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2 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
A dream is just a dream—a goal is a dream with a deadline
My good friend, the Reverend Dr. Robert Schuller, offered up some
wisdom about four kinds of people a while back:
l First, there are the cop-outs. These people set no goals and make no
decisions.
l Second, there are the hold-outs. They have a beautiful dream, but
they’re afraid to respond to its challenge because they aren’t sure
they can make it. These people have lost all childlike faith.
l Third, there are the drop-outs. They start to make their dream come
true. They know their role. They set their goals, but when the going
gets tough, they quit. They don’t pay the toll.
l Finally, there are the all-outs. They are the people who know their
role. They want and need and are going to be stars—star students,
star parents, star waitresses.
They want to shine out as an inspiration to others. They set their
goals. The all-outs never quit. Even when the toll gets heavy, they
are dedicated. They are committed.
Welcome to the “All Outs” of the Harvey Mackay Roundtable—17
alums and 13 new members. What better way to kick off our second year
than to talk about planning and goals. That’s what we’re going to do over
the next 90 days.
A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a deadline.
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3 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
Put yourself in front of your deadlines with a stainless-steel plan before they roll over you
Deadlines always happen. The challenge? Put yourself in front of those
deadlines with a stainless-steel plan before they roll over you.
Get in front of that deadline with a workable goal.
Because it’s baseball season, I’ll start with a baseball story from my
favorite cartoon, Peanuts. Charlie Brown is having an especially bad day.
After striking out for the third time, he says “Rats!”
He mopes back to the dugout and laments to Lucy, “I’ll never be a big
league player. All my life, I’ve dreamed of playing in the big leagues, but I
just know I’ll never make it.”
In typical form, Lucy replies, “You’re thinking way too far ahead, Charlie
Brown. What you need are more immediate goals.”
“Immediate goals?” Charlie asks.
“Yes,” Lucy says. “Start right now with this next inning. When you go
out to pitch, see if you walk out to the mound without falling down.”
How about another baseball story. In 1930, the New York Yankees
paid Babe Ruth a jaw-dropping $80,000. This was long before profes-
sional sports salaries went stratospheric. Ruth made $5,000 more than
President Herbert Hoover.
Reporters taunted Ruth about his paycheck.
Ruth shot back: “I had a better year than Hoover.” Swimming in the
Depression, who could say Ruth was wrong?
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4 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
Get in front of your deadlines with workable goals
Everyone expected Babe Ruth to retire from baseball with the Yankees.
How could the Sultan of Swat ever leave Yankee Stadium—the House that
Ruth Built?
By 1934, Ruth was slowing down. Ruth didn’t just want to hang up his
spikes. He ached to manage the Yankees. The then-Yankee owner Colonel
Jacob Ruppert had no intention of replacing manager Joe McCarthy. The
Boston Braves lured Ruth back to Beantown, first as a player…with the
carrot he might soon be manager.
By then, Ruth wasn’t much of a player. Four-baggers were becoming
more scarce. Run? Forget it. Field? A trio of Braves pitchers announced
they would strike if Ruth was in the lineup: His ball handling had gotten
that dicey.
The Braves win percentage plummeted to .248. The franchise was a
mess. Then Ruth learned Braves’ management wanted the Babe to buy into
the team. Ruth simply shelved it. He retired from the game.
The numbers that drive professional sports aren’t on the scoreboards.
They aren’t on the jerseys. They’re on the contracts and in the bank books.
Look at 4-time NFL MVP Peyton Manning—Mr. Indianapolis Colt. He
had to leave his career to chance.
In 2006, a tackle around the neck by a Washington Redskins player
injured Manning, and that event appears to have caught up with him. In
July 2011, he underwent additional neck surgery.
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5 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
Plan ahead, and be prepared to revise those plans and make mid-course corrections when circum-stances warrant
Manning didn’t play a single game last year. The Colts nonetheless
faced paying him a $28 million bonus, as part of his contract. The team
chose to cut the 35-year-old Manning loose. The Bloomberg Internet site
reports no underwriter would insure Manning if he plays elsewhere, due
to his age and health.
Mark McNeilly wrote a blog about Peyton Manning’s career planning
strategy for the e-zine Fast Company.
McNeilly’s take:
Despite all the talk over the past season that this move might occur, it
appears Manning was genuinely surprised and unprepared when it actually
happened. When asked at his “exit interview” about what team he wanted
to play for now he said, “I have no idea who wants me, what team wants me,
how this process works. I don’t know if it’s like college recruiting where you
take visits. I mean, this is all so new to me.”
Does this sound like a man in charge of a clear-headed goal?
Did Ruth and Manning position themselves with workable objectives?
Their actions and words suggest they miscalculated the outcomes.
Sure, Manning was in demand and had his pick of teams. And he hit
the jackpot in Denver. Do you think he saw himself in the Mile High City
a few years back?
Plan ahead…all the time. And be prepared to revise those plans and
make mid-course corrections when circumstances warrant.
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6 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
A good battle plan that you act on today can be better than a perfect one tomorrow
Getting by without setting goals is the ultimate form of self-delusion.
It is a guaranteed way for us to achieve failure without ever having to
admit it to ourselves. Maybe that’s why in Dante’s Inferno, the outermost
circle in hell is reserved for those who went through life uncommitted
and uninvolved.
Consider new circumstances. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.
The truth is: People don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan.
Some of the best planning models come to us from the military. Karl von
Clausewitz was a brilliant Prussian military strategist at the beginning of the
19th century. Clausewitz believed that “Everything in war is simple.”
But he hastened to add that being simple does not mean it is easy.
Also, two American battlefield titans uttered unforgettable wisdom
about planning:
One was World War II General George “Blood & Guts” Patton who
believed the following, “A good battle plan that you act on today can be
better than a perfect one tomorrow.”
Allied Supreme Commander (and later President) Dwight Eisenhower
had another gem: “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are
useless, but planning is indispensable.”
The spotlight should always be on the process, not the document or the
computer file that sums it up.
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7 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
In any strategy, it’s not the ground you take that’s important—it’s the ground you keep
It’s smart to keep tabs on how the military adjusts its planning processes.
About four years ago, Wired magazine did a piece on a woman named
Montgomery McFate. McFate is an anthropologist. She’s been a force in
getting the U.S. military to use anthropology in its planning.
A little over a decade ago, McFate “was an unemployed, overeducated
Army wife with advanced degrees in anthropology and law from Harvard
and Yale—and few career prospects… She wrote on a cocktail napkin [in a
bar in D.C.]: ‘How do I make anthropology relevant to the military?’”
She figured out a path. Struggling in complex land wars abroad, the
Pentagon learned: “You can have the most advanced sensors, the toughest
armor, the most precise GPS-guided munitions[. B]ut without any insight
into the civilian population—or at least some sense of how they’ll react to
your moves—your war effort is sunk.”
McFate became “the senior social science adviser for the Human Terrain
System. It’s a $130 million Army program. [This program embedded] polit-
ical science, anthropology, and economics specialists with combat units in
Afghanistan and Iraq.”
“‘What you’re trying to do is understand the people’s interests,’ [McFate]
says. ‘Because whoever is more effective at meeting the interests of the
population will be able to influence it.’”
The logic is hard to argue with: In any strategy, it’s not the ground you
take that’s important. It’s the ground you keep.
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8 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
When you know your human terrain, you can identify potential partners among neighborhood leaders
The “Human Terrain Teams provided cross-cultural interpretation.”
Offered a dish of lamb? Accept it; it’s a symbol of welcome.
Get frantic if a blood-smeared car chugs by? Chill out. Blood smearing
is part of an automobile “blessing ritual.”
The Human Terrain Teams got “police chiefs to crack down on cops
who moonlight for the bad guys. They identified potential partners among
neighborhood leaders.”
General David Petraeus, now CIA Director, was a fan. He said: “The
Human Terrain Teams have evolved into important elements in our oper-
ations in Iraq.”
In business, where is the value of Human Terrain Teams most ignored
in planning? In takeovers and acquisitions, without a doubt. I call this
checklist Acquisition Anthropology 101:
l If I’m planning a takeover, do I know the most influential internal
voices of the target company? (That includes the production line and
the maintenance team, as well as the salesforce and Mahogany Row.)
l Who are the most influential local media in the firm’s key manufac-
turing and/or service facilities? How will I ingratiate myself with them?
l What do I know about the humor and company legends of the
targeted business? How well-versed am I in the company’s culture?
