<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Powertools for Leaders - A Success Blog</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/</link><description><![CDATA[Mark Thompson is coauthor of the international bestseller, Success Built to Last. He brings to every engagement two decades of experience as a senior executive, board member, management coach, producer and investor in growing businesses. Mark helps your team embrace rapid change, ignite growth as leaders and engage with influential people who are driving the future of your brand. Our thought leader programs inspire deeper relationships with your communities of interest around the world. In his blog, he shares his experience's with you as he travels the world.]]> </description><language>en</language><docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs><item><title>Charles Schwab Hired His Customers</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=38</link><description><![CDATA[When he first started out, my investment mentor, Charles "Chuck" Schwab, would talk about how he would hire people who were his favorite customers. He'd see people who were so enthusiastic about the products and services in the markets, that he'd ask them to come around the counter and become part of his team! Hiring with the mindset of an entrepreneur isn't a bad idea. 
Mats Torstendahl, currently of  SEB Stockholm and the former CEO of  Danske Bank , agrees. When he recruits new people, he looks for those with an inherent entrepreneurial spirit: "You need people who want to meet and do business with your customers, but also those who want to drive their own local business, their own franchise." Basically, you want people to feel like owners and have a natural love for what they do! "You should really like to go to work," insists Torstendahl. "It should be fun. Otherwise, you should do something different--for your own sake." 
The takeaway here is that the best service comes from folks who share your passion.
 Check out the video version of my interview with Mats Torstendahl on  YouTube. ]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2009-09-14</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=38</guid></item><item><title>A Trip to the Carpet Museum: Appreciating the History of Others</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=37</link><description><![CDATA[When negotiations seem to be breaking down and there’s no more energy on either side, it’s easy to abandon hope for mediation. Instead, a key tactic exists in taking a deeper look into the personal needs of the people on both sides of the table.   
When former president of the U.N. General Assembly, and current Darfur Special Envoy, Jan Eliasson, had been stuck in Iran for three days over a matter he thought would have been quickly resolved, he felt his impatience building.  But instead of giving up, or directing his frustration towards the situation, he took an entirely different approach:
“I said, ‘I’ve been in Tehran 20 times and you’ve forced me to work every time. I’ve never had a chance to go to your carpet museum.”  Initially, the interpreter told Eliasson that the Iranians thought he was crazy. But then the energy of the room shifted and they all decided to take a trip to the carpet museum!
Once there, Eliasson “asked about the knots, and the colors and the patterns. It was fascinating, three-hour intense course on Persian carpets!” Upon their return to the ministry, the atmosphere had gone from tired and negative to  “wonderfully relaxed.” Furthermore, Eliasson says that they referred to him as their friend and told him “they didn’t think that a Westerner coming to Tehran would find the carpet museum such a great thing to do.”
Always Take a Walk in the Other Person’s Shoes
The primary takeaway from Jan Eliasson’s story is a fundamental lesson: appreciate the history and mindset of whoever you’re working with. If you can show that you genuinely care about how they live, work and develop their community or organization, you will build a deep bond at a level second to none.  And, not only will this approach lead to greater success in mediations and negotiations, but as Jan Eliasson says: “you will also have a more fun and interesting life yourself.”
You can watch the video version on my interview with Jan Eliasson on YouTube.]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2009-09-11</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=37</guid></item><item><title>40 Lashes or a Peaceful Resolution? Overcoming Conflict in Any Situation</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=35</link><description><![CDATA[Here's an incredible lesson from one of the world's greatest negotiators and mediators, Jan Eliasson, who is currently the U.N. Special Envoy in Darfur and former president of the U.N. General Assembly. In the midst of debilitating conflict between Iran and Iraq, in which almost a million people died, he was expecting the two countries to return to their original borders. Instead, "they made reference not to international law, but to the Koran," Eliasson said. Their first interpretation insisted "that if a man breaks into his neighbor's house he is to be punished. They compared the war to this situation, and wanted the soldiers to get twenty lashes and the officers to get forty. But rather than argue the point, we had an expert on our team who spent the night looking up various other possible references in the Koran. By the following morning he returned exhausted but happy. He found a reference that said if the enemy turns his back at you in retreat, you should not attack him. This was exactly the situation we had in mind, and when we read that out the following morning, the whole atmosphere changed. It went from skepticism, to smiles around the table, to picking up their pocket Korans and nodding," Eliasson recalled.
