Train your managers to be Maui Millionaires!
No,wait - even better! "Maui Masterminds"!
May I start off by saying what great names those are? Even better than the legendary Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - and what an inspired title that was! Even at the time of its publication it was noted that the book was neither about Zen nor motorcycle maintenance, but what a seller! (The best I could come up with at the time, enviously, was Shintoism and the Science of Dental Hygiene. Not quite the same zing, eh? Still, because of it I wound up moving to Montana and raising dental floss - but that's another story....)
Both Maui Millionaires and Maui Mastermind, on the other hand, embody truth in advertising: they're both about Maui and they're both about becoming and being millionaires and masterminds. Brilliant!
Hats off to fellow-AllBusiness blogger, WSJ columnist and author David Finkel for coming up with these immensely attractive and useful concepts - as well as the irresistibly evocative names for them. What's in a name? In the advertising business - and in business success - everything.
But - and here's the kicker - hats off also to all other people he surrounded himself with who inspired him to those concepts and continue to move him to higher achievements, just as he and his team move them higher.
And by advocating that you managment developers and executive coaches out there incorporate David's principles into your own programs, I'm not taking a thing away from David's offerings - he makes no secret of his secrets, after all - check them out at (www.mauimastermind.com/) - and thererein lies the greatest secret of a great concept: it's not what you do, it's how you do it - not the great idea itself but how you implement it. As you'll see below, what David's seminars are all about is the life-foundational experience itself - and no one does it better. Just try re-creating that - I dare you!
But here's the good news: if you can even make your managers aware - just aware - of the need to start doing what David advocates, you'll have made a huge stride in enabling both their professional and personal development.
And here's the genuinely revolutinary success secret I get from David's work: surround yourself with a small - repeat, small - circle of highly optimistic, creative, energetic and curious people. Notice I didn't say "friends," (sorry, Mr. Zuckerberg!) although I'd be willing to bet that the synergistic interaction generated between you and this circle will produce real friends for life.
But there's the rub: we all know people who are some of those things - but how many do we know who embody all of them? And how many do we know in our organizations? So you will likely have to link up with people outside your company!
Note the size of the circle: it's quality over quantity, essence versus dilution, focus rather than vague input. But above all it's about excellence, and excellence doesn't come cheap, because it's rare. "Excellence" has become so often invoked, so inflated, that we've forgotten just how rare excellence is, and how we need to be able the distinguish the truly exceptional from what often passes for it because even modest competence stands out in a world of mediocrity. That's another part of David's genius: select for excellence, exhaustively and according to critera you know will produce the results you want - and which you're advertising!
Now do you see why David's seminars are cheap at the price? Why people line up to apply? Why they're booked as long in advance as the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth? Why a significant majority of "graduates" sign up again, year after year, for a new infusion of creativity - and to make those crucial new contacts?
As usual, your mother was right - you are who you hang out with. Since the time you devote to people is precious, seek out those who fulfill William F. Buckley's criteria for the people he enjoyed being around: they should inform and entertain. Although the term "edutainment" is used disparagingly by the Puritans and grouches of the world, we savvy management trainers and executive coaches know that learning and fun are coterminal!
We're looking for people who are constantly self-improving, self-educating, because they know that great ideas come largely from what you already have in your head, and from what others have in theirs - so knowledge is useful - surprise!!
Design a networking plan into your organizational and personal management training agenda - a small, select group of truly stimulating individuals who will challenge you to rise to their level. You will, and then those exceptional people will enjoy hanging with you, and on and on in a constantly widening gyre. You'll find yourself changing not only professionally but personally - and all for the better.
Oh, and best of luck on your search!