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It’s knowing how to do the high-fives that makes for harmony
l Where do I “lay the wreath of respect” to the company’s achieve-
ments? In what achievements are they most proud?
l What turns-of-phrase or idioms are part of the new company’s
culture? In other words, what can I say that will make me instantly
sound like an insider?
l Where are traditional signs of stress and tension in the company’s
policies? Can I honestly suggest some relief may be forthcoming?
l Is there some administrative or industry goal that this company could
never have achieved on its own? Is it now possible—by virtue of this
merger—to realize that goal?
This is the sort of human-relations planning that companies never do.
It’s also absolutely essential in integrating cultures often brought together
by bean-counters. High finance can do dreamy deals on iPads. It’s knowing
how to do the high-fives that makes for harmony.
Denny SchulStaD
harvey: Now let’s get to our first resource today.
General Denny Schulstad has had two successful careers—
one in the military and another in politics. He is a retired Air
Force Brigadier General and was an elected member of the
Minneapolis City Council for 22 years.
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10 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
You need to set specific goals for yourself in every field you are involved in
Denny and I have been heavily involved with the Univer-
sity of Minnesota over the years and both served as National
President of the Alumni Association representing more than
400,000 graduates.
Denny is extremely active in the community and sits on
several non-profit boards and commissions. He has won many
awards and received much recognition over the years.
As the most recognized Air Force person in Minnesota,
Denny is invited to give more than 50 speeches each year at
civic and ceremonial programs and is often interviewed by
various media outlets.
Roundtable members, I give you my friend, Denny Schulstad.
Denny, welcome. I’m just elated that you can join our
Roundtable for this session.
Denny: Harvey, it’s always a pleasure doing anything with you.
harvey: You have had successful careers in politics, the Air Force, and
as a civic leader. What are some of the goals you have set for
yourself in each of those fields?
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11 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
Some of your goals should be very ambitious because when you set your goals high, you have the chance of achieving greatness
Denny: Well, obviously, I’ve set a lot of goals over the years—but
I’ll mention three or four for now. I also have some goals
that I didn’t meet, but I will only mention ones that I did
successfully accomplish.
First, I wanted to be a general in the Air Force—knowing
that only about one out of every 300 brand-new lieutenants
will ever make general.
Second, I wanted to win election to the Minneapolis City
Council as a Republican in a Democratic area that was about
7-to-1 Democratic.
Third, I wanted to properly honor and recognize my dear
friend George Mikan while he was still alive. George Mikan
was the Shaquille O’Neal, as you know, of basketball. He was
Mr. Basketball when Babe Ruth was Mr. Baseball.
Fourth, I also wanted to win approval at the legislature for
the new Minnesota Gopher football stadium, which was to
be named Twin City Federal or “TCF Stadium,” even though
veteran groups were opposing it as a result of the name not
including “memorial stadium” in it.
harvey: Boy, I would say these goals were very ambitious. As I recall,
you’re the only Republican in how many years to be elected?
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12 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
To see regular accomplish-ments, you must be sure to set some smaller, workable goals that can be achieved daily
Denny: Well, I was on the city council for 22 years. The last 14 of
those, I was the only Republican. That is in a city that had
33 partisan offices, 32 Democrats, and me. I retired about
15 years ago. I was replaced by a Democrat, and there has
never been another Republican, nor is there likely to be one
in the future.
harvey: That’s quite a record. Also, about George Mikan, I’m almost
positive he was voted the greatest basketball player in the last
50 years, wasn’t he?
Denny: Yeah. For the first 50 years of the century, each sport had its
own number one person. It was Babe Ruth in baseball, and
Man o’ War in horse racing. Well, it was George Mikan in
basketball, and he was a unanimous selection. He led the old
Minneapolis Lakers, which are now the Los Angeles Lakers,
to six world championships.
harvey: Yes. I saw a lot of those games. Of course, most of the people
that know me know that I’m a basketball junkie.
Next question. Denny, briefly describe those goals now and
the results. What did you do to accomplish them?
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13 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
When you face opposition in meeting your goals, strive to find out the reason for the opposition
Denny: Okay. Well, let me start with the TCF Stadium and with the
veteran dispute. I had a call from Bob Bruininks, who was
at that time the president of the University of Minnesota.
We were trying to win approval at the legislature for this new
stadium. We found out that the American Legion, the VFW,
and other veteran groups were going to oppose us.
Well, since I was a general in the Air Force and was also
the president of the University Alumni Association, Bob
Bruininks came to me and said, “What can we do to get
them to support us, rather than oppose it?”
I found out the reason they were opposed is because we didn’t
have the word “memorial” in the name. The people who were
donated $35 million for the naming rights were not going to
add the name “memorial.”
So what I did is worked with all the veteran groups, and I
said, “You’re not going to get the name. What would you like
instead?” We worked and decided to put up a tribute wall to
veterans, which they all helped design. That is now erected.
It cost us $600,000. We raised the $600,000 for that.
The veterans groups, instead of opposing it at the legislature,
were our best friends. That is one of the main reasons it was
able to be approved at the legislature. So I was very pleased
about that.
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14 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
You should sprinkle your goals with creativity
harvey: I give you an A for creativity. What about the other goals?
Denny: Okay. For George Mikan, how do you honor a guy like that?
What we decided to do is to build a life-size statue. I found
out that would cost about $100,000. I raised that money in
about a week from 10 people who each gave me $10,000.
So then we decided that now that we were raising so much
money, we went together with Max McGee, who used to
play for the Green Bay Packers. He had a son with juvenile
diabetes. So we raised another half million dollars to give to
him for juvenile diabetes.
The statue for George Mikan turned out to not only be
a statue for the locals to see, but it was dedicated at a Los
Angeles Lakers/Minnesota Timberwolves’ game on national
television. During the ceremony, we had all 20 living Lakers
who had played with George on all of those championship
teams together at one time. The event was featured in 23
newspapers around the country.
So we now have the life-size statue; we raised half a million
dollars for juvenile diabetes; and George was able to be there
to be properly honored for that event.
The next goal I want to share with you is the goal I had to
become a general. Knowing that only one out of every 300
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You need to surround yourself with the right people and give them ownership in the tasks you must do to accomplish your goal
lieutenants will ever become a general, I surrounded myself
with people. I started meeting generals when I was a brand-
new lieutenant. I kept questioning them to find out things
like: what jobs did you have to have; what have you done
during your career to become the very highest rank in the
military. Many of them became very close friends of mine,
and many also became my mentors.
I studied the Harvey Mackay system for networking and how
to get ahead. After 30 years, it paid off, and I became a general
in the U.S. Air Force.
The final goal I want to share with all of you is the goal I had
to become a Republican on the Minneapolis City Council.
This was probably the most difficult thing of all.
I lost my first election. I lost it because it was during Water-
gate. I was knocking on a person’s door, while I was watching
Vice President Agnew resign inside. It was a year that every
single Republican was losing across the state of Minnesota.
But what I did was again surrounded myself with the right
people. I gave them ownership of the campaign, and I gave
them each specific tasks to do. I would ask one person to be
in charge of lawn signs, and that person would go out with
me and find lawn sign locations. Another person would be in
charge of block working, where we were knocking on doors.
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A realistic time frame for goals will depend on the specific goal you are striving to achieve
My message, of course, was there isn’t a Republican or a
Democratic way to plow streets, pick up garbage, or run a city.
It’s just general good management. I was able to get past the
party label and win with 69 percent of the vote.
harvey: I just love your results. Those are great stories. Let’s continue.
What is a realistic time frame for goal setting?
Denny: Well, that depends. For the Twin City Federal aka TCF
Stadium, we had four months. When Bob Bruininks called
me and said we need to turn this around for the legislature,
we had a four-month window, and that was it.
On the other hand, for me to become a general, I spent 30
years working to achieve that. Right from the time I was a
student at the University of Minnesota in Air Force ROTC, I
started working toward my goal of becoming a general.
With George Mikan, I had the idea three or four years earlier,
and everybody agreed that we should do something to recog-
nize him —however nobody did anything. I finally said, Okay,
I’ll take it on and lead the effort and raise the money. From
there, it took us the better part of one year.
