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A Fish Always Rots From the Head Down
48 Plays1 year ago
In this episode Patrick and Andrew discuss leadership, how it can affect an organization, what it means to be a good leader, and how to set a good example for others.
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Theme
00:00:00
Speaker
and the brave new world begins when all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins as surely as water will wet us as surely as fire will burn the gods of the coffee book headings with terror and
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello, everybody. And welcome to another episode of the copybook headings podcast. If you're a new listener, just joining us for the first time. This show is inspired by the poem by Rudyard Kipling called the gods of the copybook headings. And every week we take an old proverb saying or maxim and we break it down to see what we can learn from
Meet the Hosts
00:00:45
Speaker
it. I am your host Patrick Payne. And with me as always is my co-host Andrew Stevens. Andrew, how are you, man? Hey, I'm doing great. How are you?
00:00:54
Speaker
doing good, man.
Gardening & Motivation
00:00:55
Speaker
Uh, just, uh, we were talking gardening before, before we jumped on a friend of ours on Twitter has been talking, talking gardening to people and bullying people who were saying that they can't do it. And basically saying that the reason they're not doing is because they're too lazy, which he's probably, yeah, I, yeah, I think so. Most of us aren't used to working digging out in the dirt. And so you just don't want to do it. Yeah. That's why, that's why I'm a.
00:01:20
Speaker
a bad gardener. I'll admit it because I'm kind of lazy. Yeah. Well, what's in the past in the past? All we can do is what's going forward. So this spring, we can also go add out and plant something in our garden if you have one. Yeah, that's right. I think, yeah, I think the discouraging thing is like, because there's all these phases, you know, just like some plants, if you want to do from seed, you start them indoors in like February.
00:01:47
Speaker
And then you transplant them. And so like, as these, you miss some of these cutoff dates, you get more and more discouraged. Like, Oh, I can't do it. I can't do that. So you just kind of got to suck it up and pick some stuff that's easy and, uh, or just go get the starters from, from the nursery.
00:02:06
Speaker
Mm hmm. That's what I usually do. That's probably what I'll do, too. Yeah. So so, yeah, go go start your garden. That's good advice, too. Not the proverb, not has never had much to do with the proverb today, but start a garden and shout out to chase the farmer on X. We'll give him a little shout out. If you're not following him, you should. But yeah, we got a good we got a good one this week. This is one that I had selected. Had you ever heard this one before when I threw it at you? Yeah, I had I had heard this one.
00:02:36
Speaker
I don't know where I came across it, but it was familiar. But my wife, when I was telling her about it, she had not run into it either. So it's hit and miss, I guess. Yeah, it was new to me.
Proverb: Leadership Impact
00:02:51
Speaker
I hadn't heard it before when I was looking, because oftentimes we'll just look through lists of proverbs to find one if we don't have anything specifically in mind. But this one, okay, so the proverb is, a fish always rots from the head down.
00:03:06
Speaker
Yeah, so I thought this was a good one. While I'd never heard it, per se, it seems kind of self explanatory. When I first, when I first came across it, it wasn't like, Oh, what does that mean? You know, I kind of got the impression that what it means is kind of the head or the leaders, the leadership of an organization, if there's a rot in the organization, usually it starts with the leadership. Is that is that kind of what you got from it? Yeah, exactly. But I guess
00:03:35
Speaker
Question is that true? I'm not I'm not a big fish guy. I'm not a big angler When I get my fish the heads usually are gone already, so Do fish rot from the head down? I forgot to do it. I don't know either I'm not a fish guy, you know I'll believe it cuz this one's been around a long time. And so people have been saying this for For centuries now, I guess I'll take it
00:04:04
Speaker
You know, I wouldn't be surprised because it seems like one of those where people are, we're much more familiar with nature and fish and stuff. And if it weren't true, they'd have been like, no, it's not. It all rots of the tail for it, whatever. Yeah. So it could be true. Um, if anyone knows hit us up on social media, hit us up on our, on our page on X maybe, and let us know and do fish really. Yeah. I'm not much of a fisherman either. And despite, I do really love the outdoors. I like the camp and I try to hunt.
