15 minute read
Kevin Konkel
Lessons
and LifeI’VE LEARNED ON LEADERSHIP
KEVIN KONKEL Former Chief Operations Officer at Raley’s & former CGA Board Chair
SEEK FIRST THE MOST IMPORTANT AND MEANINGFUL
THINGS IN LIFE. Then the trials, tribulations, joys, and victories may be kept in perspective. The eyes of man are never satisfied. If more “stuff” is what we want, we will never have enough, and gratitude will elude us.
FIND THE RIGHT PARTNER. Leadership is hard, and the right relationship at home to ground, inspire, and challenge makes all the difference.
YOU ARE THE “GOOSE THAT LAYS THE GOLDEN EGGS.”
Take care of yourself and continue to produce golden eggs long-term. Focus on spiritual & physical health; otherwise, it’s difficult to serve others and tend to responsibilities. Neglecting this fact catches up to us more quickly than we realize.
IF YOU WANT TO BE A GREAT LEADER, HAVE THE
HEART OF A SERVANT. It’s a life-long journey, and we never fully arrive, so above all else, be humble – lookout not only for your interests but for the interests of others.
INTENSE COMPETITIVENESS AND KINDNESS CAN
CO-EXIST. I’ve seen and experienced this time and time again in retailing. Daily, we set out to beat the competition yet cheer each other on simultaneously. Go figure.
LEARN FROM THOSE WHO HAVE DONE IT BEFORE US.
No matter what we’re going through, someone else has been in our shoes and persevered. Seek them out.
AFTER DOING THE RESEARCH, IT’S OK TO TRUST
OUR GUT/HEART. There are tons of cliches out there from “experts” that have never been in our shoes, and at the end of the day, we own our decisions. Seek advice, but question it ruthlessly to ensure it’s a path to go down.
PREVAIL OVER SELF-DOUBT. Imposter syndrome is often a natural byproduct when we’re persistently leaning against our comfort zone; push through it.
“I’M SORRY” AND “I FORGIVE YOU“ ARE POWERFUL
STATEMENTS FOR THE WORKPLACE TOO. Nothing is more
powerful than admitting mistakes, forgiveness, grace, mercy, and love. Never take a genuine connection for granted. True friends and trusted colleagues are hard to find. Honest conversations are rare. Moments of vulnerability are special. Soak these up.
WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS, NOT HUMAN DOINGS. Love, care,
and serve, knowing people are not widgets. People need leaders who provide trust, compassion, stability, and hope to achieve their best and that entails treating others with respect and dignity who are wonderfully and fearfully made individuals.
BE A GOOD STEWARD. Return the business to the owner in better condition than where we found it. Optimally, much better.
THE GRAVEYARD IS FULL OF INDISPENSABLE PEOPLE.
We will eventually be replaced. We will move on someday. Don’t be threatened by up-and-coming superstars within our organizations. Build a bench of talent better than us and start today.
iStock
SHIFTING ELECTORAL DYNAMICS IN DEMOCRATIC CALIFORNIA
By Matt Rodriguez, CEO of Rodriguez Strategies
The California Democratic Party, its dominance, and what the latest polls portend for the state’s progressive politics.
California may be part of the contiguous United States, but it has become an island unto itself in terms of Democratic political control.
As voters sort themselves into increasingly ideological camps, national campaigns are ever more volatile. The presidency ping-pongs between Republicans and Democrats. Midterm elections increasingly demonstrate huge swings, typically in favor of the party not controlling the White House. President Donald Trump only lasted one term, and President Joe Biden currently sits in a perilous position, stymied by a 50-50 Senate with his party poised to lose both houses of Congress in this year’s elections.
For the last decade, California has been largely immune to these trends, consolidating of Democratic political power at the state and local level. The California Republican Party has completely cratered with no sign of life. Hillary Clinton and Biden won historic statewide victories in 2016 and 2020, as did Gov. Gavin Newsom in fending off a recall challenge fueled by voter anger over COVID-19 policies upheld through sweeping emergency powers. At the state and local levels, even progressive California voters have demonstrated a willingness to push back against the never-ending cycle of tax increases and bond measures that populate election year ballots.
California prides itself as being on the front lines of public policy, and elected officials have leaned hard into pandemic-fueled restrictions. COVID lockdowns were as stringent here as any state in the nation.
Democrats hold all statewide offices, control big city councils and mayors, and maintain historic margins in the California State Legislature. So are voters uniformly happy with what is essentially one-party government? It doesn’t appear that way. Recent polling shows voters believe things are on the wrong track, Governor Newsom’s approval ratings have fallen significantly, and many of California’s cities have become synonymous with bad governance, corruption, and incompetent leadership.
Schools stayed closed well after they had safely re-opened in other states. Unionbacked local “Hero Pay” ordinances proliferated, even in the face of store closures and job losses due to increased
(and unsustainable) costs. At the same time, crime has exploded in cities, and homelessness is the number one issue cited by voters in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Nationally, the GOP appears positioned to win big in November. Will that wave spill over into California? In terms of GOP candidate victories, the answer is probably no.
