Leadership Reflections on Race Across America

I returned recently from Annapolis MD where I had been crewing in the Race Across America (or RAAM for short). This blog contains some reflections on my experience in 2014, experiences all about leadership and participation. I crewed in 2007 for a 2 man relay team and 2014 was for a solo racer

About RAAM

RAAM is a bicycle race that goes all across America, starting from Oceanside CA (north of San Diego) to Annapolis MD on Chesapeake Bay. The race covers 3,050 miles and climbs over 100,000 feet (4,880 kms and 33,000 metres) and is unlike the bicycle races we all know about, like the Tour de France or the Vuelta Espana. The difference lies in that the race is not run as a staged race and the racers are not permitted to ride in packs (i.e., in a peloton). The basic idea is the racers all start on the West Coast with one minute intervals and head to the East Coast following a fixed route as best they can. They choose when to rest and when to sleep and when to ride – 24 hours a day. They are not permitted to draft behind another rider or a vehicle. Basically what happens when one racer approaches another – ride up behind; make the commitment to pass; have a chat on the way past and move on. The overtaken rider then can choose whether to challenge the pass or drop back. The race is split into Solo Racers and Team Racers – with Solo Racers starting on Tuesday and team racers starting the following  Saturday. The teams are run as a relay race with changeover happening day and night whereas the solo racer is alone.

Why do it?

In 2007, I was asked by a friend, Glenn Druery, who was racing in the two man Team Velokraft to crew. Glenn and I were involved in endurance cycling events and he felt that I could add to the team drawing on my endurance cycling and management leadership background. And so it proved. The crew experience in 2007 was not great driven by some mismatched expectations by some crew members and by a lack of good team briefings by the crew chief. Crew members did not know what they had to do and struggled to work it out for themselves in the absence of solid leadership from the crew chief. So bad was it that the racers sacked the crew chief after 5 days and appointed me as crew chief. When I announced to the world that I would be crewing in 2014 for Chris Hopkinson, I received a message of warning from a crew member from his 2013 crew. We chatted and it was clear that the problems were very similar to what I had experienced in 2007. The crew members had different expectations; they had not been properly briefed about what they had to do and leadership to plug the gaps was not there. Forewarned is forearmed – I chose to take up the challenge without raising the specific concerns with the racer and his crew chief. Why? I am wary of exaggeration and prefer to see for myself.

What happened?

I was somewhat relieved to receive a document before I set out to Oceanside which outlined some of the things that we would need to deal with – sleeping; driving; looking after the racer; mechanical checks to be made. Important things like where to stay in Oceanside, what gear to bring, what roles were expected were missing. That is not a problem as I had provided enough time before the start to get the requisite level of briefing from the crew chief – just set up a meeting and be told what to do. The rest of the crew were staying in a house together away from the start in Oceanside (I had chosen to be near the start to get into the atmosphere and to cut travel times). Well there were a number of meetings set up and no briefing. I was due to meet the crew chief at the first crew briefing meeting – well the crew chief did not appear. So I attended the crew briefing meeting - which followed the same format as the 2007 meetings. With 30 minutes to go before the race began it was clear to me that many of the crew had not been briefed about what was expected of them. We would work it out somehow.

Differences from 2007

The 2014 edition of RAAM was going to be a little easier than my experience in 2007 for a number of reasons.

• Four of the crew including the crew chief had prior RAAM experience (in 2007 we had none)
• The crew chief decided that she would always be in the follow vehicle and would be continually available to look to the racer’s nutrition, medical and motivational needs. In 2007, this task was shared across more than one team member. This sharing brought in a set of communication challenges and in due course the racers got fed up – they were not eating enough and could not perform.
• The team would only operate two vehicles, one to follow the racer and one to provide support services and in which the resting crew would sleep. In 2007, we operated 3 vehicles: One to follow the racing racer; one to leapfrog the follow vehicle and to carry the resting racer; one as a sleeping vehicle to accommodate the resting crew and the resting racer when he was on sleep shift at night – also to store provisions and provide cooking facilities. This third vehicle was a major source of complexity though it played a crucial role for feeding the racers (and crew) and for giving racers chance to shower and sleep stretched out in a bed
• The support vehicle would not be used as a follow vehicle. In 2007 the leapfrog vehicle could also be used as a follow vehicle to cover times when the follow vehicle needed to stop to refuel or to change over shifts. In 2007, there would always be a follow vehicle following the racer
• When the solo racer stops to sleep the whole team can stop. The teams never stop though we did have one break when our 2nd racer withdrew and the surviving racer needed a rest before finishing solo.

What was 2014 like?

I do not want to let this blog turn into a whinge fest – all I will do is re-post a few tweets and anecdotes about leadership that I sent out during the race:

• “Do you know what we have to do?” “Not yet”. “Good timing with 30 minutes to the start”
• First cooked meal since Monday going down a treat in Cortez CO. (June 13 and race started June 10)
• Dawn at Alamosa CO. It is cold and time to get on the road (June 14 after sleeping out at 3C - 38F)
• How do you expect us to stay awake if there is no cash for coffee and drinks for the crew?
• Greensburg KS - had a shower - after nearly 5 days without one it had to happen – June 16
• Great leaders are not threatened by strong team members. They leverage their ability to better results. @RAAMRaces is showing that in spades
• Leadership lessons from @RAAMRaces. Criticize independent thinking from the team leads to the end of all thinking
• Leadership lessons from @RAAMRaces Treat people like they are stupid they will choose to act stupid
• Leadership lessons from @RAAMRaces Leaders shout team members down. Team members go into defensive silent mode"

RAAM is a crucible in which decision making gets tested to the extremes.  It is a classic multivariate problem with independent moving parts which need to be scripted to a unifying script. As a management consultant, I created the business concept of Decision Engineering, where an organisation is welded together by a series of decision points. In one of my seminal projects on Operational Improvements in British Airways, I invented the concept of a Planning Envelope. Decisions within a planning envelope could be made 100% by the deciding unit (e.g., cabin crew planning) without reference to any other unit. As soon as a decision took the scope of impact outside the planning envelope, notifications are needed to warn other affected units what is happening (e.g., a late crew will impact the chances of on-time push back of the aircraft which will affect downstream gate availability for an incoming aircraft).

