Michael Fowlkes
MDI Contributor
MDI is a relationship-based organization. To the level that you’re in relationship is the level that you’ll be successful.
Over the years, as I took on the roles of Division Coordinator, Regional Coordinator, international positions, director and president, I noticed a few things about what has leaders fail and what has leaders succeed. The biggest key is that it’s all about relationships.
If you’re in relationship with your core team, your leaders, your mentors, everybody knows what’s going on. If you’re open and you’re honest, and you’re getting help, then typically you’ll be successful. However, if you are scared, sneaky, not willing to reach out for help, keeping everything to yourself, trying to look good and not letting anybody know that you don’t have a clue what you’re doing, it becomes extremely obvious very quickly. At this time, you’re fooling nobody but yourself.
As I look back in my experience becoming a DC, I clearly did not know what I was doing. I had no clue or experience about being a DC and everything that happened while I was DC for first six months was completely new to me.
I surrender to the process. I reached out to a DC every day with a “Can you assist me? Can you give me direction? Because I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m really scared and I need help.”
And what I noticed by doing that is I accumulated a lot of wisdom really fast. I received a ton of support, guidance, direction and mentorship. And everybody around me knew what was going on because I was open and honest about my experience, my struggles, my barriers, the things I wasn’t willing to do. The village of DC’s, regional leaders and men in my division assisted me in being successful.
You need to be in a relationship to be successful. If you’re a team leader, you need to be in relationship with the men on your team. To be a successful team member, you’ll be in relationship with the men on your team or the men around you and be open and honest.
What’s important to note is that the basic way men are trained is with information passed on by word of mouth. In order to do that, you need to be in relationship with someone. And if you’re successful, you’ll be in relationship with the right someones.
And what gets in the way of being in relationship? Sometimes our egos get in the way of trying to look good, or trying to look better than someone, or trying to hide the fact that you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. And then things get all messed up. And you find yourself in situations where you can’t figure out how you got there.
Even at this point, there still is one way out of the mess. That’s right. Call someone.