Victor Prince's Blog, page 6

7 Challenges Former Consultants Face in Corporate Jobs

There were over 637,000 people in the United States employed in the management consulting industry in 2016, according to Statista.com. With annual staff turnover rates of an estimated 15-20 percent, that suggests tens of thousands of former consultants leave consulting every year to take 'real' jobs at corporations. Since the consulting and corporate worlds are different in many ways, that transition can be a big adjustment for these 'recovering consultants.' Here are seven challenges I noticed when I made the transition from the consulting world to the corporate world.

Variety of Work - When I was a consultant, I worked for a wide variety of clients in different industries and geographies. I loved the challenge of forcing myself down (or up?) learning curves each time. When I went to the corporate world, I had less variety that way. I had to refocus my energy and enthusiasm on going deep and developing expertise in my niche.

Project Teams to Standing Teams - As a consultant, I worked in many different teams, each formed around a new client project. Since client projects end, that meant my teams changed often, giving me the chance to work with many different partners, managers and others in the firm. I enjoyed the challenge and change of getting new colleagues and bosses all the time.

Communication Styles - As a management consultant, I was taught to think and speak in a concise, "answer-first" style centered around forming and testing hypotheses. I tended to speak fast. I imagined how ideas would look in a chart or slide. I looked for quick conclusions and used shorthand phrases like "the 80/20." When I got to the corporate world, my new teammates who were not accustomed to my 'consultant-speak' could find me to be impatient, over-analytical, and hard to understand. I had to learn to use different communication styles to connect with people who think differently than me.

Work-Life Balance - One of the reasons I left consulting for the corporate world was to get more balance in the work versus non-work parts of my life - particularly by reducing my travel days. At the same time, I enjoyed the fast pace of work in consulting, which was fueled in part by the long working hours everyone was expected to put in. Whenever I thought the pace of work in the corporate was too slow, I had to remind myself that some of that was a deliberate choice in defining work-life balance.

Defined Promotion Track - The traditional promotion path in consulting is well-defined and perpetual. If a consultant can prove they can do the job of a partner - particularly by bringing in new business - there will likely be headroom to get promoted. In the corporate world, I saw that getting promoted might mean waiting until my boss moved onward or upward. If I wanted to find a faster path to promotion, I might have to shift to a different role or organization.

Clear Expectations - In the project-based world of consulting, I found expectations and results to be relatively quick and clear. I had my research and analysis to do on a deadline. My analyses and recommendations were presented to the client. The client hopefully liked my work. For consultants like me below the partner level, that often meant I could close the door on that project and focus on the next. In my corporate roles, I found my definition of success to be more continuous - e.g., "are my monthly metrics where they need to be?" I also found them to be less directly-controllable because of external forces, like competitors and suppliers, that I had to work through.

Camaraderie - I found the camaraderie in the consulting world to be very tight. When I started, I was part of a cohort of new hires right out of college or graduate school. We were mostly all around the same age and stage in life. Most of my social life then was spent with friends I made from work. When I got to the corporate world, my colleagues came from all ages and stages of life. I found myself forming fewer social friendships at work because many of my colleagues were focused on family and other commitments outside of work.

I found consulting to be a fantastic way to start my business career. The lessons and skills I learned in consulting have served me well for the rest of my career in both the corporate and government sectors. Have you made the transition from consulting to the corporate world? I'd love to hear your thoughts and stories about that on my short survey.

Three Bullets and an Asterisk - What will Your Leadership Legacy Be?

The legacies of Presidents of the United States are often summarized by up to three bullet points and an asterisk in Wikipedia. The bullet points are their main accomplishments. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's legacy is summarized this way in Wikipedia: "brought the United States through the Great Depression and World War II to a prosperous future," and "permanently increasing the power of the president at the expense of Congress." Wikipedia balances out Roosevelt's legacy with a few 'asterisks' this way: "Critics have questioned not only his policies, positions, and the consolidation of power that occurred due to his responses to the crises of the Depression and World War II, but also his breaking with tradition by running for a third term as president. Long after his death, new lines of attack criticized Roosevelt's policies regarding helping the Jews of Europe, incarcerating the Japanese on the West Coast, and opposing anti-lynching legislation."

If Wikipedia summarized your performance in your current job or your career with "three bullets and an asterisk," what would they be? Viewing yourself through that mindset can focus you on the most important things that will help you build the legacy you want.

