Rule No. 2: Amplify

Editor’s Note: The following is a lightly edited excerpt from Mark Miller’s book “Culture Rules.” To learn more, visit leadeveryday.com.

Where do you begin? As strange as this may sound, I recommend a look back as a good place to start your journey. Our past often holds insights and learnings that we can see in retrospect but failed to grasp in the whirlwind of the moment. It’s time for you to conduct an opportunity audit.

The word “audit” may or may not create warm and fuzzy feelings in you, depending on your past experience with auditors. Here is my take: An audit is an attempt to discern the truth about the past. As I wrote in my book “Smart Leadership,” the best leaders choose to Confront Reality. This choice allows them to stay grounded in the truth and lead from a position of strength. Give it a try.

Step One: Clarify the Aspiration. Jot down your Aspiration in whatever form works best for you — even a rough draft.

This will give you something to evaluate your activities against. This is what you are striving to Amplify.

Step Two: Identify past opportunities. Look back over your calendar for the last 30 days. Identify specific activities you personally engaged in that could have been easily linked back to some facet of your Aspiration.

Step Three: Review your actions. Look at the list you identified in Step Two and ask yourself a simple question: How did I use this opportunity to Amplify our Aspiration?

Here’s an example from my world. At one point, our organization had a core value titled “Customers First.” We also had a practice for officers in our company to periodically take live customer calls. I remember one day when I was scheduled to take these calls. I was extremely busy that day, and for a moment I began to rationalize why it would be okay for me to ask a member of my staff to cover for me. Then I caught myself. Remember, people always watch the leader. What would people think and say if I talked about “Customers First” but failed to honor my commitment to the customer? Thankfully, I didn’t allow my busyness to overtake my beliefs. At least in that moment, my actions Amplified our Aspiration.

Identify as many of these instances — when your actions were totally aligned with your Aspirations — over the last month as you can. You may also want to take a few notes on missed opportunities.

As we sharpen our critique of the past, we should be better able to see opportunities in our future. That’s why an occasional audit can be helpful. That being said, you don’t want to live in the past. To do so would be like trying to drive while looking out the back window of your car the whole time. A far more productive territory for you to explore will be to think carefully and strategically about your future plans.

Step Four: Seize Future Opportunities. Look at your calendar for the next 30 days. Identify as many opportunities as possible to Amplify some facet of your Aspiration.

While we were conducting interviews for “Culture Rules,” one CEO confessed to us his need to be more strategic in proactively and intentionally Amplifying his organization’s Aspiration.

Under his leadership, the organization had become laser-focused on its values. However, during our conversation, he realized he needed to revamp the talk he was going to give later in the afternoon to new employees. His current draft did not include the values. Our exchange underscored the need for intentionality if we are to fully Amplify our Aspiration.

What are you doing in the next month that provides a ready opportunity for you to Amplify your Aspiration? Make a list, write it down, put the activities on your calendar, and then follow through with them to Amplify your Aspiration!

To jump-start your thinking, here is a short list of moments in which you can Amplify your Aspiration:

• Mentoring an employee
• Talking to customers
• Talking to suppliers
• Designing a training experience
• Meeting one-on-one with a team member
• Meeting with a team
• Conducting a performance review
• Speaking to an outside group
• Talking about the future
• Holding recognition events
• Coaching a team member

Here’s a final thought on the topic of seizing opportunities. I was challenged by a leader of a global organization to share some portion of its vision (Aspiration) during every meeting. If specific topics directly related to the vision weren’t already on the agenda or didn’t come up organically, he encouraged me to close the meeting by linking what we had just talked about to the vision.

If you cannot connect the content of the meeting to the Aspiration, why were you talking about the issue in the first place?