Dear CEO,

As we head toward the middle of the 21st century, I write this letter to shed some light on some blind spots within your company, that may ultimately prevent a successful transition towards a brighter future. While the foundation of your company may appear in safe standing, the reality is that you could be slow dancing in a burning room with your employees and the wider community severely affected. This letter is intended to inform, and hopefully disrupt, the status quo of your organization with a few key points:

1. The Tone You Set is the Culture You Create

Warren Buffett said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Keep an eye on your culture and your values. Not the company’s values — yours. Not because you own the company (you might), but because the moment you signed on as the captain of that ship, you become responsible for the tone and culture.

Be careful with your people. If your culture is chaotic, the trickle-down effect to those under you can be harsh, and you will become stuck with their attitudes. If this elicits from you an attitude of: “If they’re not happy, then there’s the door” then I’d suggest reframing the situation. The key lesson in Remember the Titans was “Attitude reflects leadership, captain.” Consider a more empathetic approach, because it’s highly likely that employees never signed up to be first responders.

The World Economic Forum published an article by Dr. Travis Bradberry, president of TalentSmart and coauthor of Emotional Intelligence 2.0. In this July 2019 article, he states, “For the titles of director and above, scores descend faster than a snowboarder on a black diamond. CEOs, on average, have the lowest EQ scores in the workplace.” 

I would imagine it is both isolating and discouraging to learn this, even for the most comfortable and closed-off CEO. However, you are far from alone. 

After some self-examination, though, realizing that your approval rating is in direct correlation with your emotional intelligence score might create pause for strategic reconsideration. Frederic Laloux of Thinkers50 said, “When organizations are built not on implicit mechanisms of fear but on structures and practices that breed trust and responsibility, extraordinary and unexpected things start to happen.”

2. Communication is a Heads-up Profession (and Practice)

While technology and automation are undeniably the future, it’s also about human connection. If the culture and values mentioned above, caused this slow dancing, burning room scenario to appear, then adopting technology and automation to mask the fact, will not achieve much. Introducing a healthy level of automation and technology into your company while still keeping face-to-face interactions with employees is vital for your organizational structure.

Avoid a self-devised “escape route” when communicating with employees, and you’ll be amazed at how much respect you get — when your communication shifts from disengagement to engagement. Bottom line: Engage using technology and automation with your external audiences (customers), and use some personal engagement when necessary. Engage in face-to-face interactions with your internal audiences (employees) and use technology and automation when appropriate. 

3. Change the Mental Health Narrative 

Stop criminalizing mental health days (currently masked as “personal” days). The average citizen, through to the president of a country, sometimes needs a personal day. It shouldn’t require being doubled over with influenza to ask for one. Engaged employees are happy employees and vice versa. Healthy workplaces and communities start with the right work/life balance. Even yoga in the workplace has become a trend. Still, it cannot refuel the mind and body the same way that hiring another person can — to help balance your mounting workload.

As the CEO, you play a pivotal role in demonstrating how mental health is perceived within your company, and ensuring that adequate support exists. Lastly, remember the power of storytelling; your transformation can create far-reaching impact. Iron sharpens iron, and nothing beats mentorship. Whether mentoring a fellow CEO or someone directly under you, pass along your sage advice. Remember that you are not alone.

When you hear the word leadership, what comes to mind? Most people associate leadership with being the best of the best, demonstrating high ideals, and living and acting with integrity. But as long as there have been leaders in the world, there have been leaders who have blatantly compromised their principles.

In fact, one of the earliest known literary writings, The Epic of Gilgamesh, centers on immoral leadership. In it, Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, introduces the idea of the “lord’s right,” in which leaders get to exercise jus primae noctis, the right of a lord to deflower local virgins on their wedding nights. Why? Because they can, that’s why.

It’s this because-I-can attitude, this type of behavioral latitude, that warrants joining morality to leadership. Just because you can do things non-leaders can’t doesn’t mean you should. But a leader’s freedom to “call the shots” is the very thing that causes some to lead in compromised and self-serving ways.

