by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Leadership Development
At Accelerent, I was lucky to meet the commander of the USS Cole and hear his story of the day his destroyer was nearly sunk by al-Qaeda. Kirk Lippold made clear that his ship was saved mostly because of how he led and trained his crew in the years prior to the attack, rather than by any dramatic decisions or heroics on October 12, 2000.
His “Five Pillars of Leadership” are:
• Integrity
• Vision
• Personal Responsibility and Accountability
• Trust and Invest
• Professional Competence
He gave a thrilling and informative presentation. I particularly thanked him for illustrating the masterful use of chain of command, maximizing his impact as a leader by improving his officers rather than continually reaching down to personally resolve specific issues.
The Navy, unfortunately, tends to be rather unforgiving of officers whose ships are damaged so Kirk Lippold never made Captain. The military’s loss is our gain as he tours the country sharing his leadership lessons.
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Leadership Development
The winners of the Distinguished Alumni Award at a top business school were asked, “What leads to success in business–a lucky experience or a series of planned decisive steps?”
These Chicago Booth graduates:
- Broadway producer
- Goldman Sachs COO
- Harley-Davidson CEO
- Morningstar COO
easily agreed:
It is luck.
Give yourself some slack. Success involves chance as well as virtue.
Luck plays a meaningful role in everyone’s lives.
–James Simons
#1 Hedge Fund Manager
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, Leadership Development, Team Manager Skills
What coach has had the greatest impact on a client? The man with the strongest claim may be Earl Woods, whose famous client is his son, golfer Tiger Woods. How did Earl Woods become such a fantastic coach?
By studying, as I have, with the most important influence on executive coaching, Werner Erhard. Some of Earl Woods’s coaching wisdom is below, excerpted from the 1996 article in Sports Illustrated about Tiger being chosen Sportsman of the Year. It is all pure Werner Erhard.
“What I learned through est [created by Werner Erhard] was that by doing more for myself, I could do much more for others. Yes, be responsible, but love life, and give people the space to be in your life, and allow yourself room to give to others. That caring and sharing is what’s most important, not being responsible for everyone else.
“Which is where Tiger comes in. What I learned led me to give so much time to Tiger, and to give him the space to be himself, and not to smother him with dos and don’ts. I took out the authority aspect and turned it into (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Leadership Development
I was very pleased to be invited to a meeting with former MCI Worldcom internal auditor, Cynthia Cooper, sponsored by Accelerent. She is the employee who discovered and “blew the whistle” on the $11 billion financial fraud that, along with Enron, changed corporate governance in America. Unfortunately, similar frauds continue to be perpetrated. Her story, also told in Extraordinary Circumstances, illustrates an important principle of business integrity.
Business crimes are seldom committed by evil people searching for opportunities to lie, cheat, or steal. Most misdeeds, from pilfering pens and misusing the copier to billion-dollar stock frauds, are carried out by regular people who have rationalized small steps over the line. At MCI Worldcom, accountants reclassified some reserves into revenue because the CFO said (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, Leadership Development, Team Manager Skills
Wharton research on emotion in the workplace:
Employees’ moods, emotions, and overall dispositions have an impact on job performance, decision making, creativity, turnover, teamwork, negotiations and leadership. … employees’ emotions are integral to what happens in an organization, says Professor Barsade, who has been doing research in the area of emotions and work dynamics for 15 years.
Everybody brings their emotions to work. You bring your brain to work. You bring your emotions to work. Feelings drive performance. They drive behavior and other feelings.
Think of people as emotion conductors.
–Sigal Barsdale
Managing Emotions in the Workplace
Do Positive and Negative Attitudes Drive Performance?
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 | Leadership Development, Recommended Books
Here is my take on a classic novel about personal transformation along with some intriguing exploration of paradigms, human perception, and frames of reference.
First, this blurb…
Thanks so much for putting this into words. It is the most concise and accurate analysis of this work that I have ever read. The Razor’s Edge has been my favorite book for many years. I re-read it often. And now I will be able to look at it with a fresh eye again.
Thank you. Terrific work.
–Jack Randall Earles, playwright
Top Executive Coach Tony Mayo’s essay on
The Razor’s Edge
by W. Somerset Maugham
The Razor’s Edge is often described as the story of Larry, a war veteran who forsakes a comfortable life in Chicago “society” for a vague spiritual quest. It is better appreciated as a portrait of his acquaintances, whose conventional lifestyles are starkly contrasted to the path walked by the seeker. Some readers have wished to know more of Larry and criticize the space and attention Maugham lavished upon the “ancillary” characters. Instead, The Razor’s Edge illuminates the spiritual path by focusing on people more like the typical reader, people who do not give up materialistic Western striving. The best way to see Larry is to look at what he is not.
This narrative technique succeeds wonderfully in the masterful hands of author W. Somerset Maugham, best known for Of Human Bondage. Rather than simply lay out the details of Larry’s explorations and development, which, being spiritual and internal, would be rather dull to watch, Maugham reveals Larry by dissecting the contrasting behavior of his associates.
The Positive Aspects of Negative Space
This reminds me of the artist’s exercise of drawing “negative space” instead of the object itself. By carefully sketching only those parts of the background visible around the figure one creates a suggestive (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, Leadership Development, Meetings
I heard one CEO executive coaching client summarize the tremendous value of his coach’s listening and probing by saying, “This is where I come to get my answers questioned.” Top executives, especially those operating in a strong corporate culture, can find themselves in an echo chamber where everyone seems to be saying the same thing, thereby confusing their mutual agreement with reality. It is the most “obvious” assumptions that most severely constrict our thinking.
Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here,” he started, and everyone nodded their heads in agreement. “Then,” he went on, “I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until the next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement, and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”
–Alfred Sloan
GM 1923-1956
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