Best Practices For Managing New Employees

3 weeks ago, Shackleton’s ship the Endurance was located 9800 feet beneath the Ocean’s surface near the antarctic.

• One ship: 144’ long
• Crew of Shackleton and 27 men
• One aim: the first to cross the Antarctic continent and become the first to cross it 

Foundational reality: Your seas are changing, and the weather patterns are becoming more unpredictable.  Today the swells are 1-2 feet, and in an hour they are 5-8.  Chaos is the standard and unpredictability is the new predictable. 

Your choice: either take your existing boat out into the unpredictability of the seas…OR learn from what the seas are telling you, and build a different boat.

Would Shackleton, knowing the tumult of the Antarctic, have taken the same boat?  Would he have not gone?  NO!  He would have built a better boat and designed a better map.

Let’s look at the route of the Endurance

• Trapped in Jan 1915
• Crushed in Oct 1915, Sunk Nov 1915
• Departed isolated spot April 1916 (15 months in one isolated spot!!!!)
• Final crew rescued Aug 30, 1016 (18 months after being trapped)

28 total men, in barren ice, with torrential weather, full days of either all light/ all dark.

Every single person made it out alive.

But in order to survive, Shackleton displayed the RPMs of Navigating hard things…

1. Repetition: he did the same thing over and over

    Repetition is the mother of all learning
   a. I get made fun of for being a 1 trick pony, “hey, we want new content”.  You are not in need of NEW content, you are in need of IMPLEMENTING the content that works.

• .“Vision without IMPLEMENTATION is hallucination!”

  i. Methodical, repetitions beat hail mary’s and home runs EVERY DAY

 b. 18 months Shackleton’s men were forced to endure harsh climate, unrelenting sun/darkness, starvation, isolation, and probably the worst reality of all…no day to day purpose.

• .Trying to swing for a home run meant certain death…base hits equal life.

• c. Daily Schedule…a routine:
  • .Morning:
    • 6:30 a.m. Light the stove.
    • 7:00 a.m. Emerge from tents.
    • 7:45 a.m. “Lash up and stow!”
    • Rolled-up sleeping bags are used as chairs, while the tent Peggies bring round each tent’s ration of hoosh.
    • Then chores, cooking, hunting, making improvements to the boats, exercising the dogs, returning back to the Endurance for further salvage. mostly hunting.
    • Dogs fed at 5 p.m.
    • Our dinner at 5:30 p.m. Seal hoosh, a bannock, and watered cocoa.
    • Evening:
    • Read aloud, cards, or singalong.
    • Lights out at 8:30 p.m.
    • Late conversation, if any, must be hushed; voices carry in the cold, dry air.
    • By 10 p.m. all quiet except the first night watchman; we each have our watch hour assignment.

2. Predictability

• . Predictability is PROACTIVELY building the right stage of Culture embedded within the existing repetition

  a. Creating predictability is found in an old sailors creed, “He who is enslaved to the compass has the freedom of the seas.”

  b. Predictability means agreeing on the true north of Process, the true north of Vision/mission/values, and the true north of People…and then working the process like a good navigator works the instruments.

  c. My BIG win…we shared our 12-week plans with each other Tuesday and look at all that is getting done…(show pics of 12-week plans)

  d. Predictable schedule, goal, demeanor

  e. What is micro-management…it’s just UNPREDICTABLE LEADERSHIP? 

  • Seesaw of Predictability
  • Wrong Time
  • Wrong Question

3. MEANING (INTENTIONALITY)

. Asking specific questions at specific times to specific people

a. Family mission: to be a light through adventure, wisdom, and time around the table…

• Pits and Peaks
• Open-ended questions…” tell me more about that”
• Card Game at the end

b. Business mission: to liberate owners from chaos and make time for what matters

1. • Check Ins
   • Team Meetings
   • Culture Calendar
   • MPR

c. Culture Calendar: one simple way to be intentional

New employees are less concerned about the technical expertise from day one, and more concerned about having access to what they need to succeed and feel connected to the culture.

Scott Beebe is the founder of Business On Purpose, author of Let Your Business Burn: Stop Putting Out Fires, Discover Purpose, And Build A Business That Matters.  Scott also hosts The Business On Purpose Podcast and can be found at mybusinessonpurpose.com.