The Pursuit of Excellence: The Uncommon Behaviors of the World's Most Productive Achievers

by Ryan Hawk

Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman are two of the premier leadership consultants in the world. The 360 review is a big part of their advising practice when working with clients. According to Zenger and Folkman, here are some of the keys to performing an effective 360 review:11 The leader helps choose who among their colleagues should respond to the survey. The leader personally communicates with those respondents, asking them to provide their candid observations. The report is presented to the leader, either in a group setting (if multiple people are taking the instrument at the same time) or in a one-on-one coaching conversation. The leader is provided with context and guidance to understand the data. The leader also receives a customized set of developmental recommendations, mapped to the company’s leadership competencies, to help them create a personal development plan. There is follow-up from the talent professionals to ensure accountability.

I reached out to a friend of mine who makes his living through improv comedy, both by performing it and teaching others how to do it. I gave him free rein to employ whatever activities he wanted with one caveat: the focus had to be on helping attendees become better communicators. What did we spend the bulk of our time doing? Listening exercises. Why? In a study of over 8,000 people employed in businesses, hospitals, universities, the military, and government agencies, researchers found that virtually all the respondents believe that they communicate as effectively or more effectively than their coworkers. However, research shows that the average person listens at only about 25 percent of efficiency. While most people agree that listening effectively is an important skill, they don’t feel a strong need to improve their own skill level.

Kevin took his leadership team to an off-site meeting where he invited the CEO of IBM, Sam Palmisano, to speak to them about leadership. One of Kevin’s executive leaders asked Sam why his experience working in Japan was important to his leadership development. Sam said, “Because I learned to listen.” He added, “I learned to listen by having only one objective: comprehension. I was only trying to understand what the person was trying to convey to me. I wasn’t listening to critique or object or convince.”

“Humility is the enabler for curiosity,” Jay told me. “It’s the enabler for giving praise and gratitude to someone else. Not having to be the center of attention. People without humility don’t want to change their mind, or think ideas aren’t as good if they aren’t their own. . . . Curiosity is an attribute we want from people. But it’s easy when you’re a 21-year-old ensign. The 21-year-old is curious all day long because he doesn’t know anything. But when you’re 26 years in the Navy as a Master Chief, can you stay curious? Can you ask your staff, ‘What am I missing?’ Not everybody can do that. A lot of people get to a level in their career where they think they have it figured out. That can be debilitating for a leader.”15 Having the humility to open your mind, listen, and not having to be the “Chief Answer Executive”

A key part of the Indians’ learning organization culture is their monthly TEAMS calls. They invite a wide variety of leaders from both inside and outside the sporting world to participate in a large group Zoom call. There is one designated speaker to kick off the call, and it’s typically an author or thought leader on a specific topic. In the second half of the call, attendees go into breakout rooms where each person is asked to share their point of view about that topic. In the instructions email sent to every invitee prior to each call, Jay Hennessey states, “The speaker series is built around learning from our guest speaker and then cultivating dialogue amongst the group. We ask that those who attend are ready to engage and discuss with others during the session. If you are unable to actively engage, we ask that you wait to view the recording that we will send the following week. Thank you.” (The boldfacing is Jay’s.) They’ve learned that learning is done through dialogue. This comes from the work of Peter Senge in his book, The Fifth Discipline: “The discipline of team learning starts with ‘dialogue,’ the capacity of members of a team to suspend assumptions and enter into a genuine thinking together. To the Greeks, dia-logos meant a free flowing of meaning through a group, allowing the group to discover the insights not attainable individually.”

I start with a roughly one-mile run around the loop of the park. Following that, I go onto the grassy field and run a series of 110-yard sprints. Those sprints mirror the conditioning test that we did while I was at Ohio University. Finally, I finish by walking five miles around the neighborhoods near my home. I often see the same people out there who have their own routines (typically walking the loop around the park). Most weeks for about six months, I would see an older woman walking with her husband. We would nod to each other, say “Good morning,” and go about our business. One day, this woman walked up to me as I was cooling down from my sprints and asked, “Why do you run before you walk? Are there health benefits to it?” I could tell that she was genuinely curious. Without thinking and still out of breath from the sprints, I said, “I just try to do the hard stuff first.” After I had a moment to catch my breath and think about the interaction, I considered other areas of my life in which I “like to do the hard stuff first” and wondered why I instinctively responded to this woman like that. I realized that I love the feeling of accomplishing a hard task immediately upon waking up.

