Don't Forget Who You Ride the Tiger For
Wayne’s peer group member Julian Scadden leads a company called Nexstar Networks where they train residential HVAC employees from the CEO all the way down to the newest technicians. It’s quite an enterprise and while Wayne knows Julian to be smart and eloquent, he didn’t expect him to be such a gifted writer! Julian’s Substack article of March 26, 2026 is a well-crafted examination of leadership, the two types of followers, the modern imperative of leading with The Platinum Rule and the two noblest qualities true leaders express to those around them.
Please tune in this week and share your thoughts with Wayne at [email protected].
We are down to the last couple of seats for our upcoming Contractor Business Boot Camp class that starts in Oct in Dallas, TX. The skills that make someone an excellent project manager are completely different from the skills needed to run a company. Give your rising leaders the opportunity to learn these skills from industry experts and peers alike so they are prepared to take on the challenges when time comes for them to lead the business. If you missed enrolling your high-potential folks in Dallas cohort, our last new cohort for 2026 starts in Nov in Charlotte, NC. Please contact Charlotte Kopp at [email protected] to find out more.
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WAYNE RIVERS: Hi, everyone. This is Wayne Rivers at Performance Construction Advisors where We Build Better Contractors.
This week, I'm delighted to bring you a vlog written by my friend, Julian Scadden. Julian was in our peer group for a number of years. Great thinker, articulate. Had no idea what a great writer he was. So, he wrote a column recently on his Substack, and it's called Don't Forget Who You Ride the Tiger for. What's he talking about, riding a tiger? I didn't get it. He writes in a lyrical way. It's really great, and it's Julian Scadden, S-C-A-D-D-E-N, if you want to find him on Substack. He wrote that in 1915, Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance, was crippled by the ice in Antarctica. And this was not good. It was 1915. He couldn't just pull out a satellite phone and call for help. They were on their own.
And so, they ordered the abandon ship. They moved to land. And the first morning after they abandoned, Shackleton himself got up earlier than everyone else, started a fire and warmed milk over the fire and personally, individually brought hot milk to each of the men in his expedition. He was imparting a gift of service, and Julian said, "That act alone was worth more than 100 leadership books that you may read." And if you think about it, that was a great example of leadership via gift of service. It was a wonderful thing to do.
Now, the title of this article comes from the Chinese proverb, "He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount." Well, I can see the wisdom in that. Absolutely. And I think it makes a lot of sense. And if you think about why this is important to you, doesn't it feel that way sometimes that in your business life, in the evolution of your construction company, you're riding a tiger and heck, you don't want to get off, but how do you get off? I mean, how do you even make that work?
I mean, it's a great concept that Julian talks about. He says that, "You've been through business cycles, you've been through disruptions, you've been through all kinds of upsets and changes in the construction industry. And you know inevitably that next year or five years from now, chaos is going to come again. We're going to have another recession, hopefully, not a great recession like we did not all that long ago, but something's going to happen, something's going to change. And as a senior leader, you know that, you see it coming. But your team, people on your team may have never seen a business downturn at all in their business lifetimes." Think about that.
We go to peer groups, we learn things, we experience things, we gather new ideas, we read a book, whatever and we come back excited. We want to change the company. I want to implement this. I want to implement that as a leader. The people around you didn't go to that peer group meeting. They didn't read the same book. They didn't have the same experience watching the Blue Angels. They didn't have all those experiences. They don't know where the impetus for these changes, these... They don't understand any of this stuff.
So, Julian says, "You have two groups of people with whom you work." Okay? The first group is willing riders. They're with you. They've experienced some of your wish for change and improvement. They understand that you're doing this thing. You went to a conference, you went, you read a book, whatever. They understand that this is the way you generate new ideas, new enthusiasm, new change, et cetera, et cetera. They're with you. You don't have to worry about them.
He said, "Group two is the white-knuckle passengers." And believe me, there are those too. He said, "The willing riders, they just want to understand the context." "Okay, Wayne, where did this idea come from?" "Oh, okay, that's cool. I got it." And they want to know why you're doing things. They want to see the big picture. The white-knuckle passengers, they want safety and routine. They don't want a lot of disruptions. They want to know their job's going to exist next week, next year, et cetera. Disruption and change frightens way more people than it excites, guaranteed. Julian says, "You can't treat all your employees the same." That makes sense to me. You're fair, you're egalitarian, you treat everyone the same. Julian says, "That doesn't work." Like Shackleton, you've got to individualize the experience. The golden rule, the old golden rule, do unto others... That doesn't work anymore.
Now, there's the platinum rule. You've got to do unto others as they wish... That's a big change. Every individual needs different stuff. And Shackleton, in fact, kept his malcontents the closest. Why? Not because he enjoyed misery. He knew that if problems were going to erupt, it was probably going to erupt from there. It's what John Woodcock talks about, the Stockdale paradox, to embrace the bitter reality that you face, but always be hopeful in the end that things are going to turn out the way they should.
"Shackleton," Julian writes, "Expressed generosity and magnanimity." That's the main thing, magnanimity. He said that, "That word has a Latin root that means greatness of soul." I didn't know that, but that's... What a great definition. If you're magnanimous, you are potentially approaching greatness of soul. Congratulations. But that's such an important leadership. Here, we call it appreciation. You can call it what you want, but generosity and magnanimity, great leadership qualities.
Julian writes, "The tiger doesn't slow down for anyone." And you know that as a business leader, but the ride can be a lot less scary if you imitate Shackleton, you show generosity, and magnanimity, and you treat everyone according to the platinum rule, which is a much better way to do things in today's business world. What do you think? Email me at [email protected].
This is Wayne Rivers at PCA where We Build Better Contractors.
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