The solution they reached saved hundreds of thousands of lives and stitched back communities that had been torn apart. This is a very key takeaway that we need to consider in our negotiations both in business and in life. 
You Can't Just Start Over
When people have been in conflict, they don't just want to go back to the way things were prior to the conflict. In order for trust to be established, you must clearly express that you understand them on a very deep level and you  must demonstrate respect for their view of the world. What are the traditions in their life that drive their value system? Which beliefs are they really passionate about? As is evident from Jan Eliasson's story, the results of this kind of conflict resolution can last a lifetime: "I remember one of those revolutionaries embracing me to such a degree that I can still feel his beard on my chin."
You can watch the video version of my interview with Jan Eliasson on YouTube.]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2009-09-10</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=35</guid></item><item><title>Only People Who Sleep Don't Take Risks</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=34</link><description><![CDATA[Have you ever heard of people who are against innovation? Of course not! It's a sexy thing to talk about. So why is it that most companies cannot innovate? If everybody's supposedly in favor of it, why can't 9 out of 10 companies do it?
The Dirty Little Secret About Innovation
As Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, and, according to Forbes, the 4th richest person in the world, told me: "There are many people who don't like to take risks. When something goes wrong, everyone is eager to blame one another. But only people who sleep don't take risks. There are few people on earth who have made as many mistakes as me. But it's a question of having the possibility to correct the mistake you have made. At IKEA, we're always allowed to makes mistakes and we do. Too many, everyday."
Here are two really important points to take away from what Ingvar Kamprad said:
BLAME KILLS INNOVATION
1. Firstly, you have to make it safe for your people to innovate. Too often when people have failures, they get criticized. People learn really quickly that you didn't truly want them to innovate if every attempt that fails is punished.
THE ENVIRONMENT ALWAYS WINS
2. When we create an environment where experiments take place, where there's a whole process, procedure and reward system for innovation--lots of small wins and losses--that's exactly what we get from our people.
So take risks, be creative, and kill the blame game if you really want your team to innovate. As the 80-year old entrepreneur himself insists:
"Without fiascos, you will never succeed!"
Check out the video version of my interview with Ingvar Kamprad.


Original Video also on YouTube
]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2009-09-09</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=34</guid></item><item><title>There's Nothing Better than Competing Against a Demoralized Competitor</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=33</link><description><![CDATA[We're finding that the most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who imagine themselves as an investor in their client's business. Rather than just thinking about how you're going to move inventory or sell your products, your first priority should be a shift to thinking of yourself as a partner in your client's company. What if you were an owner and had your hard-earned money buried in their business? How would you make them successful?
This morning I spoke to Bill Haack, whose company Zywave provides software for insurance brokers. I was a keynote at their conference for America's top brokers this past spring. "The transaction is important to what brokers do," Haack said. "But the intangibles--decision-making assistance and personal service--are what really differentiate the best companies."
Haack spent a large part of his business life as a broker, which is much of what inspired Zywave in the first place. "In a challenging market like this one, some players are discouraged and some opportunistic. But if you're a broker, nothing is better than competing against a demoralized broker. You don't find the opportunities in markets like these unless you have an attitude that allows you to find those opportunities."
