Chapter 5

The Zebras and Cheetahs Model: Making Growth Simple, Engaging, and Fun

Now that you are equipped with a compass, guided by unique perspective and mindset, and driven by a dominant focus, you are able to take on the concrete jungle’s challenging landscape.

But having the compass only acts as a guide. It’s not time to spring into action! To ultimately become a Z&C Leader, you must first shape public perception by leveraging the channels around you to successfully highlight your unique perspective, education, experience, and qualities. You must become more than the person carrying the compass; you must also use it to devise a map that persuades and allows others to follow you through the concrete jungle. In essence, you must become a person that others have heard about and need to know.

In this chapter, we turn you into a concrete cartographer—that is, we teach you how to use the Z&C Model and the compass to create a map that will effectively lead your tribe in the concrete jungle. We give you five simple yet effective map-making tools that are simplistic and effective to create the Model. But before we do, let’s introduce some concepts that will help you become a good mapmaker.

Shine Bright like the Sun

Most people know of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), the Renaissance-era astronomer who first proposed that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of the universe. His book, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, is considered the foundation of modern astronomy and the defining moment of the scientific revolution. Initially, however, Copernicus’s work was subjected to a great deal of criticism from the astronomic, philosophic, and religious communities. Yet his idea and its eventual flurry of acceptance provide two outstanding lessons for Z&C Leaders.

First, any time you shake up conventional methodology, you better know whereof you speak, because you are certainly going to be grilled about it. We’ve already prepped you for that with previous discussions, but we need to reinforce it once again at this juncture. This is when you’re on the cusp of moving the tribe into the throes of the battle, and when that movement occurs, you’ll need every underpinning you can get.

Second, you must find a way to create a new “center of the universe.” This means making the concrete jungle revolve around your organization and its position, which is the key to being recognized in this environment. And while it might sound simple, it’s not so easy to do. Your tribe must become something innovative, different from the norm, and memorable, and then find ways to tell your story in ways that people can easily comprehend.

So how do you shape the perception you want others to have of you? In addition to possessing the foundation of knowledge, you must present yourself as an expert in the way you speak and dress, what you reference, and how you reference it. The tribes seated before you must hear and believe what you say in a way that resonates with them before they will go and get results.

We cannot overemphasize this concept’s critical importance; the manner in which you present your dominant focus is crucial to shaping perception along two fronts. The more easily identified is what we call the front-stage sale, which must persuade people outside your organization to want your product, do business with your company, utilize your services, and so on. But equally—and perhaps more—important is the back-stage sale, which is where you create buy-in to the team inside the organization.

Back-stage sales are every bit as critical as front-stage sales; however, they’re not happening as they should be as far as we can tell. We learned while coaching how absolutely necessary it is to sell to people inside the locker room before we could expect anyone outside the locker room. We knew we would be held responsible regardless of whether we were successful or not, but one thing was for certain: we wouldn’t get positive results if we couldn’t put together a map (or Model) toward a successful future with a dominant focus in which players could first place their faith.

Over the years of coaching, and later as coaches of present and future Leaders, we began to assemble tools with which this could be accomplished. Before we detail them, here’s a quick glance at the list of five tools.

Because the science of cartography (mapmaking) is largely mathematical, we decided each tool should have its own mathematical equation to further illustrate how to use it. As we go forward, we’ll break down each tool and formula. But don’t worry; we only went as far as to add two things together to equal a third, so if you can comprehend 1 + 2 = 3, you’ll be in good shape!

1. Equip with Focus and Emotion

Equation: Dominant Focus + Emotional Pull = Staying Power

American philosopher/poet/writer Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

While that quote’s worth is fairly self-evident—and while we embrace it wholeheartedly—what it doesn’t tell you is why that happens; or how to help spawn that enthusiasm, first within yourself, and then within others. That’s where the contents of this book can help, both in our previous discussion of the dominant focus and in this chapter’s subsequent discussion. We analyzed the dominant focus in the previous chapter, and while it’s certainly a cornerstone concept for Leaders to master, it does little good by itself. Now we’re about to make it more useful by sharing how to use it to put the Z&C Model into motion.

