Top Executive Coaching with Tony Mayo

I use this blog to collect and make available some of my articles, insights, and guidance for the top executives I coach. My clients can easily find my best advice on goal setting, running meetings, stress reduction, and other topics important to anyone running a business. You can even learn how–and why–to meditate. I have videos, instructions, posters, and research results on this blog and a podcast on iTunes.

You are welcome to use all this in your work and to pass any of my posts along to your colleagues. I only ask that you preserve the attribution to me and not alter the content.

To contact me by telephone or email, click here for the “About Tony Mayo” page. A video that answers the most common questions asked by prospective clients is also on that page.

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about my coaching by clicking here for “Client Comments.”

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The fraud triangle is a model for explaining the factors that cause someone to commit occupational fraud. It consists of three components which, together, lead to fraudulent behavior:

1. Perceived unshareable financial need

2. Perceived opportunity

3. Rationalization

The fraud triangle originated from Donald Cressey’s hypothesis:

Trusted persons become trust violators when they conceive of themselves as having a financial problem which is non-shareable, are aware this problem can be secretly resolved by violation of the position of financial trust, and are able to apply to their own conduct in that situation verbalizations which enable them to adjust their conceptions of themselves as trusted persons with their conceptions of themselves as users of the entrusted funds or property.1

1Donald R. Cressey, Other People’s Money (Montclair: Patterson Smith, 1973) p. 30.

–The Fraud Triangle.

See also my post on the MCI Worldcom scandal, Integrity Ebbs by Inches.

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In 1966 Roshi Philip Kapleau, author of the landmark book The Three Pillars of Zen, was invited to give a talk at MIT by Nobel Laureate Salvador Luria.

Only six people came.

He gave his talk on Zen meditation anyway.

One of the six became Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., who had his first encounter with meditation that night. Kabat-Zinn is a pioneer in the scientific study of mindfulness and is responsible for teaching meditation to many thousands of people.

What is the right audience? The Zen answer is, the audience you have.

See free, easy Meditation Instructions on this blog.

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Because we do not understand the brain very well we are constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. (‘What else could it be?’) I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electro-magnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and I am told some of the ancient Greeks thought the brain functions like a catapult. At present, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer.

–John R. Searle,
MINDS, BRAINS AND SCIENCE, p 44

Published in 1984. I would update Searle with, “At present, obviously, the metaphor is the Internet, the brain as a complex network of adaptive connections.”

Problem is, the brain is not very similar to anything. Comprehension is further hampered by the fact that “the brain” has no clear boundaries. Its behavior requires a body and an external environment. Not to mention the recursive challenge of the brain being the primary tool used to comprehend itself.

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My medical practice, Potomac Psychiatry has grown dramatically over the past 3 years. We have secured a constant supply of new patients, a growing team of clinical and office professionals, and successfully launched new specialty services.

In addition to improved financial results for all of us, I also have more fun at work, am writing a book, and enjoy devoting more time to family, travel, and hobbies. I am certain that these results are due to Tony’s executive coaching and the help of his Genuine Success group.

–Dr. Bruce Kehr
President
Potomac Psychiatry

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Many of my clients have noticed that among the many thoughts intruding upon their meditation are some that appear to be genuinely useful ideas and plans. My suggestion is to treat these like any other ideas that arise and use the opportunity to direct your attention back to the chosen focus of your meditation practice, trusting that ideas are plentiful and over time you will be more prosperous operating with a clear mind day-to-day than by grasping at insights and making plans during the short periods you promised yourself to meditate.

And if your mind is dominated by the idea, feel free to pause to take a note or move into execution. Don’t be a victim of your meditation.

For more, here is an article by a successful artist on her experience with this challenge, Amanda Palmer in The Shambala Sun.

See free, easy Meditation Instructions on this blog.

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Bad presentation–or resistant audience?

In November of 2007, I was in San Diego attending a weekend training for coaches. A breakout sessions was led by the author of one of the best-known books on coaching. It is a good book and I was very eager to attend. He gave the ninety minute workshop six times over two days–I was in a morning session on day two.

The author struck me immediately as irritated, aggressive, and arrogant. His opening seemed vague and rambling and his responses to questions were not pertinent. People were shaking their heads and looking at each other. Coaches are a fairly supportive audience but in the first fifteen minutes five of the thirty people walked out, one while the author was responding (elliptically) to his question! I decided to Read the rest of this entry »

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