The secret to success is to understand that the current economic tumult isn't about you: it's about your customer. Businesses that make their business a factor in their client's profitability are gaining more share today than at any other point in history.]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2009-09-08</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=33</guid></item><item><title>Winners Never Coast: Compete Like You Have Nothing to Lose</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=32</link><description><![CDATA[In our research of the world's most successful people, one of the biggest surprises for me is that winners don't try to win at everything. They don't sweat excellence at everything they do--they focus on winning those few things that really matter. They don't waste time trying to be all things to all people. I asked  Lance Armstrong not just how you win one race, but how you win every year as an athlete with the shadow of  age and death hanging overhead. No one has won more Tour de France victories. 
Being Open to Change: Lance's Strategy to Win!
"My biggest focus is the tour. It's an event that changes every year. It's never the same. The distance changes, the mountain passes change...different feel, different character. That's why they present it in October and that's when we start to think about it. Maybe this year they've given us two extra uphill finishes. We have to alter everything we do, all of our training, to fit that." 
Consistency &amp Insanely Hard Workouts:
His first principle was "consistency." Lance said most riders simply "don't do the work necessary" throughout the year. When I asked him whether he had always trained that way, he shrugged and smiled: "No, I didn't!" It only happened after the illness when he thought he had nothing to lose. That's when he decided to change his strategy: train all year and engage in insanely hard workouts. "I personally just learned to be more focused and more dedicated to my job, to my sport." He smiled widely again and said: "Obviously, it's worked out okay so far!"
Check out the video version of my interview with Lance on YouTube. 
By the way, if you're looking for a great workout, I love the stuff at WebMD. They may not be as insane as what Lance does, but they're consistent and help you get results. I'm no athlete, but I find that I'm much smarter, faster and more relaxed at those few things I do well when I've had a good workout. 
]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2009-09-08</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=32</guid></item><item><title>How Zappos Bounced Back from the Brink of Bankruptcy</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=31</link><description><![CDATA[Today, I voted for my favorite micro-entrepreneurs at  Entrepreneur.com--I think you'll find it fascinating! The stories of rags to riches reminded me of my visit with Tony Hsieh of  Zappos in  Vegas when the merger with  Amazon was being wildly trumpeted--you'll particularly enjoy the  CNET coverage. I asked Tony Hiseh to tell me about a time when he thought he was on the brink of bankruptcy. Every entrepreneur has been there. 
 This is his answer: 
 "In the first probably four or five years there were many times when we thought we couldn't make the next payroll," he shared. "Actually...our weekly routine was basically deciding which vendors to pay, and then putting off the others until one week after. There were definitely times we weren't sure if we'd still be around a month later." Whether you visit  Southwest Airlines or Virgin, or a 100 of the other entrepreneurs I've met, you'll hear the same story. 
So, what ultimately allowed them to succeed?
"A big part of it was that we had so many employees who were so passionate and believed in the long term vision," Tony acknowledged. "Many of them either reduced their pay or worked for free so we could keep going. I think that we learned it's about passion; passion for whatever you're doing." If you're ever in Vegas, it's worth the short, surreal trip to Henderson to take the Zappos company tour. When you walk through the offices of Zappos, you see a wacky, wild variety of those passions leaping from desks and cubicles throughout the company. 
Tony has unlocked three drivers that motivate people--the same drivers we found in our research for Success Built to Last. 
The Three Ps that Define Success: Purpose, Passion and Performance.
1) He encourages employees to express something unique about their passions--whether it's clothing or surfing--and make that a part of their work environment.
2) Every employee has the opportunity to opt-out of the company after training--they're offered $2000 to leave. This is a great test of Purpose--do you truly believe in this company? Do you really want to work for this place or not? Less than 1% of employees take the offer.
3) When it comes to your Performance, if your job is to deal with customers, then your incentives are based on your customer service scores. Seems blindingly obvious, right? But you might be surprised at how most call centers rate people more on how fast they dump customers off the phone than how loyal customers are to the company. I met the woman who "proudly" held the record for the longest customer service call in history...I think it was about five hours!