However, while no institutional counterweight stands in the way of progressive ambitions, voter sentiment might. We have begun to see voters push back against perceived philosophical and policy excesses and some of the candidates associated with them. In the 2020 cycle, voters shot down the idea of rolling back parts of Prop 13 and raising taxes on commercial property – a concept that has held since 1978. Governor Newsom’s school bond measure failed at the ballot in 2020 despite no opposition campaign of any significance – the first such loss by a statewide school bond since 1994.
Proposition 22 overturned the laborbacked AB 5 for gig drivers with a whopping 58 percent of the vote – a very high number for a contested Yes ballot measure and one that overturned existing law. In the March 2020 election, voters rejected about half of local tax and bond measures put before them, including a raft of school bond measures typically seen as a “slam dunk.”
Where else might this voter unrest manifest itself this November? For that answer we can look to the bluest of the blue urban areas in the United States: California’s cities.
These population centers are among the most progressive places in the country and always at the tip of the spear
n Also in San Francisco, District Attorney
Chesa Boudin, elected on a platform of less aggressive prosecution and sentencing guidelines, faces his own recall this year.
n In Los Angeles, nearly the same dynamic is playing out with District Attorney
George Gascón (formerly D.A. in San
Francisco) facing a potential recall at the n The ultimate outsider, billionaire developer Rick Caruso, has entered the race for mayor in Los Angeles, betting that voters want an outsider candidate to run against a failed status quo widely seen as inept and self-dealing.
California’s cities have always demonstrated a kind of dual nature: laboratories of innovation; machine politics based on
iStock
for driving tax increases and novel policy prescriptions. What are voter attitudes there demonstrating? Deep unrest with their current trajectory.
Just take a look at what has happened over the past few months:
n San Francisco voters just recalled three sitting school board members for failing to address parent concerns over school closures and student academic performance in favor of renaming schools and making changes to admissions policies. Even progressive
Mayor London Breed supported the recall, remarking that officials had
“failed” San Francisco’s children. ballot and a revolt among the rank-andfile prosecutors he oversees.
n Los Angeles City Council Member Mike
Bonin narrowly dodged his own recall attempt in early 2022 but nonetheless is not running for reelection – clearly due to widespread unhappiness with his leadership (or lack thereof) on issues related to crime and housing on
LA’s westside.
n All major candidates in the Los Angeles mayor’s race have come out either for hiring more police officers or keeping the force at its current numbers. This position would have been inconceivable in the wake of the unrest following
George Floyd’s death. union power; progressive governance fueled by wealthy urban elite donors. At the same time, this governance has failed to stem the tide of exploding housing costs, rising crime, the homelessness crisis, and in some cases out-migration to more affordable enclaves outside of California.
Democratic electoral dominance is unlikely to fade in California or its urban centers any time soon. But elections this year in cities like Long Beach, San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles will provide insight into what voters will demand from their elected leaders in 2023 and beyond.
Matt Rodriguez is a veteran Democratic strategist with more than 20 years of experience working for candidates and causes across the nation. ■
It’s been a tough couple of years. Here’s what to do when you and your team are out of gas.
By Mike Maddock, CEO and Founding Partner, Maddock Douglas, Inc. How Leaders Get their MOJO
BACK
– Carmine Gallo, Talk Like TED
In December 2021, Adam Grant wrote a piece in The New York Times which put a name to how many people were feeling. He described the space between burnout, joylessness, and depression as “languishing.” Then, the article immediately went viral as the world gave a virtual head-nod to how a year of a pandemic had impacted them.
Fast forward to 2022. Leaders are still dealing with a pandemic and many of us have moved well past languishing. In fact, Dr. Heidi Hanna, who has made a living writing, teaching, and speaking about how leaders function best under stress, is now recommending techniques used regularly to treat PTSD for her CEO clients most impacted by the pandemic.
According to Dr. Hanna, “Stress itself isn’t good or bad, but rather energy potential that can be used in positive or negative ways.” In fact, many leaders use stress to get more done and perform at higher levels. But when the stress is unrelenting it can be damaging, leading to an utter depletion of the mojo that makes us special.
Continued on page 28 ▶
My buddy, Rand Stagen, runs a leadership academy in Dallas. He’ll tell you he helps entrepreneurial leaders of companies with hundreds of millions in revenue scale to billions in sales. While this may be the outcome, I believe his most valuable skill is helping leaders see that their teams are simply reflections of themselves.
If that’s true — and I sincerely believe it is — then paying attention to how our own engines run is one of our most important jobs as leaders.
This just makes sense. When the leader is focused, the team is focused. When the leader is oozing with mojo, so is their team, and when the leader is out of gas… well, you see where this is going.
Leadership guru Marshall Goldsmith wrote a great book titled, MOJO, in 2010. The year before the book was published, I shared a quiet moment with him at an entrepreneurial gathering that I was chairing.
I had asked Goldsmith to come speak to the group about leadership. During our conversation, I admitted that I was feeling run down and feared that “I had lost my mojo.” Marshall responded with something like, “Well then your team has probably lost its mojo too.”