The Leader-Follower Dynamic That Spells Trouble

Leaders and followers share an unwritten understanding: when you’re the one who sets the rules, grades performance, signs paychecks and doles out rewards, you have more power and freedom than those who don’t get to do these things. Others serve at your pleasure and are accountable to you, not the other way around. In time, this can be massively seductive.

Leaders are always being told how special they are. Think, for example, of the numerous privileges leaders are afforded: they get fatter salaries, larger offices, more agenda airtime, better perks, and more deference.

They also get less flak when they interrupt people, show up late for meetings, or skirt around the processes and policies everyone else has to follow. Even the simple fact that there are far fewer leaders in the world than followers exemplifies a leader’s specialness. The fact that not everyone gets to be a leader suggests that they are a cut above the rest of us mere mortals.

Followers, too, often enable, contribute to, and embellish the specialness of leadership. Followers build the lofty pedestals their leaders adorn. Every time followers say “yes” when thinking “no,” bite their tongues, mimic a leader’s style, or capitulate to unethical directives, the specialness of leadership is reinforced.

A Leader’s Ego Keeps It Going

The more praise and deference followers bestow upon a leader, the more the leader believes in his or her own specialness. It feels good to have your ego stroked by eager-to-please followers, and, before long, some leaders will start to surround themselves with sycophants and suck-ups — just to keep the pampering going.

Given this, is it really surprising that some would be seduced into thinking they are “better” than everyone else, that they deserve more of the spoils, or that they should be free to act with impunity?

Should it really catch our attention that some leaders are more concerned with the privileges attached to their position, instead of being grateful for the privilege of making a positive and lasting impact on people’s lives?

Is it at all shocking that some leaders would succumb to thinking that they’re the focal point, instead of the people they’re charged with leading? There really isn’t anything surprising or shocking about it. Hubris is what you get when a leader becomes spoiled.

The Costs of Hubris

While all the real-world costs of hubris are high, perhaps none is as costly as the sheer loss of potential for the good a leader could have accomplished — and all the lives the leader could have positively impacted — had he or she not become so enamored with power.

Hubris, as a “leadership killer,” also damages a leader’s potential legacy.

Above all, leadership is a tradition that’s carried out and passed on from generation to generation. A leader’s legacy is built by developing and nurturing the skills and talents of the people who are doing work on a leader’s behalf.

A leader’s most important job isn’t to acquire more power; it’s to empower others so that they, too, become future leaders. But these new leaders will never get there—or be inspired to try—because hubris snuffs them out.

Now ask yourself: Does any of this strike a chord? Do you find yourself drawn to leadership’s dark side? How will your actions today define your legacy tomorrow? What will the people you’ve led in the past say about you long after you are gone?

By Bill Treasurer and Captain John “Coach” Havlik.

Havlik is a U.S. Navy SEAL (Retired), who led special operations teams around the world during his 31-year naval career, including the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, the SEAL’s most elite operational unit. Captain Havlik was a nationally ranked swimmer and is a member of the West Virginia University Sports Hall of Fame and Mountaineer Legends Society.

Dana Cavalea is the former director of strength & conditioning and performance for the New York Yankees. Here, he shares 15 lessons about what it takes to become a champion from stories and insights he has gleaned from some of the world’s top performers in sports, life, and business.

01.  You’ve Got to Hate Losing More Than You Love Winning

Research has shown that most people that make it have had to overcome some levels of hardship. This causes them to have a must-win attitude rather than a would-like-to-win attitude. Those who hate to lose play for much more than a trophy, but they approach all that they do with an attitude of fighting for survival. They are often intrinsically motivated at their core and rely very little on external motivation and validation. Whenever a team is being built, if you want to go places, find the person that hates to lose and put them at the top of the leadership hierarchy.

02.  Never Get Too High And Never Get Too Low

When big moments hit, do those moments force your heart rate to accelerate, hands to sweat, and your muscles to clench? If it does, you are like most. But, the top performers in the world don’t see the magnitude of these moments. Often referred to as having ice in their veins, the top performers realize something straightforward: What they focus on becomes more significant. So, if you treat every moment as the same, you are always playing from a mental state of even-keeled. Keep your moments in check, and as a result, you will find you have a lot more energy available to you. Getting high and getting low is exhausting, and it forces you to live moment to moment — having your outcomes determine your happiness —which is a dangerous scenario for any visionary, high performer.

