Page 131 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

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

Washington was mindful of his physical presentation, from the uniforms
he designed and wore to the way he sat on a horse.”
Acting isn’t lacking genuineness. It’s keeping rhetoric and actions
consistent with the message you want to convey.

What I learned from Harvard was how to behave as though I had
gone to Harvard.

Theatrics live in all parts of life. Politicians, for example, are taught
that when soliciting votes in restaurants on the campaign trail; (1) you
approach the table, squat, and get to eye level; (2) make a joke about
weather or food in general, not the restaurant’s; (3) answer a question or
two; and (4) ask for their vote, thank them, and move on.

In the book Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy, there is a letter that Jimi
Hendrix wrote to his father:

Dear Dad,
I still have my guitar and amp, and as long as I have that, no fool
can keep me from living. There’s a few record companies I visited
that I probably can record for. I think I’ll start working toward
that line because actually when you’re playing behind other
people, you’re still not making a big name for yourself, as you
would if you were working for yourself. But I went on the road
with other people to get exposed to the public and see how
business is taken care of. And mainly just to see what’s what, and
after I put a record out, there’ll be a few people who know me
already and who can help with the sale of the record.
Nowadays people don’t want you to sing good. They want you
to sing sloppy and have a good beat to your songs. That’s what
angle I’m going to shoot for. That’s where the money is. So just in
case about three or four months from now you might hear a record
by me which sounds terrible, don’t feel ashamed. Just wait until the
money rolls in because every day people are singing worse and
worse on purpose and the public buys more and more records.