The OffBeat #63: The "Hot Shot" Rule

Make like a drummer and hit it

You know how I feel about rules. They’re only as good as they improve your craft.

I gravitate to rules, or practices, that cultivate leadership qualities I admire, like discipline, groundedness, empathy, and courage.

Here’s one I like from seasoned leader Kat Cole (current Athletic Greens CEO, former President of Cinnabon, Inc.).

She calls it the “hot shot” rule:

Embody someone you admire and ask what concrete action they’d take in your position; then do it.

It’s not that dissimilar from a musician channeling another musician whose playing they love. In fact, an embedded aspect of jazz tradition is copying the work of “hot shot” players. As sax player Branford Marsalis put it, jazz improvisation is “not really about making up your own ideas any more than speaking English is about making up new words.”

In a corporate setting, imagine deploying the “hot shot” rule like this:

• When you’re making a difficult marketing budget call, ask yourself how a CMO you admire would handle the decision

• When you’re restructuring your team, contemplate how your favorite boss would balance business and culture

• When you’re prepping for a confrontation with a peer, map out how your boldest but most respectful colleague would approach the conversation

Of course you don’t want to completely shelve your own instincts or inclinations. But channeling someone whose style you aspire to—whether it’s Beyonce or a badass leader in another department—is an exercise in curiosity and creativity that can help you discover new possibilities.

Without having framed it as leveraging the “hot shot” rule, I have a salient memory of employing this technique in a situation that had become untenable. My team and I were working from 6AM to midnight, six or seven days a week. We had deadlines on weekends, and my boss even had her recurring 1-1 with her boss on Saturday mornings. In addition to—and, for sure, partially due to—the ridiculous expectations to be plugged in at all times, the environment had become toxic. Everyone was unhappy and constantly complaining and threatening to leave. Our volatile, abrasive leader was in over her head trying to solve complex business problems without adequate experience and, worse, without trust in her team. I think I heard her yell more than I heard her speak at a regular conversational volume.

It was a mess and, as a people leader within the broader team, I had a responsibility to take action, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable. As I’ve written before, I’ve left three jobs because of poor management and in certain situations I might have spoken up more clearly about what I needed. This was not one of those.

I wrote down, then organized, my notes on what wasn’t working and why. I kept my talk track simple but specific. I included examples to bring my feedback to life. And I took the emotion out of the content, keeping the message factual. It was about my, and my team’s, experiences of what was happening, not our perceptions of why or where it was coming from.

My prep for the conversation with my boss felt manageable enough. But when it came time for the actual meeting, I was terrified. It’s really, really hard to give feedback to a superior. For a lot of people it’s not easy to give feedback in general, but telling someone who’s responsible for evaluating and compensating your work that they need to improve is a particular challenge. And that’s even when that person is reasonable, predictable, and level-headed.

Heading into the 1-1 to share my feedback, I remember channeling a “hot shot” woman President and COO I’d worked for who had as one of her corporate mantras the phrase “No Fear.” If that leader wasn’t afraid, managing multimillion dollar decisions in boardrooms with a bunch of dudes, I wouldn’t be either.

The meeting went way better than I had anticipated. I have to think part of that was due to my (albeit faux-) calm mindset. To my boss’s credit, she listened without interrupting and asked some probing follow-up questions to test her understanding. I don’t know if that hot shot President would have handled the situation exactly the way I did, but I did my best to do her proud.

I did ultimately end up leaving that job not long after, having been recruited for a can’t-pass-up opportunity, the wheels of which had already been set in motion. I wish I had prompted the “hot shot” conversation with my boss sooner, but I’m proud that it happened at all.

Have a great week,

Allison

If you like reading The OffBeat, consider hitting the ❤️ or 🔄 button so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