How the Macintosh team became unstoppable

When a team aligns on a PATH they passionately believe in, they become unstoppable.

That’s the whole premise of “The PATH to Strategic Impact”. And the Macintosh team proves it beautifully. Here are some quotes from an old documentary:

“Everybody just wanted to work, not because it was work that had to be done, but it was because something that we really believed in” – Rony Sebok

“We all wanted exactly the same thing. And instead of spending our time arguing about [it] we just went and did it.” – Andy Hertzfeld

“I’m certainly not doing it for Steve Jobs. I’m doing it for something that I think is a much greater good than that. And that’s the chance to change something, really, honestly, truly, for the better.” – Michael Murray

Most employees would feel lucky if their business had a concise strategy at all. Let alone one that’s so clearly articulated that the entire team wholeheartedly embraces it.

But that’s exactly what Steve Jobs managed to do.

He found words that laid out the path for everyone to see very clearly:
→ Where are we headed?
→ Why does this matter?

Words that were deeply heartfelt and transformative to the team.

And then?
He stepped back and trusted his team to figure it out.
(A terrifying thought for many managers.)

Lighting the PATH isn’t about persuading people to do the work.

It’s about resonating so strongly that they can’t help but travel it – because it’s fully aligned with their passion and dedication.

Keep lighting the path!

We’re gonna crush the competition

The CEO grabs the mic to announce the new initiative:

“Team, we’re gonna run a marathon. And it’s gonna be amazing. We’re gonna crush the competition.”

And immediately, about a quarter of the team cheers out loud. They love running, and a marathon is what they always wanted to do.

But the others? They fall silent.

Some of them aren’t good at running. Some of them outright hate it.

But the CEO insists: “We’re gonna do that marathon. It’s the way. Just believe!”

And eventually, that’s what the team does: they follow.

But no matter how hard the CEO tries to motivate them, some of them will never love running.

But you know what? Some of them love cycling and they’re actually good at it.

And so, what if he just let them cycle? Not only would they enjoy the path much more, they’d be much quicker than he could ever run.

Imagine just a little tweak in his language. What if he had said: “This is the path, but how you travel it is up to you. The goal is to get to the finish line.”

What a difference that makes, doesn’t it?

Not only will most of the team enjoy the journey much more, they feel empowered because they feel that the leader trusts them.

Now, how about your business? Where could you give a little more trust to the team?

Where could you light the path, but trust the team with knowing how to travel that path?

Keep lighting the path!

Turning ambition into progress

A while ago, a friend called me because he was frustrated with his marketing team. “The people on the team are so motivated, but we’re making so little progress,” were his words.

And he was right. The team was highly motivated. But the problem was that they were chasing 100 ideas in a 100 different directions.

Each of them was good, some even amazing. But each of them told a slightly different story.

Rather than one bold promise, they were making 100 little promises.

Which confused customers.

As soon as we understood this, we changed it. Instead of redoing the website or planning the next campaign, we took a step back. We focused.

It wasn’t an easy process. Some of these choices were hard, some perhaps even slightly deliberate.

But by aligning every activity on a common path we managed to turn ambition into progress.

The team was just as motivated as before, if not more. Only this time, everyone was pushing in the same direction.

How about you? Do all of your marketing activities tell a concise story?

Leap!

Venturing into the unknown requires bold steps, not just detailed plans.

It’s one thing to say: “Here’s the plan.”
It’s another to say: “I believe in you. Take the leap!”

Your team might have all the answers. But they might need you to believe in them. You’re the person who sees potential in others even when they don’t see it themselves. You’re the one who challenges them, cheers for them, and sometimes you might even have to be the unpopular voice that says: “We can do better.”

A leader’s real job isn’t to have the perfect plan. It’s to light the path and empower their team to take the bold steps.

Leadership lessons from Germany’s Qatar disaster

Among the many fascinating leadership lessons from Amazon’s “All or Nothing” documentary about Germany’s Qatar football disaster, here’s one that stood out for me:

For Germany’s coaches, it was US and THEM, not WE.
“Us” the coaches and “them” the players, not “we” the team.

The coaches expected them to deliver.
As opposed to being in this together.

When the coaches expect the players to deliver, it delegates the responsibility the wrong way. It frees the coach from the responsibility and puts that burden on the player. Basically, the message is this: “I’ve told you what you need to do. If you fail, it’s on you.”

A leader who lights the path would turn this upside down. They would trust the players to deliver. They would believe in the players to deliver. Because they would figure out a path and light it in a way that the players would see it, believe in it and trust in the path (and themselves), too.

No need to expect anything.

But Germany’s players didn’t trust in the path (or themselves). Head coach Hansi Flick’s words made it sound like he didn’t trust in the journey and in the team’s ability to deliver. And so, the players couldn’t find that trust, either.

Flick used pressure (“We expect X from you”) as a substitute for trust. But that can’t work when the players don’t even trust in themselves.

Worse, when it’s US and THEM, i.e. when the TEAM is missing, then you can’t compensate lack of trust with will power (despite the obvious individual strengths of the players). For will power to surface you’d need a reason – such as belonging to something bigger than yourself. As there was no team, there was nothing bigger. Who would they stretch themselves for? The coaches? But why?

The documentary is a rare glimpse into how professional top-level leadership actually performs (or doesn’t). You’d make a mistake to assume that 1) this example would be the rare exception and 2) businesses would be any different.

