Leadership Wisdom From The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: The 8 Rituals of Visionary Leaders (2 page)

I went from getting up in the morning and rushing off to the subway station, my mind full of ideas, to awakening around noon in a darkened room, littered with empty Heineken bottles, Marlboro packages and sticky Häagen-Dazs containers. I stopped reading the
Wall Street Journal
and retreated into cheesy spy novels, old western paperbacks and trashy tabloids that revealed Oprah was an alien and that Elvis was still alive, managing a McDonald’s on the West Coast. I could not face reality. I just didn’t want to think too hard or do too much. A numbing pain pervaded my body and resting under the covers of our four-poster bed seemed like the best place to be.

Then one day, I received a phone call. It was an old college friend who had carved out an excellent reputation as one of the best minds in the software industry. He told me that he had just quit his job as chief programmer for a large company and was getting ready to start his own firm. I still recall him telling me he
had what he called “a brilliant concept” for a new line of software and needed a partner he could trust. I was his first choice. “It’s a chance to build something great, Peter,” he said with his usual sense of enthusiasm. “C’mon. It’ll be fun.”

Part of me lacked the confidence to say yes. Starting a new business is never easy, especially in the high-tech field. What if we failed? As it was, our financial situation was a mess. As senior vice-president at Digitech Software, I was paid well and lived the kind of life that my father could only have dreamed of. I drove a brand-new BMW while Samantha had her own Mercedes. The kids went to private school and spent summers at a prestigious sailing camp. My golf club’s membership fees alone totalled the annual income of many of my friends. Now, with no job, the unpaid bills were piling up and many promises were being broken. It was not the ideal time to dream of my own business.

On the other hand, my wise father always told me that “nothing can defeat you unless you defeat yourself.” I needed this opportunity to lift me from the darkness that had enveloped my life. I needed a reason to wake up in the morning. I needed to reconnect to that sense of passion and purpose I had felt in college when I believed that I was unstoppable and the world was truly a place of unlimited possibilities. I had enough intuition to know that life sends us gifts from time to time. Success comes to those who recognize and accept them. So I said yes.

We grandly named the company GlobalView Software Solutions and set up shop in a tiny office in a run-down industrial complex. I was CEO and my partner was the self-appointed chairman. We had no employees, no furniture and no money. But we did have a great idea. And so we started pitching our software concept to the marketplace. Fortunately, the marketplace enthusiastically
responded. Soon Samantha came to work with us and we hired other employees. Our innovative software products began to sell at a phenomenal pace and our profits quickly soared. That first year of operation,
Business Success
magazine listed us as one of the country’s fastest-growing companies. My father was so proud. Though he was eighty-six at the time,
I
still remember him carrying a huge basket of fruit into the office to celebrate our achievement. Tears streamed down his face when he looked at me and said, “Son, your mother would have been very happy today.”

That was more than eleven years ago and we have continued our blistering pace of growth. GlobalView Software Solutions is now a two-billion-dollar company with 2,500 employees at eight locations around the world. Just last year we moved into our new international headquarters, a world-class complex complete with a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, three Olympic-sized swimming pools and an amphitheater for meetings and other corporate events. My partner is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of the company and spends most of his time on his private island in the Caribbean or mountain-climbing in Nepal. Samantha left the leadership of the company a few years ago to pursue her passion for writing and to become more involved in community service. As for me,
I
’m still the CEO, but now
I
have crushing responsibilities that consume the majority of my time. Twenty-five hundred people look to me for their livelihoods and many thousands more depend on our organization to provide products and services that help them in their daily lives.

Sadly, my father died two years after the company was formed, and though he always sensed
I
would be enormously successful,
I
don’t think that even he could have imagined that we would be where we are today.
I
do miss him but, with all that’s on
my plate, I have little time to reflect on the past. I still work hard, about eighty hours on a good week. I haven’t taken a real vacation in years and I’m as hard-driving, ambitious and competitive as I was the day I started work as a twenty-three-year-old kid at Digitech Software Strategies. Until I had the good fortune to meet a very special teacher a relatively short while ago, I still tried to do too much and micromanage every aspect of the business. I knew this was a weakness, but I seemed to have succeeded in spite of it.

Until that most memorable meeting, which I am about tell you about in greater detail, I still had my bad temper, a characteristic that had only worsened as the pressures on me had grown along with my business. And, despite the passage of time, I still had a hard time managing and motivating people. Oh sure, my employees listened to me. But it was not because they wanted to — it’s because they had to. They had no loyalty to me and no real commitment to the company. Fear rather than respect seemed to be the reason they would carry out the commands I issued from my palatial executive suite. It seemed all my power stemmed solely from my position. And I knew that was a bad position to be in.

Let me share a little more with you about the challenges I faced as the leader of a fast-growing company in these turbulent and change-crazed times. Despite the expansion of our business, morale had plummeted. I had heard through the grapevine that some people were saying we had grown too quickly and that profits had become more important than people. Others complained that they were being forced to work too hard with not enough resources to support them. Still others complained that the tremendous change they faced on a daily basis, ranging from innovations in technology to new structures within the bureaucracy, left their heads spinning and their bodies tingling
with stress. There was little trust, low productivity and even less creativity. And from what I could gather, nearly everyone in the organization believed that the blame for the problems rested squarely with one person: me. The consensus was that I just did not know how to lead.

Though GlobalView Software continued to grow, the indicators started to show that we might be headed for our first loss in many years. Although our programs still continued to sell, we were losing market share. Our people were simply not as innovative and inspired as in the early days. As a result, our products were not as well-designed and unique. To put it simply: people just didn’t seem to care anymore. And I knew that if allowed to continue, that mindset would eventually spell the end of our company.

