The Flying Turtle Principle. How to Offer flying turtle solutions!

Building the extraordinary ‘flying turtle’ culture.
A strategy paper by Dr. Jerry Willbur of The Leadership Mentoring Institute.

A friend of mine used to share a story about how when he was a very young boy in New England he and some friends once saw a turtle perched on a high fencepost. It was such a remarkable sight that they discussed it for days. He and his friends half jokingly speculated it must be a magical flying turtle to reach such a position, even though it just looked like an ordinary box turtle sitting their solemnly surveying the surrounding fields and dumbfounded boys. My friend’s father later infused some reality and cleared up the situation by informing them that local farmers who were ecologically friendly knew that the box turtles helped control crop damaging vermin. So when plowing they would rescue the turtles by placing them on the closest fencepost out of harms way. Then when going home they would place the turtle safely in the fencerow to go about its duties. The father went on to say that it was just like people. When you see someone in a high position you can be certain he didn’t get there by himself. Someone helped put him there. My friend never forgot the turtle or the point his father made.

When I relayed this story to another friend, he informed me that even a turtle could fly in a tornado, and used the recent rise and demise of a lot of improbable dot.com companies in the gusty economy of the nineties as an example. Another friend of mine sent me an article about a motorist driving a convertible in Florida being nearly knocked unconscious by a turtle hurtling from the sky. The assumption was an ambitious seagull had picked up the turtle hoping for a snack and then dropping it unfortunately on the head of the unsuspecting driver. There is even a historical record of a great Greek thinker being killed by a seagull mistaking his bald, shiny head for a rock and dropping a turtle on it hoping to get a quick snack! That type of smack upside the head does not help creative thinking, but it does leave a big impression!

Obviously in some very rare situations a common turtle can fly. The point is that flying turtles or even turtles in high places are an extraordinary sight. How can such a seemingly ordinary thing accomplish such a remarkable thing as this? Not by itself it is certain. In the same way you want your organizations made up of ordinary people to do extraordinary things and be seen as remarkable by your customers. You need to stand out as different and hopefully better in today’s information overburdened climate. By helping them do the right ‘ordinary’ things in an extraordinarily right way, you can get remarkable results. You will make your organization stand out as being remarkable or extraordinary. A true flying turtle organization offering flying turtle solutions!

The Leadership Mentoring Institute is dedicated to turning the ordinary and common organization and individual into the extraordinary and uncommon. We have identified best practices of high performing organizations and individuals, and know how to pass them on to you and your people. We have studied the best hunters and predators and know how to turn your organization from the hunted or the prey into an aggressive, innovative hunter that creates lasting value for it’s customers and employees. We believe and hope we have in a way become a flying turtle ourselves! Not without a lot of help from customers and mentors of course! Now it is our opportunity to pass it on. In this web site you will see a lot of common sense combined to create uncommon results.

The ancient Greeks once said the unexamined life was not worth living. Well we believe the unexamined organization is not long living! To become a flying turtle organization that offers flying turtle solutions you must first examine where you are now and then determine to become extraordinary, with a little help from the Leadership Mentoring Institute of course. Some people have called us ‘evangineers’ because of our enthusiastic belief in the ability of ordinary organizations and people to become extraordinary.

We believe there are a few key values we hold that make us providers flying turtle solutions, the ‘evangineers’ of proactive and productive change.

1. We believe the people doing the work hold in their hearts and minds the key to long-term success in any business. People don’t wash and wax rented cars. They tend to beat borrowed mules. When they get engaged in the work and help build the solutions they become enthusiastic owners of the problems and solutions.


2. We really believe that selecting the right people and helping them do the right things the right way is what being serving leaders is all about. Loyal serving leaders build loyal, serving team members. It is very difficult as an employee to serve customers and create loyalty unless you feel trusted and served yourself.


3. We believe there must a balance between vision and control. Vision is really what brings value to an organization and without a vision every organization soon fails. Pulling one-time profit rabbits out of the magic hat and expecting to meet end goals doesn’t make it. But vision without short-term action steps and fast, unfiltered performance feedback soon leads to a stumbling organization.


4. We believe the systematic pursuit of reality through a fast, flexible, unfiltered performance feedback system is the key to success. Pull the curtain back and see the real Wizard of Oz in your organization. Turn truth into trust by acting on reality in a tough love way.


5. Only authentic leaders and authentic organizations have the foundation of trust necessary to build lasting effective change. If your own people don’t trust you, your customers never really will! The transfer of trust is what long-term productive relationships are all about.

If you follow the current trends and look to increasing short-term profit by outsourcing and downsizing your most valuable asset—the creative energy of your people—you may capture that short-term profit but we guarantee you will create a long-term disaster. Let the Leadership Mentoring Institute help you unlock the increased profitability you need by optimizing a resource that is right under your nose—your insightful, smart, creative, but perhaps somewhat disenfranchised people. Let us show and prove to you the key component parts of the only true long-term path to increasing customer and shareholder value.

Contact us right now and we will help you get your people enthusiastically engaged so we can do extraordinary things together. Remember flying turtles are remarkable but they didn’t get there by themselves. If you can offer flying turtle solutions, truly remarkable and extraordinary, to your customers you will enjoy long-term, sustainable success.