Michael Hyatt:
Hi, I’m Michael Hyatt.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
And I’m Megan Hyatt Miller.

Michael Hyatt:
And this is Lead to Win, our weekly podcast to help you win at work and succeed at life. This week, we want to talk about entitlement. Now, it’d be easy to be talking about how difficult it is to recruit from people of a certain generation because they’re entitled or the entitlement we see in the workforce, but we want to approach it from the angle of looking in the mirror as leaders and asking if any of this exists in our own hearts and in our own leadership, because that’s where entitlement has to be routed out first.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I mean, I kind of want to just let my head smack on my desk at this point, because it’s way more fun and easier to talk about the entitlement that other people have or complain as leaders about people who have worked for us or do work for us, or whatever, that have entitlement issues. It’s kind of like talking about character defects in your kids. Usually if you look in the mirror, you can see the origin of those things, those character defects. I think with entitlement, it’s no different. Very often when there’s an entitlement problem that we see culturally, that is a top-down problem that needs to be addressed.

Michael Hyatt:
Well, I hate that, because it’s much easier to complain.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Just to back up for a second. I think it’s really easy to maybe dismiss what we’re saying as being the province of narcissistic leaders. What we know from the psychological community is that narcissism affects a very small percentage of people, truly. We throw that word around and it’s something that we like to attribute to people on a regular basis, but in reality, it’s a pretty rare condition that people have.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
What that means is that the things we’re talking about today really could be things that all of us find ourselves doing from time to time as leaders. The more successful we become, the more likely we are to find ourselves in these places, because there just tends to be less accountability. You just tend to have the ability to get away with things that you might not have earlier in your career when you weren’t the boss or when you weren’t the leader in some ways.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
In case you’re tempted to kind of tune out for a second or think that this may not apply to you, I just want to say, I think it applies to all of us, myself included.

Michael Hyatt:
Okay, so let’s get to it. The basic premise of the show today is that entitlement is something that can exist in your organization, but the way to root it out is to address five areas of entitlement in yourself. We got to start with a good long look in the mirror and address where these might crop up for ourselves.

Michael Hyatt:
Area number one, is that entitlement is thinking the rules don’t apply to you. Where have you seen that in your experience?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Besides myself at times?

Michael Hyatt:
Well, yeah. I’m really talking about other leaders, because, again, that’s the focus of this episode, other leaders and ourselves and how entitlement can inflict leaders.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yeah. Well, I think the classic example of this that we have seen lately is, you see leaders who are in a position of power, who just frankly exploit people. We see this a lot in terms of sexual harassment or inappropriate relationships in the office or affairs, where there’s just a sense of, there’s an expectation of professionalism or propriety everywhere and for everyone except the boss. So, that’s the most egregious example. But I think this is also where you see this in some small ways, like, for example, we have a rule inside our company that we don’t call or text on the weekends or outside of business hours for the most part, unless it’s an emergency. So we’re not doing work in the evenings or on weekends for the most part.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
One of the ways that I could imagine doing this myself, and I’m sure I have done this, is just sort of saying, yeah, but you know, I’m the boss, I don’t need to follow that rule, I’m going to call somebody on the weekend because I just want an answer to this project right now. And meanwhile, what that does to the person on the other end is, I’m disrupting their family dinner. I’m disrupting the soccer game that they’re at with their children, or they’re out to brunch with friends, and I’m sort of giving myself permission to use my power in that moment, because they’re going to have to answer the phone if I call or text and just basically deciding the rules of basic respect for other people’s time don’t apply to me.

Michael Hyatt:
Okay. I’ve been guilty of that for sure. Sometimes I justify it out of convenience. For example, I think of something, and I think, Well, I don’t want to forget that. And so I’ll drop it. And usually for me, I put it into Slack. And thankfully Slack now has a new feature that allows me to schedule that message so I can go ahead and dump it into Slack, so I don’t forget it. But then I can schedule it, so it doesn’t show up until Monday morning at 9:00 when people are in the office. I really like that. So there’s definitely the convenience factor.

Michael Hyatt:
I remember years ago when I was at Thomas Nelson, we published Jim Bakker’s autobiography. Yes. That Jim Bakker, the guy that ran, what was it PTL? Was that the name of the network? It was an amazingly honest autobiography. The title of it was, I Was Wrong. It was actually published right before I came to Thomas Nelson.

