Dave DuPont is the CEO of TeamSnap. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, TeamSnap has taken the organization of youth, recreational and competitive sports into the 21st century.

Eleven million coaches, administrators, players and parents use TeamSnap’s web and smartphone apps to sign up, schedule, communicate and coordinate their team or club for the season ahead. In 2015, they were awarded Outside Magazine’s “Best Company to Work For” and named “Best Company Culture” by Entrepreneur Magazine. With their millions of users and a steep revenue-growth trajectory, they are leaders in their industry. Led by a humble and determined leader, CEO Dave DuPont (pictured above), their success has as much to do with solid leadership as it has with letting go of ego.

Tell me a little about your company: what’s unique or distinct about TeamSnap?

Basically, our people. We started out with a core group, that had a certain outlook and set of values. We’ve managed to retain this group as we’ve grown and reinforce the values as we recruit new people who mirror them, and quite frankly, eliminating those who didn’t. It’s resulted in an organization that is for the most part very smart, and mission-aligned. Around 70% of our employees work from home, which means we have to be very communicative, and although this has resulted in many introverts, we have to develop effective communication within a dispersed team.

We have smart people who are very capable with good communication skills and we consciously strive to ensure the work environment is without big egos. One of our values is: “Big ideas, tiny egos.” We have no prima donnas.

What do you do that helps stamp out the egos?

I make a point of de-emphasizing where an idea came from. In many organizations, employees take a lot of pride in stating, “I started this” or, “This is my idea.” What we care more about is that great ideas get developed and that we execute them. Where they come from doesn’t matter. We solicit ideas all the time from all levels, but it does become harder as you grow.

We pride ourselves on being very pragmatic and will experiment with different angles. We try not to hammer people for championing unsuccessful efforts because as I constantly say, “If you don’t fall, you’re not skiing hard enough.”

All of us help with customer support. In the early days, we did this because we didn’t have enough people, but now we do it because it gives everyone a better appreciation for what support does and a better connection to our products and customers.

Another example is our diverse approach to work. We don’t care where you’re based, we don’t care when you work, as long as you can work with your colleagues and get the work done. One of our customers contacted us and said, “Love your products. I’ve worked in IT before and would love to help out 5 to 10 hours a week. I’m a stay-at-home mom. Can we work something out?” She now heads-up a support team of 10 part-time moms and four of those moms have gone on to full-time positions in other parts of the company.

Adopting an analytical approach also helps eliminate ego. We’re in a data-driven industry and we’ve always tried to use data to make decisions. This eliminates a lot of personal opinions and provides a lot of humility as the data informs you, rather than an individual. It also made me realize that I knew nothing about consumers and that we needed to test, refine, and then test again.

Tell me about your background, and why the ‘no ego’ approach is so important to you?

Everyone is a prisoner of their history. I had the good fortune to work in companies where there was a lack of ego and I saw the benefits. My childhood upbringing within a military environment also taught me about teamwork. I was maybe 17 years old before I began to think of civilians as normal people. When I got out into the world, I realized the benefits of freedom, creativity and the more positive aspects of a less authoritarian structure. I was constantly getting into trouble in school and naturally resisted methodologies being imposed on me. I met people later in life who taught me that whatever everyone else is doing, you should do something different. This was less about rebellion and more about innovation.

If you have a big ego, you want to accomplish big things, but I’m smart enough to realize that trying to do everything alone can actually prevent me from reaching my lofty goals.

How would you define a great leader?

Someone who motivates and inspires his team to do great things. One who can assemble a great team and help them extract the most from themselves. Importantly, it’s someone who gets great satisfaction from the accomplishment of the team, not himself, and strives for the greater good of the organization as a whole. Nobody likes the king of the hill, everybody wants to knock him off, your goal is ultimately to make everybody feel like a king (or queen).

There are an infinite number of things to focus on as a leader. Where do you put your focus?

