1 Big Reason for Failure to Inspire
I sat in the parking lot of our local grocery store, letting a sense of loss sweep over me. The feeling of helplessness, mingled with self-pity, fury, frustration, and self-doubt crashing like waves — one after another. I leaned on the steering wheel — trying to steady the physical and mental exhaustion. It was deja vu. A few years ago, I had gone through something similar on a different project. I thought I had ensured proper checks in picking the right team this time. Still wrong.
One of the key things that many entrepreneurs are advised — find the right co-founder. It is hard to do anything without founders. I had my share of troubles with co-founders even though they were my close friends and family. Several phone conversations, long walks, talking through pain and inspiration — we tried it all. Still wrong.
We talked about different books on this journey. Mindset, Unf*ck yourself, and Extreme ownership. All with the intent of getting the attitude right. We had several conversations about how to get out of the rut, how not to feel the burden of guilt and regret, how to simply move and get un-stuck. Still wrong.
After another failed attempt at moving the buck on inspiration, I hung up the phone. I slowly pulled out of the parking lot and turned on Audible. In recent days, I have been playing Satya Nadella’s ‘Hit Refresh’. It has been a fascinating listen. He talks about empathy quite a bit and there were several instances in his book that have brought tears to my eyes (with his kids).
As I continued to mull, I could not help shake the feeling of having let my team down. It was my job to inspire and engage them. And, I failed. A concept that I learned from Satya’s book is to use an analogy from Cricket (or baseball, if you prefer). It is about letting the ball come onto the bat. This is a state of mind where things flow. You do not force things but allow the flow to happen. Your focus is on fluidly executing your motion, there’s no nervous or hard hammering of the nail.
Pondering on this failure to inspire problem, I came across this relevant Simon Sinek video. Usually, I am not a huge fan of Simon as I find his talks too ‘leadershipy’. But, this time it was different. It was as if I was ready to receive this knowledge. The main point from his video is that when I failed to inspire, I was making it about me. Leadership is about service. As long as I keep the emphasis on what I am doing and don’t listen to what others want, this will continue to be a problem.
So, on this journey forward, I have been on a reading and listening path. The desire to help others in their journey is my motivating force. Understanding shortcomings is the first step in the growth process.
Medium is great for topic exploration. You can get a well thought out summary from multiple perspectives. On a related note to my article above is Mofrad Muntasir’s write-up on inspiring a demotivated team. Curiously, listening is a key requirement in the process.