 

First, identify the three big results you want to achieve in your role. Instead of focusing on a progression of job titles, think about the results you want to get in those jobs. Lyndon B. Johnson offers a useful presidential example here. Wikipedia summarizes Johnson's main results as "historic legislative achievements" in successfully enacting his political agenda into many, significant new laws, such as the Civil Rights Acts, the Clean Air Act, and the Social Security Act.

 

Then focus on downsizing, or deleting, the asterisk on your legacy by addressing the biggest, controversial item in your area. It may mean tackling an important, but not urgent, problem growing on your watch to nip it in the bud before it becomes a stain on your legacy. It might mean making a change in behavior you know that offends other people. The big asterisk on Johnson's legacy, according to Wikipedia, was "his lack of success in the Vietnam War."

 

Start controlling your future legacy today. Focus your time and energy on pushing your few, biggest goals, through to fruition. Tackle the biggest thing in your area of responsibility that may turn into the negative "asterisk" on your career. Your legacy is forever - why not start working on it today? 

7 Useful Sites I Discovered in 2017

Here are seven websites/apps that I started using in 2017 that have proven quite useful and are not yet universally-known. These sites helped me (1) find non-standard airfares, (2) learn a new language, (3) find someone to film an event, (4) reduce my email inbox clutter, (5) create an animated video for my website, (6) see all my travel options between air, rail, bus, and car, and (7) see all the libraries that have a book available to borrow. Perhaps they can help you.

Kiwi.com (Air travel) - I have been using Kiwi.com almost exclusively this year to find airfares. Kiwi finds good deals because it stitches together flights across airlines in a way that other sites don't. It combines segments between discount airlines that don't code-share, like Southwest, and other airlines. It means you can avoid busy, and expensive, traditional airline hubs to connect. For example, on my last trip to Europe, I flew Southwest Airlines down to Orlando, Florida and then picked up Eurowings to Germany from there. That flight was actually two tickets, meaning I had to go out through security and check in again to connect, but the savings were worth it. 

DuoLingo.com (Language Learning) - If you are trying to learn a new language, I highly recommend Duolingo, which is a phone app. I'm using it and have found it much better and more addictive than other programs I have tried. It's free and is a great example of "gamification" where it motivates users by making it feel like a video game and giving lots of feedback along the way. Find it at duolingo.com or in the app store on your phone.

ProductionHub.com (Event Filming) - I had to find a videographer to film an event this year, so I wanted to find an online marketplace where I could solicit bids. While the paid search results for "event video" were dominated by wedding videographers, I found productionhub.com to be good for my need. I got several bids from local firms and chose one based on the research I was able to do, thanks to the site. I've been happy with the result.

Unroll.me (Email Management) - I signed up for Unroll.me this year to consolidate a lot of emails I get into a daily rollup. It is useful for emails that fall between spam and "must see," such as newsletters you sign up for that occasionally have something quite useful but just come too often.

Fiverr.com (Animated Video) - I needed to create some animated videos for my websites this year and I found Fiverr.com to do them. I have had two animated videos made using them and been quite satisfied with the quality and the value - under $70 for a 90 second video. (See example.) I just had to write the script and they did the rest. They were also good about incorporating my feedback as edits. You can choose from many artists on the site after seeing their work and ratings.

Rome2Rio (Travel) - I travel a lot, and I have come to appreciate Rome2Rio.com as a very useful site in figuring out transportation options between two points. I particularly like that it looks for all options - planes, trains, buses and more - and compares costs and times. It then links you to each option to book tickets, where you can make sure the timing works for your dates.

WorldCat.org (Books) - Did you know there is a website where you can see what is physically on the shelves of libraries around the world? If you are an author like me, WorldCat.org gives you a fascinating view to see where your books are stocked. It doesn't cover the holdings of 100% of public libraries in the world, but it is impressively extensive. You can also click through into a library that has your book to see if it is checked out. I have a new book - The Camino Way: Lessons in Leadership from a Walk Across Spain - that came out this year, so I created this interactive map on my website to show all the libraries that have it in stock for people who want to borrow it.

By the way, I don't receive any compensation from these sites. I'm just sharing them because I found them helpful and thought others might too.

