Action is not leadership; solutions are leadership.

We often see leaders as people who take action, and that is certainly part of leadership. But, action in and of itself is not leadership.

Anyone can take action at any time. People often act out of a need to do something, anything. This is just reflexive action, something done without much thought. Reflexive action is done out of frustration. It is done without a solution behind it.

Here, I am struck that this has been a large part of Donald Trump’s approach to how he manages. To be clear here, I do not like Trump, his policies or his approach to running the government or leading this country. However, with that said, as someone who does focus on leadership, I can step away from my feelings and focus on the leadership elements at play here.

In a real crisis or emergency, we all act reflexively, sometimes doing the very first thing that comes into our head, perhaps even the very thing we should not do.

In the case of Donald Trump, people have always acknowledged that he can act impulsively, even impetuously. He responds with his gut feeling. But, that is not leadership. The president has to be the leader 24/7. He cannot be the nation’s id.

There are two situations that highlight how these reflexive actions by Donald Trump shows the lack of a solution behind them. The first was his decision of end the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program. The second was the recent Zero Tolerance policy which erupted into bad optics about crying children being held away from their families. I don’t want to focus on the politics of the two situations, but on the process. In both cases, Trump took the action and then tossed the issue over to Congress to solve. He presented no solution beforehand, no outline of what would be acceptable to him as a solution.

On DACA, there was great confusion on what he would accept. On one day, he said one thing, which he later reversed. He created a problem, using the DACA children as a bargaining chip, to force Congress to come up with a solution he could accept. A year later, there is still no solution to the DACA dilemma. Trump offered no solution. He waited for Congress to come offering solutions in the form of proposed laws. Nothing substantial came of it.

On the Zero Tolerance policy, he did something similar. He ordered Attorney General Jeff Sessions to implement the Zero Tolerance policy. By doing so, he wanted to put pressure on Congress come up with a solution to the immigration problem. As of today, there is no solution on the horizon. The proposed legislation, according to all sides, has no chance to pass Congress. And, the Trump White House has offered no detailed legislation or even an outline of what would be acceptable.

Those who support Trump applaud that he takes decisive action. Yes, both were decisive actions. You can see it in many of the things he has done. He ended the administration’s support for health care subsidies. He pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accords, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the UN Human Rights Council. In the case of the TPP, no other agreement was presented in its place that would keep the United States plugged into trade with the Pacific nations. Perhaps he is still waiting for those countries to come back with a trade deal, but nothing has really happened so far on that. In the meantime, China has take advantage of the vacuum.

As a leadership example, however, they are empty action. None of those came with solutions attached to them. Perhaps it is part of Trump’s history of how he operates where he takes an action and then waits for someone to solve the problem he creates or for the other party to come up with an acceptable solution. He just transferred that behavior to the Presidency.

While we want and expect action from our leaders, we really need solutions. That is the hard part of leadership, crafting a solution. But, it is a necessary element of leadership.

I learned, from my wife, one principal’s approach to addressing problems. Her principal told her, “I don’t mind you bringing me problems, but I expect you to come with a solution for me to consider. Don’t just being me problems.”

Anyone can take action and create other problems in the process. No real thought is required. But solutions demand hard thought and work. Still, that is what we really need from our leaders.

Control the agenda, control the results

There is a story about a legendary committee chair in the U.S. House of Representative.

He was having trouble with a member of the opposing party on the Committee. The junior member kept trying to take charge of meetings and voiced objections whenever possible. There was one particularly contentious piece of legislation that the junior member was trying to commandeer. He had drafted his own version over the committee’s original version. The two bills were almost diametrically opposed. Whichever version was used as a framework would largely determine the shape of the final bill.

Having served as chairman for a number of years, he had learned quite a bit about the rules that govern the institution. The Chairman seemed to be offering an olive branch to the junior member by starting the discussion by moving to use the junior member’s bill as the framework. The junior member was flattered to no end and seemed to think that he had worn the old chairman down. Of course, the junior member seconded the motion. When the vote came, the motion failed, as the Chairman knew it would. As a result, the committee was forced to use the original version as a framework as per House rules.

In controlling the agenda, the Chairman then controlled the discussion. That’s the lesson here. When you control the agenda, you control the discussion. That means that you also control the decisions and results to some extent.

Whenever possible, you need to have input in the agenda for any important discussion. It is a way of asserting some control even when you don’t have much control.

The Problem With Tracing Your Ancestors

I don’t have a problem with you tracing your ancestors. If that’s important to you, then you should certainly do it. Many people want to find out “where they came from.” It’s not so important to me.

One of my relatives is working hard trying to trace the Mata family as far back as she can. That’s part of the problem: tracing your family based on your father’s last name. That’s what most people do. They go based on the father’s last name and go back from there. Rarely do people trace backward based on both parents.