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There are goals that can be accomplished in hours, but there are some goals that can take many years to achieve
For my election to the City Council, I would say that was
about a five-year goal set back when I lost the first election,
but then I just continued campaigning and won it after that.
So your time frame should be realistically based on how long
it will take to accomplish your specific goal.
harvey: Yeah. That 30 years to become a general sounds like a lot of
the time frames I have heard from Asian leaders and Japanese
leaders for their goals.
One time I was in a meeting and asked: Do you have a long-
range plan? Yes. 250 years was their long-range plan.
Denny: Absolutely.
harvey: I actually saw that in front of a Japanese restaurant in 1983,
right when they were real hot and everyone thought they
were going to take over the whole world.
Next question, Denny, who should be involved in goal setting?
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Before ever setting a goal, you always have to check with wise people
Denny: Well, that again varies by the goal. In goal-setting, most of
them I set for myself. The one for the stadium, of course, was
set by the president of the University of Minnesota. He had
the goal, and he came to me and asked me to go to work on
that and make that goal happen—and we were able to do it.
The others I did myself.
However, before ever setting a goal, you always have to
check with wise people. And that’s another lesson that I’ve
learned from you, Harvey, is that you surround yourself with
people who can help.
I would always surround myself with very bright people. We
would talk about the goal. We would talk about how to
accomplish it. Then I would take charge and assign very
simple, easy-to-follow tasks, but each person would have
ownership in that goal.
That particularly was the case in my winning elections. I
had people who truly had ownership in the campaign. They
would feel just as bad if I was to lose as I would feel. Even
today, some of those people who were kids who had been out
delivering literature for me will come up and see me now.
Now they are a police officer or somebody who is a business
executive in town, and they say, You know, I helped get you
elected the first time. I was a nine-year-old kid, and I would
deliver literature for you.
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When you don’t achieve your goal the first time, learn from your mistakes and try again
That’s what I wanted. I wanted the people who would help
me to have ownership and to share in the results. Believe
me, I thanked them appropriately. They were all shown
great appreciation.
harvey: Well, I certainly salute and applaud your strategies. That’s
for sure.
To continue on, how do you revise goals if circumstances
change or they aren’t working? In other words, what do you
do if you’re kind of forced to make what I like to refer to as
“mid-course corrections”?
Denny: Yeah. Well, I’ll give you a good example of that from when
I was trying to be on the Minneapolis City Council. As I
mentioned, my first campaign was during Watergate, and
we ran a heck of a campaign. We did better than any other
Republicans, but we lost.
I just continued working at it and said, Two years from now
things will be better. We learned from some of our mistakes.
We learned we needed to raise more money. We learned that
we needed to have more good people surrounding us. We
were able to do it the second time and, as I said, with a 69
percent margin of victory.
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Sometimes you have to give up a goal that is less important to you in order to achieve the goal that is most important
The other one is my goal to not only be on the city council,
but to also become the mayor of Minneapolis. I thought I
was going to be the Republican mayor of the city. I would
have won that election.
I had all of the endorsements lined up. I had the financial
donors lined up. We had everything ready to go. That’s when
I realized that I could not be both a general in the Air Force
and the mayor of Minneapolis. I could be on the city council,
but I wouldn’t be able to do both my Air Force work and
continue my political work.
That’s when I had to make a decision, Harvey, that you would
appreciate. Did I want to be the Republican mayor of Minne-
apolis with very little respect, or a general on an Air Force
Base where they salute your car when you drive by?
That’s when I left politics and went after being a general, and
I achieved that goal.
harvey: Well, it is just fascinating.
Last question. Denny, who are two individuals, or so, who
have influenced you the most in your career and why?
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Think of the one or two people who have influenced you most in your life and in your career
Denny: Well, that’s an easy one for me. The first one is General Mike
Loh. You’ve probably never heard of him, but he was the
Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force during the first
Gulf War. That was the war that we overwhelmingly won.
General Mike Loh was the person who taught me about plan-
ning and about attention to detail and leadership. He’s the
one who told me that when you fight a war, you try to avoid
it; but if you have to fight it, you’re not trying to win 50 to 49
in overtime—you want to win 99 to nothing.
He is the person who would use technology and stealth, which
means that an airplane is not seen by the enemy’s radar. He
was able to use that high-tech gadgetry in the first Gulf War
to win overwhelmingly with very, very little loss of American
lives. He revolutionized the way that America would provide
national defense.
He is a very dear friend of mine to this day, and he has been
my mentor in the Air Force all of these years.
The other one I hate to even tell you, and that’s because it’s
Harvey Mackay. This is a true story, Harvey. When I first met
you, and I was on the city council, and you were helping to
get the Metrodome built.
I remember you calling me at 5 o’clock in the morning on
some days about a vote that was coming up. You were the
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You need a system of networking because you can’t get anything done unless you surround yourself with the right types of people
most tenacious person I had ever met. You taught me about
being tenacious, about not giving up, and most important
about networking—that you can’t get anything done unless
you surround yourself with the right types of people.
You have always done that, and you taught me to do that.
Now, I teach the young people whom I mentor the Harvey
Mackay lesson. In fact, I even take your books and loan those
to young people who are coming out of college and thinking
about starting their careers. I teach them the Harvey Mackay
system of networking.
harvey: Well, Denny, you’ve been more than generous with those
kind words, just totally generous, and I sincerely appreciate
it, of course.
Thanks for being with our gang at the Harvey Mackay
Roundtable and for sharing your wisdom with us.
Denny: It has been a great pleasure, Harvey.
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When you only play for short-term stakes, strategy goes out the window
Okay, all you golfers—ever played a skins game?
In simple terms: players during a round of golf decide to wager on the
best score for a single hole. If there’s a tie, the “pot” rolls over to the next
hole. One result of a skins game can be to up the ante on each hole. The
backlash is taking your eye off the long haul.
In a skins game, you play for short-term stakes. As a result, strategy goes
out the window.
Some managers run their businesses that way. They muddle along in a
never-ending skins game. This doesn’t just happen in tiny companies.
An insider at a famous blue-chip giant once quipped: “Our idea of long-
term planning here is deciding what we’ll do after lunch.”
Anyone who has participated in a skins game on a golf course knows
the painstaking attention paid to the line of every putt. It’s a lot like what
Peter Drucker describes as “the last of the deadly sins” of business. Which
is what? “Feeding problems and starving opportunities.”
In my generation, the definitive authority on business planning was
Peter Drucker. In many respects, he still is. Drucker sorted out a baffling
world. There are so many ways to slice the planning pie.
One important distinction here is the difference between goals and
objectives. Goals are considered the purely quantitative and mostly finan-
cial targets. Objectives are more qualitative and elusive.
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Objectives must be capable of being converted into specific targets and assignments
Make your goals, and you stay in business. Advance your objectives and
you build a business worth having. The distinction between goals and objec-
tives is hardly pure. Often objectives have quantitative measures attached
to them as well. But they are rarely just numerical yardsticks.
Drucker’s seminal contribution, some say, was formulating the idea of
Management by Objectives (MBO) back in 1954. MBO is the corner-
stone of what has become the annual performance review process. Each
year managers and employees negotiate a set of objectives against which
people are measured.
In his hefty 1973 anthology titled Management: Tasks, Responsibilities,
Practices, Drucker lists five traits. These traits distinguish the makeup of
good objectives:
l “Objectives must be ‘derived from what our business is, what it will
be, and what it should be.’ They are not abstractions.”
l “Objectives must be operational. They must be capable of being
converted into specific targets and assignments.” For example, being
a friendlier customer service manager without a tangible target
doesn’t cut it as an objective.
l “Objectives must enable the concentration of resources and efforts…
They must, therefore, be selective.” That means you don’t try to do
everything. You emphasize certain priorities at the expense of others.
l “There must be multiple objectives rather than a single objective.”
This ensures energy is spent on specifics and not generalities.
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All of a business’ vital organs have to keep functioning in tandem for the system to work
l “Objectives are needed in all areas on which the survival of the busi-
ness depends.” A business is a dynamic organism. All its vital organs
have to keep functioning in tandem for the system to work.
MBO has been endlessly debated over the last half century. Some experts
say it’s too cumbersome and slow-moving for today’s spin-on-a-dime world.
Others say that it breaks apart a big, fluid game plan or leadership style
into too many complexities.
