Welcome to IGW Insights Issue 16!
All companies have metrics of success. Companies with a lot of physical inventory measure inventory turns. Restaurants monitor food costs. Consulting firms assess utilization.
As a business owner and leader, have you started tracking leadership tantrums? If not, I recommend that you start. Just as metrics such as inventory turns, food costs, and utilization can represent warning signs for a company’s financial health, tantrum tracking can signal the cultural health of a company.
The dictionary defines a tantrum as, “an uncontrolled outburst of anger and frustration, typically in a young child.” Why are tantrums definitionally associated with young children? Because young children have not yet learned the strategies required to reset themselves after an emotional torrent. Most adults have not learned this either. Perhaps they don’t want to.
But at least the dictionary is honest: tantrums belong in the domain of childhood, not only because they are childish, by which I mean not age-appropriate when committed by an adult, but also because they represent the result of a lack of a particular skill. Let’s call that skill self-regulation.
If you’re an engineer, you know what a regulator is. It’s a valve for controlling the pressure in a system. All kinds of industrial processes require regulators. Without regulators, industrial machines with an excess of pressure explode. And everybody gets killed. That’s bad.
What does this have to do with leadership? My reflections continue here.
Recommended Reading and Listening
The No Asshole Rule is one of my favorite books of all time. Its title tickles my wide subversive streak, which is a source of immense pleasure for me. But it also is research-backed proof of what we have been telling clients since the founding of IGW about the power of culture not only as the unseen force that guides behavior, but also as an aggressive filter for who gets in and who must go. If you’re like me, you’ll enjoy the book, get tons of value out of it, and become mildly obsessed with Bob Sutton’s work.
Journaling Exercise
Put pen to paper and answer the following prompts. Give yourself no more than 10 minutes to write:
- What is the worst behavior I tolerate in my company? Who is the culprit?
- What is the paradigm shift I am committed to communicating to this person as soon as possible?
- What resource must I consult to provide this person with a better process?
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Onward and upward,
Dan Weiss, CEO