Michael Hyatt:
In it, one of the things he said was that he developed this attitude that the rules were for other people and necessary in order to maintain order, but they didn’t apply to him, now get this, because he was special. Now, he had a whole theology that he used to justify that. It was like, “I’m working so hard for God. God understands that I occasionally need some kind of reprieve from the stress I’m under, so I can break the rules because I’m doing this for God.”

Michael Hyatt:
I think that’s sometimes what happens when we’re so committed to a mission that the end justifies the means. I think, as leaders, we’ve got to be very careful of that, because sometimes it will feel like, in order to keep the rules or in order to observe the value or in order to engage in ethical behavior, that somehow it’s going to sacrifice or put into risk the end goal, the vision. I think it’s just the opposite of what you think; you got to be willing to sacrifice the vision for the sake of ethical behavior. Does that make sense? I think that’s integrity.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I think it is too. That’s a big example. I was just thinking of something that I have done on many occasions that, in some ways, it’s like a subtle form of entitlement. One of the things we do in our company is we have candor meetings. Our leaders do this on a regular basis, and I do it with my direct reports, where I ask them to come and answer six questions where they’re giving me very candid feedback on my leadership. And one of the questions is, and they do this once every six months, six different questions each time. One of the questions is, what is the one thing that I’m doing that’s driving you crazy?

Michael Hyatt:
Oh, wow.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
It’s probably one of those questions they hate to answer, but they do. I did this recently. I always get some really good feedback. Something that I’ve gotten feedback on a couple of times, and I am determined to fix this, is that when I cancel meetings at the last minute, like let’s say something really important comes up and then I have to cancel all my one-on-ones and try to reschedule them. And usually that happens on Thursdays for me; that’s when in my Ideal Week my one-on-ones are, it creates a terrible domino effect of then they have to reschedule all their one-on-ones to work for the rescheduling. And then all those people have to reschedule. I can have fifty people rescheduling whatever had to be moved in order to accommodate my schedule.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I’m telling myself that’s okay at some level, because what I’m doing is so important. And in reality, the opposite of entitlement, of valuing of other people as equals and of humility would be, we’ve got to get our ducks so in a row that this is mostly never necessary. This can’t be okay. And if we have to do it, we really need to fall on our sword and take ownership of the disruption that it causes, because it’s significant. That’s just kind of a subtle form of entitlement. I mean, that’s not full blown, like having an affair or whatever, but it’s the seeds of, “I can do this because of my position, and the rules don’t apply to me.” That’s just not okay.

Michael Hyatt:
Well, you know what’s missing in that kind of interaction? Sometimes, I’m not saying this with you, but it happens for a lot of leaders, is we lose our ability to have empathy for other people.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Right. Right.

Michael Hyatt:
We see the disruption in our own schedule, but it doesn’t occur to us to realize this is creating some level of pain or suffering for other people downstream. Unfortunately, and I’ve seen studies on this, although I can’t quote them at the moment, but where the greater your power, the less likely you are to have empathy. Maybe some of that is self-protective. It’s like maybe, at a certain level, you wouldn’t make the decisions you make because you realize there’s going to be some suffering, but it’s essential to maintain that empathy and to communicate it. And it certainly, I don’t mean this as a manipulative tool, but at some level it does help the medicine go down if at least we can communicate, for example, in your case, “Look, I hate that I have to do this. I know it’s disruptive to you. I know it’s going to have a cascading effect on your schedule, but…” So, I mean, just to say that out loud, at least helps people know that you get it.

Michael Hyatt:
Okay. So that’s entitlement number one, thinking the rules don’t apply to you. Entitlement number two, expecting to have benefits you haven’t earned. How does this show up?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, I think one of the ways that this can show up is an expectation that you would have, for example, a big bonus payout or an ownership draw if you’re an owner, even if the financial results hadn’t been there. That you’re just kind of mad, you think that your contribution is so significant that you should be able to have the benefit of those things when the results don’t line up with it. It’s like a disconnect between the cause-and-effect relationship with things. So for example, you might see this in an organization where there were all kinds of perks and luxury bonuses and things like that. And then the company is not doing as well. And the business owner or the executives start going into debt to keep that lifestyle or those perks going when the results are not there, to the detriment of the company. The private jet or the expensive retreats or the cars or whatever, and thinking that those things are owed to you because that’s just the kind of person you are now, even though the results do not justify that kind of spending.

