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.”

As the novelist Ellen Glasgow observed, “The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.”

What are you digging for yourself?

Big expectations may be to blame for your blase.

Turbocharged Type A’s love to get dramatic results quickly.  If you’re brushing your teeth in hopes of meeting Prince Charming, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.  Sooner or later, you’re going to get disenchanted and toss the toothbrush out the door.

For Type As it’s tough to stay disciplined and motivated when the pay-off seems too far off, too small or too boring.  The solution?  Turn down the short-term expectations and keep your eyes on the longer term, bigger pay-off.

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.

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?

One emerging trend is the desire to drop out of the wired world.  Watson predicts that more and more people are going to seek out places where they can unplug, enjoy the quiet and rekindle personal relationships without technological props.  Skenazy writes, “Dropping out from the technological world may become the ultimate luxury.”  My friends at the International Spa Assocation are smiling.  Cell phone free properties and quiet rooms have long been a hallmark of the best destination spas.

Here’s my prediction…. It’s actually going to become cool to close your door, turn off your Blackberry, put your phone on voice mail and get some uninterrupted work done.  I can feel it.  Brain shrinking multi-tasking is going to fall from grace like the socially unacceptable iceberg lettuce.  And not a minute too soon…  Imagine what kind of real work we could done….

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.