00:04:34
Speaker
do various things, but fishing, I never had the patience for it. Maybe that's why I'm not much of a gardener either. Yeah. Fishing and gardening are, I guess, but, but you can always, you can always improve and get better. Okay. Yeah. So, um, did you find any history on this while we were looking it up? Yeah. It seems like, uh, a lot of sources have this come down through.
00:04:58
Speaker
through Turkey as a Turkish proverb, and then ultimately landing with the poet Rumi, who I think was a Persian poet, but who died in Turkey in 1273. So this was 13th century. And the phrase attributed to him is fish begins to stink at the head, not the tail. So that's pretty similar. And that's kind of the oldest one.
00:05:27
Speaker
It seems though pretty prevalent across Middle East and Europe. So it's a popular one. The only ones I found that were older than that got kind of had the same type of idea, but strayed away from the actual the actual saying like Cicero in ancient Rome wrote the responsibility of leaders, you know, basically to prioritize the well-being of of their
00:05:54
Speaker
citizens or he wrote some various things like that. But he didn't have it in a in a punchy proverb as far as I could tell. So lots of I mean, this is a principle that's been around probably forever, that people have recognized that the leadership of an organization, you know,
00:06:11
Speaker
the group will live and die by the leadership of it oftentimes. So Rumi is probably the earliest we have of the one relating it to
Leadership Experiences
00:06:21
Speaker
fish. But what do you make of this proverb generally? I mean, have you had any experience with good leadership, bad leaders in your life? Anything like that? Yeah, I mean, I think almost everyone can relate to having a bad boss at some point in life. I certainly have.
00:06:42
Speaker
And, and how hard that can be on, on morale and therefore on just day-to-day operations of a business, like, um, thinking of a job I had as a, as a youngster, you know, warehouse, um, and the boss was kind of, kind of mean. And, um, and so there was kind of a lot of turnover and stuff like that. People, people definitely avoided being around him. Uh,
00:07:12
Speaker
And it just had a bad effect, bad vibe in the workplace. So yeah, it's certainly true in my experience. What about you?
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, same. I feel like I've had good bosses. I've had some terrible bosses in jobs that I've had. I've been in management before and I feel like there have been times when I haven't been like a great boss, not because I was mean or a jerk or anything, but just because oftentimes like there's a skill to leadership. And if you haven't taken time to develop it, sometimes it's just, you don't just don't know what to do.
00:07:46
Speaker
There could be some interpersonal conflicts or this, and you just don't know how to handle it. You're just like, I don't know how to deal with this. So when you're new at something, quite often you're not great at it. So I look back and think, yeah, I probably wasn't very good in this role or that. But yeah, I think that's very true. In fact, I took a job a little while ago
00:08:10
Speaker
A friend of mine was leaving a company, getting like a big step up to another company and he was, and I asked him, um, they were looking to fill his role and he was like, Oh, you know, I asked him about it and he's like, yeah, if you want to apply, I'll, I'll recommend you. I was like, okay. Um, I was like, good company, you know, would you recommend it? And he says, he tells, he told me, he was like, yeah, it's a good company, good product, good position well in the market. He's like, the only thing I question is,
00:08:38
Speaker
I think you're going to be working for, you know, this person. And he's like, I would not want to work. I don't think I would want to work for that person. I was like, oh, that's that's not a good. It's not a good endorsement. And to my foolishness, I applied anyway and I got the job and I took the job anyway and he was 100 percent right. It was a miserable experience. Like I did not stay there that long because I was like, oh, my gosh, like it is crazy because
00:09:06
Speaker
this person's manager and like other managers were cool, but this one individual was like ruining everything. The team, there were tons of turnover on that team and it was just really bad. So yeah, I think there's for sure some truth to this. Yeah. I know in my line of work, we deal with a lot of clients like, and so we
00:09:33
Speaker
A lot of people have experience with kind of the nightmare client. Fortunately, I
Conflicts in Leadership Styles
00:09:38
Speaker
haven't run into it too much and it also is nice because you don't have to be around them necessarily too long. Like you can get the job done and get out. But then you kind of see the reason why they are hiring outsiders to do some of this work because they probably can't keep
00:09:57
Speaker
