Pair interaction, for example, conversation, is not a sequence of stimulus and response but a simultaneous co-creation, “both parties are processing an ongoing stream of stimuli and responding while the stimulation is still occurring.”
–Psychologist Susan Vaughan
in Two is the magic number:
a new science of creativity.
Joshua Wolf Shenk
Slate Magazine.
I use Twitter to share brief daily messages. You can have them delivered to your cell phone by text message (SMS) or view them when you visit your free Twitter web page. Create a Twitter account and “follow” TonyMayo.
Here are my recent tweets (messages):
PROACTIVE: Either we can let this happen to us or we can make it happen for us.
What’s gives a light bulb the power of a laser? Focus. Learn how– http://http://tiny.cc/relaxer
Research on increasing your power in business: 1.Ask for Help 2.Be friendly 3.Persist Read more here.
Impossible to modify your immutable past. Just mute it and move on. –Tony Mayo
Failure lies not in needing help but in failing to accept help when needed.
Trust is the grease and glue of business but what is it? Learn here.
Prior tweets are here, at Twitter Logs.
___
© 2009 Tony Mayo
The Economist offers a fascinating summary of the new book by Stanford’s Jeffrey Pfeffer, Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t. The key requirement is to get into the right department and specialty. As with starting a business, riding a rising tide by choosing a growing, lucrative sector makes everything else easier and success more likely. Once you are in the right place, three practices help you rise to power:
…adding five substantive conversations to your weekly social calendar could boost your spirits dramatically.
–Skip the Small Talk:
Meaningful Conversations
Linked to Happier People
See also, on this blog, step-by-step conversation instructions with video here:
The Conversation Contract.
And the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is compos sui if he have it not.
An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.
–William James
The Principles of Psychology
1890 Page 494
See free, easy Meditation Instructions on this blog.
The Harvard Business Review reprinted a wonderful speech by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton M. Christensen titled, “How Will You Measure Your Life?” Along with plenty of great advice for new graduates he shared some keen insights on executive coaching.
If I had been suckered into telling Andy Grove what he should think about the microprocessor business, I’d have been killed. But instead of telling him what to think, I taught him how to think—and then he reached what I felt was the correct decision on his own.
That experience had a profound influence on me. When people ask what I think they should do, I rarely answer their question directly. Instead, I run the question aloud through one of my models. I’ll describe how the process in the model worked its way through an industry quite different from their own. And then, more often than not, (more…)
I use Twitter to share brief messages, not more than two per day. You can have them delivered to your cell phone by text message (SMS) or view them when you visit your free Twitter web page. Create a Twitter account and “follow” TonyMayo.
Here are my recent tweets (messages):
You can’t control the wind so learn to control your sails.
When a thing is new people say, “It is not true.” When a thing seems to be true people say, “It is not new.” William James
I’ve done things on Monday and Tuesday, made progress on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I have completed tasks on Saturday and Sunday, but I’ve never accomplished anything on “someday.” See Goal Setting on this blog.
Failure lies not in needing help but in failing to accept help when needed. Tony Mayo
Impossible to modify your immutable past. Just mute it and move on. Tony Mayo
Prior tweets are here, at Twitter Logs.
I have been posting fewer and fewer tweets because they have been producing fewer and fewer responses. Has Twitter jumped the shark?
___
©2010 Tony Mayo
One of the most popular posts on this blog is my commentary on the 2008 Conference Board survey of worldwide top executive coaching rates and budgets. The Conference Board has recently released its 2010 update and revision to that report. Unfortunately, the report no longer contains information on the amount organizations are paying for executive coaching per hour or by engagement.
The most interesting tidbit is that most organizations are compensating executive coaches for travel time.
You can visit the Conference Board site and purchase the report by clicking here.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent.
The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
–Calvin Coolidge
President of the USA
1923-1929
Trust is increasingly recognized as an essential element of successful personal relationships, effective teamwork, and large-scale commercial relationships. The amount citizens of one country trust the residents of another has even been shown to correlate with the amount of trade between the countries.
Evaluating the level of trust in a relationship is an often evaded and sometimes sensitive task. My work coaching top executives and facilitating work groups has taught me that the “trust topic” is much easier to discuss once we realize that trust has at least five constitutive components. Examining each aspect of trust, one by one, leads us to better judgments and more fruitful conversations.
- Sincerity
- Capacity
- Competence
- Consistency
- Care
When we say that we trust or mistrust a person it means that we have evaluated their:
1. Sincerity — Does what the person says match their internal conversation? Are they telling us what they honestly believe and truly intend? Once a person establishes a reputation for (more…)
Hope is not a prognostication.
It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.
—Vaclav Havel
President of Czechoslovakia
Disturbing the Peace
New York Times columnist David Brooks, alumnus of my college and our off-campus newspaper, explains beautifully some of the reasons I advise my executive coaching clients to put away popular business books and get into great novels.
Studying the humanities improves your ability to read and write. No matter what you do in life, you will have a huge advantage if you can read a paragraph and discern its meaning (a rarer talent than you might suppose). You will have enormous power if you are the person in the office who can write a clear and concise memo.
Studying the humanities will give you a familiarity with the language of emotion. … Branding involves the location and arousal of affection, and you can’t do it unless you are conversant in the language of romance.
Studying the humanities will give you a wealth of analogies. … If you go through college without reading Thucydides, Herodotus and Gibbon, you’ll have been cheated out of a great repertoire of comparisons.
Also see my short post, Why I review novels on a blog for CEOs and executive coaches
I felt more productive.
I was seeing results.
I realized how important it was to connect with your spirit in doing the things you do. Life is not just all details and logistics. You have to know why you’re doing things and understand that there are other people involved. You can’t get it from just going through the motions everyday. There’s the whole spiritual thing that some of the V.S.O.P. exercises made me realize, along with some of the things that Tony says. He doesn’t talk about it a lot, but that was one of the many things I took away.
It’s really amazing that such a short period of time could do so much and be so positive.
–Ann Lohmann
High Tech Executive on
Tony Mayo’s executive coaching program
Genuine Success: V.S.O.P. in 1997
…something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. And also the only real tragedy in life is the being used by personally minded men for purposes which you recognize to be base.
–George Bernard Shaw in
Man And Superman A Comedy And A Philosophy
Epistle Dedicatory To Arthur Bingham Walkley
See also, Success = Fully Engaged
The final idea for civic life is that every man and every woman should set before themselves this goal–that by the labor of their lifetime they shall pay the debt of their rearing and education, and also contribute sufficient for an handsome maintenance during their old age.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatsoever I can.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live.
I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment; and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
–George Bernard Shaw quoted in
George Bernard Shaw: His Life and Works
A Critical Biography (authorized)
By Archibald Henderson
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