After mountain biking with my CEO friend, we debriefed the ride. His biggest concern was that I didn't get too banged up, and oh yes, I ate the dirt about 5 times.
Here was a Top level Biker/CEO that didn't make me feel like I was in preschool but like I was his equal. I'm sure that is the same way he makes his leadership team feel— like a balanced and equal team.The homework he gave me was to learn how to go real slow, come to a stop without getting off the bike, and just use balance to stay on it.
The reason being that every time I fell off, I was going real slow, got scared, and tried to use my foot to stop myself from falling. In other words, I was already down before I started to fall. How many times in business do we try to immediately stop the bike with our foot when things start to slow? Instead, we should try to find balance and stay on the bike until things get going again.
You might think "Oh business is bad, so let’s cut marketing dollars, sales training dollars, or cut back”, but by doing that, you have already committed to the fall. Instead, try to think about figuring out a way to increase sales.
To put it more simply, if a sales person loses his/her biggest account and they say "Oh no, I better cut back”, that is a failure mentality.
You want your sales people to say "Oh no, I lost my biggest account, I had better get my nose to the grindstone and find more business!"