Let’s begin by giving you some examples of other books that have a well-stated dominant focus, Take a look at the following statements (and read the books when you get a chance), and see if you can pinpoint a common quality among them:

• Going from Good to Great (book by Jim Collins)
• Becoming a Category of One (book by Joe Calloway)
• Using the Power of Intention (book by Wayne Dyer)
• Becoming a rock star or Z&C Leader in your industry. (This is your book!)

You probably noticed fairly quickly that most (if not all) of the statements elicit some sort of gut reaction within you. After all, can’t we easily see that the condition of “great” is better than the condition of “good”—and ask yourself this: If you had a chance to be great, would you seize that over just being good? What if you were truly someone about whom others said, “I just can’t compare him or her to anyone else. By virtue of what he does and how he does it—he is just so different.” Hanging out in the concrete jungle like a fish that actually lives out of water (and likes it)!

Can’t most of us understand the desire to have ownership of something? Haven’t we all been touched by the power of realization at some point in our lives? Doesn’t almost everyone have at least a measure of a desire to be a rock star somewhere inside (for evidence, look no further than the video games Guitar Hero and Rock Band—as well as the global popularity of karaoke)?

Your gut reactions to those statements were based on emotional connections you have something to which you relate—dominance, greatness, oneness, intention, being a rock star. And because you connect with them in this way, you could envision yourself proceeding forward, which is exactly what a dominant focus should equip you to do. After all, a dominant focus is a conceptual idea that you can use to build a theme into the organization’s fabric, and drive home through unique activation points.

The lack of a dominant focus is what causes so many modern organizations’ strategic efforts, well intended though they may be, to go awry. This includes the age-old practice of goal-setting, which we touched on in the previous chapter, and which we’ll discuss in greater detail in the next section of this one. While we understand the power of goal-setting, this process is simply hollow in far too many cases. It’s easy to state some desired outcome and call it a goal; but how can you expect to take action upon it without an emotional pull? And even if you do act in some way, how can a manager count on that action being sustained over time? Furthermore, does the goal even make sense, and how does someone know that it makes sense? These kinds of questions show us where the foundation of a dominant focus really comes into play.

There is a saying that “not all dreamers are achievers, but all achievers are dreamers.” We can apply this incredibly accurate statement to companies as well as individuals, particularly to Z&C Leaders, who have the ability to create game plans based upon dominant focuses that have the ability to harness employees’ energies. This occurs when the dominant focus makes such a strong emotional connection that it forces people to imagine a dream so compelling, so wonderful, and so adventurous that it keeps them up at night, wakes them up in the morning, and constantly lingers on their minds. The scenes they subsequently create in their minds are visualizations of things that have not yet manifested but that nevertheless have magical pull.

Something magical happens when things snowball to that point: The dominant focus becomes a component of the essence of the tribe. They are both inspired—meaning literally, to breathe life into—and motivated (which means to move). Every memo, every meeting, every e-mail, every seminar . . . everything is then created around a theme.

Consider this concept using the rock star motif:

• You plan a training seminar for salespeople who’ve completed their first year, entitled “How to Go from a One-Hit Wonder to a Legend.”
• You assemble an operations training manual entitled “What Should Be Done Backstage to Have a Great Front Stage.”
• You compose a company newsletter article on generating subsequent sales, entitled “Groupies: How to Be a Rock Star Salesperson with a Following.”

Obviously, these rock-star themed initiatives are outgrowths from a theme to which people can aspire, which generates discussion, and which stems from an emotional response. But beyond the security of serving as an emotional anchor that can unite the tribe, the dominant focus also provides the basis to know whether the tribe is winning or losing. It’s a lot like a scoreboard, which we will discuss in a subsequent section of this chapter.

Tribe members without a focus will jump from one thing to another, seldom (if ever) being productive. While their intentions may be as good as gold, a lack of understanding and/or unity in their efforts (as well as a lack of a common passion) will lead to scattered results at best.

