David Belden: Growing up, I had three heroes. One was an actor named James Dean who died very young. He was an icon for people from my generation. The second one was Jean Paul Sartre, the French, existential philosopher who was very inspiring to me when I was around 15. The third was Bob Dylan – who continues to amaze me with his poetic insights. In reflecting on what those three people have in common, I realized that they always looked at society from the outside.
Dean had a famous motto: Include me out. He was always on the periphery of any group, simply observing the interaction. He said that’s how he became such a good actor, that he would just observe people all the time.
I realized that I do a lot of that myself, so I made a profession of it. I love to observe. I love to analyze. I love to get into completely chaotic situations and make sense of it. It’s not the chaos that I enjoy, it’s creating order out of chaos. And you can only do that when you look at things completely objectively from the outside. That’s the story behind becoming a professional outsider.
Share one of those stories that you consider as a lesson that you faced early on in your career and then how it has impacted you in today.
David Belden: What happened in my life was being a child of the sixties. I dropped out of college when I was 18 and left for Europe, decided I was going to see the world. I started out as a dishwasher and ended up running companies. I’m not sure exactly how that happened, but it did. And it turned out that I was really good at figuring out more effective ways of doing things. I excel at designing process. I would get into a company and people would recognize that I worked faster and better and with fewer mistakes than other people. Time after time, I was promoted to run the department because I was very efficient.
I thought back then that everyone was just like me. As a new leader, I would divide the work equally. I shared the work I loved, which was creative and challenging. I also spent an equal amount of my own time doing work I assumed everyone else also hated.
When I was about, I think 27 or 28, I was managing a 5-person department. I shared the work equally amongst all of us. One day we were having a little team meeting and I said something negative about some very routine work I needed to finish. Another team member said, “I love doing that. If you’ll do my vendor research (which I loved), I’ll do your order confirmations (which I hated).”
Suddenly, everybody in the room was talking about what they hated doing and what they liked to do. And it really surprised me, mostly because I thought that everybody was just like me. We just stopped everything, and I said, ‘Okay, look, we’re going to redistribute the work.’ And we simply created a matrix of the five of us and all the tasks that we had to do in our department. And then I said: ‘I want everyone to volunteer for the work that you would prefer to do.’ In less than an hour, about 80 percent of everything we did was already volunteered for.
What was important about that to me was I realized that people are very different. Things that were challenging and exciting to me were terrifying to other people. The things that were routine and repetitive, which I resisted doing, were actually appealing to other people. I learned the lesson early in life that each person has a unique contribution to make to the organization. As a leader, I needed to allow everyone to contribute to the department at their highest level of ability.
“And that has become my desire for all companies.”
What is important for the senior leadership to consider when evaluating you as a professional outsider, your leadership coaching, your mentorship, and your self- discovery programs.
David Belden: When I consider working with a new client for ExecuVision International, I insist on speaking with the CEO. Our eventual contract may be managed by the human resource department, but the decision must come from senior leadership. It is imperative that we are aligned about the outcome we expect.
The most important question we ask is, ‘Are you and your company ready for transformation?’ ExecuVision International is not focused on incremental improvement. We are interested in transforming the way organizations function. If companies aren’t ready for that – and many companies aren’t – we are not the right partner for them.
Are you ready for transformation? Are you ready to truly make a difference? If you are, then we may be a good fit.
How can someone find out more about you, your programs, and your coaching?
David Belden: They can just visit my website or reach out to me directly. It all starts with a conversation!
Websites: www.iexecuvision.com (Company Website)
Blog: iexecuvision.blogspot.com (Blog)
Phone: 202-765-7373 (Work)
Email: dbelden@iexecuvision.com
