Conversations that Make a Difference

April 8th, 2009 — tonymayo   Email This Article Email This Article

 

 

Here are my basic instructions for conducting a difficult, stressful, or frightening conversation in a way that will create new possibilities for relationship and action.

  1. Get yourself centered.
  2. Help the other person feel safe. “We’re friends and colleagues now and we’ll still be friends and colleagues after this conversation.” Easy on the relationship, rigorous on the topic.
  3. Get a firm agreement on facts before delving into opinions. Be conscientious about distinguishing facts from opinions. “The client reported several misspellings in the report,” is a fact. “Your work is sloppy,” is an opinion.
  4. Take responsibility for your own reactions.
    It is not responsible to assert, “You are forcing me to double-check all of your reports.” It is more useful to explain, “When I hear a client complain I feel obligated to double-check all of your reports.” See the difference? The first is the voice of a victim making an accusation, one who has reached a firm conclusion about the location of the problem: its the other guy. The second is a person making a choice on limited information, one who is eager to consider alternatives.
    The simple shortcut from victim to choice is to start sentences with “I” rather than “you.”
  5. Establish the level of trust: sincerity, capacity, competence, consistency, and care. “I know that you can see when a project is suffering from scope creep and that you will let me know about it.”
  6. Explicitly agree on the shared Read the rest of this entry »

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Gifted Group Leader

September 25th, 2008 — mayogenuine   Email This Article Email This Article

Dr. Bruce Kehr

As CEO of a publicly held company, and as a psychiatrist who is a member of his Vistage group, I hold Tony in the highest regard regarding his talents as a group leader. His intellect, background, and experience keenly enhance the group experience, but more than that he has established a deep feeling of commitment and trust among our group members, which is rare.

Tony is truly gifted as a group leader.

–Dr. Bruce Kehr
Informedix

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Warren Bennis on Leadership

August 6th, 2008 — tonymayo   Email This Article Email This Article

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:

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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For Executive Coaches, For Executives.
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The “Vigorous Virtues” of Enterprise

July 27th, 2008 — tonymayo   Email This Article Email This Article

…a revival of what Shirley Robin Letwin, the distinguished Anglo-American political theorist, called the “vigorous virtues” in her important study of Thatcherism. These are such qualities as:

that enable someone who exhibits them to live and work independently in society. Though they are not the only virtues—compassion might be called one of the “softer virtues”—they are essential to the success of a free economy and a civil society, both of which rely on dispersed initiative and self-reliant citizens.

John O’Sullivan, Executive Editor
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
in a speech at Hillsdale College

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Tony Mayo, Top Executive Coach, is located in Reston, Virginia 20190