A merchant owed a large sum of money to a lender. The old, ugly moneylender fancied the merchant’s beautiful daughter. He proposed that he would forget the debt if he could marry the merchant’s daughter. The merchant and his daughter were horrified.
The moneylender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty bag. The girl would pick a pebble from the bag. If she picked the black pebble she would have to marry the moneylender and the debt would be forgotten. If she picked the white pebble, she need not marry him and the debt would be forgotten. If she refused to pick a pebble the merchant would have to go to jail.
The moneylender bent over and picked up two pebbles. The sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. The girl immediately agreed to the contest despite her father’s protests.
Why did she agree?
On first impression it would seem there were only three possibilities:
She refuses to take a pebble, sending her father to debtors prison.
She shows that there were two black pebbles exposing the cheating moneylender but leaving the her father in debt.
She picks a black pebble and sacrifices herself for her father’s freedom.
Before you read the answer, below, try to solve this problem yourself.
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):
If you have had a good time playing the game, you are a winner even if you lose. –Malcolm Forbes
Our dalliances and detours define us. There are no maps to guide our most important searches. –Dr. Gordon Livingston
The unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates Apology 38a
This executive coach can lead your examination.
Remove unwelcome emotion–sadness, fear, regret–by relaxing into it. Resistance is futile.
The best time to worry is when you are winning. –Tony Mayo
All models are wrong, but some are useful. –Statistician George E. P. Box
Leadership is the ability to get others to do what they do not want to do and like it. –Harry Truman
Compiling research from psychologists and economists (including colleague Richard Thaler), Professor Hsee provides tips on how to make the people around you—employees, significant others, friends, relatives—happy.
Separate gains.
Combine losses.
Announce good news early.
Announce bad news late.
Unpredictable gains are better than stable gains.
Stable losses are better than unpredictable losses.
Choice is bad for good options,
good for bad options.
Wanted is better than needed.
Memorable is better than usable.
Here’s how the process works. The day before meeting, your coworker brings you a list of five or six key objectives, detailing her progress on each. During the review on the following day, you simply assess the data and discuss how performance compares with objectives. Depending on the employee, this can be a short thirty-minute process, or take as long as two hours. [If you do this weekly or every day, as you might on a tight deadline or vital project, the meeting might last ten minutes. –Tony]
When an employee comes into your office, she should always bring a pen and paper and be required to take detailed minutes of the meeting. Once the meeting is over, the employee should make a photocopy of the minutes for your file. [This is a bit dated! Have the employee email a summary. For high value employees, use a (more…)
When people undertake to control their minds while they are burdened by mental loads–such as distracters, stress, or time pressure–the result [will] often be the opposite of what they intend. …
Individuals following instructions to try to make themselves happy become sad, whereas those trying to make themselves sad actually experience buoyed mood.
…
When people in these studies are encouraged to express their deepest thoughts and feelings in writing, they experience subsequent improvements in psychological and physical health. (See also Resistance is Futile on this blog.) Expressing oneself in this way involves relinquishing the pursuit of mental control, and so eliminates a key requirement for the production of ironic effects. After all, as suggested in other studies conducted in my lab with Julie Lane and Laura Smart, the motive to keep one’s thoughts and personal characteristics secret is strongly linked with mental control. Disclosing these things to others, or even in writing to oneself, is the first step toward abandoning what may be an overweening and futile quest to control one’s own thoughts and emotions.
When we relax the desire for the control of our minds, the seeds of our undoing may remain uncultivated, perhaps then to dry up and blow away.
Novelist Amy Bloom surveys the literature on happiness for the New York Times and distills these five essentials. I have recently rediscovered the importance of number 2.
The Fundamentally Sound, Sure-Fire
Top Five Components of
Happiness:
Be in possession of the basics — food, shelter, good health, safety.
Get enough sleep.
Have relationships that matter to you.
Take compassionate care of others and of yourself.
Have work or an interest that engages you.
I don’t see how even the most high-minded, cynical or curmudgeonly person could argue with that.
This transcript of a conversation between theologians and est founder Werner Erhard may be incomprehensible to anyone not trained in ontological coaching. For those of us who are, Werner provides a thrilling demonstration of how to apply coaching distinctions. In this excerpt, Werner articulates one of the fundamental insights executive coaches bring to bear on their clients’ issues.
Interviewer: I want to know what problems you see, and how those changes are going to contribute to the relationship between you and your underlings in the organization. Werner Erhard: I’m not making an issue of the words you use. I’m making the system from which the words are derived the problem. Given the system, I can’t answer the question. You see, it’s not simply the words you’re using that are the problem.
