Recently my family and I, along with a couple of our friends, visited the 6th Ave district of Tacoma, WA and tried out an Argentinian restaurant called Asado. Since we just moved to the city we were trying to find some new restaurants and this one looked like a good place to start. I ordered the Sea Bass for my main course and a half a dozen oysters for an appetizer. The main courses came out from the kitchen and I noticed that I had never gotten my oysters. So, I asked the waiter and he admitted that he had completely forgotten. Now at this point the night could have gone two ways:

Option A: The waiter could have said, “I’m very sorry, I completely forgot,” and left it at that. He could have just gone on with the meal and I would receive the check and walk away feeling that while I had a great meal, it was just a bit off. Even with this option, the experience would have been a positive one overall and I probably would come back.

The waiter could have said, “I’m very sorry, I completely forgot…would you like to have them with your meal or would you like a complimentary dessert instead.” I would choose the dessert and at the end of the meal our whole party would enjoy a great chocolate souffle cake with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. I would then pay and leave the restaurant having had a great meal and knowing that Asado had great service and valued my experience as their customer. Asado would have just made me their new fan and spokesperson.

The waiter at Asado was wise and chose Option B. To be honest, I really didn’t care that he had forgotten my appetizer, I was too busy enjoying my Sea Bass, but the fact that he didn’t just stop at sorry and instead took the extra step of correcting the situation made a huge impact on me and won a new customer for the restaurant.

What happened at Asado happens everyday and raises an important question, “How do you react when you fail?”  If you are in a service-related organization whether it be a restaurant, retail store or professional service, this is such an important principle to understand. And it’s deceivingly simple.

If you mess up and fall short of the customer’s expectations, sorry isn’t enough. Even if it is sincere and the mistake was honest, people only feel valued if they believe an organization is working hard to make up for their mistakes.  Don’t just say “sorry,” DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

By choosing Option B, a company is making an incredibly lucrative investment. For the price that it cost to make a dessert (approx $2 if I had to guess), they got an enthusiastic customer that will not only come back himself and purchase many more meals (approx $50-$70 for 2 people), but will tell friends to go as well. For a $2 investment they received a return of at least $50 and likely much more over time. What organization wouldn’t want a return of 2,300% (feel free to check my math, I did this early in the morning).

This principle doesn’t only operate in the business-customer relationship, it has consequences inside the organization itself.  As a young employee there is no doubt that you will make mistakes. In fact, as I have been exploring lately, it may be beneficial to fail in certain situations. But, when you fail and have to explain yourself to your boss, remember that sorry isn’t enough. Have a plan to fix the problem and already be in the process of implementing it.

It’s not hard to do the right thing, but it starts at the top of the organization and works its way down. And if the employee interacting directly with the customer doesn’t understand this philosophy, doesn’t feel empowered to implement it, or worse doesn’t care enough to do anything when mistakes are made, the organization suffers more than just a slight mess up, they lose the very people they are trying to serve.

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“Westerners are often eager to blame others when something goes wrong. The attitude of “the buck stops here” is the exception, not the rule. It is just the opposite within Toyota. The greatest sign of strength is when an individual can openly address thing that did not go right, take responsibility, and propose countermeasures to prevent these things from happening again.” - Jeffrey Liker, “The Toyota Way.”

If you’ve been watching the news at all over the past couple years you’ve seen Toyota that has come to dominate the global auto industry, surpassing GM last year to become the world’s largest carmaker. As GM and Ford have struggled to keep their heads above water, cutting thousands of jobs and closing factories, Toyota has been expanding and profiting along the way.

While the American companies have been pointing to an undervalued yen as the source of their fall from the top, I think the answer to this power shift has much more to do with organizational culture and leadership than currency issues. Simply put, Toyota is a better company.

Much has been written about the organizational culture of Toyota in the last two decades, but one factor stands out from the rest as a key to their success - kaizen, the Japanese term for constant improvement.

Kaizen teaches individual skills for working effectively in small groups, solving problems, documenting and improving processes, collecting and analyzing data, and self-managing within a peer group. It pushes the decision making (or proposal making) down to the workers and requires open discussion and a group consensus before implementing any decisions. pg 24, “The Toyota Way” (emphasis mine)

The philosophy of kaizen is something that is of great benefit not only to businesses, but churches, non-profits and civic groups as well. It seems like a no-brainer, yet few organizations really practice it. Why? Here are some thoughts.