Internal people there to do the job and get unhappy because just just bad bad management style And something you said earlier, you know, I've managed a bit myself and there are different like, you know, there are different styles are different expectations and and I've bumped into that where I'm I'm a very hands-off manager. So if if you're working under me and you're getting your stuff done and
00:10:24
Speaker
Just that's all I want to know is that it got done, you know, and if you are having problems, you let me know and we figure it out. But otherwise I'm just, I'm not looking over your shoulder. Um, and so like, but the person above me was not quite that way. They didn't like me managing that way. And so you just run into these, you run into these conflicts. Um, and, uh, you know, just the crucial thing there is just to be open with the communication about
00:10:54
Speaker
your expectations and maybe push back to defend your own styles and everyone can be happy. Yeah, I think so. I like that you mentioned different people's styles because these interpersonal conflicts can arise when people don't recognize that there's different ways to do one thing, right? And they think that there's one way to do everything. The company I'm at now,
00:11:22
Speaker
One of the things that drew me there when I was interviewing was, um, I would ask these, you know, I'd ask the interview manager, oh, how long have you been here? And then there were several rounds of interviews. So I ended up talking to a half dozen people there and I'd ask him, how long have you been here? Oh, 25 years, oh, 12 years, 17 years, just over and over long tenured people. And I was like, wow, this, this company must be doing something right. And, um, and it's been great, uh, since, since I started, um,
00:11:47
Speaker
And one of the things that they do is they have this like, kind of like this little personality profile that they have you take, you know, it's like one of these ones, it's like color based, you know, this person's a red or a blue or whatever, you know what I mean? And some people think those kind of personality tests are goofy, whatever, but it's crazy, like how it's shifted the culture.
00:12:09
Speaker
to be like, oh, I understand why Bill's doing that because he's kind of a blue and that's kind of what blues do. That's OK. You know, and they just kind of understand, look, not everyone's going to be the same and not everyone's going to communicate the same and not everyone's going to everyone's going to have similar communication expectations. And I don't I don't know. I thought it was really cool to just it's just a constant reminder that look, there's a whole bunch of different ways to to work. There's a whole bunch of different ways to communicate. And I think whatever leader
00:12:37
Speaker
implemented that it seemed to be working really good. Yeah, that's a, that's a great idea. I should, uh, I should pitch that at my work and, uh, yeah, like I, I know people who've had really good experiences with that kind of, um, personality typing, like figuring out what kind of person you are, what kind of people, you know, your spouse is coworkers, things like that. Yeah. Cause there are different approaches you take and there's, it's,
00:13:07
Speaker
Like you said, it builds in that understanding of, Oh, well they did that because they're, they're just like that. Right. And so, and with that comes a toolbox of, okay, this is how you deal with a person with that personality. And, um, yeah, that's, that's great. Um, of course I, I, uh, of course a thought of, you know, politics and like the way the country's being run and has been for a very long time, just like,
00:13:37
Speaker
Why does our country have all these problems? Ultimately, it's got to come down to, in some part, poor leadership, but then, of course, how we select the leaders too. It's crazy because I wonder if it's recency bias, or I guess that's the opposite of recency bias. When you're idolizing the past, what do they call that?
00:14:06
Speaker
Is there a word for that? I don't know if there is. I'm sure there is.
Historical vs. Current Leaders
00:14:09
Speaker
Some more political philosophy friends could tell us. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it's that, but it just seems like when you read about Thomas Jefferson or George Washington, you're like, man, these guys were leaders. They could, they could do stuff. And then you read, see our presidents now and you're like, Oh man, this guy's, this guy's a bum, you know? But I don't know. Have you thought that, have you felt like that? Yeah. I was, I was thinking about that too. Um, and, and,
00:14:35
Speaker
The idea that I guess what comes down to accountability, right? Um, at least, you know, when we, we kind of glorify the past, what we're looking at, what we see are people who were, were either held accountable or held themselves accountable for things. And that's what I think people think of when they see like the founding fathers, um, whether or not they did in reality or to what extent, I don't know, but, but certainly today leaders don't do that. Right. It's all.
