Tough Love + Excellence

I’ve had several conversations with CEO clients of mine recently about how to create a culture of excellence. 

Some of the leaders I coach have shared with me that some of their team members are working from home but clearly not doing much work. Or that some of their employees aren’t anticipating problems and solving them proactively. It seems that even though employees are making a conscious choice to work at an early stage startup - that the sense of urgency isn’t there. 

While some individuals are clearly driven to be Impact Players intrinsically on their own, others need a culture of learning and excellence in order to bring out that side of them.  

The way I see it is that you're unlikely to change the bottom 5%-25% of performers on the bell-curve. They just need to go. If you keep them on your team, they will drag everyone down with them. The high performers will actually lower their performance, full of resentment that the lower performers are tolerated. 

I do believe, though, that many employees are capable of stepping into the zone of excellence if given the right management and culture - i.e. the “Tough Love Approach.” It’s not a culture of genius - i.e. a culture where only achievements and results are celebrated; it’s a Culture of Growth.

I was talking with one of my clients the other day about how most top performers have had someone in their academic or professional life challenge them to dig deep, push harder, and find their own personal excellence. Maybe it was even a soccer coach. 

For me, it was Hank Klibanoff, who pushed me with tough love to find my personal excellence. 

I was a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania and I was simultaneously taking a class on Environmental Epidemiology and Hank’s Urban Journalism course. Hank was a visiting professor; his primary job was serving as a writer and editor of Philadelphia’s major newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

I remember that I ended up choosing to write about the childhood cancer clusters in Toms River, New Jersey, which was a case I was learning about in the Environmental Epidemiology course. It just so happened that I was also working as an intern at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). I managed to discover some interesting cover-ups because I wasn’t a particularly threatening investigator. I became impassioned about what I’d uncovered and started to share what I was learning with Hank. It was wild actually, what I was learning; I felt like a nerdy version of Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovitch. I was so proud of the final paper I wrote for that Urban Journalism course. 

I remember I was sitting at my dorm room desk when I got a call from Hank. He told me that, of all of the final papers, mine was the one he was most excited to read so he decided to read it first. He told me that I had discovered some incredible findings – but that the paper was full of bias; it was not proper journalism. He pointed out where, specifically, my passion prevented me from presenting a neutral and authoritative tone.

I’ll never forget what he did next. Hank told me that if I wanted to keep the paper as it was, I would get a C+. But, if I wanted an A, he’d give me three days to do a massive rewrite. 

Oh man was I angry. I definitely cried. I hated Hank so much at that moment. I had worked harder than I’d ever worked before and he told me I needed to do better. I wrestled with myself, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was absolutely not okay with getting a C+ for that work so, in the end, I dug deep and rewrote the paper, listening carefully to his feedback. I resubmitted and got that A. 

Looking back on that experience, it was one of the first times I was challenged to go beyond my own understanding of excellence. Hank wasn’t particularly nurturing. He certainly didn’t baby me. He held the bar up high and explained clearly what I’d need to do to get a top score. I’m not sure if he explicitly said it - or if I just knew it - but I got the sense that he believed in me. He knew I was capable of more. It made me believe in myself, too. 

Now, over twenty years later, I truly believe in this tough love approach as a leader. To achieve a culture of learning and excellence, we have to be willing to give hard feedback and explain how to do better. We have to reward excellence when it is achieved – and we cannot accept mediocrity on our team. 

There’s a fine line between being a jerk and being a mentor. I think that in both cases you are giving hard feedback but what separates tough from tough love is that the recipient knows you are cheering for their success.