One might well ask how does this apply to a team crewing a RAAM racer. To my mind, a successful team has clarity on a bunch of things. I learned a lot of this in 2007 on the side of the road from Lee Fuzzy Mitchell III who was crew chief of the team we were racing against. Lee was the nicest man alive and there is nothing about crewing he did not know. This is what has to be done right 

1.  Criteria to be optimised

This is not hard although there are quite a few to be taken on board. It is however easy to get the focus wrong.

a.  Performance of the racer on the bike  – nutrition; hydration; comfort; temperature management; cleanliness; motivation; rest; sleep [not taking into account issues like equipment choice which are pre-decided]

b.  Time of the racer off the bike - time to recover; meaningful rest and time to prepare to start again

c.  Performance of the crew measured though quality of decisions and ability to stay awake and to keep the racer performing to his best ability – nutrition; hydration; cleanliness; rest; sleep; motivation and expectations management

d.  Safety – racer while riding; racer while handing off on the road; racer while handing off from a vehicle; crew while hanging out the vehicle; crew standing alongside the road; vehicle while following the racer; all other road users

We had a mostly safe race. The racer fell only once = once too many. I do recall the crew chief worrying about the safety of the crew during a violent storm in Kansas, while insisting the crew strap a tarpaulin over the external speaker system – winds blowing in excess of 60 miles per hour.

e.  Costs – supplies; fuel; food for racer and crew; incidentals

All through the race we seemed to have only two criteria in mind.

•      Keeping the racer on the bike and
•      Minimising support vehicle movements so resting crew could sleep

What was really missing included keep the racer properly refuelled so he could perform at top level day in and day out. The crew sleeping model was totally undermined by excessively long shifts – we certainly had several crew shits in excess of 12 hours and often these were back to back with excessive vehicle movements in between (go ahead a time station and then come back again to do a crew change)

2.  Roles and responsibilities (and planning envelopes)

This is both easy and hard. Individual roles needed during RAAM are not difficult to perform and are easily reinforced with checklists. Because the race runs 24 hours a day, roles have to be rotated between crew members. This stresses communication at handover time and between roles, checklists of things to be done and clear outlines of responsibilities, decision criteria to be applied and timelines for actions. Of course as tiredness creeps in, decision quality drops which means that things like checklists become more important. And of course the whole system becomes fully stretched if something goes seriously wrong.

In a good crew, the crew chief has only to deal with problems and changes. All other tasks should happen automatically within a planning envelope. For example, daily provisioning should be from a standard list supplemented with special needs arising from the prior day activity. Daily laundry should be planned in based on most convenient laundry facility (given time constraints and opening hours); crew eating and showering can be planned in. Mechanical checks of the bike should occur automatically at every stop and every time the racer sleeps (which means the mechanic has to be on shift when that is planned to happen); 6 hour shifts should be between 6 and 8 hours long – not 14 hours long as happened many times.

And of course every role should have a backup person ready to cover it in the event there is a problem (who not only knows what to do but where to find everything needed to execute that role)

3.  Lists and Checklists

Lee Mitchell was a list and labelling maniac. Every item of equipment was placed in a labelled box or container. Every time an item was used it was placed back in the same place. Every time an item was exhausted, the replenishment list was updated. Every input and output to the racer was recorded – so that it was totally clear if the racer was short of nutrition or hydration. 

RAAM 2014 did not have a single list that I saw. I certainly did not know where stuff was kept. The crew who had packed the vehicles did know - so I was covered there. Had the crew chief been taken ill, we might have been stuck.

From Fuzzy’s guide:

♦  Stop and Eat sheets: record all intake of calories, sodium, and fluid as well as peeing. For stops record time off bike, race location and reason for stop. Remind each other to make entries on Stop and Eat sheets.

♦   If your rider hasn’t peed twice, drunk 4-5 water bottles, and eaten lots of calories and salt by 12 noon, plan on a DNF!

4. Communication (and Trust)

Communication is the heart of any group initiative. Team members perform better if they know what they have to do. They perform better if they know what is changing that will affect their ability to perform their roles. 

From the outset, we did not know what we had to do and what was expected of us. And when we did apply independent thought and did something that was at odds with the way the crew chief saw things, we found out. Result was a crew that became unwilling to do anything or chose to do whatever they wanted to do.

In a rolling 24 hour event like RAAM, handover communication is essential. Knowing what has happened and what is left undone is central to ensuring a repeatable performance and overcoming obstacles. We had a weakness here but were protected because the crew chief chose to stay awake so much and to stay in the follow vehicle. We did pay by the compromised quality of decisions as tiredness grew – especially in some very long shifts we all did. Luckily we did not face any serious catastrophes as this would have been a test the team would have failed.

