EP 83 | Saddle Your Own Horse - Part 3: Stop Rescuing, Start Leading

• Zach’s Website

• Work with Zach
• Book Zach to Speak

• Follow, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts
• Follow and rate on Spotify
• Connect with me on Instagram and Facebook!

TRANSCRIPT BELOW: 

Zach Arend: We jump in and we rescue them. We are so unwilling to see them fail that we will not give them the space to figure it out on their own. 

So therefore they never grow. 

 Welcome to being in the arena. This is a podcast for leaders, executives, sales professionals, people who are in the arena of their lives and their leadership, trying to create results for the organization while maximizing their impact and influence with those they lead. 

So today we're going to call this part three of a four-part series, where we're diving deeper into this idea of Saddle Your Own Horse. I did a TED talk on this about a month ago now. And I only had 10, 12 minutes to really deliver that message. And I've just wanted to go deeper. And this four-part series is somewhat of a masterclass on some of the concepts I introduce in the TED talk. And so if you've been following along then you know, part one we really explored how we're not burnt out, we're bored out. More of us are actually bored than we are burnt out. We know deep down, we're not doing what we know we can do, and that's true for us. And that's true for a lot of the individuals in our organizations and for those we lead. And as long as we keep reacting to what we believe is burnout, we're going in the opposite direction. 

So that's what we explored in part one and how we've got to start asking more of people, not less, that's actually what they want from us. They want us to expect more of them. And that starts ultimately with you and me expecting more of ourselves. That's part one. Part two, we looked at three questions that you have to answer yes to, to create the conditions for you to fully be your best and come to work fully engaged. And again, what's true for you is also true for those you lead. So those three questions. What's your answer to those three questions? Do you feel sense of choice in what you're doing? Do you feel effective while also challenged by it? 

And do you feel you're able to do it on your terms? Those are the three questions, but we take a unique perspective in looking at those three. In the last episode and I'm realizing that the sound quality of the last episode, isn't great. There's something going on with my mic. But once you get over, it just sounds a little different. 

You can still make it out. I might be going back and recording that at some point. But it's still worth listening to co cause it's the relationship to those three questions. Do I feel sense of choice? Do I feel effective while also challenged by what I'm doing? And do I feel like I'm able to do it on my terms? It's your relationship with those questions that really determine that really make the difference. So that's part two. 

Today is part three. And I'm calling this one Resolving the Hidden Culture of Irresponsibility. Resolving the hidden culture of irresponsibility, because it is hidden. We don't realize it's there. It's very subtle, but it is diminishing our ability to create extraordinary results together, which we're going to get to in part four like, how exactly to do that. 

But first we have to address this hidden culture of irresponsibility. And I. I was like, I wrote the word. I'm like, "ah, that's kind of harsh, irresponsible. I'm saying we have hidden cultures of irresponsibility?" And I'm like, "wow, I don't know. I, it seems a little extreme," but I looked up the word irresponsible and I'm like, no, it's, that's what I'm saying. Lack of proper sense of responsibility. 

That's the meaning of irresponsibility? A lack of proper sense of responsibility. Proper sense of responsibility. Those, those five words. Are really what I'm getting at, the sense of responsibility. We don't feel a sense of responsibility. The individuals in our organizations do not feel the weight of responsibility. 

And I believe and what I've witnessed and observed in myself and teams I've lead and my clients is it's not until we feel the weight of responsibility that we really truly thrive in and be our best. And bring our full A-game to the table and that's what we're here to do. And I believe when you're bringing your A-game to the table, you're, you're engaged with life. 

Like your life is exciting. And it has vitality and people don't leave companies that feel like where they feel like they're challenged and effective at what they're doing and able to bring their A- game and have impact and feel like they're making a contribution. Like, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't, I don't leave organizations like that. Because I feel I have a sense of purpose. 

I have necessity and we explored in a previous episode, modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. And so to do this, we have to allow people to feel the weight of their own responsibility. And that is the very definition of necessity and feeling necessary. And we have this hidden culture of irresponsibility, meaning we don't have this sense of responsibility. And I want to, I want to share a story. My daughter, my middle daughter. 

