Straight-Line Leadership: Tools for Living with Velocity and Power in Turbulent Times

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This is one of the best books I've read on getting results. With all of today's distractions, it's easy to go off course or to stop something and try the next newest idea in hopes of getting the result faster. To summarize this book, when you need to go from point A to point B (what you need to accomplish), write down all of the actions needed to get there and decide if you're willing to do them. If you're not willing to do them, put the project on the shelf. In these cases, instead of saying "I can't" say "I won't" because you are not willing to take the actions. If you're willing to take the actions, then do them one at a time without stopping until the result is realized. It's that simple. Without persistent, focused action everything you know is virtually useless—a series of interesting mental exercises—nothing more. What are you waiting for to go away before you act?” People believe that if they don’t act and if they wait long enough, difficult problems might just go away. But experience says otherwise. And it helps to call myself out when I catch myself doing that.

Circle and zigzag people are not in action because they are hung up. They are trying to sort out what they see as necessary preconditions to action. For example, they say they need more courage. Or they think they need to get rid of a certain bad habit. Or learn more about the situation before they can act. Straight-line people don’t focus on those concerns. They simply act decisively. Fear or no fear. They know that all results come out of decisive action. So rather than looking for the courage, or the strength, or “enough time” to do something important, they forget all of that. It’s too mentally exhausting to work on all of that. So they just drop the preconditions. They know from experience that getting from A to B is always about doing the NEXT REQUIRED ACTION. What he helped me see one day is that most people are focused on their own comfort and feelings. They care about how they’re coming across. They care about what people think of them. I saw that it was possible at any time to just drop all that and focus on getting the result. To care so much about the result, that you are no longer controlled by the judgments of others. You no longer just say what you think people want to hear. You say what will make a difference. Most people are paralyzed by both problems and having to make decisions. They believe that they are “dealing with” their problem simply because they are talking about it and thinking about it. But their inner stance has not shifted, and no action has been taken because there hasn’t been a decision made to act.In straight-line coaching we consider intelligent people as those who implement what they know. Even when they have not acquired a lot of information, they are much more valuable to themselves and others than someone who absorbs tremendous amounts of information and rarely does anything with it. Unless your goal is to be a walking, talking human library trying to entertain yourself with what you know (content with insight), it’s best to start implementing what you know. Life is much more satisfying that way. Straight lines are absolutely necessary for every leader. There is no substitute for having clear and definitive boundaries in business that everyone, including all Leaders, are accountable to. As C.S. Lewis alluded to, no Corporate Family member can know what their roles and responsibilities are or execute them if there are no specific guidelines for them to follow and be measured against. Developing and articulating straight lines in your business is the best way to ensure that everyone understands their roles, and that they can be productive in meeting or exceeding expectations. When everyone is aligned and attuned to their roles and responsibilities, that’s when workplace productivity takes off in business. Straight Line Leadership will help propel a company forward and cultivate growth within it! In addition, this kind of leadership will help us both professionally and personally too. My goal here is to make you so aware of these worlds that you can no longer live in one without knowing exactly where you are and the consequences of living there. When you become awake and aware of these three worlds, they can no longer happen by default. They now become matters of choice. The sleepwalking is over.

want to know why you want the experience of achieving that goal, so I also ask, “What purpose would that serve?” Wisdom is being aware of the inner stance that you are operating out of in the moment. Power is the willingness and ability to shift inner stances at will. In working with a straight-line coach, he will first want to establish something more primary… something much more crucial to your success. He will want to know: Where are you coming from? He will want to know that because he will want to know what’s possible for you to see.And the good news here is that it is always now. And the only time to change is now. What are you thinking right now? The five most damaging words you could be thinking right now are: “IT CAN’T BE THIS SIMPLE.” There’s an extremely effective formula I frequently use with clients to provide access to achieving desired outcomes. It goes as follows: Step One: Decide what you intend to accomplish. Step Two: Define exactly what actions it will take from you to achieve the outcome. Step Three: Decide if you are willing to pay that price. (If you’re not willing to pay the price to get whatever you want, you’re just going to get frustrated.) Step Four: Monitor the results of your actions and make corrections when needed. Step Five: Continue to take the required actions and DO NOT STOP until your outcome is realized. The straight-line coach helps his client to determine the specific measurable result that the client wants. Once the result is identified, behaviors and actions are created that bring the result into reality. And even when they said no, she didn’t lose the relationship. In fact they ended up apologizing to her for not having the budget to accept the bigger offerings. “Why didn’t I do this from the start?” she said. “I can’t even begin to add up all the money I could have made in the past two years.” We explained that her inner stance of safety first had prevented her from seeing what was really possible and that shifting to a growth stance would make a huge difference in resolving the matter. So wishing, hoping, desiring, wanting—all these things are a waste of time. They deepen the story that you don’t have something yet. You are unfulfilled. You feel incomplete. You don’t have what you need to be happy.

It’s extremely wise to ask yourself, “What am I really going to do with all of this great information that I am accumulating? Am I going to utilize it to get the results that I am after in life? Or am I just content with knowing about it?” Really strong straight-line leaders are even effective at leading people who might not like their style. Because those people still respect them. They respect the leader for being responsible to be and do what’s required… even when they don’t approve of how it’s done. This book delivers the distinctions that straight-line coaches use when coaching their clients. These distinctions have been tested repeatedly for their proven reliability in creating breakthroughs in business and other areas of life that require high levels of performance. They open up your whole being and give you the space and strength for potent, new, decisive action. You’ve got to define the necessary required actions you’ll be taking. And then you’ve got to do the necessary required actions without stopping.If you are going to be successful in life, the first thing you will have to do with all of the great information you learn is to get it out of your head and into the physical world. You can see why zigzags cannot be counted on to get anything done long-term. They are constantly stalled and stopped in life. When you break momentum, you have to start over. Start-up energy should only have to be generated once as having to re-start projects and actions leads to a sense of burnout and defeat. And like in baseball, dancing, fencing or the martial arts, you can always change your stance. It’s fully within your power in any given moment.

Life gets difficult, painful, and frustrating when you don’t keep can’ts and won’ts separate. This is because you’ve disconnected yourself from the power to choose, act, and achieve. Your past behavior is nothing more than an irrelevant story that you choose to tell and re-tell. The best predictor of future performance is the position that you are coming from right now. And that is yours to freely choose. A project takes you out of the infantile dream world of hope and change. It moves you away from the disempowering world of I want. It delivers you to a more vital world of I am accountable. Somebody sees a big expensive house and says, “Well, that’s my new goal. I want one of those!” and they don’t really confront what they are really going to have to do that they are not doing now to get this big expensive house. They never decide if they are really willing to do what’s necessary or not and therefore, as always, no house. What you are going through and your commitment to change your life are two separate things! People keep recycling themselves like tossed laundry inside the complaints of what they are going through, and when it is suggested that they have the option to commit to something bigger and better, they try to put the commitment inside of what they are going through and it doesn’t go there!

What are the necessary required actions?” Werner Erhard once said, “Power doesn’t come from knowledge. What people know doesn’t make them powerful. It’s being present to what you’re dealing with that gives you power.” It’s never what I know. Most people have no idea that there is a way that they see things. They think that how they see things is “just the way it is.” Decisive action will defeat confidence and good feelings any day of the week. Just move ahead to take the decisive action that you are not taking but you know needs to be taken. Do this enough times and confidence and good feelings will no longer be an issue for you. You What, in the end, determines whether something was a good choice? You do. What you do after you choose can turn almost anything into a good choice. Full Book Name: Straight-Line Leadership: Tools for Living with Velocity and Power in Turbulent Times