"The mastery of a few key paradoxes is vital. They are the paradoxes that have allowed our coaching and consulting to break through the mediocrity and inspire success where there was no success before.
Paradoxes such as:
1. To get more done, slow down.
2. To get your point across, stop talking.
3. To hit your numbers faster, take less them less seriously and make a game of it.
4. To really lead people, go ahead of them.
These are a few of the paradoxes that open leadership up into a spiral of success you have never imagined. (pg. 14)
Teach Self-Discipline
"If the person you lead truly understood that self-discipline is something one uses, not something one has, then that person could use it to accomplish virtually any goal he or she ever set. They could use it whenever they wanted, or leave it behind whenever they wanted." (pg. 22)
Tune In Before You Turn On
"As leadership guru Warren Bennis has said, "The first rule in any kind of coaching is that the coach has to engage in deep listening." (pg. 23)
Accelerate Change
"My role as a leader is always--always--to keep my people cheered up, optimistic, and ready to play full-out in the face of change." (pg. 32)
"It isn't the will to win that wins the game, its the will to prepare to win." (pg. 34)
"I want people to see what's in this for them." (pg. 34)
Know Your Owners and Victims
"You don't have to come off as an annoying positive thinker to be a true leader. Just be realistic, honest, and upbeat. Focus on opportunities and possibilities. Focus on the true and realistic upside. Don't gossip or run down other people. There is no reliable trick that always works, but in our experience, when you are a really strong example of ownership, and you clearly acknowledge it and reward it and notice it in other people (especially in meetings, where victims can hear you doing it), it gets harder and harder for people to play victim in that setting." (pg. 37)
Lead From the Front
"Be inspiring. Your people would rather be inspired than fixed or corrected....So be what you want to see." (pg. 38)
Preach the Role of Thought
"Great men are they who see that thought is stronger than any material than force, that thoughts rule the world. --Ralph Waldo Emerson (pg. 39)
Don't Confuse Stressing Out With Caring
"Caring is relaxing, focusing, and calling on all of your resources, all of that relaxed magic, that lazy dynamite that you bring to bear when you pay full attention with peace of mind. No one performs better than when he or she is relaxed and focused....stress is....[when someone] believes that everything is an emergency. (pg. 45)
"Anything you pay attention to will expand...in a relaxed and happy way, be relentless and undivided and peaceful and powerful. You will succeed. Gently relentless. Gently indulge your own magnificent obsession." (pg. 45-46)
Leader Code
"THINK LIKE A HERO (Who can I help today?), WORK LIKE AN ARTIST (What else can we try?), REFUSE TO BE ORDINARY (Pursue excellence, then kill it), CELEBRATE (But take no credit.)."
(pg. 49-50)
Manage Agreements, Not People
"A leader is compassionate, and always seeks to understand the feelings of others. But a leader does not try to manage those feelings. A leader, instead, manages agreements." (pg. 51)
Coach the Outcome
"Focus on results. You will always get what you focus on. If you merely focus on activities, that's what you'll get...a whole lot of activities. But if you focus on results, that's what you'll get. A whole of of results." (pg. 63)
Know Your Purpose
"People who find the joy in leadership find ways to relax into an extremely purposeful day, goal-oriented and focused on the highest-priority activity. They can think at any given moment: Sure they get distracted, and sure, some people call them and problems come up. But they know what to return to. Because they know their purpose. Because they chose it. That's the kind of leader that is admired and followed." (pg. 68)
See What's Possible
"So I have always remembered from this experience that people's performance is a response to who they perceive themselves to be for us at the moment." (pg. 71)
Refuse to Buy Their Limitation
"...one of the reasons your people wind up admiring you is that you always see their potential. You always see the best side of them, and you tell them about it." (pg. 79)
Play Both Good Cop and Bad Cop
"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. -John Quincy Adams (pg. 80)
Stop Cuddling Up
"I never gave them hell, I just tell the truth and they think it's hell." -Harry Truman (pg. 84)
Count Yourself in
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same." (pg. 127)
Learn What Leadership is Not
"If you seek to lead, invest at least 50 percent of your time leading yourself--your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20 percent leading those with authority over you and 15 percent leading your peers.
"A teacher affect eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops. --Henry B. Adams, American History" (pg. 173)
