You Can’t Lead Without Stopping

When I was younger, I thought it was fun to stop a fan going at full speed by putting my finger in the space between the blades. Now my boys do it to our ceiling fan. It’s strangely fascinating to watch as something is blurring along and is suddenly forced to stop.

Last week, I blurred along the highway en route to a client. I glanced at email, reviewed the plan for the meeting in my head and then scanned my mental to-do list. As I noticed my dad’s caller ID in my voicemail list, I thought, “I have 20 minutes now. Perfect window to return his call.”

My dad is a human fan-stopper.

“Matt, how are you?”

He listened patiently. And then, slowly, “I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I miss you.”

Traveling 70 mph, I stopped moving. My chest got warm and my throat got full. And I was glad to be alive.

We blur along through our daily lives. What are we missing by failing to stop?

In many ways, fan-stopping is the mission of my mentor Kevin Crone. He often calls himself “The Interrupter” as he works to “wake up” his clients and colleagues to higher levels of performance. This is something everyone who leads needs to do a lot more of, myself included.

But fan-stopping can be annoying if it’s not done well. There are several key qualities of an effective stopper that we can learn to apply:

1. Be a consummate observer. Comedians interrupt us by helping us see humor in the mundane. Coaches show us potential where others see roadblocks. Entrepreneurs wake us up to opportunity and value creation. Fan-stoppers reveal what’s often hidden in plain sight, seeing what others miss.

2. Have the courage not to be discouraged. If the fan is moving fast, stopping it will probably be painful. You may get rebuffed or ignored. There will be times when you realize you should have left the fan alone. Accept that, while it may sometimes hurt, this doesn’t diminish the need.

3. Connect to human emotion. Our hearts make us alive. We love movies that make us cry, laugh or freak out. Marketers know this. Neurologists know this. It’s hard to stop a fan without making that human connection.

4. Just say it. We often see the opportunity to stop someone, to speak truth into their lives, but instead we rationalize away the moment. But if we as leaders don’t do it, who will? One of my favorite bloggers, Laura Crosby, recently analogized the “If you see something, say something” signs at airports to relationships, and I think that’s a great motto for us as leaders to follow. When we see something in someone that we appreciate—perhaps their unrecognized goodness—let’s say something.

Leaders are fan-stoppers. Period. You can’t lead without watching, daring, engaging and speaking up. Why is it so rare to find inspiring fan-stoppers?

Tell us: Who has stopped your fan lately?

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