My people and how I communicate with them. But there’s a conflict. On one hand, I tend to be very task-oriented and want to get things done. On the other, I need to strengthen relationships and keep channels of communication open. My approach is to make time for both of them. I also spend a lot of time making sure everyone’s on the same page. At most large organizations, people put together finely-honed presentations and spend a lot of time on them. I have found that being engaged with our vision and mission long before the press release or presentation is even written is critical to aligning with our message.

I want to see bullet points on a whiteboard or a hand-drawn sketch before anyone does any work. I want to see early ideas in rough format first. If I get in early, then I can disappear shortly after and leave the team to get on with it.

What are some of your weaknesses as a leader?

Many times one’s weaknesses are just the flip-side of your strengths. I’m very transparent and people know how I feel. This can be negative if you’re not thinking positive thoughts about an individual or situation. One way to get things done is by being impatient, but one of our major values is respect. I want to hear from everyone, and it’s okay if ideas are half-baked. Airtime for the sake of airtime, however, is just wasting time.

What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned in your life as a leader?

Humility. The one thing I wish someone had taught me in business is that nobody can do it alone. It’s ultimately your team that will be successful, not you, so make sure you assemble the best team you can – that works with you, not for you. Your people will make you successful.

 

In the land of Milk and Honey, there was once a first-time CEO who founded a company that he intended to become a gamechanger. And it was. The CEO did all the right things, or so he thought.

He hired a team of people that were incredibly bright and hungry to make their mark. The company had a brilliant business plan, built on a solid and unique software platform, executed almost flawlessly in an emerging market that took off like wildfire. Within two years his company was the darling of the industry. His original team seemed to grow along with the company and after four years had 500 employees. The spirit in the place was wonderful. It had all of the accoutrements of a dazzling workplace—free lunches and ping pong tables. The feel of the place was creative and electric.

Then, as the company continued to grow, backed by the usual crowd of investors, the company went public. And like so many others of its kind, found itself with a huge market cap, tons of money, and room to grow. And so it did. Within three years it had well over 3,000 employees. Everything seemed wonderful, except for one thing. There was no company culture to speak of. In fact, the CEO and the team didn’t think about culture much. Who could? It was all they could do to keep up with the market growth. There were no clear values other than the usual, highly aggressive goals, aspirations, and expectations. There were few women at the top of the company. The few that did emerge at the top were just as “masculine” as the men. The leaders of the company were uber smart and they cultivated a culture made up of mental gunslingers. You know the kind: they rip you to shreds mentally when they find a flaw in your reasoning or program design. The ones who succeeded were wickedly smart, highly aggressive and quite heroic. Sadly, there was one thing missing: A collaborative spirit.

Now the company finds it has a huge problem. Having made a bunch of money, many of the early employees are leaving. And with it, much of the company’s heart left as well. Some of the leaders are being replaced by more experienced people who are not as respected by the young mental gunslingers. Profitability has become a mantra, much more so than revenue growth, and the fire is burning out.

This story is not made up. I just visited a company exactly like this. It will likely fall by the wayside and join the many other companies who have experienced rapid growth, fueled by smart people with big ideas, who sold a good game, but couldn’t sustain it. The company will get bought out eventually and become a ghost of its former self. The leaders have no clue. They are arrogant, wealthy beyond their dreams, and believe in their story. As a result, any conversation around changing its culture to make it collaborative and sustainable fell on deaf ears.

And as I reflect on their situation, I believe there is little chance they could, or would, change. More importantly, the opportunity for real and sustainable growth was lost a long time ago. The time to build a culture is before a company grows too fast. I have long believed that it’s much easier to create a culture than to change one. When the company consisted of 25 or 50 employees, that was the time to think about practices and policies that invited collaboration. That was the time to be extra careful about whom they hired in leadership roles – those that care more about heart and wisdom than about cleverness and passion. That was the time to be selective about their employees and for them to hire for integrity, rather than the ability to skewer one another with acumen and mental quickness. When you hire people who can easily work together and who honor and respect one another, and who can slow down enough to bring wisdom to the conversation, you have the potential for creating a sustainable culture, one that is built for growth rather than built to sell.

I know this message will fall on some deaf ears, but my hope is that there are a few wise leaders out there who will take this message to heart.