5. Adjusting to solve problems 

    This is the real test and one we never did not have to deal with. The process is not difficult. We would have failed as item a. below was never clear.

a.       Reaffirm the decision criteria one is trying to work to

b.      Layout the options for solution

c.       Evalaute the options against the criteria

d.      Make a choice and live by it

What was 2014 like

The final outcome is our racer, Chris Hopkinson, completed RAAM in 10 days 17 hours and 55 minutes.  He won the Jure Robic award for the fastest male solo racer average speed into the Hanover PA time station at 14.55 miles per hour. He completed his race around 27 hours faster than his 2013 attempt - simply fantastic

The real test of RAAM success is how the crew felt about it and would they sign up again and could the racer have gone any faster or finished any sooner. We ended RAAM with a great crew who would happily crew together again. All of the crew would crew for the racer again – he was the consummate gentleman with a fine sense of humour. The crew would also crew for other crew members if they chose to race. 

There is no doubt in my mind the racer could have improved on his race performance.  We were also a lucky crew as the problems we had were not major – we never will know how much time we could have lost if something really bad had gone wrong.

One can only guess how much better our racer could have done if a few things were done differently.  

• Better preparation in equipment. there is always a way to get another 100 grams off a bike and a more streamlined way to organise things in a vehicle
• Better management of hydration and nutrition based on full and proper measurement of inputs matched to measured outputs. Racer was burning around 12,000 calories a day and was probably replacing up to 8 to 10,000 a day especially in the first 3 days
•  Better tools for racer communication. Every time the follow vehicle came up alongside the racer to discuss things, the racer slowed down. (e.g., two way radio or even more full use of microphone/speaker system)
• Tighter management of rest breaks – every time the racer took a break the 5 minute break became a 10 to 15 minute break (save 8 minutes each break times 4 to 5 breaks a day - 40 minutes a day)
• Tighter management of sleep breaks – faster to get down to rest; limit rests to agreed time periods; faster to get back on the road would have saved at least 1 hour per sleep  break (times 9 sleep breaks is 10 hours saved). This is the hardest part of RAAM as the racer has to sleep to stay safe when on the bike.
• More sleep for the crew chief would have produced better decisions (lower costs and higher racer performance) and better team morale

What did I get out of RAAM?

In RAAM 2007, I crewed the night shift which meant I saw very little of the route across America in daylight. This time around with 6 hours shifts (in theory) work rotated through daylight and nighttime hours. So I got to see a lot more of the USA by daylight. Highlights were crossing the Rockies in daylight; enjoying a spectacular Kansas lightning show during dusk time; camping along the side of the road under a full moon (in 2007 we were always on the move). 

The crew did bond into a great team and as a testimonial my crew partner wrote

“We made a great team. It was a pleasure to work with you. You would make a great crew chief for someone. If ever interested in doing so in the future, let me know and I will recommend you if one of the many racers I know is looking for one. You do know your stuff. I will never forget the memories we share of this past RAAM.”

Pippa Middleton on the road

And I did get to support a British cyclist who has written his name into the RAAM history books as a British cyclist. And as a Brit that makes me a proud man.

Perhaps a little ignominy to end it all. We had the pleasure of riding alongside one of the 8 man teams (Michael Matthews Foundation) in the latter part of the race. A team member was Pippa Middleton, sister to the Duchess of Cambridge. We stopped for a chat and a photo session and Chris and Pippa rode side by side for some time while yours truly was navigating the follow vehicle. So distracted were we all that the navigator sent the pair down a wrong turn and they headed off down the freeway off the route. Well if one wants to get lost on a bike ride, getting lost with Pippa Middleton is the way to do it. Sad to report this was the only navigating mistake affecting the racer and it cost valuable time.

Inspired to Ride

This is a story with a difference – it is not about my path to success – it is rather a story about finding a capability that the bullies doubted.  Quite frankly, my path to success came really easily. I am lucky to be blessed with remarkable intellect and added to that a level of risk taking beyond most and a willingness to work hard. Success followed.

My life at school was bedevilled by the way of the bully who found my intellect intimidating. It did not help that I was rubbish at sport, no matter how hard I tried. I was the last to swim and sat on the side of the pool during swimming PE until I learned to swim, with some help from my baby sister. The day I showed the PE teacher I could swim remains firmly entrenched. My first bicycle was stolen before I learned to ride, which I did with the help of my mate next door on his bike. At high school, I welched out of playing rugby be feigning a knee injury – that lie worked for 3 whole years and I could play tennis instead. Until the rugby master asked the doctor.  I did persevere playing tennis building on the coaching I had when I was 10 or so. That led me to playing squash – my school was the first school that had its own courts – I loved playing squash because I could play alone, and I could take my anger out on the ball. Sadly I was not the most patient of players and did take my anger out on the racquet more than once – I think the record was 9 racquets in one year.

I practised hard to try to be any good. I spent hours hitting and kicking and bowling balls against a wall. In one athletic season I practised high jump and long jump and pole vault so much that I developed a stress fracture in one leg. Sad as that year I had high jumped my own height applying the newly invented Fosbury Flop and had a chance of winning the school championship – could not jump.  Oh and being the first kid in the school to wear glasses did not help. Every fist fight started with me having to find a safe person to entrust my spectacles to. My first sport had been boxing. I used it a lot.  I took to running – in this way I was able to leave the school grounds and seek solace in my solitude. I vividly remember the Alan Sillitoe book, The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner. The running was crazy too. Behind the school we had a big set of hills which were on private property. The farmer was well known for shooting at trespassers using salt pellets. I would rather take on that risk than face the bullies at school. I was rubbish at running as it happened. The best I ever did was come second in one event.

