Responsibilty
I was responsible for all of it. Whatever happened, I had done it to myself. One day I said, “Sandlr, you put yourself here. Nobody did anything to you. You’re here because you are.”
Closers: Great American Writers on the Art of Selling
Closers:
Great American Writers on the Art of Selling
by Mike Tronnes, editor
I often recommend novels to my sales training clients to help them get into the heads of people unlike themselves, to experience unfamiliar worldviews so they can better empathize with prospects. I recommend this collection of fiction to salespeople to help them get more comfortable in their own heads.
This collection of short stories and novel excerpts covers the history of sales in modern America, from rail riding drummers who had no homes to today’s real estate broker next door. I was pleased to see that most of the portrayals of salespeople were sympathetic and insightful, not the usual huckster bashing. Each selection captures (more…)
Do not confuse planning with forecasting
Why plan? So much changes, so many things are unforeseen. The world is unpredictable and out of our control. The people we depend upon are fallible and have free will. There is no telling what they will do, how they will react to us.
Any airliner spends most of each trip off course and pointed in the wrong direction. Wind, weather, and traffic are constantly diverting the vessel from the perfect path. Rather than being discouraged by the impossibility of staying on course, the pilot and the instruments are continually working to compensate for these random and unforeseeable influences. After a trip of “unplanned” but expected diversions, airliners almost always arrive at their intended destinations. What would be the result if the pilot did not declare where and when he would land? How would he react to the distractions and diversions? Would you buy a ticket on that plane? Rather, could that pilot enroll you in his project?
You have many choices each day–even if they don’t seem like choices–and a consistent target will give you a ready reference for making those choices. Your plan is useful not because it is a description of what will happen, but because it provides a reference point to evaluate and respond to the inevitable circumstances that differ from the plan.
Planning is not Predicting.
The value of a plan is not as a guarantee that things will happen exactly as you expected, but that when the unexpected does -inevitably- occur, you can notice and respond to the deviation.
Your mind is yours
Receive thy new possessor
—one who brings
A mind not to be changed
by place or time.
The mind is its own place,
and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell,
a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where,
if I be still the same.
–Satan,
upon being expelled
from heaven,
in Paradise Lost Book I
John Milton
See also Werner Erhard on the Mind
Creativity, Solutions, and Results
As a member of Tony’s TEC (now called Vistage) group, I’ve been impressed with the impact his executive coaching and leadership skills have had on individuals and our businesses. He creates an environment where creativity is nurtured, solutions are developed, and results are generated.
–Douglas Bailey
Director-Channel Development
Trinet
All Of This is Good News
I created these problems for myself. I made decisions that caused me to be where I am today. That’s why I’m facing the challenge. So I have nobody to blame but myself. That means that I’ll not be angry, or cynical, or suspicious. I’ll assume responsibility for these problems. I got myself into it. I can get myself out of it. I still believe that every obstacle is an opportunity. To learn. To grow. To be corrected or protected from making mistakes. So all of this is good news. So I’m not discouraged. I’m motivated by this new challenge.
I’m not depressed. I’m impressed.
Dr. Robert Schuller
Author of:
Be Happy Attitudes
What is an Organization?
An organization is a community of discourse.
Leadership is about influencing the nature of the discourse.
—Robert Kegan
Harvard University
See also, on this blog, step-by-step conversation instructions with video here:
The Conversation Contract.
Put your past in the past
How now, my lord!
Why do you keep alone,
Of sorriest fancies your companions making,
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
With them they think on?
Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what’s done is done.
–Lady Macbeth to her husband
(and a million wives since,
to a million regretful husbands)Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Act III, Scene 2
Leadership as Learning
Someone exercising leadership is orchestrating the process of getting factions with competing definitions of the problem to start learning from one another.
— Ron Heifetz
Harvard University
Creativity Generates a New Reality
STARTUP
A Silicon Valley Adventure
by Jerry Kaplan
The following is an excerpt from: STARTUP by Jerry Kaplan
…I first learned the truth about scientific progress from my Ph.D. dissertation advisor at the University of Pennsylvania.
A shy Indian man with a shiny, balding head and an occasional stutter, Dr. Joshi was widely known for his brilliant work in artificial intelligence. Our weekly meetings to help me find a thesis topic were more like therapy sessions than academic discussions. Most of the time he would (more…)
Generosity
Wise Woman’s Stone
A wise woman traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry. The wise woman opened her bag to share her food.
The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She (more…)
Ready Position
I was in a training last week with Richard Strozzi-Heckler. The first exercise he led the group in was a centering practice I also teach. You can listen to the podcast here: Find Your Center Before You Act. The next day, Richard told us a story in which his centering practice saved a presentation–and his lungs.
While studying ai-ki-do in Japan, Richard was asked by his instructor to come with him to help with a demonstration for a group of teenagers. At the school, Richard donned a heavy leather shirt. His master handed him a sword and told him, “When I fire this arrow at you strike it with your sword.” Strozzi had never seen, much less been instructed in or practiced, this procedure but one does not quibble with one’s Japanese ai-ki-do master.
As he stood on stage while the master spoke to the teenagers, Strozzi’s head was filled with (more…)
I would follow him into battle anytime
If I had to sum up what I see in Tony: very strong leader – excellent accounting and business knowledge – very good person. I respect Tony for his accomplishments; he was instrumental in my development as a Controller. I learned so much from him in a very short amount of time which proves his teaching/training abilities are to the point, clear and accurate. I would follow him into battle anytime.
Controller, AvcomEast
Why I review novels on a blog for business owners
Fiction, like religion, takes us to a strange world to which we nevertheless feel a connection.
–Herman Melville
To enter another person’s world, to see things as they see them, to allow for different reactions to similar circumstances is to connect with people in a powerful way. Such empathy, compassion, and insight are essential for succeeding as a leader, salesperson, or an executive coach and to living a fulfilling life.
Reading the stories of people in circumstances different from your own is entertaining exercise that develops this important skill. Good novels offer intimate and immersive experiences of worlds most business people never encounter, yet the practice they offer with escaping our own narrow versions of reality can help us to be more receptive to the various worlds of the people we manage and sell to every day. [For more on individual worlds, see The Santiago Theory of Cognition on this blog.]
See these recommended novels on my blog:
Closers: Great American Writers on the Art of Selling
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
When the Sons of Heaven Meet the Daughters of the Earth
Spidertown by Abraham Rodriguez, Jr.
Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street
And, of course, the one I wrote:
The Psychology of Persuasion
Influence:
The Psychology of Persuasion
by Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D.
Influence is written as a guidebook for the savvy consumer. The author’s conversational style and frequent sharing of personal experiences will certainly recommend it to that audience. My interest in the work is probably closer to that of the typical reader: as a persuasion professional I am looking for specific ideas to increase my effectiveness. My attention has been richly rewarded.
Professor Cialdini organizes decades of research and experience into six easily comprehended categories of influence techniques. Relevant examples from marketing and sales are used to (more…)
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