Alan Mulally, ex-CEO of Ford, spoke to the Vistage membership recently. He shared his own life story, and his advice to CEOs on how to lead in these times of uncertainty.
I share what people are looking for in the video below.
If you liked this video, you will also like Indra Nooyi ex-CEO Pepsi on Leadership in Times of Crisis and Leaders must develop 2 capacities in the people around them.
Back in 2009, Stanford prof Tina Seelig split students in the school of engineering into teams and gave them an envelope containing $5.
Teams had only two hours to generate as much money as possible. Each team would get three minutes to present their project to the entire class.
Here is Tina’s own article explaining the experience: The $5 Challenge
Check out the video below to hear how the challenge went… and how to use this thinking in your own life and business…
The teams that made the most money didn’t use the five dollars at all.
They realised that focusing on the money actually framed the problem way too tightly. They understood that five dollars is essentially nothing and decided to reinterpret the problem more broadly: What can we do to make money if we start with absolutely nothing?
In our own lives and businesses it is very easy to limit ourselves to “how do I do more of what I am already good at?” or “How do I use my current capacities to maximise return?”.
It feels good to share a video again… it has been 6 weeks of procrastination. Thanks to all of you who reached out with encouragements and ideas!
…is much better than making “correct” decisions
A committed decision is much more powerful than a “correct” decision.
A committed decision takes full responsibility.
A committed decision knows that there are risks and challenges that you will have to find a way to overcome.
A committed decision changes your life.
Are you overwhelmed with the weight of the world? Are too many problems weighing you down and making life feel heavy? Are you tired?
I heard this story on the Tim Ferriss podcast recently, and I found it quite profound for such a seemingly “simple” story.
It reminds me of another video that I made several years ago – on the most important lesson I have learnt in life.
The most important lesson for me is the Wisdom prayer of St Francis of Asisi…
Give me the strength to change the things I can change,
Give me the patience to accept the things I cannot change,
and Give me the Wisdom to tell the difference.
Here’s the old video (from Paris): The most important lesson.
We have a wonderful capacity to mess up our lives through lazy or fantasy thinking. We make blanket black and white statements… rather than seeking the shades of grey.
Life is richer than black and white. You don’t hate every single part, activity, person in your job… be really specific – what do you like, what do you not like.
Solve the solve-able problems. If you don’t like something find a way to do less of it. Find someone who enjoys it. If you do like something, find a way to do more of it. Spend more time with the people who give you energy.
I love the approach of “Design Thinking”. Stay with your curiosity and take time to get the question correct. How do I improve my job, make a greater impact, feel like I am doing meaningful work, while being paid well, and enjoying my social life and with a family that is supportive of each other… you need messy questions to start to clarify what constraints, what changes, what problems you will stick with.
This week we had Xavier Marcet as the keynote speaker for our anual Vistage all-member event on the subject of Humanistic Management.
Xavier Marcet has a regular column in the la Vanguardia newspaper that regularly gets up to a million views. He shares thoughts about “humanistic management” and has published 3 books – the last two being “Avoiding Mediocrity” and “Grow helping others grow”.
Xavier’s definition of Humanistic Management is “getting results, but taking great care of the means by which you get results.”
Xavier shared 16 reflections on what it takes to be a “humanistic” manager… although something got lost in my notes and I only have 15 in my notebook 😉
Our emotional experience of life can depend on the time horizon we choose to look at our lives.
If you look at the progress of your life each day, there are many wild swings.
If you look at the progress of your life over longer time horizons, the wild swings blur into the background and a more steady sense of progress emerges.
Which lens are you using to look at your projects? and your life?
“I’ve never met a rich optimist”
Russell Kane
I heard this quote this morning on the High Performance podcast, and it made me stop and reflect.
I was an optimist for the first 40 years of life… and I’m working hard to change… Optimism is good for happiness, but not for taking disciplined, difficult actions that make a positive impact on your future.
Check out the video above, filmed in Seville next to the Cathedral.
If you liked this post, you will also like I know what I want to do, so why don’t I do it? and There is no Freedom without Self Discipline.
Over 15 years ago, a book was written by Eduardo Ponset called “the formula for happiness”. I don’t remember the formula, but I do remember something that had great importance for me.
One of the elements of the formula was a “B” for “busqueda” – the spanish word for “searching”. The feeling you get when you are making positive progress towards a meaningful goal. Eduardo said that it was key to happiness.
Around the time of publishing, the author of the book was interviewed on local television. He shared a story about his little dog. Each day the author arrives home to his building, and must climb several flights of stairs up to his apartment on the 2nd floor. As soon as he enters the main door of the building, his dog starts to get excited… he hears some barking. As he climbs the stairs, the dog gets more and more excited.
As Eduardo gets to his door, and then opens his door… the dog is crazily excited, jumping all around and tail wagging wildly.
His dog knows that food is coming.
Eduardo enters the kitchen, opens the cupboard where the dog food is kept. The dog is at the door of the kitchen (he knows he is not allowed into the kitchen itself). The dog is jumping, barking and wagging in the doorway.
Eduardo fills the dog’s bowl with food, walks to the sitting room, places the dog’s bowl on the floor.
The dog sniffs his bowl… calms down… and then goes and lies down on his dog bed.
Where did all the excitement go?
The joy is in the pursuit, not in the attainment of our goals.
Set goals to get you moving. Don’t worry too much about the exact details… if the goal gives you a sense of which way to head… it is enough. Once we are in movement towards a goal, we start to learn, resources start to become visible, help comes our way… and a sense of clarity comes to us.
In the video I compare this to the life of a shark… a shark needs movement for water to flow over its gills… and to breath. If a shark stops swimming, its gills stop working… and it begins to suffocate.
A human is similar in that positive movement in the direction of our goals brings us clarity. We stop moving, we lose clarity.
Yesterday I had the privilege of spending an hour with the former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo as she spoke with the global Vistage community.
The title of her talk was “Leadership in Times of Crisis”.
Indra shared her 5 “C”s of leadership in organisations:
Sam Reese asked Indra how she was able to convince PepsiCo to make a big strategic change when she first stepped up into the role as CEO, a move away from financial metrics… towards sustainability, towards investing in people for the long term. Indra shared that she keeps with her a poem that was written on a wall in her childhood school. She shared three lines from the poem…
“For men may come,
and men may go,
but I go on forever”
The poem is about a river… and the nature of its permanence beyond that of men.
Indra shared that she saw her role as CEO to build a company that would go on forever… not just for this generation of investors… or managers… or customers… but to be part of building an enterprise with true permanence.
In response to this question, Indra shared three metrics:
Just like the river of the poem, CEOs should be building something that will endure beyond this generation.