One of Stephen Covey’s famous axioms is, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” The dominant focus is the “main thing”—the spring from which all of the tribe’s energies should flow. However, it’s possible to allow a certain amount of flexibility for subsets of the tribe. After all, each group/department/division/staff/and so on may have its own role to play in achieving the dominant focus, whether it is a sales goal, building stronger client relationships, reaching a new market, or developing a new skill. As such, each one will likely need to take numerous small, specific-to-them action steps within the context of the dominant focus to create a major movement forward. Of course, each subset must share the dominant focus; otherwise, they’ll find themselves operating in an isolated vacuum, producing results related only to their group that aren’t tied to the overall tribal focus.

As we’ve stated previously, the initial step’s job is to build a theme that prompts people to emotionally connect with a dominant focus, which will then incite constant conversation. These elements let tribe members concentrate on how to make that focus’s dream into a reality. They can align their thoughts and energies to accelerate real progress toward that dream of the bigger, better future they are anxious to create.

Two other important outcomes will also emerge from this: the tribe will develop a personality, and will become laser-focused on the end prize, which will in turn eliminate many unnecessary, unproductive elements of their work.

You may have guessed that a couple of former coaches couldn’t write a book without including at least one quote from the late legendary men’s college basketball coach John Wooden, nicknamed “The Wizard of Westwood” for winning 10 national championships at UCLA. Among the many powerful quotes from his prolific post-career writings, we found this: “Great Leaders are always out in front with a banner rather than behind with a whip.” Undoubtedly, Coach Wooden hit the bull’s eye with laser-like accuracy (as usual); yet we can pose three logically extended inquiries upon reading that quote: But Coach, what should that banner be? How do I go about creating it? And how should I then go about using it to lead?

You certainly know the answers to the first two questions by now. You also know that someone with the most impeccable leadership credentials relied upon a dominant focus to lead his ultra-successful team.

The challenge lies in the day-to-day activity. By creating a dominant focus, tribe members can decide on what is the highest value of their time. The filter is the dominant focus. Imagine a real estate team that wants each of their agents to increase the number of homes sold by the amount of the respective ages. So the 38-year-old now knows the mark is to sell 38 more than last year, and the 27-year-old knows that the focus is to sell 27 more than the year before.

At this point, a Z&C Leader would roll out several activities that keep the dominant focus alive and emotionally connected for each team member. They would hold Monday morning meetings focused on lead indicators answering how they are going to attract business in the week. On Wednesdays they would provide one hour of education focused on growing the Model. On Friday, they bring an autopsy of what worked and what did not work. This forces people in the jungle to have a plan of attack of how to kill something and bring it back to the tribe. An emotional component of this would be birthday celebrations at certain milestones celebrating agents’ successes sold during a defined time period.

As we move through this chapter, you’ll know how to use the dominant focus like that banner Coach Wooden described as we further explain how to set the other elements of the Model into motion.

2. Empower with Excellence

Equation: Good Goals + Right Roles = Lit Coals

If you have lived in modern Western civilization, then you have doubtlessly been immersed in this day and age’s volumes of information about goal-setting. Although we’ve long since passed the state of being goal-oriented and ventured into goal-obsessed, goals are probably one of the most overused-yet-underdone concepts going today. How many times have you or members of your tribe set goals, not achieved them, and then lowered them—only to either miss the newly reset goal and repeat the process fruitlessly, or achieve only mediocre outcomes that don’t result in any real change? Have you ever wondered how or why this phenomenon is so commonplace?

The reason is very simple: randomly set goals rarely work. And the main reason why is that they don’t include the emotional staying power that a dominant focus does. Without this kind of passionate attachment, tribe members will often negotiate goals downward based on external variables, their moods, or momentary circumstances—or otherwise find themselves without the emotional fuel necessary to ensure follow-through.

Although we recognize the dysfunction commonly associated with goals and goal-setting, we still must stress their importance in your tribe’s strategic success. We simply encourage you to do them correctly, not to do away with them. After a good bit of reading on the topic, we found some fairly uniform agreement about three qualities that good goals should have. Then we added an ultra-important fourth one.

Clear, specific, measurable goals work, because we can break them down into quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily increments of progress. More important, they are explicitly connected to a dominant focus. This helps both managers and subordinates organize their efforts toward daily activities that concentrate on things like sales processes and customer service activities, which are systematically connected to organizations’ dreams. Because they’re loaded with an emotional pull, these good goals allow people to do more of the things they want to do and less of the things they feel forced to do, thereby letting the tribe live out its personality.