Check out the video version of my interview with Tony on YouTube.]]></description><author>Mark Thompson</author><pubDate>2009-09-07</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=31</guid></item><item><title>My Foreword to Weathering the Storm, part of Harvard's Fifty Lessons Series</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=30</link><description><![CDATA[ If you knew that the crisis you're facing today would transform your career and revolutionize the way you do business, would you be ready for the challenge?
In this book, (now available at Amazon and Harvard/Fifty Lessons)  extraordinary leaders share their hard-won secrets for survival in the perfect storm and how these changed their lives and companies. When the going gets tough, the tough reinvent themselves, and this book is your personal, one-on-one power lunch with executives who never give up.
It's not that great managers are bullet-proof or impervious to pain. "Life was grim. Everyone was pessimistic. I used to have this recurring nightmare, seriously, that I got to the office one morning and all the clients had left and all the people had left. And I was all alone in this place," admits Shelly Lazarus, Chairman &amp CEO, Ogilvy &amp Mather Worldwide. "So, what do you do? You turn the lights out. But the truth was that everyone had their resumés on the street, and all the clients were wondering whether they should stay at Ogilvy, because it was falling apart."
Weathering the storm wasn't any easier for Richard Santulli, Chairman and CEO of NetJets: "We were basically broke. I had personally guaranteed all the debt, which my attorneys told me I should not have done. I said if the company failed, I should fail, too. And the lenders respected me for that."
We'll show you how all of the executives you'll meet in this book ultimately achieved extraordinary success, but not until they had first pulled their companies from the brink of disaster. "I felt a profound sense of failure when the company was running out of cash," says Ping Fu, Chairman, President and CEO of Geomagic. "That was my first reaction. The second was fear. Oh my God, I raised the money: my own money, my family's and friends' money, the investors' money. They trusted me. Now I had to tell them that their money was down the gutter and that they didn't have a job. I panicked."
In this book, you will get the inside scoop on how these battle-scarred leaders overcame their fears and took swift action to pull their firms from the precipice. You will get brutally frank advice about how great managers must get out of their own way, outlast their competition, turn their companies around, and, most importantly, keep their heads while everyone else is losing theirs.
"We had people standing up and screaming at the management team [at the shareowner meeting], calling us names which I won't repeat," recalls Erroll Davis Jr., former Chairman of Alliant Energy Corporation. It was the height of the energy crisis and Enron scandal.
"Don't run away from it, or try to blame the economy or any other exogenous variables," Davis advises. "You learn a lot about yourself and your management team in the middle of a crisis. You learn the depths of people's emotions. You learn that you have to make tough decisions quickly. You learn that you have to figure out new ways to motivate people when your standard economic motivations are no longer there. You have to suggest to them that they are part of building something of which ultimately they will be proud."
This book tells you how. You'll hear the hard facts about what it takes to persevere in the worst of circumstances and how managing the crisis you face today can transform your career in ways that will pay dividends for years to come. ]]></description><author>Mark Thompson</author><pubDate>2009-09-04</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=30</guid></item><item><title>My Foreword to Crisis As Opportunity, part of Harvard's Fifty Lessons series</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=29</link><description><![CDATA[If you could eliminate doubt and move boldly ahead with confidence knowing that you were facing the best opportunity of your lifetime, would you do it?
That is exactly how the world's best business leaders see the crisis unfolding in today's wildly turbulent environment. In this book, (now available at Amazon and  Harvard/Fifty Lessons) successful leaders will share with you firsthand accounts of disaster they averted while competitors stood paralyzed with fear. You will learn how the world's most successful CEOs mine every ounce of adversity for hidden assets and insights they can use to their strategic advantage.
This book is packed with counterintuitive intelligence from executives who have seen it all. You will get  their practical advice based on the hard lessons they learned as their industries raced to transform themselves. They're gaining market share because of, not despite, the changes their customers are demanding in this time of epic turmoil. As the world is bursting apart, new models have emerged that are providing the chance of a lifetime to find the best in your people and get closer to your clients than ever before.
