Mark Thompson reveals the principles of readiness that he’s used to help aspiring CEOs get the top job.
You’ll Learn
- The one behavior that makes you more CEO-like
- Why to take on your boss’ problems
- The question that dramatically improves your appeal
About Mark
Mark Thompson is a globally recognized authority on CEO succession, executive readiness, and high-stakes leadership transitions. He has led more than a hundred board-level engagements to prepare C-suite successors to step confidently into enterprise leadership. He is the founding chairman and CEO of the Chief Executive Alliance and the CEO Leadership Plan Review (LPR). Previously, he served as chief executive of the CEO Academy, a SHRM company, in partnership with Wharton and McKinsey.
Earlier in his career, Thompson reported directly to founder Charles “Chuck” Schwab, serving as executive producer of Schwab.com, the first large-scale digital platform for online investing. In 2021, he was ranked by Marshall Goldsmith as the #1 CEO Coach, and in 2023 he was inducted into the Thinkers50 Coaching Legends.
- Book: Admired: 21 Ways to Double Your Value
- Book: CEO Ready: What You Need to Know to Earn the Job–and Keep the Job
- Website: ChiefExecutiveAlliance.com
Resources Mentioned
- Study: “How Leaders Develop Collaborative Leadership for Effectiveness” by Bonita Thompson
- Book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen Covey
- Book: Contact: A Novel by Carl Sagan
- Book: Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
- Past episode: 273: Taking Control of your Career with Korn Ferry’s Gary Burnison
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Mark Thompson Transcript
Pete Mockaitis
Mark, welcome!
Mark Thompson
Hey, great to be here. I love your work.
Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, I love your work. I’m excited to talk about becoming CEO Ready, or just advancement ready, in general. But first I got to hear, you are the guy who calls Marshall Goldsmith regularly, asking him key questions. Tell us about this.
Mark Thompson
I mean, there’s nothing more powerful than to be held accountable about something that is your goal, and yet we don’t follow our own goals. So, we will set up a prompt that will be about, in his case and mine, “Did you do your exercise today? Did you tell your spouse that you love her? Do you make sure that you’re reaching out to your kids? Have you made progress writing the book?” “Oops!” Well, you can only lie about that for so long to a good friend.
So, there’s nothing better than to have kind of that loving critic in your life who is sharing with you the time, the kind of the precious gift of saying, “Hey, I’m going to support you. These are your goals, though, dude, because you need to show up for them.” And so, that’s what we do. We’ve done that for many, many, many years. And people will ask us, “Well, aren’t you guys supposed to be like master coaches?” And it’s like, “Well, it’s called a practice, whether you’re a musician or anything else.”
And so, what is so interesting is how you drift, and we all have that. That’s something we all have in common. So, think about that like personal board of directors or a set of people that you might think about setting up a series of goals that you’ve had for a while, and see if they can help you keep yourself accountable.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, yes, that’s exactly what I asked Marshall. It’s like, so you’re like the Mr. Top Dog coach here and you’re saying you have a person call you every day to say, “Did I do my best to…etc.?” And I thought that was pretty inspiring in terms of we humans can all benefit from some of that.
Mark Thompson
Also I love his framing because it’s not, “Did you accomplish the task of being happy? Did you make sure that all of these things were necessarily done?” It’s really more that life is about making progress, isn’t it, towards your goals? And so, the idea there is “Did I do my best towards this particular objective? And am I making progress?”
I mean, that’s what makes a life worth living, is when you kind of feel like you’re making progress, not that you always have to have the brass ring every day. So, his inspiration really was something that, actually, very few people do, but it’s surprisingly powerful when you know you’re going to get that call.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, it is. Well, right now, I got a buddy who’s trying to lose some weight, and I said, “Hey, I want to try something out here. Maybe this will become a service I offer or build an empire to offer.”
Mark Thompson
Indeed.
Pete Mockaitis
It’s, “Send me a screenshot of your calorie-tracking app every evening when you’re done eating for the day.”
Mark Thompson
Darn.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, sure enough, it’s like…
Mark Thompson
Busted!
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, he knows it’s coming. And so, you know, most days there’s a pretty solid caloric deficit. And so, that’s brick by brick, that’s how you build the thing.
Mark Thompson
It is. And, you know, it’s not about being perfect. It’s about making progress. So, I really admire the idea that, if you can be coachable enough to just take feedback, not on the other person’s goals, but on yours, that’s the thing that’s amazing about it. Marshall and I, for about 700 hours during the pandemic, we had these small groups that got together, and they were at all levels, all incredibly interesting people, highly accomplished actors, celebrities, CEOs, people from all walks of life.
Well, you know, it doesn’t matter whether you’re the most entry-level executive, or you’re a person working in a call center, or a teller at a desk, it is common to all of us to aspire for things that we’d love to accomplish in our lives. And yet, without that accountability partner, we don’t actually make that kind of progress or set aside the steps or time for it.
