Hard Money Bankers presents, Moving from What is Necessary to What is Possible, a conversation with Executive Coach to Business Owners Tony Mayo about the power of goal setting. Includes a link to a free goal setting workbook and audio guide.
Are you a business owner thinking about whether coaching might improve the performance of your COO or another key executive? My answer is, “Yes,” in most cases, but only if the CEO is being coached. I’ve learned the hard way over the years that I can have a major, enduring impact with a COO or other direct report only when I am also coaching the CEO. I believe this is generally the case with true executive coaches.1
Any growth or development on the part of a subordinate that is not shared by the boss is likely to have two unwanted effects. First, the boss’s unchanged behavior will undermine and thwart the direct report’s new behavior. Second, the developing key executive will either abandon the changes or judge the boss to be the bigger problem and leave. As one blunt coach said to a prospect, “If I fix your VP without you moving in the same direction, you will become the problem.”
If your COO needs only “management training” there are plenty of less costly ways to get it. Start with the basic books, for example, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People, Ken Blanchard’s One Minute Manager, almost anything by Peter Drucker, starting with Management, and the classic by Bill Oncken Who’s Got the Monkey? (free download)
Stay away from inspiring stores of genius leaders such as Steve Jobs, Harold Geneen, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, etc. They are unique, lucky, and extraordinarily difficult to work with. They certainly were not copying anyone. Anyone attempting to copy them is likely to cause disasters both financial and personal.
These recommendations for management training, as with executive coaching, require the ultimate leader and influencer (you, the CEO/Owner) to learn and practice the same techniques.
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1 I say true executive coaches because, these days, every consultant, trainer, and even many salespeople now call themselves coaches. That’s a topic for another post.
WHO & CDC recommendations for physical distancing A/K/A social distancing do not fully protect bystanders from a sneezing person who carries a viral infection, presumably including SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Stay home!
JAMA Insights
March 26, 2020
Turbulent Gas Clouds and Respiratory Pathogen Emissions
Potential Implications for Reducing Transmission of COVID-19
What you need most right now and for the coming weeks isn’t alcohol wipes or N-95 masks. It is reliable information. The difficulties of obtaining it are examined thoroughly and frightfully here, in a broadcast from WNYC, On the Media | Covering a Pandemic: Epidemic Voyeurs No More
#1: Rely on information directly from scientists and medical specialists.
Here are reliable sources:
#2: Get Ready NOW! (more…)
A global pandemic now seems inevitable.
I happened to see this article, What Happens in the Brain When We Disagree, a few minutes after coaching a client on an important negotiation. The essence of what these scientists discovered by watching brain activity during a hypothetical real estate negotiation is, when people disagreed, their brains became less sensitive to the strength of others’ opinions.
(1) If we sense that the counterparty essentially agrees with our fundamental position we are able to logically consider their evidence, even if it contradicts our position.
(2) If we sense they disagree, our response is dominated by the fear-generating parts of the brain and we dig into a defensive, less logical posture.
This confirms the old adage, Start by establishing common ground, e.g., Philosopher Daniel Dennett on How to Argue.
How to compose a successful critical commentary:
Is there anything about human relations that has not been written thousands of years ago?
He that answereth a matter before he heareth it,
it is folly and shame unto him
Watch my three-minute talk for TEDx Tysons on why so many jobs stink –and what you can do about it.
See more of Tony’s speeches here:
https://tonymayo.com/keynote-speeches-tony-mayo/
You may also enjoy this blog post:
TRANSCRIPT:
We live in America, “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” yet we meekly surrender our freedom at work. I know, “We call it ‘work’ because ‘play’ means something else.” But we give up so much so easily! Employers dictate whether we wear our hair: long or short, covered or uncovered, coifed, clipped, combed, or corn-rowed. Whether we are allowed to wind down after work with alcohol, nicotine, or cannabis. Or, whether we wind down at all, with texts, emails, and travel at all hours of any day. We let them record our phone calls, read our emails, count our keystrokes, search our pockets, and time our bathroom breaks. We must not discuss our pay or take a job less than …_X_ miles away, then get fired anyway over a Tweet or a bumper sticker. There are even worse examples, but…
You don’t need more evidence that too many jobs are intrusive and demeaning. You know … You know it! I can tell. You may even know that inventing and enforcing these rules wastes money and reduces profits. I’m not here to prove that this is a problem. I’m here with the solution. I have the answer! … The answer… is, “No.”… “Just …say, …’No!'”