You'll hear how Marriott embraced customers and boosted market share by viewing the tough economy as an extraordinary opportunity to pick up assets at bargain prices. As the famed Ritz-Carlton franchise teetered on bankruptcy, J.W. Marriott Jr. swooped down to buy it. "We constantly have radar going 'round like a ship," the Chairman and CEO of Marriott International says. When a great brand gets cheap, "we're there to get it." 
 Ikea also profited from planning for the worst. "If you have an offensive strategy in a downturn, like we have, it is an opportunity to distance yourself from your competition," says Anders Dahlvig, Group President and CEO of IKEA Services. He had an action plan all set and approved by the board that spelled out how to take advantage of a recession. When the bottom fell out of the economy, Ikea was ready to expand their stores while competitors were forced to downsize. Ikea decided--"instead of reacting and cutting costs--to invest."
 Heinz took quite the opposite tack with great success. "We concluded that the best things to do for the company would be to shrink the company--to get smaller to get bigger, to get smaller to get better, and to get smaller to be more nimble," says William Johnson, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of H.J. Heinz Company. "That's complete anathema to CEOs who immediately walk into their jobs and think the next day, 'What do I have to do to get bigger?' But before getting bigger, you have to get better." And getting better at what you do is perhaps the greatest benefit to be gained from the challenges we face today.
"Never waste a good crisis!"  Deloitte Australia CEO Giam Swiegers demands. "A good crisis is when you test your team and when the opportunities occur in the market." As your competitors are frozen with indecision, this book is your call to action to take advantage of the most extraordinary opportunities for growth that you may ever see in your career.]]></description><author>Mark Thompson</author><pubDate>2009-09-04</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=29</guid></item><item><title>The 90/10 Rule: How to Double Your Product Success</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=28</link><description><![CDATA[It's hard to imagine a retailer that's actually growing in this tough market after reading BusinessWeek's update on the disappointing summer sales season. But for the retailers that are growing, guess how many of their new designs succeed in retail stores? You won't believe the answer. I asked 2000 entrepreneurs at the 2009 Economic Development Conference in Leon. Half guessed that about 50% of all products would fail!  I said, wait a minute! You mean the most experienced and successful companies see half of their new products experiments fail?!
 But if that estimate seems outrageous, the reality is even more staggering. Successful entrepreneurs see about 9 out of ten fail. The co-founder and CEO of  Cuadra Boots, Hector Cuadra, validates that surprising statistic: "We have about one thousand samples a year, and only about 10% of those work."  About 900 fail. For Cuadra, it’s about how much of yourself goes into what you create. "One of the keys is to have your own personality in your product. Just to follow the others, it's to survive,” he says. "Okay, it's a risk to create unique products, but it's a bigger danger not to!" 
This is a key principle I learned as Chief Customer Experience Officer at Charles Schwab, and it was validated in our research for Success Built to Last at  Stanford and Wharton: if your products aren't unique in your own personal and dangerous ways, your differentiation in the market may become only focused on price, leaving you with no sustainable, competitive advantage. 
"So I don't want to hold back any creativity from my team," Cuadra insists, "I want them to dream big dreams. Then we'll figure out what we can afford to create as sample experiments in stores.” 
Takeaways:
1.  Don't just make a cheaper copy of what's in the market.
Get out with customers and see what works for them, but then always create your own unique solution -- something that reflects your brand's personality.  For Cuadra, they decided to go with the highest quality and fashion—then they make that high-end product for the cheapest in its product category rather than competing with Chinese pricing at the low end of the market.  Like the popular Coach  brand that caters to the 'affordable luxury' segment, Cuadra makes fashion, quality, and price all a priority.
2. If you're a manufacturer, consider getting some of your own retail stores.   Don't rely entirely on distributors and others to know what really works in the marketplace.
3.The 90/10 Rule.
