Brooke White after Being Eliminated

This year my family and I have gotten into the American Idol show. I never realized it before but the show is basically all about coaching and mentoring people around an ambitious aspiration—becoming a Pop Star.

I enjoy getting to know both the performers like David Archuletta, David Cook, Brooke White, Jason Castro, Syesha Mercado, and so on as well as the judges, Simon Cowel, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson.

If you define coaching as interacting with people in such a way that expands people’s capacity to perform with a view towards an Impossible Future, I think this show is a great example.

The performers, all beautiful, charming, and super talented people clearly see their participation on Idol as the ultimate self-development and growth experience.

If coaching is about observing and making assessments, the judges do just that after each song. Yet it’s only when America votes that it is decided on who stays and who is eliminated, and I think that’s part of what makes the show have real integrity.

Simon’s near brutal candor and constantly challenging people to “reach down” into themselves and go to the next level is balanced by Randy and Paula’s loving and supportive attitude. If Simon says that performance was “totally forgettable,” “old hat,” “a nightmare,” either Randy or Paula, are bound to jump in and come to the person’s defense: “No, No, No! It wasn’t a nightmare.”

I have really enjoyed the host of the show, Ryan Seacrest, who I think is a person of high emotional intelligence. If Simon gets too acerbic, Randy or Paula may appeal directly to Ryan to basically shut Simon up.

Seacrest’s way of being is described by his actions—a kind word after the judging, a pat on the back, or as he said to one to contestant, “We are not going to let you go away with tears streaming down your face,” as he invites her to sing her final song.

I have often asked myself, why is it that the executives who are coached often don’t take the coaching as seriously as the contestants on this show? I think there are several reasons.

 1) On the show the coaching is connected to a personal goals and aspiration that, if achieved, could totally change a person’s life, while many executive coaches just work with people on some remedial behaviors.

2) Idol takes place in the process of people making an all out effort to expand their capacity to perform at a world-class level, whereas most executive coaching takes place around taking a list of leadership competencies and trying to get them into people by merely talking about them.

3) On Idol, the factors of time and pressure have a big impact—perform at a higher level or you go home. With most executive coaching there is no consequence to whether the person learns the lesson or not.

The bottom line? There is a lot anyone interested in coaching and mentoring can learn from this show.

A Mentoring Tale

So much has changed since Mandela’s release and those far off days since I visited South Africa. Yet one side effect of the dreaded Apartheid is a phenomenon called “Street Kids,” estimated to number in the thousands even today. The circumstances for some parents were and are still often so adverse that the children are left to grin and bear it or leave to find another place to sleep and get food. They are faced with the unhappy reality of increasing separation from their natural families and become at risk for losing their limited access to basic facilities, such as health, education, and recreation.

Interestingly enough, this week I received a very inspiring letter from a South African woman by the name of Julia Paris. I was so moved with Julia’s passion for coaching, mentoring and making a difference. She is a Master Coach for a young South African fellow I will call Mr. ABZ who is launching a mentoring program for street kids.

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your personal response, and taking time out to write back to me. It is greatly appreciated. I am so excited to get a direct feedback mail from you. Your response delighted me so much that I have decided to take up your challenge and find the money to bring you out to South Africa.

I wish to be your first student and coachee/mentee when you get here. I have been coaching and mentoring young professionals since 2000 and am still doing it amongst hectic work hours and community coaching of women on personal power issues. I have been training with Coaches and feel that I still have some way to go. I love networking and advocacy and do occasional networking workshops for entrepreneurs over weekends.

As you can see, I am not a person who can be idle. I am an avid reader of business books and easily read up to 10 books a month. I do not read negative daily news, only business/investment matters and daily TV watching is kept to the minimum. My philosophy in life is people first. I have now added your philosophy of breakthrough for people for breakthrough results. I have both your books in our library –“Coach in a Book” and “Masterful Coaching.” I hope to order the others as well.

I am resident in Johannesburg and am working at the University of Johannesburg. I am part of the university’s mentoring program, mentoring administrative employees. I was also a mentor for the Business Woman’s Association of South Africa. My passion is coaching – Life, Leadership, and Spiritual.