For me the bicycle was very important. I could run away from home and cruise the streets. In the 1960’s there was no traffic – we lived quite some way out of the city. I rode everywhere. I took over my brother’s racing bike when he went to sea. I took it to university and stated to ride with a friend. We rode a lot – we rode the 2^nd Cape Argus Tour in Cape Town which is now the world’s largest ride. We did a tour after final exams and headed up the coast and back over the mountains. We did not know what we could not do – we just did it. It was a whole lot better than running – less pain and more stuff to see in a shorter time period.

Many years later, I had sold my business. I had moved to Australia and I had started to ride again. I saw an advertisement in Australian Cyclist magazine from an outfit called Cycle Across Oz advertising a ride from Perth to Melbourne. I sent in my money and did some training and I flew to Perth faced with the task of riding 4,500 kms in 5 weeks. 

Till then the most I had ridden in a day was 120 kms and the most I had ridden in 10 days was 1,000 kms when I was 20-something.   In the first week we rode 3 consecutive days over 150 kms into a head wind. In the 2^nd week we did the same again. I used to train 40 kms at a time and faced with a 160 km day I would start with one training ride and then do another and then do another and 4 training rides later the day was done. So good was that trip that I signed up again 2 years later – and rode harder and faster and did more sight-seeing. On that trip I rode my first day of 200 kms in a day. It was no harder than 160 kms. In 2006, a friend invited me to join a 360 km ride in tribute to Sir Hubert Opperman, the doyen of Australian cycling. We rode that pretty well continuously and I started my journey as a randonneur rider riding long distances in set times.  The pinnacle or randonneuring is to qualify for and ride the 1200 km Paris Brest Paris event held every 4 years. I qualified in 2006/7 and rode in 2007 – while I did not finish I knew that I had found my capability in sport – I am an endurance rider – and with 7 trips across Australia under my belt, the open road is my oyster. I am inspired to ride and I just get on the bike and ride it.

Support my charity fund raiser from me ride from Sydney to Adelaide completed a few weeks ago - doors close on April 30 http://mymark.mx/FreedomWheels

The world mourns the passing of Nelson Mandela

I woke this morning to learn that Nelson Mandela had died in his Houghton home at the age of 95.

I felt a hammer blow to my life.  Why should that be? I live a long, long way away here in Australia.

In  late 1986, I too began my Long Walk to Freedom.

I grew up in South Africa as the 3rd son of an immigrant English family. I did not know it at the time but it was a privileged upbringing. My father worked hard to build our future and to build the future of South Africans as an entrepreneur and as pioneer building new industries. I knew very little about what was happening in the country other than what the newspapers told us and the radio made us believe. There was no TV until 1975.  I was too young to know about Sharpeville but I do remember the outrage at the Park Station bombings and the headlines around the Rivonia trial in 1963 and 1964.

At the age of 18, I was conscripted into the South African Defence Force to complete 12 months of National Service, a full 10 years after the Park Station bombing and the end of the Rivonia trial. My role was to become a defender of the homeland as a soldier. It was tough being an Englishman in an Afrikaner army - the bullying bothers me to this day still. In that time I spent 3 months on operational duty on the Angola-South West Africa (now Namibia) border. Our role was more a role of "hearts and minds' with the local inhabitants than anything else as there was no insurgency activity in our sector at the time. I was lucky to leave the border zone before the South African invasion of Angola to intervene in their civil war later in 1975. The words of the song go "I was only 19" - I celebrated by 19th birthday in that zone. That was not the end of military service for me - I was required to continue doing camps for a further 720 days over the next 10 years. I did about half of those in training roles and in guard camp roles. For the most part, I kept deferring them by studying, first full time and then part time (though attendance at lectures was a requirement to win deferments).

I really started to notice what was going on during my time at the University of Cape Town - in 1976 the world we knew erupted with the riots in Soweto on June 16. The state of unease kept boiling and I do recall the day the South African Police broke up demonstrations on the UCT campus in 1978. I recall the strike by students in 1980 - I was working as a graduate assistant and was required to work - I seem to think the police were on campus those days too.  As each year went by, the pressure of life under the apartheid government seemed to build and the willingness to impose ever increasing levels of repression just seemed to grow. First we had to listen to John Vorster berating us and then it was the turn of PW Botha, wagging his finger while he did the same. As a lawyer, it was tough to see our freedoms being eroded every day - I can only imagine how it felt to be in the majority.  Come late 1986, it was becoming clear to me that my role as a solider was being changed from defender of borders to policeman in the townships.

What choices did I have? Do the camps. Keep studying. Refuse the camps. Leave.

As a lawyer I could not switch roles to repress a people whose rights were being repressed. I had already compiled 4 qualifications - studying was over. My friend Peter had already served 3 sentences in prison for refusing to do his camps - ten years in jail by the time he was 30. Not exactly top of one's ideal choices. I came home from work one day and told my then-wife that I had booked my flight out. I had already (in 1978) surrendered my South African citizenship in the offices of an officious Mr Viljoen in the Department of Home Affairs and prevailed upon him to grant me a return visa so I could leave.  I remember that meeting well - he says, "I can tear up your British passport every day" and I said, "I can walk to the British Embassy and get another one, every day". On February 13, 1987 I departed Jan Smuts airport headed to a new world with no job and GBP1,500 in my pocket. My 3 month deployment as a solider in Soweto to suppress the riots which were a daily happening was due to begin on February 14. My wife would sell the house and follow later. She would hand over my military gear at the headquarters of the Rand Light Infantry in Johannesburg. "Where is he?" "I do not know. All I know is he has gone" "Fine, sign here".