While it's true that 90% of companies fail outright, even the best organizations see only 1 in ten products, services, and even customer relationships, succeed long term. As we discovered in Built to Last, the prequel to Success Built to Last, you’ve got to "try a lot of stuff and see what works." If your odds are 1 in ten, then the difference between being good and being great is that you have to have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal -- one big dream -- that's built on hundreds of little dreams. Then you can begin to experiment your way to the greatness you’ve envisioned. 
Check out the video version of my trip to Cuadra on Facebook. ]]></description><author>Mark Thompson</author><pubDate>2009-09-04</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=28</guid></item><item><title>WHO'S GOT YOUR BACK</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=21</link><description><![CDATA[Keith Ferrazzi's WHO'S GOT YOUR BACK adapts the methodologies found in the world's most successful behavioral change programs - from exclusive entrepreneurial and executive peer support forums to Weight Watchers and twelve-step groups - to provide people with a do-it-yourself blueprint for creating the kind of relationships and support structure that separate the great from the merely good. As so much recent research has uncovered, success isn't a result of intelligence but hard work and a unique process of collaboration.  This book is devoted to demystifying that process.

Great achievement is not about who you are, it's about who you're with and what you do with them. Every skill of business -- sales, negotiation, leadership, and all the rest -- can be systematically improved when you truly understand the inner workings behind this powerful insight.

The key to exceptional performance is how you connect with people and how you collaborate with those connections to identify strengths and weaknesses and hold each other accountable to change. This new approach, combined with proven and practical tactics, will have an immediate impact on what you do now and the way you think about what you could be doing in the future.

]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2009-05-12</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=21</guid></item><item><title>What to do in bear market</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=20</link><description><![CDATA[The Perfect Storm to Recruit Talent.
Mark Thompson Elected to Leader to Leader (formerly Drucker) Institute.

NEW YORK--In bull markets it’s tough to find great people. What should you do in a perfect storm? “Dance in the rain!” contends Susan Bari, CEO of the Leader to Leader Institute. “When most organizations are frozen in fear, paralyzed by extraordinary circumstances, you have a unique opportunity to find talent, tune up your operations for greater efficiency and gain market share.”  It’s not that she thinks it’s easy.  Quite the opposite.

“No one has seen a recession hit so hard so fast and deep as this one,” Bari said. “But the current circumstances provide just the urgency you need to make changes.”  Take a fresh look at your hardest choices, like staffing, roles and compensation. Some layoffs may be necessary and overdue, but so is some selective, strategic hiring. “With an ocean of talent available, this is an ideal time to find just the right person for each role.”

It’s also a great time to test commitment to your cause.  Tough markets separate passionate leaders from dilatants. “When things are at their worst, you know who believes deeply in your cause,” Bari insists.

Mark Thompson Elected to Leader to Leader (formerly Drucker) Institute]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2009-02-27</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=20</guid></item><item><title>Rushing to your funeral - How I learned to serve better</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=19</link><description><![CDATA[I was in a mad rush to get to the funeral and was dreadfully late. Although I live in Silicon Valley, I punched the local address into the GPS on my Prius and the electronic voice advised confidently, "It's 54 hours and 3,615 miles to your destination." It thought Oak Hill was in Tennessee, so I called the front desk. "Thanks so much for calling us today!" the receptionist answered in a voice so perky it would have been better suited for a toy store or theme park. When I arrived, I spotted her dazzling white teeth and blond braids as she enthusiastically pointed to the black hearse and ancient-looking pallbearers. "You will find Irving and his family out there!" she gushed.

I was listening to voicemail on my cellphone while driving 2 mph in a funeral processional and I didn't have the juice to return any of the calls.
