Consensus Is Not Kumbaya: Lessons In Tough-Minded Leadership

By Rand Golletz

Want Success? Discard Hardheadness for Tough Mindedness. No one knows better than Rand Golletz what it takes to transform hard-headed executives into tough-minded leaders. As a coach, he gets executives to: unlock the secrets of personal accountability, think critically in making decisions every day, and develop and sustain profitable business relationships. As an author, he distills the wisdom gleaned from his successful career as an executive, consultant, and coach into tough-minded lessons that stick.Here’s how to gain this wisdom for yourself. Place Consensus is Not Kumbaya on your night table, then read one brief chapter each night before lights-out. From that one digestible lesson, take one relevant action the next day. Do this consistently and things will shift. Guaranteed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 31, 2011
• ISBN: 9781600378195

Book preview

WHAT DOES TOUGH-MINDED

REALLY MEAN?

To create success, you have to be tough-minded. But what does that mean?

Let me explain by way of example. My wife’s second cousin Ansley Cargill has been one great tennis player. As a freshman at Duke, she finished the year as second-ranked NCAA player and a first-team all-American. Impressive! At the same time, she carried an equally impressive GPA of 3.8. Then she left college after her freshman year to join the pro tennis tour. That’s when she confronted reality head-on. She played in major events and even beat a few highly ranked players, lifting her own ranking into the 70s. (In fact, she played Venus Williams more than once, even in the U.S. Open—a humbling experience.)

Watching Ansley play in college, she looked like a world beater as she decimated her opponents. But when she turned pro (and ranking in the 70s says you are a P-L-A-Y-E-R), she faced athletes highly prepared for the big time. Her situation conjures up a scene from the movie The Natural when Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) had just struck out in his first major league at bat and the voice on the PA system said, Welcome to the majors, Mr. Hobbs.

Ansley noted that the difference in physical ability among the top 100 players was insignificant; the major difference of those consistently in the top 10 was their ability to be totally in the moment. They could instantly shut out the last point like finished business and focus on the next. No past, no future, right there 100%. That defines tough-mindedness in action. (To let you know, Ansley decided pro tennis wasn’t for her. She left the tour, graduated from Duke, and works in business today.)

Despite his recent off-the-course problems, golfer Tiger Woods is a tough-minded athlete.

Golf coach Butch Harmon said that Tiger’s father, Earl Woods, was a great golf coach, maybe the greatest golf coach in history. Although not a great golfer himself, Earl had been in the U.S. military, the Green Berets. When Tiger was learning to play golf before the age of 10, his dad created a multitude of exercises to teach him mental toughness. At the same time, his mom taught him the concepts of Buddhism and meditation to help him create mental mastery. These first teachers showed Tiger how to mentally rehearse using imagery to build confidence, and not get distracted by dropping clubs, coughing, or other interruptions.

One spring, San Francisco 49ers head coach Mike Singletary brought a new kind (and new level) of pain to his team’s training camp. Known simply as the hill, it’s a 45-degree incline that he had built for running. Singletary first witnessed the use of hill running during his time as a Hall of Fame middle linebacker with the 1980s Chicago Bears. While it obviously increased players’ endurance, its primary benefit was a significant increase in players’ persistence and perseverance. Walter Payton, Singletary’s 1980s teammate and the Bears record-setting running back, believed that hill running helped players overcome the mental obstacles that get in the way of success. Many people still believe the 1985 Bears was the best NFL team in history. Almost all of the so-called experts still believe they were the