Leadership Lessons from Nelson Mandela on Robben Island

Before he was elected as South Africa’s president, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela spent 27 years in prison, from his mid-forties to his early seventies. Eighteen of those years were spent on Robben Island, a former island leper colony turned into a brutal prison. Instead of breaking him, that ordeal shaped Mandela into the extraordinary man that emerged when his country needed him to save the peace and deliver democracy. (Mandela is so beloved in South Africa, his image graces not just some, but all of their paper currency.)

Here are 5 of the leadership lessons I learned this month when I toured Robben Island.

 

 

Each One Teach One – Mandela realized that the front-line guards at Robben Island were often young and poorly educated, while Mandela and his fellow political prisoners were typically highly educated. Mandela used this advantage to build a more equal relationship with the guards. He focused on a strategy he called “each one teach one” – each prisoner was responsible for teaching a guard basic skills they were lacking. The prisoners executed this strategy in the limestone mine that they had to manually toil in each day. They turned the crevice in the mine intended to be a bathroom into a classroom where they tutored guards in skills like reading. By doing so, Mandela realized that the guards would begin to see the prisoners as humans, not just as prisoners, and give them more respect.

 

 

Avoid Divide and Conquer – The management of the prison had a policy to provide different levels of food, supplies and treatment to prisoners based on their race. Mandela and his fellow black political prisoners received the least. The strategy of the prison was to create dissension between the prisoners. Prisoners with advantages would want to curry favor with the guards to keep those privileges, while prisoners with the least would feel envious of those with advantages. Mandela saw through this strategy and it probably strengthened his resolve for equality among all races.

 

 

Pick the Weakest Link in Unjustice to Attack First – Robert Sobukwe was another political prisoner on Robben Island. He was considered so dangerous he was held in solitary confinement in a house built especially for him. Sobukwe was feared because he had led the revolt against the Pass Law. Sobukwe had deliberately picked that law to protest because he realized that there was no way to enforce it if masses broke the law at once. If masses of citizens turned themselves in for not carrying their pass, the jails were not big enough to hold them all, meaning police would have to force some change in the implementation in the law. Once the people put a dent into one part of the whole legal system of apartheid, they would get confidence to challenge the rest. (Sadly, the protest Sobukwe led resulted in the Sharpville Massacre, where police killed 69 demonstrators.)

 

 

Honor Your Predecessors – Mandela realized that he was just one part of a line of brave leaders who pushed the fight for equality and democracy over the goal line. He continued to pay respect to his fellow leaders, such as Sobukwe and Steve Biko, who had not survived long enough to see his election to the presidency.

 

 

Record Your History – Mandela wrote his journal and smuggled it out by hiding it among the trees and tomato plants he tended in the prison yard. Mandela realized that the lessons he was learning needed to be passed on to others. The lessons would not only inspire others in his day to take action, but would also ensure that future generations would not forget the ordeal it took to earn the freedom they enjoy.

 

 

The Arc of History Bends to the Good – While the whole experience seeing Robben Island overwhelmed me, one image had a surprisingly big impact on me. It was a picture of the steps leading to the cell block where Mandela and other political prisoners were held. In his 18 years in captivity in that cell block, I wondered how may times Manedela and other prisoners limped up these stairs after a day of manual labor in the limestone pits, headed for the cell without a bed or plumbing. I wonder how those men would feel to see a wheelchair accessible lift installed on those same steps today. How far the future of their prison becoming a World Heritage Site set up to tell their story must have seemed to them as inmates. How remarkable they were to make that future happen.

 

 

5 Leadership Lessons from Manager Mistakes in Baseball's Post-Season

Major League Baseball managers have a demanding job. They can make hundreds of decisions in every game, ranging from setting the lineup and batting order to which types of pitches to make. Their good decisions are rarely noted. Their mistakes, however, are visible to be criticized by every fan and pundit. That is most true in Major League Baseball’s post-season playoffs, where a single mistake can end a season. Here are the seven types of mistakes managers often make in the post-season that are most remembered.

 

1. Letting a Weak Performer Stay on too Long – Pitchers wear down with each pitch they make and typically are not asked to throw much more than 100 pitches in a game. Some mistakes in playoff history center on a manager leaving a pitcher in too long when a new pitcher with a fresh arm would potentially give their team a better chance to win. Perhaps the most famous example of this was in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series. Boston Red Sox manager Grady Little left ace Pedro Martinez in pitching in the eighth inning, longer than critics thought wise. Martinez ended up blowing the lead and the Red Sox lost the game, and the series, to the Yankees. The next year, the Red Sox won their first World Series since 1918, distracting Red Sox fans from dwelling on this decision. They did it under a new manager, however.

