Page 28 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

Introduction • 9

Frequently, they prefaced answers with, “What I tell my own chil-
dren is . . .” or “What I learned from my mentors . . .” or “What I wish
someone had told me was. . . .” The recommendations I present in this
book come from CEO consensus on various issues, and I’ve included lots
of their direct quotes that are highlighted to emphasize a point.

The advice I give my grandson is “every horse kicks, every mule bites,
all guns are loaded, and every second guy you meet is a fool.”

The CEOs are from public and private Fortune 50 to Fortune 5000
companies headed up by professional “guns for hire,” entrepreneurs,
and SOBs (sons of bosses). They are dot-com billionaires, financial serv-
ice providers, defense contractors, food service companies, manufactur-
ers of products from computer disks to breast implants, and several
serial entrepreneurs. With some I got 30 minutes; others gave me
hours and even days to “shadow” them, examine, and query at length.
(Sometimes, when top dogs talk about what it takes to get to the top, they
just don’t stop!)
For secondary source material, I sat down with their CEO friends
and some of their spouses (first, second, or more and a few life partners),
sometimes their children (natural, adopted, and step), at their homes
(lofts, seaside villas, mini-mansions, penthouse condos, mountain lodges,
or custom-made double-wides) or; in or on their vehicle of choice (sail-
boats, motor boats, lobster boats, Gulfstreams, NetJets, or Beechcraft
Baron). Sometimes I was invited to attend church with them, family
reunions, class reunions, company picnics, and executive off-sites. My
husband and I have been bicycling, hiking, camping, hunting, fishing,
and kayaking with some of them. (They don’t just sit behind a desk and
watch the stock ticker!)
Obviously, there were fun experiences I personally enjoyed, but my
main focus was always to extract every ounce of learning possible. My
goal from each encounter was to provide the most beneficial information
available from those who have “been there, done that, and bought the
T-shirt.” (You can’t get this stuff from surveys.)
From those structured (and some not so structured) conversations,
you’ll acquire suggestions they received from their own mentors and
sponsors, rules they established for themselves, and ways they accelerated