(20m) Bill Anton - If You Are To Lead You Must First Comprehend (H1217)

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To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com and enter promo code S80. Welcome to the Exit Coach Radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well. And don't miss our one minute exit coach tip of the day on exit coachradio.com. And now here's your host, the exit coach, Bill Black. This segment of the show is brought to you by Olive Crest and features Bill Anton of CEO Effectiveness.com. Bill, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, it's our pleasure to have you. You're, you're in Tampa, Florida, correct? I am. Nice balmy Tampa, Florida. Beautiful, humid, humid Tampa, Florida. Well, it's a pleasure to have you. We're going to talk about what you do with people as a CEO coach, and before we get into that, we always like to start by getting to know a little bit about our guests. Can you share a little bit of your, your background and how you got into this particular type of work? Yeah, well, actually, I guess I started off my first job after completing my PhD in clinical psychology at a university, and I was 26 years old, and if you can believe this, my one year postdoc, my first job was to be director of the university counseling center. There were 50,000 faculty students and staff at the university, and I had a staff of 48 psychologists and psychiatrists. So right away I learned about resistance, about being in a position that you weren't qualified for, and somehow finding a way to get other people to enroll and to be able to lead them and respect you, even though it seemed untimely for you to be in that position. Yeah, I can imagine you were, you also learned a lot about menacing glares from people. I did, but one of the, I had, I was very fortunate because I, I had enough humility to realize that that my job was really to be a servant leader. And that uh I worked very hard at getting the people that reported to me the things they needed to do the better, the best job they could do, including salary raises, and that really made all the difference. I can imagine that really got you off to a fast and valuable start to your career. And then what happened after that? Well, after that, I actually evolved into more and more leadership positions within the university and, and my last position there was as an associate vice president. But the interesting thing and and probably the most important part of my experience. In terms of developing myself as an executive coach was we had a group of associate vice presidents that met for lunch one day a week and we read probably 150 books on organization, leadership, and I can remember to this day the first time I read The Fifth Discipline by Peter Sinjay and we discussed it. That I actually believed that that was really the template for organizations of the 21st century and the kind of leaders that were going to have to be developed for those organizations. So that was one of the really exciting times in my life was being part of that group, a mastermind group. Yes, really a mastermind group. Everybody loved what they were reading. Everybody was excited to come to the group and talk about it, and it was a just a tremendous education, and we did that for about 5 years before people went other places, got promoted, etc. etc. but it was a great experience and how do you apply that now to CEO effectiveness in this being a CEO? Well, that, that knowledge background. In combination with my experiences as a leader in the university itself really helped me to come up with a couple of perspectives that I think had been invaluable. The 11 thing I definitely came to believe because I was in a position where we would often hire consultants and bring them in and they would sort of relate to middle management and departments and And how to move people around and how to make things better and you know, and they would leave and pretty much after making 300 or $400,000 leave a lot of disruption and have very little interaction with upper leadership in the university and I really realized over time that unless you can really work with the person at the top. That a lot of your efforts at improving things are undermined because the person that has the most ultimate influence over the entire organization is the person that leads the organization and transforming that person exponentially. For exponentially influences change beyond what would happen if you were working with, say, a group of middle managers and leaving the top um undeveloped. And so my That, that my, my training as a psychologist, my understanding about the kinds of organizations that are going to be successful in the future are going to be organizations that realize that knowledge is their product. And that knowledge can only be created by enrollment enrollment, not by compliance. And so the task of the leader of the future is to transform the people that work in the organization so that they want to give their best and so that they're willing to offer ideas and perspectives that create knowledge and innovation for the organization. And so as a result of that, I came up with the idea of CEO Effectiveness.com. And I wrote my book Business Success Through Self-knowledge as a way of getting to top leaders and helping them to understand that they are the most powerful variable in the organization, but not, not in terms of institutional power in terms of