Signs of apathy were everywhere. Offices were disorganized and people were consistently late. Christmas parties were poorly attended and teamwork was almost nonexistent. Conflict was routine and initiative poor. Even our new manufacturing facility began to show signs of disrepair and neglect, its once gleaming floors now littered with trash and grime.

Remarkably, all that has changed. GlobalView Software Solutions is a truly excellent company again. And I know we are growing to be even better. Our organization has been transformed through the application of a very special leadership formula given to me by a very special man. This simple yet extraordinarily powerful system has brought back the excitement that once pervaded the entire company, inspired our people to new heights of commitment, sent productivity soaring and caused our profits to skyrocket beyond even my wildest dreams. Our employees have become deeply loyal and dedicated to our shared vision for the future. They work as a dynamic and highly competent team. Even
better, they love coming to work and I love working with them. We all know we have discovered something magical and we know we are now headed for something very big. Just last week,
Business Success
magazine featured me on the cover. The heading read simply, “The GlobalView Miracle: How One Company Grew Great.”

So what is this miraculous and time-honored leadership formula that has made me the toast of the business community? Who was this wise visitor who revolutionized our organization and showed me how to become the kind of visionary leader these topsy-turvy times call for? I know with all my heart that the answers to these questions will change the way you lead as well as the way you live. The time has come for you to discover them.

It was a bizarre scene. Now that I reflect on it, I still cannot believe it happened. I had just come out of my regular Monday morning meeting with my managers after hearing that GlobalView’s fortunes were going from bad to worse. In the meeting, one manager had informed me that some of our top programmers were thinking of going to work for a smaller company where their efforts would be more appreciated. He also said that the relationships between management and nonmanagement were growing more strained by the day. “They don’t trust us anymore,” he said angrily.

Another manager added, “Not only that, there’s no teamwork in this place. Before we got so big, everyone would help one another. People truly cared about a job well done. In the old days, if we were under a deadline to ship out a big order, I still remember all of us would work together, sometimes late into the night. I even remember times when the programmers and managers rolled up their sleeves to help people in shipping seal boxes and get them ready for loading onto the delivery trucks. Now it’s every person for himself. It’s a bunker mentality. I really can’t stand it anymore.”

Though I remained uncharacteristically calm during the meeting, I broke into a sweat as I walked down the long hallway that linked the boardroom to my office. The tension of the past few months was killing me, and I knew I had to do something to stop the company’s downward spiral. I just didn’t know who to talk to or what to do. Sure, I could hire a team of consultants to offer some quick-fix solutions to the problems that plagued us. But I felt I had to dig deeper to strike at the roots of what had caused us to go from being a visionary company full of passionate and compassionate people to a bulky bureaucracy where people could not wait for closing time.

By the time I reached my office, perspiration dripped off my forehead and my shirt was soaked. My executive assistant, seeing my state, rushed toward me and grabbed my arm. As she escorted me to the plush leather couch that sat next to one of the many floor-to-ceiling bookcases in my imperial office, she asked if she should call my doctor or perhaps even an ambulance. Not even giving her the courtesy of a reply, I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes. I had read somewhere that visualizing a soothing scene in the mind’s eye was a great way to calm down after a stressful encounter. And so I did my best.

Just as I began to relax, I was startled by a loud noise. It sounded as if someone had thrown a rock against one of the windows in my office. I leapt to my feet and ran to the large main window in search of the culprit. But I could see no one. Maybe the stress I had been suffering from was playing games with my imagination. As I slowly returned to the couch, it happened again, but this time even louder. ‘Who could it be?’ I wondered, thinking I should have my assistant call security immediately. ‘Probably another disgruntled computer programmer pushing his luck with
the boss,’ I thought, growing even more annoyed at the disturbance. I darted to the window yet another time and, this time, saw a figure standing in the center of the sweeping rose garden that my second-floor office overlooked. As I squinted my eyes and looked more carefully, I was shocked by what I saw.

It was a striking young man who appeared to be wearing a hooded red robe, the kind I’d seen the Tibetan monks wear on a trip that I had made to that exotic land more than a decade earlier. As the rays of the sun illuminated the handsome, unlined face of the stranger, his robe flapped in the light wind, giving him a mysterious, almost ethereal appearance. He had a big smile on his face. And on his feet he wore sandals.

After realizing this was not some hallucination of an overworked CEO whose company was slowly sliding into oblivion, I pounded on the window in anger. The young man did not move. He remained in a fixed position and kept smiling. Then he offered me an enthusiastic wave. I could not stand this kind of disrespect. This clown was trespassing on my property, spoiling my rose garden and clearly attempting to make a fool out of me. I immediately commanded my executive assistant, Arielle, to call security. “Have them bring our strange visitor up to my office right now, before he gets away,” I ordered. “He needs to be taught a lesson — the likes of which he will never forget.”

Within minutes, four security guards were at my door, one of them carefully holding the young stranger, who appeared to be cooperating with them, by the arm. Surprisingly, the young man was still smiling and he radiated a sense of strength and serenity as he stood in the doorway to my office. He did not appear to be a bit concerned about being caught by security and marched into my office. And though he said nothing, I was also struck by the
Strange feeling that I was in the presence of a man of great knowledge. I experienced the same feeling I used to have when I was with my dad. I really cannot explain it any more than that. Call it intuition, but my gut told me the young man was far wiser than his youthful face showed. Actually, I think it was his eyes that gave it away.