Little did I know was that the first meetings between the African National Congress and the Government had taken place in Lusaka, Zambia about the time I was booking that flight. Little did I know that talks about talks became talks and the journey to the momentous election of 1994 had begun as South Africa too began its walk to freedom.

I have been lucky to have been back to work in post-apartheid South Africa and to continue my contribution to building and rebuilding the country. It has been a revelation to see the changes in the society to a more tolerant society (especially among younger people).

Why then Nelson Mandela's passing hit me like a hammer blow this morning?  Was it the reflections of decisions made and opportunities missed? Was it the nagging doubt about the true legacy he has left in the country? Was it the fear for my friends and family who still live there? My life has been deeply touched by the changes in the country - Tim Chadwick dead in an accident in 1975 on operational service; Leroy Mbili studying by candlelight while I lived in luxury; Gen Holdridge (my mother-in-law) murdered in her house in Cape Town at the age of 93 in 2006; David Rattray (a school friend and a man of Africa) murdered on Australia Day, 2007 in Zululand;  Beresford Jobling (my best friend at school and my soul mate and a man rooted in Africa as a descendant of a British soldier and a Voortrekker leader) murdered on his farm outside Pretoria in 2012 followed in weeks by the murders of Anne and Shawn, friends of friends. There is a dark foreboding in Africa that lurks always.

I hope only that South Africans remember this day and forever the legacy of Nelson Mandela - a legacy of forgiveness and reconciliation, a legacy of courage and fortitude, a legacy of smiling and compassion and a legacy of the amazing power of the extended African family - everyone is your brother.

I salute you and I pray for your countrymen with a heavy heart.

Greatness comes from Choice - Be Ready - Guest blog

In my last blog, I did something new - I featured a guest blog from Don Maruska and Jay Perry about their new book, Take Charge of Your Talent.  This time I have a chance to do the same thing again - a guest blog about an exciting new book. As last time, I will preface the guest blog with a little more of my story. 

You will recall that a core part of my journey as a management consultant was with McKinsey & Company in London followed by the building of Mitchell Madison Group (MMG) to compete with McKinsey. I also told you that my time at McKinsey was not the easiest time in the world and that MMG was a totally different story.  A big part of that MMG difference is that we were building our own firm and like good entrepreneurs were able to do things our competitors just could not and did not do. We were "out of the box" most of the time. It was an amazing time and we did some pretty amazing things. 

This introduction to my guest blog is not about that part of the story - it is about my story. McKinsey & Company is a remarkable collection of the best brains the world can muster. Getting in was a big deal. Getting a designation as an Engagement Manager was a big deal. Getting a designation as a Senior Engagement Manager was also a big deal as it showed that one was able to manage more than one team at a time and also manage more than one client relationship. The horrible truth is I was asked to leave - after six years the collective view was that I was never going to be successful as a McKinsey Partner or Principal. That decision was something of a shock to me as I thought I was tracking well and had certainly outlasted the average tenure of around three years. 

My journey at Mitchell Madison Group seemed to be quite different. I also spent 6 years and had great success as a founding Partner. We were very busy building our business and did not think too hard about what we were each contributing to the story. There is no doubt that I was doing something quite different - perhaps because I too needed to be free of the shackles of McKinsey & Co. 

There are a number of things that stand out for me. 

1. I never had trouble staffing my teams and for a London-based business I had teams working in Switzerland, in Greece, in South Africa, in France and Spain and Germany. 
2. We ran a mentor program and I was always in demand to be a mentor, especially by our female consultants. 
3. I had a few clients make big project awards conditional upon me dedicating a significant slice of time to the projects and were happy to pay the very high per diems.
4.  I was asked to run the European sales effort, and I will be the first to admit that sales is not my strength. 

Reading my guest's book brought it home to me. As a leader, I had followers. People followed me because I put them first - "put yourself in the other person's shoes or sit on their side of the desk", I used to say. I was always searching out a better way - my mantra is "the day you stop learning is the day you start dying". I was never afraid to take action. "Bring me opportunities not problems", I would say.   My guest blogger's book crystallised for me why I had success at Mitchell Madison Group and not at McKinsey & Co. McKinsey were preoccupied with the 10% of leadership skill that lies above the waterline and at MMG we allowed our people to grow the 90% of leadership character below the waterline. We grew some great leaders.

My guest blogger may not be a stranger to you. He began writing about a decade ago when he teamed up with Ken Blanchard to write The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do. In 2011 he released The Secret of Teams outlining the key principles that enable some teams to outperform the all the rest. Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life came next in 2011. I bring you Mark Miller, a speaker on leadership around the world and a chicken seller of note having led teams in Chick-fil-A for over 35 years, which has steadily grown to become the second largest quick-service chicken restaurant chain in the United States, with over 1,700 locations in 39 states and Washington, D.C.

Mark has launched his new book The Heart of Leadership: Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow this week.Thanks for sharing your blog with my readers and I start with one of my favourite lines from the book:

 THE HEART OF LEADERSHIP: HUNGER FOR WISDOM

I believe there are five core leadership character traits that set leaders apart from those they lead. Unlike more common character traits like integrity, honesty and loyalty, the traits I’m referring to are what enable a leader to lead. They shape who the leader is as a person and also drive their day-to-day actions. Today, let’s go a little deeper on one of those traits - Hunger for Wisdom.

