by Tony Mayo | For Executive Coaches, How to Set Goals, Recommended Books
The Last Word on Power:
Re-Invention for Leaders and Anyone
Who Must Make the Impossible Happen
by Tracy Goss (Betty Sue Flowers, Editor)
Capsule Review
Tracy Goss has long been closely associated with Werner Erhard, the originator of EST and Landmark Education Corporation’s Forum. I expect happy graduates of those programs to be very happy with this book (I am and I am). The book presents the central concepts of those programs very clearly and in a format designed to help business people put the “distinctions” to work immediately. I doubt, however, that a person not trained in ontological coaching could get much sense from these pages. It can seem to be merely jargon and wild promises unless you have actually put the techniques to work for yourself with the assistance of a coach (as I have and I do).
For people experienced with the methods, this book is an effective refresher and spur to action. A friend and I (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Quotes and Aphorisms, Team Manager Skills
80% of success is showing up.
–Woody Allen
I was angry. My business day had barely begun and I was livid. I had an important presentation and my whiteboard was not installed. The office manager had promised several times over the past month to get it done but there it sat, useless on the floor. I was calculating whether I had time to drive home to get my own tools when she (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, How to Set Goals
I frequently coach individuals and groups on long-term goal setting. I have found a subtle trap that you can easily avoid if you take a moment to notice that not everything progresses at the same rate.
A great benefit of specific plans is the opportunity to track progress. After my clients set a ten year goal, I invite them to imagine themselves in the future, ten years hence, with the goal achieved. I then ask, “Look back five years. Tell me how much progress you had made at the halfway point.”
This where most people make a crucial error. Luckily, it is easy to avoid.
Let’s say you have set a goal for (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Executive Coaches, For Salespeople, Sales Techniques
People think in stories. No, that’s not the important thing. People feel in stories. Feelings (emotions) help people decide, buy, stay loyal, and refer new customers.
“One of the things Whole Foods taught us is the need to tell stories” about our products, Mr. Heinen said. In fact, Heinen’s has 50 stories that it trains employees to tell customers about its meat, produce, baked goods and other items.
Tom Heinen
Heinen’s Fine Foods in
The New York Times
What stories are your customers and prospective customers hearing about you?
See also, Creation Myths and Why We Need Them: Origins.
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Leadership Development
One of my CEO coaching groups recently discussed the creation of the President/COO role in their companies. I came up with this alliterative and highly distilled suggestion.
- Decisions may be:
- Dictated,
- Discussed, or
- Delegated
To help define the duties of your #2, examine the range of decisions you make as head of the company and notice which you will dictate, discuss, or delegate. Core values, for example, are yours to dictate; the COO complies with your decision or leaves. Strategy is something to discuss, create together, and have a healthy back-and-forth conversation about between the CEO and COO. Hiring a sales rep or changing your health care provider are probably best left entirely to the COO; delegate those areas and keep your handsoff.
by Tony Mayo | Quotes and Aphorisms
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.
Marlene Dietrich
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, Quotes and Aphorisms
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
George Orwell in
Politics and the English Language, 1946
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, Team Manager Skills
“With such an abundance of information available simultaneously at all levels, micromanagement can creep unnoticed into the chain of command and pull it apart. For example, if a general is able to follow an ongoing firefight through email and IM, and he is inclined to believe he knows what’s best for the units in contact, then he very well might start directing those small units from afar, consequently eliminating the need for his colonels, captains, and sergeants to do any thinking of their own.
…
“a commander may be dismayed to find his soldiers have become too heavily reliant on headquarters for critical decisions. That’s dangerous, because sooner or later headquarters won’t be available. Equipment will break; signals will be lost; communications will go down, and almost certainly at the worst times. That’s when the commander will wish most that he had cultivated his men’s initiative rather than tamped it out through incessant electronic directives or rebukes for mistaken decisions.”
IT vs. initiative: The Internet age comes to the battlefield
former US Marine Captain Tyler Boudreau
in The Industry Standard
See also: Your greatest strength is your #1 blindspot
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, How to Set Goals
“For human beings the really important evolutionary advantage is our ability to create new worlds.”
…
“In fact, I think now that the two abilities – finding the truth about the world and creating new worlds-are two sides of the same coins. Theories, in science or childhood, don’t just tell us what’s true – they tell us what’s possible, and they tell us how to get to those possibilities from where we are now. When children learn and when they pretend they use their knowledge of the world to create new possibilities. So do we whether we are doing science or writing novels. I don’t think anymore that Science and Fiction are just both Good Things that complement each other. I think they are, quite literally, the same thing.”
The World Question Center at Edge.org
Alison Gopnik
Psychologist, UC-Berkeley
Coauthor, The Scientist In the Crib
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches
…the killer apps that have really worked on the web have always been about connecting people to one another. So, whether it is instant messaging and e-mail as communications to connect people to one another, whether it’s photo-sharing as a way to connect people to one another through photos, or blogging as a way to connect people to one another through the words, people have always been social and the killer apps that have really succeeded on the web have always been social.
Google’s Joe Krauss in
Knowledge@Wharton
by Tony Mayo | For Salespeople, Quotes and Aphorisms
It’s not what you say that makes the sale,
it’s what you hear.
—Tony Mayo
See also: One More Question on this blog.
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, Team Manager Skills
I got a call from a salesman looking for my help to close a business owner. The salesman was frustrated because the owner so needed the product but was not making a decision, though he was willing to keep talking.
The business owner was tired and frantically busy as his company grew past 100 employees. He was traveling more and more, continually meeting prospective clients, reviewing active projects, and checking on employees. He was proudly a stickler for quality and involved with every detail. His company’s reputation for excellent work was a foundation of their success and growth.
My immediate response was, “Wow! He must have a terrible time retaining key employees.”
“How did you know that?” the salesman exclaimed, “He says that’s his #1 problem.”
“Of course it is. The best people (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Client Comments
Tony is one of the best facilitators I have worked with over the years. As a result of his efforts, our group is able to efficiently delve into complicated topics with ease and clarity. I attribute the success of our TEC Group (now called Vistage) to his business acumen and skill.
Catherine Shaw
President
Basis (a division of Mediastudio)
by Tony Mayo | Quotes and Aphorisms
In any case, even the truth, when believed, is a lie.
You must experience the truth, not believe it.
Werner Erhard
Quoted in
Werner Erhard
The Transformation of a Man:
The Founding of EST
Click for more Dogma Danger.
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Fun
Here’s an article I had published as the cover story of the August 1997, issue of Small Business News. My executive coaching clients still find it useful.
I remember when I sold my first business and got a “real job.” A “real” job is the kind with set hours, limited responsibilities, and weekends off.
Weekends off! What an alien concept. Once I got used to the idea of free time and stopped bringing “special projects” and extra reading home, I noticed something very odd. I got a whole lot more done on the Mondays after a relaxing weekend than I had after struggling with work for seven (or seventy) straight days. Abe Lincoln is said to have declared that if he had eight hours to cut down a tree, he would spend four hours sharpening his saw. Vacation is for sharpening your most important tool: yourself.
Long-term Vacation Planning:
Grow your staff
I once asked the President of a division of a public company, “How do you account for your great success at such a young age?” After a moment’s reflection, he (more…)
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