Succinctly stated, good goals are thematically connected to something that people relate to—not something cliché’ or vague like “Win in 2010.” Z&C Leaders enter into the goal-setting process with a mindset that says, “Let’s create something that people can visualize and then drive toward by connecting employees, customers, and our organization with specific rewards and incentives.” So many organizations fail miserably at this juncture of planning, then wonder why their meetings have no energy, why their culture has no purpose, and why their people have no fire, enthusiasm, or passion.

Well-formed goals also prompt Z&C Leaders to create themes regarding organizational direction that engage employees. They clearly support each individual’s role in achieving organizational and individual successes. Such bridges of communication better motivate tribe members, since leaders are celebrating themes that matter to employees. And who doesn’t enjoy talking about things for which they have a passion and zeal?

3. Create the Scoreboard

Equation: Categorical Criteria + Smart Bets = Clear Outcomes

Here’s a very simple (but powerful) bit of managerial wisdom we’ve gleaned from our days in coaching: people play harder when there is a scoreboard. If you don’t believe this, go to something as supposedly civil and recreational as a church league or even children’s basketball game, and watch people almost kill each other because two simple outcomes are at stake: a winner will emerge, and a loser will emerge! The same thing holds true in the business world: the score matters.

You can build your organizational scoreboard properly using the following five guidelines:

Each organization will obviously have a number of contingency variables to consider when creating its scoreboard. However, we can provide a few general thinking points for each step.

Past Performances

You can begin to set the scoreboard by determining each tribe member’s previous output levels. After all, it’s practically impossible to figure out where someone should go is if you don’t know where they’ve been. To determine the scope of their past, we recommend not only analyzing data concerning individual output—but also to analyze both the organization and each individual with the first part of the SWOT Analysis (“SWOT” is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats).

• Strengths (What advantages does the person and/or organization have?)
• Weaknesses (What disadvantages does the person and/or organization have?)

While this might seem awfully simple (and it is), we must caution you that it is far from easy. You absolutely must have a thorough knowledge of the open systems approach to complete this analysis with any degree of completeness or accuracy.

Another enticing trap to avoid when analyzing strengths and weaknesses is allowing these benchmarks of previous and current performances to become anchors that prevent future innovations. We can say this with firsthand authority, because as we speak and consult around the country, we ask people if they think they are using their time as well as they possibly could. Typically, they laugh and say, “Of course”! Then we say, “Tell us three specific things you do each day that produce results for you.” Many people clam up after we ask that, for a simple reason: they’re not winning, and they know it. Furthermore, they know they must change drastically to start winning, yet they’ll still say, “I’m doing just fine”!

Unfortunately, it’s usually not their fault, but Z&C Leaders need to clearly communicate that once an organization has made The Shift, employees will get the resources they need to be successful. As a result, everyone in the tribe must become a winner, and winning in this case means moving beyond prior and current performances to new levels of success. It must become a way of life in the tribe. If certain tribe members are afraid of a scoreboard because of the increased accountability, or because it might make them work harder, that’s likely an indicator that they don’t belong.

Look at every top performer in any field under the sun, and you’ll find they have two things in common: a coach and a scoreboard. Both of those things are in place for one reason: They ensure that those top performers continue to reach new heights in their chosen fields. Members of Z&C Tribes should be held to no less a standard, regardless of past performance. We certainly issue the obligatory warning to temper future expectations with reality regarding each tribe member and marketplace conditions. However, you need to undertake the process of determining past performances to get a baseline of calibration for building the scoreboard. This is the essential place to start this process.

Market Variables

After completing an internal analysis of the organization and its people, you then want to assess the external environment. This will help you determine how to balance the goals between aggressiveness and reality. This strategy is directly tied into the many customer-acquisition strategies we teach; and of course, each organization and environment is unique. Despite this challenge, however, we recommend using the “OT” part of the SWOT analysis.

• Opportunities (What external advantages does the environment offer?)
• Threats (What external disadvantages does the environment hold?)

Again, these sound deceptively simple, yet they cannot be done well without sound, open systems knowledge.