Michael Hyatt:
I think entitlement fundamentally happens when we think things are owed to us, rather than seeing this as privilege and a gift and something we need to be grateful for. So whenever we sort of have that demanding attitude, like I deserve a company car, I deserve a bonus payout, I deserve flying first class, I deserve whatever it is as opposed to being thankful when that happens, but not expecting it. And I think that’s like the opposite. I think that the cure for an entitlement is gratitude and not asserting your rights, like, Well, I have the right to that. When you start using that kind of language, that’s when you know you’re on the edge of entitlement, because we have responsibilities, but not necessarily rights as leaders. And in fact, if we take servant leadership seriously, it means that we put others ahead of ourselves, not ourselves ahead of everybody else.

Michael Hyatt:
Okay. So, entitlement number two, expecting to have benefits you haven’t earned. Entitlement number three, acting as though some work is beneath you. Now, it would be easy to kind of jump to, Yeah, I have employees like that. I ask them to do something, and the general attitude is, that’s not my job. But again, we’re focusing on this attitude as it shows up in our own leadership journey. And I think it’s very easy to, as a leader, to put in your time to do the work in those lower-level, early-career kinds of things, and then get to the place where you go, Well, I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m above that. I have a position of status or a position in the organization where I’m not going to do that. And whenever you start thinking that or acting that way, you’re kind of into this area of entitlement.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
You know, I remember years ago I had a director who I promoted and, once she was in her new role, she really didn’t want to do the work that she used to do. You know? So when she was asked to do a task, because there was a need at that point, there was some kind of an event or a situation where that was needed, she didn’t want to do it. And she was just kind of taken aback. And it ended up that we had a lot of round and round conversations about her job description, because it was really important to her from a status standpoint, not to have to do the work that was in her previous job anymore. And we talk a lot in our company about doing the things that only you can do and just how that is ultimately good stewardship and how delegation enables you to ultimately make a greater contribution and all that stuff.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
So, in a way that’s not wrong. However, I think this is really where the attitude comes in, because you know, it’s important to be willing to do anything that you’re asking somebody else to do. Now, that’s probably not going to be necessary and shouldn’t be necessary on a regular basis. But if, for example, you’re not willing to go clear your own plate from a lunch that was catered in and throw it away and feel like you wouldn’t be willing to clear everybody’s table or place at the table, that’s a real problem. You know, it really ascribes a kind of value to different jobs that is dehumanizing. And hopefully, as leaders, the way we see work is that all work is valuable. You know, that all work is good and worth doing. And I think sometimes if we’re not careful what we’re willing or not willing to do, determines the value of work in the minds of the people who work for us. And that’s a really dangerous thing.

Michael Hyatt:
You know, I was reminded, Megan, as you were talking about this whole idea of replication, that leaders…

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Right.

Michael Hyatt:
… inevitably replicate themselves, and their behavior gets replicated in the lives of the people their leading. So, if you’re unwilling to do certain things, you can be sure that you’re replicating that in the lives of your team. They’re going to be unwilling.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Right.

Michael Hyatt:
And is that really what you want, is to build an organization where people want to stay in their lane, they don’t want to help when it’s necessary? You know, I think of your husband, Joel, who’s a great example to me, of somebody who’s willing to roll up his sleeves and do whatever is necessary. Nothing’s beneath him. He’s willing to do whatever is necessary for the sake of the team. And I think that’s really what it comes down to. It’s either going to be your status or the team’s welfare. And I think certainly the kind of organization that we want to build is where we’re acting on behalf of the team’s welfare, not protective of our own status. Because at the end of the day, does that really matter? Not in terms of what we’re trying to create.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
You know, part of this probably looks like doing things intentionally, if you are the leader, that are outside of your job description, not in a way that’s driving people crazy and meddling in their roles, but that sometimes you intentionally are the person, for example, that clears the table or takes the thing out the trash can, or steps in to help somebody finish whatever. Obviously, that could get way out of control. It would be not good stewardship of what you’re entrusted with as a leader. But symbolically I think it’s important to do that, so that your people know, oh yeah, I don’t lose face if I help out with this thing, if I roll up my sleeves and help with some copywriting to finish a sales page that’s going out because the copywriters are underwater.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
You know, that’s not a problem. Like, that’s totally, or write a couple of emails. Like, it’s fine. And I think that people need to see this model, because especially young leaders, maybe that’s what they think they’re supposed to be doing. That they’re going to compromise their authority if people see them doing their old job. And it’s actually usually in sharing our power and our authority that we get more of it, not the other way around.