So, I couldn’t be more excited about the fact that we’re talking about this today because that’s probably the single most effective thing we could do to be even showing up awesomely in our job, is to, let’s say, just for a moment, let’s do a little check in. We’ll do a feed forward, “What could I be doing to make your life easier, boss?”
She or he is being judged by their bosses. It’s hard to feel empathetic about that, but they also have the same nerve-wracking transitions and reviews and feedback that they’re getting. So, hey, could we go and actually ask, “How could I make your life better today? How could I make it easier? How could I do a better job of showing up for you?”
Also, with your peers, this is a way to be kind of, in a sense, CEO-like. When I’m coaching CEOs to be ready for the job, they’re highly accomplished people. They’ve been doing a lot of successful impact in their companies or in the industry. But what’s going to really separate them apart is whether you’re willing to really help the organization move ahead, whether it’s your boss, your board, or an entire community organization.
So, this idea of actually doing the check-ins, people are astonished. They’re astonished when you’re asking them, “How can I do a better job of showing up for you?” That alone gives you disproportionate and outsized points with people, “I never thought Mark would, really? He’s not going to improve at that.” Like, “Well, how could I be a better listener, honey?” “Wait, what? You’re asking me?”
And so, I’d say that that ends up being, it’s disarming as well as empowering. And the good news is you don’t actually have to do all of that stuff. You can prioritize, right? Asking is really worth it.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, certainly. And I am a big believer that I have been asked before and I have been the asker, and it’s magic, it’s like, “Oh, well, thank you so much. Well, let’s see.” And it’s very beautiful.
Mark Thompson
It is.
Pete Mockaitis
So, let’s talk about your book, CEO Ready. You’ve coached a bunch of folks and you put together this book. Can you tell us any particularly surprising or counterintuitive discoveries you’ve made about us humans and becoming ready to take on the CEO job or just a bigger job?
Mark Thompson
Yes, I think that latter question is really what makes this the most profound surprise for me is because it ends up being relatable at all levels. Whenever you’re trying to, maybe, acquire the next level of responsibility, or step into the next role, or even be noticed and attractive for that next role, it’s important to do exactly what I’ve learned the titans of the world do when they’re being considered for the biggest job of their lives, running the biggest companies in the world. The very same attribute.
And it’s interesting, they often have a harder time than the most of the rest of us might because of the level of success that they’ve had, and that maybe overconfidence that they have in thinking that they’ve arrived at becoming a CEO as a destination. Your next promotion isn’t a reward for all you’ve done. It’s an opportunity to learn how you can now contribute at a higher level of skill.
In other words, the biggest surprise I learned is, no matter how far you’ve come, there’s always a little bit more to learn. And if you’re willing to ask, and if you’re willing to invest the extra time, effort, and humility to get better, that’s what you need to be promotable, to be attractive in that next job. That humility is attractive and disarming, very much like getting feedback.
And here’s the twist on it. It’s not that you’re humble because you’re afraid. It’s not that you’re humble because you don’t want to get out of bed because it’s too risky. That’s not the kind of humility related to fear. The humility has to do with being curious about what will it take to be successful at this next gig.
Pete Mockaitis
That’s right. Yes. And I see that connection between the humility and the curiosity is because, implied with the, “What will it take?” is the underlying assumption that, “What I’ve already been doing is not exactly perfect.”
Mark Thompson
Yeah, “I’d hate to think about it that way, so I don’t.” And if you do, the interesting thing is you get huge points for that. It’s one of the things that really differentiates people. Corie Barry, when she was being approached to think about being the CEO candidate, walking in the legendary footsteps of her predecessor who had rescued Best Buy as a Big-Box store, when he approached her, she sent him a seven-page expose, saying, “On the first page here, this is how I could really get the idea that I should be CEO, but I needed to work on these other six pages.”
And instantly almost, the board and he said, “You’re our gal.” The typical response for most folks is to either celebrate with arrogance, or celebrate with maybe denial that we have stuff to work on. And that we’re not quite ready. That’s the reason I really frame this as, “Are we ready for this?” It’s a matter of always preparing and practicing, and then having that sense of inquiry that allows you to understand what’s going to be needed next in that job.
I think a lot of people think that, as they go through their career, it kind of adds up to the next job. And now what you need to also is be kind of reaching and thinking about what is it going to take to be successful and to contribute success for your organization in that next role. I think that’s the difference, “Is it owed to me? Do you deserve it?” Probably.
“Are you ready?” No, because you don’t really know what’s going to be needed. It’s not that the boss who leaves even needs a mini me. They probably need something mini better. And that would be what, really, we found is kind of it’s both an enabler and it’s almost a secret career killer. It’s a blind spot to say that we were kind of avoiding it, being able to be talking about, “What do I need to learn for this next job?” It’s actually something that’s admired usually by leadership.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, I love that a lot. We had the CEO of Korn Ferry on the show, Gary Burnison, and he talked about that very same concept. I think he might have called it, was it leadership agility or learning agility? One of the top competencies associated with successful executives is just this, like, “Huh, what do I need to know and how do I learn it?” And by being not a know-it-all, but a learn-it-all, you serve yourself very well for advancement.