MBO may suffer from many a shortcoming. But it does do one very
important thing—it makes you think. It forces you to realize that the sorts
of improvements we want are different. And they are not all achievable
in the same way.
Objectives demand specifics and often different rules and disciplines if
you’re going to change behavior.
I am reminded of UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. The end
result is to win games. But you better learn to put on your socks and tie
your shoes right if you want to get there.
Every generation of managers gets a handle on planning in its own
way. Not quite two years ago, the e-zine Fast Company ran an awesome
tip sheet entitled “How to Write a To-Do List.” Can you imagine any
planning that is more basic than that? Yet many managers don’t have the
faintest idea on how to nail a to-do list.
Here are some pointers:
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Your to-do list should be a fluid document, changing every single day
l “A badly-written to-do list can actually sabotage your productivity
instead of boost it.”
l Don’t assign yourself “impossible tasks that never get done because
we didn’t think them through.” The task ‘Learn French’ doesn’t
have the same status as ‘Clean out the garage.’
l “If you put in some thought up front, you can pare down your to-do
list to the tasks you’re most likely to check off the list.”
l “Your goal to ‘Save $5,000’ is going to start with a simple task, like
setting up a monthly savings transfer… Break down your to-do’s
into small, manageable bites. Don’t put ‘Write a 50-page report.’ on
your to-do list. Try something smaller, like ‘Jot down five main ideas
for the report.’”
l “Use specific action verbs. Instead of writing ‘Ask Susan about her
[seminar schedule],’ opt for ‘Email Susan’ or ‘Call Susan.’”
l “Finally, purge your list of the stuff that’s not moving. Your to-do list
should be a fluid document, changing every single day.”
All I can say is I have done this all my life, and the most popular
tool for keeping track of your to-do list is plain old pen and paper, but
some computer-based tools are fantastic, too. RememberTheMilk.com is
a Web-based to-do list you can access from work, home, or from your
smartphone. I checked out their website: RememberTheMilk now has
apps for iPhone Siri and Android.
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Uncertainty has become so great as to render futile the kind of planning most companies still practice
Peter Drucker lived to be 95 and was active to the end.
So he was still coming up with fresh ideas. In 1995, he wrote a book
titled Managing in a Time of Great Change.
A key premise: “Uncertainty—in the economy, society, politics—has
become so great as to render futile, if not counterproductive, the kind of
planning most companies still practice: forecasting based on probabilities.”
More than a mouthful, isn’t it?
The point is this: Things no longer rest on a predictable base. How
would I describe this sort of uncertainty? We live in a world where:
“Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.”
And, “Artificial intelligence usually beats real stupidity.”
Consider timing horizons. We have trained ourselves to think in terms
of economic cycles that last 1 to 2 years.
Of course, the Great Depression of the 1930s was at its bleakest for 6 or
7 years. But that wasn’t the only such event in American history.
The Panic of 1873—otherwise known as the Long Depression—went
on for 5 years and 5 months. At the end of upheavals like these, the world
is a very different world.
You have to keep tabs on a speedily shifting world.
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You have to keep tabs on a speedily shifting world
How many Americans know, for example, that more cars are now being
sold in China than in the United States? I call that man bites dog.
A lot of people know there are 800 million mobile subscribers in India.
What most don’t know is that the price of basic smartphones is cratering.
So, by 2015, three out of four Indian Internet users will be mobile!
Apple is now talking about a “post PC-world.” The personal computer
is “just another device” and no longer the center of a revolution. WOW!
It’s a world of new correlations and new evidence.
The BBC recently did a piece with a seemingly wild—and I mean wild—
contention. Skyscrapers may be “linked with impending financial crashes.”
Sound far-fetched? Read further.
The Empire State Building was “built as the Great Depres-
sion was underway… The current world’s tallest, Burj
Khalifa—which I visited recently—was built just before
Dubai went bust.”
Barclays Capital did the report. Their analysts argue:
“Often the world’s tallest buildings are simply the edifice
of a broader skyscraper building boom. [They reflect] a
widespread misallocation of capital and an impending
economic correction.”
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You never know when getting the little things right is going to be the biggest thing in your life
Back to the Panic of 1873: The building known as “the
world’s first skyscraper,” [Manhattan’s] Equitable Life [since
demolished], was finished just as the panic broke.
Willis Tower—once Sears Tower—in Chicago coincided
with the oil shocks of 1974.
Today, the widest rash of skyscraper building is in China
and India. “In a separate report, JPMorgan Chase said that
the Chinese property market could drop by as much as
20% in value[. That’s] in the country’s major cities within
the next 12 to 18 months.”
You’ve gotta know how to read the tea leaves to plan effectively.
You also have to be able to constantly flip between big screen and small
frame. You never know when getting the little things right is going to be the
biggest thing in your life. Here’s a goal we all take for granted: Safety and
peace of mind for our families in a crisis.
We do so little to secure that goal. Here’s a slice of planning that could
pay huge dividends in your own backyard for your kids or grandkids.
I’m sure you’re all acquainted with Jim Collins’ books on successful
companies, including the book entitled Good to Great. He has a new one
out titled Great by Choice. It’s loaded with good tips. Some of the most
memorable are about the power of down-to-earth, practical planning.
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Prepare and prevent rather than repair and repent
He compares the Norwegian Roald Amundsen and the Brit Robert
Falcon Scott. The two led competing teams in a ferocious race against a
powerful goal. Each wanted to be the first person to reach the South Pole.
The year was 1911. Amundsen won. Scott and his four colleagues on the
final run not only lost. They starved and froze to death in the process.
The overwhelming difference between the two was in how they planned
and prepared for the experience:
Scott used ponies. “Ponies, unlike dogs, sweat on their hides so they
become encased in ice sheets when tethered.”
Amundsen “learned how Eskimos used dogs to pull sleds. He observed
how Eskimos never hurried, moving slowly and steadily. [They avoided]
excessive sweat that could turn to ice in sub-zero temperatures.”
“Unlike Scott, Amundsen systematically built enormous buffers for
unforeseen events… He [for example] marked his path every quarter mile
with packing-case remnants…”
“Scott… left no markings on his path, leaving him exposed to catas-
trophe if he went even a bit off course.”
“Amundsen stored three tons of supplies for five men starting out versus
Scott’s one ton for 17 men.”
The devil is in the details. Death can be, too—if you don’t respect the
power of practical details in the realm of the uncharted. Prepare and prevent
rather than repair and repent.
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The last century has shown some of the worst and best examples of planning the human race has ever known
The last century has shown some of the worst and best examples of
planning the human race has ever known.
To my mind, centralized economic plans churned out by the former
Soviet Union rank as the worst. In 1921, according to historian Paul
Johnson, Lenin “coined the phrase ‘New Economic Planning.’” Famine was
the nearly instant result. It was “the first [famine] in Russian history to be
substantially created by government policy.”
Lenin died in 1924. Stalin took on the mantle. The Soviet Union’s first
five-year plan was launched in 1928.
Outside of orbiting Sputnik in 1957, Russian five-year plans achieved
little else. The 13th Soviet five-year plan was unveiled in 1991. This one
lasted just a year. That’s because the Soviet Union was dissolved.
Not many people know this, but the Soviets were big-time customers for
IBM’s tabulators in the 1930s. They had a huge commitment to centralized
numbers crunching.
If Soviet planning was the dregs of planning approaches in the past
century, what was its opposite?
What was the peak of achievement?
I’d have to say the Japanese auto industry. The factories of firms like
Toyota and others were the birthplaces of just-in-time inventory improve-
ment and continuous improvement.
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This team leader is a battlefield commander– a planner and line officer rolled into one
James P. Womack and his MIT colleagues chronicle these innovations
brilliantly in their classic: The Machine that Changed the World.
There’s one facet of Japanese planning that may be especially pivotal.
That’s the leader. This person is called the shusa or “‘large-project leader’
… In the best Japanese companies, the position of shusa carries great power
and is, perhaps, the most coveted in the company… [T]he shusa is the new
supercraftsman… [N]ew products inside the Japanese auto industry are
commonly known by the shusa’s name: ‘That is Fuji-san’s car.’”
This team leader is a battlefield commander. He is planner and line
officer rolled into one. In many ways, the shusa is reminiscent of the on-the-
ground general in the Israeli army.