In fact, researchers at Stanford University have found that walking boosts creative inspiration. By examining the levels of creativity people exhibit while walking versus while sitting, they found that a person’s creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when walking.

“Dude! You really brought it. I can tell you made the choice to go for it. Huge props, man.” It took me a while to think about what he was trying to say. And as I contemplated what he meant by it, I thought about that choice we all must make before any big moment. Given the fear of looking like a fool in front of a lot of people, it’s natural to play it safe and just say the words you need to say and get off the stage, while taking as few risks as possible. But that’s the path to forgettable mediocrity. No errors get made, but neither do any memories or value for the audience. Instead, I choose to go for it.

“You look so comfortable on stage with all those people watching you,” I once told him. “How do you do that?” “First,” he answered, “it helps to get to the repetitions. Every experience doing it helps you feel better for the next one. So, you have to get the reps. Next, I say a quiet prayer to myself that I will have the energy and enthusiasm that this crowd deserves. This speech is for them. It’s about them. I need to show up for them. And then I do something that is counter to what I normally think and feel. I say, ‘I’m the baddest dude in this room, and I’m about to put on a show.’”

I remind myself each time that my mission for that day is to impact them in three ways: I want to change what they think, I want to change how they feel, and I want to compel them to choose to change their behavior for the better. That doesn’t happen without making the conscious choice to bring it each time.

He was neither arrogant nor cocky. He had an easy self-assuredness I rarely see. How had he acquired this level of belief in himself? His answer began with a moment when an experienced mentor had verbally hit him right between the eyes with an admonition that has stuck with Jack ever since. Very early in his career as a graphic designer in the advertising world, Jack had a meeting with this mentor to show his work-in-progress on a project. Prior to revealing his work, Jack said, “This isn’t as good as it should be. Can you take that into consideration before you look at it?” His mentor quickly responded, “Then why are you showing it to me? I don’t want to see it. If you’re going to lead with that, then why are you bringing it to me?” That lesson has framed Jack’s work ever since. As he relayed this story to me, he summarized its wisdom with this simple maxim: “Never discount your work prior to showing it.” Understand your work. Know how to properly frame it. And then show it with confidence.

They smile first. It’s contagious. They understand the importance of first impressions. Once formed, first impressions are hard to reverse. Because of this, charismatic people behave with intention when meeting someone for the first time. They look into your eyes, ask questions that pique your curiosity, genuinely listen to your answers, and respond with an even better follow-up question. They mirror the talking speed of their counterpart and create a feeling of connection quickly. They aren’t rushed or looking over the person’s shoulder for someone “more important.” They make the other person feel like they have all the time in the world. It’s hard to connect with someone when they seem rushed. They are fully present. Olivia Fox Cabane, author of The Charisma Myth, writes, “Being present—paying attention to what’s going on rather than being caught up in your thoughts—can yield immense rewards. When you exhibit presence, those around you feel listened to, respected, and valued.”10 They don’t spread negative gossip. Instead, they focus on sharing excitement about an idea or a person.

They are others focused. “In the torrid London summer of 1886, William Gladstone was up against Benjamin Disraeli for the post of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. This was the Victorian era, so whoever won was going to rule half the world. In the very last week before the election, both men happened to take the same young woman out to dinner. Naturally, the press asked her what impressions the rivals had made. She said, ‘After dining with Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest person in England. But after dining with Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest person in England.’ Guess who won the election? It was the man who made others feel intelligent, impressive, and fascinating: Benjamin Disraeli.”11

To work on

To be interesting to others, be interested in others.

They go beyond surface-level questions quickly. Charismatic people ask the questions that force the person they are with to think more deeply. They don’t play devil’s advocate, and they don’t immediately share their point of view. They ask questions out of genuine curiosity for the other person. They don’t simply “wait for their turn to speak.” They are focused on helping their counterparts express their thoughts, feelings, and excitement. Rarely do charismatic people waste time talking about the weather. They add humor to the conversation. They have an innate ability to make others smile and laugh without making it feel like they are delivering a stand-up comedy set. Laughter creates a higher level of comfort for others to connect with you. These charisma-building actions may come naturally to some, but they can also be learned by anyone.