Future Capacity

Once you’ve identified past performance benchmarks and current market variables, the roadmap to success should suddenly become much clearer, particularly because Z&C Leaders can begin to determine aggressive-yet-realistic future benchmarks for each tribe member. Honing in on these sweet spots will then permit them to develop primary, secondary, and tertiary strategies to attain them. To drive a dominant focus to fruition, you must decide which direction to take and how quickly to move—something that’s known as capacity. Your tribe must have prescribed moves and countermeasures for every person involved, because not every initial movement will help the tribe reach capacity.

You’ve likely noticed that scoreboards at athletic events seem to get progressively fancier at every level of sport, and continually display more information as time progresses. For example, you can quickly discover a myriad of information at any given Major League Baseball (MLB) game—the score, the count, the inning, the batting order, the pitch speed, the pitcher’s pitch count, the name of the pitcher warming up in the bullpen, all the out-of-town scores, and much more—almost too much.

Organizational scoreboards must also simultaneously track more than one kind of statistic or event. While it’s possible to go overboard in scoreboard content, yours should track at least two basic things:

You can then decide exactly what will yield the highest value in terms of advancing you incrementally toward the mental picture of the dominant focus. This is where the high-value activity concept enters the equation.

High-Value Activities (HVAs)

We learned about HVAs from small-business guru Mark LeBlanc, author of Never Be the Same. LeBlanc taught us that whether we know it or not, we make bets each day with four primary resources: our time, our energy, our money, and our creativity. These bets revolve around customer acquisition in the business world because, ultimately, getting and keeping customers is the name of the game. Identifying exactly what you need to do so, and formulating plans to do them daily, is vital to achieving a dedicated drive toward the dominant focus.

Because results are a product of intensive activity, the scoreboard must display daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly results. While some may see this as micromanaging, it is necessary in the case of the scoreboard. Daily activity goals will lead to weekly activity goals, which will lead to business, which leads to results. The scoreboard not only tracks this progress; it’s also the litmus test to see whether employees and the company are winning or losing with regard to the dominant focus. Perhaps even more important, it helps both Z&C Leaders and tribe members rapidly determine which daily activities matter, and which don’t.

Metrics

Once the logistics of the HVAs are in place, it’s time to unleash the tribe, turn the scoreboard on, and let it measure the results it has been designed to gauge. But even when you have some solid measurements in place, the real secret lies in how you utilize them.

First, you need to keep the scoreboard visible and make sure that employees clearly understand its purpose. Ascertain that each person, staff, office, and branch’s aspirations are spelled out on the scoreboard. You also want to clearly reassure tribe members that they are not competing against one another; instead, remind them that they’re competing against their own potential. This will spawn positive peer pressure instead of cutthroat ­competition.

Make the weekly meeting with your tribe about the scoreboard’s numbers an event to which people look forward. Instill accountability by having tribe members physically stand before the group and write their number of HVAs for the week and their results. Tribe Leaders can then celebrate this weekly assessment by rewarding top performers, acknowledging the highest achievers, encouraging middle performers, and giving ultimatums to bottom performers.

While that last phrase might seem a bit harsh, here’s a bit of realism about people who populate the bottom. If they’re consistently there (and they usually are), they’re likely a dead weight for the tribe. Many organizations have employees like this; they suck the lifeblood out of the group without adding anything. For whatever reason, they don’t buy into the dominant aspiration and instead continually sabotage it, either directly or indirectly. Unfortunately, many companies and Leaders allow these people to stay in their tribes far too long. This zaps energy and casts doubts in committed tribe members’ minds when they see these noncompliant people operating by their own sets of rules (and usually getting away with it!). It also destroys any hope of the tribe ever reaching the dominant focus.

The scoreboard concept uncovers the unproductive tribe members from their concrete jungle hiding ­places. It makes it clear that all tribe members should—and will—be required to drive business each day and be accountable for it. Their efforts in this regard are being measured and if they don’t produce, the organization has no choice but to find someone else who will produce. So if employees value their jobs, they’ll produce.