5 Barriers to Kaizen:

1. Insecure Leadership - Kaizen means that procedures and philosophies are continually questioned, debated and changed. If the leadership can’t handle having their ideas challenged on a frequent basis then the organization is destined to become irrelevant. Leaders must be secure enough to know that the free debate of ideas is healthy and necessary and does not represent a personal attack on their authority. This isn’t to say they shouldn’t be the final authority on decisions, only that they must allow input from others and not be surprised or upset when their ideas are tweaked or replaced for something better.

2. My Way or the Highway - A demand for unquestioned obedience and “my way or the highway” attitude will also squash kaizen, producing a reluctance to bring forth a new ideas out of fear of reprisal. A dictatorship may work in organizations with a handful of people, but it is impossible for one person to possess all the knowledge necessary to run a complex system. It is the front-line workers that will have the best view of what needs to be changed and their voices must be heard for kaizen to happen.

3. Fat on Resources - This may seem counterintuitive, but often times it is the overabundance of resources that keeps an organization from recognizing the need for improvement. If you have too many resources then waste is ignored and issues are solved by more money, more committees and more positions rather than solving the underlying problem.

After WWII, much of Japan’s economy was destroyed and Toyota faced the hard decisions that come with many problems and few resources. They couldn’t afford any waste so they had to invent a new production system that would later be known as “Just In Time.” Lack of resources forced Toyota to innovate. *Side note: Marc Andreesen has some great points regarding raising too much money as a startup here.

4. Unmotivated or Ill-equipped employees - One thing that interested me about Toyota is their hiring process. While many companies approach filling assembly line jobs as simply a numbers game Toyota seeks out highly talented and motivated employees to fill even the most basic of positions. They understand that people are more important than machines and need incentives to keep from slipping into the “lifer” mentality, as my friend Akshay put to well. By hiring quality people and constantly providing them with training and education opportunities they also ensure that kaizen will be skillfully applied by their front-line employees.

5. Promotion by Numbers - If your promotion emphasizes toeing the line more than it does improving the organization, kaizen will be severely restricted. In order for a company to continually adapt it must reward the mavericks, the innovative thinkers who question the norm and create new ways of doing things. These people may not always fit the polished image that many organizations desire in their upper echelons, but if these people are marginalized, rather than promoted, a dangerous precedent will be set that going with the flow pays more than trying to make a change.

Resources:

Kaizen - Wikipedia
“Toyota ‘world’s largest carmaker’” - BBC News
“The Toyota Way” by Jeffrey Liker

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One wonderful thing about being married is getting to hear about manhood from a woman’s perspective. This is valuable intel. Kind of like crossing behind enemy lines and finding out what they’ve picked up on while you’ve been going about your business.

There are many lessons I’ve learned discussing manhood with my wife and her friends, but one has been mentioned more than any other: women’s frustration with the inability of men to make a decision.

I was a bit surprised when I first heard this. Out of all the shortcomings of men I figured B.O. or disdain for discussing feelings would rank much higher. After all, don’t women want to make the calls in the relationship? It turns out they don’t.

Let’s run through a quick scenario that happens every day in relationships:

Woman: So what are we going to do tonight?
Man: I don’t know, what do you want to do?
Woman: I don’t know, why don’t you choose?
Man: I really don’t care, I’m good with anything
Woman: Fine then, how about we get some coffee?
Man: Umm, actually I’m not really in the mood to go out, why don’t we just stay home tonight?

And so it goes. The man thinking he’s being a gentleman by constantly deferring to the woman and the woman frustrated that her man is either too lazy, apathetic, or scared to make a decision. Enough! It’s time for men to be men and this means being a leader in your relationships. What does this look like?

Decide - If she asks you to decide, then decide. It’s not a test or some type of trick. Being a leader means making decisions. There is a tactful and loving way to do this, but for some guys just the simple act of deciding can seem paralyzing. Trust that your partner wants to follow you and lead.

Plan Ahead - Women love when you plan things out. Not only does it show them you care enough to coordinate your time together, but it shows them you’re capable of leading the relationship. Make reservations, buy tickets ahead of time and show that you know how to plan ahead.