Womack’s team says that the top brass in Detroit would routinely “over-
ride the team leader” in key decisions about “specifications and feel of the
product.” This would be unthinkable with a Japanese shusa.
The success of the shusa should cause any manager to think hard about
how plans and goals are built in your organization.
Here’s a checklist that can help keep your planning on the ground and
out of the ivory tower:
l Are production plans driven by realities of the shop floor or the
dreams of central planners?
l Are team leaders truly empowered to solve problems, or are they just
assigned honorary titles?
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Team leaders should be truly empowered to solve problems, not just assigned honorary titles
l Are top coordinators allowed to be invasive and change procedures
in other departments?
l Are your top operating managers linked directly to customers so they
are the first to receive customer input on design issues?
l Do your top production coordinators have the clout to revamp
company operating priorities and objectives?
These are powerful levels of authority. It’s also the price management
must be prepared to pay if planning is to be potent and not irrelevant.
Over the years, I’ve probably read a thousand business plans. Few
documents lead to a better nap than a classic business plan. What makes
them such a God-awful snooze?
l They are theoretical.
l They are drenched with jargon.
l They are overly qualified and totally hedged in identifying risks.
l And, the supporting evidence sounds hopelessly rigged.
An old economics professor of mine used to say: “Torture the data long
enough, and they will confess to anything.”
In my opinion, the evolution in communications is unstoppable. Serve
it up short and sweet. Keep it 88-IQ idiot proof.
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A business plan is a big pile of paper that even the author doesn’t read all the way through, and certainly no-one else does
The elevator pitch… is obsoleting the résumé.
The business model… is overtaking the business plan.
In March, I spotted an article titled “Four Reasons for a Business Model.”
“A business model is not a business plan, although the two are often
confused,” the author points out. “How can you tell the difference? A busi-
ness model fits on one piece of paper (or one flip chart page or one white
board), is referred to regularly, and has all sorts of uses. A business plan is a
big pile of paper that even the author doesn’t read all the way through, and
certainly no-one else does.”
What goes into a worthwhile business model?
l It’s “complete” enough. It shows that you have no “glaring holes,”
but it doesn’t get “into the weeds” either.
l It’s “consistent”—the key assumptions all line up.
l It has “clarity.” Here’s a test worth taking: “If asked to draw the model
independently, would [your colleagues] draw the same thing?”
l It “communicates”—“You can draw and redraw the model as you tell
the story of your business to mentors, advisers, potential recruits, and
potential investors. It can focus a staff meeting, board discussion, or
investor presentation.”
Companies spend days, if not weeks, agonizing over their mission
statement and business plan. How much precious, misspent time goes
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Get the business model right—then accessorize it with the details
into the process. Get the business model right. Then accessorize it with
the details. You may not need more than a few action plans focused on
very restricted areas.
In real estate, it’s location, location, location. In management, it’s prepa-
ration, preparation, preparation. But, be very, very careful. It’s not the sheer
magnitude of the preparation that matters. It’s the relevance of what you do.
Is it clear?
Will it change behavior?
Does it sizzle?
Peter ViDmar
harvey: Now let’s get to our second and final resource today.
For each of these teleseminars, I Google the subject—in this
case, goal setting—and then add the word guru. One of the
names that came up was an old friend.
Peter Vidmar is the highest scoring American gymnast in
Olympic history. He has won numerous national and inter-
national titles, and finished his successful career at the 1984
Olympic Games in Los Angeles in front of me and my family.
He captained the USA men’s gymnastics team to America’s
first ever team gold medal with their stunning upset victory
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It’s not the sheer magnitude of the preparation that matters–it’s the relevance of what you do
over China. He went on to win the silver medal in the indi-
vidual all-around competition—becoming the first American
to win an Olympic All-Around medal. He also won the gold
medal on the pommel horse with a perfect score of 10.
Peter remains very involved in the Olympic movement. He
is Chairman of the Board of USA Gymnastics and has worked
as a gymnastics commentator for CBS Sports and ESPN.
Peter speaks at many corporate meetings and trade shows
and performs portions of his Olympic routine on the pommel
horse to drive home his message. Roundtable members…
here is a perfect 10—Peter Vidmar.
Hi, Peter. Top of the morning and thanks again for squeezing
me into your hectic schedule.
Peter: Hey, I’ll do anything for you Harvey. I think it’s been 26
or 27 years since we first met, so it’s always great to stay in
touch with you.
harvey: Wow, that’s a long time, and your memory is way sharper than
mine. Okay. Let’s just roll right away. Let me just open up by
saying, give me your brief assessment on setting goals.
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You’ve got to be able to answer a number of questions to be really effective in accomplish-ing your goals
Peter: Well, Harvey, first of all, I think goals have to be realistic. I
really take issue with any of those people who say you can be
anything you want to be because that’s really not true.
I’m 5’ 5” and 130 pounds. There is no way I’m going to end
up in the NFL. So your goals have to be realistic, and I think
they need to be measured and clearly defined.
They also need to be time sensitive. You should give yourself
deadlines.
I think a goal should answer some questions. In other words,
be specific. It should answer “what”—what is it that you want
to accomplish? It should answer “why”—why is it important
to you? It should answer “when”—when are you going to get
this done by? It should certainly answer “how”—how are
you going to do it?
So you’ve got to be able to answer a number of questions to
be really effective in accomplishing your goals, and, first of all,
make sure that your goals are meaningful for you.
harvey: It seems to be obvious common sense to me: what, why,
when, and how.
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You need to have both long-term goals and short-term goals
Peter: Yes, you’ve got to answer questions when you’re setting goals,
that’s for sure.
harvey: Those are real sharp words that, of course, demand sharp
answers. Let’s continue on.
What’s a realistic time frame for goal setting? Is it six months,
a year, five years, ten years, whatever?
Peter: Well, it really depends on the goal. I mean, my long-term
goal as a gymnast was to be an Olympian and hopefully even
an Olympic champion. But in between setting that goal and
reaching that goal, I had to have some other intermediate
goals to reach, as well. Certainly one was to be a national
champion—to be an NCAA champion. So all of those little
goals had to answer those questions we mentioned.
So I had to ask myself, When am I going to do it by? How am
I going to get it done?
It’s easy, when you’re an athlete, to be time sensitive. The
competition is going to be on that date, and if you’re not
ready, tough luck. So setting goals for sports is rather easy
because you know the deadline is already etched in stone.
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If you allow your deadlines to be flexible, you will become much less effective at reaching your goals
You have to work backwards from that deadline and say, Okay,
now what am I going to do in between now and that time to
be ready at that moment of truth?
Too often, when our deadlines are somewhat flexible, we tend
to keep pushing the deadline out into the distance. We don’t
tell ourselves, I will be done by this date because we kind of
know, deep down inside, that if you don’t get it done by that
date, well, we can just do it the next week or the following
month or the following year. Then we become less effective
at trying to reach those goals.
I think it’s important to kind of treat yourself like an athlete
and say, This is my goal, and this is the deadline. It’s not
negotiable. I’ve got to be ready by that date.
If that’s the case, you’re going to be very careful about what
you choose to do between now and the deadline for that goal.
You have to set all of your goals in a way that’s sensitive to
the time. Therefore, I had goals that were six years down the
road, and I had goals that were six months down the road.
Life is full of setting a lot of different goals and different stages
of them, as well.
harvey: I’m just curious, when you’re setting those goals, do you ever
picture, dream about, and visualize yourself standing in that
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40 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
Try to capture the emotions you think you would feel having accomplished something that’s meaningful to you
medal ceremony setting, playing the National Anthem? Did
that ever go through your mind?
Peter: I did that all the time. That’s what kept me going during the
drudgery of the daily work. When you set your goals, you’re
kind of in the middle of a moment of courage.
You are determined—I’m going to do this. You’ve got that
vision of what you want to do. You write the goal down, and
you set it. Then all of a sudden, you actually have to do some-
thing about it.
When you are in week number six of a 12-week process,
you’re right in the middle of it. You’re thinking, Can I really
make it to the very end? You are going to get tired or bored or
distracted at times. When that happens, the way I get myself
back on track is to ask myself, “Hey, why am I here? What am
I doing this for? What’s the goal?”