As the chart below points out, if I trace my family, as my relative has done, on my last name, I’d be leaving out quite a lot of my ancestors. So far, we’ve only gotten back to the great-great-grandparents, only back to the beginning of the last century, not really very far.

However, really, I’ve only looked at four of my ancestors out of 30. So, I’m the result of the mixture of 30 ancestors, not just the four with the last name “Mata.” If I only look at those four, I’m ignoring the other 26 people who had to come along at the right time to lead to me. The truth is that I’m only 2/15 Mata. The rest is something else, including Lara, my mother’s family.

As I said, this is only going back four generations, about 100 years. Go back two hundred years, and I have 254 ancestors. If you can trace yourself back to one of the American Founding Fathers, then you’ve got over 1,000 ancestors. Go back to the Mayflower, and you’ve got more than 65,500 ancestors. If you can tracer your family back to Christopher Columbus (or his sailors), then you have more than ONE MILLION ancestors.

This, of course, does not take into account all the ne’er do wells, scoundrels, outlaws, drunks, step-children, illegitimate children and adopted children thrown in there among the very many dark secrets of family trees.

Also, this only refers to my direct ancestors. It does not take into account all the other children, brothers, sisters, cousins, etc. of each of my direct ancestors. I’ve got thousands of relatives even with the last hundred years.

Given these numbers, you can understand how it seems a stretch to say that I descended from the Duke of Whatever somewhere in Europe if that’s just one of my more than ONE MILLION ancestors. The reality is that I am less than 1/1,000,000^th Duke.

Hardly seems worth putting on my resume now.

DOMINATE!!!!

The first question I ask a group when I get involved in a strategic planning project is: why? Why are you developing a strategic plan?

The answer to that determines what will happen. There are only four acceptable answers:

1. Crisis – We have a crisis on our hands! We need to do something! We need to take action now!
2. Stay the same/survive – We’re okay with where we are, and we want to keep on going the same way.
3. Grow – We want to grow our business and expand. We’re tired of being small (size and/or income).
4. Dominate – We want to dominate our sector or niche. We want to be the WalMart of ___________.

That’s it. The only three acceptable responses. Number 2 doesn’t really count, and that organization doesn’t really want to change. But some people want to stay there. That’s their choice, and I can help them with that, too.

The most challenging one is number 4. That’s the one I REALLY REALLY want to work on. Wouldn’t you?

A Simple Morning Hack

Actually, this is a night-before hack.

I get all of my clothes ready the night before. I select my pants, shirt, tie, socks, underwear, and shoes and pull them out. I put my change, wallet and belt in the pants. I put my watch right next to my phone. My keys – this is extremely important – are also in my pants pocket. If nothing else, my keys are in my pants pocket. There is nothing more aggravating than not being able to find your keys in the morning. You can leave without socks or a tie, but not without the keys.

All of this, done sometime the evening before, takes maybe 5-10 minutes, but it’s done in a very unrushed way. I get a few minutes to think about what I’m doing the next day. That determines how I will dress. Will I be doing a presentation, spending time outside, sitting in an auditorium, touring some facility, driving around town a lot?

The same goes for my computer bag. The laptop is loaded, files, power chord, mouse, notes, pens, ear phones and computer glasses. I check it. Each item has its own place in the bag. I can see quickly if I’ve forgotten anything. My to-do list is right where it needs to be. I avoid, as I have sometimes, packing the TV remote instead of the mouse or having to leave work early because I forgot my laptop charger at home (I swear it was not on purpose!). Even if I’m working on the computer late at night, I still do this. I can’t wait for the morning. Anything that can be put in the car is loaded up the night before. Of course, the coffee pot is programmed the night before. I hate waiting for coffee early in the morning. And, make sure you don’t have to put gas in your car early in the morning. I don’t care how late it is, or how cold the weather, gas up the night before if you’re running low. When you need to fill up the most is when everyone else wants to do the same thing.

I don’t really dress more quickly, but I can if I need to because everything is right there wating for me. What it avoids is the sense of rush and chaos that happens sometimes when you’re trying to do multiple things at once when you’re still somewhat asleep. One less thing to worry about in the morning.

The less chaos, the clearer your mind is early in the day.

So, come Sunday night, start this one simple hack. Make it a habit and your mornings will be just a little easier to deal with. You can probably cut your make-ready time in half. You can add that back to a later wake-up time or a little longer drinking that cup of coffee.

You can apply this principle to many other things. Leave things ready for the next day or time you need something.

You could get to work early, but the doors are probably still locked. Or if you do, you could always say to the boss, “You just getting in?” But, I wouldn’t recommend it.