I trained under a life coach, business coach, spiritual coach (Navajo Indian American woman from Mexico – online) and a Master Consciousness Coach up to Master Level II. The latter being Marc Steinberg a German Masterful Consciousness Coach resident in Cape Town.

The ABZ project I am involved in is so powerful and exciting that I wanted to involve a guru like you in this exciting phenomena that has hit Johannesburg and I imagine South Africa and Africa possibly. I will send you some documents and pictures to see for yourself.

This is how it started: My campus is a city campus in the heart of the Johannesburg CBD. It is situated next to a bridge where a lot of student muggings happened due to street kids and vagrants who lived under the bridge. On the bridge someone did a graffiti which reads “God Bless this Bridge.”

One morning one of our campus students was walking to campus and encountered the street kids sleeping and living in squalor under the bridge. It touched him in such a way that he on the spot committed himself, his time and energy to do something to help the street children of our suburb called Doornfontein. His name is Abe Bongane Zwane and he started what he called the ABZ project for street children.

His dream is to have 26 projects as his name covers the A-Z of the alphabet. He has more than 10 projects already and they are all growing at an alarming pace. I found them a sponsor in one of our biggest insurance companies; the university adopted the projects and sponsors some activities. Students from all four of our campuses are involved on a voluntary basis to learn leadership and life skills.

He had sent approx 250 people back home to their families already with full support networks of social services in place. And so the success stories continue. Where do I fit in? I raise funds for bursaries for needy students, to help with subsistence and living expenses. He heard of my services to the students and came to me looking for a bursary to complete his final year of study.

He was at his wits end and very desperate for help. I asked him to relax and breathe and sat him down and coached him on looking at the bright side of life as he is giving others a life line…he will be thrown one too. I promised to make an application for him to my bursary aid fund. Then I said to him as he was leaving “pray for a miracle and believe that you have received it already.” It was the end of the year and he left for home as the university was closing for the Christmas vacation.

Come registration time the following year, Abe was back. The bursary fund had not made a decision yet. I said to Abe to go and register and ask his Departmental Head for time until the end of the day. I was going to pay his fees from my own funds if he did not get the bursary. Abe left, and in 30 minutes was back fully registered… an anonymous person paid his studies in full.

Up to today we still do not know who it was. Abe had his miracle. He was tearful, elated and gobsmacked. God came through for him as he came through daily for the street children. He passed his studies with flying colors. He asked me to become his personal life and leadership coach to sustain him with developmental leadership skills. I am now officially coaching all his project leaders.

He visits me daily and every student knows him and his projects on campus. They have a project where they manufacture township electrical guitars covered with sheepskin and clay musical instruments themselves. These instruments are in great demand with SA corporates as marketing items. What Abe and his project teams have achieved is beyond amazing.

From all the gurus whose books I have read and studied, why did I choose you? I do not know. I just know you have something for us. The time to get it from you is NOW. For now…Thank you again Robert.

I will stay in touch. Julia Paris

The Trip of a Lifetime

I visited South Africa with my two sons, Adam and Morgan, years ago during the time of “the troubles” and fell in love with the spectacular beauty and the wonderful people of the country. I was asked by a local hospital in Elim, a place in the Northern Transvaal, to do a three-day event called “The Battle of the Races.”

Prior to the event, Stephen Tischauser, a Swiss doctor doing an internship in SA, gave us a cook’s tour of the township of Elim. We saw people cooking over smoky fires in huts and children dressed in no better than rags. But what impacted my sons and I the most was a visit to a local school where we saw children who stood along the white bungalows with thatched roofs dressed in English school uniforms—white shirts, striped tie, short pants. Everyone was so friendly to us.

After shaking hands with 40 to 50 people, we were invited to hear a gospel concert in the music hall. The children’s magnificent voices erupted in something so soul-stirring and sublimely powerful that my sons (then 7 and 9) and I all burst into tears. It was a moment of revelation, a moment of seeing the power of the human spirit released into action when given a chance. The contrast between these beautiful children in proper school clothes singing the gospel and the ragged street kids touched us in a powerful and profound, and yet indescribable way.