 

George MacLeod is a 92-year-old man who grows grapes and produces award-winning wine. In addition to the inspiration I draw from him as an elder, who has done so much with his life and continues to stay vibrant and alive, enacting his plans and vision for the future, I’m also inspired by his approach to wine making and what it can teach us about leadership. In contrast to so many wine makers who focus on the fermentation process, George focuses on the quality of the grapes.

He carefully nurtures the vine upon which they grow, to maximize conditions so that the grapes can be at their succulent best. Like a gourmet chef, who believes that high quality ingredients are essential to superior taste, he believes that the best grapes make the best wine. His fundamental question about growing wonderful grapes is simply this: Are the vines happy? In other words, his philosophy is, happy vines make delicious grapes, which in turn make extraordinary wine.

This philosophy is profoundly relevant to leadership and creating a conscious and healthy organization. Organizations are significantly effected by the quality of relationships, much like wine and the quality of the grapes. And what causes relationships to flourish? The answer is trust. Trust is at the core of all relationships. Trust is the vine of the relationship, without which everything else breaks down. It’s the glue that holds the relationship together. The quality of that trust determines the quality of the relationship. When trust breaks down, many other things break down too.

Communication suffers, information does not flow well, people tend to contract and withhold, and that often results in a lot of political game playing and self-protective actions. This creates a vicious cycle, which reinforces low levels of trust and negative behavior. So many leaders forget this. They focus solely on their goals at the expense of relationships to get the results they want. They forget that when they use actions that feel manipulative and don’t honor relationships, they damage and erode trust.

They may get the immediate results they want, but the vine of the relationship is weakened. Conscious leaders develop relationships with others. They seek to create bonds born out of mutuality and trust. They know that the stronger and more connected people are in their organizations, the better. Trust is the glue and needs to be built, maintained, and repaired if broken. Leaders would be well served to follow George MacLeod’s guidance and tend to their vines.

Here are some ways to fertilize the soil and water the plant so that the vine of trust becomes healthy:

1. Tell the truth, always, no matter what. However make sure you balance candor and respect.
2. Do what you say you are going to do. Keep your promises. Or re-negotiate. Be your word. If you don’t, be willing to take responsibility and apologize.
3. Care for the well-being of all people involved in your plans or projects.
4. Don’t take more than you have earned. Go overboard in honoring the contributions of others. Share the responsibility and rewards for success.
5. Take responsibility for the whole system.

 

For the past few months, I’ve been guided by a simple notion that appears to be quite powerful in how I relate to others. It has to do with encouraging versus discouraging. About a year ago, I began to see this distinction clearly, which begs the question, why hadn’t I seen this before? We’ll come to that later.

The question I’ve been left with is the following: Is the person I just interacted with left with a feeling of encouragement or discouragement? The question came to me after talking with my son about a concern I had with the way he was conducting himself. It was obvious that he left the conversation feeling down. I noticed his gait was slower, his shoulders slumped, and his energy clearly deflated. Now this is not how I want my son to be walking in his life. And yet that is how he left our conversation. My hope was that he would feel challenged and inspired to change.

However, he left feeling the exact opposite. I began to reflect on other times he had walked away from conversations we’d had and the impact of my opinions on him. I then began to notice that too often other people also left my presence in much the same way.

My wish is for people to be challenged, supported and uplifted—to be called to their better selves as a result of spending time with me. To make change in one’s life requires resolve, determination, and belief in oneself. In addition, some kind of disequilibrium or disruptive event or crisis is required. This can motivate people and ignite a desire for growth and development. However, change will be inhibited if a person only feels discouragement. And yet that is what I did – focused too much on the ‘challenge’ part.

Now this doesn’t happen all the time with everyone, mind you, but I recognized enough situations that I began to see a simple, yet profound pattern. When I am critical without compassion, and focusing solely on the negative, without seeing the potential of the person in front of me or communicating my belief in them, they leave discouraged and not feeling supported. It’s that simple. You know it and I know it. We all know it. Yet despite this knowledge, I kept repeating the pattern. When looking deeper into my own history of criticism, I began to see that I’d always been critical toward myself.