Narcissism is clinically recognized as a personality disorder. People who score too high on the scale can be dangerous. In Rich’s book, The Attributes, he writes, “Excessive narcissists are rarely loyal—loyalty requires trust and a sense of safety—so their tribes are inherently unstable: Healthy members tend not to stay long, and new ones are let in only when they show the requisite deference. Those who do leave usually suffer a disproportionate amount of wrath from the person to whom they once deferred—because defectors are considered enemies. The energy and effort of the highly narcissistic person will be used to prop up their fragile egos rather than to achieve shared objectives or serve a common purpose.”

ensure your narcissism balance stays in check. Am I making this too much about me? Do I lash out at others if they no longer want to be on my team? What am I learning from the exit interviews with team members who are leaving my company? What am I doing to be a great friend? How am I there for others? Do I have long-term friendships or a lot of shorter-term acquaintances? Being willing to hold up a mirror to yourself and really question your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can be helpful when determining whether your narcissistic tendencies are in check.

As I sat down across from him, he pulled out his phone and set it on the table. On its screen I could see the timer app. He said, “You have 30 seconds. What are all the productive things you can do with a rock? Go!” And with that, the timer started. Now, I’m still not entirely certain what he was trying to learn by asking this, but I imagined at the time that he was judging how I would handle a pressure situation. I was not prepared for a question like this. How could I have been? I’d never thought about the production value of a rock before, and certainly not with a person timing me while I did it. I tried my best to calmly list as many useful things as possible: break a window, build a dam, paint it, etc. When my time was up, he said, “That was good!” Immediately following the encouragement, he asked, “How many new homes will be built in the United States next year? You can do the math in your notebook if you want.”

courage, humility, confidence, preparedness, humor, and authenticity.

I remember the moment when I called Dustyn to tell her that I was leaving my job as a director in a general management role to become VP of sales at our sister company. I was nervous and felt bad because I loved working with her. She made me so much better. I told her the news and she said, “Wow, I’m excited for you. But I didn’t know you wanted to go back into sales. Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you get a VP of sales role in my organization, and we could continue working together.” At that point, I realized that I had made the mistake of not being clear about what I wanted. I wanted to progress. I wanted to get promoted. I wanted to be a vice president. But I never told her. It was a learning moment for me: I needed to be open about what I wanted, and it would have helped me to tell her long before that phone call informing her that I would be leaving.

Bias for action. Remember what we learned from Herminia Ibarra, “We learn who we are in practice, not in theory.” Get on the stage. Do the work. Learn from doing it.

“If you’re always the victim, you’ll find that people get tired of carrying your load,” Donald Miller

In life, playing the role of victim “helps us out of the responsibility that is ours . . . [and] attracts a rescuer, somebody to come in and do the work for you. . . . The biggest transformation in my life happened when I stopped thinking of myself as a victim and started thinking of myself as the hero,” Don told me. He credits the change in his life’s trajectory to shifting his thinking and sense of identity to that of a hero mentality. “I lost 150 pounds and became more in control of my life.”

So how do we become ridiculously successful? By making other people absurdly successful.”

People who view themselves as a product or service to better the lives of others increase their odds of achieving the outcomes that they want. Having an others-focused approach to life and work means asking yourself some tough questions: How do you add value to your boss’s life? How do you add value to the lives of your clients? Here’s a great exercise you can do right now: Take out a sheet of paper and write down specifically how you improve the lives of people in your professional life. Do the same exercise for your personal life.

You need to create a craveable reason to return.

Think: Does my behavior make other people want to continue having me in their lives? Are my actions making the lives of others better? Am I delivering value to the greater community?

Jim said, “Bill, the truth is not all people are trustworthy. I’ve been burned. Haven’t you ever been burned?” Bill calmly replied, “Of course I’ve been burned. But I continue to have the opening bid of trust. Jim, it comes down to this. It’s upside and downside. I choose to believe there’s a much greater upside in trusting people and a much greater downside in not trusting people.” “For Bill,” Jim explained to me, “it was the great flywheel effect in that the best people engage with the best people. And the most trusting people engage with the most trusting people. And Bill’s view was, ‘If you have an opening bid of trust, the best people will be attracted to that, and it will serve as a magnet. It will bring those people to you, and it will also help them be more trustworthy. If you trust people, you’re going to change their behavior to be more trustworthy.