Later that day, we arrived at the lovely country hotel (a former estate) where the “Battle of the Races” workshop was to take place. As we had breakfast looking out at the mountainside grape vineyards, it seemed strange to us all that the Bill Cosby Show was on the TV, depicting a rich doctor and his wife and kids in a NY flat. It seemed even stranger to my kids that all of the employees of the hotel continually addressed them as “Master” during our entire visit. “Yes Master,” “No Master.” “Anything I can do for you Master?”

The next day we began the “Battle of the Races” Workshop with the goal of getting dialogue underway that would build shared understanding and perhaps lead to something new. In the workshops, I attempted to graciously provoke people on both sides of the fence to discuss the undiscussable with each other. This took some time, but eventually turned into a red hot dialogue, which was an eye opening experience for all.

The whites complained that they didn’t trust the blacks because they wouldn’t looked them in the eye. The blacks responded that they did this because they didn’t want to be struck down or blamed for something.

After the workshop, one of the participants, a young 20-something man named William went to the post office to mail a letter and stepped through the main door rather than go around the back as blacks were expected to do during those days. The Postmaster asked William, who was very polite, “What are you doing here?” to which he replied, “I have come to mail a letter.” When William declined to leave, the Postmaster called the police, who came and arrested William and took him away.

Later that day, William was released and the next morning he returned to the post office again with a small group of people who had attended my Battle of the Races Workshop. The Postmaster again said, “What are you doing here?” and William replied, “I’ve come to mail a letter.” This time the postmaster, perhaps having given thought to arresting someone for something as simple as walking in the main door to mail a letter, smiled and took the letter from him.

William reported this story at the reunion held three days after the workshop, and I have to say, my heart soared like an eagle upon hearing it. From that point on, I felt a definite part of the journey of transformation South Africa was on, eventually culminating in the liberation of Mandela from prison in Robben Island. I was so inspired when I heard that on his inauguration as president, he invited his former jailers to stand on the platform with him as he took his oath of office.

After the reunion and a lovely dinner spent with a beautiful South African lady whose father was a wealthy Boer landowner, my boys and I went on a safari to Botswana on a specially charted plane. My son Morgan, who got chickenpox during the trip and itched so bad he couldn’t walk, still teases me about leaving him by a tree at a remote Bushmen camp 100 miles from civilization as the rest of us went off down a trail to look at some cave drawings. “What was I thinking?” It was a trip of a lifetime with lions, elephants, and rhinos all at close quarters.

It’s been a long time since those days, but all these memories returned to me when I got a beautiful letter from Julia Paris, a librarian at Johannesburg University, talking to me about her passion for coaching and mentoring and the role this was starting to play in the emergence of the new South Africa. Please see my next blog…

“In a life time's association with great and good men, he is the one invisible figure to whom I owe an incalculable debt.”

Dwight Eisenhower spent three years in the Panama Canal Zone being mentored by Fox Connor. As in all great mentoring relationships, there was a spirit of reciprocity between them. Ike developed rapidly as an officer and human being, learning how to think strategically about war plans and the importance of building strong relationships with allies. Connor found an enthusiastic student who not only looked up to him but had a profound sense of gratitude for the lessons he was being taught.

Connor continued to support Ike when he was through with this three-year stint in the Canal Zone, championing his rise to success amidst various hurdles. Ike was still out of favor with the Chief of Infantry due to this controversial article on tank warfare. Ike was greatly disappointed when his efforts to attend the advanced course for high-potential army officers at Fort Leavenworth had been denied to him. Instead of being part of an elite group of officers destined to have great opportunities, his career was in limbo.

Then one day, Ike was sent a strange telegram from Connor advising him to make no protest no matter what assignment he was given. He must accept those orders without question. Ike was puzzled when he got orders to transfer from infantry to the Adjutant General’s Chief of Staff’s office. Had he not trusted Connor completely, he would have protested vigorously being transferred from a combat division to the army staff. Yet in due course, the mystery was cleared up. It turned out that there was a vacancy in the Adjutant General Corps for a high-potential officer to attend Leavenworth, and Ike’s name was on the list.