My pattern for learning had been focused on what I was doing wrong. This actually used to work for me (to a point) as I kept trying to fix what was broken. Yet at the same time, it was a very hard way of life. I was hard on myself and rarely, if ever, really enjoyed life. Yes, I was growing along the way, but the journey was very difficult. It was only when I began to see the beauty in my life and appreciate who I was, and had ultimately become, that my pattern of inner criticism began to change. And as it did, I felt more encouraged.

And as I felt more encouraged, I enjoyed the journey more and more. My success grew geometrically, not arithmetically as it had done earlier in my life. In other words, my capacity to grow had developed because of my changed stance in life.

Now my focus is directed toward others, to see if my behavior leaves people encouraged or discouraged. The question is front and center for me. If they leave encouraged, then I’ve done a greater service to them than if I‘d simply pointed out their flaws. This doesn’t mean I avoid speaking the truth when I see something wrong or needing improvement. It simply means that, when consulting others, I offer them the following:

1. You are good by me—I respect you and honor who you are.
2. I believe in you and your capability. I trust your ability to solve this.
3. I care about you – I would not be sharing this feedback with you unless I cared about you and our relationship.
4. Everything has an upside and a downside. The challenges you are facing are a natural expression of the upside of who you are. Let’s not throw out the positive as you try and find ways to minimize the negative. Let’s appreciate that the negative cannot exist without the positive and vice versa.
5. You need resolve to tackle the challenges you face right now. This is a journey that may take time. Take it slow, and break it down into mini steps so you can monitor and acknowledge your progress. Don’t try to change it all at once.
6. Accept and embrace any ‘failure’ you may have along the journey. Learn from these ‘setbacks’. Expect and don’t expect miracles!
7. I am not attached to you after offering my suggestions or guidance. I trust you to create your own experiences and own the decisions and consequences that arise from them.
8. You are not your results. You are far more than your personality, your actions, and your ability. Remember the deeper essence of who you are.

As I’ve been pondering the way in which people leave my presence, I’ve realized the profound impact it has had on me. I’ve realized that if people are discouraged, then I must not be completely satisfied with myself. The influence I’ve had on others, in other words, has become a teacher to me. As a result, I’ve become a source of encouragement for myself.

Almost every day I feel grateful, alive, full and whole, and the more I feel like this, the more people feel encouraged in my presence. Why couldn’t I see this before? Well, I couldn’t see that I was caught in my own paradigm of self-deflating behavior. I looked at others and myself through a lens of limited belief in what was possible.

These beliefs were not conscious and therefore my behavior was outside of my awareness. It was only when I desired more than walking through life with my shoulders slumped and feeling discouraged that my life changed. Who knew life could be so good?

In Touched With Fire psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison reveals her own extraordinary emotional challenges that gave rise to her own career as a psychiatrist and speaks about how many of history’s greatest artists have faced similar enormous hardships in their lives—mental and emotional disorders such as manic depression, bipolar disease, and severe mood swings. Like her own life, these conditions were likely the underlying fuel of their intense creativity.

Although anecdotal, her story and her thesis are compelling to say the least. A Swedish study of roughly ¾ of a million high students lends powerful evidence to her thesis. In this study, MacCabe, JH and associates sought to investigate possible associations between scholastic achievement and later bipolar disorder, Using individual school grades from all individuals finishing compulsory schooling in Sweden between 1988 and 1997, they tested associations between scholastic achievement at age 15-16 and hospital admission for psychosis between ages 17 and 31.

Their study found that exceptional intellectual ability is associated with bipolar disorder. Said differently, bright students and bright people sometimes have psychological problems. See here for more information. This reminds me of a related piece of research by George Valliant three decades ago, where he tracked the lives of Harvard students.

It seems that the most successful of the bunch had a significantly higher degree of problems as children. They were restless, class clowns, rebellious, and had trouble with their studies. It appears that problem children often grow up to be highly successful adults and even great leaders.