High performers, those who want to do excellent work, will be repelled by people who don’t lead with trust. It’s just that simple.

“One day, two large wooden crates appeared on our front porch,” Jim began telling me, “the address labels indicating they’d been shipped by Bill. He sent us a few dozen bottles of spectacularly good wine. I called and asked him what prompted him to send them to us, and he said, ‘Dorothy and I had an inventory problem in our wine cellar, and we needed to make room for some new bottles. We thought you could help us out by taking some of it off our hands.’” Bill has mastered the art of getting people to accept his generosity, somehow framing it as if you were doing him a favor. Bill was not just unloading wine he didn’t want because he no longer had room for it in his cellar. He had paid close attention during a dinner he had recently with Jim and Joanne (Jim’s wife). During that dinner, the Collinses had commented about how much they enjoyed Bill’s selection of wine. For Jim and Joanne at the time, wine of such quality was a luxury they could not have afforded to stock themselves. So Bill decided to share and used his “inventory problem” as the excuse to do so without making the Collinses feel uncomfortable in the process.

My dad’s motto when it comes to helping others is: “Don’t say no if you can say yes.”

One easy way to be generous is to be the person who spreads positive gossip. In our home, we’ve made it a family value: “We do not gossip negatively about others. Let’s try to spread only positive gossip. If you have something negative to say about someone, tell them directly.” The relational generosity of keeping criticism private while broadcasting good news about others is a wonderful attribute on which to build one’s reputation.

“I was too goal focused, overconfident . . . I was often wrong, but rarely in doubt. I was scared,” Brent admitted to me during his appearance on my show.

to share one of the best pieces of life advice he’d ever received, and his response was surprisingly simple. “My mom talking to me about how important it is to smile and how to smile,” Ryan wrote back to me by email. “Smiling connects people, smiling brings people in, smiling builds bridges. Smiling invites a next step, which becomes growth. . . . All else being equal, you choose the kid for your team who smiles. All else being equal, you go up to the person at the bar who is smiling. All else being equal, you hire the candidate who is smiling. I hope to be able to pass this along to my kids, too.”

Later, when I asked Rex why he had hired Miranda, he said, “I could feel her positive energy and attitude over the phone. I could feel her smile, and I wanted that positivity in my organization.”

Making the decision to have a positive outlook, believing that the day will go well, and then putting that attitude into practice by choosing to smile has a compounding effect. As Jon Gordon, author of the international bestseller The Energy Bus, once told me, “Positive energy is high-octane fuel, as opposed to the sludge created by negative energy. You need to drive your life with positive energy if you want to be successful.”

However, if you tend to be late, there is only one way to break that tendency. You must create a system that doesn’t allow you to be late.

“The life of George Washington was characterized by a scrupulous regard for punctuality,” write Brett and Katie McKay. “When he asked a man to bring by some horses he was interested in buying at five in the morning, and the man arrived fifteen minutes late, he was told by the stable groom that the general had been waiting there at five.” Washington had gone on to the other business of his day, “and he wouldn’t be able to examine the horses again until the following week.” Washington “ate dinner each day at exactly 4 o’clock, and when he invited members of Congress to dine with him, and they arrived late, they were often surprised to find the president halfway done with his meal or even pushing back from the table. To his startled, tardy guest he would say, ‘We are punctual here. My cook never asks whether the company has arrived, but whether the hour has come.’ And when Washington’s secretary arrived late to a meeting, and blamed his watch for his tardiness, Washington quietly replied, ‘Then you must get another watch, or I another secretary.’ . . . For Washington, being on time was a way of showing respect to others, and he expected to be treated with the same level of respect in return.”

rightly perturbed when the host finally shows up 10 minutes late and says, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m back-to-back all day. OK, where were we with this agenda?” Let’s say there are 20 people in that meeting: that one person who showed up late just wasted 200 minutes (20 people times 10 minutes).

