INTERVIEW: Jim Huling, Inspiring greatness

After creating a strategy, why should one be concerned about execution?
Strategy is a definition for what we need to do and execution is our ability to get people to do it. Wherever I go, people say to me, ‘We are good at deciding what we want to do or starting it but we are not very good at doing it or finishing it’. That describes the gap almost every company faces between their desires, strategies, key things they need to do and what they do.
That gap is the biggest challenge every company faces. It comes from lack of clarity, engagement or the desire to do it and most often from a lack of accountability. 4DX addresses each of those reasons for not doing what you said you would do.

Why would anyone consider the 4DX out of the myriad solutions out there?
There are many great methodologies in the world – the Balanced Scorecard, Rockefeller Rules, Lean Six Sigma. The 4DX is unique in two ways: One, it is the simplest method. In 10 minutes, you can grasp all the four disciplines. Simplicity is a huge asset in a world where people are very busy and bombarded with new information all the time.
Secondly, 4DX is a multiplier methodology; it doesn’t compete with other methodologies. In fact, most of our clients are Six Sigma or Balanced Scorecard clients but they are struggling to achieve a significant result in a critical area because their customer loyalty scores are going down or revenue numbers have failed to grow or their market share has decreased. The 4DX builds on top of the Balanced Scorecard or Six Sigma to say for these one or two things, here is a specialised methodology that will achieve results.

Will that work in the public sector?
Many people describe the public sector as suffering from a profit motive but they have an abundance of purpose motive. Any executive knows a profit motive brings clarity, urgency and accountability. But what we struggle with in corporations is passion, vision and purpose.
The people [from the public sector] we were with believe the fate of this country rests on the excellence they bring to their work and what they struggle with is a sense of urgency for making that mission happen. Urgency and accountability are the easier things to provide.
4DX has been successful in the public, non-profit and health care sectors. All three sectors are populated with people of purpose for whom the profit motive is secondary.

You say leaders are known for results and that result is a by-product of calling out the greatness in individuals. Explain that concept.
Achieving results is what earns you the right to be a leader and privilege of being in a position to impact the lives of the people you lead. The great privilege of leadership is to look back and say, ‘Not only did I achieve this goal or this revenue but I hold in my mind a clear face of people whose lives I’ve impacted.’
That can mean a person whose self esteem was low and it grew under your recognition and willingness to help them. It could be a person who needed skills and you shared with them your techniques of leadership or a person who lacked confidence until you believed in them and they started to believe in themselves.
We have referred to all this as seeing greatness in another person before they see it in themselves and calling it out of them saying, ‘I see this in you, you are capable of this and I am going to help you become the leader you are destined to be.’ That is the true legacy of every leader.

Why is it important to call out greatness in the people you lead?
At the early stages of a leader’s life, we seek higher levels of achievement because we feel that’s the quest we are on – that it greatness. Then you start to move from achievement into significance; you start thinking ‘Did I make a difference? Did I do anything that will outlive me? Are there people that will say they are where they are because I believed in them?’
That is what differentiates between success and significance. The impact on people is the greatest. As there were once 12 [disciples] that changed the world, who says a group of leaders in a room that hears a message is not enough to change Uganda?
Who says a person working in an organisation today will not one day be in charge of the country? So why don’t we lead as though they are there? What if I am shaping the life and mind and heart of the next leader of the country? I would give him my best.

In your experience with nations across the globe, what is unique to Uganda?
I don’t know how many countries I have been to… 11 this year alone… but I have never been anywhere I felt so immediately at home. I have not been anywhere where I met so consistently, people of such great heart, of great spirit and such warmth.

How can we use that to take us to the next level?
I presume the people of Uganda are filled with intelligence. But to emphasise intelligence and lose this spirit would be to give away your greatest asset. It is such a temptation to lead from the mind, to think success is directly related to how smart I am and it’s really not. The greatest results come when passion is deepest and commitment is greatest.
We have to be smart, have plans and hope our companies are filled with smart people. But if we only lead from the mind, we will get people who only do what they are supposed to. But when we can connect the mind with the heart, we find people who do the right things in the right way for the right reasons in the right spirit.
You cannot train that. You have to inspire that. You have to create an environment in which that element of people is brought forward.

What is the one thing anyone should remember from 4DX?
The process produces results. Many people fail to produce results that they think there is something mysterious about it and it really isn’t. It is a formula, a process. There are four rules that if you follow, will work regardless of geography, industry, demographic, age group or product.
Secondly, that the greatest thing about being a leader who can produce results is that it earns you the privilege of impacting the people you lead.

What is your sense of where Ugandan entities may be struggling?
To answer that, one of the senior executives I met recently said; “We are people of great vision and we love starting things. But we struggle to finish things the way we intended.” That is a global problem. If that is true, then we the bringers of 4DX can do something for them.