How Great Number Twos Become Power Players
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Summary
There's a big difference between having a business partner and a right hand guy, a or a second-in-command. Today we're going to talk about qualities of a great second in command.
Transcript
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You know, there's a big difference between having a business partner and having a right-hand guy, a number two, or a second-in-command.
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Today, we're going to talk about qualities of a great second-in-command.
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History tells us number two can make you or break you.
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Did you ever feel that Biden wanted the attention that Obama got?
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Look at Trump. Trump's number two is what? Pence.
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Do you ever feel that Pence needs the kind of attention that Trump gets?
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It didn't work out too well because he hated being number two, right?
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It didn't work out for Eisenhower was a great president, two-term president.
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He hated being the VP of John F. Kennedy because he thought he was bigger than him.
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Look at Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, great number two.
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Look at many other names I can give you that are great numbers.
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And the first point I'm going to give to you before we get into all the other points is the following.
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A number two is very comfortable being number two.
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Doesn't need the attention that number one gets.
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I've had people that have worked with me where in front of everybody, they say all the right things.
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Let me tell you, Patrick's the greatest, this greatest, that behind closed doors.
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That's not a great number two because behind closed doors, they're undermining.
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In front of everybody, they're building you up.
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Behind closed doors, they're undermining you, which my point number two is the complete opposite,
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which means behind closed doors, they edify you, in front of you, with nobody around, they undermine you.
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So behind closed doors, people come up, oh, what are you talking about?
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It's almost annoying when Pence protects Trump.
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But behind closed doors, a great number two is going to say, you know, I think you kind
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You know, I think you met, but there's nobody around.
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That says, you mind if I give you some feedback?
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Do I have your permission to kind of just give you a little bit of feedback?
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And this person has to earn the right to have that kind of a relationship with the person.
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You don't just all of a sudden come in acting like you have this liberty to do something
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It's very, to do that to a number one is a very different dynamic.
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We'll get back to you guys, and we'll let you know what we want to do.
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A number two understands human nature and say, you know what?
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He knows that number one's got a lot on his mind.
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If the guy likes to golf, you know, let's go eat some balls.
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A great number two has a great sense of human nature, and they understand what to do and
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The reason why they're able to do this is because a great number two, a great second in
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command doesn't just buy into the vision of the leader.
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It's not like, I remember when Wozniak, I interviewed him 11 years ago.
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There's like, you know, four or five hundred people in the audience.
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He said, you know, to be able to do what we did at Apple is you need somebody like Jobs.
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Somebody that's just willing to go up against everybody.
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And, you know, I don't think anybody could have done what Jobs did.
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And without him, Apple would have never been what it became.
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Can you imagine at that point, he can easily spin the story to build himself up, but he
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put himself out there to talk about what happened.
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Very comfortable to say without Jobs, Apple would have never happened.
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Because not only did he buy into the vision of what Apple came to, where he left his job,
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Very important that you bought into the individual.
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A great number two is not expecting perfection from their number one.
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This isn't like, oh my gosh, you know, what do you think about what this person did?
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You know, I hear that the number one, he's got a very bad temper.
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You know, he has got high expectation and he wants us to win and he's not willing to compromise.
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That's what attracted me to wanting to work with him.
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That whole idea about, well, you know, you know, what do you think about the fact?
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That he's got such a loose, you know, he just can come out and say some curse words.
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Well, look, I understand sometimes it's the choice of words he uses.
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But unfortunately, the person you only see is the person on the outside.
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I get to see this man when it's just he and I sitting together, having a cup of coffee
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The only thing you see is when he gives a talk and he slips.
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And I can tell you, this is a great man and a great leader.
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And by the way, here's the thing to understand.
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Either you can do this comfortably or you can't.
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Let me let me let me say this to you one more time.
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Either you can do this comfortably or you can't.
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You can't say, I need you to do this to be a great number two.
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I have guys that they could never, ever do this, and that's totally fine because it's
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But I got guys that make an incredible number two, and they're very comfortable being a flag
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And when you typically do that, those same people that make great number twos, guess
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Did you see the stock options and the money he just got recently?
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Do you know what happens when you're a great number two?
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And when you become number one, it's not through force.
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I remember there was an insurance CEO I was working with 11 years ago.
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When I sat with him, I can't get the name because it's a very big name, but when I sat
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with him, I don't know if I've met many people that are as good as this guy was.
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Absolute, ridiculously a genius, a driver, a worker, everything.
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When he was coming up and he really wanted to be the CEO of this massive company.
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This company is a, it's a $200 billion company.
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He wanted to be a CEO of this $200 billion company.
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Every single time I had dinner with him or we were together, he couldn't help but take
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And at the time, this is, I'm 30 years old at the time when he's doing this and he was
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in his mid fifties, you know, maybe late fifties and he would do this every time.
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And he was so ambitious that he couldn't even control his ambition.
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So when it came down to it, when it was time to replace that CEO, he did his job, everything.
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He got the job done and they had to replace him.
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Nobody voted him to be it, even though he, he could have qualified to be a CEO, but he
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was not necessarily the best at being a great number two.
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So people were worried if they make him a CEO, it's going to be so much about him that
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the decisions he may make may only be the kind of decisions that's going to benefit who?
