Doing the Duck at Mid-Street

If your team isn't doing what they should,

it's not an attitude problem.

Imagine this.

It's 8:30 in the morning.

You're arriving at your office and you hear in the street:

Whoosh. Whoosh.

You turn and see a man blowing hard, flapping his arms like a duck's wings.

Beside him, a woman giving instructions: Deeper. Again.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

What do you do? Do you cross to the other side of the street?

Well.

That man doing the duck was me. Eight years ago.

And the woman was my coach.

I was going through a difficult time.

I was running a business that wasn't delivering the promised results and had desperate partners.

Every month I had to sit in front of them to present numbers and explain how I was going to change them.

I felt inferior.

Anxious.

Terrified.

So I prepared a lot.

I adjusted the presentation, reviewed the numbers, thought about how to answer every possible question.

In my head, everything was clear. I knew what to say.

The meeting arrived.

The room was cold, the table long, the Perrier bottles in front. I already knew how that place felt.

And then, they asked me the first question.

Carlos, how do you explain this drop?

Everyone turns.

I felt my hands tingling, my mouth dry, my heart in my throat.

I knew the answer. I rehearsed it twenty times. I had it clear.

And yet, I would open my mouth and say something silly.

That it's "the market's fault."

That it's because of "how it was calculated" in accounting.

That "it will correct itself next month."

On the table is the green bottle.

I would take off the cap and pull out the little white ring inside.

I would bend it.

I would bite it.

I listened to it crinkle.

Trying to release a little bit of my anxiety through it.

I would break it into tiny pieces.

Just like me.

Meanwhile, they gave me a good grilling.

I'd leave there, get in the car, and think:

You knew it.

You rehearsed it.

Why did you say that?

I knew what to do.

But I didn't do it when it mattered.

Has that happened to you?

Knowing exactly what to do and freezing precisely when it matters?

The same thing happens to your team.

They know what they have to do.

You explained it to them, you trained them, they understood it.

But when the time comes to do it, they don't.

And then your explanations appear:

"They just don't have the right attitude."

"People today aren't committed to anything."

"Not even money motivates them anymore."

"We need to change the team."

It's more comfortable to say that than to examine what you yourself have failed to do.

Because admitting it hurts more.

Look.

If everyone fails, the problem isn't them.

And changing people without changing the system they work in will only give you the same result with new faces.

What's missing isn't more pressure.

It's an environment that makes doing the right thing natural.

I call that an execution system.

It's what makes people do what matters, day after day.

Not when they're inspired.

Not when you're on top of them.

Day after day.

And it's built in 3 steps:

• Instructions so clear a 12-year-old can understand them.
• Tools that make it easier for them to do it.
• And leaders who remind, reinforce, and correct. Every single day.

Without that, good ideas remain just ideas.

And it looks like an attitude problem.

But it's not.

If you want to see where everything is breaking down in your execution system, reply "DUCK" and I'll send you a test.

With care,

Carlos

P.S. Remember: serving is the way.

—

Shopology S.A. de C.V.

Av. Pacífico 468 Local C, Coyoacán, Ciudad de México, CP 04330, México

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