Issue No. 547 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting quotes Matt Higgins, a Shark guest on ABC’s Shark Tank. He recommends you “Burn the Boats” and toss Plan B. (Do you agree?) And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies) and click here for over 500 book reviews. And click here to listen in on “The Next Chapter With Charlie Podcast” as Charlie Hedges interviews me for Part 2 on my mistake-making adventures!
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky had this response to the emergency escape route offered by the United States: "I need ammunition, not a ride.” It was a classic “Burn the Boats” mindset. (Order this t-shirt on Amazon.)
“I Hate Plan B”
Oh, my. When the U.S. offered Volodymyr Zelensky an emergency escape in 2022 because “Ukraine had no chance of overcoming the full weight of the Russian army, and that if Zelensky didn’t abandon Kyiv soon, he would meet his demise,” he went on the air with this response to President Joe Biden: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Matt Higgins, guest shark on ABC’s Shark Tank, urges you—and all leaders and entrepreneurs—to “Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential.” That’s the subtitle of his new book, Burn the Boats.
Get real! No escape plan? No Plan B? That’s just crazy-thinking. (Or is it?)
Maybe if you’re a mega-wealthy person (a shark or a successful entrepreneur, or like Higgins, you’re cofounder of a private investment firm), you can burn the boats and go all in. But what if you’re leading a small nonprofit or church, or growing a family business—do you dare bet the farm? Wouldn’t failure be devastating?
The wisdom in this book may surprise you. And I’m guessing you’ll inspire (bribe?) your kids and grandkids to also read this book. At age 10, growing up in poverty in Queens, N.Y., Higgins “sold flowers on street corners and hawked ten-dollar leather handbags from a van at local flea markets” to help his mom with expenses. With no dad in the picture, he dropped out of high school at 16. He later earned a law degree—but get this—he never took the bar exam. That was part of his “Burn the Boats” mindset.
The book features dozens of leadership insights (in bold print) that may stop you in your tracks. (Hmmm. I hadn’t thought of doing that. That might work.) Examples:
• “Maybe you’re the wrong leader for this business, no matter how incredible it is.”
• “When I was working at McDonald’s, my advantage was my willingness to be the best gum scraper anyone could be, and do it with a smile.”
• “Big Leaps, Not Incremental Progress.” (Hmm. That sounds counterintuitive to one of my favorite books, Little Bets. I need to think about this!)
• And this: “It’s a common mistake in private equity to spend tons of money and energy on experts to look at the financials of a business, but no money on psychologists to do a deep dive on the leader.” Higgins now brings in his favorite industrial psychologist “for major deals anytime I have the leverage to make it a condition of writing a check.” Four cheers for feedback! (See my Mistakes #12 to #15 and listen to Charlie Hedges interview me on his podcast.)
• “It’s a recipe for failure, and the single biggest trap I see smart leaders fall into.” What’s that? Failure to look within—realizing you can’t do it all. The result? “You’re hiring people because you have to, not because you want to. So you end up holding your employees to an impossible standard, micromanaging them, and stepping in too soon when you’re worried they’ll fail.”
And speaking of failure, listen to this one-minute clip from Arnold Schwarzenegger, “I Hate Plan B.”
View this one-minute video to learn why Arnold Schwarzenegger says “I hate Plan B.” In his endorsement of Burn the Boats, he writes, “Big dreams require relentless focus, and any time we spend planning for failure set us up for failure.” (Do you agree?)
CHAPTER 5, “EMBRACE EACH CRISIS,” is my favorite chapter. (Three cheers for The Crisis Bucket!). Imagine this: Matt Higgins was NYC’s youngest press secretary ever for Mayor Rudy Giuliani when 9/11 shocked the world. He later became the COO of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the firm tasked with rebuilding the site of the World Trade Center.
Higgins has two key lessons on crisis management: 1) A crisis can “lead to superior long-term resilience, and an increased ability to cope and thrive in the future.”
2) "A true Burn the Boats mindset harnesses the clarity that comes in a crisis without needing the walls to come crumbling down around us. Crises force us to limit choices and focus on what really matters. But we can do that anyway.”