She's she's nine. She's going to be 10 in like a month. Well, she's my musical theater child. She loves musical theater, dance, theater acting, singing all of it. And we've been auditioning a lot and working really hard on some songs and, and, and just It's been our world for the last several months. Well, it, funny story is she comes home from school and we get a little piece of paper in the folder. 

You know, I don't know about you, but my kids don't really ever tell me anything. It's just like we find out because we opened the folder. Well, there's this folder. It's like talent show, you know, it's like 30 days out talent show, third grade talent show. And I asked her, I'm like, you know, Sophie, I, are you you doing the talent show? 

She's like, "no." I am like "okay." And I just was a little shocked, cause she's usually all over that stuff, but she's like, "no." And weeks go by and now it's like a week out. And she comes home. She's like, "mom, dad, you know, I'm, I'm going to sing in the talent show" and, and then apparently her teacher talked her into it. 

Teacher found out she could sing. And so she's like, "Sophie, you need to be in the talent show and stuff." And Sophie's like, "okay." Well, we have been busy and doing all kinds of things and we're in the car the day before the town show and I'm like, Sophie, how are you feeling with your song? She's like, I'm pretty good. And I'm wondering like, well, she knows the song, but she knows like a minute of the song. 

Cause that's the section she's been practicing for additions, but it's like a three, four minute song. So I'm like, Does she know the song? So, you know, I put it on Spotify and we find a an instrumental version of piano version where there's no words. Because I'm like, let's see if she knows it. 

If she's ready for tomorrow. And so sure enough, she just starts with a bang. She knows like the first minute, minute and a half of the song. And then all of a sudden it's like, Oh, And dad, you know, me, I'm like, oh, she's not ready. And there was a part of me. That's like, oh my God, she's not ready. 

She's she's gonna bomb, you know? And. And. I wanted so bad to jump in and rescue her. I'm like, oh, we've got to practice tonight. Maybe I maybe, maybe she could tell the teacher that, you know, let's just play this two minute part. Let's not play the whole song. And I just stopped myself. I'm like, you know what? 

She signed herself up for this. She says, she's ready. Who am I to say she's not ready? Like give her some room, let her figure it out. And I did. It was hard. Well, part of letting her figure it out was it's 10 o'clock at night. And I hear her belting the song from her room and I want to walk in a room like Sophie it's time for bed, but I'm like, no, like, let her, let her practice, you know. Leave her alone. Let her, let her do it her way. And then this morning, I hear her practicing some more and I'm like, you know what? Maybe she's ready. 

I don't know. Like I haven't heard her. You know, I'm just letting her be, do her thing. Well, we get there to the performance and she's up. And she's standing in the center of the stage already, you know, hands to her side. And then I see her walk up, walk across stage to the teacher, who's about ready to push play on the music. And I hear her. 

Her whisper is fairly loud and kind of like my whisper. And she's like, "when I stop singing, just stop the music." I'm like, that's smart. I'm like, I'm so proud of you. She she's just like, you know what? I can't sing the whole song, but I know when I can, I know my limit. And I'm going to, I'm going to instruct the teacher what to do. And it was beautiful. 

It was amazing. And I'm like, you know what? You know? Yeah. She didn't sing the whole song and maybe if I stepped in, we could have practice and she could have nailed it, but you know what? It was a third grade talent show. And she did, like, the skills of like improvising and, and crafting the performance for what worked for her. And it was amazing. 

She did a great job. You know, and, it just popped to my head. Like I wasn't planning on sharing this story for this podcast episode, but like, this is what we have to do as leaders. We have to give people a horse to saddle. Get out of their way and let them take it on, like let them fail. Or let them shine, let them figure it out. And that is part of resolving this hidden culture of irresponsibility is,

we need to become aware of how we're contributing to this culture of irresponsibility because here's the thing. If I would have jumped in and rescued my daughter yesterday. She would not have learned the skills 

of what she did today. In fact, I promise you I would have taken the fun out of it. And she's probably going to be less likely to volunteer for something like that ever again. Because dad got involved. Well, that's what we do as leaders. Far too often. And we are complicit in creating this hidden culture of irresponsibility because instead of getting out of people's way and truly leading them and letting them run. 