modeling the kinds of behaviors that will make the entire organization successful. That's very valuable insight, and I really appreciate you sharing that. I want to come back and talk to you about that a little bit more after this quick break. Uh, we're gonna take a quick commercial and also talk to you about some clients' stories and some tips and ideas and precautions for our listeners, Bill. So hang in there with us. We'll be right back after this quick break. OK, thanks. Want to grow the value of your company? Start with the values of your company. To stand out in today's overly commoditized world, your company must stand for something bigger than what you make. That's the work of Values Institute. Our social science model of values-based culture development will help you grow the value of your company by growing trust, your most valuable corporate asset. To learn more about our proprietary process, visit the Values Institute.org and start growing the value of your business today. If you came back from lunch today and there was a resignation letter on your desk, which employee would you really, really not want it to be from? More importantly, what are you doing to prevent the situation from happening in the first place? We work with business owners like you every day to design plans that attract, motivate, retain, and reward key employees. Don't wait until it's too late. Contact Bill Black, the exit coach at 866-370-3774 for a free consultation on how to retain and reward your key employees. That's 866-370-3774. Call today. Welcome back friends. Just a reminder that we've interviewed dozens of advisors on a wide variety of topics, and you will find all their interviews and highlights online at exitcoachradio.com or on iTunes at iTunes.exitoachradio.com. And I'm talking with Bill Anton. He's with, he's a CEO coach with CEO Effectiveness.com. And you're Bill, you, you have a wealth of information and shared some very valuable tips. What came to mind as I was thinking about it in the break is, uh, how often do you come across a situation where you just think, uh, this person, the CEO that, that wants, that say they want to work with me, they just are uncoachable and so it's just not gonna. It's not going to go well. Well, you know, I'm happy to say that that has never happened, and it's mostly because I'm contacted by them. So I'm really not out soliciting business. In fact, right now I'm currently working with 35 CEOs from a range of corporations, bank presidents, NASDAQ listed companies. So, so I have a whole range of people I work with, but I'm fortunate in that. They have sought out my services and so they've already taken the first step at saying that they believe there's something to learn and I think that that probably one of the important ingredients to start out working with them is that they have a sense that you eat your own cooking, you know, that you have been willing to look at yourself. And to overcome some of your own narcissism and and and that your ego is not in the way in working with them and also they sense that you have a profound respect for them as people and that you consider the development of them as a person as synonymous with what happens to their organization. And once they begin to see the momentum gather and see things improve, they get very excited and really they become almost like disciples because A commitment to a relationship is a function of the possibility of growth, and if a leader or a coach can offer that to the person they're working with, then that person will get excited and committed and will you really won't need to market yourself at all. That makes, well, the group that you mentor, the 35 or so, do a lot of them know each other, or did they refer each other to you or just your reputation is out there? very few know each other and, and because I, as a psychologist and psychoanalyst, I'm really bound by confidentiality. I don't really Uh, you know, offer information about my clients. Uh, however, you know, I can say. That I've worked with a whole range of people and, and these are really, these are really top notch performers. One of the problems is they don't, they don't really quite know themselves. They know what their skill sets are, but they don't have a sense of of what's driving them underneath. And you know, there's a beautiful metaphor which I love in the fifth Discipline. It's called mental models. And it shows a picture of an iceberg, and the part above the waterline is called behavior. The part underneath the waterline, but not too deep, is called habits, and the deepest part is called mental models and at the ocean floor, and Peter Senjay, who's an MIT Sloan business professor, not a psychologist, defines learning as changing your mental models. So that's that's a kind of a profound learning because most of us maintain our mental models and we do everything possible to maintain that at home feeling throughout our lives because that's what gives us a sense of personal efficacy or effectiveness, but it also keeps us from knowing the parts of ourselves that we don't see and that could add enormous value to our effectiveness. That's fantastic. It really does make sense that if You can just put paint on it, but that's not really going to change much as far as the underlying structure. So let's talk about that. So you mentioned the fifth discipline. Are there other paradigm changing books that you found particularly valuable? Well, you