Top Executive Coaching with Tony Mayo

One of my favorite radio programs and podcasts is the non-denominational, non-doctrinaire Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett. Krista interviews deep thinkers with important ideas about the essential human experiences of awe, eternity, and community. Every show leads me to reflect deeply and, very often, to live a happier, more involved life. I consider it one of the most nurturing practices of my continual development as an executive coach.

A recent guest was Esther Sternberg, Ph.D., an expert on immunology and stress. She relates the remarkable history of stress’s role in heath and healing. It seem that every culture has always known that emotional and physical stressors contribute to

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Abraham Lincoln called it his melancholia. Winston Churchill had “black dog days.” Today, we refer to it as depression.

Recently, I noticed that I was lethargic, frequently irritated, and found most thoughts of the future unappealing. At first, I was sure the circumstances were the cause. If you look closely enough at

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→ My first podcast!!! ←

Your disposition in this moment constrains the actions you might take in the next. If you are sitting at a desk you cannot immediately leap forward. If you are angry, you are not able to gently embrace your antagonist. If you are speaking loudly and quickly, you cannot listen to subtle cues.

There is a place from which the broadest variety of actions is possible: the

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The Economist newspaper has an excellent summary of Warren Bennis’s work on leadership, adapted from their book: Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus. Bennis makes a strong case for leadership as something to be nurtured and learned.

Four things an effective leader must embody, communicate, and encourage are:

• Vision
• Meaning
• Trust
• Self-knowledge

Mr. Bennis and I share, along with many other management consultants and executive coaches, a debt to the pioneering work of Werner Erhard’s EST and Landmark Education.

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“Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

–Thomas A. Edison

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“If Edison needed to find a needle in a haystack, he would not stop to reason where the needle might be, but rather would examine every straw, straw after straw like a diligent bee until he found the object of his search. I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 percent of his labor.”

–Nikola Tesla

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“That’s fine in practice but what about your theory?”
–Popular tee shirt on
University of Chicago campus

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“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.”
–Yogi Berra

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A wonderful, apparently unique, skill of humans is the ability to weave the recalled events of the past and the anticipated events of the future into a meaningful story that supports how we feel now. Tragically, we are too often the victims of this skill when we could be its master. Most of us spend more time in this story of memory and speculation than we do in the actual present experience. We forget that the “now” is the only experience any of us truly know as we endlessly evade the present by engaging in regret or worry.

I saw a small example of this recently in my CEO executive coaching group. One member mentioned that

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Business Week has a short article about Jerry Levin, the former head of Time Warner. He lead the merger with AOL. The merger is generally considered a disaster for Time Warner and Levin left under pressure. What did he learn?

From the article and his life after leaving the executive suite, it sounds like he learned how to learn:

…understanding that it’s O.K. to be open and vulnerable, to ask for help.

To state it in different terms, it’s probably helpful to invoke the feminine principle and be compassionate, empathetic, understanding, give respect to everybody, don’t get deluded by the natural hierarchy. And don’t get too self-satisfied that you have all the answers.

He has gone on to establish a holistic retreat, Moonview, with his wife. What learning is he most eager to share with executives?

My strong advice would be to find a calm, meditative state every day. With the tempo of executive life, that seems almost impossible, but it’s probably the most important thing that you can do.

Namaste, Mr. Levin, and thank you.

See also Gandhi on silence.

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I discussed with other executive coaches the same topic during two teleclasses. We explored the ethics of coaching a person on producing a result that had direct, significant impact on the coach’s personal finances. On the first call, I felt pretty sure that it would be ethical to coach someone with the agreement that I would share in that person’s increased sales, profits, stock price, etc. I was also comfortable with the idea that I could make part of my agreed fee contingent upon the client producing a particular result. I am now sure that is a bad idea.

I shifted my opinion during the second teleclass. I saw that if I, as an executive coach, become attached to a particular tangible outcome, whether it affects my compensation or not, I will be taken away from executive coaching toward some sort of manipulation, that is, I would

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Lessons for managers from how the Army re-made itself between Vietnam and Desert Storm.

I was moderating a conference of business owners in the late 1990s as they lamented the poor work habits and other failings of “Gen-Xers.” Finally, I’d had enough so I said, “Say what you will about body piercing and Starbucks, I don’t think that’s the key issue. It looks to me that our generation’s contributions were the drug culture and Vietnam while the present generation has given us the Internet and Desert Storm.” The question becomes, how did this happen? Into the Storm provides part of the answer.

I am a baby-boomer who came of age in the Vietnam era, so my interest in things military was slight and my general opinion of military organization, I’m ashamed to say, came more from Catch-22 and MASH than reality. Yet, the U.S. Army has done some huge and useful things, so I was willing to take a fresh look with this book.

In the aftermath of Vietnam, “the Army began a revolution in

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I keep a graphic representation of my calendar on the World Wide Web so clients can choose the best times to request appointments with me. It is just an image of my availability; I do not reveal with whom I am meeting. Clients still need to contact my office to set the actual appointment. Here is the link to my availability calendar:
http://www.mayogenuine.com/availability.htm

Clients and other coaches often ask how I do this. I created a simple

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