00:15:05
Speaker
Um, it's all passing the buckets. All, uh, today's successes are my successes, but today's failures are, are the last guy's failures, you know, and, and no one ever, um, takes that accountability. And then, and then for a lot of things, there's just no way to hold people accountable. There's no one specifically, you know, where the buck stops. Like you, you can look for it. Um,
00:15:32
Speaker
people can mess up, they don't get fired because it's, they can always say, well, it was this guy's thing. And then just kind of circular of, what was this other guy who did it? It's other guy who did it. And, and no one ever, um, you know, takes, takes the, the justified blame. And sometimes maybe they're right. Maybe they're like, no one actually holds it. And so that's kind of the, the failure of our system that you can't really pinpoint who's responsible.
00:16:01
Speaker
I feel like that just comes down to the press, man. The media is to blame for everything. They're supposed to be telling us who this is, and they've failed us. Maybe not. Yeah, there's certainly some of that. Yeah. Maybe there's more to it than that, but that certainly seems like part of it. Well, what do you think about... I know we relate our proverbs to parenting a lot. If you have a kid that's having behavior issues or something like that, do you think it could be that
00:16:31
Speaker
Maybe it's something you need to look in the mirror about and see if there's something about your leadership style that's not, not working well.
Leadership & Parenting
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Um, and, and that's certainly, that's certainly the perception, right? When you see if some kid is acting out like your first instinct is, you know, what did that parent do wrong? And so certainly that, that comes back to you too. If you're, if you're, if there's something up with your kid and sometimes
00:17:00
Speaker
It is more complicated, but that's definitely the gut reaction is what did the parent do or not do. Yeah. This one I think is tricky because I think there's some truth to it, but then I think also, I mean, there are some great parents that kids kind of turn out not so great just because they're making their own decisions. To use another popular phrase, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make a drink.
00:17:26
Speaker
if you've taught a kid all sorts of good things and they're just choosing to do something else, you know, there's only so much you can do. So in partly, I feel like the tendency is for dads, for men to be like, oh, that's right. And kid, he's just being a bad kid, you know, and they don't look introspectively very often. They're just like, oh, they blame the kid, right?
00:17:50
Speaker
They don't want to look in the mirror as much. Whereas with women, with moms, I feel like oftentimes it's the opposite to an extreme. They think, oh, it's my fault. Oh, I'm a bad mom. Yeah. And you hate to see that, especially a good mom is trying her best. And she's like, oh, people are judging me. People are thinking I'm a terrible mom because my kid's being a butt head. Probably not universal, but I've kind of noticed that trend a little bit. Yeah, I see that too.
00:18:19
Speaker
with the kid running up and down the aisles at church, who's chasing after him, right? Who's embarrassed by it more? Yeah, as long as the mom. Yeah, exactly. So should we talk a little bit about... Well, I mean, everyone's gonna be put in some kind of leadership role at some point, I think. So even if you don't strive for that and you're not naturally the kind of person who wants to be in charge, I think there's gonna be some point where
00:18:50
Speaker
uh, officially or unofficially, you're going to be kind of the leader or the most experienced person or people are going to be looking to you.
Humility in Leadership
00:18:58
Speaker
Um, should we talk a little bit about maybe some, some advice or something to do? So you're not the stinky fish head. Yeah. Yeah. Um, do you, do you have a, do you have any ideas to start there?
00:19:14
Speaker
Okay. Um, yeah, I've got some, some thoughts. So, so the first one I think would be is, um, sometimes people can let the title or the position or the, the thing get to their head a little bit. So, um, remembering that you're.
00:19:33
Speaker
You're just a regular person in a different role, right? So that's the first thing is don't take yourself too seriously. If you're full of self-importance, that's like a major red flag hallmark of a bad leader. I think would be a big one. What do you think? Yeah, that's a great one. One that comes to mind for me is, what do they call it? Extreme ownership.
00:20:01
Speaker
Is that what it gets called? Is that Jocko's thing?
Responsibility in Leadership
00:20:04
Speaker
I think so. I don't know that I've used it in the extreme, but I have tried to use that on a project when something comes back and you realize that you're the reason things got messed up. Or if you're the manager of a team and it really was on you.