My friend took a job on the Hubble Space Telescope, where programmers had not delivered a single finished program in three years. When he heard his first deadline, he said, “No! I need more time.” His boss shrugged. My friend delivered working code “late” -but on the exact date he promised.
He got another assignment with another impossible due date. Again, …he delivered on the date he promised. He didn’t get a third program to code. He got three programmers to manage. His team delivered quality code on the dates they promised. So, they put him in charge of all the programmers. Not because he was a coding savant. Not because he was a charismatic leader. No, just because he had demonstrated the awesome power of, “No.”
Our reluctance to say, “No,” comes from fear.
Fear that you are your job.
Fear that your income is your value.
That is not who you are. You get to say who you are.
You get to say, “No,” anytime, anywhere, to anyone. Because we live in America, “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
Click here to listen as Matt and Dan speak with Tony on the SPRH podcast about how you can go deep into your purpose for your small business.
Tony shares practical tips to help business owners to run a larger, more lucrative business with less stress & overwhelm.
You may also enjoy The Conversation Contract podcast episode or this blog post from Tony, One more question…
Video Transcript by Machine for the sake of the search engines:
hello today is my birthday and of course that’s not unexpected it’s done scheduled it’s known it’s been coming for quite a while and last few weeks I’ve certainly thought about it more than once the implications of reaching this advanced age and I’ll admit my attitude toward it was pretty well reflected by the change in the seasons as the day is that shorter darker damper the leaves turned and fell from the trees I was thinking about maybe I should move into sort of an elder role back off from some goals not expect quite so much out of life and just turn into an old man but I happened to hear an interview with the actor Michael Caine and he mentioned that at his 62nd birthday which is the age on that right now he’s seriously considered giving up his acting career because he wasn’t getting the roles as the romantic lead anymore they wanted him to be the secondary character actor and he didn’t want to do that but his good friend Jack Nicholson talked him into taking one of those roles and now that he’s 85 years old he has continued to make a movie or three every year including what Michael Caine considers some of his best work more important closer to home my good friend Ralph Lee Smith who was a great musician and the world’s foremost expert on dulcimers he was in Greenwich Village you know with the Beat Generation and got to know Bob Dylan and Joan Baez he had his 92nd birthday this week 92 he’s 30 years older than I am 30 years that’s a lot of life in the past 30 years I I met married and raised three fine adults with my beloved wife Christine it may be just as many more adventures successes disappointments ideas I mean who knows what’s gonna happen in the next 30 years maybe I’ll get those and you know maybe I won’t maybe I’ve just got today like everyone we’ve only got today a long string of “nows” now to appreciate where we are what we’ve got and what might be next to anticipate contemplate and that’s what happens on my birthday when I get a greeting from a good friend like you who reminds me that I matter to other people and that those other people matter so much to me so your birthday greeting makes a big difference to me thanks for reaching out and reminding me that what really matters is our impact on other people and the impact of other people on us I appreciate you and thanks for reminding me of how much you appreciate me happy birthday to us all so long
If you took a business or economics course in the past quarter-century, you were probably taught that the sole purpose of a corporation is to return cash to its shareholders. This widely accepted and seldom challenged idea is a dangerous innovation from the 1960s that radically departs from the centuries-long social contract under which corporations were invented, created, and proliferated. This relatively recent change is responsible for many harmful corporate decisions and disastrous government policies. It is well past time voters and shareholders got our corporations back on their more beneficial and benevolent track.
I could lay out all the historical details and legal arguments here, but I’ve already made the case in a much more accessible and entertaining form. Chapter eight of my first novel, Crimes of Cunning, covers it thoroughly. To help inform the public, I am making that chapter available for free, right here.
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