 

Have you ever seen a manager in your workplace fail to replace a weak performer in a timely manner?

2. Letting a Strong Performer Leave too Early – On the flip side, some other mistakes are taking effective pitchers out too early. In Game 6 of the 2002 World Series, San Francisco Giants Manager Dusty Baker pulled his pitcher Russ Ortiz in the bottom of the 7th inning. Ortiz had shut out the Anaheim Angels through the first six innings and was sitting on a five run lead. After the change, the Angels rallied to score six runs in the next two innings to win the game and force a Game 7, which they won.

 

Have you seen a manager in your workplace let a star performer leave your team too early?

3. Creating a Distraction through a Reorganization – One of the biggest decisions managers make is the order in which the players will bat. The position in the batting order impacts a hitter in many ways, ranging from how many times they are likely to get a chance to bat, how many outs there will be left in the inning, and whether they will have runners on base to hit in. In the 2006 American League Division Series, Yankee Manager Joe Torre made a remarkable, newsworthy change by dropping his superstar slugger Alex Rodriguez to eighth in the batting order – a spot usually reserved for one of the weakest hitters. Rodriguez had not hit well in the first three games in the series, but he was in the middle of a five year streak of winning the AL MVP award three times in five years. The demotion generated a lot of buzz that may have distracted, or disheartened, Rodriguez and the team. Rodriguez made a rare, and costly, fielding error in the game. The Yankees lost that game, ending their season. The reorganization of the batting order may not have directly caused the loss, but it didn’t seem to help their batting.

 

Have you seen your organization distracted by an arbitrary reorganization?

4. Letting a Team Get Too Comfortable with Past Success – Some of the most dramatic stories in World Series history are about an underdog beating a heavily favored opponent. Upsets can be blamed in part on luck, but preparation and focus usually play a role as well, and that is the manager’s responsibility. One of the biggest shocks in World Series history came in 1990 when the Cincinnati Reds swept the heavily-favored Oakland A’s. The A’s, the reigning World Series champions, seemed to be looking past the underdog Reds. Perhaps the biggest World Series upset before that came in 1960, when the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the legendary New York Yankees on a walk-off home run by Bill Mazeroski. The Yankees had thumped the Pirates 16-3, 10-0, and 12-0 in their three wins during the series, but they had let the Pirates squeak by with 6-4, 3-2, and 5-2 wins to reach Game 7. The Yankees had the Pirates down 7-4 in the bottom of the eight inning of Game 7 but failed to close the door for the win.

 

Have you ever seen a manager let their team get too comfortable with past success and not focus and prepare their team for new challenges?

5. Steering through A Potential Crisis – Bad luck happens to teams in baseball games. In the pressure-filled post-season, bad breaks in luck have even higher stakes. Good leaders steer their teams through those to prevent a bad break turning into a crisis. One of the most famous bad breaks in baseball post-season came during Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series. The Chicago Cubs were at home, leading the Florida Marlins 3-0 and just 5 outs away from reaching the World Series for the first time since 1945. Then a fan interfered with a foul ball that potentially could have been caught and put the Cubs one out closer to a win. The resulting confusion and fan furor that play caused rattled the Cubs. When play resumed, the pitcher cratered, throwing a wild pitch and giving up several more hits. The shortstop made a rare fielding error. The Marlins ended up scoring 8 runs in the inning. The Cubs never recovered and lost the game and the series. Critics blamed Cubs Manager Dusty Baker for not making a pitching change and other moves that could have got his team back and focused on closing out the win.

 

Have you ever seen a leader fail to stop a bad break growing into a full-blown crisis?

Baseball managers make many decisions that are subject to intense public scrutiny, especially during the postseason. Perhaps that is why the average baseball manager’s salary – often said to be $1 million a year – is more than the average business manager’s salary.

 

 

The "Icebreaker" Gone Horribly Wrong that Turned Into a Gift

The year was 2002. When the new Vice President (VP) arrived at my Fortune 500 company, we had an “off-site” meeting to introduce him to his new team. He was a big shot partner from a high-powered consulting firm who was going to ‘take us to the next level,’ according to corporate communications. As a mid-level manager, I was one of the 15 or 20 people who made up his ‘skip level reports’ – or fancy corporate language for “my boss’s boss.” We each introduced ourself, described our role, and then answered a few innocuous icebreaker questions to include a personal touch. I forgot what the other questions were, but one got burned in my mind.

