Give up clinging to the illusion of certainty, said executive coach Tony Mayo. Accounting is a black and white world and as such attracts people who like certainty. However, once you move from being a bookkeeper to being a CFO, you are dealing with the future rather than keeping track of the past. “We think we can control the outcomes, but we can’t, so trade certainty for confidence,” Mayo said. “Confidence that you can handle what is coming next. Rather than trying to control and constrain, let’s learn how to respond and create.”
Understand your purpose. “If you identify yourself with a particular number occurring on a particular day, you can’t win,” said Mayo, so get clear about your purpose as a human, as an executive and as an organization.
A small group of leaders in the DC Metro area is interviewing potential new members for their coaching group. Details below or you can download a brochure here: http://tiny.cc/gsvsop
Your organization and your responsibilities can grow only as fast as you do. Participate in Genuine Success: Vitality, Service, and Outstanding Performance (GS:VSOP) to develop your expertise in the only career strategy that is endlessly scalable. Leadership: the ability to get things done with and through other people.
GS:VSOP is a continuing program to provide business people with structure, tools, and support to produce nonlinear, unpredicted, massive results at work while enjoying a high level of personal satisfaction, fulfillment, and vitality.
GS:VSOP’s unique mix of traditional business principles, cutting-edge brain science, powerful one-to-one coaching, and ancient disciplines assures you a productive and profitable experience.
Each month, you will grow as a leader through a full day of group learning with other successful leaders; participate in one-to-one coaching sessions with your group leader; be held accountable for implementing your vision with follow-up sessions and field practice.
Program topics include influence and persuasion, organization and planning, finance, self-management and growth, focus and concentration, integrity, communication, health, and fitness. See brochure for more details.
This program is for leaders who:
Aim to achieve transformational growth & breakthrough results.
Want to improve ROI & speed growth.
Are frustrated with “business as usual” & just know “there’s got to be a better way.”
Are ready to get more done with less stress.
Apply their knowledge to innovate & make things happen.
Strive for a greater clarity & confidence.
Are ready to take bolder action, to employ their talents & resources thoroughly.
You’ll learn why you behave the way you do and how to alter your conversations for greater performance and how to consistently achieve significant measurable organization-wide improvements.
Schedule a conversation with Tony Mayo to find out if this program is right for you by clicking here.
To me, leadership is a journey toward wholeness.
A leader’s journey starts by looking inward to understand, “Why am I here?” and “What is it that I’m here to do?”
–- Joe Jaworski, MIT
Society for Organizational Learning
I frequently encourage my top executive coaching clients to set specific measurable goals and to chart their progress visually. For example, my free trailing twelve month Excel template is very popular. Download it by clicking here.
Here is an even simpler and more visually striking graphic you can use. Enter your own title, goal amount and current status and get a one-page, printable thermometer to display your progress for yourself or the entire team. This is similar to my earlier goal thermometer with the added feature of showing the time elapsed since the project was started.
I frequently encourage my CEO executive coaching clients to set specific measurable goals and to chart their progress visually. For example, my free trailing twelve month Excel template is very popular. Download it by clicking here.
Here is an even simpler and more visually striking graphic you can use. Enter your own title, goal amount and current status and get a one page, printable thermometer to display your progress for yourself or the entire team.
Feel free to share this with your friends and colleagues. Please do not remove my name or web address from the Excel spreadsheet.
You may also download an improved version with schedule information, too, e.g., for a monthly goal the thermometer displays how much of the month has passed. Get it for free by clicking here.
See also Tony’s complete goal setting kit, with audio and workbook,
free on this blog.
My executive coaching clients and readers of this blog have found my quick and easy Trailing Twelve Month tool very useful. You can download the Excel spreadsheet for free here.
I also encourage my CEO clients to keep a close eye on margins. I have modified the Trailing Twelve Month tool to show monthly results and long-term trends for your business’s margin. The key difference is that since margin is a percentage it makes no sense to look at the sum of twelve months of margins. This new spreadsheet instead shows the twelve-month moving average of your gross margin. Download it by clicking here.
See also Tony’s complete goal setting kit, with audio and workbook,
free on this blog.
I asked a wealthy client about the beginnings of his fortune. As a child, he accumulated $600 through odd jobs and gifts. While in college in the early 1960s, he invested this savings into the stock market. By the time he got out of school he had multiplied his stake into enough cash to support himself for years, travel to Europe, and finance his first business.
I remarked, “Even in the go-go bull market of the 60s, that is an amazing return. You must have made some very smart investments. Why didn’t you continue onto a career in investing?”
My client is not a modest or self-effacing man, but he does see events clearly. He replied, “I did make some good investments, but I was smart enough to know I was lucky.”
Maybe this is why we use the same word, fortune, for both “chance” and “wealth.”
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?”
I have been repeatedly surprised to hear from many of my CEO executive coaching clients that, of all the many skills needed for the top job, one area where they often readily admit weakness is in financial insight. They rely on their accountants or a “numbers geek” to watch and even interpret company results. A fundamental reason for this blind spot is, I believe, that so many CEOs are highly visual, intuitive thinkers. Rows of precise digits are not their preferred form of communication. It is essential, therefore, to display financial and quantitative data visually to have it used and absorbed by these executives.
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