Michael Hyatt:
Yeah. But I’ve certainly seen examples where a leader in a room where I was took the initiative, like gets up from the table to go refill his iced tea and says, “Hey, can I get something for anybody else?” You know, it’s just kind of another centered perspective that we need to maintain as leaders. It’s critical and, again, I think it fits with this whole servant leadership model. You know, how can I serve the people that I’m trying to lead as opposed to seeing them as a means to my end?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Right.

Michael Hyatt:
You know, they’re there to serve me. And if you build that kind of organization, it’s not going to go well.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, it just becomes gross, too. I think this is where it gets bigger and worse over time where you sort of have a whole organization that’s about serving you and your needs and anticipating your needs in ways that really are very bad for your character. And when you start replicating that in other leaders, it’s unsustainable. And partly because you don’t ever have to do anything difficult, you don’t ever have to have the discomfort of all kinds of things, because everything’s engineered for your comfort. And I think that is a dangerous place for a leader from a character standpoint, because that’s when the entitlement starts to feel really good, and problems come.

Michael Hyatt:
Absolutely.

Michael Hyatt:
Okay. So, that was entitlement number three, acting as though some work is beneath you. Entitlement number four is giving yourself license not to honor your word. Why is that important?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, let me say what this is first. This is something, this concept of honoring your word is, I mean, obviously there’s a biblical component to this, but this is something I really learned from one of my coaches, Nancy, a couple years ago. And it’s this idea that when you give your word to something, you are committed. Now, it doesn’t mean that you can’t negotiate that. For example, let’s say you have a deadline that you commit to get something to someone by. Obviously, there are going to be unforeseen circumstances, and you may need to renegotiate that. Like, can I get it to you on Thursday instead of Friday, or instead of Tuesday, like I promised? But you never abandon your word. You always stay with it. So abandoning it is, it’s due on Thursday, and Thursday comes and goes, and I never say anything to you about it.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Now, this is the kind of thing as employers, as leaders, it drives us crazy when our people do it, right? You know, they don’t get us some deliverable that they promised, or they’re late to a meeting, or they said they would follow up with some article or supplementary material and we never hear about it. It drives us absolutely crazy. The problem is that what I have noticed in myself, and I have really worked to correct this, is that I was giving myself license to do that because I thought, Well, I’m the boss. It’s less important in that direction than it is in the other direction. And that is so wrong, it’s even more important, because I’m setting the standard of what I expect from other people with my behavior and that really is a thread through all of these types of entitlement that we’re talking about, because whatever my behavior is, if I’m the leader, and that could be you’re leading one person or you’re leading a big company or whatever, it just becomes the standard.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
So this can be little things, like you show up three to five minutes late for every meeting. That’s not honoring your word. Your word was that you were going to be there at 1:00, and you were there at 1:05. You know, if you say, “Hey, I’ll call you when I get in the car, and we can talk about X, Y, Z” to one of your direct reports, and then you don’t call and you don’t say, “Hey, I’m sorry, I got tied up. Can we talk in the morning?” That is not honoring your word.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
You know, if you are supposed to get, in my case, this would be a good example. If I’m supposed to get Erin, my chief of staff, my notes for a slide deck she’s building for me and she’s got her whole project schedule to build the slide deck on the back end. And I was supposed to have it to her on Monday so she had enough time, and then I just don’t get around to it until Friday afternoon. Well, that’s not honoring my word, and that puts her in a very bad position. And so I think that we can tell ourselves a story that, as leaders, other people can just kind of figure it out, like it’s not that big of a deal, and it is a huge deal.

