by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, How to Set Goals
Most of my CEO executive coaching clients have detailed, measurable goals. We use them as navigational aids, comparing interim results with plans and expectations, to help the client make adjustments to their attitudes and activity. I was in the midst of one such review when the client took the conversation in a novel and fruitful direction.
I asked, “Have you looked into that club for sharing exotic sports cars we discussed?”
“I’ve been thinking about that, ” he responded. “Why (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, How to Set Goals
I found more evidence of just how much we lost when Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch died. Today, while revising my executive coaching materials on goal setting and time management, a colleague mentioned that Randy Pausch was most proud of his talk on time management.
We are in the midst of a famine,
a prolonged, widespread deficit of a resource
essential to life: productive time.
Pausch’s talk is a thorough and entertaining presentation of the essentials and I highly recommend it for my executive coaching clients (though I can not agree with every suggestion). You may have heard much of it before, but Professor Pausch’s celebrity, good humor, and excellent example give it tremendous impact. You will do something different and better as a result of watching.
Highlights
• Record and priority rank your tasks to reduce stress
• Batch your tasks, questions, and communications by person
• Schedule blocks of time adequate for the task
• Avoid interruptions and distractions
The video and the PowerPoint slides, along with lots of other Pausch material, are available here.
Watching this talk may leave you with a big question, especially if the advice is familiar. “Why am I not doing these things despite the knowing that they work?” That gap, the mystery between what we know and what we practice, is my domain: executive coaching.
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, How to Set Goals, Technology Tips
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.
A second flaw in most (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Executive Coaches, How to Set Goals, Recommended Books
The Last Word on Power:
Re-Invention for Leaders and Anyone
Who Must Make the Impossible Happen
by Tracy Goss (Betty Sue Flowers, Editor)
Capsule Review
Tracy Goss has long been closely associated with Werner Erhard, the originator of EST and Landmark Education Corporation’s Forum. I expect happy graduates of those programs to be very happy with this book (I am and I am). The book presents the central concepts of those programs very clearly and in a format designed to help business people put the “distinctions” to work immediately. I doubt, however, that a person not trained in ontological coaching could get much sense from these pages. It can seem to be merely jargon and wild promises unless you have actually put the techniques to work for yourself with the assistance of a coach (as I have and I do).
For people experienced with the methods, this book is an effective refresher and spur to action. A friend and I (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, How to Set Goals
I frequently coach individuals and groups on long-term goal setting. I have found a subtle trap that you can easily avoid if you take a moment to notice that not everything progresses at the same rate.
A great benefit of specific plans is the opportunity to track progress. After my clients set a ten year goal, I invite them to imagine themselves in the future, ten years hence, with the goal achieved. I then ask, “Look back five years. Tell me how much progress you had made at the halfway point.”
This where most people make a crucial error. Luckily, it is easy to avoid.
Let’s say you have set a goal for (more…)
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, How to Set Goals
“For human beings the really important evolutionary advantage is our ability to create new worlds.”
…
“In fact, I think now that the two abilities – finding the truth about the world and creating new worlds-are two sides of the same coins. Theories, in science or childhood, don’t just tell us what’s true – they tell us what’s possible, and they tell us how to get to those possibilities from where we are now. When children learn and when they pretend they use their knowledge of the world to create new possibilities. So do we whether we are doing science or writing novels. I don’t think anymore that Science and Fiction are just both Good Things that complement each other. I think they are, quite literally, the same thing.”
The World Question Center at Edge.org
Alison Gopnik
Psychologist, UC-Berkeley
Coauthor, The Scientist In the Crib
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, Leadership Development
I recently came across this email I sent to a client after an executive coaching conversation. It has broad applicability for leaders.
The key from today is: get very clear about and keep your attention on the future you are committed to and the values at your core. Develop the discipline to pause and assess each event and communication in light of your commitments. Take your next step in service to your future, not as a reaction based on automatic, unexamined assessments from your past. Learn your triggers (people exhibiting disrespect, for example, or lack of candor) and move them into the realm of choice instead of letting them run you.
People follow a leader who is pulled by a compelling future and is adept at using data from a variety of sources, even unfriendly ones. They are made uncomfortable by an authority who is the victim of events or who devotes his energy to repairing the past. Instead, use the precious present to set-up a fulfilling future.
—Tony Mayo
Click to download as a printable Adobe .PDF file.
by Tony Mayo | How to Set Goals, Quotes and Aphorisms
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
–From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
published by Alfred A. Knopf/Vintage.
Copyright © 1994 by The Estate of Langston Hughes.
by Tony Mayo | For Business Owners, For Salespeople, How to Set Goals
Three versions. One contemporary, the second hundreds of years old, and the third thousands. One colloquial, the other literary, the last allegorical. The same abiding wisdom.
One:
A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.
“Not very long,” answered the Mexican.
“But then, why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?” asked the American.
The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.
The American asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. I have a full life.”
The American interrupted, “I have (more…)
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