Tag Archives: Robert Frost

Collaborating Nose-to-Nose

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you increase your productivity. Reading time: 3:42

Two percheron horses were pulling a wagon load of people through an apple orchard on a sunny, crisp fall afternoon.

horsesThe driver of the horse-drawn wagon said that individually each horse could pull almost 3,000 pounds. But together they could pull 8,000 pounds, at least 33% more than they could pull individually.

The horses learned how to interact with each other, how to work with each other. They learned how to move like dancers in step with each other.

They learned to get ahead they had to stay head to head. In tandem. Nose to nose.

No wonder horses are more easily trained when they can touch noses with other horses. Nose to nose, they are more productive. Nose-to-nose, they are more attentive.

And no wonder that aligning talent nose-to-nose –collaborating -is a key leadership skill for increased productivity and performance. The most effective leaders know that collaborating in general increases speed, enhances power, builds strength and increases overall performance. Continue reading →

Conviction: Earning Your Mettle of Honor

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Surely, the professor would cancel the class. After all, why should he commute 100 miles round trip -twice a week- on snowy country roads in the dead of winter for only two students ? The professor-my kind of leader — knew why. Mr. Man-of-his-Convictions conducted the advanced college class in astrophysics.

Professor drove 100 miles round trip twice a week to teach 2 students.

And 10 years later, both of his students in that class at the University of Chicago-Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee- won the Nobel Prize in physics.

Leaders like Professor Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Ph.D., follow their convictions without regard to economies of scale or personal convenience.

They charge down the road of achievement with a kettle full of mettle- a kettle full of “vigor and strength of spirit” as the dictionary defines “mettle.” And it pays off. The professor also won the Nobel Prize in Physics 36 years later in 1983.

That Gandhi-like spirit of conviction, that spirit of self-less service, that spirit of total dedication marks the most effective leaders I have known over the years. Continue reading →