Ike was thrilled, but wrote to Connor that he was somewhat insecure, both because the Chief of Infantry told him his appointment to Leavenworth would “come to nothing” and because he had never served in a command position during WWI. Connor wrote back to Ike saying he completely believed in him and that he didn’t have to worry. “I prepared you for command during your time in Panama by asking you to post orders for the whole camp every day rather than just carrying out the duties of an executive officer.”

As it turned out, while Ike was an average student at West Point, he excelled at Leavenworth both in his strategic thinking and social skills. Ike went on to stand number one in his class, to a great degree because of his training with Connor. Ike was highly appreciative of Connor throughout his life, and as he wrote in latter years, “In a life time’s association with great and good men, he is the one invisible figure to whom I owe an incalculable debt.”

There were several other times in Ike’s career when Connor intervened, both to raise his spirits and manipulate the bureaucracy. One time involved getting Ike to serve on the staff of George C. Marshall, another protégé of Connor’s who had been appointed to the new Joint Chief’s of Staff at the outbreak of WWII. After taking a fast train to Washington and reporting for duty, he was immediately summoned to Marshall’s office.

Marshall told Ike he had some skepticism about his appointment, as he was recommended by a general, and had not really proven his stripes. Then he said to Ike, “I need a battle plan for defending the Philipenes. Ike said, “The only thing I know about that situation now is what I read in the newspapers.” Then Ike paused, “Give me a couple of hours.” In a couple of hours he returned with a battle plan that Marshall, who was considered “almost a genius” in military terms, was highly impressed with. Ike also proved in short order he could execute.

It turns out that, while Marshall wanted to be European Commander, FDR was so enamored of his brilliance that he refused to let him leave Washington. Ike got the job. He wrote Connor when he was stationed in London, “More and more my thoughts turn back to you and to the days when I was able to serve under your leadership and wise counsel. I cannot tell you how much I would appreciate at this moment an opportunity for an hours discussion with you about the problems that constantly beset me.”

The letter then goes on to discuss the Chiefs of Services in various operations. Ike was addressing important matters that had to be solved. Later in August 31, 1942, Ike wrote a second letter. In it he agreed with Connors contention that the greatest problem confronting the Allies was to keep Russian in the war, which would weaken Hitler on the Western Front. Connor advised Ike to launch a cross channel operation vs. focus on landings in North Africa. This led to Ike’s appointment as Supreme Allied Commander and the invasion of Normandy.

To me it is amazing that Fox Connor, “the Man who Made Ike,” was a teacher to not just to Eisenhower, but to George Patton and George Marshall. These three men played the most instrumental role in defeating Hitler and winning WWII. I am struck by Ike’s quote about Connor, “In a life time’s association with great and good men, he is the one invisible figure to whom I owe an incalculable debt.”

The words the strikes me the most about this quotation in which Ike praises Connor and speaks for perhaps thousands of other powerful mentoring relationships is the reference to Connor as the “invisible figure,” in this case one who made history. It was this story that launched me into an exciting new investigation of not just coaching, but mentoring. Stay tuned for more.

The Epic Story of One of the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time

In researching my mentoring story about Ike, I read something in his memoir, At Ease, that captured my interest about the building of the Panama Canal. It turns out that the Canal Zone is one of the wettest regions in the world, where there are torrential downpours eight months out of the year, to the tune of three inches an hour. One day after Ike and Connor were inspecting the trails around the canal, they returned to find the entire army encampment, including Ike’s house, buried by a gigantic mud slide.

This roused my curiosity and I pick up a copy a great new book by Matthew Parker, Panama Fever: The Epic Story of One the Greatest Human Achievements of All Time. As the book portrays, the Panama Canal had a number of firsts: engineering, financial, and medical. Yet one of the most striking was the astronomical loss of life.

