As we were kicking around the latest and greatest happenings in our worlds, I took the opportunity to ask Greg to share his advice for those  Type A’s who are looking to move into executive leadership.

Here’s Greg’s advice on how to get a bigger piece of the pie.

1.  You must know how to manage your time and your mind.

“As CEO, the toughest choice is knowing how to best manage your time and your mind.  As you get higher and higher on the ladder, you give up more and more of your time and your mind to issues that you may not have previously considered.  You must be constantly thinking about the results of others… the morale of employees, how the company is advancing, whether or not the business plan is accomplishing the company’s goals.  It’s no longer about your own results.  You have less and less brain space to focus on yourself or your family.   If you can’t manage your time and your mind, you’re not going to be successful.”

2.  Understand the financial impact of your decisions across the board.

“You are only as good as your bottom line.  More and more often pay is being tied to performance.  And it’s not just your performance but the entire company’s performance.  The company’s financial responsibility is shared responsibility.”

3. Explore your career and lifestyle options early in your career.

“Use your education years and the time in your 20’s to explore opportunities in lifestyle and career that you believe will help you feel fulfilled today and into the future.  Don’t make a commitment too early.  Find a career or industry that you will still enjoy years later.  And develop a secondary interest, such as a hobby or volunteer work, so you don’t become too job focused.”

4. Learn project management skills.

“The biggest gap we have between our experienced baby boomer leadership team and the next generation is strong project management skills.  No one is being taught project management.   Someone who has great project management skills will be invaluable to growing companies.”

During a recent conversation with Mark, I asked this award-winning geophysicist what are the toughest decisions he has to make as CEO.  Mark replied, “The toughest decisions are the people-related issues ranging from dealing with regulatory agencies to negotiating with landowners to keeping everyone motivated, enthusiastic and collegial.  It never goes away.”

In Mark’s opinion, the oil and gas exploration business attracts a certain kind of people – “Type A people on steriods” – who, at the end of the day, can handle a big failure with nothing to show for their efforts but a dry hole.

Mark offered some advice for high potential Type A’s who have their eyes on the top job.

1.  Be absolutely sure you love what you are doing.  Don’t let money be your driver.

2. Early in your career seek out the programs and learning opportunities that may not be the most glamorous but will help you create a strong foundation that will set you apart from your peers.  Don’t shy away from the blocking and tackling positions.

3.  Save yourself some heartache.  When you get angry or affronted, hold your breath and count to ten.  Consider that email you want to send before you send it.  Act professionally regardless of how you feel.

Great advice from a modern day prospector.

Maybe it was your rant yesterday during the Board meeting or the mumbling and muttering you did on the way into work this morning…. but I KNOW you are complaining about something… even if it’s only in the privacy of your mind.

What is it?

Not enough time to get everything done?   Your wife’s nagging?  Unrealistic shareholder expectations?  Your teenage daughter’s weird friends?  The nose dive your stock portfolio took over the past several months?  The irritating co-worker that takes credit for your ideas?

What are you complaining about?

Complaining is common.  You probably think you know all about complaining.

But did you know that complaining is the missing link between success and satisfaction?  Success doesn’t buy satisfaction.  It’s one thing to be successful and another thing entirely to be SATISFIED.

Yep, that’s right.  Your complaints hold the secret to turning success into satisfaction.  The MBA in me likes to call it Exploiting the Theory of Complaints.

To understand my Theory of Complaints, let’s take a quick look at well known biz school favorite, The Theory of Constraints.

The Theory of Constraints suggests that what stands between you and achieving your goals are the bottlenecks – or constraints – in your process.   Simply put, by identifying these bottlenecks and permanently removing them, you achieve greater success more quickly.  If you want to learn more about it, google business guru Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt.  There are oodles of info on this management philosophy.

Back to Cannon’s Theory of Complaints…

My Theory of Complaints says that what stands between success and satisfaction are complaints.  Stands to reason, doesn’t it?  Regardless of your success, it’s pretty darn near impossible to be truly satisfied if you are complaining.

Consider this.  Complaining is a signal that something is not right.  A complaint arises because some need is not being met.  You’ve got an itch that is not being scratched.

No matter how successful you are, you are not going to be truly satisfied if you, your life  or your business are being held hostage by an unmet need(s).

The unmet need creates tension in your experience which, in turn, leads you to vent, kvetch or bellyache to relieve the tension.  Unfortunately, the relief is temporary at best unless you identify the underlying unmet need and take action to fill it permanently.  Think about it like having a cavity in your tooth.  Until you fill it permanently, the little monster is going to keep bothering you and getting bigger… even if the rest of the world only sees your sparkling pearly whites.

And, just like pesky cavities, unmet needs can be hard to see unless you have x-ray vision, one of those odd little dental mirrors or the keen vision of someone else.  The quickest way to find the unmet need and create a strategy to fix it, is to enlist the help of a trusted advisor, mentor or coach.

Bottom line:  Remove your constraints to be successful and resolve your complaints to be satisfied.

There’s no sweeter spot than being successful AND being truly satisfied.

1. What we pay attention to determines what kind of experience we create.
2. Our brains work best when we concentrate and focus on one thing at time… multi-tasking is not good for us.