00:20:25
Speaker
to make sure things were going smoothly and they didn't like, that's when you need to take responsibility. And I think I have found that that goes over pretty well. Um, it's, it can be really daunting, especially when the person is outside your organization that you're accountable to, you know, a client. Um, but, but I think it's, if nothing else, it's good for you as an individual to not,
00:20:52
Speaker
get into the trap of, you know, lying to get out of trouble or, um, and just, you know, kicking the can down the road, like just, you kind of got to deal with the problem head on. Yeah, I think that's great advice. And I've heard somewhere someone said something about like good leaders.
00:21:11
Speaker
own the blame and share the credit. And I've seen that with really good managers. If the team screwed up, and even if it's just one member of the team really blew it, the manager's like, hey, that's on me. I need to train my team better. I need to make sure that we're going to work on it and make sure that this doesn't happen again. And then when the team kills it,
00:21:35
Speaker
You know, the, the, the upper management might be like, Hey, good job, Mr. Manager, your team's doing great. Hey, it's, it's, it's all the team. They did all the work. I just, I'm just lucky enough to be here. And you know, people like that, you'll, you'll, you'll run through a brick wall for those types of managers because they're, you know, they're great. Those are the kinds of people that really inspire you to work hard and do well. Yeah. I mean, sometimes that does kind of, it possibly can bite you.
00:21:59
Speaker
if you have a clueless upper manager who doesn't realize that actually you, you're just being modest. But yeah, I think that's true. I think anyone savvy is going to realize that's the kind of person you want to keep around. Yeah, for sure. This point in the podcast, we usually talk about the
00:22:19
Speaker
the gods of the marketplace, which is what Kipling described as the trends of society that blow back and forth with the wind.
Leadership Accountability
00:22:27
Speaker
What do you think about this? Do you think a fish rots at the head? Do you think that's something that society believes, or do you think that's not something they practice? No, I think people do believe it, but I think the frustration is that there's not great evidence of
00:22:48
Speaker
there's not always great evidence of accountability or, or, you know, the, the head getting, uh, getting chopped off, so to speak. Right. Um, and so when it does happen, people really, I think people really react to it. Um, well, we'll just say passionately because sometimes it can be negative. Sometimes it can be positive about how far they go with it. But people, it resonates with people that, you know,
00:23:16
Speaker
they can see the person at the top of maybe this company or something like that, um, you know, defrauded their investors and actually, you know, got charged with a crime for it instead of just, uh, instead of just making a deal with, with a prosecutor behind, behind closed doors or things. So, um, so people, people really crave to see it happen, but I don't know that they just, I just don't know that they get to see it happen.
00:23:42
Speaker
Yeah, not not enough anyway and oftentimes I feel like I mean short of a prison sentence
00:23:49
Speaker
Oftentimes, maybe I'm just cynical, but I feel like when there's quote unquote accountability with people in positions of power, whether it be a CEO of a major corporation or someone in politics, and they issue the mea culpa and they say, oh, I'm gonna step down because I did this. In the back of my mind, I'm wondering, this is a show. Like I said, maybe I'm just too cynical, but sometimes I'm like, I don't buy this for a second. They've planned this. He's handing off the seat to somebody else in exchange for some other favor.
00:24:18
Speaker
That's, that's where my mind goes, sadly. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that does happen a lot where you, where, you know, someone, Oh, they, they stepped down from, from this position. And then, you know, six months a year later, you see that they're now in charge of something else. And, and you want to think, well, they screwed that up so royally. I never want to see them run another thing again, right? Let them, let them just have the desk job that
00:24:43
Speaker
that the average Joe has and just do that for the rest of their life. But yeah, the connections, the cream doesn't always rise to the top, so. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:25:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, so I have a thought, a question
Handling Poor Leadership
00:25:05
Speaker
for you. Maybe see what you think. What advice do you have for people who are languishing under a bad leader? Because you might find yourself in that situation someday. Yeah. Gosh, I don't know. I think a lot of times it's unfortunately not worth the hassle to really
00:25:32
Speaker
try and fix things too much, you know, like, or at least get your resume in order before you do. I don't know. Yeah. So, cause something, you know, a bad leader often does not take, does not take the criticism, does not, uh, does not honestly reflect on what needs to change. So sometimes, you know, depending on, on what you're dealing with here, right? Like if you do have the option to just move on, maybe that's the best, um,
00:26:02
Speaker
best option, but you know, I don't know how it works in like the military or something where you've got a commanding officer who's terrible and you're just kind of stuck there. I don't know what people do there, but fortunately I haven't run into that. Yeah, I'm not sure either. Yeah, apart from trying to move or leave
00:26:23
Speaker
Sometimes I've found that they're like a manager's bad behavior or bad actions can be, you know, they can be traced back to something. And if you can put yourself in their shoes, sometimes you can, sometimes you can figure it out. Not always. I have had managers that I just have not been able to work with at all. But there's been times when I've been like, okay, this guy really gets bent out of shape over this thing.