Three quarters of the workers, mostly from the British West Indies, were hospitalized every year and suffered loss of arms and legs almost every day. According to the most conservative estimates, over 25,000 people, most of whom worked in conditions of semi-slavery, died every year during the Canal’s construction due to yellow fever, malaria, and small pox. People worked under conditions of rain, sun, gunpowder, mud, and millions of mosquitoes for officials that did not give a whistle-blast more of care for their lives than a rusting ship wrecked along a desolate sea coast.

Yet interestingly enough, most of the British West Indies workers who toiled in the project operated like soldiers going off to fight a great war. They were fiercely proud to be part of a heroic effort that would permanently change the world. As one worker put it after the completion of the canal, “Many times I have met death at my door; but thank God I am alive to see the great difference that the Canal has made and the wonderful fame it has around the world.”

The story of the Panama Canal shows the innate desire of human beings to make a difference in the world. The Canal was completed in 1914 and it was only 7 years later in 1921 that Fox Connor and Ike went there to defend it. In my next blog, I will return to the tail of how Fox Connor launched Ike’s career after his three year stint with him in the Canal Zone.

Ike and Fox Connor

I picked up a book on CD called General Ike and soon found myself listening to a fascinating and intriguing tale. Central to it was an extraordinary man who was mentor to three men who had the biggest impact on winning WWII: Dwight Eisenhower, George C. Marshall, and George S. Patton.

Unlike George Patton, who came from a very wealthy NY family and looked at entrance into West Point as the beginning of a life-long adventure in the military, Dwight Eisenhower came from the wrong side of the tracks in Abilene Kansas and had entered West Point mainly to get a free college education.

One Sunday afternoon in 1921, Patton invited Ike and Mamie over to his house at Fort Meade for a Sunday brunch with a group of people. One person there just happened to be Brigadier General Fox Connor, a man who would become Ike’s mentor and transform his life.

Connor had gone to France with General Pershing of the AEF Headquarters in WWI where he became known as a near genius in his job as Chief of Operations. At the end of the war, he was only 44, but kept his rank as Brigadier General.The work that Ike and Patton were doing with tanks had come to Connor’s attention and Connor seized upon this opportunity to take a look at what was going on. He asked the two younger officers to tour him around Camp Meade and show him their tank training site. This they did enthusiastically, as very few senior officers were giving them encouragement. Connor was impressed with Ike’s game-changing ideas.

General Connor knew that the Treaty of Versaille was flawed and that a second war was inevitable. Yet he knew that the next generation of talented leaders would be needed to fight it. He kept a “Black Book” of talented young officers in the army with the highest potential, and decided to make it a personal mission to help them grow and develop. Amongst these were George C. Marshall, George S Patton, and George C. Marshall who had served under him in the AEF in Europe. It is fascinating to consider that Connor was a mentor to the three men who had the greatest impact on the Allied victory in World War II.

Despite the opposition of the Chief of Infantry and General Rockenbach of Fort Meade, who wanted Ike to remain as a football coach, Connor used his influence to have Ike be appointed his Executive Officer. At the time, Connor was serving as the Head of a Command in the Panama Canal Zone in charge of making sure that the strategic assset could be defended. (Actually the job involved making sure the trails around the command could be successfully traversed by soldiers and pack animals.)

Ike who has become discouraged about his prospects in the military and devastated about the early death of his first born son, Dwight Icky Eisenhower, took on the assignment with relish. Connor had provided an opening to a new world for Ike. Ike arrived in Panama Canal Zone in 1922. The camp was hot and humid and perched over a hill and mudslides were frequent. Living quarters were miserable; Ike described them as awful, flimsy old construction camps with bats and mosquitoes everywhere. His house was like a Turkish bath after every storm.

If domestic conditions were difficult, the relationship with Connor on a professional basis was enormously rewarding. As Ike eloquently said in his personal memoir, At Ease, “Connor was a tall, easy going Mississippian, who never put on any airs of any kind; the most warm, open, honest and ablest man I have ever known.” It was as if Ike had entered a super-accelerated leadership development university with one professor and one student—General Connor and himself—with a curriculum that would last for 3 ½ years.