Michael Hyatt:
Yeah. This is the problem of thinking we’re the exception.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Right.

Michael Hyatt:
Right? So, that’s part of entitlement. So, I want to tell a story that I don’t think I’ve told for a long time. I don’t think I’ve told it on this podcast. Parenthetically, if I have, you guys stop me, but Dr. Stephen Covey talks about the difference between integrity and honesty. And this is a really good distinction. There are two sides of the same coin, but integrity is making your behavior conform to your words. Honesty is making your words conform to your behavior or reality. Okay. So back when I was fresh out of college, I took a job as a director of marketing for a relatively small publishing company back in Waco, Texas, it was called Word Incorporated, Word Publishing. And my boss, who had later become my business partner, was a man by the name of Robert Wolgemuth.

Michael Hyatt:
And he and I are still great friends to this day. We’ve been through a lot together. But at that point he was my brand-new boss. And so he hired me for this job. And this was back in the early eighties, and I needed $30,000 a year, which was pretty much what I needed to live on at that point. And so I told him that, and he said, “Well, I can’t really pay you that much.” He said, “I can pay you $27,000 a year.” And he said, “The truth is, you don’t have really any experience in marketing.” He said, “I think you can do the job, but I want to do it for like ninety days, ninety-day probation. And if you kill it, if you really do the job that both of us think you can do, then I’ll give you the raise to $30,000.”

Michael Hyatt:
So, man, I love a challenge, and I went crazy for the next ninety days. You know, I was working ten hours a day. I was reading books like crazy. I was doing everything I could to really do an outstanding job. So it came to day ninety. I was pretty proud of what I had done. And so, as I expected, Robert called me, and he said, “Hey, it’s day ninety. Come up to my office. I want to talk to you.” And so I walked into his office, and he did not look that happy. And I sat down, and he said to me, he said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news.” He said, “I want to start with the good news.” He said, “You have killed it. You’ve done a fantastic job over the course of the last ninety days. And I told you that I would give you a raise to $30,000 a year if you did a great job. And you’ve done a great job, but here’s the problem.”

Michael Hyatt:
“Since that time, our parent company has put both a hiring freeze and a salary freeze on the business. And I can’t do what I said I would do. I’d like to. You’ve earned it. You deserve it. But I can’t give you that raise we discussed.” Well, man, I was crestfallen. You know, I was just so discouraged. I thought, Wow. And that $3,000 meant a lot. So I went back to my office and kind of worked through the rest of the day, went home, talked to Gail about it. And Gail, like she always does when I go through something challenging, she said, “Well, honey, you just need to give this over to God and just relax and trust that it’s all going to work out, but it’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”

Michael Hyatt:
You know, she said, “I know you love this job. I know you love working for Robert. So let’s just keep working hard, and we’ll just see what happens.” Well, the very next day he calls me first thing. It’s like seven o’clock in the morning. I got there early. He got there early. So he said, “Come to my office. I want to talk to you about something.” So I walked into his office, and he said, “Have a seat.” And I did. And he was holding an envelope in his hand, and he said, “I’m about to give you something that you can’t refuse. But,” he said, “I went home and talked to Bobby,” his wife at the time, she’s since passed away. He said, “I talked to Bobby about this. And what I realized last night was, I made a commitment to you. The company, sort of this abstract entity didn’t make the commitment. I made the commitment, and I want to be a person in my word.”