03.  Consistency Over Time Yields Results

Can you do something every single day? The same routine. The same schedule. The same meal plan. This is what the best of the best can do. They spend the early parts of their careers, finding what works, then they immediately build a routine that incorporates those things. Then, they execute on those habits daily. Some of the world’s top performers are very simple (vanilla) and often boring people. Why? They know that results are the result of a consistent routine done daily. With consistent, daily routine, results happen. They are not chasing gold rainbows, but instead focusing on the process that will lead them to the pot of gold, one coin at a time.

04.  If They Don’t Respect Your Time, They Don’t Respect You

This was a lesson taught by Derek Jeter, former professional baseball player of the New York Yankees. One day, before his workout, he asked why I was at the gym so early. I told him I was waiting for a player that never showed. That’s when he told me how he views time. If somebody doesn’t respect your time, they don’t respect you. If you are late, call. If you can’t make it, call. If you blow off a meeting without calling or texting, realize you just committed the ultimate professional foul; you told somebody with your actions that you don’t respect them. Show up. Be on time. Be a person of your word.

05.  Off Days Are Off Days

When was the last time you took a day off? No laptop, no phone, no thoughts about work? If you are like most, it’s been a while. Because of this, you may be facing burnout, exhaustion, or a lack of creative ideas. Also, when the body and mind are tired, productivity suffers. So, if you’re not getting things done like you used to, it may be time to take a trip. The mind needs to unplug just like an electronic device that’s been switched on for years. The end result is burnt out electronics. We don’t want the same thing to happen to you! The best of the best know they need to renew their mind and body. They take guilt-free, scheduled days and weeks off. So should you.

06.  Three Things

Quiet the noise. Slow everything down. One pitch at a time. These are words of wisdom from the great Mariano Rivera when discussing how he gets things done in the big moments. While others are focused on everything going on around them, The Sandman takes a deep dive inside himself. He controls the only things he can control: his mindset and his cut fastball. The rest, he says, is going to happen regardless. So, if he commands what he can control, his chances for consistent performances and success go way up. That mindset also provides a level of focus, intensity, and most importantly, the conviction that no self-help book or course can ever give you.

07.  Fit to Win

Business and leadership is very competitive and taxing on the mind and body. What are you doing to prime yourself to play every day? Daily workouts, daily walks, hot baths, steam room sessions, and sequenced breathing patterns are just some of the things pro athletes and reformed executives do to compete at the highest levels. This is done to give you the competitive advantage that having more energy delivers. Training both your psychology and physiology are essential if you want to compete with consistency and for the duration. Take a look around your workplace or even a local airport. What do you see? Often, you’ll find tired executives that have reached their physical breaking point as a result of their constant pushing. Bring yourself to your highest levels of health, and you’ll see significant spikes in your business results.

08.  Find the Bully And Knock Him Out

That bully is fear. You gotta face it. You will be afraid to make calls, open emails, or have difficult conversations with yourself and others. But you have to do it. You must have the courage to face the bully head-on and let him/her know that you are not going to take their crap anymore. The doubt, the fear, the insecurity— you can overcome it all by acknowledging that it’s real, but doesn’t have power. Once you tie your emotions to those feelings, then it gains power. When you vacate your emotions, you create freedom, and only thought remains. A thought without emotion is just a thought. When you face adversity, realize you have the power to overcome anything in your way by raising your energy, awareness, and placing focus on what you are building, not what’s holding you back.

09.  You’re Never Overdressed in a Suit

People judge. How you look, how you act — it all matters. As a member of the New York Yankees, every player had to wear a suit when we traveled. Why? As the Yankees general manager, Brian Cashman says, “Perception is reality.” It’s so true. When you show up in a suit or even slightly dressed up for the occasion, it shows you mean business, but, most importantly, that you’re a professional. In a time where business casual is the norm, taking your fashion game to the next level may be the reason why your entire game elevates.

10.  Failing to Plan Equals Planning to Fail

Plans work. But, you need to give them time to work. You must also give them your full attention and believe they will work. At times, you must dump your plan or tweak it. One thing is for sure though, if you are an aimless wanderer, you will go someplace, it just may not be where you want to go. Forget the long-term business plan. Create a daily, weekly, and monthly strategy. Pick a goal for the quarter and go after it.

