Tag Archives: Wizard of Oz

Grab the Tiger of Success by DeTAIL

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to add discipline to your decision-making process. Reading time: 2:57.

Still looking for that magic wand to make your next project an overwhelming success? Look no further. It’s right in front of you. In the details.

Leaders know how to handle their magic wand. They grab the tiger of success by “detail.”

Consider the detail in the piece of bubble gum in the making airplane history. Or the significance in folding socks to become a champion collegiate basketball coach.

No detail is too small in the eyes of a leader-from the 82 different prototype models that factored into the final design of the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles to the 98,178 storyboards used in the movie WALL-E — twice the 43,536 storyboards used in the movie Finding Nemo.

Leaders know the more they pay attention to the details the more their mission and vision will pay off.

BUBBLE GUM MAGIC:

Charles Lindbergh climbed in his airplane for what would become the first solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927. Then he realized for the first time he could not see the compass. An extra fuel tank, positioned in the cockpit, blocked his view.

Lindbergh climbed out of the cockpit. He asked a woman bystander for her compact .Then he asked another bystander for a stick of gum. He used the gum to stick the mirror from the compact on to the cockpit wall so that he could see the compass. Charles Lindbergh grabbed the tiger of success -by detail.

SOCK MAGIC:

John Wooden, UCLA’s legendary basketball coach, would teach his players how to put on a new pair of socks by first smoothing out all the wrinkles that could cause a blister. He even had someone measure the feet of each player -both left and right- to assure the best fit basketball shoes. He did not merely asked each player his size. them inside out to remove a small clump of cloth that could cause a blister. His focus on detail even include the temperature of water served at team dinners (no ice) to avoid cramping and substituting orange slices for chocolate squares served at halftime because he said chocolate seemed to create “phlegm.”

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Word to the Wise: Sesquipedalophobiacs Welcome

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to clarify your meaning and enhance your authority. Reading time: 3:14

The sesquipedalophobiacs are coming! The sesquipedalophobiacs are coming! Hail to the sesquipedalophobiacs. Also known by its 15-syllable cousin hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.

The Wizard of Oz gave up on using big words.

Still trying to spit out that mouthful? No wonder leaders strive for clarity. They hate big words. They even have a name for the fear of long words: sesquipedalophobia.

(Hey, there’s a long word for everything, even a long word for the fear of long words.)

Leaders seek clarity and embrace the biblical reference (Ecclesiastes 6:11) when Solomon observed: “The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?”

They agree with President Dwight Eisenhower’s observation that “an intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”

And these haters of long words -sesquipedalophobiacs — acknowledge Thomas Jefferson’s point that “the most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” Continue reading

Speak Up: Stewing Your Ideas in a Crock Pot

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Dorothy meets the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz

Here’s an idea to help you think more fully before you speak.

Remember the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy first meets the scarecrow? Dorothy is mystified as she scans the straw that passes for the scarecrow’s brain . Finally exasperated, Dorothy blurts: “But if you haven’t got a brain, how can you talk? The scarecrow responds matter-of-factly: “I don’t know but I’ve seen a lot of people without brains do a lot of talking.”

Talking yes. Speaking no.

I’ve noticed the most effective leaders do a lot more than just talk at the podium. They literally have a speaking part to play with their audience. They speak WITH more than talk TO their audience. They seem to be echoing what the audience is thinking. They seem to be conversing with the audience, Continue reading