Ike and Patton

Shortly after my romp through Harvard Yard where I met with Tony Mayo, I took a shopping trip, not to one of our classy high-end malls in the Boston area, but to the proletarian Building 19 whose advertising moniker is Good Stuff Cheap (reading glasses, oriental carpets, designer suits, etc.)

I like Building 19 because, while the store does have cheap stuff, it’s possible to find bits of treasure there, and in this case, I happened to luck out. As I have to drive from my house in Boston to my house in Ogunquit Maine I was looking for some books on CD and the store had some on sale.

After sorting through the usual collection of mysteries and thrillers, I saw a boxed set called General Ike, The Personal Reminisces of His Son John S. D. Eisenhower for just $7.98. I purchased this and went out to the car to listen as I made my way north. Within 5 or 10 minutes I found myself totally captivated by a story being told by the narrator, one that ignited my investigation into the subject of mentoring.

As the story goes…One day two men road down a long, dark, country road heading toward Fort Meade, Maryland. The two men were armed with pistols and were hunting banditos, who were reported to be harassing local service men in the area and taking their wallets. The two men, later to become heroes known world-wide, never found any bandits, but the incident shows the aggressive, battle-ready nature of those individuals.

One was Dwight Eisenhower, who led the allies in WWII and went on to become President; the other was George Patton, who gained fame as a charismatic general, the soldier Hitler and his Field Marshals were terrified might bring an end to the Third Reich. I found out that Ike had started out as a mediocre, slightly above average student at West Point and developed a reputation for being kind of a maverick.

Both Ike and Patton (who was six years Ike’s senior) trained tank crews during WWI. At the close of the war, Ike had developed some game-changing ideas on tank warfare and Patton, an early admirer of Ike, attended his lectures, vociferously taking notes. In 1921, Ike authored a controversial article in which he visualized fleet-foot agile tanks armed with canon and machine guns attacking en mass, breaking through the enemy lines, and tearing up the enemy's rear guard.

At that time, tanks were lightly armed, rather clumsy and were mainly used to protect soldiers in the infantry. The article got him in trouble with the head of the army core and almost derailed his career.

George Patton's influence on Ike was significant. His greatest role was to bring Ike under the influence of Fox Connor, the man who was to become his mentor.

General Ike and His Mentors …to be continued.

A Visit with Tony Mayo of the Harvard Global Leadership Initiative

Last week I had a meeting with Tony Mayo, professor of the Harvard Business School’s Global Leadership Initiative. It was a cold blustery New England day and I wandered through Harvard Yard in shoes that felt two sizes too small trying to find Tony’s office in the Gallatin Building.

It turns out that the front entrance of the Gallatin, a Georgian brick building that reminded me of “merry ole England” was under construction, so I wandered around the building looking for a side door. I eventually happened upon the entrance of the antique brick building with a green door that looked like something right out of Charles Dickens.

On the front entrance of the door was a small brass sign marked “Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness,” which looked so quaint that it struck me as humorous. I half expected Admiral Nelson of the Royal Navy or his secretary Bob Cratchit (A Christmas Carol) to be on the other side of it.

After entering the building, I found a contemporary office with a helpful administrative assistant who directed me toward Tony Mayo’s digs in the next building over. Tony was as charming and as gracious as he could be throughout the whole meeting, as I explained bumping into the arcane “Institute of Strategy and Competitiveness.”

“Oh that’s Michael Porter’s office,” he said (the world famous strategy guru.) After a chuckle or two we got down to discussing Tony’s program at the Institute for Global Leadership Development. We both agreed that leadership development was probably more important for corporate competitiveness than strategic mapping.

Tony explained that the GLI program was based on (a) a group of 120 30-something executives visiting HBS for a few weeks to get schooled in the classic case-study approach; (b) a virtual team experience based on a business simulation after they left Harvard and returned to work; and (c) a 360 feedback with some minimal executive coaching.

Tony said that he had no pretensions about the GLI program being the greatest thing in the world, but it was as he put it “definitely helpful.” I then took Tony through an overview of the Masterful Coaching approach, emphasizing the MC Paradigm of Leadership Development: (1) Leaders develop in the process of producing extraordinary results; (2) Focus on an Impossible Future not leadership gaps; and (3) Coach people on real goals, real problems, in real time.