He was spot on. Every team becomes a reflection of their leader — good and bad — and it is natural for leaders to run out of gas occasionally. The leadership road is long and bumpy.
After speaking to Marshall and some other trusted advisors, I knew I had to do some work on myself first, company second. I took an intentional, lengthy break, during which I left my phone and computer on one continent and spent four weeks with my family, wine, cheese, and lavender on another one.
Our executive team could have reached me if Rome was burning, but it would have involved a carrier pigeon or a Frenchman on a Vespa. It worked.
The following two years were the best our company ever had, and the break inspired me to launch a new division which would triple the size of our firm. I am convinced that my thinking was directly related to the fresh perspective that comes with a clear head.
iStock
So, if your mojo-meter is running on fumes, here are a few simple ways to refuel:
TAKE A BREAK
Sometimes the most obvious ideas are the best ideas. When was the last time you really got away from your business? The axiom that you can’t work on your business when you are working in your business is true. One of the best ways to gain new perspective and the energy to act upon it is to leave your business behind — for a while.
Verne Harnish, founder of The Entrepreneurs Organization (now EO) and Gazelles, recommends you step away from your business and take a sabbatical every seven years. He notes that every culture celebrates life transitions in seven-year increments, e.g., Confirmations and Bat Mitsvahs, which were naturally designed around our need to reset. So, taking time to recalibrate as a business leader every seven years makes a lot of sense.
For this strategy to work, you really have to be committed to leaving your business behind. Take at least three weeks and commit to not checking email or calling in to see how things are going without you. If possible, go to a completely foreign location — the further off-the-grid, the better. Your goal is to be intentionally distracted by things other than business. I have done this twice now, in my three decades of running businesses. Upon returning from each trip, I was able to see things more clearly, and the results were extraordinary.
I learned that the necessary changes I was putting off because they required too much emotional capital were much easier to make upon return. I also noticed that it was easier to make subtle connections that lead to disproportionate returns. For example, upon returning from one trip, I repositioned our company and started a new one. These shifts would have required “juice” that I didn’t have when I left the country.
TAKE A NAP
Naps aren’t just for grandparents and babies, leaders everywhere have learned about the value of 30 minutes of downtime. A NASA study on pilots found that a 40-minute nap improved performance by 34 percent. The National Sleep Foundation even describes napping as a mini-vacation. It’s up to you as a leader to make taking quick breaks okay. We have a room in our office that is used for napping. I am delighted when I see someone emerge from a mid-afternoon break because it means that they feel comfortable taking care of themselves, and they will be performing at a higher level for the rest of the day.
WORK OUT DURING WORK
If you can’t nap, then exercise in the afternoon. Research shows that muscle strength, power and output are all better later in the day. Nothing shrinks stress like the endorphins you get from a good workout. One benefit of the pandemic is that many companies are now embracing the benefits of more flexible schedules, making this accommodation possible.
Continued on page 30 ▶
SWITCH JOBS
I’ve joked for years with my entrepreneurial friends that we ought to do a “Boss Swap,” during which we’d run each other’s companies for a period. While running the friend’s firm, we’d have carte blanche to make any decisions we thought necessary for the good of the company and its shareholders. After all, it’s always easier to solve other people’s problems than your own.
Thankfully, there are simpler and perhaps less dramatic ways to switch jobs. They are called special projects. Just pick a really big challenge that is new to you. This could be in your department, another department, or within a client’s company.
Commit to working on this singular challenge. Establish a time limit to solve the challenge. Since this is essentially a working sabbatical, a good rule of thumb is 4–6 weeks, but even dedicating a week to something completely different will work wonders. Choose the biggest, most important challenge you believe you can solve within that time frame so you are completely distracted and engaged. Switching jobs will give you a fresh, meaningful problem to solve. It will allow your brain to stop grinding on your old challenges and it will remind you that you are a great problem solver. As long as you pick the right challenge, you will find that this practice is invigorating. It’s important. It’s worthy of your time.
FOCUS ON FUTURE OUTCOMES
I’ve noticed that for leaders, the past sucks energy, but the road ahead fuels mojo. The solution to this is simple on paper, but hard for many to implement: We must always be focused on the future we want.
The easiest way to do that is to simply ask this question constantly: “What is the outcome I want?” Great leaders have the ability to focus and refocus themselves and their teams on this powerful question. In doing so they are constantly writing a story about a better future instead of reflecting on a past that they cannot change. One last bit of experience to share. Social media can be insidious. It is impossible to check out if you are always checking in. So when you take a break, leave your smart phone in a drawer. The world will be fine without you for a while. ■
Mike Maddock is an entrepreneur, a keynote speaker, an executive coach and a writer. He calls himself an Idea Monkey because he loves to solve problems with disruptive ideas. This passion for problem solving led him to establish Maddock Douglas, Inc. in 1991. Maddock Douglas has become an internationally recognized innovation consultancy that has helped more than 25 percent of the Fortune 100 create and launch new products, services and business models.