 

“What was the last music album you bought?”

 

In a moment of immature bravado, I decided to be funny with my answer. “I know the last album I acquired was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco, but I don’t remember the last time I’ve been to a music store since Napster came out.” Even though I wasn’t a Napster user, I guess I wanted to impress him with how internet-savvy and musically hip I was for a mid-level manager. I also was trying to look cool and funny to my peers.

 

“My brother helped make that album. He was in Wilco.”

 

I am not sure what reply I was hoping for, but that definitely was not it. At first, I thought he was joking right back at me. But he wasn’t smiling. I later found out he was serious. And unauthorized, free downloading of songs via Napster was not a funny joke to musicians in those days.

 

Wilco was famous by 2002, so the odds that Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was the newest CD in my collection were not that long. But what were the odds that our new VP was the brother of Wilco guitarist Jay Bennett? If I could remember the exact date and time of that meeting, I would play that number combination in the Mega Lotto every time.

 

I don’t remember what happened in that meeting after that. I was in shock after making a self-inflicted, career wound. If there were a contest for “worst first impression with the new VP ever,” I would have won.

 

After the meeting, the new VP pulled me aside to smile and let me know he was not offended. He was as surprised as I was by the coincidence. From that conversation, we figured out we had similar tastes in music. We later found out we both had a passion for bicycling too.

 

Fast-forward 15 years later, and the VP and I had dinner this week. Our initial awkward connection had blossomed into an enduring friendship, powered by social media and a surprise meeting or two at airports. We reminisced about our time working together. We also talked about the documentary film project about his brother that we were both following on Facebook. (Jay Bennett tragically passed away in 2009.) When he told me his story about being at a Billy Bragg concert and hearing Billy dedicate “California Stars” to his brother Jay, we both got teary-eyed.

 

I learned a lesson from this experience. Whenever I have a conflict with someone at work, the good news is it means we share some common passion. We may not agree on how to address the issue, but we can agree that we both care about the issue. We can go back to that common ground to get the relationship back on track. In this story, our common interest in a music group caused an awkward moment at first, but we ended up building on that shared interest to form a lasting friendship. Looking back, I’m glad I fumbled that icebreaker.

The Story behind my New Book - The Camino Way: Lessons in Leadership from a Walk Across Spain

I'd like to tell the story about my new book, The Camino Way: Lessons in Leadership from a Walk Across Spain (AMACOM, July 2017). I hike and bike long trails on vacations as a hobby, so the Camino de Santiago had been on my list for a while. When I finally got on the Camino, however, I realized it was unlike any other trail. My month-long experience walking the Camino taught me values and lessons that have made me a better person and leader. They helped me fix some sharp edges I had developed in my climb up my career ladder. I wrote blogs about those lessons when I got home. Those blogs went viral and snowballed into this book deal. I wrote this book so I could share those lessons with other people, especially those who may not be able to take a month off and walk across Spain. To augment my own Camino stories and lessons, I interviewed over 100 other pilgrims from 16 countries. Dozens of their wonderful stories and lessons made it into this book.

I hope you enjoy the book. Here are reviews from some other readers:

"The camino has spawned a multitude of books and blogs. Victor Prince has taken a novel approach. He has gathered reflections from a cross section of pilgrims and distilled this wisdom to provide lessons in leadership. Whether that leadership is in business or life in general, we could all benefit from the advice it contains.”

— John Brierley, author of A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago and other bestselling travel books

"On the back of the passport, which is used to get stamps as each stage of the walk is completed, (Prince) noticed seven simple reminders of things pilgrims should do while on the Camino, which he used as the framework for his book The Camino Way, since they applied to work as well.... You don't need to walk the Camino to take those lessons into your own life.

— Harvey Schachter, The Globe and Mail, Canada's largest newspaper

"Prince’s is both a highly engaging story and a remarkably effective way to communicate business lessons... In this first-person narrative, Prince recounts his adventure, but unlike the typical travel diary, The Camino Way brilliantly draws continuous connections between the Camino, which started as a religious pilgrimage hundreds of years ago, and contemporary business leadership."