Do that for each quarter, and when you look back over a year, you’ll find yourself having accomplished things in line with your plan and short-term vision. That’s success. That’s being focused on what’s in front of you while keeping your mind, heart, and future open for what comes next: the magic of circumstance and putting yourself in a position to succeed.

11.  You Gotta Have Moxie

Life is tough. Business is tough. You could easily get knocked around, and you will. That’s why you have to have guts. You have to have a can-do spirit that can get you through the waves of adversity that will try to shipwreck you. Take time each day to ground yourself with serious thought and even some laughter. With this clarity, you will gain conviction, and from that conviction, you will gain confidence. That’s what it takes to win in life — confidence. When you combine that confidence with a clear direction and a plan, you are in the best possible position to win. Confidence is in the heart of every champion. And, it’s built over time.

12.  Torre Rules: People First

When you lead people, realize you are leading people and not cattle. Joe Torre, the great major league baseball manager, was a master at this. He made every interaction personal, rarely talking about the game, but always talking about you, the person. By realizing that people make up your team at a deeper level, you’ll be able to lead them in a way very few do — from a position of care, authenticity, and love. When you focus on the people first, the outcomes  take care of themselves because you now have a relationship and a team culture that is based on openness and honesty.

13.  Pace Yourself. If You Are Going to Eat, You Must Digest

Hustle. Get after it 100 percent. These are the sayings of today as it relates to how you should go after success and live your life. But, realize this: At times, we are not ready for the success we want. We are not ready for the promotion, the corner office, the leadership responsibilities. In time we will be. But, there is a chance that we are falsely evaluating ourselves and our abilities. We may have more work to do on ourselves first. Don’t be in a rush. The true leader is one who trusts their pace without letting the external pressures speed them up. One step at a time. One day at a time. Over time, if you hit enough singles, runs begin to score. Build your dream over a lifetime, rather than working to do it all within a quarter.

14.  Don’t Tell Me, Show Me

There is a lot of talk today on social media. Are you talking, or are you doing? Action always wins. Talk is easy, work is hard. The everyday, monotonous execution of work is what separates the doers from the talkers.  Can you show up and work with passion when the assignment may not be that exciting? Can you take that trip across the country to make that sale even if you don’t want to take the flight or the contract is not that big? Can you show up because it’s what’s needed, despite not being glamorous? Top performers always show up. They may not feel that great every day, but they still show up. They take the actions needed to get them closer to their goals. They sacrifice to be a great team player. They show up even when there’s no easy alternative. Pound the pavement. Let others do the talking for you.

15.  Sometimes You Have to go Back to go Forward

As with anything in life, you will have setbacks. Setbacks are set-ups for your next significant move. Embrace them, don’t run from them. Don’t retreat into a dark hole. Realize that sometimes being pulled back is like archery. You get pulled back slowly, only to be accelerated forward speeds never before experienced. A setback could be what’s needed to gain knowledge, experience, confidence, and the tools you need to end up where you’re meant to be. Embrace it. Faith up. Fear down. There’s a plan at work. Trust the circumstances of your life.

Firespring is Nebraska’s first certified B-Corporation, and helps organizations identify their purpose and bring it to life. Their media company offers a range of services, from creative and print production to marketing campaigns, and culture alignment solutions. The company was recently ranked #87 on the 2020 Real Leaders Impact Awards, but there was a time when they almost failed.

During Firespring’s infancy, a catastrophic financial event occurred. Board members asked founder and CEO Jay Wilkinson to lay off 80 percent of their employees. “I refused to do it,” says Wilkinson. “I dug in my heels and wouldn’t do it.” After this firm stance of defiance, and in an unusual turn of events, his board fired him as the CEO of his own company. 

Wilkinson, a serial entrepreneur of more than 20 companies, explains that he was left disheartened by the board’s decision. What could he possibly tell the people of his company, that he considered his greatest assets? Little did he know what he was about to say to them would transform the company forever. 

“That’s when I first learned the power of just throwing it out there, let’s be real here, let’s call crap, crap.”

