Living apart and at peace with myself, I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance.To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others, to refrain, even though the motives be the highest, from tampering with another’s way of life – so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit.
Hands off!
— Henry Miller
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):
What am I attached to? I can free myself from identifying with this outcome and turn my attention toward my true values. –Top Executive Coach Tony Mayo
If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. — Martin Luther King Jr.
The first rule of long-term planning is, “Survive the short term.”
Listen before speaking, empathize before judging, join before leading. –CEO Executive Coach Tony Mayo
Why am I soft in the middle now? The rest of my life is so hard. —Paul Simon
Prior tweets are here, at Twitter Logs.
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©2011 Tony Mayo
Could a simple five-minute interaction with another person dramatically increase your weekly productivity?
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employees who know how their work has a meaningful, positive impact on others are not just happier than those who don’t; they are vastly more productive, too. … “Even minimal, brief contact with beneficiaries can enable employees to maintain their motivation,” the researchers write in their paper, titled Impact and the Art of Motivation Maintenance: The Effects of Contact with Beneficiaries on Persistence Behavior, published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
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the one-two punch of knowing the beneficiary’s needs and meeting him in person generated the largest impact on motivation.
—The Art of Motivating Employees
Knowledge@Wharton
See also, on this blog, step-by-step conversation instructions with video here:
The Conversation Contract.
Revolution is in the air around the world. People everywhere are fed up with having arbitrary power exercised over them, with 
impractical limits placed on their everyday actions, with living in constant fear that someone in power will frown at them and destroy their livelihood without warning or objective justification. This global revolution differs from the Marxist model of the dispossessed and disaffected rising up from poverty to overthrow the business class. This time, educated professionals are actively engaged in the resistance. As a result, people long accustomed to wielding authority and position are rapidly changing the way they run things. Suddenly, leaders in many countries are peacefully giving up some of their power in hopes of participating in a new, more prosperous and humane community.
I am not talking about foreign countries. I am talking about where you work.
For as long as I have been in the business world employees have been mystified and upset by the performance review process. The managers conducting the reviews find them arbitrary, uncomfortable, and (more…)
I just 
read a talk by the head of the US government’s Office of Personnel Management, John Berry. He provides a concise and cogent summary of the new management thinking that I hope will become a major influence in organizations around the world. This shift in management is, I believe, the result of two major trends. First, the crash of 2008 made it very clear that we had been placing too much emphasis and confidence in our top leaders while day-to-day quality of life for the rank-and-file stagnated or declined. Second, a huge wave of research in behavioral economics and positive psychology is shifting management practice toward methods that are tested and proven rather than anecdotal and heuristic.
Below are excerpts from the speech that illustrate some of my favorite points, the practices I emphasize with my own CEO executive coaching clients.
But don’t read my excerpts.
I recommend that leaders of organizations, particularly chief executives, read his entire speech by clicking here. Try to forget that he is speaking about government employees. Ignore references to the President and Congress. Imagine, instead, that you made this speech to your managers and employees. What would the impact be of making these changes in your own leadership style, in your company’s performance review process, in your day-to-day life?
Selected remarks of OPM Director John Berry
Interagency Resource Management Conference
Kellogg Conference Center
What if, when setting performance standards, we engaged our employees and got clear about expectations? What if we made sure performance standards were detailed, objective, aligned to agency mission and goals, and had employee buy-in – that they weren’t just dictated from on high?
Consider the four essential pieces of how we currently manage performance: (more…)
What personality type is more likely to succeed in a leadership position? If you go by popular culture — television, movies, and books written by hero CEOs — you might think extroverts are natural leaders. Research summarized in an excellent article published by Wharton suggests a more nuanced answer.
Employees who are proactive and eager to have their ideas considered will be more productive with an introverted leader, who has the humility and patience to accept employee feedback. Extroverted leaders seem able to get more from passive, less group-oriented employees. This may explain part of a common business mistake, promoting a top salesperson into management. The extroversion that made the salesperson so successful may make her an inappropriate leader of other extroverts.
As a leader, know thyself and select followers that complement your style. As a business executive, consider the personalities of the people to be led when selecting their supervisor. If you already have an extrovert in charge of a group of proactive employees consider some executive coaching to help the extrovert become a better listener and more receptive to the ideas of others. If you have an introvert in charge of a department full of passive people you may need to find some other ways to motivate them to exert themselves and bring useful new ideas forward.
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This latest podcast is part three of a funny and useful conversation between top executive coach Tony Mayo and his longtime client Ron Dimon. Ron is an expert on the use of information by executives of large organizations. Listen as two experienced business people play with useful ideas in this episode including:
Just click here to listen now or subscribe on your device using Apple’s Tunes, Android, and other podcatchers to have this and all new episodes placed on your device as they become available.
Thanks to MusicOpen for providing public domain recordings of Beethoven.
My CEO executive coaching clients frequently wonder how best to motivate and retain key employees. The question often takes the form of, “Should I give her an unscheduled bonus or a raise?” The business owner often tends toward a raise because it defers the cash outlay. My study of psychology recommends the bonus.
I have written about Professor Christopher Hsee of the Booth School of Business before. Recently he spoke explicitly about the bonus vs. raise question. “If you ask a typical employee, he or she will tell you they want the salary. But that’s because they don’t understand psychology,” Hsee said. “You should give them the bonus instead. Salary is stable and people adapt to the new salary level quickly. Bonuses are not as easy to adapt to.”
Hsee also supports my advice about giving a gift, particularly something the employee wants but might not indulge in. “Give somebody something they like but won’t (more…)
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):
Meditation is not what you think. Click here for more information.
Micro-management like autoimmune disease: too much control destroys the organism. Click here for more information.
Can the boss relax on vacation? Here’s how: http://tr.im/vacation
Most business books are worse than wrong. http://dld.bz/eTmg
Two keys to group cohesion: clarity and verity. Make your meetings better: http://tr.im/2agree
I’ve worked Monday and Tues made progress W,Th&F completed tasks on Sat&Sun No one ever did anything on “someday.” http://tr.im/smrs
Psychologist proves: Tracking your goal progress creates more time Click here for more information.
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. T.S. Eliot
To succeed in business it is helpful to read from spreadsheet, hopeless to lead from a spreadsheet.
Service to others is the rent we pay for being on earth –RIP Tony Curtis 1925-2010
I have discovered that all human evil comes from man’s being unable to sit still and quiet in a room alone –Blaise Pascal 1623-1662 Simple meditation instructions here.
Prior tweets are here, at Twitter Logs.
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©2010 Tony Mayo
The Harvard Business Review reprinted a wonderful speech by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton M. Christensen titled, “How Will You Measure Your Life?” Along with plenty of great advice for new graduates he shared some keen insights on executive coaching.
If I had been suckered into telling Andy Grove what he should think about the microprocessor business, I’d have been killed. But instead of telling him what to think, I taught him how to think—and then he reached what I felt was the correct decision on his own.
That experience had a profound influence on me. When people ask what I think they should do, I rarely answer their question directly. Instead, I run the question aloud through one of my models. I’ll describe how the process in the model worked its way through an industry quite different from their own. And then, more often than not, (more…)
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