Please understand that we’re not advocating releasing the bottom third of your entire tribe after one week of using the scoreboard. We’re merely suggesting that you provide that bottom third with some additional coaching over a period of three to six months. If they don’t make progress by the end of the designated time period, then they should be dismissed. At this point, the organization has done its part by investing time and energy to better an employee’s potential, and it can then hold the individual solely accountable. If an employee hasn’t made sufficient progress by that time, they likely never will.

Using the metrics of the scoreboard, Z&C Leaders increase overall performance. (See Figure 5.1.) As such, the tribe moves forward toward its dominant aspiration.

Figure 5.1 Scoreboard

4. Coach ’em Up, or Coach ’em Out

Equation: Personal growth + Leadership = Teamwork

Another driving force behind the Z&C Model is the whole person theory. In essence, this states that a Leader must cultivate the four parts of a person we’ve mentioned several times now—the body, mind, heart, and spirit—in order to truly develop their latent potential.

Here is our simple interpretation of this philosophy, which provides a perfect formula for coaching up your tribe members:

Only through addressing these four essential elements of the whole person can Z&C Leaders truly maximize their tribe members’ full potential. Although the capacity for greater things exists within most people, and will allow them to be better today than they were yesterday, that capacity is useless unless successfully tapped. We once heard a comedienne discussing the use of the word potential in describing assessment of prospective dating partners who “had potential” in this manner: “The word potential means they ain’t doin’ nothin’ now”! Grammar aside, we tend to agree, and while Z&C Leaders are responsible for changing that condition, they must find ways to appeal to the whole person if they expect tribe members to make a permanent shift.

Employees will not give themselves wholeheartedly to a cause in which they don’t believe. They might temporarily perform through goodwill and compliance; but that participation won’t be based on creative excitement. These employees will doubtless leave the organization after a certain period of time, because highly motivated people who exist in a de-motivated culture will bolt in search of a place that values their contributions.

Z&C Leaders understand that everyone is passionate about something. They also know that if someone is forced to work in an area for which s/he lacks passion, her/his performance will be mediocre at best. Sometimes leadership erroneously attempts to force people into being good at something they dislike. This will never, ever work. Z&C Leaders should ask employees where their deep passions and natural talents lie, then seek to better utilize those assets while creating an enjoyable working atmosphere.

Coaching and Credibility

Did you ever play a sport under a coach who had no idea what s/he was doing? Though (we hope) rare, we’ve all probably seen or been part of that dysfunctional scenario, which really only had one problem at its core—a lack of credibility. So it goes in the world of business, where too many tribe members are left to wander aimlessly without credible Leaders.

Tribes must address the credibility factor in order for Leaders to successfully coach their employees. Tribe members must trust that their CEO is also the Chief Learning Officer—someone with a foundation of knowledge and effective mechanisms to impart that knowledge in timely, clear, and relevant ways. Nothing kills an initiative’s momentum more quickly than tribe members dismissing it as just another passing fad. It simply won’t work if employees assume that the CEO is somehow not involved in or knowledgeable of the new vision’s day-to-day operations. True leadership can never regain credibility if tribe members perceive that the boss doesn’t get it.

Part of the effective communication challenge and. thus, the credibility dilemma, involves the message delivered process. Variables like organization size, geographic restrictions, and structural constraints mean that the CEO can’t always be the one to provide individual coaching; work environments typically do not lend themselves to such synergies. S/he must therefore hire and train others who are skilled at doing so, and who can focus on energizing people through quality individual time or small-group sessions. These individuals act as “assistant coaches,” and as in productive player/coach relationships, they must cultivate these bonds through deep intimate moments of shared vision and struggle. They cannot be functionally formed without direct mentorship.

We unfortunately don’t find this kind of player/coach prototype in many modern organizations. However, Z&C Leaders know they must take the necessary time to make deep emotional investments that will lead to individual tribe members’ success, up to the point of adopting each person’s dream as their own. Of course, this shouldn’t be at all difficult to do, because of the shared elements of the tribe’s collective passion. However, it will likely require constant concentration, coaching, assessment, and reteaching of the dominant focus, due to the struggles, problems, plateaus, and even disasters that can occur in the concrete jungle. In essence, the dominant focus must consume the Leader’s energy; this is the only way to keep it at the top of everyone’s mind, even when tribe members grow weary of the journey through the jungle.