As we cruised painfully and haltingly through the cemetery, there were gravestones teetering as if ready to collapse in this old section of the park. At first the rundown tombstones looked like a Disney attraction or preparations for Halloween. But they became more menacing as the sky darkened and rain smeared my dirty windshield. There was row after row of weathering sandstone with names of loved ones almost melted off. Epitaphs became incomplete as the storm scratched earthly sentimentality from the
rock: "She was the best mo..." "A loving father... "...in peace"

On the far side of a stone wall, I found what was apparently the Jewish quarter and the tombstones were even more jammed together, twisted and crumbling. It made me feel queasy to see so many shoved together as if they were an inconvenience, an afterthought or an uncomfortable obligation. As the long line of cars stopped one last time, a gust of wind banged persistently, resisting my efforts to open the door. I abandoned my broken umbrella and followed a weepy black line of mourners to a sparkling oak casket poised over a ten foot, perfectly carved, rectangle pit. The rabbi handed me a shovel and I was uncertain what to do with it. He gestured to the pile of dirt and the line of others pitching earth on the beautiful woodwork. I pushed the spade into the dusty clay soil and, as I lifted, the wind ignited the dirt into a cloud that exploded into stinging dust and turned my crisp yellow tie black. Now all of us were wiping our eyes.

When my parents died it was a great relief considering their circumstances and pain. It was of course a tragedy, too, but this funeral was different.
Actually both my parents refused to have funerals. I had answered my mother's wishes for her body to be sent to Stanford Medical for students to explore. She made those plans on the day I was born, September 28, 1957. She and her dad had narrowly escaped death when he was a NY street cop working in Queens and she had always talked about how that made her a survivor. She nearly lost her life again before I was born when a rare breakout of polio swept Silicon Valley. She spent 6 months in an iron lung on death row and spent another year learning to walk again. Then by accident, she was pregnant again. Her first son had died at birth. Her second son was born with brain damage. Why she chose the birthday of her one and only healthy son--why my birth to make such odd plans for her demise in an anatomy class, I was never clear. I suspected it was titillating and humorous political statement for her. A declaration of independence from polio and prior tragedies or from rotting six feet under. I admired her zest for survival, but the thought of her stone cold at my alma matter was gruesome. I would have preferred a funeral. My dad insisted on cremation, with his ashes scattered at the lighthouse at Santa Cruz beach at his request. But his parents were somewhere here at Oak Hill.  I'd never buried anyone before. I'd watched people die, but never this.

Leaving 25 voicemails unanswered, I felt blessed that I could run from the funeral to a flight to San Diego. I needed the distraction. Training Magazine was a very successful event...125 of the biggest companies and lots of rich engagement. At the reception that night, I got mobbed by people touched by my message. It was Cinco de Mayo, and there was a hunger to party about being alive. Simply alive, with permission to live with purpose. When you're at so many companies, you don't get to hear the message often enough. It felt great to come from a funeral to a ballroom of people who needed healing. After all the busyness of business life, you don't have to go far to find a place where none of that busyness matters. A blink of the eye...and it all comes down to is how you serve.