Which is not to say that there aren’t businesses that are different or that there aren’t leaders who truly light the path. But it’s certainly not the default.

“Leadership skill” is still largely expected to just somehow come to leaders “naturally”. You’re either born with it or not. Training, coaching and professional advisory around communication is still the exception to the norm – and even when it’s done it’s sometimes just to check the box.

And yet, communication can make or brake leadership – even if you’re highly skilled in other areas.

If you’ve watched the documentary, what was your biggest takeaway?

PS: It was heartbreaking to see the outsized role that PowerPoint played in the team meetings. PowerPoint is no substitute for empathy and trust and the way it’s being used in these meetings is a bitter example of that.

3 questions

If the people on your team clearly see

  • where we are going,
  • why we are going there, and
  • why we are going there,

and if your actions suggest that you mean it (as opposed to just throwing some random motivational bullsh#t at them), it’s likely that the right people will be attracted and the wrong people will leave.

The biggest win here is that you can trust the people who do follow along with knowing how to walk the path. They want to take that path.

Which means they will figure it out. You can stop micromanaging and focus on lighting the path.

What’s your answer to the three questions?

So incredibly powerful when she says it

“It sounds so incredibly powerful when she says it.”

Just wow.

But why is it that the same thought that you’ve thought a thousand times suddenly becomes powerful when you hear it ushered out of the celebrity’s mouth?

Because it’s immediately turned into a story. It gets filled with all the things that she’s achieved and said before. She embodies it and so you fill out all the missing pieces. When she says it, it becomes a profound truth that has enabled her path.

The crucial bit, though, is that when we experience a story it’s the hero we look at but it’s us who we see. We project ourselves onto the hero’s canvas.

Hearing the hero say out loud your thoughts brings you even closer. The incredible power of her saying out loud your thought is that it reassures you that you’re on the right track.

It’s not so much that you agree with her but that she agrees with you – which elevates you onto the hero’s podium. She’s picking up your thought. You’ve become the hero because the hero’s saying your thoughts and feelings.

That’s the power of lighting the path. Putting in words and saying out loud what your audience thinks and feels. It’s incredibly powerful.

Opinionated leadership

Someone once told me that “there’s no prospering team that’s not led by a strong leader with strong opinions.” And, indeed, reality seems to prove this. Look around and you’ll see examples of strongly opinionated successful leaders everywhere: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, John Chambers, and many, many more …

Yet, strong opinion gets often confused with micro-managing – leaders who interfere with the tiniest decisions, leaving their teams with severe uncertainty about what’s the right thing to do.

What gets easily overlooked is that the opinions of great leaders are much rather related to the direction of their teams, not the decisions, to their vision, not the execution.

You hire great people precisely because they are the ones who know what to do. They don’t need you to tell them what to do – and even more important: they actually don‘t want you to.

It’s a major source of frustration for them when you do so constantly. It slows everything down when you become the bottleneck of decision making. (And on top of that it can quickly lead to a feeling of overwhelm for yourself). The worst part: Quite likely the best talent will sooner or later leave if they don’t get the freedom to make decisions.

This is why lighting the path is such a powerful approach. When everyone on the team aligns with a common goal, one that you as a leader made them see and agree on, it allows anyone to decide. If your team is focused towards a common goal, that goal simplifies decision making and empowers every team member to make decisions on behalf of the team. No need to micro-manage.

When you light the path for your team, you can trust them with making the decisions! Your opinions are better spent on the path rather than on how people walk the path.

The difference between bad and good leaders

There are good leaders and there are bad leaders. The thing to keep in mind is that good and bad leaders sit on opposite sides of a spectrum.

It’s not that bad leaders are similar to good leaders, just not as good or maybe less effective.

Bad leaders are the opposite of good leaders. They can destroy the morale of a team and frustrate the members to a degree that leads to struggles and fights, greed and envy.

Good leaders don’t do things similarly to bad leaders, just better. They do things differently.

Yet, there’s one thing that both kinds of leaders have in common: Both lead by example. By the things they do and in the way they communicate, leaders make or break a team.

The important thing to see is that that’s a decision. You decide what kind of leader you want to be. And then, when you have clarity about your vision of leadership, it becomes a skill that you can improve.

Communicating to your team

The reason we all gather in a room (no matter if it’s online or offline) is because you are adding something that can’t be put on a slide. That’s especially true when you communicate to your team.

A presentation is not about the transfer of information but about the transfer of perspectives.

Information is much more efficiently – and usually also much more effectively – transferred asynchronously. Send me a document, point me to a link or book and I’ll take the info from there. I can read faster than you can talk. I can skip back or ahead. I can compare with knowledge I already have. I can take notes. All at my own speed.

The value of a presentation is in providing your perspective on the subject. Why does this matter? How are we affected? Why is this good news? How can we make best use of the info? Where do we go from here? As a team? How do you – as a person – handle the tough situation that follows from the info?

Communicating as a leader means more than providing info. It means showing up as a person who cares. It means lighting the path. It means making your team feel seen and heard.

And when they do feel seen and heard. And when they get your perspective. And when they align with your perspective because they get why it matters. Then they become more than the sum of their brains. They become a team.

PS: Next week, I’m launching a free five-part series on leadership communication.

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Picture of Dr. Michael Gerharz

Dr. Michael Gerharz