know, I, I think the 5th discipline, I always tell people if you just read the 1st 100 pages about he talks about 5 disciplines, uh, personal mastery, mental models, team learning. Systems thinking. And what is the 5th? Oh, shared vision. So it simply says that people only invest in what they themselves create and so the vision has to be shared and a company really I met with the CEO of a large accounting firm who flew in to meet with me from Washington DC the other day and we were talking about a vision and and he was describing his accounting firm. And I said, you know, your vision really should have nothing to do with metrics. It should have to do with what makes you. What is it about your firm that is going to enhance your customer beyond metrics and beyond what they can find at a commodity type accounting firm who all have the same level of skill and the difference is the vision you have, and I use the example, there's a beautiful little story, I think it's referring to Southwest Airlines, but they don't really say, where this customers, you know, the vision of Southwest Airlines is to make flying fun. And to use humor. Well, this one lady wrote a nasty letter to the president of Southwest or whoever the airline was, and said, you know, I don't think humor has a place in the safety check. I think it's fine in other parts of the flight, but I think that's dead serious, and I'm not going to fly your plane anymore. I'm not going to fly Southwest anymore if that if that behavior continues. And you know what the CEO wrote back. Three words, he said, we'll miss you. So they weren't going to change who they were and it was just a beautiful response because it was really saying we like you, we like having you as a customer, but we can't change who we are. Well, you know, and in this day and age, everybody's trying to be different, and the problem is so many of the service industries, uh, create a world of sameness and their differences, right? They, everybody says, well, we're going to do this differently and we're different because of this and we're different because of that. But if everybody's doing it now, it's not different anymore. So they're always trying to figure out what is our differentiator out there and you can't do much, you can change the client experience like you say. Yeah, well, you know, to me the way to be different, like I, I, I have this little metaphor for talking about competition versus excellence. If you have a, let's say a basketball with a tennis ball inside of it. The tennis ball is your mental model of the world, and if you have two basketballs with 2 tennis balls inside of it, when the two tennis balls interact, that's called competition. When the area between the basketball and the tennis ball for each individual is reduced, that's called excellence. So the more we know the unknown parts of ourselves, the more we function as an integrated entity. You know, it's nice to be a Ferrari, but if you're only operating on 6 cylinders, you're not going to get optimal performance out of the design, and most of us go through life. suboptimal and some of us we we're suboptimal in a way that's disguised because all extremely high levels of achievement often come from come at the expense of other areas of the personality. So our life could be a wreck in seven domains but outstanding in one, and that's hardly any life at all. So what you're saying, I think, is that people want change without pain. Exactly. And you have to really summarize it. You have to really dig down and, and experience the pain if you're gonna experience real change and you're the, you're the perfect. I can see why. Uh, do you have room for a 36 client? I do not. Well, but doing the harder thing is the first step. Well, let me ask you a question. We only have about a minute left, so how do people, how would people get in touch with you if they did want to find out more about what you offer, or, um, and I wanted you to mention your book as well again one more time. Yeah, it's called Business Success through Self-knowledge, and it's available on Amazon and I think Barnes and Noble on the nook. And it's an audio and print and Kindle and yeah, Kendall form also, and it's a very unique book. It's it's a short book, but it's one that requires maybe reading more than once, and there's a free workbook that goes along with the book if a coach would like to use the book. Uh, I wrote it as something that coaches could offer CEOs, and there's a free workbook they can get on the website, but they could contact me through the website or through um my uh email address. OK, and your, your website is CEOfectiveness.com dot com, right? And your website or your email address is W A T O N I N F L at Verizon.net. Bill, it's been a fantastic experience. I'd love to have you back on the show and, and dig deeper into some of these if you'd like to come back on. Yeah. We will have a link to your book on Exitoachradio.com as well and really wanna thank you for joining us today. I've been talking with Bill Anton of CEO Effectiveness.com, and we'll be right back after this message. OK, thank you. At Exitcoachradio.com, we're interviewing over 100 top advisors to get you one minute tips, ideas, and precautions so you can be well planned. We upload new content daily at 6 a.m. and 1 p.m. Exitcoachradio.com. Come listen for us. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio. 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