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See, sometimes not being a good number two scares the hell out of people that want to
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Because if you can't take the kind of recognition that comes with number two, what makes anybody
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think that you can handle the kind of recognition that comes with you being number one?
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So you got to kind of be thinking about all of those concepts.
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But again, a person cannot force you to be a great number two.
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You either can be a great number two or you can't be a number two, right?
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The other thing is all of these things I talk about is a lot of human nature, but you have
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So if you're not competent with the business, there's no such thing as being a number two.
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The number two I have right now at the office that I work with, you know, who's been with
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me here for a few years, you know how he works?
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He does things without people telling him what to do.
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He gets all of that stuff done on his own and he's a great number two.
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He protects, he hires, he fires, he does all that stuff and is quiet to himself.
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But you know what he's got going on for himself?
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Highly, highly competent and he's no attention.
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He knows what he's doing in his area of expertise.
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He's a here, I'm a here in this area of expertise and never brags about it.
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So a great number two has to also be very, very competent at what they're doing.
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And what I mean by reliable, this kind of goes with my next point.
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A number one's got to be able to get a hold of you anytime.
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I know a lot of people say, oh my gosh, who would want to have something like that?
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That's why not everybody wants to be a number two.
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A number one should be able to get a hold of you at midnight.
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What kind of a pressure type of a video is this?
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That's exactly what's got to happen with you being a great number two.
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Pence has got to pick up the call when Trump calls them.
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Wozniak's got to pick up the call when Jobs calls them, when Jobs call them.
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All of these things is part of being a great number two because it's essentially, if that
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So you're pretty much, you're one person away from being number one.
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The only difference between you and number two is, you're number one is that if anything goes
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wrong with the company, all the pressure goes to number one, not you.
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So the night, day to day, all the pressure, they point the finger at number one.
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When's the last time you saw people pointing fingers at Pence?
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When's the last time you saw when Biden was a vice president?
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How many times did they point fingers at Biden?
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That's one of the reasons why two has got to be accessible because sometimes number one's
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So now when it comes down to bouncing ideas off number two, this goes to my next point.
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A great number two is also very good because sometimes the number one's going to say, hey,
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I'm struggling with what just happened right now in the challenges that's going on between
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And here we have Armenia, 3 million people, Azerbaijan, 10 million people, Turkey's 80 million
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people, but Turkey's an ally because we've got three military bases.
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But, you know, Senate and House passed the Armenian genocide in the U.S. and the only one that
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I got a decent relationship with Russia, a decent relationship with Turkey.
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So great number two is very good at being there, having conversations and asking questions,
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not statements, asking questions that's leading number one down to a potential possibility of
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And maybe what we don't need to do today, we got to wait for this move to happen six months
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These are some of the things that a great number two does with a number one.
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So we've talked about a lot of different things.
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Obviously, loyalty has got to be there, complaint, protective of number one.
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This next part is very important, meaning you always got to protect number one.
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But at the same time, the team has to have been bought into protect.
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Like, man, I got, listen, I can't believe what he just said right there.
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But remember, he has more pressure than all of us do right now.
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He's got, I promise he's got more pressure than we do.
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And you don't think he wants us to go out there and win?
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You don't think he, you're talking about the CEO.
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Let's come together and prove to him that we're a great team.
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You show small little marks where you're not protecting number one.
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But at the same time, he's winning the team over.
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Remember, this is why eventually a number two, when he's winning the team over, when he wants to be a number one, the team wants him to be a number one.
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If you protect number two and you've won the team over, when it comes time for you to be number one, you've won this person over and you've won these guys over.
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They respect him, he respects you, the team respects him, you're bound to be the next number one.
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But you've got to figure out a way to set aside ambitions for that to be taking place.
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A couple other things to share with you guys when I'm going through this is an element of urgency, meaning when things are happening and you've got to be willing to go like this on things that needs to get done.
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Hey, I need this, no problem, let me get it done for you.
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There's got to be a level of urgency with number two.
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Oh, I'll get it back to you a week later, five days later, three days later.
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Oh, you know, I just talked, I got three people that are doing a deal right now.
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I'll let you know which one we're going to go with.
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First one's going to cost us a million bucks, but it's pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pros and cons.
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The other one's going to cost us $750,000,000,000.
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The other one's going to cost us $500,000,000, but back in there, we're another $500,000,000,000, but you don't need to pay it back to them over and over.
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So there's got to be an element of high urgency when you're dealing with a number one, because a number one is expecting answers quickly.
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And a great number two is very good at getting that for them very, very quickly.
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So having said this again, I shared this with you.
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You may want to share this with your number two or somebody that you think can be a number two or second in command.
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And if you are a second in command and you're very comfortable being a second in command, this may not be a bad video for you to share with your number one.
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And if you've watched it saying, well, Pat, you said business partners, very different between being a right-hand person or second in command.
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There is, because you could have a son and a father that own 50-50 of a company, but the father's just an investor.
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He's out, but the son needs to go find a right-hand person, and it may be a nephew or a cousin that comes working for him.
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Father's just a business partner or an investor in the company.
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So if you may be watching and say, well, Pat, how do I go about running with a family business?
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It's a complete different video I did four and a half years ago that if you've never watched, it's a must-watch, especially if you run a family business.
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And if you've not subscribed to the channel, please do so.