Lance Secretan's
Blog

Mastery in any field is a joy to practice and behold. Masters in every field have a coach—in sports, acting, singing, art, music, speech, politics, religion, medicine, and leadership. In fact, one can say that no one achieves greatness on their own—they always have a coach.  And the greater the level of mastery, the more likely it is that a great coach will be by their side. No one gets to the Olympics without a coach.

So often, a seasoned coach is able to add insights, wisdom, technique, encouragement, experience and an observer’s eye and a listener’s ear that the individual being coached can rarely match. And very often, a significant improvement in the performance level of someone displaying great mastery can be traced to the close relationship they have with their coach.

Butch Harmon is a famous golf coach and former professional player. He played on the professional PGA circuit from 1970 to 1971, winning the 1971 Broome County Open, after which he spent several years in Morocco as the personal golf coach to King Hassan II. After returning to the United States he became well-known for his work with Greg Norman and Fred Couples, in the early 1990s. From 1993 to 2004 he famously coached Tiger Woods, helping him to win eight of his 14 major triumphs in those years. During this time Tiger Woods was the undisputed number one golf champion. In 2007 Butch Harmon began to coach Phil Mickelson. Since then, Tiger Woods has slipped in the rankings to 18th and Phil Mickelson has quickly risen to the 11th spot.

Is this just a coincidence?  Or can the difference in performance be attributed to the coach who is guiding the improvement?

The quality of the coach is directly correlated to the quality of the player—in any field. Top executives choose their coaches carefully because much depends on the synergy between the two of them. When a brilliant coach and a brilliant leader become partners, extraordinary outcomes and unparalleled achievements result.

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again … who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.”

Theodore Roosevelt (American 26th US President (1901-09), 1858-1919).

See the “Teddy Awards” for 2011 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2102536,00.html#ixzz1l0CN9nOM

“Let us enter the New Year cheerfully. Let us resolve to look on the bright side, to make the best of whatever may befall, to maintain faith that doing the right thing will ultimately bring victory. Let us cultivate sunniness, resist sourness. We can better wrestle with difficulties, obstacles, problems, in a spirit of buoyancy than in an abject, morose mood.  How much more the radiant mortal gets out of life and puts into life than the downcast, long-faced, self-pitying being.”

 B.C. Forbes, founder of Forbes magazine, 1937.

I do not often write about my clients as I do not want to appear overly promotional or commercial.  We work with some of the best organizations on the planet and many of the finest leaders around.  One of those is Humana, with whom we have been working closely for several years, and their leader, Mike McCallister, is one of the very best.

Working with leaders to align their strategy with their processes and their values is the challenge we take on every day, and one of the ways we guide organizations is to help them to identify, realize and sustain their ONE Dream(R).  This is a process by which a company or institution, or even a country, re-calibrates its reason for existing and defines how it plans to change the world.  The result is a surge in employee passion (I must emphasize here: NOT engagement - but passion!) which galvanizes all human effort – within and outside the organization – towards that ONE Dream(R). Humana’s ONE Dream(R) is “To help people achieve lifelong well-being”.  This has resulted in a corporate transformation which has helped them to diversify, acquire new businesses and grow their company from $12 billion to over $40 billion and become one of the most inspiring members of the Fortune 100 family of companies.

But at this high level of peak performance, every detail must be considered, because alignment of messaging, walking the talk and BEING and living the ONE Dream(R) becomes paramount, and sometimes challenging. At this level, the oxygen is thin, the demands are high, and people are watching to see if you fail.

In the lobby of Humana’s headquarters is a floor-to-ceiling glass sculpture (pictured above) which announces the company’s ONE Dream(R) to the world.  Alongside this tribute to their passion are two antique Greek statues of goddesses which I have always admired whenever I visit there. They were acquired from a dealer in 1984 and have graced Humana’s lobby ever since. The Italian government has been on a campaign for years to retrieve antiquities that were looted or transferred from their country, largely during World War II, and though Humana has never been directly under any pressure on this front, it has chosen to return them voluntarily to Italy. Humana acquired the statues and owns them legitimately, but Italy’s “lifelong well-being” is not being served if their treasures are being kept from them – even when the current owner is legally entitled to do so.  And Humana chose to make this gesture because, though it may be a small act in the grand scheme of things, it helps the organization live its dream.  By doing so, it sends a signal to everyone, that it is a company of integrity and that sometimes, even though the law may entitle us to certain behavior, being an exemplary citizen may demand different actions.

At a time when Corporate America is under attack for a perceived collapse of integrity, altruism, compassion and high ideals, it is examples like this that remind us that there are many who lead by example – and that inspires us all.

Joe Reagan is the President and CEO of  Greater Louisville Inc. (Louisville’s Metro Chamber of Commerce) the Southern Indiana and Greater Louisville region’s  leading business organization. GLI leads business, community and economic development in Greater Louisville working to increase human capital, drive job creation and entrepreneurship, maximize global opportunities and strengthen the business leadership of their community.

A couple of years ago, my organization led a series of retreats, attended by community leaders from business, government, academia, healthcare, non-profits, the arts, religions as well as student leaders and others from every sector, designed to uncover the possibilities for the region (which we call “Permission Space”) in order to create ONE Dream(R) for the entire community. (See the short video here).

As part of this project, we invited all of these leaders to go through a personal process of identifying their Destiny (WHY they are here on earth), their Character (how they wish to BE while they are here) and their Calling (what they wish to DO while they are here).   This helped to align their personal lives with the larger purpose of the community in which they live. Since that time, the power of the region’s ONE Dream(R) has helped to attract 250 new businesses and create 175,000 new jobs.

Joe Reagan is one of many who cherish their Destiny, Character and Calling Statements, using them to guide their lives.  I asked Joe if he would permit me to share his in this blog, and he generously agreed.

He sees the main challenges facing the world to be “self-centered fear” and “poverty/despair”.  The conditions that would prevail if these were reversed, in his view, would be “other-centered love” and “abundance/hope”

So he has chosen to live his life in service of bringing about those conditions.  His Destiny Statement is:

“Helping to bring greater love, abundance and hope to the world.”

His Character Statement, which describes the way in which he lives his life, the kind of person he wants to be in relation with others and the world, is:

“To be a grateful, loving, contemplative witness.”

…and his Calling – how he will use his gifts and talents to serve the world – is:

“To serve through gifts of leadership, creativity and fortitude.”

Each morning, as Joe is commuting to meetings or to his office, he reflects on these three statements of his Destiny, Character and Calling, and commits in those quiet moments to enter his day with those intentions.

As I have written in The Spark, the Flame and the Torch, “When one stands in the presence of a person who has a deep inner awareness of why they are here (Destiny) how they will be (Character) and what they will do (Calling), you are standing in the presence of an inspiring person – inspiration radiates from within them.”

This is how Louisville created a dream powered by people who became inspired and who have created thousands of new jobs.  This is how we can get our economies, cities and states and provinces back on their feet again.

Says Joe Reagan: “My Destiny, Character and Calling becomes a unifying force when it’s on the back of my business card and on my lips to God’s ears.”