audible and that’s actually how I listened to clays books after coming
back from the technical training seminars and I should probably back up a little bit one of the seminars that I’m
responsible one of the breakout sessions that I’m responsible for is time management and so many times we think
about time management is it’s about doing more things and what I want people
to realize is exactly what I realized when I read the book the 7 Habits of
Highly Effective People that it’s not about doing more things it’s about doing
the right things and I gotta say that’s probably what impressed me the most with
Clay’s book is because it lines up perfectly with the 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People so habit one be proactive habit to begin
with the end in mind habit 3 put first things first these are the three habits that make up the private victory and in
his book he says that we can’t be passive we got to be responsible for ourselves and we have to have we have to
choose a positive attitude well folks that is the private victory and then
the other parts of the book he goes into the public victory and those four habits
are think win-win you can’t you can’t think win lose and expect that contract
to ever hold up I mention that in our interview so you have to go into it thinking about the other person and also
thinking about yourself and hopefully they’re doing the same thing habit 5 seat first to understand before you’re
understood and clay spoke so much of how important it is to acknowledge that you’re hearing the other person think
about when you were in a heated discussion and you’re not thinking about what the person’s saying you’re thinking
about how you’re going to respond and then we have that dialogue of the deaf nobody’s listening to each other and our
voices keep getting louder and louder and louder when you can acknowledge somebody when you can let them know that
you understand what it is that they are saying to their satisfaction it’s
amazing of what you’re able to talk about after that and then of course habit six is just the fact that two or
more people are working together we have synergy and that synergy is something that we can create together that’s so
much bigger than what we can ever create by ourselves most of us think that I’m
gonna do this when I’m in charge if I were given the ability to do this I would do that and the great thing about
this book is it lets you know through clays career that you don’t wait for
that stuff you do that stuff and he gives you the tools to allow you to do
it in a way where you can make positive change and people will look at you as a
leader whether you’ve been given the authority to lead or not folks I
mentioned at the top of the show that we just got back from technical training and I want to thank all of my fellow
presenters that allows the AWT to put on it’s the best thing out there there’s
nothing that even comes close to it when it comes to water treatment training so
we would not be able to do that if folks like me and you were not they’re giving our time giving our
valuable information things that we’ve learned throughout our career to those attendees so thank you so much for that
and I also want to thank all the attendees that are there and I want to urge you that this is not the only time
that you attend one of those technical training seminars and I think one of the biggest mistakes that we make as water
treaters or as water treatment owners is we think we sent an employee last year
they never need to go there again well the analogy I like to give it’s like
drinking from a firehose you’re gonna get a little bit of water out of it but you’re gonna miss a whole
bunch of it and every time you go back you get a little bit more so if you will
go ahead and take out your calendars right now and Mark 2019 states I can’t
believe we’re talking about 2019 but we are the technical training on the West
Coast is going to be from February 27th through March 3rd and that’s gonna be in
San Diego California now the one on the East Coast is going to be in Annapolis
and that’s March 27th through the 30th go ahead and start planning for that now
and then you’re going to be able to have all your affairs in order so you can attend that and I think the people that
attended this year are the ones that are going to get the most out of it next year of course if you’ve never attended
you got to start somewhere but remember you’re drinking out of a fire hose I have been doing technical training I
want to say for at least ten years and every time I sit on one of my fellow
presenters presentation I gotta tell you I come out with at least five or so
things that I need to start thinking about so you never stop learning when it comes to water treatment and technical
training is a great way for you to make sure that you’re always learning something folks I could not do this show
without the fine folks like you in the scaling up nation thanks so much for listening and I’ll catch you next time
on scaling up [Music]
you