The best leaders are wise – some are wise beyond their years. Wisdom is the intangible ingredient that enables leaders to make good decisions in challenging or uncertain circumstances.

As you know, for a leader, the way forward is often unclear. Rarely do leaders have all the facts or complete mastery of the subject when a decision needs to be made. In other situations, a leader must choose between conflicting priorities or between multiple, good options. Wisdom allows a leader to consistently make good choices.

How can you and I grow in wisdom? Here are four ideas…

Embrace our Need for Wisdom. Arrogance and pride derail the career of many leaders. If we lose sight of our need for wisdom, we are doomed as a leader. As Toynbee discovered when studying the rise and fall of civilizations, one of the factors that repeatedly triggered demise was the application of yesterday’s answers to today’s questions. The same is true for organizations. This behavior is fueled by leaders who feel they’ve already got all the wisdom they need.

Seek Feedback and Counsel. When we seek feedback and the advice of others, we are on the path to wisdom. However, we need to understand the difference between the two – feedback is about the past; counsel is about the future. Both are critical. When we seek counsel, we are borrowing the wisdom of someone else.

Learn by Observing Others. Leaders pay attention. They are observant. We often see things others don’t. My theory is it’s because we’re looking for things others aren’t. One of those things leaders are constantly looking for is ideas that work – or don’t. Truett Cathy taught me this. He said, “We don’t have to make all the mistakes ourselves, we can learn from the mistakes of others.” That’s one way to grow in wisdom.

Commit to Life-long Learning. The more I learn, the more I know how little I know. This is the ideal posture to grow in wisdom. The realization of our personal limits opens our hearts and minds to new possibilities. Possibilities fuel options. Options contribute to better decisions. A spirit of curiosity, combined with the humility required for learning, are the embers from which the fires of wisdom can ignite.

One of my favorite TV commercials these days is the “Most Interesting Man in the World” series from Dos Equis. I love the tag line: “Stay thirsty, my friends.” My encouragement to you is similar: Stay hungry my friends…hungry for wisdom!

 Hungry for wisdom and ready to take action:

• Listen to Mark in his free webinar about the Heart of Leadership
• Get The Heart of Leadership from Amazon 
• Check out Mark's blog at GreatLeadersServe.Org
• Assess your own leadership right now

Take Charge of Your Talent - a Challenge - Guest Blog

Today's blog is a little different from what normally happens around here.

It starts with a little more about my story. My story is unremarkable. My grandfather was a coal miner who became a colliery manager - unheard of in the North of England in the 1950's. Miners used to spit on him in the streets. My father chose to break the mould in the same way and become a professional and qualified as an accountant. He took charge and applied his prodigious talent with numbers to accounting and business. All I did was follow along the same lines as a professional - I completed degrees an business and law with a view to becoming a lawyer. When I finished university I had 4 job offers - one with Unilever, one with Ford Motor Company, one with a law firm and one with Price Waterhouse in a new management consulting division. 3 quite different choices (Ford equals Unilever as big corporate, travel a lot, defined career path, etc). I made the choice to join a new industry of management consulting - my guess at the time in South Africa we were probably less than 50 people doing that - I was one of only 7 in my team.

That was an inspired choice to start working in a new industry which is nothing more than a talent industry. The first partner I worked for, Alan Tapnack (now a banker in London), understood that well and set me free to develop new consulting approaches to provide to our clients - I became a guru in financial modelling long before the PC or Microsoft Excel.  Events in South Africa in the mid 1980's were not comfortable and I felt I had to make a choice between continuing to do military service for a regime I did not believe in or go to prison - I took my talent and put it on an aeroplane to London.

That talent took me into McKinsey & Company where one of the partners had identified that Information technology was a key issue that McKinsey had to tackle. My time at McKinsey & Co was incredibly difficult because, for the most part, they did not value my talent as a Specialist Industry Functional Consultant in IT.  The tide did change when they hired back an experienced McKinsey Manager to drive the IT Consulting model - Sir Richard Heygate saved my career by giving me scope to exploit my talent and to not force-fit it into the McKinsey way.

In 1994, I moved on from McKinsey - ultimately I did not fit in their model and it was time for me to Take Charge of My Talent. I joined a bunch of like-minded ex-McKinsey consultants and started Mitchell Madison Group as a direct competitor to McKinsey & Co specialising in the Financial Services Industry. Over the next 6 years we ran a rocket ship that grew to the size that McKinsey had done in 50 years. What was the biggest success we had, you may ask?  It was not only about clients. We waged an amazing competitive war on talent in recruiting the brightest people we could find. These young people had to be prepared to take charge of their own talent because we also took away the shackles of the role expectations that tied McKinsey down. For example, Alex Mahon, now CEO of Shine Group, moved from Business Analayst to Associate to Engagement Manager in 18 months - a journey that would have taken 6 years minimum at McKinsey.  MMG was a success because we all took charge of our own talent. Now my success as a consultant came from one other thing that I was really good at - I coached middle managers inside my client organisations to do the same thing.

My guests today run the same mantra. One of them is a former McKinsey colleague. They have a mission to change the world by getting people to take charge of their talent. This is not a "beat the drum" and get the motivational juices going approach. It is a clearly articulated process with clear steps and clear roles to harness a few insights about one's hopes and aspirations and the obstacles getting in the way and building your own path to your own success. ENJOY (and buy the book)

A clear process to take charge

Don Maruska and Jay Perry are Master Certified Coaches who help people take advantage of business and personal challenges in unique and powerful ways. 

