Leadership Wisdom From The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: The 8 Rituals of Visionary Leaders (22 page)

“And what about Friday? What should I designate that day as?”

“You can set it aside for whatever worthy area you would like to focus on. As I’ve said, you need to be the one to craft and tailor the kind of week that is best suited for you.
Let time be your servant rather than your master
My suggestion to you, however, is that you reserve Friday as your Renewal Day, the day that you set aside to revitalize your leadership and re-create yourself as an executive. All your weekly wins dealing with this subject are scheduled at this time. You might spend it on strategic thinking and clarifying your future vision for the company. You might dedicate it to preparation and future planning priorities. You could use it to go to a leadership seminar or work with a personal development coach. You might devote it to catching up on all those publications you subscribe to but rarely get a chance to review or to get deep into a hot new management book that will give you some new ideas to catapult GlobalView up to the next level. Or you might use
it to brainstorm with your management team. By committing to the time leadership method I am suggesting, you will finally be able to turn all your good intentions into tangible results. Are you beginning to see what strategic time blocking is all about?”

“I am. By applying the concept, my time becomes concentrated on the things that count. And as you and the greatest thinkers have said, concentrating effort and focusing on the worthy is the secret of getting meaningful things done in life. I will no longer get pulled into a million different directions every day and do a hundred different things in a half-hearted way. I will no longer have to leave everything I start unfinished and rush off to put out the next little brush fire. Instead, I’ll bring focus to my days by following a weekly cycle of designated focus areas and spending time on the ‘worthy’ activities that will get us closer to our vision. I can also see that the process will allow me to make time for those all-important ‘big-picture’ activities, such as flexing my imagination and strategic thinking. I’m really impressed and I can’t wait to try the process out.”

“So let me summarize,” interjected Julian. “There are five steps to the Time Model for Visionary Leadership. First you must adopt a weekly planning practice and carve out some time, say on Sunday night, to connect to your vision. Your vision will serve as your personal lighthouse, offering guidance and keeping you on the proper course. Step Two involves reviewing your annual victories, those goals you have determined you need to accomplish this year to keep moving forward. Step Three in the process is to come up with a series of weekly wins, or micro goals that you must accomplish during the coming week. Once you have your weekly wins, Step Four requires that you schedule them into your days by applying the technique of strategic time blocking. Every day of the
week has a designated area of focus. Schedule each activity into the particular day designated for it and you will ensure that it gets done. It’s really pretty simple once you do it for three or four weeks.”

“And what about Step Five?”

“Step Five is about what Yogi Raman called ‘regular reflection.’
Reflection is the mother of wisdom,
Peter. Never forget that. And having wisdom allows you to make wiser choices, which, in turn, leads to a richer life, both professionally and personally. Every Sunday night, as you plan the coming week, take a few moments to deeply consider the week that you have just lived. Did you do what you planned to do, when you planned to do it? If not, why not? What would you have done differently if you had the chance to spend that week again? Did you truly ‘focus on the worthy’? Awareness precedes change, and if you are not aware of the activities you are spending time on, you will never discover that there are ones more deserving of your energy. By reflecting on how you spend your time, you will not only be more effective during the next week, you will also get to know yourself.”

“Don’t most people know themselves?”

“Not at all. Most people have no real idea of their strengths or their weaknesses. And as a result, they keep on making the same mistakes over and over again, throughout their entire lives. By taking the time to reflect on how you are leading and how you are living, you will be able to make those all-important course corrections every week so that you continually grow as a leader — and as a person. Remember, my friend, there’s nothing wrong with making a mistake. Mistakes allow us to mature and become wiser. But there
is
something wrong with constantly making the same mistakes. It shows a complete lack of wisdom. Instead, begin to
leverage past errors for future successes. Allow your past to serve you.
That’s one of the greatest abilities of visionary leaders. That’s also one of the fundamentals of effective living. Regular reflection will ensure that you practice this habit. As Seneca stated, ‘As long as you live, keep learning how to live.’,”

Darkness now filled the sky and the only sounds in the air were those of the bullfrogs and crickets. I was really enjoying this evening with Julian. Two old friends, sitting quietly under a starry sky, savoring the pleasures of each other’s company and contemplating the larger issues of leadership and life. I wondered why I hadn’t thought about these things before. Was I really so busy that I didn’t have time to think about the things that truly mattered?

In the weeks since Julian first showed up in the rose garden outside my office, striking changes had taken place within GlobalView. His leadership wisdom had served to give me the wake-up call that I so desperately needed and to show me the path I had to follow if we wanted to reach world-class status as an organization. I had put many of his lessons and philosophies into practice and had trained my entire management team in the rituals for visionary leadership that I had so far been exposed to by Julian. And the changes I had witnessed were nothing short of incredible.

People were buzzing with a new sense of excitement. They felt inspired by the future vision I shared with them and believed they were an integral part of something meaningful. I’d heard some employees saying that, for the first time in years, they were being listened to and their interests were understood. Our new rewards-and-recognition program was a hit as was our first Crazy Day We
had started to come together as a closely knit unit to manage change to our advantage.