— Foreword Reviews, an independent media company founded in 1998 to serve an audience of librarians, booksellers, book-loving consumers, publishers, agents, and other publishing professionals.

"Victor Prince’s follow up to Lead Inside the Box is a much different, but equally original, book on leadership. In The Camino Way, Victor shares lessons from an extraordinary experience that can help other leaders in their everyday work. I strongly recommend it."

— Robert J. Herbold, Chief Operating Officer (retired), Microsoft Corporation

"A thousand year old hiking trail across Spain is a uniquely interesting setting for a book on leadership. It's a great read with valuable lessons for anyone looking to become a better leader, professionally and personally.”

— Ethan Bernstein, Asst. Professor of Leadership & Organizational Behavior, Harvard Business School

"I'll probably never walk the Camino, but I feel like I did after reading this book. What a fresh take on leadership!"

— David K. Lenhardt, former President and CEO, PetSmart, Inc.

"Victor draws you in with the opportunity to walk the Camino vicariously with him - all the experiences and none of the blisters. This entertaining book is a combination of a travel guide and an invaluable set of lessons for success in life at home and at work."

— Dan Tangherlini, former Administrator of the US General Services Administration

“Rooted in history, yet highly relevant to today, Victor Prince takes readers on a journey of insight that can add value to all of our daily experiences."

— Suzanne Tager, Senior Director, Retail and Consumer Goods Practice, Bain & Company

"When reading this inspirational book, I couldn't help but think about a term I learned in Latin - Manus manum lavat - one hand washes another. As leaders we need to ensure we never forget about the people we rely on, our teams, our employees, our family, friends...our village. The Camino Way reminds us we are all on different journeys and every relationship matters."

— Lisa M. Buckingham, Chief Human Resources Officer of Lincoln Financial Group

"The Camino Way offers universal life and leadership lessons. After finishing, I couldn't decide which I wanted to do first: share the book with my senior team or buy a plane ticket and start my own journey."

— Scott Kubly, Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation

"Most people have two stacks of books by their bed: books they read for work, and books they read for pleasure. The Camino Way is the only book you’ll read this year that could make it to both stacks."

— Paul Smith, bestselling author of Lead with a Story and Sell with a Story

"The Camino Way takes you on a journey you will never forget. Awesome story telling that captures and sweeps you in while delivering great life and leadership lessons."

— Brigette Hyacinth, Founder and Director of the MBA Caribbean Organisation

"Through his journey, he guides us to apply his newfound perspective to the most meaningful aspects of our lives. In doing so, we become better leaders, better parents, and better people."

— Sally Tassani, President, The Strategy Forums

"If a 'Buen Camino' is not on your itinerary, this book will bring you as close to the life-changing power of the vaunted walk as possible. It’s like a MBA for the soul."

— Scott Mautz – author of Find the Fire: Ignite Your Inspiration & Make Work Exciting Again

Learn more about The Camino Way and get your own copy today! 

The Story behind my New Book

I'd like to tell the story about my new book, The Camino Way: Lessons in Leadership from a Walk Across Spain (AMACOM, July 2017). I hike and bike long trails on vacations as a hobby, so the Camino de Santiago had been on my list for a while. When I finally got on the Camino, however, I realized it was unlike any other trail. My month-long experience walking the Camino taught me values and lessons that have made me a better person and leader. I wrote blogs about those lessons when I got home. Those blogs went viral and snowballed into this book. I wrote this book so I could share those lessons with other people, especially those who may not be able to take a month off and walk across Spain. To augment my own Camino stories and lessons, I interviewed over 100 other pilgrims from 16 countries. Dozens of their wonderful stories and lessons made it into this book.

 

 

I hope you enjoy the book. Here are reviews from some other readers:

 

"The camino has spawned a multitude of books and blogs. Victor Prince has taken a novel approach. He has gathered reflections from a cross section of pilgrims and distilled this wisdom to provide lessons in leadership. Whether that leadership is in business or life in general, we could all benefit from the advice it contains.”

— John Brierley, author of A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago and other bestselling travel books

 

"Prince’s is both a highly engaging story and a remarkably effective way to communicate business lessons... In this first-person narrative, Prince recounts his adventure, but unlike the typical travel diary, The Camino Way brilliantly draws continuous connections between the Camino, which started as a religious pilgrimage hundreds of years ago, and contemporary business leadership."