Tony’s generously acknowledged the MC approach as transformational, where as the HBS approach was very transactional. We both at that point pledged to keep the conversation going in order to explore possibilities for collaboration. “Harvard is thinking about whether or not they want to be in the coaching business. And so let’s keep up the dialogue.”

At the end of the conversation I asked Tony what he was passionate about and he admitted that it wasn’t coaching. He said he was passionate about the research he was involved in about great leaders of the 20th century business.

I looked at a book that he wrote on the subject called, In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders of the 20th Century. On the cover were some famous leaders like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Jack Welch, Henry Ford, as well as some unsung heroes that Tony said he actually found more interesting.

After listening to Tony talk about this I chimed in, afraid of not being professional but being my usual provocative self, “Tony, it seems like you are interested in great leaders after the fact, what they achieved after they became (great) leaders. I am interested in great leaders before the fact, that is to say, how one ordinary person with talent and ability actually transforms into an extraordinary leader.”

I looked at Warren Buffet’s picture on the cover of Tony’s book and asked Tony, “Did you know Warren Buffet once left Grand Central Station on a Saturday morning bound for Washington DC in hopes of meeting the man who would become his mentor, Leo Goodwin, the founder of Geico Insurance (a company Buffet owns today)?” Tony acknowledged he hadn’t heard about this.

The story goes that it turned out that the office was closed on Saturday, but Buffet banged on the door and was admitted by the janitor, who called “the old man” and told him he had a visitor. The old man graciously invited Buffet up to meet him and thus began a relationship that had a powerful impact on Buffet’s development as both a leader and business savant.

I said, “If you look at each of the people in your book, I am sure there was a coaching and mentoring tale behind it.” Tony agreed that if you looked at leadership from that perspective, you would probably find many such tales. “So why isn’t coaching and mentoring part of what you do at the Harvard Business School?” Tony smiled graciously and we agreed to keep the conversation going.

As I left the office that day I kept thinking about “Leadership Before the Fact” vs. “Leadership After the Fact.” I decided to look into the Buffet story and other stories. Little did I know at the time that this thought would lead me into an investigation of the roles that mentors play in developing high potential people.

(In the coming weeks I plan to blog often about the new investigation I am making into mentoring high potential leaders.)

A few years back, I landed in Singapore on my way to give a speech on The Leader as Coach to a group of political and local business leaders.

My first observation: Singapore works! The evidence was everywhere.

Prime Minister Lee (now known as Minister Mentor) had a vision of Singapore being hailed as an economic miracle and unabashedly micromanaged his island to make it a reality.

At the heart of the matter was ease of doing business—and that started with immigration controls, baggage retrieval, and the speed with which one could get settled downtown. Lee, often referred to as a “big man on a small stage,” never intended to become a leader. He dared to see and hear the call to leadership when he returned to Singapore from Hong Kong in World War II and found the then British Colony in a state of disaster with food shortages, housing shortages, and a dearth of economic problems, including no natural resources. Lee, who joined a political party which ultimately achieved independence from Britain, became the first officially elected Prime Minster of Singapore, leading from 1959 to 1990.

Lee’s first act of governance was to invite his political colleagues to a meeting at the Istana Palace, the old colonial governor’s house, a gleaming white, bungalow where they engaged in dialogue about a vision of an Impossible Future for Singapore that entailed transforming Singapore from a “Third World to a First in the World.” Lee and his ministers then stood in this future 20 years out and develop a national strategy that would move them from here to there.

Lee managed this miraculous transformation in Singapore’s economy, while maintaining tight political control over the country that had teetered on the brink of chaos, sometimes bordering on the extreme. It is still illegal to chew gum in Singapore. By the mid 90’s, due to PM Lee’s vision, determination, and action, Singapore is the number one financial center, the number one industrial leader, the number one oil refiner in Asia. Further, its GDP (average household income) is number five in the world, long ago surpassing Britain, its former colonizer.