Michael Hyatt:
“And so here’s a check that I’ve written out of my personal account. And it’s the $3,000, the raise that you would’ve gotten. I’m paying you out of my own pocket. Like I said, you can’t refuse it. I know you’re going to try to blow it off, but you can’t.” Well, guess what? That taught me more about what integrity means and keeping your word than any lesson I could have ever learned. Any theoretical conversation I could have had. And I go back to that again and again and again, and, oh, by the way, that was Robert. He was always that way. His word was his bond. If he told you he was going to do something, take it to the bank. And that was a good example of literally taking it to the bank.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Gosh, I love that story. And I’ve of course heard that story many times throughout my life, but it’s just such a powerful example of honoring your word and not shifting the responsibility for that word onto a company that couldn’t honor the word. You know, I mean, he really stepped up and went above and beyond to do that. And I think that’s a great example for leaders. You’re still remembering that decades and decades later, and it shaped your own character and how you challenged yourself to show up as a leader ever since. And I think that’s what we have to do in all the decisions that we have in front of us, small and large. And what I realized myself a couple years ago was that if I didn’t get serious about honoring my word and practicing honoring my word and following through, or at least renegotiating things, taking the initiative to do that if I had to, then I wasn’t going to train myself to have the kind of character I needed when it really counted, and the stakes were high and the cost was far more painful.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
You know, you’re writing a check out of your personal account or you’re going to have a compromise in your operating results, because you chose to behave ethically, as opposed to not. Don’t neglect to prioritize the small ways you give your word that seem insignificant. You know, what time you tell your spouse you’re going to be home. What time you show up for a meeting relative to what time it’s scheduled. When you send the follow-up, or complete the action item based on a deadline out of a meeting. All those little things are where trust is built and where you really become a person of your word. And so you can start with those small areas and ultimately become a person who honors your word when it really counts in the bigger areas later on.

Michael Hyatt:
This also, in leading an organization, this is the best antidote for cynicism. The reason people get cynical is because they see the leaders say one thing and do another. And if they see you being a person of your word and fulfilling it, even when it’s inconvenient, when it’s embarrassing, when it’s costly, that creates the kind of trust that makes for a great company culture.

Michael Hyatt:
Okay. So that was entitlement number four, giving yourself license not to honor your word. Entitlement number five, not taking responsibility for your results. I know this drives you crazy, Megan. Why don’t you talk about it?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
It does drive me crazy. Well, we’ve talked many times about our coach, Eileen, in the past and her great question, “What is it about your leadership that led to these results?” And really, I think that question is necessary, because so many leaders are quick to come at this with a perspective of entitlement. That they’re owed results and really that it’s ultimately the responsibility of the people that worked for them to deliver the results, which it’s great to share the credit with people when things go well. And that’s a mark of a good leader to be able to let other people take the credit, and really champion their efforts. But it is a mark of poor leadership to shift blame and to deflect responsibility when the results are bad. And this just makes me absolutely crazy.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
You know, when you blame external circumstances, you blame other people, and I have yet to experience something within myself, a failure where there wasn’t some part of my own leadership that delivered the results that I didn’t like. You know, it’s not necessarily a hundred percent. It’s not necessarily all my fault. There certainly are circumstances that were either outside of my control or they were in someone else’s control, and that didn’t get delivered in the way that it needed to. But usually there’s some thread that comes back to something in hindsight I wish I would’ve done differently, I should have done differently, didn’t have my eye on the ball in some way. And I think this is really critical, that we develop the capacity as an antidote to entitlement, to be able to take responsibility for our results and take ownership good, bad, or ugly, and especially bad or ugly, for what about our leadership delivered those negative results.

Michael Hyatt:
Well, and unfortunately, this is one of those things also that’s replicated. If you’re making excuses for yourself, guess what happens? Your team will make excuses for themselves. And I think this was brought into sharp focus for us when we read the book, Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. One of the greatest leadership books that I’ve ever read, and I think it’s must reading for any leader. But it talks about that very thing, and Jocko is an ex-Navy Seal. And that’s one of the things that Seals learn in their training, is to take that kind of extreme ownership, that no level of blaming or complaining about somebody else is acceptable. You know, you’ve got the power, and that’s what I think it really is. You’ve got the power to affect the results, and if you didn’t get the results you want, you’ve got to own that. And you’ve got to go back first and look in the mirror and fix what you did, or address what you did that didn’t lead to the results, because there’s usually, and this is a way to get access to this.

Michael Hyatt:
If you’ve got a result that you don’t like, ask yourself the question, “If I could go back thirty days or sixty days or the beginning of this project, or whatever it is before the event happened, is there anything I would’ve changed or done differently?” If you can answer that question, “Yes,” and spoiler alert, you can always say yes, you can go back and address that thing that it was about your leadership, and that’s why you can’t blame anybody else. That’s what’s got to be fixed. And it’s one of those things that gets replicated through the organization if you do it right.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yeah. And you know, the best-case scenario is part of taking ownership of your results, is you’re asking that question of yourself all the time. You know, “If I was standing here thirty days in the future and the results weren’t what I hoped, what would I have done differently? What can I do differently now to change the outcome of that?” So, I think that this is a great tool for performance, as well as personal reflection in hindsight. You can kind of work it either way, but yeah, this is a big one. And if you want to have a high-performance team, you’ve got to have ownership. And it starts with you.