Mike listened and asked questions. He took a few notes, but he wasn’t writing excessively. I could tell it was important to him to look the person who was talking in the eyes and show that person respect. He listened intently, always asked a follow-up question, and was not afraid to sit briefly in silence to think. Mike did this with every person in the room. But it wasn’t just a series of one-on-one conversations like in some formal receiving line at an event. While talking directly to the person who was fielding his question, he also created the sense of security and freedom in the room for someone else to speak up without being posed a direct question. It was an impressive display of leadership through communication. But what was even more remarkable was how he ended the meeting. Mike summarized our entire meeting and discussed the high points to ensure we felt heard. In fact, he used the exact words that we had spoken and attributed them to each person who had said them. He made people feel heard and that he truly cared.

In the fall of 1727, 21-year-old Benjamin Franklin and a group of friends founded the Junto.15 The purpose of the 12-member club of tradesmen and artisans was mutual improvement. Members of the Junto were avid readers and intellectuals who met to discuss questions of the day and to exchange knowledge of business affairs. In his autobiography, Franklin spelled out what being a member of the Junto required and delivered: We met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discussed by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties.

When a mistake is made at his restaurant, someone will point out what could be done better, it is acknowledged, and it is immediately corrected. When something below the standard is recognized, the response is a quick hai, meaning, “yes, I understand.” Preparation. “If you apply for a job at Jiro’s sushi bar,” says Blossom CEO Thomas Schranz, “you know what you are getting yourself into. It will take about 10 years of dedicated work until you’ll be allowed to cook tamagoyaki (egg sushi). It takes a long time of training and personal growth until Jiro considers you a shokunin (master craftsman).”4 Shokunin. “The Japanese word shokunin is defined by both Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries as ‘craftsman’ or ‘artisan,’ but such a literal description does not fully express the deeper meaning,” explains artist Tasio Orate. “The Japanese apprentice is taught that shokunin means not only having technical skills, but also implies an attitude and social consciousness. . . . The shokunin has a social obligation to work his/her best for the general welfare of the people. This obligation is both spiritual and material, in that no matter what it is, the shokunin’s responsibility is to fulfill the requirement.”

the founder of the first Zen monastery outside of Asia discusses the concept of shoshin. It refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner would.

Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Taleb captures the mindset of the master well: “My lesson from Soros is to start every meeting at my boutique by convincing everyone that we are a bunch of idiots who know nothing and are mistake-prone, but happen to be endowed with the rare privilege of knowing it.”

On January 6, 1919, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt died in his sleep, prompting then Vice President Thomas Marshall to say, “Death had to take him sleeping, for if Roosevelt had been awake, there would have been a fight.”

If you can’t teach it to a child, you don’t know it well enough.

Think about the most impactful leaders you know, whether a boss, a coach, or a teacher. They are memorable because of their ability to weave fascinating stories throughout their message. They are informative and entertaining. Novelist Richard Powers said, “The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”

One of the actions that my wife and I regularly practice is summarizing a recent podcast episode or a book for the other. This forces us to understand the key learnings from that podcast or book and share what we found to be most useful. Often, it’s a story. And we try to tell it in a way that engages, excites, and is helpful to the other.

He said, “As I found myself deliberating once again, I began to think back to the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck on motivation and failure. Dweck drew a distinction between performance orientation and learning orientation. Children that believe that their intelligence is fixed typically give up on problems quickly, whereas those that believe their intelligence is malleable, conversely, stick with problems longer. Adults are no different. Those who are performance oriented are dissuaded by failure—they favor stability. Whereas those who are learning oriented embrace opportunity and eschew the status quo.”

Mastermind Dinners: Build Lifelong Relationships by Connecting Experts, Influencers, and Linchpins. I have consciously modeled what I do at my dinner events after what Jayson does with his. When I conduct workshops or in-person meetups of my leadership circles, I make group dinners part of the package. As the host of the dinners, I often ask questions of each guest. I prepare small cards and carry them with me. Between dinner and dessert, I walk from person to person and hand each one a card. On them are personal questions that compel the participants to think deeply about themselves before sharing their answers with the whole group. As Jayson told me at one of his events, “Relationships move at the speed of vulnerability.” It’s not always comfortable, but when I conduct after-action surveys of my events, the card questions always pop up as a highlight for attendees.