Page 121 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

102 • CEO Material: How to Be a Leader in Any Organization

told him, and he asked to take me to dinner, and he bought me lob-
ster. I’ll never forget it. He was a big man, who came from a military
background. No, I’ll never forget it.
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If my boss doesn’t have a better idea, I’m taking mine. But I don’t
pick a fight unless I’m right.

Get Visible to a Wider Range of People

Associate with, consort with, and be acquainted with a wide variety of
people. I hate the buzzword networking as much as you do, but the effort
has merit to establish a relationship with, reestablish a relationship with,
and reidentify with people you run into along the way.

The best schools, the best companies, the best network gets you
around the best crowd and therefore the best opportunities. So it’s
worth the effort to go for the best.
ƒ

In college, it’s called socializing; in business, it’s called networking.
You do the same thing; it’s just that your clothes aren’t as sexy.

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My wife encourages sleepovers for the kids and sports so that they
learn to network from the start.

I know I’m asking you to leave your comfort zone—literally and
figuratively. But if you don’t, how will you discover who and what you’ll
be able to know and learn from? CEOs will give me a high five here:
Your biggest regret in life will not be things you did, but the things you
didn’t do.

Decades from now, you may be different than you are today in a lot
of significant ways. You may have a lot more money than you have
today. You may have more money and more status and more power
and more accomplishments. You also may have more responsibilities,