00:26:53
Speaker
And maybe they're just a little bit insecure about they want to look good or whatever. And so sometimes I'm like, OK, what can I do to make my manager look good? And if you can do that, then I was like, they start to shift. And then they're like, OK, I made him look good. Or I said something nice about him in front of his boss. Or I made a point of mentioning it when he did something good. And catch more flies with honey to use another phrase. Sometimes that can work. That's a great point, yeah.
00:27:23
Speaker
I hadn't thought about it because I'm because I'm cynical. I don't know. I will confirm your inner cynic. It does not work all the time. I repeat, it does. I've tried it like in every bad manager I've had. I've tried that, at least in some ways. Some people are just beyond ability to work with nicely. Yeah, but it does work sometimes. Yeah, I mean, you can
00:27:53
Speaker
You can try going around them sometimes depending on what your relationship is with the higher ups and bringing things to their attention. I know a lot of companies also have some
00:28:06
Speaker
somewhat anonymous kind of feedback you can do internally, which would be helpful. That can work. I've seen that work. Yeah. I feel like with leadership, ultimately, like you said, with the ownership ultimately comes down to that responsibility and taking responsibility
00:28:25
Speaker
Um, because you have a lot on your plate, a lot of kind of, uh, you have a lot of power. You're in charge of people. You're in charge of maybe an entire department or entire team. And, uh, and, uh, you know, you, you have to be the one that owns that. And if, because if you don't, then no one is because you're in the position to do it. So you're the only one that the buck has to stop with you in other words, right?
Adaptive Leadership
00:28:50
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And I think of, um, you know,
00:28:54
Speaker
I'm sure every generation, a current manager would be like, I don't know, what am I supposed to do with the kids these days? They're so much worse than they were 10 years ago and they're just not as good. And then I think, have we talked about my enjoyment of the Master and Commander books?
00:29:18
Speaker
Uh, well, I mean, that that's, that's something that comes up in that, right? You've got the Napoleonic era, British Navy, and they would just, you know, just take people to be, to be sailors on these ships.
00:29:32
Speaker
And so sometimes they have, they're understaffed or they have terrible sailors and the captains are just kind of, well, that's, this is what I have to work with. So it's my job to make them good. Right. And, and I think that's a good example of this, of this principle of, of ownership. Like you deal with, you use what you have and you, you do the best you can with it. Cause the people above you are expecting it. Yeah, man. If you're floating out in the middle of the North Atlantic somewhere, like there's no,
00:30:01
Speaker
There's no getting new people or firing the guy that you don't like. You make your staff work or your boat doesn't go. Yeah, exactly. If they're out firing the cannons fast enough, they're the only ones you got. So you got to get them to practice. Yep, absolutely. Well, cool, man. This is an interesting one. I'm glad I kind of stumbled across it. But yeah, I think it's really good advice. I think it's definitely true.
00:30:27
Speaker
And while people don't always live it or practice it, I think people do recognize that a fish always rots from the head down. So thanks for listening, everybody. We will have another one for you next week. And thanks, Andrew. Good talking with you. It's good to talk to you later. Good talking to you. Talk to you. See you later. There are only four things that social progress began. The dog returns to his vomit and the sow returns to her mind.
00:30:57
Speaker
and the bird-filled bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the fire. And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins, when all men are paid for existing, and no man must pay for his sin, as surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn, the gods of the copy of hideous, with terrors,