Lee points out that leading a country to an Impossible Future is only possible when leaders stay intensely focused on both the longer-term goals and the immediate ones. Most western politicians, like most CEOs, are focused only on the immediate goals as determined by the press (Iraq, Iran, North Korea) and by the mid-term and full-term elections, or the stock market. As a result, they tend to only focus on short-term goals, and often fail to accomplish something significant.

Another factor in reaching an Impossible Future, says Lee, is leadership stability. In Western governments, according to Lee, we have “revolving door leadership.” If someone becomes President or CEO, they have to learn to lead a country from scratch and come up the learning curve almost overnight. Lee’s long term in office allowed him to both learn how to lead a country over time, accomplish what he really needed to accomplish, as well as mentoring his successors.

When Lee stepped down from his Prime Minster’s job in 1990, ceding power to Goh Chok Tong, he served as a Senior Minister. He currently holds the specially created post of Minister Mentor under his son Lee Hsien Loong, who became the nations’ third Prime Minister in 2004. The shift in Lee’s role from a leader, which allowed him to take charge of a fractious island, to a coach and monitor was not just a change in form for Prime Minister Lee, but a real transformation.

Lee has had to learn to check his substantial ego at the door and focus on developing the next generation of leaders, rather than building a nation as he did in the past. “In my current role, I cannot direct any Minister or direct any policy. I can only mentor them based on my background and years of experience.” Lee often spends evenings with his son the Prime Minister and his Deputies, coaching and mentoring them until the wee hours of the morning on reinventing Singapore once again.

Interestingly enough, the need for Lee to transform himself as a leader occurred precisely at the time when Singapore needed to transform its economy in order to sustain the gains of the past 30 years. His number one priority is to coach and mentor the next generation of Singapore leaders to find a new act. The old one, whose signature was manufacturing and operational excellence, isn’t cutting it anymore. High GDP is driving Singapore toward a professional service firm economy and high tech from contracting and manufacturing. For example, one Singapore worker costs the same as three in Malaysia, eight in Thailand, thirteen n China, and eighteen in India.

Through Minister Mentor has many TPOVs—“Lead from a revolutionary vision; take evolutionary steps,” “Make Singapore Better By Design,” “Leadership is how fast you act when things go wrong”—he is prone to asking provocative questions. “How can we as leaders used to holding power in our hands not be limited by the people we have wound up being, in order to foster creativity and innovation and ensure Singapore’s prosperity?” Lee also regularly mentors leaders from Beijing to Bangalore, and other capitals on how to maintain political stability while achieving rapid economic growth.

The next Masterful Coaching Certification Program will be held in the Boston area on January 25 - 26 and February 22 - 23.

The cost of the program is $5500, but you can still get the 2007 price of $5000 if you pay in 2007.

The 6-month Certification Program is a great opportunity to be coached by Robert Hargrove in the Masterful Coaching methodology. Take advantage of the hundreds of people Robert has coached in both their business and their leadership breakthroughs. Have the experience of Robert standing behind you as you make the journey to becoming a masterful coach. Tap into Robert's immense "toolbox" as he coaches you in working with your own clients.

The Certification Program consists of 2 days with Robert and bi-monthly calls for the following 6 months to prepare for and debrief your client coaching sessions. Your results will be validated by client feedback and certification given at the end of that time if certain criteria is met.

The Masterful Coaching Approach is based on the premise that extraordinary leaders develop in the process of producing extraordinary results and starts with the question: "What is the Impossible Future you want to create?" This methodology is time-tested and infailable in helping people to produce breakthrougths in their business, as well as breakthroughs in their leadership ability.

To transfer the Masterful Coaching methodology, Robert has distinguished 12 Classic Coaching Conversations that a coach has with his or her client over a year's time.  In the 2 days with Robert, you will be introduced to these 12 conversations and be able to engage with him on how you might apply them to your own client's situations. You will walk away being able to use the MC methodology the next day in your own coaching practice.

This program is especially designed for:

• people who want to start a new career as a coach
• people with value-added expertise who want to be certified as masterful  coaches
• coaches who want to break into coaching C-level executives or take their coaching to the next level

To find out more or to register, please call me, Susan Youngquist at 617-953-6230