He gathered all the staff into a room and explained precisely what was going on. To his surprise, the staff members understood the circumstances and remained determined to keep the company going, even offering to take a cut in pay to keep everyone together. Wilkinson recalls: “That’s when I first learned the power of just throwing things out there. I thought, ‘let’s be real here, let’s call crap, crap.”’ After this surprising intervention, the staff of Firespring rallied together to become financially solvent again. “It was really due to everything being put openly on the table,” he continues. “Everyone knew exactly where we stood.”

Listen to Episode 55 of the Real Leaders Podcast to learn how they overcame failure with vulnerability:

“There’s no human who doesn’t want to be a part of something. And that’s what good leaders like to create.”

During their darkest hour, it was transparency, vulnerability, and inclusivity that the staff of Firespring leaned on. Asked about the merits of this style of leadership, Wilkinson ponders for a while, and then says one word: “Inclusive.”

“The word inclusive may be the word best suited to a particular style of leadership that’s not about leaders and followers,” he says. “This entails introducing a vision into a situation and letting the staff fill that vision — collectively. Everybody wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves, it’s a natural human desire, and that’s what good leaders want to create.”

Now, more than 20 years later, Firespring has over 180 employees and 3 offices — Lincoln & Omaha, NE and Council Bluffs, IA. 

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The tone from the top matters, and the beginning of a New Year presents an excellent opportunity for CEOs to reexamine how they’ll lead going forward. With 2020 now a reality, chief executives can choose to usher in more of the same, or they can use the changing calendar to reimagine, reinvent, and reshape their culture. I’ve always believed the most valuable gift a CEO can give their team is the ability to make a meaningful impact on culture. The following are five things any chief executive can and should do for their team in 2020.

1. Focus on Leadership Ubiquity 

Leadership that isn’t transferable, repeatable, scalable, and sustainable isn’t leadership at all. Not everyone can be the CEO, but everyone can lead. Remember this: If you tell people loud enough or often enough that they’re not a leader, don’t be surprised when they begin to agree with you.

When in doubt, think ubiquity, not scarcity. Leadership isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, a scarce commodity. Far too many companies wrongly treat leadership as an esoteric role reserved for a privileged few. However, healthy organizations realize leadership must be a ubiquitous quality that permeates every aspect of day-to-day operations. They understand every person must lead; even if people are only responsible for leading themselves, they must lead.

2. Make a Co-investment 

I’ve always said, “Leaders who complain about a lack of resources simply aren’t very resourceful.” Most CEOs have fallen into the bad habit of asking people to do more with less. While this makes for a nice soundbite, it’s not nearly as productive as showing your team how to unlock more cash. Instead of just asking people to make cuts in their operating budget, tell them they can reinvest 50 percent of what they cut into new projects of their choosing. You’ll still produce a reduction in spending, but you’ll also fuel a jumpstart in R&D and innovation with money that was already in the budget. Most importantly, you’re demonstrating that you trust your team with a discretionary spend. Investments made closest to the challenge/opportunity are likely to produce the most significant impact.

3. White Space

Have you noticed how some leaders are frenzied, stressed, and always playing from behind, while others are eerily clammed and always appear to be a few steps ahead? It’s been my experience that leaders who fall into the latter category make great use of their thought life, while those in the former group seem to forgo their alone time in lieu of being busy. Savvy leaders crave white space, whereas unseasoned leaders feel uncomfortable with open time.

Most organizations I’ve observed have a nasty habit of sequestering their best leaders in virtually endless amounts of mind-numbing meetings. They run their talent from one meeting to another all day long and call it being productive — I call it lunacy.

CEOs who want to unleash an entirely new level of productivity should institute a No Meeting Monday policy. Question: When was the last time you had an entire day of the workweek dedicated to thinking and planning? Answer: Probably not recently, if ever. Give back the first day of the week to your team and watch something amazing happen. Firstly, the sense of dread many feel on Sundays will evaporate, allowing team members to show up on Mondays recharged and ready to go. Secondly, by having control over their Mondays, they will generate substantially more productivity during the remaining four days of the week. I have watched this produce remarkable gains in both qualitative and quantitative outcomes.