After much soul-searching, I myself made some very personal improvements during that period. Through the wisdom Julian had brought into my life, I realized that my role as a leader really was about “freeing people’s strengths” and allowing them the freedom to develop themselves as we realized our dreams for GlobalView. I now appreciated, for the first time in my life, the importance of keeping my promises, “listening aggressively,” “being consistently compassionate” and becoming “fanatically honest,” to use the vocabulary Julian favored. And I started to work hard to manage my temper. Believe me, all my efforts made a world of difference. My wife Samantha especially noticed a change in me. Julian was absolutely right when he said that I had to stop blaming others for the troubles of our organization and assume responsibility for its failings. Like he said, “great leadership precedes great followership.”

Morale began to skyrocket, loyalty and commitment returned; people became more productive than they had been in years. They actually started talking about the company as if they were part owners in it, as if they had an investment stake in its success and as if they were in business for themselves. I liked that. Our new suggestion program, which allowed anyone to send management an idea to improve the way we did things at GlobalView via e-mail, led to some amazing innovations that helped us cut costs, enhance effectiveness, serve our customers better and get closer to our vision for the future. Rest assured, the employees who made those suggestions were amply recognized and rewarded. The leadership wisdom that those sages up in the Himalayas shared with Julian had really worked wonders for us.

“Why do you keep looking at that star, Julian?” I asked as he again stared at the brightest star in the sky. “You said you were going to tell me.”

“I will, but the time is not quite right. Soon it will be, for we are coming closer to the end of Yogi Raman’s system for visionary leadership. For now, let me just say that that star has been a friend to me. You know I’ve been through a lot in my life, especially during the past few years with my heart attack and all. Leaving the corporate world was a major act of faith for me and I left a lot behind.”

“Like that beautiful Ferrari,” I piped in.

“Like that Ferrari,” Julian acknowledged. “That star has helped me along the way.”

I still had no idea of what Julian was speaking of, but sensing his unwillingness to explain his relationship to that star, I decided not to press the point.

That night, as I climbed into bed and snuggled up to Samantha, my thoughts remained on Julian. Here was a corporate superstar who had come close to the brink of death. He then gave up everything he had and headed off in search of the wisdom that he knew he had always lacked. The man trekked through India and high into the Himalayas until he found the sources he had been searching for. While the Sages of Sivana gave him the secrets of youth and happiness, they also shared with him the rituals of visionary leadership. The transformation he had undergone as a person was nothing short of miraculous. I now realized that the transformation I had begun to undergo as a leader was no less astonishing.

I reached over to the table next to our bed and flipped on the night-light. I stared at the small object that I had carefully placed
next to my reading glasses. It was made of wood and had been given to me by Julian, just before I left him alone at the military base. It was the next piece of the intricate puzzle that had grown over the time we had been meeting. Once again, I could not make out the lightly colored design on it. And once again, it carried an inscription. It read simply,
Ritmi 6: Leader Lead Thyself

Chapter 9 Knowledge Summary • Julian’s Wisdom in a Nutshell

The Ritual
The Essence	The Ritual of Personal Effectiveness
The Wisdom	• The secret of personal effectiveness is concentration of purpose
• The art of getting things done lies in knowing what things need to remain undone
• If you do not lead your time, it will lead you
• If your priorities do not get scheduled into your planner, other peoples’ priorities will get scheduled into your planner
The Practices	• The Time Model for Visionary Leadership™
• Strategic Time Blocking™
Quotable Quote	Never forget the importance of each and every one of your days. As you live your days, so you live your life. Do not waste even one of them. The past is history and the future is but a figment. This day, the present, is really all you have.

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Ancient Indian proverb

Mount Percival is the tallest peak in this part of the country. Mountaineers and adventurers come from far and wide to scale its north face, apparently one of the most treacherous of all of the climbs in our locale. A few years ago, the son of one of my colleagues lost his life on a summit attempt. He and the seven members of his team had been found frozen to death, about two hundred feet from the top. For the life of me, I could not figure out why Julian wanted me to meet him here.

As I drove my four-wheel drive up the winding highway that led to an area near the base of the mountain frequented by tourists and hikers, I realized I had come to rely on Julian’s regular coaching sessions. Every single one of our meetings had not only been rich with leadership wisdom and powerful lessons on organizational transformation, they had also been mini-adventures that moved me
out of my “region of security,” to borrow from Julian’s language, and into new pathways of thought and action. I sensed that he would not remain in one place for a very long time since I knew he was deeply committed to spreading the philosophy of the sages throughout our part of the world. And I knew that when he left, I would miss him.

As I drove up to the base area, crowded with people from all across the world on this fine day, I spotted Julian. Unlike the last time, today he had on his traditional ruby red monk’s robe and his well-worn sandals. As usual, his face radiated vitality and good health. And as on each of the previous occasions, it carried a smile. It was still a little hard for me to believe that this youthful-looking man was actually Julian Mantle, the once hard-drinking, fast-living corporate player who had collapsed from a massive heart attack in the middle of a packed courtroom.