Be Yourself - If you don’t want to see the movie, then say that. If you want to spend the night alone instead of inviting others, make your opinion known. Obviously there are times when you must compromise and do what your partner wants, even if you don’t, but it’s o.k. to disagree from time to time.

Please don’t be confused. I’m not saying that you should control every aspect of the relationship or plan every minute. It’s definitely possible to go too far in this direction. What I’m calling for is a healthy relationship where the woman can trust that her man is willing and able to lead. So, be a gentleman and make a decision.

A couple days ago I began reading, “Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War” by Robert Coram, the biography of Col John Boyd, one of the most controversial figures in Air Force history. Boyd is most famous for his Energy-Maneuverability Theory a huge breakthrough in fighter tactics and design, the OODA Loop and several other contributions to aviation and military theory and tactics.

Much of the book displays the constant fight between the mad warrior-scientist Boyd and the toe-the-line military establishment at the time, consisting of generals with little interest in change or original thought. Boyd was constantly being cornered by the soul-crushing monster of a bureaucracy at the Pentagon, spending more time convincing the leadership to challenge long-held assumptions than actually working on his theories.

While reading about the struggle of implementing change in a large bureaucracy, the following exchange between a Colonel and a newly appointed Secretary of Defense caught my attention. Secretary Schlesinger was looking for some wisdom on leaving a legacy and Colonel Hallock, a highly respected combat hero offered the following:

You must understand that if you want to leave a legacy it is vital for you to make a quick decision about what you want that legacy to be. If you don’t make a quick decision, you will have no legacy. Because after several months you become so caught up in the business of the Pentagon, so enmeshed with the generals, so overwhelmed with the scope and enormity of the job that it will be too late. Pick a few projects and put the full weight of your office behind them. Guide the projects. Nurture them. Know from the very beginning that they will be your legacy. Force them through the bureaucracy (Coram 279).

I wonder how many Fortune 500 CEO’s could have been saved from incredible failures if they’d had their own Colonel Hallock’s to keep them on track? The fact is large, established organizations are incredibly difficult, if not impossible to significantly change.

It is the desire of most leaders to jump into their role and start a revolution on day one, throwing out the old and bringing in the new…in reality, this very rarely happens. A leader would do much better to focus on two or three key things to change and throw their whole weight and energy behind those…this is the path to truly impacting an organization.

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“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”— Jack Welch

The term “organic” is thrown around quite regularly these days, mainly in regard to food, but driving to dinner last night my wife and I discussed the term in relation to leadership. While organizations spend billions of dollars each year trying to hire the best leaders, there will always be some that fail and other that succeed. What separates the two types of leaders is their ability to become organic to their employees or subordinates. But what does organic mean in terms of leadership?

Organic Leadership - natural, motivating, compelling, effortless, inspiring hard work, creativity and innovation, fun

Non-Organic Leadership - unnatural, forced, coercive, minimal effort from subordinates, conformity, mechanical

An organic leader is one who we naturally want to follow, not because we’ll get fired if we don’t (though we may), but because something inside of us believes that they are adding value to our lives, businesses, and organizations.

Yet, while it may “feel” effortless, organic leadership is quite intentional. Organic leaders completely blow their non-organic counterparts away when it comes to one area: their ability to motivate and inspire people by meeting their higher needs.

A quick history. In 1943, Abraham Maslow published a landmark study on human motivation in relation to a hierarchy of needs. His study was unique because his subjects were successful, creative people, not the usual sick and disturbed crowd. He found that humans have needs which can be placed in two groups, basic and meta(growth), the higher depending on the fulfillment of the lower.

photo credit: savethedave

Basic or Deficiency Needs -

Physiological - food, water, sleep, sex, breathing

Safety - free from danger, security both physically and financially, clothing and shelter

Love/Belonging - social relationships, friendships, family, intimacy, need to be accepted

Esteem - respect from others, self-esteem, recognition, feeling valued and adequate

Meta or Growth Needs -

Cognitive - learn, explore, make sense of the universe, discover new things

Aesthetic - beautiful imagery, order, perspective

Self-Actualization - understanding yourself, knowing who you are and where you are going, realizing your full potential

Non-organic leaders meet only the first four basic needs, sometimes even less. Organic leaders meet these lower needs, but also have the ability to meet people’s higher needs: cognitive, aesthetic and self-actualization.