We jump in and we rescue them. We are so unwilling to see them fail that we will not give them the space to figure it out on their own. 

So therefore they never grow. 

And 

therefore it leads to a hidden culture of irresponsibility. It just does because they start to lose the sense of responsibility for the outcomes in the business, in their lives. 

And we're doing that as leaders. We're doing that. And I, I was telling somebody my, the number one challenge in creating my TED talk, Saddle Your Own Horse, I'm like, people are going to hear this. And they're going to listen to it and they're gonna be like, "yeah, our people. Yeah. They need to saddle their own horse. 

Like, gosh, darn it. They need to take responsibility and be responsible for the results." And I'm like, I don't want that to be the outcome because the reality is. 

This is about creating a culture where everybody is saddling their own horse. Like everybody, meaning you. How are you contributing to the environment where everybody is saddling their, their own horse? Because we are actually contributing to this culture of irresponsibility. Because in the way that we rescue people and never let them fall and hit the ground and figure things out, 

we put them in a position of victimhood. 

We do. Like whenever we're helping somebody, we're communicating to these individual state, they are somebody who needs our help. And that is not cultivating the culture that we want. 

That's not cultivating the type of individuals we want to have in our organizations. It's actually contributing to a culture of irresponsibility and it's so subtle, but it's, it's literally creating the very thing we say we don't want. Because when you look at how we're addressing quote-unquote burnout, overwhelm, stress, anxiety, mental health in the workplace and wellbeing. 

 We are, we have become so focused on mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. It is the title of most, every keynote I see. There's multiple books about it. You go to any HR conference and that's what we're talking about. Mental health, wellbeing. And what do we, as leaders need to do about it? 

And we spend all this time in front of whiteboards, thinking about what, what, how can we help people with their mental health and their wellbeing? And there's, there's apps. There's there's meditation apps like Headspace, there's calm, there, there's all these benefits and things we offer employees. You know, there's there's Zen rooms. There's there's quiet, calm rooms, you know? Like I'm learning we have those in our schools and we're doing all these things. And I'm not saying they're bad. I'm not saying they're good. I'm just saying we are putting so much energy on our own back. 

Like how do we solve this mental health crisis for our people? We're helping them. We are rescue. 

We are putting ourselves in a position of "it's my job to rescue them. They're in danger." And that is the place we're coming from, and that is not creating true responsible individuals. It's creating a culture of irresponsibility. 

It's contributing to this culture of victimhood we see in the world. I, I believe that to be true and I've seen it play out and I just know human nature. Like nobody grows until they feel the weight of responsibility. 

And here's the thing about that. The weight of responsibility. How's that feel? Sometimes it feels like anxiety. Often, it feels like stress. 

And we have created a culture where there's just this intolerance to stress and anxiety. All of these programs, we bring into our organizations and all our efforts to help people with their mental health and wellbeing, we're literally communicating to them that anxiety and stress are bad. You know, we, we got to get something that we need to get rid of. And it's putting individuals in a position of irresponsibility like that stress and anxiety is the, the, the the culprit. And we are just a victim of our own anxiety and our own stress. And that we're a victim of how our organizations and how work creates that in our lives. And we fall into this victimhood mentality. And look, I'm speaking to myself too. I'm aware of poor parts of my life where I do this. And yeah, and it's not good. 

It's not. It's not helpful. It's not useful. It doesn't move anybody forward. 

And so, how do we resolve this culture of irresponsibility? Because as long as we put ourselves in a position of always trying to help and rescue people and try to solve their mental health and their issue, you know, what we perceive as the issue. We take them out of the driver's seat of their own life. 

And as leaders, 

we got to put people back in the driver's seat of their own life. That's our job, ultimately as leaders. It really, if you want to be a servant leader, stop trying to help people. Because people don't need help. People need to be reminded of who they are and how powerful they actually are. 

Learn how to be a coach to people and how to help them get back in touch with what they desire and the outcomes that they can contribute to and finding their own way. That's our job as leaders, and we need to get back to that. 

And that's really the whole impotence behind Saddle Your Own horse, is we got to start taking responsibility of our role as leaders in a way that allows people, everybody around us also take responsibility of their own lives and the outcomes. 