Gallagher goes on to make the point that we have the choice to focus our attention on the negative things or the positive things.  Not surprisingly, she points out that shifting your attention to and focusing on the positive things in life are the secrets to creating a more satisfying life.

I’m not going to disagree with that, but I do think it’s a black or white approach… especially for high level leaders who get paid to solve problems and achieve results in a technicolor world.

Here’s two more things to think about.

First, events are rarely all positive or all negative.  They are usually a bitter sweet mixture of both.  Wisdom comes from being able to see and appreciate both the good and the bad.  Remember the old saw… Learning from your mistakes?

Secondly, your unconscious mindsets have an enormous impact on how you see the world and what captures your attention.  Shifting your conscious attention without first uncovering your underlying unconscious mindsets is a little like whacking off dandelion leaves.  It’s just a matter of time before your unconscious mindset sends up another flower of frustration.  Just look at Kristie Alley’s failed weight loss…

Here’s my advice:

1.  Focus your attention on the whole experience.   Step outside of your judgment of good or bad.  Look at things from both sides at once.  Find the wisdom in the experience.  The great thing about wisdom is that you can take it with you whereever you go.

2. Cultivate your consciousness.  Dig out your unconscious mindsets so you get rid of the weeds once and for all.  That leaves plenty of room and nutrients for creativity.  And with creativity comes inspired problem solving and new perspectives.

Yes, that me.  A lightning bolt.   I can’t help myself.  It’s in my DNA.

In my first ‘real’ job, I got sick of listening to my co-workers sit around and whine about how overworked and underpaid we were, so I petitioned our employer – the city government – to raise our wages.

The suits on the city council were shocked and appalled that a 21-year old, fresh-out-of-college female would have such audacity to question the status quo.  They called my boss and demanded to meet “the militant troublemaker”.  I found it all quite amusing.

A few months and one whopper of a pay raise later, a co-worker presented me with lightning bolt earrings and a lightning bolt t-shirt.   Giggling, she said, “Cannon, those guys never knew what hit them!”

Four years later, emboldened by success, I zapped, scorched and incinerated my way to record setting profits in my first big leadership role.  Determined to succeed regardless of the cost, I left a trail of charred and smoldering souls in my wake.  Intoxicated with my own power, I had morphed into a lightning bolt bully.

Then one day I went up in my own flames.  My mother’s childhood admonishments echoed through my head, “You shouldn’t play with fire!  Someone’s going to get hurt.”

It was only then that I realized the full responsibility of being a lightning bolt.

Over time I mastered the fine art of tossing lightning bolts to illuminate instead of decimate and to catalyze instead of paralyze.  In the darkest and most menacing of storms,  a friendly lightning bolt is a flashlight for the soul.  It shows you where it’s safe to step and helps you see your way to the desired destination.

With some work, I transformed myself from a lightning bolt bully to a lightning bolt leader.

It’s true.  You can’t escape who you are… but you can master the fine art of who you are.

Thirty years later, I still can’t stand whiners…  I still have the audacity to question the status quo and… I still occasionally get called a ‘militant troublemaker’ because I refuse to play the ‘good enough game’.   And I’m still a lightning bolt…  in a more artful and masterful way.

Have you mastered the fine art of who you are?

I've been talking to pink slip professionals - talented, highly motivated people who are now searching for a job.  Sprinkled throughout our discussions on job search strategies and survival how-to's, these exasperated and bored professionals frequently exclaim: "I would work for free just to get out of the house and feel like I'm contributing." 

That got me to thinking about the enormous amount of unemployed intellectual capital gathering dust and the power of free samples. 

What if pink slip professionals adopted the pink spoon strategy made famous by Baskin-Robbins and gave away small, tasty samples of their expertise and talent to organizations and businesses who needed that particular expertise and talent? 

It's no secret that many independent professionals give away small samples of their expertise as a key part of their marketing strategy (like complementary coaching sessions, free special reports or no cost teleconferences). Giving away a sample the pink slip professional gets a break from the monotony and frustration of job hunting, enjoys the satisfaction of engaging in tangible work, escapes from the house, demonstrates the value of their work to potential employers and expands their network to help in the search for a paycheck. On the other side, the receiving organization gets important work done and meets a new resource and potential employee.

It sounded pretty good to me...  Then I tossed the pink spoon idea out to a self-employed IT professional and he disagreed.

"Giving away services (even in a recession) is never a good idea."

Hmmm...  What do you think? 

Is it a good idea or not a good idea to give away services?" 

Has anyone out there ever gotten a big gig or a plump paycheck after giving away a sample of your expertise?

Answer the questions in the order in which they appear.  They are engineered in a logical sequence to maximize your clarity, insight and possibilities.  If you skip to the last question, you’re going to overlook important, hidden clues.   Take your time.  Be patient.  Be thorough. It might take you weeks or months to fully answer them.  But, ultimately, the satisfaction is sweet.

1.  What are all of the activities and responsibilities I could do with my education, work experience, skills and personal interests and hobbies?

2. Of the activities and responsibilities identified in #1, what could I be good at doing?

3. Of the activities and responsibilities identified in #2, what would make me happy?

4. Of the activities and responsibilities identified in #3, what would lead me to the sweet spot of soul-satisfying success?

Call me at 859-266-2436 if you need any forensic help making sense of the clues.