Putting the Keys to Talent Development in Your Hands  

It’s time for a revolution in talent development. For generations, organizations have managed talent development. They’ve figured out who the HiPo’s (high potentials) are and focused resources on them. “Trickle down” talent development has shortchanged the rest and created a huge class of PoPo’s (passed over and pissed off). In short, scarcity thinking has limited what people and organizations think is possible.

Further, we hear leaders talk about driving down corporate objectives through talent development as if people were cattle. Well, hello! Most people don’t want to be told what to do. Even those who say they do often resist direction.

It’s little surprise that over 71% of American workers responding to a Gallup poll report that they are “not engaged” in work or “actively disengaged.” What’s worse is that high levels of disengagement have persisted for more than decade, in both good economies and bad. In short, there’s systemic problem with how organizations engage their talent. Our own surveys of thousands of people reveal that even high performers in excellent organizations have 30% to 40% of their talent untapped. It’s time for a change.

Let talent bubble up. Shift from “trickle down” to “bubble up” talent development. That’s right; it’s putting the keys to talent development in the hands of the people who have the talent. This tracks a fundamental cultural shift of people taking charge of many aspects of their lives, from booking their own airplane reservations to buying and selling stocks. People want to be in charge of what’s important to them, when they have the tools to do it. So, how can “bubble up” talent development work for both employees and their organizations?

Catalyze employee self-motivation. The first key engages the fundamental source of motivation: employee self-motivation. Instead of viewing managers as “cattle drivers,” think of them as “catalysts” who act to accelerate thinking and precipitate results without taking initiative and responsibility away from team members. This shifts from a command-control culture to a take-charge culture. The latest insights from neuroscience and psychology provide guidance on how to accomplish this successfully. We’ve found that a carefully structured conversation that keeps the participant in his or better thinking and in charge of the choices proves useful for 90% or more of the participants and “very useful” and even “major breakthroughs” in 20% to 30% of the situations. The great benefit is that employees don’t have to wait for a supervisor or manager. They can follow the steps and enjoy the value of a 45-minute Talent Catalyst Conversation with one another. Thus, all team members with an interest in their talent and a willingness to be generous listeners for one another can participate. This breaks down the barriers to access.

Accelerate through obstacles. The second key transforms how team members think about obstacles. Indeed, as with sailboats that head up into the wind and travel faster than the wind itself, team members can leverage tools to turn obstacles into springboards for success. Such tools include accessing inner qualities (for example, curiosity, generosity, and assertiveness), mashing up the untapped resources before them to create more out of what’s available to them, and “speed planning” that sketches out talent action plans in less than 15 minutes to gain results quickly.

Multiply the payoffs for yourself and others. The third key invites team members to translate their knowledge and skills into enduring career assets. They transform the ideas in their heads into tangible value. For example, a staff member who wanted to become a supervisor documented guidelines for giving performance feedback. She showed concretely what she learned from best practices as well as her own experience in both mock situations and project settings. These became the proof points for her brand: “candid, constructive feedback that brings out the best in you.” As a result, she landed the supervisory job and provided a valuable, tangible asset to the organization for first-time supervisors.

Opportunities abound to unlock the talent within today’s workforce. The keys are at hand. The perfect moment is now.

Take charge of your talent NOW

• Watch the webinar at http://mymark.mx/TakeChargeWebinar - no opt in required
• Click www.TakeChargeofYourTalent.com for more information
• Buy the book fro Amazon  “Take Charge of Your Talent: Three Keys to Thriving in YourCareer, Organization, and Life” 

The time is now. I took charge and it changed my life. the consultants of MMG took charge and they built a great firm and changed their lives. We owe it to ourselves

Another Winter Passes By

You would think that with all the Internet Marketing training that I have sat through over the last 18 months that I would at least write blog pages more often.  It just seems that life is so full that nothing gets done and life is so empty that nothing wants to get done.  When I last wrote I was getting ready to cycle from Darwin to Perth as part of Cycle Around Australia 2013 and that was the true focus at the time.  Well here goes with what has been happening:

• I used the opportunity of the bike ride to raise funds for charity. I chose to use some new (to me) Internet Marketing tools to work out how they work and to identify what is the best method for collecting for a charity. What did I do?  I collated all my email addresses into an autoresponder (I use Getresponse) mailing series and sent out a mailing newsletter to around 1,000 people from my email lists. First thing learned was that around 100 emails were not current. Second thing was a very high click rate to my donation page (around 30 percent) and a nice flow of donations. I also ran a Facebook event promoting the start of my ride and posting the link. That drew a little traffic and some donations. I also posted a link to my growing Twitter following and got some clicks but no donations. I did a follow up mailing to the people on the list who had not donated and achieved the same click through rate and about the same level of donations. LESSON: raising funds from charity is best done with people you know and mail more than once. 

