Leadership Quote: CEO’s Job…

by Elisa Spain Comment Closed

This month’s leadership quote:

“CEO’s job is to grow it, not run it.”

—Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinkos

Easy to say, hard to do.

Whether owner or professional CEO, the temptation is to run it, to make the important decisions, because after all, we know what to do. People often say that Steve Jobs was in the weeds, involved in every key decision. And, how could this be true if he built the largest company in the world? Not physically possible. To me, he focused on growing it, not running it. It’s just that coming up with the next big idea in his business was what it took to grow it; and to some this appeared as though he was too involved.

  • What does it take in your company to grow it?
  • Is this what you are spending your time doing?
  • If you are spending time doing something else, what changes are necessary?

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Leadership Quote: Strive Not To Be A Success

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

This month’s leadership quote:

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.”

–Albert Einstein

As a Vistage Chair for over 10 years, I have been fortunate to work with many successful people. And to a person, the most successful by their nature, follow Mr. Einstein’s advice. It is part of who we are as human beings to want to add value. Those of us who make this our focus are destined to become successful.

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain

Leadership Quote: The Single Biggest Problem…

by Elisa SpainNo Comments

This month’s leadership quote:

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

–George Bernard Shaw

We discussed this quote in my Vistage groups this month, and of course each of us had a recent story to tell. What we discovered was for most of us, our failures to communicate occur most often in our personal lives. We found that in our business lives we tend to be more intentional about ensuring that communication has in fact taken place.

The question we then asked was, ‘what can we do to up the success rate of communication?’ Below is a summary of the answers. As you think about your own recent stories, perhaps you will find this list useful:

  • When you are the listener, pause, focus, look at the person, stop doing other things. In short, be present.
  • When you are the speaker, check-in, ask if this is a good time for a conversation and notice the listener’s body language. If this isn’t a good time, save it for another time. After you speak, discover by asking questions; if you were heard and understood.

Bottom line, communication will not take place if you are speaking and the other person isn’t listening. Seems obvious and yet, each of us has a recent story to tell about when it did not take place.

 

Why Vistage Works

Elisa K. Spain