by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners
In 2003, Aron Ralston amputated his own arm after he was trapped by a boulder in a Utah canyon. Six years later, he still struggles with the meaning of his survival.
It’s not about what you do; it’s about who you are.
I still do like adventures. But it’s different. It’s not coming from an esteem-building, need-fulfillment place, like my life won’t amount to something if I’m not the first person to make some major accomplishment.
Now I’ve identified what that source is, and it’s love.
We’re tapping into that source of strength and courage when we feel love, and we do it for our families and our friends and hopefully for the world at large. Those opportunities are out there all the time, and hopefully we’re doing it for that instead of just our own egos.
–Pushing the Limit
Climber Still Seeks Larger
Meaning in His Epic Escape
NYTimes.com.
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners
I was lucky to attend a benefit dinner last night for injured combat veterans. About 100 local business people paid $275 each to reserve a room at Morton’s steak house in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. They invited a small group of soldiers undergoing treatment at Walter Reed to join them for a meal and the NCAA basketball game, projected on huge screens at both ends of the room. It was one of many small, unpublicized gestures people routinely make to support and appreciate each other.
The evening was short on ceremony but did include one brief speech that made a lasting impression. Captain Roger Donlon, who earned the first Medal of Honor in Viet Nam, reminded the soldiers present that, though some of them have earned Silver Stars and other medals for valor and all were permanently injured in battle, their most courageous acts may be ahead of them as they faced the normal temptations and challenges of life. He closed by saying,
“I and the other warriors here know that the most powerful force in the world is not hatred for the enemy but love for the man next to you.“
That love was much in evidence last night, amongst the wounded warriors and between the businessmen. I was lucky to be there.
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches
Alessandro Bianchi
Marshall Goldsmith, nearly always introduced as “America’s foremost executive coach,” has written some fine books and helped many executives. My only complaint is that what he does, in my experience, is advising and consulting not executive coaching.
The vital difference is evident in his post today at the Harvard Business Review website, How to Spot the Uncoachables. Goldsmith describes his executive coaching clients in negative terms more appropriate to a particularly judgmental therapist than a respectful coach: “wrong direction,” “fix behavior,” and “It’s hard to help people who don’t think they have a problem.”
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Stress Management
One topic eventually appears in nearly every conversation with my executive coaching clients: stress. Everyone is aware of increased stress. For many, stress is the dominant experience. Let’s examine the mechanism, symptoms, and treatments.
Stress is a word imported from engineering, where it refers to pressure sufficient to cause a body to deform. High stress can permanently alter the form and function of the material bearing the load, even to the point of destruction. No wonder that endocrinologist Hans Selye chose stress to describe the reactions of lab rats to his injections of what would later be labeled stress hormones: cortisol, adrenaline, etc. You and I do not need an injection to experience the symptoms of stress; we make plenty of these hormones ourselves.
Some immediate symptoms of excessive emotional stress are:
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Leadership Development
Why? Because employees are more sensitive to mood than leaders often realise. And these moods are contagious. Research carried out by Caroline Bartel at New York University and Richard Saavedra at the University of Michigan found that in 70 different teams, people working together in meetings ended up sharing moods – whether good or bad – within two hours. And bad moods spread faster than good ones.
In their 2001 Harvard Business Review article “Primal leadership”, Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKie argued that one of the key duties of leadership – they say it is the most important one of all – is to manage your emotions with care.
–Stefan Stern
Financial Times
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Leadership Development
A friend considering whether to propose marriage wrote to me in 1995 to request coaching. Here is my response.
In my first marriage, arguments with my wife followed a common format: I attacked and withdrew (what John Grey refers to as “the bear healing in his cave”). In my cave, I found myself stewing over imagined details of how we would divide the furniture, whether I would lose half of my library and the joys of returning to dating and seduction. Then we would cool off and gradually return to normal. But conflicts occur in close relationships, so I had lots of opportunity to (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Leadership Development, Team Manager Skills
Many companies and organizations are dealing with multiple changes right now to adapt to the huge shifts in our economy: layoffs, salary reductions, and freezes, office closings, budget cuts, etc. My CEO executive coaching clients are making painful decisions, managing personal stress, communicating more often with employees, customers, and suppliers. All of that is useful and important.
I also find it useful to remind managers that change is not quick or easy for companies.
Leaders, especially the most dynamic, creative, and entrepreneurial, must keep in mind that stability is in the nature of organizations. That’s why we call them organizations, rather than alterizations or adaptizations. People, especially in groups, need (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Stress Management
“Soldiers require 7-8 hours of good quality sleep each night to sustain operational readiness,” according to … the U.S. Army Medical Command. … “sheer determination or willpower cannot offset the mounting effects of inadequate sleep”…
Scans of sleep-deprived brains, when compared to scans of alert subjects’ brains, show less activity in the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain associated with high order functions like problem-solving, judgment and moral decision-making, he said. …the people who should sleep the most are unit leaders who make mission-critical decisions. …
[If you can’t change your work schedule, at least adjust your weekend routine.] Sleep can be “banked,” Balkin said. Soldiers forced to sleep for 10 hours, who were then sleep deprived for a week, performed better than soldiers who had only a normal night’s rest on the first night.
–Stars and Stripes
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Stress Management
I make simple techniques for achieving calm and centering a foundation practice in my executive coaching. You can download instructions from my podcast here, Find Your Center Before You Act.
I recently heard conductor Lorin Maazel tell NPR’s Terry Gross how important centering is to his ability to perform effectively and avoid injury, even at his “advanced age.” You can hear his two minutes of instruction by clicking here. The evident skepticism in Ms. Gross’s voice tells me that she had not yet adopted deep breathing and conscious muscle relaxation as a regular practice. I hope the maestro’s endorsement moved her to try centering. The complete episode of NPR’s Fresh Air is available here.
Click here to learn how to center.
___
© 2009 Tony Mayo
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners
I studied 100 founders of Inc. Magazine’s 1989 list of the 500 fastest growing private companies in the U.S. Virtually all of them had started between 1981-83 in the midst of an awful recession.
But that didn’t prevent those founders from starting a new venture — in fact, in many ways it may have helped. Several had lost their jobs, so they weren’t risking steady employment — and they were able to hire employees who didn’t have great job prospects on the cheap. Landlords offered leases without asking too many questions about credit histories. Suppliers were willing to wait to be paid.
—Amar Bhidé
Columbia Business School
“The Venturesome Economy.”
Why Bad Times Nurture New Inventions
NYTimes.com
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