Click throughs from mailings

• I joined the Cycle Around Australia group in Darwin at the end of May. They had already ridden from Melbourne to Cairns and from Cairns to Darwin. Preparations were a little haphazard but somehow on the appointed start time on June 1, I was ready to ride with 17other riders - some I had ridden with before and some were new to me. Was so good to get back on the road and starting off on familiar territory on the road from Darwin to Katherine though the first 3 days into teh wind were a little tough and my lack of training showed up. The ride from Katherine to Broome into the Kimberley was new to me - it is simply the best section of riding I have done across Australia. the road basically runs from one big river system to the next and the next - easy downwind riding (though we had some long days) and amazing scenery as the rivers carve their way through the gorges. I wrote a journal as I normally do and you can find it on Crazyguyonbike here 

• I cut short my ride from Broome to Perth - something about "a road travelled twice" was getting to me. The dynamics of the group had changed quite dramatically with fewer riders and I had a bunch of things at home that needed attention. Truth is I was just not enjoying the ride as much as I would have liked. So I departed the ride at Coral Bay after riding about 3,400 kms (a little over 2,000 miles) - I had achieved key objectives of getting fit and losing some weight and gained a few new friends along the way. And my contribution to the charity fund raising to modify bicycles for disabled children will make a difference to 4 or 5 young children. There is still a chance to make a donation by heading over to http://bit.ly/FreedomWheels - this page will be taken down in October - so get in fast. I must say I did learn a lot about the value of supporting a charity and the processes for doing so using Internet Marketing techniques.  The link itself is a clue - it is free link shortener - what I like is I can choose the text and it gives me tracking data. [I have since built my own]

• You may be wondering what did I do with the extra time I gained. I cannot say with hand on heart that I used the time well. I did get the tax department off my back for my superannuation accounts and got one year's backlog out of the way. I am still a little behind. I have ridden my bike a little bit and some of that weight has crept back on - but not too badly. I had planned to go to South Africa to see my mother (who is now 89) but that has not happened. I had hoped to make some more progress in my Internet Marketing and Business Coaching businesses. Truth is I have been struggling with some sever bouts of depression and spending way too much time staring into space pretending to be busy.  I have so many things that need doing and do not really know where to start. This is a long story to do with the failures of the past; some challenges in my relationship; the fact I do not see my children often enough and the way I feel about life in Australia.

• I did take the opportunity to travel to Thailand to attend the Fusion HQ Dojo in Chiang Mai. Fusion HQ is a software platform designed specifically for building internet marketing businesses. The dojo was as its name implies was a working training session - there were a variety of presenters (mostly now living in Chiang Mai) covering a range of topics in internet marketing and a number of hands on workshops for using the software. The software is simply amazing as it has built in all the tools one needs for a good internet business (except for shopping cart for a catalogue business) whether it be membership sites; affiliate marketing; sales funnels; email funnels; split testing - simply amazing. In due course I will be building my businesses on this platform and moving away from Wordpress and Weebly sites - a tool that everything in one place makes a lot more sense to me even if it is more costly to purchase. Head to http://mymark.mx/FusionHQ to have a look see.  The main thing I got out of the conference is a clear picture of how my Business Coaching can help other aspirant entrpepreneurs. We all face similar challenges in starting a business - and it gets harder as we get older.  The challenges have to do with Strategic Focus - they have to do with Process Design -they have to do with Scalability. The promise of making millions or even hundreds of thousands do not flow that way - they take a solid business approach and business structure.  More to come via http://MarkCarringtonBusinessCoach.com

• Many of you will not know that I lived in Bangkok for a while. I really fell in love with Thailand and even found a way to deal with the assault on the senses that is Bangkok. Chiang Mai is an altogether different feeling - it has a serenity which one does not normally associate with Thailand. It starts with the airport being only 10 minutes from town. It continues with traffic that is just a little more ordered - not ordered like a Western city but not as scary. The city is laid on on a big plain with mountains standing about 1,000 metres high ringing the plain in the distance. It was not as hot as Bangkok and not as humid - and I was there in summer time. The city is less busy and the mountains provide an escape. 

• Markets took a little of a back seat while I was doing my bike ride. In the intervening period we have seen some interesting developments. The Australian Dollar took its tumble and my positions on that move worked well. Interest rates broke out of the long compressed trading range pretty much across the world - thus far my positioning for that is working well though in Japanese Goverment Bonds I am struggling - the problem is one cannot buy contracts far ahead enough in time to cope with short term volatility.  In US stocks I have done well - the forced rotation into longer positions helped and the indexes have all obliged by moving higher. There has been the heralded debate about the fed taper and the big step down from that position in September. For now my portfolio is leaning toward more European exposure including European banks; exposure to shipping stocks; short interest rates and reduced exposure to emerging markets. For the most part part doing well. In FX trading I have stripped down my strategy to end of day trade ideas and focusing on the currency trends I see in my longer term portfolios - long GBP and short AUD and occasional forays to JPY longs.  And my robots continue to turn over 2 to 3 percent a month which is more can be said of my outsourced FX portfolio - it is not doing well.  The image below covers one of my accounts to the end of August - more like that and I will be a happy bunny - more than doubled since October 2012 [note: they do not all look like this but it does show the value of asymmetric trades using long dated options

• Moving forward what is the plan. More progress on my Business Coaching business (I am already helping someone build out his business in a challenging niche - his business is now much more focused and his materials fit his target market better). My mentor David Cavanagh will be helping with that. Have just started migrating my Twitter (and other social media) business - with over 100,000 Twitter followers across 3 profiles (https://twitter.com/go4forexprofits; https://twitter.com/markscarrington, https://twitter.com/stratocharge) it is time to take the business to a next level.  Coming out of Chiang Mai too is a programme to write the next book and to publish an Apple newstand magazine on Cycle Touring - more about those developments later. And markets - more of the same - searching for asymmetric trades across the world and making it hard for Mr Market to take away the gains.

Till next time - stay safe and be happy

and ignore this whacky code - it is for Bing webmaster tools
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