In addition to being of some comfort for parents of these so-called problem children, I find this research quite fascinating. In a world where the comfort of sameness and homogeneity is still sought out by so many leaders, there is a growing body of evidence that heterogeneity, and sometimes rebelliousness, correlates with success. It makes sense when you think about how important innovation and creativity is in a constantly changing world.

To be clear: no, I don’t want a pistol packin’ member of the Hells Angels running my R and D department (they probably wouldn’t want to anyway). But in the face of someone who does not appear to “fit in” or someone who appears to suffer from some psychological malady, that appears to be strange, but has no bearing on how they do their job, perhaps we should make room for these unusual people – even revel in their creative sparks. In the grand words of one of my partners: “It used to be that great thinkers thought alike.  Now, great thinkers think unalike.”

Great leaders seek out the unusual, and instead of being threatened by difference, they welcome it. They understand the homogeneity breeds comfort but at the same time creates staleness in the organization.

If you have someone in your company who suffers from some psychological disorder, or is quite quirky, you might want to think twice before asking them to leave. They may be among your best thinkers.

 

I have been reading a ton about all of human history in anticipation of a new book I’m working on. It has provided me with a fresh perspective on life that has been an unexpected and welcome surprise. I notice that in so much of my life I see patterns that appear to be quite clear and meaningful. The rise of poverty, pollution, and crime are but many of the trends today that give me pause for concern.

In my lifetime, it feels like these trends are ever increasing and may never end. By reading about huge epochs in human history, I’ve come to learn that these trends have come and gone. They move up and down. There are long periods in major civilizations when a large group of people appears to be experiencing abundance and then equally long periods of decay. And the wealth shifts.

We, in the United States, often have this sense of privilege compared to other countries. And yet our experience is just a blip on the screen—perhaps fleeting. Other countries may be on the rise, while others are on the decline. Brazil, for example, is experiencing a remarkable economic and social transformation and is quickly emerging as a world power. This rise and fall is the way of the world when viewed through the wide-angle lens of history. This wide-angle perspective for me does just that — it gives me perspective, and thanks to it I place less importance on momentary concerns in my life for they too come and go.

Last year’s failure will be but a dim memory in the span of a lifetime. What to me seemed like a critical breakdown worthy of concern and anxiety later becomes but a dim memory and eventually disappears. While trends come and go, the trends that seem to endure through time are most troubling to me — especially population growth, for there is a limit to what we can sustain on this planet. In a business, the repeated inability to deliver on time and on budget is a trend worthy of attention because it reveals either poor planning, poor goal setting or poor execution. Great leaders focus more on trends and patterns than on moments in time.

They see patterns and seek to shift the pattern. One CEO I know and work closely with has an enormous ability to keep things in perspective. He lets others focus on the small things while he puts his attention on strategy, culture and patterns worthy of his attention. In other words, he never sweats the small stuff.

The Principle of Three

There is a principle I have found powerfully constructive in my coaching of leaders. I call it the principle of three. The idea is to rarely if ever intervene as a leader unless there is a pattern, revealed but at least 3 similar instances of the same problem. It takes two points to make a line, but three points to make a curve. Patterns are curves in time and they are the things conscious leaders tend to care about most.

This very same principle invites us to never be reactive. Wait before you act (unless it is an emergency, of course!) and your actions will be far more meaningful and powerful. Conscious leaders tend to widen their lens when looking at their organizations and life in general. They also tend to lengthen their lens to see the implications of their actions (and others) well down the read.

At the Long Now Foundation, they are developing a 10,000-year clock that will measure time in far greater increments than we naturally do in our 24-hour clock. In so doing, they are encouraging a different view of life, much like the Native Americans encourage us to make choices that positively affect the world 7 generations down the road. With a longer perspective on life, I see and value things very differently.

The whole concept of sustainability is based on a view that I find quite compelling and the more I take a sweeping view of human history, the more I see the experiences I have and that all of us have on this earth at this time as just a blip on the screen. This larger, more encompassing perspective has everything to do with great leadership for the farther we see down the road in time and the more we care about what we see, the larger our perspective and the more we will make the kinds of choices that truly matter.