— Foreword Reviews, an independent media company founded in 1998 to serve an audience of librarians, booksellers, book-loving consumers, publishers, agents, and other publishing professionals.

 

"Victor Prince’s follow up to Lead Inside the Box is a much different, but equally original, book on leadership. In The Camino Way, Victor shares lessons from an extraordinary experience that can help other leaders in their everyday work. I strongly recommend it."

— Robert J. Herbold, Chief Operating Officer (retired), Microsoft Corporation

 

"A thousand year old hiking trail across Spain is a uniquely interesting setting for a book on leadership. It's a great read with valuable lessons for anyone looking to become a better leader, professionally and personally.”

— Ethan Bernstein, Asst. Professor of Leadership & Organizational Behavior, Harvard Business School

 

"I'll probably never walk the Camino, but I feel like I did after reading this book. What a fresh take on leadership!"

— David K. Lenhardt, former President and CEO, PetSmart, Inc.

 

"Victor draws you in with the opportunity to walk the Camino vicariously with him - all the experiences and none of the blisters. This entertaining book is a combination of a travel guide and an invaluable set of lessons for success in life at home and at work."

— Dan Tangherlini, former Administrator of the US General Services Administration

 

“Rooted in history, yet highly relevant to today, Victor Prince takes readers on a journey of insight that can add value to all of our daily experiences."

— Suzanne Tager, Senior Director, Retail and Consumer Goods Practice, Bain & Company

 

"When reading this inspirational book, I couldn't help but think about a term I learned in Latin - Manus manum lavat - one hand washes another. As leaders we need to ensure we never forget about the people we rely on, our teams, our employees, our family, friends...our village. The Camino Way reminds us we are all on different journeys and every relationship matters."

— Lisa M. Buckingham, Chief Human Resources Officer of Lincoln Financial Group

 

"The Camino Way offers universal life and leadership lessons. After finishing, I couldn't decide which I wanted to do first: share the book with my senior team or buy a plane ticket and start my own journey."

— Scott Kubly, Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation

 

"Most people have two stacks of books by their bed: books they read for work, and books they read for pleasure. The Camino Way is the only book you’ll read this year that could make it to both stacks."

— Paul Smith, bestselling author of Lead with a Story and Sell with a Story

 

"The Camino Way takes you on a journey you will never forget. Awesome story telling that captures and sweeps you in while delivering great life and leadership lessons."

— Brigette Hyacinth, Founder and Director of the MBA Caribbean Organisation

 

"Through his journey, he guides us to apply his newfound perspective to the most meaningful aspects of our lives. In doing so, we become better leaders, better parents, and better people."

— Sally Tassani, President, The Strategy Forums

 

"If a 'Buen Camino' is not on your itinerary, this book will bring you as close to the life-changing power of the vaunted walk as possible. It’s like a MBA for the soul."

— Scott Mautz – author of Find the Fire: Ignite Your Inspiration & Make Work Exciting Again

The 5 Most Successful "Hacker-Hustler" Teams in US Business History

The “hacker-hustler” team is a common recipe for co-founders of successful new businesses. The “hacker” is the partner who has the technical skills to build innovative products or services. The “hustler” is the partner who has the marketing and other business skills to grow a valuable enterprise around those technical innovations. Based on market capitalization, here are the five most successful “hacker-hustler” co-founder teams in history.

 

5) Henry Wells and William G. Fargo (Wells Fargo) – In 1845, Henry Wells and William G. Fargo partnered to form a express freight company that would become American Express. In 1852, the two partnered again to form Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo would launch innovative banking products to finance the booming gold rush economy in California. Both men started their careers as freight agents, so they both had hands-on logistics expertise that would serve as the “hacker” part of this equation. Fargo may have been more of the “hustler,” as shown by his entry into politics as the mayor of Buffalo, NY later in his career. Over the next two centuries, the Wells Fargo partnership grew to be the 10th most valuable public company in the first quarter of 2017, when its market capitalization reached $278 billion.

 

4) Robert Wood Johnson, James Wood Johnson, and Edward Mead Johnson (Johnson & Johnson) – Robert Wood Johnson was inspired by a speech at the 1876 World’s Fair about the need for sterilization in medicine. In 1886, Robert joined the firm his brothers James and Edward had already created – Johnson & Johnson – to produce a line of sterilized surgical dressings. Robert and James teamed to play the “hacker” role in the partnership. Robert was trained as an apprentice at an apothecary and used that experience to develop the products. James was an engineer who designed innovative machines to use in the business. Edward was more of the “hustler” in the relationship, as he was trained as a lawyer and his other talents revolved around advertising. (Edward would spin off to launch his own business in 1897, thus getting “Johnson & Johnson” back to a duo of brothers.) Johnson & Johnson has grown to become the 6th most valuable public company in the world, with its market capitalization reaching $357 billion in 2017.

