• Peter Jeff - The Leadership Mints Guy

  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  • Pages

  • Leadership Mints

  • Recent Posts

  • Memorable Mints

Leaders Saddle Up for the Long Haul

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you wear both your manager and leader hats more productively. Reading time: 2:34

Leaders are developed. Through Time. Managers are appointed. For a Time.

President Abraham Lincoln appreciated the critical importance of sauteing leadership over time in a well-oiled, hot pan of situations, conditions and opportunities.

In fact, Lincoln clarified the Time difference required to prepare leaders vs. managers in the following story that caught his Secretary of War by surprise.

During the Civil War, the Confederates captured a Union brigadier general and more than 100 valuable horses. The Secretary of War notified President Lincoln of the loss. The president responded that he mourned the loss of the 100 horses more than the capture of the brigadier general.

The astonished Secretary of War nearly fell off his chair. Something didn’t add up. Continue reading

Weaving the WOW as a Leader

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to add punch to your persuasive skills. Reading time: 3:09

“Here’s how you fish,” beamed the proud dad, thrusting a new fishing rod into the tiny hands of his 5-year-old son.

Fishing As instructed, the boy methodically caught a fish-but not the thrill of fishing. And soon the boy abandoned his fishing pole for a swimming hole.

Meanwhile his 9 - year-old cousin kept fishing. He was too busy enjoying the WOW in fishing to concentrate on the how of fishing. The WOW?

His dad’s WOW words still echoed in his mind: “Think of your fishing pole as a magic wand that you dip into a watery wonderland.”

This boy was waving a magic wand around some fish. Not fishing. And that made all the difference in maintaining his attention and focusing his performance.

That’s what leaders do. They instill the WOW while others only demonstrate the How in performing a task. Continue reading

What You Think You Are

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to enhance your self-confidence. Reading time: 3:43

The rookie baseball player wound himself into a tight ball of tension. He could hardly swing his bat.

Baseball: Academy battles UNLV, falls 20-13His manager intervened: “If you want to become a great hitter you have to relax. Smile. Be happy like Jim over there.”

The rookie looked towards his teammate and winced. Angrily, he snapped: “Go on. Jim ain’t happy. He only thinks he is.”

Exactly!

Leaders know what they THINK, they are. Or as Abraham Lincoln noted: “A man can be as happy as he makes up his mind to be. “

That’s what leaders do. They make up their minds. They reframe their situation. Continue reading

Being the Best Not the Biggest

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to focus on the best not the biggest. Reading time: 3:49

The soaring 257- foot Sequoia tree planted prominently in the CEO’s office seemed to scream to all visitors: “BEHOLD-All -Ye-Who-Enter. This is Command Central Of The Largest, The Biggest, The Tallest Company in the World in our Industry.”

sequoia1But this CEO had another idea in mind when he showcased the BIGGEST photograph in the company, of the BIGGEST tree in the world, on the BIGGEST wall in his office.

That photograph became a meaningful and memorable teaching tool to REFOCUS the company’s leadership position as the BEST in the industry not merely the biggest.

The CEO argued his best vs. biggest case most significantly -and visually- whenever he met with a candidate for a leadership position in the company.

Invariably, the candidate would see that soaring Sequoia in the photograph and say something about the thrill of working for the biggest company in the industry. Then the CEO’s teaching moment was off and running. “Our focus is on being the best not the biggest,” the CEO would then intone. Continue reading

Unleashing Your Power of Analogy

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you conquer your fear in a challenging situation. Reading time: 3:56

You’re facing a high-pressure situation. Maybe it’s a critical sale. Or a crucial contract negotiation.

Jim O'Brien

Jim O’Brien kicks Super Bowl winning field goal in 1971

You either win right now or you lose big time. Maybe you lose your big bonus or your big office or even your big job. Your leadership is on the line.

What do you do when your competitors have a commanding advantage in experience and proven expertise?

What do you do to counter their intimidating taunts? What do you do to calm your frayed nerves?

Unleash your Power of Analogy.

That’s what Baltimore Colt rookie field goal kicker Jim O’Brien did to win Super Bowl V against a seemingly insurmountable pro football Dallas Cowboys defense that had already:

1. Forced seven turnovers in the game,
2. Scored both of their touchdowns in the game and
3. Blocked O’Brien’s point-after-touchdown attempt earlier in the game.

Suffice to say O’Brien was having a bad day at the office on this Super Sunday yet he methodically kicked a perfect 32-yard field goal that gave the Baltimore Colts a come-from-behind 16-13 Super Bowl V victory over the Dallas Cowboys with five seconds remaining in the game. Continue reading

Leaders Cope with Hope

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to maintain your hope in tough times. Reading time: 2:56

When he was 67, the life’s work of this famed scientist, inventor of the light bulb and 1200 other patents went up in flames. Seven of his light bulb factories burned down. He was under-insured.

20130412043138_Thomas-Edison-Quotes- But within 36 hours Tom Edison brought together a team of 1500 people who immediately began building even bigger and better factories.

“No one is ever too old to make a fresh start,” Edison said.

Thomas Alva Edison personified the essence of a leader: Hope.

With hope, there is always a place for us —somehow, someday, somewhere—as Tony and Maria sing in West Side Story.

Their hopeful voices focused on a greater sense of order, a more meaningful sense of purpose amid the inherent discrimination, murder, mayhem and the chaos of gangs. Continue reading

Brightening the Monday Morning Blues

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to more fully engage your staff. Reading time: 2:56

Singing the Monday Morning Blues. We’ve all been there. At least Ogden Nash unleashed his sense of poetic injustice when the comic poet and a Broadway lyricist observed:

garfield_monday_blues“Monday
is the day
when life becomes

grotesque again
because you have to
face your

desk again.”

The leader read that ditty in jest as if it were a Dilbert redux at one of his Monday morning staff meetings.

Everyone laughed. Then the leader paused and pensively challenged his staff:

What could they do
as leaders
to convert
Mondays

from the grotesque
to something
out of burlesque?

Burlesque? Well at least work should fun, entertaining and even amusing if not challenging and rewarding.

Yet job satisfaction surveys consistently show most employees are disengaged, unsatisfied, unfulfilled in the 9-to-5 world.

So unfulfilled that job dissatisfaction today has become the prime predictor of heart attacks—more so than smoking, more so than high cholesterol and more so than a lack of exercise.

But wait. It gets worse: Monday morning is quite literally a killer. More people die on Monday mornings between 8 and 9 than any other time of the week. Continue reading

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 79 other followers