OOPS! I MEANT TO SAY…Chapter 6, “Break the Patterns That Stand in Your Way,” is my favorite chapter. Honest! The alignment with the new book on XQ, Experiential Intelligence, is stunning. (Read them together!) Higgins’ highlights:
• How a Bloomberg reporter derailed Juicero—a startup. “CNET called them ‘the greatest example of Silicon Valley stupidity!’”
• “Ask yourself: If you’re in the hospital for a week, will the business still function?”
• “The biggest job of a leader is putting great talent in place and helping them shine.”
• Higgins quotes an owner, “I knew I had to hire a president, but hiring senior leaders into a company is just about the hardest thing you have to do. A bad hire in a senior position is a catastrophe.”
Burn the Boats grows on you. There’s so much more you’ll discover and share with colleagues:
• 4 principles for embracing a perpetual growth mindset
• 4 archetypes every organization needs: the Visionary, the Catalyst, the Executor, and the Communicator (What’s your role? Compare these four to Lencioni’s six types of working genius here.)
• 5 destructive behavior patterns: Withholders, Hijackers, Victims, Martyrs, and Gaslighters
• 4 characteristics predictive of success: Empathy, Defiance, Detail, and Finish
Who on your team will read and report on this important book first?
To order from Amazon, click on the title for Burn the Boats: Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential, by Matt Higgins. Listen on Libro (7 hours, 14 minutes). And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) In Matt Higgins’ chapter, “Consolidate Your Gains,” he asks “What do you do better than anyone else?" How would you answer that?
2) In the chapter, “Submit to the Greatness of Others,” it seemed to me that Matt Higgins was channeling Peter Drucker’s counsel to Bob Buford (1939-2018). Buford wrote, “We would use their credibility, not ours—we were the platform, not the show. Or as Peter once told me, ‘The fruit of your work grows on other people’s trees.’” (Click here to read my review of Drucker & Me: What a Texas Entrepreneur Learned from the Father of Modern Management.) So…is our organization structured to be the platform or the show?
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 2: Books-of-the-Year
Book #18 of 100:
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership
For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #18 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership:
Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry
(Expanded Edition, 2018)
by Ruth Haley Barton
Books #6 through #21 spotlight 16 books that I named the Book-of-the-Year from 2006 to 2020. I posted reviews of this very special book three times (so far!). I titled my first review, “Soul Whackers.”
• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership
• Listen on Libro (6 hours, 47 minutes, 2015 edition)
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson)
The first edition of Ruth Haley Barton’s book was published in 2009, but read what Gary Haugen, Founder and CEO of International Justice Mission, writes in the foreword to the expanded edition in 2018 (click here):
“…imagine with me for a moment, a staff of high-performing lawyers, criminal investigators, social workers and professionals in Washington, D.C., and offices across the developing world, rushing into the office to begin their day, faced with the task of fighting slavery, human trafficking, police abuse, and other forms of violent oppression. As these staff arrive at their desks, their first order of business is to stop. All phones are off. Laptops closed. No email. No meetings. Just silence. Solitude. Stillness. For thirty minutes.”
Haugen gave every staff member two gifts: a blank leather journal with the words “8:30 Stillness” embossed on the cover and this book by Ruth Haley Barton. For more, listen to the three-minute audio from Chapter 1, “When Leaders Lose Their Souls.” Click here. (Oh, my.)
ASBURY! Imagine the “soul whacking” that is happening on the campus of Asbury University since a spiritual revival broke out on Feb. 8, 2023. Read more here.
Part 2: Charlie Hedges interviews John on The Next Chapter Podcast
"Mastering Mistake-Making (Part 2 of 2)" is the topic on this week's podcast of The Next Chapter With Charlie Hedges. LOL! Charlie labels John a "Master of Mistake-Making" in this 37-minute interview on the book John and Jason Pearson wrote in 2021. This is Episode 269. Listen here or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Listen to Part 1 of 2 (Episode 268) here.
More on the book here.
PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. Burn the Boats says there are four archetypes every organization needs: the Visionary, the Catalyst, the Executor, and the Communicator. Who is your Communicator and how effective is your storytelling? We can help! Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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