4. The Gift of Great Talent 

While I generally don’t believe in absolutes, the exception might be when it comes to the advantage created by talent. CEOs either create a talent advantage or they operate at a talent deficit. I’ve always believed that leaders deserve the teams they build, and I’ve yet to be convinced otherwise.

I can think of no better example of talent impact than by examining how companies approach digital transformation. Many leaders have fallen into the trap of believing digital transformation is like playing a game of technology catch-up — that if they can harness a bit of digital exhaust and turn big data into smart data, somehow their business will transform itself. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the billions of dollars spent chasing digital shadows won’t change a thing.

Stop putting the focus on technology and put it where it belongs: on talent and relationships. Real digital transformation occurs when business models and methods are reimagined by courageous leaders willing to manage opportunity more than risk, focus on next practices more than best practices, and who are committed to beating their competition to the future by attracting better, smarter talent.

5. Read, Read, and Read

CEOs cannot scale their business if they cannot scale their leadership, and one of the fastest ways to scale your leadership is to turn your team into a voracious group of readers. One of the best gifts chief executives can give to their team is a freshly updated, standard reading list. While there are many books I could recommend, my favorite choice to jumpstart your reading in the New Year is Principles, by Ray Dalio.

So much has changed since I first began teaching about leadership. Once upon a time, leadership wasn’t the buzzword it is today. In fact, when I first started teaching about leadership, everyone else was talking about management.

Management was all about titles, stability, and positional authority. Leadership is different — it’s about influence, adaptability, and moral authority. Managers are given responsibility; leaders earn respect. I want to talk to you today about how leaders earn that respect.

I want to talk about developing moral authority as a leader.

You see, moral authority is a weightiness, a sense of wisdom and experience that encourages other people to put their trust in you. A leader with moral authority is someone who has turned time into an ally — over time, a leader with moral authority has proven to be consistently competent, have consistent character, and shown consistent courage.

There’s a common theme in that sentence — consistency.

I talk a lot about consistency because it’s been the key to my leadership success. In fact, it’s one of the things that surprises me most about leadership. If you do the right things the right way for the right reasons when you’re young, it often goes unnoticed by the world at large.

But do that over decades? You’ll get more credit than you think you deserve.

I’ve been consistent in my personal growth, my teaching, my character, my thinking, my writing — and because of that, I’ve been able to stay in the game for over 40 years. I call it layered living. The benefits and gains from year to year work together to produce a life of leadership that others want to learn from.

That’s the funny thing about the leadershift to moral authority — in a fast-forward world, where we face daily change and disruption, our people are looking for a leader who can provide stability. It is the task of the leader to be flexible enough to change while being trustworthy enough to provide hope. Flexibility and trust are achieved through consistency.

To go back to my earlier point, there are three areas where leaders must become consistent if they wish to earn moral authority:

1. Competence. This is the ability to lead well. Making smart decisions, knowing your people, understanding your field, and committing to personal growth are all examples of competence. Leaders who demonstrate that they know what they’re doing — and that they learn from their mistakes — establish themselves as a leader worth following.
2. Courage. This is moving forward in the face of fear. A well-known adage states that courage is not the absence of fear, but the presence of mind to act when afraid. Every leader needs courage to make hard decisions, needed changes, and cast vision.
3. Character. This is being bigger on the inside than the outside. Leaders of character know that who they are is more than what they achieve. Character is a commitment to continual growth in the areas of integrity, authenticity, humility, and love.

When I was in my early 30s, I decided to do five things to make myself a better leader: always put people first; live to make a difference, not to make money; be myself, but be my best self possible; express gratitude — reject entitlement; and be willing to be misunderstood and lonely for the right reasons.

I made the commitment to live out those five things, not because I saw them as means to an end, but because I felt they were simply the right things to do. I’ve worked hard to follow those guidelines for the last 40 years, and I’ve been blessed to see a great return on that decision.

In the end, you don’t get to grant yourself moral authority. Only others can do that. But you can strive for it — and you should. In a shifting world, leaders with moral authority become a foundation for others to build upon.

It’s a leadershift worth making.

In the CIA, the relationship between partners is unique. An operation can send you and your partner into the depths of the most hostile countries where Americans simply aren’t welcome.