Think of the leaders that have inspired you. Chances are they excited you on a cognitive level by helping increase your knowledge and understanding. On an aesthetic level they were able to inspire you through imagery and unique perspective. And in all of this they allowed you to reach your full potential.

“Most innovative,” “Inspiring,” “Purpose-driven,” these are the words reserved for organic leaders, not for leaders who simply provided a safe work environment and steady paycheck, but for those who make it all seem so natural, those who understand the hierarchy of needs.

What have leaders done to inspire you? Do you agree with Maslow’s hierarchy? Why or why not? Let the discussion begin!

“I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?” - Benjamin Disraeli

Over the past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about being a father, husband and what it means to lead my family. Leadership has always been something that has greatly intrigued me. The ideas of being an influencer rather than one who is always influenced and making a positive impact in someone’s life… these are incredible and challenging thoughts.

In thinking of the leaders I look up to, dead and alive, a simple thought came to mind: great leaders are easy to follow. I know, profound right? But, before you go back to checking your Facebook, think about this. Great leaders are easy to follow because deep down we believe they are someone worth following, someone who has overflowing value that can greatly benefit our lives if we are close enough to them. So ask yourself, are you someone worth following? As you mull this over consider the following:

Do you ask others to do more than you are willing to do yourself? - Going through four years at a military academy gave me an opportunity to witness the best and worst of leadership. One of the strongest lessons I took away from that experience came about while doing some push ups.

Part of being at a military academy is being trained by upperclassmen as a freshman which often meant being stopped in the hallways and told to do push ups. While no one actually enjoyed this experience, it was at least tolerable if the one doing the training was someone you respected and knew could do just as many push ups as you and more.

The worst in leadership came about when being forced to do push ups by someone you knew couldn’t knock out 25 if their life depended on it. Doing push ups for these people was a miserable experience and put an incredibly sour taste in my mouth. This person wasn’t a leader, they were an order-giver — too weak to do anything on their own, but expecting their subordinates to do something they couldn’t do themselves. I had no respect for these upperclassmen and wouldn’t follow them anywhere.

Are you serving yourself and calling it service for others? - My friend Glenn posed this question a few days ago and it has haunted me. Is the purpose of your leadership fulfilling a calling, a need for a sense of purpose, or is it actually about serving those following you? When looking at the great leaders in my life one factor is common among them all, they authentically want to see their followers succeed and will do anything they can to make that happen. Leadership to them is about others, not themselves.

In the military, as I’m sure is true in corporate America, performance reviews often require short bullet statements explaining what the person being reviewed has done to positively impact the organization. Around review time it is often an interesting phenomena to watch as many people suddenly begin volunteering for various things as they realize they don’t have very many bullet statements. Sometimes our leadership can turn into a race to acquire good bullet statements if we aren’t careful. What’s the end goal of your leadership, self-fulfillment or the betterment of others?

These are the questions that keep a father, husband and young military officer up at night. There are lots of people in the world with titles and power, but few true leaders. The reality is, none of us probably think we’re really worth following, but we work at it and try to do better each day…and the process is good.

Last month my good friend Glenn Packiam made the following comments as we discussed the book, Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England by Lynne Olson. We were reading the book for a book club to which we both belong and discussing Winston Churchill’s use of his political capital during various phases of his career.

While many remember Churchill simply as the man of the hour during WWII, the fact is, his rise to power was not such a smooth road. Rather, it was the result of many people who looked beyond some earlier questionable decisions, believing his leadership style to be exactly what was needed as Britain prepared to face Nazi Germany.