I don’t just visualize the goal. It’s one thing to visualize being
on an Olympic podium. I think it’s another thing to try to
capture the emotions you think you would feel having accom-
plished something that’s meaningful to you. So don’t ask,
How would I look? That doesn’t matter. Instead ask, How
would I feel? I think feeling is a much more powerful motiva-
tion even than visualizing something.
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It’s very hard to get people to do something if they don’t want to do it, so find a way to get each team member to take ownership
Ask yourself, Is this feeling I will get from accomplishing this
worth working for right now? That’s what kept me going in
the middle of the daily routine.
harvey: I’ve never heard that before. Very, very good. Who all should
be involved in goal setting, Peter?
Peter: Well, it depends. If you’ve got a team, then you’re going to
have to work together with individuals. You know, when
you were a teenager or when you were trying to parent your
teenagers, that it’s very hard to get people to do something if
they don’t want to do it.
I think we’ve all been in stages of life where we’ve had goals
inflicted on us, and that’s an entirely different phenomenon
than owning the goals yourself.
So when you work with a team, for example, and when this
goal is going to take a team effort, you’ve got to figure out a
way to get each member of that team to take ownership of the
goal themselves—to say, you know what, I know it matters to
you, but it also matters to me.
When that happens, that team is much, much more effective.
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You have to possess a burning desire inside to accomplish something
You kind of have to take each case as it comes. When you’re a
leader, you work with individuals who have different person-
alities, different buttons to push. When you can figure out
what it is that can help each individual to take ownership of
the same goal that you have, then you’ve got a very powerful
team to accomplish some really great things.
harvey: Different strokes for different folks. I’m not sure if you touched
on this, but what’s the single most important part of setting
goals then?
Peter: Well, I think you have to possess a burning desire inside to
accomplish something. So really you ask yourself, Is this
really important to me? Is this just kind of something I’d like
to do? Or is this something that I feel is really vital to me,
really meaningful to me?
When you have that burning desire, only then are you
willing to pay the price and willing to do the things that
you have to do. So I think that you’ve got to tap into that
true inner soul that says, This is something that’s part of my
DNA; I’ve got to do this.
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43 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
If you need to reassess your goals, be sure to be really honest with yourself about it
harvey: Next question. How do you deal with revisions to goals? I
like to call them “mid-course corrections.”
Peter: Well, sometimes those are absolutely necessary. I think it’s
important to ask yourself why you’re making the correction?
Are you doing it because you found out this is harder than you
thought it was going to be? Are you doing it because you’re
tired or because you’re lazy?
I mean, you have to be really honest with yourself when you
reassess the process.
Let me give you an example. Years ago, I read an article by
some business professors who had studied very successful
professional sports franchises. These are the teams that you
tend to always see in the playoffs. Sometimes they’ll win the
Super Bowl or win the World Series; other times they don’t.
But in the end they tend to be the teams that are always up
there in the hunt for the top prize.
The professors compared those teams with teams that kind
of come and go—maybe they’d win it one year, but they’d go
down to the bottom within a few years. They never really find
that level of dominance that the other teams have.
They found that what distinguished the most peak-performing
teams was that they all had a philosophy, a plan, a system that
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Once you meet a deadline, you can sit down and evaluate what worked and what didn’t work so that you can adjust as needed
they worked under and that they stuck with. The professors
found that there wasn’t one best plan out there. These teams
had varying different types of philosophies and attitudes
towards how they train, how they prepared. But they found
that the successful teams had a plan that they stuck to.
So, for me, in my training that was helpful to understand that
because I never really had the perfect training to become an
Olympic champion. I’m sure it’s out there somewhere, but no
one’s ever going to really find it. If I keep trying to tweak my
training—saying, Well, this really isn’t working, I’m going to
shift to something else; oh, this really isn’t working that well,
I’m going to try this instead—we don’t really stick with the
plan and give it a chance to work its way through.
So I think what’s important is to find a plan, make a plan, and
to the best of our abilities stick with it. Then when that dead-
line is met, we can sit down and evaluate, Was that process
the best process? Can I make this better?
For me, after a competition, I would sit down with my coach
and say, Okay, what worked in this plan? Okay. Well, this
worked, that worked, and that worked. Great. We’re going
to keep that in as we train for the next competition.
What didn’t work? Well, I think I could have done this
better; I think I could have done that better. Okay. Well, let’s
change those around and try something new in this category
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If you have a process of continuous improvement, you will get to the very best plan for you
or this area of your training. Now, let’s set another plan for
the next meet and move forward, and I would do that again.
After that competition, I’d sit down with my coach and say,
Okay, now, what worked? Well, that new thing I added went
really well, but this other thing I added didn’t work that well,
so I want to change that now.
By doing that over and over, I had a process of continuous
improvement so by the time I got to my training for the
Olympic games, I felt like I had the very best plan for Peter
Vidmar. I didn’t really change it very much at all after that.
For about the last year of my training, I felt like I really dialed
into something that worked for me. That’s something that
each individual and each team has to do on an individual
basis, depending on what their big goal is or what their
processes are. In doing so, I think you can come to a system
that works for you or for your organization.
harvey: Well, I think it’s pretty easy to see why you are the champion
that you are.
Peter, ever since you agreed to come on the program here, I’ve
been waiting to ask you this question. Many people are well
organized in their business planning, but they fail miserably in
their family planning. Would you care to comment on this?
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When you end your workday, you need to move your focus from your work-based goals to your family-based goals
Peter: You know, Harvey, I learned a good lesson from my coach.
My coach was a great man. His name is Makoto Sakamoto.
He was the U.S.A.’s best gymnast in the ‘60s and early ‘70s.
And after finishing his career at the Munich Olympic games
in ‘72, he wanted to start coaching gymnastics. I stayed with
him for 12 years.
What I learned from my coach is that we worked very, very
hard in the gym. We were very, very focused. But we had a
beginning to our end, and we had an end to the day in the gym.
When we finished, I would line up in front of my coach with
my teammates, and he’d say, Okay, let’s begin workout, and
we’d talk about what we were going to do, and we’d start the
day. At the end of the workout, we lined up in front of our
coach, and he’d say, Okay, how did it go?
We would talk a little, debrief. Then he’d close our workout.
And that closing of the day meant, Go home and don’t think
about gymnastics anymore until we meet again. You can’t
help but think about it, of course, but try to get your mind off
of it so you can kind of regenerate, refresh. It’s kind of like,
you know, Stephen Covey sharpening the saw.
On the weekends, for example, after my Saturday workout, he
would say, Okay, let’s not think about gymnastics until we see
each other again on Monday. Get your mind off of it.
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You need to be able to have the discipline to say that you’re tuning everything else out right now
By separating it that way, I could really enjoy my weekend
with my family, with my friends, and then get back to the task
at hand during the week.
I think too often we don’t separate that. We live in a world
where it’s kind of getting harder to do that. All you have to
do is look at your BlackBerry or your iPhone and see how
many emails came in just in the last half hour when you’re
on a vacation, or you get a text or a tweet or something from
someone that deals with work when you really should be and
could be focusing more on the really important stuff, which
is your family.
You need to be able to have the discipline to say, You know
what, I’m tuning out right now. This is family time and nothing
gets in its way. When you do, you become more effective at
everything—more effective with your family, more effective
in the workplace.
But when you try to mix it all up and try to multitask and do
it all at the same time, we become less effective at everything.
I don’t think that’s a very good way to proceed.
harvey: Okay. I surrender. You nailed me on the emails—pretty fast
and pretty accurate.
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48 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
You need to know how to push the envelope and extend yourself a little bit more than you think you can
Next question. Can you describe your ROV principles that
you talk about in your corporate speeches?
Peter: Yes. When I lecture I use the gymnastics judging category to
kind of illustrate my message.
In my sport, for example, if you fulfill all of your difficulty
requirements, the highest score you could get, in my day, was
a 9.4. That’s certainly not good enough, the last 6/10ths of
a point to get you to the 10 comes from a category that we
would call “ROV”—and it stands for “risk,” “originality,” and
“virtuosity.” So for me those are the keys to the perfect 10.
In my sport the judges expect you to kind of take a risk. It
doesn’t mean being reckless, but it means pushing the enve-
lope—that was attributed to you, Harvey.
harvey: Thank you.
Peter: To achieve risk, you need to really know how to push that
envelope and extend yourself a little bit more than you think
you can. That’s where the judges expect you to do something
a little bit more grand than the other guy.