You’re charged with completing a dangerous mission, and you have only each other to depend on. While sometimes intelligence officers work in teams on certain operations, more often than not it’s a very small group, and you are also often alone. We’re not the military — there’s no cavalry. And you know that if you’re in covert operations, the government isn’t going to come in and retrieve you should something (or everything) go wrong. This results in a loyalty so deep and meaningful it can be hard for people who haven’t been in the intelligence world to understand it.

But to help you, I’d like to share a story from one CIA operative I’ll call Elliot. I will never forget the time I thought I had let my partner down (literally, over the side of a roof). We needed to get on top of a building in a hostile territory to plant a listening device. Of course, we didn’t want to get spotted, so we chose a night during which we knew the moon would be out. The moonlight would be our only light as we executed the necessary maneuvers. Well, it turns out there was zero moonlight. We couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces up there. My partner, Mark, tripped over a wire. I didn’t see this, so I had no idea what had happened at the time, but it made a loud noise.

We had worked together long enough to know that darkness combined with a sudden noise was a good reason to abort the mission. We had to get out rather than risk being caught. I didn’t know where Mark was, but I knew I had to get back to the escape vehicle. I had to assume that’s where I’d find him, too. I got down from the roof and realized he was nowhere to be found. I started to panic because I had removed the ladder. Did Mark get caught? It was my duty to find him and help him if he needed it. I quietly climbed back up to the roof. As I surveyed the perimeter, I thought I saw a dark shadow. Mark had fallen and was literally hanging over the side of the building. I was so grateful I had made it in time to pull him up before his arms gave out. Horrible things would have been done to me if I had gotten caught (and remember, I had made it to the escape vehicle), but there was no way I’d leave my partner behind. Doing so was unthinkable.

Now, as a businessperson, I don’t imagine you’ll ever have to rescue one of your employees who is hanging down the side of a building. But, embedded within Elliott’s and my experiences are some tips I learned about loyalty from the intelligence world that can hopefully help you breed better loyalty and success.

Standing up for my team. In my own company, I don’t hesitate to terminate relationships with overly difficult customers or clients. It is out of loyalty to my hardworking team members. If I want to encourage next-level loyalty, I need to prove that their well-being and state of mind mean more than a quick profit from a client who treats them horribly. During my time in the CIA, I would never have hesitated to stand up for my partner in a crisis. I wanted my team members to know that, without a doubt, they would be appropriately supported and cared for in difficult situations.

Integrity matters. When you’re completing your training with a group of other intelligence officers, integrity is essential. Your partner is in charge of saving your life. During training I’d think, “Who in this group would I trust with my life?” Anyone who wasn’t a good shot, was a hothead, or didn’t collaborate well was a liability. Those people often did not make it through training because they put the rest of the group in danger. I view my company in a similar fashion: Every member has a key role to play. Their contribution is essential to the livelihood of the company. Obviously, human beings make mistakes, and I don’t expect perfection, but integrity matters.

I had one employee who was smart, likable, and did great work. The only problem? He couldn’t meet deadlines. This individual wasn’t respecting the rest of our team by doing his work in a timely fashion. He was becoming a liability. I talked to him about this problem and said I’d do whatever I could to help because he did such good work. In the end, he couldn’t deliver on time and, for the sake of the team, I had to let him go. Show your commitment to integrity by honoring the core values you’ve established. Not insisting on integrity from every team member is dangerous to the survival of your company.

Rewarding excellent behavior. Spies understand that their assets are putting themselves at risk in bringing them useful information. Spies show gratitude for their assets whenever they can by providing big-ticket items or smaller rewards such as dinners and cash. Likewise, I am always going to recognize when someone has gone above and beyond.

Here’s a simple example: I will never forget how my team came together last Christmas when our orders were through the roof and getting those shipments out was a huge challenge. Without my insisting in any way, the team gathered on Saturdays and late at night, helping to prepare and package orders for shipping. Without their willingness to pitch in, we could have lost out on a lot of business. I was happy to reward my team in the form of meals, gifts, and bonuses. If you want next-level loyalty, always make a point of acknowledging extraordinary behavior, even if it’s something as simple as helping to pack up last-minute Christmas orders.