]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2009-02-16</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=19</guid></item><item><title>Beverly Eckert plane Crash</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=17</link><description><![CDATA[Sean Rooney and Beverly Eckert met at 16, and while the adults warned them away from each other, they were together for 34 years until Sean was killed in the Twin Towers on 911. Yesterday Beverly was one of the 50 people who died in a plane crash near Buffalo. My radio mentors Davia and Nikki met Beverly in 2001 when she called the NPR Sonic Memorial phone line and shared the phone messages she received from her husband, Sean Rooney, shortly before he died. Beverly was on her way to Buffalo for a celebration of what would have been her husband's 58th birthday. When the project was honored with a Peabody Award, it was Beverly's story they chose to play at the ceremony. (I was exec producer of the Audie-award audiobooks for this project and member of their board.  Another reminder of how we must treasure daily the love of our loved ones. Listen to Beverly and Sean's messages in this link .Listen here]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2009-02-13</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=17</guid></item><item><title>Sir Richard: 3 Ways to Take Control of your Career</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=16</link><description><![CDATA[Sir Richard insists that as the bloody pinkslips start flying, get off your bum Mark Thompson and Richard BransonSir Richard insists that as the bloody pinkslips start flying, get off your bum skip the pub and get down to business.Step ONE:  Whip out the address book and check in with folks to see how they are faring during this outrageous period in world history. It's in amazing times like these you don't have to worry about why you're calling! Give them a ring, drop them a note, send them flowers, take them a snack, email them an article--just be there for them adding some value and touching the hearts of everyone in your network.  Step TWO: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for people who matter!  There is no bailout, no knight in shining armor coming to rescue us. We've got to be self-reliant and the most effective way that the world's most successful people do that is by helping others in times of need. You will earn huge points when you take one step beyond pleasantries and actually provide some support to others.  'Success is earned by helping others achieve success.' Step THREE: Get Training &amp Start a home based business.  You need that for three reasons: (1) It's smart to have a backstop, a fallback if the job doesn't work out.  Beef up your skills in something you love and get set to start doing it. (2) Doing a home based business gives you some sense of control and reassurance if it's based on something you love doing. (3) If you don't know what that business should be, get a piece of paper and make three columns: In the first, Column A, put a list of all the things you love to do. (Stuff you'd secretly do for free, that give you energy and you're willing to tell the world about). Then in the next column, Column B, make a list of all the ways those things in Column A could be of value to others who will pay you for it.  Finally, in Column C, write down all the people you know who might advise you, or somehow could be recruited to those passions.  Nobody does anything worthwhile alone.  Whatever you do, don't just sit there, as Branson demanded, extraordinary times call for extraordinary action!  This may be the best time in a lifetime of excuses to get started doing something that really matters to you!! ]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2009-05-21</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=16</guid></item><item><title>Doing More with Less: Entrepreneurship &amp; Econ Development</title><link>http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=15</link><description><![CDATA[Imagine 100s of white-knuckled entrepreneurs gripping their PDA's...
Fortunately, what started with great distraction from a plunging Nasdaq ended with a room full of happier campers. There was no point leading off with the usual powerpoint presentation as the financial tsunami drowned the audience. I closed my laptop on stage and walked out into the nervous crowd. It was much-needed group therapy for the first 20 minutes. I was reminded of Schwab in the 1987 Crash,  when we were nearly wiped out. Had we not gone public with our NYSE IPO just a few weeks earlier, it would have been over for us on Black Friday. We didn't get even on the stock price for five long years. Who wanted to own a brokerage company during what we thought might become the Great Depression 2.0? It was a tough sale for us for years. What's clear to me now, two decades later, is that it was the buying opportunity of a generation.  The landmines and bargains are even more extraordinary this time.  Don't miss this fresh opportunity!  

John Pappajohn says he flunked kindergarden. Not surprising if you're Greek and don't speak English.  But for John, (above, right) it unleashed a need for self-reliance and risk that lies deep in the soul of the best entrepreneurs. It's common knowledge that those businesses that start out with overabundant funding fail as often as those that start with too little money.Here in Des Moines, anyone who's made their living in or around America's heartland knows that a little scarcity goes a long way in creating discipline. When you don't take anything for granted, you're more likely to set a plan, stick to long-term thinking and not expect short cuts on the way to a good harvest.  It's a wonderful combination of skepticism and unbridled optimism.  You have to have faith to bet your life on rain arriving when you need it.  But you had better be ready when it comes! Even after the 100 year flood, Iowa is one of the few states in the union with a balanced budget and the courage to make the sacrifices necessary to accomplish what they've set out to achieve without a hint of entitlement. Venture capital pioneer John Pappajohn at 80 shows no signs of slowing down. He has more intellectual and emotional energy than men half his age and I'm proud to say I'm investing with John in one of his favorite new ventures.]]></description><author>Mark Thompson / Bonita Buell</author><pubDate>2008-10-16</pubDate><guid isPermalink="true">http://www.leaderpowertools.com/blog/index.php?req=post&amp;p=15</guid></item></channel></rss>