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The key to virtuosity is the really unglamorous stuff of life, and that’s called repetition, repetition, repetition
Originality is the self-explanatory part—that’s just you do
something new, something innovative. The key to doing
something innovative in my sport is to stop watching the
other guy. Do things on your own that you know are going to
make a difference. Stop playing catch up with the other guy.
Then the final category is virtuosity where you do things that
maybe everybody else does, but you figure out a way to do it
better. The key to virtuosity—the key to perfecting some-
thing—is the really unglamorous stuff of life, and that’s called
repetition, repetition, repetition.
How do you make those daily tasks fun or exciting?
I talked a little bit about that earlier in this conversation,
about how I would try to keep in mind what it would feel
like to be an Olympic champion, and that’s what kind of
kept me going during the daily drudgery of training. Having
that mental focus on the end result is really what made a
difference for me.
But all of these are great principles for going from good to
great. It really is a great help.
Sometimes I even perform on a pommel horse for the audi-
ence and explain what I am doing and make that my version
of PowerPoint as I perform skills that are risky or original and
show something with virtuosity on the pommel horse.
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50 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
The things you are learning in this module are great principles for going from good to great
harvey: Well, you surely know your subject.
Say, did a little birdie tell me that you’re possibly training for
the Ironman?
Peter: I’ve never done one before. I’m training for an Ironman with
my son. I figure it’s a good way to celebrate being 50. I’ve
got a 26-year-old son who’s in business school right now. He
came up to me about six months ago and said, Hey, Dad, I
think I want to do an Ironman.
I said, Are you crazy? Do you have any idea how much
training that’s going to take? Because I mean, I’ve run some
marathons, done some all trail bike races, and all. And it
takes a lot of time.
And he says, I think I want to do it.
So I said, All right, then I’ll do it with you.
For the last five and a half months, my son and I have been
training together for this Ironman that’s coming up in a couple
more months. It’s going to be a hard one, but I’m going to see
if I can give it a shot. You’ve got to swim 2.4 miles, ride 112
miles, and then run a 26.2-mile marathon.
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51 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
You need to have true integrity and never compromise
Hopefully, if my heart’s still beating after that month, maybe
you could give me a call, and I can tell you how I did. That
will be a lot of fun.
harvey: I’m going to mark it on my calendar. I’ve got 10 notches of 10
marathons. That’s a piece of cake compared to the Ironman,
though. Good luck.
Peter: Thank you. I have to go swimming as soon as I’m done here.
harvey: Okay. Last question: Which two individuals in your career
have influenced you the most and why?
Peter: Well, first of all, I would have to give a lot of credit, of course,
to my coach, who I mentioned earlier, Makoto Sakamoto.
He was a great gymnast. He’s just a pillar of integrity. He
taught me what it means to never compromise. So when
you’re in the gym, you do what you said you were going to do
and you get the job done.
He really helped me to focus on staying true to my training.
He made gymnastics fun; he made hard work fun. He used
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To accomplish your goals, you need to have a burning desire to achieve the end result
to fill my mind with stories of the Olympics and of the great
gymnasts that have gone before. He made becoming an Olym-
pian a romantic quest for me. I just had this burning desire to
become an Olympian. Then, as I got better, that shifted from
just being an Olympian to trying to be an Olympic champion.
I just can’t give him enough credit. He’s just a great guy.
I think the other person that had a big influence on me was
my father. You know, my father actually did gymnastics in the
‘30s down at Muscle Beach, down by the Santa Monica Pier in
Southern California. That’s where Joe Gold of Gold’s Gym got
his start. That’s where Jack LaLanne used to hang out.
My dad wasn’t one of the famous athletes down there, but he
used to always hang out there and learn skills on the parallel
bars and on the rings. He just loved doing gymnastics. Even
though he never really accomplished fame, per se, in terms of
a national competition, he always loved the sport.
When he was 29 years old, well before I was born, my father
contracted polio. For a brief period he was completely para-
lyzed as the disease was running through his body. When the
disease left, it left a lot of damage.
It killed about 36 muscles in his body, and where it’s most
obvious was in his left leg. He lost the use of virtually all the
muscles in his left leg, with the exception of a tiny contrac-
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Acknowledge the people you admire the most in your life
tion of his quadricept, which allowed him to kind of fling his
leg forward and lock it into place. So my father walked with
a very prominent limp his whole life.
In fact, even now, my dad is 90 years old. He’s in a wheel-
chair, and he’s got post-polio syndrome. So even his good
muscles are shutting down.
What I admire about my dad is that he’s always got a smile on
his face and he has never really complained. As a child, I saw
daily that my father never complained about what everybody
else called a handicap. In fact, even one day, he came home
from work, his glasses were broken, and his face was kind of
bloodied. My mother thought he’d been jumped or something.
He worked in downtown LA as a senior vice president of a large
pump manufacturer. My mother said, John, what happened?
And he said, Oh, you know, I was walking across the street
and my good leg hit a pothole and my left leg, you know, my
bum leg—couldn’t support myself. I knew I was going down,
and I couldn’t get my arms up fast enough. So I just kind
of slammed on the pavement face first in the middle of the
street. People got out of their cars, and they picked me up and
helped me off the street.
Then my dad chuckled and said, Oh, I’ve got to be more
careful next time.
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Finish what you start—never quit
As a 10-year-old boy, that had a real impact on me because
I thought, Well, why doesn’t he complain? Why doesn’t he
curse life after all he’s been through?
Because of that attitude, he kind of taught all of his children
that Vidmars don’t quit. That’s not meant to be arrogant in
any way, but we just don’t quit.
Finish what you start. My dad was an example of that. Even
after having the polio, he was very successful in the business
world, and he worked very, very hard to support six kids. I
just love him for that. I appreciate his example to me. I think
that I would not have been an Olympic champion without
that example from my father.
harvey: Wow, that is a remarkable story.
Well, Peter, you’ve always been one of my heroes. I love
the summer Olympics. As you know, I’ve been attending
them for 40 years now, every four years. Men’s gymnastics
is, without question, my favorite event. So, of course, I’ll be
there in London, too.
Peter: Yeah. I’ll be there, too, Harvey.
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55 © 2012 Harvey Mackay Roundtable
Planning and goal setting are all about the future, but so is worry
harvey: Thanks to John Langbein, who is supplying me the tickets.
And, Peter, I will see you soon.
Peter: Hey, that’s great, Harvey. Thanks a lot.
Planning and goal setting are all about the future. So is worrying.
The trouble is many people let their worrying masquerade as planning.
Whenever you’re tempted to worry, think about the big picture. My
money is with Dodgers’ legend Tommy Lasorda. Tommy was asked for his
take on the game weather once. His answer: “The only way I’d worry about
the weather is if it snows on our side of the field and not theirs.”
Winston Churchill equated worry with waste.
He admonished his fellow citizens: “Let our advance worrying become
advance thinking and planning.”
That doesn’t mean you should plan to do things that are free of risk.
Worriers have a habit of choosing options that rock the boat the least.
There was once a preacher. He was a good man. When he died, he
went straight to heaven. But, hold the phone. His is not a story with the
happiest of endings.
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Left to its own, worry ranks among life’s greatest time and energy wasters
After he arrived at the pearly gates, the minister had a total meltdown.
He noticed that a New York cab driver had been awarded a higher place
than he.
“I don’t understand,” he complained to God. “I devoted my entire life to
my congregation.”
“Our policy here in Heaven is to reward results,” God explained. “Now,
was your congregation riveted to and inspired by every sermon you gave?”
“W-e-l-l,” the minister admitted, “some in the congregation fell asleep
from time to time.”
“Exactly,” said God, “now take the people who rode in this man’s taxi.
They not only stayed awake… they prayed for their very survival.”
Worry shouldn’t be tolerated as a show of concern. It can certainly
trigger planning and preparation. Left to its own, worry ranks among life’s
greatest time and energy wasters.
A Harvard Business Review Management Tip offered “Three Steps to
Reducing Toxic Worry:”
l “Don’t worry alone. Talk to someone you trust—a friend, partner, or
colleague—about your concerns.” Worry is fueled by our imagina-
tion. We convince ourselves of its validity. When you have to talk
about worries rationally, they usually evaporate.