With this discussion in mind, Glenn made the following points on leadership that have continued to remain rambling around in my mind, causing me to weigh my words and thoughts more carefully and look at leadership as something to be spent wisely rather than splattered over every life situation with reckless abandon.

a thought i had a while back on churchill’s moments of low political profile that came as a result of his impulsive and poorly chosen soapboxes: leadership is a currency that must be spent wisely. once it is spent poorly– on weak causes that ought not be supported– it is horribly devalued and becomes considerably less desirable. when parliament and the rebel torys needed churchill the most, to speak up for anti-appeasement, to represent the growing public concern over the shabby state of england’s military forces….churchill was forced to lay low. why? because he had chosen to speak up about keeping India a colony– a ridiculous idea that was difficult to defend. churchill’s judgment– or lack of it– devalued the currency of his leadership so greatly that his opinions became as precious as a mexican peso.

so, the next time you– or i– consider launching into a tirade at a meeting about the color of carpet, the length of announcements, or any other trivial matter that you really shouldn’t care so much about, ask
yourself if you really want to spend your leadership currency on that issue…how will your choosing to exert your influence on behalf of a certain cause value or devalue the currency of your leadership? that
is not to say we shouldn’t speak up for something we believe in regardless of popularity…in fact, my point has nothing to do with whether something is popular. it is all about whether the causes we
lend our voices to are the kinds of things we really want our lives to be defined by.

thankfully for europe, churchill’s life and legacy weren’t defined by
the imperialization of india.

After so many lists and how-to books on leadership its always refreshing to hear a very original idea on the subject. You can read more of Glenn’s awesome work here.

Everyone wants the ability to change the world around them, but some carry much more influence than others. These people possess authority. Authority is an interesting thing because unlike power, which can be gained independently, authority must be given by others. From Wikipedia, “…’power’ refers to the ability to achieve certain ends, ‘authority’ refers to the legitimacy, justification and right to exercise that power. For example, whilst a mob has the power to punish a criminal, such as through lynching, only the courts have the authority to order capital punishment.”

In academia, authority is often associated with someone or some work that is definitive, respected, and found to be the most knowledgeable or accurate in a certain field. Authority is often correlated to the number of times the person or work is cited in other academic publications. Technorati, a popular blog ranking site assigns each blog an “Authority” rank based on the number of other web sites linking to that specific blog. Again, authority is given by others.

Webster’s defines authority as, “power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior,” and also as “convincing force.”

How, then, does one gain authority? The following are three paths to gaining authority that apply regardless of career, position or geography:

Service - People will rarely allow you to have access into their life if you have not served them in some capacity. The most trusted professions in America happen to be the professions most associated with service–doctors, police officers, teachers, and military officers are among the highest ranking. It should come as no surprise that the most trusted professions are also rewarded with the most authority. The act of putting other people before yourself is widely preached and rarely practice, but the individuals, businesses and organizations that do this best reap the benefits.

Just think of the last time a business went the extra mile in serving you, what was your reaction? The most common reaction to service is greater trust. Howard Schultz has built Starbucks around the concept of serving his employees using measures such as stock options and benefits for employees working as little as 20 hours a week. As a result, he and the rest of the management team has gained authority in the lives of each Starbucks partner resulting in higher quality people working at Starbucks, low turnover rates, and widespread adoption of the companies values and culture. Starbucks is an excellent example of how service is a direct path to authority. The question is how much do you really have to offer others? All of us have something to give, but the more we can offer others the more authority we create.

Excellence - “Do you see those who are skilled in their work? They will serve before kings; they will not serve before officials of low rank,” - Proverbs 22:9 TNIV. One of the truly universal currencies at work today is excellence. Someone who is excellent at his profession will always be in high demand. Excellence is proof that authority is due, the evidence that one has knowledge, has mastered his skill or craft and can be trusted to execute. Excellence shuts the mouth of critics and gives a platform for one to exercise her authority.

It is possible to gain authority without excellence, but it will be nearly impossible to keep it. Who you know may many times get you in the door, but what you know will keep you there. Incompetence leads to distrust and a shrinking of one’s circle of influence. Excellence opens doors that would otherwise be shut. What makes our new globalized, flat world interesting is that through the rise of the internet, global communications and the cheapening of travel, geography has become less of a factor in regards to success and influence, while excellence has quickly become THE factor. No longer can one rely on the protection of trade unions, favorable geography or birth right to secure authority, if someone in India can program better than the kid in San Francisco the Indian will most likely get the job and the authority with which it comes. Excellence is a sure path to gaining authority and a must-have in maintaining authority.