Corporate training is a lot like goal-setting, in that it’s another typically poisonous paradigm for many organizations. Given the pervasive popularity of sport, we advocate turning the concept of training into coaching. Your employees might look on this a bit more favorably, and here’s why: Coaching engages someone in a set of systematic and consistent behaviors that empowers them to do something tomorrow they could not do today. Granted, that’s what proper training in the corporate world should do; however, one of the challenges of the corporate world, which differs starkly from the athletic world, is that they administer training randomly and sporadically. It’s seldom built into the organization’s fabric. The sporting world, on the other hand, makes it an inherent part of the culture that occurs on a regular basis. Adding this kind of pervasive coaching in systematic ways will create an entirely new concept of corporate training.

But there’s more to coaching than imparting greater technical skills. Building great tribes combines training on topics such as sales, services, technology, and information with concepts such as personal growth, leadership, teamwork, and culture in a systematic manner over a specified period of time. And of course, it’s all done with an explicit destination in mind.

For a clear example, look no further than the extensive, comprehensive training that occurs at online retailer Zappos.com, which grew since its 1999 founding to be the world’s largest online shoe store. CEO Tony Hsieh became famous for his stance that “If we get the culture right, then everything else, including the customer ­service, will fall into place.” This mantra is proven by the company’s annually published 480-page Culture Book. It is distributed to all employees and contains unedited two-to-three-paragraph entries from employees describing the company’s culture. Zappos.com is apparently quite proud of this work, because anyone can receive a copy of the book upon request.

Prospective Zappos.com employees must complete two interviews, one that focuses on their professional skills, and one aimed to discover a bit about their personality. Management deems both to be equally important. Except for staff at its fulfillment center, all new hires (even executives) undergo a four-week customer-loyalty training course, which includes at least two weeks of fielding customer calls in the call center. Upon completion, Zappos.com offers new employees $2,000 to quit. This measure is designed to keep only those who are truly motivated to join the tribe. Employees who refuse make a clear public statement of commitment to their new employer (and more than 97 percent turn down the offer).

In addition to equipping their employees with skills and competencies necessary to do their jobs well functionally, this kind of holistic training also screams to employees that Zappos.com deeply values them not just as workers but also as people. As such, the organization will help them build their own hopes and dreams daily via a Model of consistent, systematic coaching rather than sporadic, disconnected training (as a footnote, Amazon. com acquired Zappos.com in 2009 for $1.2 billion, $40 million of which was set aside in cash and stock awards for employees).

“Yer Outta Here!”

As we stated in Step 3 of the scoreboard-building process, nonproductive members should be excommunicated from the tribe after a clearly determined period of substandard productivity during corrective coaching. This is what the “out” part of “coach ’em up, or coach ’em out” essentially says. Many leaders understandably struggle with the concept of coaching tribe members out, but not Z&C Leaders. Type and length of relationships, likeability, and similar factors cannot (and should not) override the dominant focus. Good leaders know that allowing such elements to cloud their vision will sabotage the entire tribe, and its members will not play to their maximum potential.

We completely understand leaders’ reluctance to move people out; it’s seldom viewed initially as a positive process. However, we encourage you to remember this: People are looking for confidence, clarity, and direction about their future, and they seek to be a part of something greater than themselves. Tribe members who don’t buy into the dominant focus are either unable or unwilling to do what’s asked of them, perhaps both. For whatever reason, if they’re not fully on board, they must be removed from the tribe for their own and the tribe’s betterment.

Occasionally, however, even fully committed tribe members will hit plateaus or valleys. And removing solid performers obviously isn’t the answer to that predicament. Instead, you might need to try a different tactic: one that will recharge the base with the same electricity it once had. We call this “throwing in thunderbolts.”