And ultimately to take responsibility for what's not working for you and, and get them to take responsibility for what's not working for them. Because, as I said in my TED talk, we can try to give people autonomy all day long and give them space to run. You know, some of the things I'm sharing. But if we're not willing to let them fall and hit the ground and struggle and experienced some anxiety and stress and feel the weight of responsibility, autonomy without that personal responsibility and feeling that it turns into entitlement. 

And that's oftentimes what I see in a lot of businesses is like this, the leaders tell me like there's "oh, there everybody's so entitled in these days." And I just want to look at them and like, well, how are you creating that entitlement in your organization? Because you get exactly what you allow or disallow, and you're always contributing and influencing the outcomes that you see in the business. 

So autonomy without personal responsibility leads to entitlement. And so we have to call people to a bigger game. We've got to ask more of them if we want to resolve this culture of irresponsibility. We got to start letting people be responsible. 

And that means. Letting them sign up for things. And if they think they're ready for it, let them take it on. Stop negotiating with them. 

"Are you sure you're ready? I don't know. I don't know if that's realistic," like just stop that. Let people learn. Because sometimes, and this is something I've learned as a facilitator, one of the number one thing, I'm part of, kind of behind the curtain. We set these objectives, like 90 day objectives within an organization. 

And I let the leaders write them like, and I don't, I try to avoid, like we don't hand the objectives to people. We, we create goals and objectives from the bottom up, not the top down. And when I see that everybody else in the room gets really uncomfortable. Like they're like somebody is like, "my goal this quarter is to implement you know, a new CRM. Like, get it, get it, get it implemented." And all of a sudden the other people like, "wow, I don't think that's realistic. 

I mean, are you sure? Like we've already, we haven't even selected one yet." And. And the other person's like "no, I think I can do it." Well, the team tries to talk them out of it. And I just say, stop, like, look, if she thinks she can do it, let her run, stop, stop negotiating with what you think is possible for her. 

If she thinks it's possible, let her run. 

And one of two things is going to happen. She's either going to come back 90 days from today. And she's going to be like, I got it. I got it done. Everybody's gonna be like, dang. You know, and she's going to feel amazing. And she's going to have all this energy to propel her into the next segment of that goal. Or she's going to come and she's going to say, you know what? 

I didn't get it done. And we can ask her, well, what'd you learn? Well, I learned the net. You know, I bit off, more than I can chew. And next time I want to be a little more realistic on what I can do in the given time. Or I'm going to be more specific on exactly what it means to implement the CRM. 'cause I, I'm realizing now that, that I, it was unclear. And these are either one are great outcomes. There, I would just like to like 99% of the time failure is like, there is no such thing failure in, or maybe there's small moments where we can really fail an organization. 

But I would argue like, no, I don't know. Like there is no failure. It's just an opportunity to learn and grow. And we got to let people find their own way. Cause if we're constantly trying to be like, well, I don't know, you might want us, you might want to write that more clear or you might want to, you know, is that really realistic? Like, I don't just let them figure it out. 

Like people, people learn so much by just being in the arena and learning what works and what doesn't work. You know, and I think about my daughter, like, I, I'm kind of patting myself on the back a little bit and like, I'm just so. I wanted to so bad jump in and help her and make sure she didn't bomb today. You know, You know what she's got. 

She'll figure it out. She signed up for it. I, you know, and I'm not gonna 

I'm not going to tell her what reality is or where she's at. But we do that as leaders. And so if we want to resolve this hidden culture of responsibility, irresponsibility, we've got to let people run. Give him a horse to saddle, 

get out of their way, and let them take it on. 

And in the next episode, part four of this, we're going to really bring this all together and talk about how we as leaders can really create an environment where everybody saddles their own horse, where we can create extraordinary results together. And what that actually looks like. And how you can begin to take some steps to create the conditions for that to be true in your organization or on your team. Today, 

I just wanted to really draw a light on how we are actually contributing to the, the culture of irresponsibility and how we need to Stop Rescuing and Start Leading. Thanks for listening and we'll see you in the next episode. 

​