Integrity - Authority is directly related to trust. Due to this it is incredibly important for one to possess integrity if he or she wishes to have influence. People will not allow liars or cheats access to their lives. Without integrity the prior two authority builders, service and excellence, are irrelevant. The ripple effects of a break in integrity are tremendous harming everyone connected to the person or situation where the the failure occurred. Integrity means more than just honesty, it means doing the right thing when no one is looking, understanding there’s no such thing as a secret. Integrity is the ability to consistently make the right decisions when faced with life’s moral crossroads.

All of us have met people that are continually looking to cut corners. Most of the time it is not simply one large lie or breach or integrity that is the cause for a breakdown, but rather a series of small, seemingly inconsequential choices made poorly over a long period of time. One of my favorite definitions of integrity is “wholeness” or “completeness.” Even the smallest break in integrity can destroy a life. People of great integrity command respect and will always have authority because their standard of living raises the bar for everyone around them. Integrity must be the foundation of any person or organization endeavoring to build authority.

Last week my friend Justin discussed the differences between a leader and a manager on his blog. It is a debate that I had not heard much of since my time at the Academy where leadership was the subject of constant discussion. Just Google “leader vs. manager” and you will quickly see that the debate is not limited to military academies or corporate seminars, but is surprisingly widespread. Here’s a snippet from one of the thousands of sites discussing leadership vs. management that captures the common view of leaders as more noble and grand then squinty-eyed, cheap-suit-wearing managers.

To survive in the twenty-first century, we are going to need a new generation of leaders — leaders, not managers. The distinction is an important one. Leaders conquer the context — the turbulent, ambiguous surroundings that sometimes seem to conspire against us and will surely suffocate us if we let them — while managers surrender to it.

Leaders investigate reality, taking in the pertinent factors and analyzing them carefully. On this basis they produce visions, concepts, plans, and programs. Managers adopt the truth from others and implement it without probing for the facts that reveal reality. - www.futurevisions.org

Notice the utter disdain for a manager and the god-like characterizations of a leader. To the question of leader vs manager I respond, “MU.” I think the entire debate is mind-numbing and a huge waste of time, here’s why. The debate is founded on a false premise that one must be either a leader or a manager…one or the other. To all of this I respond, “MU.” Before I go on, let’s look at the very same site which gives characteristics of both leaders and managers. Keep in mind, these lists are supposed to be showing the difference between the two:

Management is: Coping with complexity, planning and budgeting, organizing and staffing, controlling and problem solving, effective action.

Leadership is: Coping with and promoting change, setting a direction, aligning people, motivating and inspiring people, meaningful action

Are you kidding?! Is organizing and staffing any different than aligning? Does setting a direction not require careful planning and budgeting? The reality is leadership and management cannot be separated, there is so much overlap between the two that it is silly to say a person must be one or the other. The list in trying to show the uniqueness of each role seems to instead be providing a lesson in synonyms. How many great leaders do you know that don’t cope with complexity, control and problem solve or take “effective action.” By the way which is better, “effective action” or “meaningful action”? Try telling a board of directors that while your last decision was not very “effective” it was very “meaningful” and see what kind of reaction you get.

I have a one word response to this entire debate, “MU.” I reject the premise of the debate. Leaders must have management skills or no one would follow them. Managers have to be able to lead people in order to manage an organization. “What the heck is MU?” you are probably asking by now. I give you a segment from a book, Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter where the characters are discussing a similar debate on whether the world should be viewed through a holistic or reductionist lens:

You see, ‘MU’ is an ancient Zen answer answer, which, when given to a question, UNMASKS the question. Here the question seems to be, ‘Should the world be understood via holism, or via reductionism?’ And the answer, ‘MU’ here rejects the premises of the question, which are that one or the other must be chosen. By unmasking the question, it reveals a wider truth: that there is a larger context into which both holistic and reductionist explanations fit. -pg 312

There must also be a larger context into which both leadership and management explanations fit. Leaders cannot survive without managerial skills and managers will never reach their objectives without being able to lead people. When we ask the question of the difference between leadership and management we’re simply asking the wrong question. For those I have still not convinced I leave you with Joe Torre. Is he a manager or a leader? The great baseball manager’s Yankees won championships the first four of his five years at the helm. On the one hand he had to handle the personnel decisions, on the other he had to inspire his players. The fans loved him, the players respected him, but ask yourself, manager or leader? “MU” “MU” “MU”!!!