Man in the Mirror

My five year old grandson loves Michael Jackson music and old videos. In particular, he knows every word to the song, Man in the Mirror. Now that I have heard it a few hundred times, I really appreciate the lyrics as well.

Recently, I heard a sermon about reflections in the mirror. The message was that the mirror doesn’t lie. It knows what type of person we are; it knows if we help the less fortunate and if we are making a difference for others. It was a great lesson.

This got me to thinking back to my final days at Jersey Central Power and Light in New Jersey back in the late eighties. After eight pretty successful years, the Cavallo’s were being led to South Florida into a whole new world and adventure. New job, new industry, new state, new home, new schools, etc. Scary!

As I drove from NJ to Florida in my Chevy Baretta, I took a comprehensive and thorough look into my leadership style and approach. Up to that point, I had grown up in a bargaining unit environment. I managed union employees, many who lacked the desire and drive to work towards excellence but rather worked towards getting a regular paycheck and hanging in there until their pensions kicked in. In addition, some of my peers whom I had trained under seemed to lack the respect and admiration of their teams. It was not a win-win relationship.

There just had to be a better way. I remembering thinking the relationship didn’t have to be so confrontational.

It was on that day (at about the area of South of the Border) that I decided to start anew. Sure I had a good ‘run’ at JCP&L but working for a utility is much like working in a monopoly. It certainly wasn’t the real world. It was the perfect time to make changes. I had to put aside some of the ways which I was taught. Instead, I had to follow my instincts and heart.

Here are some of the intentional changes I made:

Rookie Manager Glen: Would instruct his team what to do.

Developing Leader Glen: Would inspire his team to be the best they could be.

Rookie Manager Glen: Would hold the union guidelines and rules over their head.

Developing Leader Glen: Would appeal to their sense of worth and desire to make a difference.

Rookie Manager Glen: Wouldn’t get too close to the employees.

Developing Leader Glen: Would care about his team members both professionally and personally.

Rookie Manager Glen: Would let the performance of his units just happen.

Developing Leader Glen: Emphasized “Begin with the End in Mind”.

Rookie Manager Glen: Believed it was up to him to reach his performance indicators.

Developing Leader Glen: Realized that his success and the success of the business unit would only occur if the entire team had a part in establishing the goals, reaching the goals and celebrating successes.

Rookie Manager Glen: Focused on tasks.

Developing Leader Glen: Became more strategic. He constantly analyzed things like culture, morale and engagement.

Rookie Manager Glen: Thought if it was to be, it was up to him.

Developing Leader Glen: Gave all the praise to his team. They were the ones that did the work, made sacrifices, worked together. He realized his job was to motivate, inspire and encourage.

The results were almost immediate. People seemed to appreciate that I truly cared about their well-being, their families and their struggles. Those same people seemed to ‘go through walls for me’ when we needed extra help and effort. (“Most people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”).

I also started to conduct strategy sessions in which all team members had input, understood our goals and direction and became a part of the solution. I had never communicated more in my life and it sure was making a difference. I made sure they understood that we all had a role. No one person was more important than any other. (Be humble and kind)

In the end, I think I started to see a different leader in the mirror. I liked him so much better (so did the staff). The lesson I learned was that to achieve real success, I only could get there via influence and inspiration. Fear management has a short life cycle and quite frankly, it’s not why we were put on this earth. But if you really want to look back on your career (when you are almost sixty) and look at the results of your labor, you will see that true success is found when you are making a difference in people’s lives and encouraging them to be the best version of themselves they can be.

Thanks for reading this and have a great weekend.

With a goal to “help the next guy in line”, Glen Cavallo, a 30+ year healthcare executive has chosen to share the many lessons he has learned with others. Glen does this by serving as a coach/advisor to leaders at all levels of organizations, as a board member and as he presents inspirational speeches at regional, national, annual and awards meetings.