Michael Hyatt:
Do you think, by the way, inside your company, that you can recruit people for whom this is just natural, or is this something that everybody needs training on and you just have to make it a cultural value so that people see the gravity of it?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yes. I mean, I think that we hope, and we work toward finding people who align with our values. You know, there’s been kind of a movement away from using the language of cultural fit, because that can ultimately lead to bias. And it can be another way of saying, we want people that are just like us in ways that are homogenous, but the one place we actually want to be homogenous is in our values. You know, what we really want is values alignment, not “cultural fit.” We want people with lots of different expressions, but of their individuality, but who are aligned with our values. So hopefully as we ask questions in the interview process, we’re assessing that out. And, for example, if you heard someone who, as you’re asking them about their professional experience, you hear the language of blame or you hear language that’s not around delivering results. That would be a red flag to me.

Michael Hyatt:
Me too.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I would be very concerned about that.

Michael Hyatt:
Yeah. I think one way to get to it, just directly, is to ask a question of a candidate, just say, “Tell me about a time recently when you failed.”

Megan Hyatt Miller:
And what you learned?

Michael Hyatt:
Yeah. And what you learned. And if it’s like, “Well, I’ve learned that you can never trust management,” or, “I’ve learned that you can never count on the economy,” or “I’ve learned that . . .” whatever. You know, not the answer you’re looking for. What you hope they’ll say is, “Well, one of the things I learned is I really needed to do more research,” or “I need to be better prepared.” If it’s self-directed, that’s a good sign.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Right. But then the second part of your suggestion is also true. I think you have to build this into your organization, first of all, by modeling and then by explicitly calling it out when you see people do it correctly or incorrectly. You know, like when someone is in a meeting and they talk about something that they’ve learned from a failure, or you set up, for example, as we often do, an After-Action Review and you identify what about your leadership led to these results, positively or negatively. You know, you really affirm as people are willing to take ownership and you say, “God, that’s a great job taking ownership. You know, I really appreciate that. I know that’s difficult.” And you just affirm that, because you get more of what you affirm, and you get more of whatever you do as the leader.

Michael Hyatt:
This is why this is one of our eight core values at Full Focus. It’s very important to us.

Michael Hyatt:
Okay. Let me just review the points we’ve made. We’ve said that basically you can root out entitlement in your organization by addressing five areas of entitlement in yourself. Entitlement number one, thinking the rules don’t apply to you. Entitlement number two, expecting to have benefits you haven’t earned. Entitlement number three, acting as though some work is beneath you. Entitlement number four, giving yourself license not to honor your word. And entitlement number five, not taking responsibility for your results. Megan, do you have any final thoughts?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I always laugh when you ask me this question instead of me asking you this question.

Michael Hyatt:
Well, the reason I ask you is because you’re now the CEO, right?

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Right.

Michael Hyatt:
You have the final word.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Oh, thank you. You know, the thing that I keep coming back to is that, this is won or lost in the small decisions and the small actions and the small comments we make. We either demonstrate that we feel entitled and ultimately create a culture of entitlement within our organizations based on small actions or decisions. Or we create a culture of contribution and gratitude and servant leadership based on those same things. And I think that, before we spend a lot of time trying to root this out at an individual contributor level. You know, we see a lot of articles about this and so forth right now. We really need to take that long look in the mirror and be willing to hold ourselves to account, to make our behavior match our word, as you said earlier. And I think that if we do that, then a lot of the rest of it will take care of itself.

Michael Hyatt:
So good. Well guys, we hope this has been helpful to you and your leadership journey. I really think this challenges us. It challenges me to be a different kind of leader, to not just kind of go with the flow and have the status, but without the responsibility. And so, at any rate, thank you, Megan, for joining us today. Thank you all for listening to us until next time, Lead to Win.