5. Throw in Thunderbolts

Equation: Recharged Tribe Members + Removed Complacency = Reenergized Tribe

When you implement the Z&C Model, increased signs of production usually emerge very quickly. Everyone begins to feel a new sense of energy; most people are excited particularly if they’ve previously had no direction or have been fighting losing battles. However, as with so many aspects of life, from people to possessions, the infatuation that this newness creates can quickly erode. Even though they may be committed to the dominant focus, many people are simply not accustomed to prolonged periods of producing at higher levels. It can take awhile to get used to increased intensity, scoreboards, and new culture. Because of this lull, good leaders must create either natural or artificial ways to keep the tribe fresh in its desire to drive the dominant focus. We’ve nicknamed these ways thunderbolts.

Thunderbolts are unexpected jolts to the group that do one of two things: renew their energy, or pull them out of complacency. While the notion of a thunderbolt hitting someone may sound somewhat negative, it doesn’t have to be. It might come in the form of an unexpected visitor, a high intensity meeting where the group shares their feelings in passionate ways, an unanticipated bonus or incentive from the leader, or any other surprise event that catches the tribe unaware.

Based on our observations, this kind of weariness usually comes along in the sixth or seventh month of the cycle. This is the perfect opportunity for a leader to do something totally unexpected, like inject fun when the tribe is not used to the leader having fun. Some simple ways include:

• A company-wide rally to reintroduce the dominant focus and paint a more vivid picture of where the group is going, which taps into the spirit.
• A new incentive plan that ties all parts of a person’s nature together with her/his role in helping the company drive the dominant focus.
• A plan for heavy coaching to help people reach their deepest human potential and constantly reaffirm the group’s plans.
• A series of short-term challenges to the tribe for each month and each quarter, with the aim of making the long-term plan viable.

The ideas for thunderbolts are practically endless. You may need to experiment with and vary them a bit; so, in the very spirit of thunderbolts themselves, be innovative with them. A dynamic guest speaker might be one option. Though some people downplay their influence, a speaker with a distinctive, powerful message could be exactly what certain tribe members need to reignite their fire. Another option is for Z&C Leaders to paint credible pictures of the future for tribe members, break goals down into doable chunks, and so on. The exact format is up to you as a Z&C Leader, but the purpose of renewal is the same for all thunderbolt techniques, as is its purpose of preventing the emotional cancer of complacency.

Like a dominant focus, a thunderbolt should have an emotional pull. However, this is not to be confused with a popularity contest. Z&C Leaders can’t lead effectively if their desire is to bolster their own popularity. Driving new results sometimes means creating new levels of emotional buy-ins. To do that, they must present new concepts that allow employees to feel, taste, and touch emotions. This is the thunderbolt’s function.

The Power of Human Capital

This chapter’s purpose has been to help you deeply understand the power of human capital and forge you into the new Z&C breed of leader—a person who seeks to harness that raw talent and kinetic energy. Becoming the new king of the concrete jungle is not easy; if it were, everyone would be doing it. Many battles and gut-check opportunities will emerge over a one-year cycle of driving a dominant focus, providing many opportunities for you to evaluate your tribe members.

Struggles like these will simultaneously bring you closer with the bona-fide winners in your tribe and help you discern who simply doesn’t fit. But remember—it’s crucial not to mistake a winning tribe member who has temporarily plateaued for a non-producer. Many who are left alone in the concrete jungle will die there, even those who may have faith in the dominant focus. That’s where you put on your coach’s whistle, get out your dry-erase board, and start diagramming systematic plays to help them win. The strength of your systems will be the x-factor that helps the group survive the brutality of what it takes to win in today’s concrete jungle. And as you build and automate those systems, you must always ensure that no one can slip through its cracks. This is why we included the directives in this chapter.

One overriding theme to keep at the forefront of your initiatives is the idea of daily progress. Yes, we’ve hammered that concept time and again in this chapter, but for good reason. We strongly believe that tracking the daily activities toward the dominant focus will be the single vital, necessary practice for keeping the tribe on track, focused, and productive in the long run.

Make no mistake: doing so will require resilience on the part of both the leader and the group. Daily exertion can be invigorating, but it can also be draining. The temptation to let it slide for a day can be almost overwhelming. Because of that, we implore those who would be successful Z&C Leaders to keep their motivational arsenal well stocked and always be ready to inject some extra motivation into the tribe, particularly at later stages of initiative completion. Because let’s face it: it’s a concrete jungle out there, and you and your tribe must know how to respond while being battle-tested.