What I want to convey to you is this: In the assumptions from which you are asking the question, you allow for no truthful answer to the question. The words you use reflect your assumptions accurately, and given your assumptions, there’s no solution to the problem. One cannot solve the problem in the system you are using. In fact, that system is the problem.
Now, I’m going to answer your question, because, you know, I came here and agreed to do that, but I want to tell you the truth before I answer the question. So I’m telling you that my answer will make no sense if you listen to the answer in that system from which you asked the question.
The answer is that the organization has for several years been shifting away from a structure that has a central place or a top place from which decisions are made and passed on. We always tried not to operate that way, and over the years we’ve become more and more successful at not operating that way. The structure of just about any ordinary organization, however, is that way.
How you put your goals into language has a huge impact on their likelihood of success. Above all, be sure your goals describe specific, measurable results (SMRs).
1. Remove all references to time and change.
Pretend you are at the completion date, the SMR is achieved, and describe how it is. This is different from, and much more effective than standing in “today” and saying how it will (might) be.
Write every SMR in the present tense, as of the completion date. Instead of “I will weigh 160 pounds on August 12,” write “I weigh 160 pounds.”
Remove any reference to change or comparisons. That means no “more,” no “increase,” no “lose.”
2. State everything positively
Remove all “not,” “end,” and “stop.”
Write “I have been breathing only clean air for two weeks.” instead of “Stopped smoking two weeks ago.”
For SMRs that are continuingactivities or states, for example, “exercise for 30 minutes twice per week,” be specific about the performance period.
State exactly which weeks the activities will occur: 2 out of the last 3? All of the last 12? All are equally valid, you decide and specify a measure that describes a victory for you.
3. Banish all thoughts of how-to.
For now, consider only what you want. There’s time to work on the methods later.
Check to see if your SMR is actually a how-to for the SMR you really want.
One client had an SMR of “Eat vegetarian and visit the gym twice per week.” She changed it to “Going all day with energy and eagerness, caffeine-free.” Diet and exercise weren’t her goals, just how-tos. She got the result through a visit to her doctor and a specific treatment.
You have probably heard the old adage, “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” Though often attributed to the very busy Lucille Ball, the insight may be as old as civilization. People who know how to get things done gain a reputation for effectiveness and have many opportunities to be busy.
My CEO executive coaching clients are very busy and receive many requests to get things done from employees, shareholders, clients, family members, churches, governments, non-profits, etc., etc. So many requests, in fact, that they often find themselves expending time and attention on things that are not their top priorities. They may also find themselves letting people down, backing out of promises, and feeling inadequate.
I often need to train my clients on how to say, “No.”
I developed my technique many years ago when I had established a strong reputation as an effective volunteer in an organization I supported. This reputation led to a deluge of requests, more than I could responsibly accept. Here is the formula:
Almost all job postings, yours included, describe the absolute minimally acceptable qualifications. Why aim low? You know people will stretch their credentials and experience a bit to apply, so describing the least you will accept will attract many résumés that are totally inappropriate. Sound familiar? Here’s the antidote, with credit and thanks to Vistage speaker Barry Deutsch, my guru for job ads. Some of his advice and training for hiring managers is here. Click here for much more from him.
Based on my memory of his talks and seeing the principles applied by many of my clients, here are some of the keys for writing an ad that attracts the right candidates:
When searching for a person to fill a job opening it seems natural to describe the history of the person you are seeking. That’s a mistake.
You’re not in business to hire people.
You’re in business to create results. Therefore…
Don’t describe the person–describe the results that person must produce to be successful.
Spend more time on what the person will be doing than what the company does.
Good candidates will go to the website to learn about you. Disqualify the ones who do not.
Write it from the seeker’s point of view, in the second person.
You love to help people get in action on their problems
You can’t walk away from your desk until everything is double checked, logged, and filed.
Describe breakout success
Too many job ads and descriptions detail the minimum requirements.
Describe outstanding success in detail, with numbers and vivid examples.
Make it interesting and compelling; describe a place the right candidate would be eager to go every day.
Sell your culture and values. Employees who resonate with your fundamentals will be productive long-term.
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):
No one can make you responsible, nor can you impose responsibility on another. It is a grace you give yourself–an empowering context that leaves you with a say in the matter of life. —Werner Erhard
Most scalable management method? Focus on improving your people not the product.
The fastest way to improve your communications is to cut them in half.
I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.–Clara Barton
Stress is a symptom of not wanting to be in the moment we’re in. —Eckhart Tolle
Anyone who fights for the future lives in it today. —Ayn Rand
Demonstrate the behavior desired. People would rather be led than pushed. –Tony Mayo
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Just Ask Leadership: Why Great Managers Always Ask the Right Questions
Novelist Amy Bloom surveys the literature on happiness for the
This transcript of a conversation between theologians and est founder 
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