Monthly Archives: November 2013

Being Comfortable In Your Own Skin

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here is an idea to help you cope with extraordinary demands of a leader. Reading time: 5:18

      The newly promoted CEO is rifling through a stack of congratulatory phone messages.

       phone messageHe’d just returned to his expansive and expensive new office from a press conference announcing his appointment as the leader of a $3 billion company.

     His compensation had just increased 10 fold and now his span of control reached globally into eight other countries and over 18,000 employees.

      But this newly minted milionaire CEO had more meaningful things to think about than dwell on his own success. And in the process he taught us all a keen leadership lesson in authenticity in his first few minutes in the BIG Chair.

     “That’s the most important message of them all,” the CEO says, handing the phone message to his top public relations guy.

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Making Yourself Heard in the Jungle

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to collaborate more productively. Reading time: 2:02

       Swinging from the vine, Tarzan’s yell trumpeted throughout the jungle, blasting his personal signature in the movies with an ear-piercing, attention-commanding roar.

      tarzan Yet in reality, Tarzan’s yell was comprised of three different male voices collaborating together to record cinema history.

      Tarzan’s Scream Team is an instructive metaphor for the way the most effective leaders collaborate to assure their collective message is heard, understood and acted upon by the broadest set of followers.

      Collaboration enhances overall performance. In the jungle and in the sky. Take a look at the North Star. It’s revelatory to note that

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Glove Love & Dream Catchers

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to rekindle your passion for your profession’s tools. Reading time: 3:34

       Yeeeowwww! He grimaced as the pain burned through his fingers, the stinging pain of a hardball slammed on a baseball field and caught. Bare-handed!

Baseball Glove circa 1920

Baseball Glove circa 1920

        Then stoically, the infielder somehow finds the strength to grip the ball and throw to first base, transferring the same stinging pain to the first baseman who likewise absorbed the pain — bare-handed.

      And in the process these hard-core, bare-handed baseball players of yesterday taught us a keen lesson in leadership: Passion trumps convenience and the bond of a team working together for a shared goal can endure and even thrive on pain and frustration.

      They followed their passion for the game FIRST. Then the supporting equipment –from baseball gloves to catcher’s masks—would follow decades later.

FOLLOW YOUR PASSION

     Leaders know that passion drives performance. No sense waiting around for another tool, another piece of equipment, a larger lab, a more advanced manufacturing facilities. Build it now.Play ball! Now!

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Zooming In vs. Zoning Out On the Run

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you cope under stress. Reading time: 4:02

    zooming Picture yourself as a marathon runner midway into your 26-mile 385-yard challenge.

      Your lungs are burning. Your legs are heavier with each step. Your breathing’s erratic.

      And the pain rips through your body like so many coffin nails piercing your feet every time your foot hits the ground.

     You want to zone out. You have to zone out.

      But then the leader in you takes charge. And you do the opposite. You zoom in.

      Elite runners –leaders–zoom in. They  “focus intensely,” observes author Geoff Colvin in his book Talent is Overrated.  “They count their breaths and simultaneously count their strides to maintain certain ratios.”

      Meanwhile recreational runners–followers by definition– zone out. They “think about anything other than what they’re doing,” adds Colvin. “It s painful and they want to take their mind off running.”               

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Writing Your Wrongs

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to gain more control over your anger. Reading time: 2:53

      Ohhh! If you could only install a punching bag in your office! You’re that mad!!

      man writing a contract  Well, how about trying another weapon of choice? Something you already have in the office.

         Something  sharper.
Something more pointed.
Something lighter and easier to push around.

        Consider making like a modern day Zorro. Unsheathe your pen. And figuratively rip your opponent to shreds. With the written word.  

       Sounds absurd? Tell that to President Harry S. Truman who exercised his Anger Writes in what historian David McCullough called “one of the most intemperate documents every written by an American president.”

       Fortunately, Truman’s Chief of Staff intercepted the president’s vitriolic speech writing before it –and he–became a public embarrassment.

       But at least President Truman’s pen vented his pent-up emotions.  Now with the air cleared,  Give ‘em Hell Harry’ could later think more constructively with his advisers to solve an escalating problem:  striking union workers choking the economy.

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