 

3) Larry Page and Sergey Brin (Alphabet/Google) – While a graduate student at Stanford University, Larry Page came up with a thesis that the best way to rank webpages in internet searches was to assess the number and quality of the sites that link to it. Basically, he was applying the concept of the importance of citations in academic papers to the world wide web. His partnered with friend and fellow classmate Sergey Brin to turn that thesis into a working website, and eventually a business. Both Page and Brin brought the technical skills to the partnership, so it is hard to say who was more of the hacker and who was more of the hustler. Either way, they combined to do both hacking and hustling quite well, as Alphabet’s market capitalization rose to #2 in the world by reaching $628 billion in the second quarter of 2017.

 

2) Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (Apple) – The two Steves working in a garage to build the first Apple computers is perhaps the purest, most iconic example of a successful hacker-hustler team. Wozniak (Woz) brought the technical skill and Jobs brought the business skills. They needed each other. They completed each other. The rest of the story is well-known. Apple is now the most valuable public company in the world, reaching a market capitalization of $753 billion in 2017.

 

1) Bill Gates and Paul Allen (Microsoft) – When Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft together in 1975, it was the second company the two friends, aged 19 and 22, respectively, had launched together. (The first one was to build a machine to count automobile traffic on roads.) The two met in their school’s computer club, so they both had technical skills. Being three years older, Allen had more life and business experience, probably making him more of the “hustler” in the relationship. When Microsoft got its big break in 1980 to supply the disk operating system (DOS) to IBM, for example, Allen led the deal to buy and repackage an existing system from another developer. Allen also came up with the name Microsoft when they incorporated. However they divided up the hacking and hustling tasks, it obviously worked well. Microsoft’s market capitalization hit $618 billion in 1999, which was worth over $1 trillion in today’s dollars on an inflation adjusted basis, the highest market capitalization ever. With a market capitalization of $528 billion in 2017, Microsoft still stands as #3 on the list of most valuable public companies today.

 

Sources: Wikipedia.org and http://www.jnj.com

 

© Copyright Victor Prince, All Rights Reserved.

 

4 Leadership Lessons from Fed Chairs

The Federal Reserve System (“The Fed”) was created in 1913. Since then, fourteen men and one woman have served as the chair of the board of the Fed. Their century of leadership has produced several lessons in leadership. Here are the top four:

 

Stick to Your Tough Decisions – Paul Volker’s two terms as the Fed chair (1979-87) started in one of the worst economic periods in US history known for “stagflation” – stagnant economic growth with rampant inflation that reached 14 percent. Volker decided the Fed needed to take a tough approach and increase interest rates to over 20% to strangle inflation. Unemployment soared and Volker received a lot of criticism, even prompting a protest by farmers blockading the Fed headquarters with their tractors. But Volker stayed strong, and inflation fell below 3 percent by 1983.

Don’t Stay on Too Long – Alan Greenspan was Fed Chair for 18 ½ years from 1987 to 2006. Eighteen months after he left office, the financial markets went into their biggest crash since the Great Depression. Greenspan was criticized for not acting to prevent the bursting of the housing market bubble during his tenure as Fed Chair. Had a fresh set of eyes come in one or two four year terms before, perhaps they would have seen and acted on the warning signs. Perhaps they would not have been so invested in continuity with past decisions.

Preparation Matters – Ben Bernanke’s specialty in his academic career was studying the Great Depression. He was in place as the Fed Chair (2006-2014) when the Great Recession happened in 2008. Bernanke used that knowledge to navigate the economy through the Great Recession. Hopefully future Fed Chairs won’t need that same expertise.

Define the Complex in an Easy Way – William Martin was the longest tenured Fed Chair (1951-1970), serving through five presidents, from Truman to Nixon. When asked to describe the role of the Federal Reserve Chair, he defined the complex topic of monetary policy in a very simple way. He said his job was “to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going.” In one sentence, he made arcane monetary policy understandable to the masses.