Never forget that loyalty starts with you. I had been taught that when you’re devoted to a cause (such as the success of a business or protecting the United States of America), you develop a deep appreciation for every part of the process. In the CIA we value the analysts, the cartographers, the mechanics who work on our cars, the administrative staff, and even the employees in the coffee shop who make the hot chocolate on those cold northern Virginia days. You see how crucial each component is to running a successful organization. That deep appreciation for each part of the process — and the pride you feel about providing your own personal contribution — is where loyalty begins and grows. Appreciate each team member’s contribution to the whole, but remember that loyalty always begins with you as the prime example. 

You’ve probably heard the old advice for entrepreneurs that “failing to plan is planning to fail.” That phrase is a misleading myth at best, and actively dangerous at worst. Making plans is essential, but our gut reaction is to plan for the best-case outcomes, ignoring the high likelihood that things will go wrong. 

A much better phrase is “failing to plan for problems is planning to fail.” To address the very high likelihood that problems will crop up, you need to plan for contingencies. 

When was the last time you saw a major planned project suffer from a cost overrun? It’s not as common as you may think for a project with a clear plan to come in at or under budget. 

For instance, a 2002 study of significant construction projects found that 86% went over budget. In turn, a 2014 study of IT projects found that only 16.2% succeeded in meeting the originally planned resource expenditure. Of the 83.8% of projects that did not, the average IT project suffered from a cost overrun of 189%. 

Such cost overruns can seriously damage your bottom line. Imagine if a serious IT project such as implementing a new database at your organization goes even 50% over budget, which is much less than the average cost overrun. You might be facing many thousands or even millions of dollars in unplanned expenses, causing you to draw on funds assigned for other purposes and harming all of your plans going forward. 

What explains cost overruns? They largely stem from the planning fallacy — our intuitive belief that everything will go according to plan.

The planning fallacy is one of many dangerous judgment errors. These are mental blind spots resulting from how our brain is wired. Scholars in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics call this cognitive biase. We make these mistakes in work and other areas of our life. An example, is shopping choices, as revealed by a series of studies done by a shopping comparison website.

Fortunately, recent research in these fields shows how you can use pragmatic strategies to address these dangerous judgment errors, whether in your professional life, your relationships, or other areas of your life. 

You need to evaluate where cognitive bias hurts you, and those in your team or organization. Then, you can use structured decision-making methods to make “good enough” daily decisions quickly, more thorough ones for moderately important choices, and an in-depth one for major decisions.

Such techniques will also help you implement your decisions well, and formulate truly effective long-term strategic plans. Also, you can develop mental habits and skills to notice cognitive biases and prevent yourself from slipping into them.

Solving the Planning Fallacy

Specifically around the planning fallacy, my coaching, and consulting clients have found three specific research-based techniques effective.

First, break down each project into parts. An IT firm struggled with a pattern of taking on projects that ended up losing money for the company. We evaluated the specific parts of the projects that had cost overruns and found that the most significant unanticipated money drain came from permitting the client to make too many changes at the final stages of the project. As a result, the IT firm changed its process to minimize any changes at the tail end of the project.

Second, use your experience with similar projects to inform your estimates for future projects. A heavy equipment manufacturer had a systemic struggle with underestimating project costs. In one example, a project that was estimated to cost $2 million ended up costing $3 million. We suggested making it a requirement for project managers to use past project costs to inform future projections. Doing so resulted in much more accurate cost estimates.

Third, for projects with which you have little experience, use an external perspective from a trusted and objective source. A financial services firm whose CEO I coached wanted to move its headquarters after outgrowing its current building. I connected the CEO with a couple of other CEO clients who had recently moved and expressed a willingness to share their experience. This helped the financial services CEO anticipate contingencies he didn’t previously consider, such as additional marketing expenses, printing new collateral with the updated address, and lost productivity from changing schedules and new commute routes for employees.

If you take away one message from this article, remember that the key to addressing cost overruns is to remember that “failing to plan for problems is planning to fail.” Use this phrase as your guide to prevent cost overruns and avoid falling prey to the dangerous judgment error of planning fallacy.