The 2019 ITEN Wired Summit started with an insightful keynote from Adam Ely of Walmart, two great sessions with Bill Hills of Navy Federal Credit Union (retired), and then ended by Quint Studer of the Studer Community Institute and Vibrant Community Partners.
Quint’s talk revolved around “hardwiring excellence” and the different tools he has developed and used throughout his impressive career helping organizations and communities. I’ve learned so much from the short, but quality time chatting with Quint, his speech, and upon reading his latest book, “The Busy Leader’s Handbook,” which he gave and signed.
During that afternoon’s talk, Quint talks about the flywheel and how this model help hardwire excellence and drive change within the organization. Using this model can help mature an organization to a point of growth momentum. Where is growth is sustained regardless if great leaders leave the organization. He illustrated the flywheel with three distinct parts: Passion, Skills, and Results.
Passion
Quint spoke of passion as the “grit to get things done—for a desired outcome.” He further describes passion by saying that you a leader may need to fire someone they really liked in order to achieve the organization’s desired outcome.
I personally liked how Quint describes passion. He did not say, finding that one thing you wanted to do. As I discussed in a previous post, “Leadership IMHO #10: Don't Find Your Passion, Make It,” I talked about how people need to make it a goal to end up being passionate about their work. In my opinion, Quint describes passion as a driver or the conductor that drives someone towards a certain goal or to be aligned in a certain value. One of the components of my personal leadership philosophy* is “horsepower.” This component closely matches how Quint describes this part of this flywheel. It’s the energy that pushes someone towards a desired outcome.
Skill
He describes this as the prescribed “must haves” that will help a person act on that passion. These “must haves” may fall under leadership skills and job-specific skills. Simply wanting to do something is not enough. Individuals and organizations need the skill or the ability to act on it well and in the right way. Training, workshops, coaching, and mentorship. These are some ways organizations can ensure that the proper skills are in place to achieve the desired outcomes. Quint mentions that the ability to find the skills can also be the impediment. This is an important truth we as leaders need to embrace because simply having the passion is not enough. We as leaders need to provide the means for our direct reports to be successful in generating those skills. This mindset needs to also be in place when hiring individuals. A passionate and driven individual is great, but a passionate and driven individual with the proper skillset is even better.
Results
“With no results, there is no passion.” - Quint Studer
In other words, the results fuel the passion. The actual results or the outcome of the task help drive the “meaning” of the passion, which pushes the intent to acquire the skills necessary to attain it. Results can be aligned to a production, an impact, and the purpose of the job. There wasn’t much to discuss around results, because this was pretty self-explanatory, however, I’d like to tie this in to the “why” at the center of Quint’s Flywheel.
The “Why” = Purpose, Worthwhile Work, and Making a Difference.
These three components remind me of “human’s three basic needs” which I talked about in “Leadership IMHO #19: How to Spur Motivation Using Human's Three Basic Needs.” These three components hold the flywheel together. These are the components help drive individuals to constant learning, with the desire to get better each day. Without purpose, people would only see work, as work or a pointless task. With purpose, work becomes worthwhile. It evolves work to something much deeper. This is when folks start to recognize the importance of what they’re doing. The result of the convergence of purpose and worthwhile work is making a difference. Despite the difficulty and the upward struggle to achieve a goal, a vast majority of individuals do it whole-heartedly because they know they’re making a difference. These three components are strong instigators for growth within a community fueled by volunteers because these three drive intrinsic motivation that is much stronger and much thicker (in value) than that of monetary rewards or the glamorous feeling of being recognized by the public. A company staffed by individuals fueled by these components are unstoppable. Imagine the a singularly-driven organization, aligned with the same values, goals, and behavior.
On part 2 of “What I learned from from Quint Studer,” I’ll talk about “Evidence-Based Leadership,” then Part 3 would be my personal review of his latest book, “The Busy Leader’s Handbook,” and my conversation with him on leadership skills.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you find this insightful. I based this post on the notes I took and how I understood the speech first hand. Please see Quint’s official lectures and resources for a much deeper and extensive dive into these topics.
*Don’s Leadership Philosophy: S.H.I.P. = Sincerity, Horsepower, Impact, Perspective