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In the long run, instincts are no match for information
l “Get the facts. Often a small problem can get blown out of propor-
tion… Find out what, and how big, the real problem is.” Get hard
evidence about how likely or serious a threat may be. In the long run,
instincts are no match for information. I repeat—In the long run,
instincts are no match for information.
l “Let it go. When you can’t do anything about the problem, give it
up and forget about it.” Worry’s most crippling side effects is how it
distracts you from things you can really influence.
The late Richard Carlson wrote an uplifting #1 New York Times best-
seller Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, and It’s All Small Stuff.
Carlson knew you had to arm wrestle worry to the ground. In one chapter,
he tells readers they should actively practice ignoring negative thoughts.
Remember the story of the fighter. Flat on the canvas, this boxer took
the full count in a late round of a brutal match. He finally came to in the
dressing room. As his head cleared and he realized what had happened, he
said to his manager: “Boy, did I have him worried. He thought he killed me.”
Now that’s putting the worry where it belongs.
Occasionally, your goals will take you into uncharted territory. When
they do, be fearless!
Consider the story of Henry Morton Stanley, the nineteenth-century
British explorer.
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A day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work
After fighting his way through an incredibly terrifying jungle, he was
asked if he had been frightened. He answered, “I didn’t think about it that
way. I did not raise my head to see the whole. I saw only this poisonous
snake in front of me that I had to kill to take the next step.
“Only after I had gotten through did I look back and see what I had been
through. Had I taken a look at the whole thing, I would have been so scared
that I would never have attempted this.”
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
You can’t saw sawdust. A day of worry is more exhausting than a day
of work. People get so busy worrying about yesterday or tomorrow, they
forget about today.
Today is what you have to work with.
One heady planning topic can’t be neglected. That’s scenario planning.
The essence boils down to this:
Most strategic plans used to be written along the contour of a most
likely set of assumptions. This constituted the “official future” for most
businesses. Almost always, the context was a “straight-line” projection of
present conditions.
As said earlier, in today’s gyrating, rough-and-tumble world, betting
the farm using a single set of assumptions is reckless. Entertain multiple
options and figure out what you need to adjust. Of course, this isn’t a very
neat way to plan, but the world is rarely neat either.
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A scenario is nothing more than a consistent and credible story about what the future might be like
In the 1950s, Herman Kahn developed the science of scenario plan-
ning at RAND Corporation and the Hudson Institute. The oil giant
Royal Dutch Shell is generally credited with applying scenario planning
to business strategy. A scenario is nothing more than a consistent and
credible story about what the future might be like.
Where do you begin?
Experts recommend you list the “driving forces” in your industry or
service. Try to divide the forces into both certainties and uncertainties. The
economy may be one of the big uncertainties. The steady march of tech-
nology in changing your expense structure could well be a sure thing.
Then cast the possibilities onto a series of grids. Let’s say I’m looking at
the Internet’s effect on the envelope industry.
We know that the Internet will be used more and more aggressively
and skillfully to pre-qualify customers.
This is sure to happen whether the economy is robust… or rocky.
Internet pre-qualification does not necessarily mean that envelopes will
be less of a marketing tool. It probably means that envelopes will be used in
later stages of customer communication. The envelopes needed could well
be more sophisticated in design.
In micro-terms, what we know about direct mail might stun you.
For example, we know “Catalogs had the lowest cost per lead/order of
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List the “driving forces” in your industry or service and divide those forces into both certainties and uncertainties
$47.61.” That’s “just ahead of inserts at $47.69, email at $53.85, and
postcards at $75.32.”
Among the things we don’t know is how the Internet will foster different
devices to replace the catalog.
For years, the geek world has predicted that humans will find a better
way to transmit information than printing it on “dead trees.” What exactly
that better way will be remains a mystery.
We know that the average person in the U.S. consumes about 749
pounds of paper a year. Worldwide, the consumption of paper has soared
400% in the last 40 years. However, that trend can’t be taken in isolation:
l More and more paper is recycled.
l Manufacturers have launched a concerted campaign toward “light-
weighting”—reducing the amount of paper needed to achieve a
wrapping or packaging task.
l When people print documents, the conscientious are even decreasing
the size of their margins! And, you know what? It works.
We used to quip: Fight your way out of a paper bag.
Well, we are just beginning to appreciate how strong paper can be when
its potential is maximized.
DARPA—The Defense Department’s high-tech research arm—is even
creating “origami robots.” They are “powered by nothing more than puffs of
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It’s not the plans that matter—it’s the planning
air.” These “robots molded from paper and silicone rubber can bend, twist,
grip and even lift more than 100 times their weight.”
What we don’t know about paper could fill a book—whether paper or
electronic. And, what we don’t know is how much that book would weigh…
or how it will be made.
When you do scenario planning such as this, don’t expect a predicted
scenario to come to pass. Pegging a particular outcome is not the point. The
key here is flexing your brain muscles about the options.
Eisenhower had it right. It’s not the plans that matter. It’s the planning.
The goal and planning topic that I’ve saved for last is the one dearest to
my heart. Perhaps it’s the only one that really matters: How do you plan to
achieve in your life what really matters to you?
I call this the “Bucket List” challenge.
In Rob Reiner’s 2007 dark comedy The Bucket List, Morgan Freeman
plays a talented historian who earns his way as a mechanic. Jack Nicholson
is a billionaire persecuting his valet. Both are on the exit list with terminal
lung cancer. They meet in treatment and resolve to do a series of things—
some oddball, some serious—before they kick the bucket.
Many years ago, the bucket list concept was first introduced to me by
Coach Lou Holtz. He originally had a list of 107 items that he methodi-
cally crossed off—like dining at the White House or appearing on the
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You always need to have fresh goals to give you energy
Tonight Show when Johnny Carson was host. Or winning the national
college football championship.
By 1998, Lou and his wife, Beth, had achieved 99 of the original goals!
But that hasn’t stopped the Coach from ramping up the list. When I checked
with him in 2011, he had added three new goals: becoming a member of the
College Football Hall of Fame; owning his own plane; and celebrating his
50th wedding anniversary.
You always need to have fresh goals to give you energy.
Another friend of mine is a guy named Gordy Zacks. Gordy was the very
successful CEO of R. G. Barry. That’s the firm that makes Deerfoam slippers.
Gordy went on to become a major fundraiser for the Republican Party and
met a host of interesting people.
Gordy wrote a book titled Defining Moments. In it, he describes his
admiration for the famed cancer researcher Dr. Judah Folkman. Judah’s
father was a rabbi. His mother Bessie was special for a long list of reasons.
Here’s what Gordy wrote:
There was something magical about the Folkman family.
Judah’s mother Bessie was plagued by a painful curvature of
the spine that made many of her days agonizing. Never did
[Gordy] see her any way except meticulously but modestly
groomed with a serene smile on her face. Bessie had the
simplest and perhaps the best definition of happiness [Gordy]
ever heard. It is three-pronged:
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To develop a bucket list worth having, you learn to plan for what’s important in life as soon as you can
l “Someone to love.”
l “Something to do.”
l “Something to look forward to.”
The Folkman family had a remarkable custom. Every year, during their
family vacation, Judah and his younger siblings… would sit in a circle
around their parents Jerome and Bessie. Each of the children would then
make a brief presentation:
l What had they accomplished in the last year?
l What were their goals for the coming year?
l What would be the chief obstacles they would need to surmount?
l How would they tackle them?
l And, how would they measure their success?
I ask you: How do you get yourself to develop a bucket list worth having?
That’s how. You learn to plan for what’s important in life as soon as you can.
Since I saw the Freeman/Nicholson film, I’ve thought that every manager
ought to have a list like this. It epitomizes the idea of s-t-r-e-t-c-h so central
to what people expect of leaders.
Don’t wait to create your bucket list until your doctor hands down a
death sentence. Do it today.
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Just because you might fail, don’t let that deter you from stating your goal and getting down to business
Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, was being interviewed on televi-
sion just after he had made still another business coup. The reporter asked
him, “Mr. Buffett, now that you’ve become the richest man in the United
States, what else is there?”
Buffett didn’t miss a beat.
“How about becoming the oldest?” he said with a wry smile.
Warren Buffett will probably fail to become the oldest person in the
United States, and he knows it. But the fact he will fail doesn’t deter him
from stating the goal, and then getting down to business again.
And on that note, I leave you to make, pursue and achieve your plans.
Good luck.