Mark Thompson
Right on. I’d say that ends up being something that differentiates you from the crowd. And then also this idea that we’ve been talking about here, which has to do with being interested in making your boss successful, “What are really the attributes that has made that individual able to get through their reviews? And how are they being rated? And what’s their span of control?”
Because then, you can also do something that you’ve been hired to be in your swim lane, but to be really interesting for the next role, you need to think about all the swim lanes that would be under the responsibility of the job that you would get if you were promoted.
And so, to think more expansively and empathically about what it will take to be successful in that next job, in addition to your current one, is something that aligns you, really, as being an easier pick. They’d rather have an internal person who’s got that context and then has had the extra temerity to put in the effort, run some other drills so that they’re ready for that next job.
It’s usually something that we think is a privilege or a prize, and it’s really more matter of actually earning it again, which is why our subtitle is how to earn and keep it, is because what’s needed usually for the next person in the job that you might get promoted into is probably not everything that that person currently is doing. It’s something else, something more, something different.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, and keep it is striking. I believe that there is some spooky data associated with, I don’t know if you want to call it a bounce rate, but people rise to CEO and then they exit kind of fast. Can you unpack this?
Mark Thompson
Boom. It’s been happening at a higher rate than ever before in history. The other thing that really led Harvard Business Review to approach Byron and I. Byron’s at NASDAQ, and he coaches boards and helps them. And I’m the guy who’s known to coach CEOs. And we’ve been seeing a turnover rate like never before.
And, in fact, if you see some of the research that they’ve done and others, the boards that pick a new CEO are often, half of them, are disappointed within 18 months. Not that they’re fired yet. And the level of activism, which are these kinds of shareholders who make a complaint that, “We’re not doing well enough as a public company,” will often, well, I’ll put it this way.
Five years ago, if you had a knock at the door from an activist investor, there was maybe a one in 20 chance that you’d lose your job as CEO. Today, it’s maybe 20% of the time. And if you’re at a big brand, it’s 40% of the time you’re out. So, it’s almost too late because they haven’t been expressing the alignment with all of their stakeholders, which is what we can all do at any level in our career.
This is what’s so portable about the principles of readiness that, think about all the people who have a say in choosing you for that next role, and think about all the people who have to be impressed or have to ratify the approval of you making an advancement, and see what you can learn about each of those responsibilities, each of those stakeholders.
For a CEO, it ends up being, “I need to learn about those shareholders and those pesky analysts and activists, and my board, if there’s a board of directors. I need, of course, to be better aligned with my CEO in whatever dramas she is going through or he’s going through. I need to know what the HR department’s doing, and I need to be able to think about my peers across the C-suite.”
In other words, if I’m in the job of CFO, I need to be thinking about my head of marketing and all the other people, the head of legal, the head of operations. They’re going to have to weigh in a little bit on voting me into office because I’m going to go from peer to chief if I’m lucky. And if I’m just a competitor. So, think about how, you know, often when at any level in the business, when it may be your first time manager, you are kind of, in a sense, in competition and collaboration with all of your other managers around you, your peers.
And if you’re to be picked out of the group, you can’t just be the one fighting for your own department. You have to be one who’s also seen as saying, “You know, Pete’s work is amazing, and I’m going to enable Pete’s work. I’m the better option. But I’ve got to prove that. And I’ve got to prove it to Pete, because maybe he’s not going to decide whether I get the job.” But it can often kill the prospects if you’re known as the person who’s just about me.
And so, thinking about your ascent when they’re banking the selection process is important, “How does this guy, Mark or Pete, show up compared to the others in terms of being able to play with others?”
Pete Mockaitis
Very well. Very good. Well, so I like your story about Best Buy a lot. Could you dive into another story that illustrates some of the principles and the best practices and the top things you recommend for folks, as someone who was maybe not so ready, but they dug in, they did some key things and away they went?
Mark Thompson
Well, you know, one of the people that I admire so much in technology is Cristiano Amon, who is the CEO of Qualcomm, one of the biggest chip companies in the world, known for patents, technical excellence, was running the biggest division of Qualcomm. What was so impressive about him when I did the 360, which is this idea that I’m suggesting that all of us who are listening to this program do, get some inputs from people all around you and see what you can do better.
And it’s interesting. He was actually the most insightful in self-reflection. He says that the job of trying to advance to the next level of responsibility is a job which means that you’re constantly, once you’re in your comfort zone, you’re now pushing yourself beyond it. I mean, once you feel like, “Well, we’ve got this stable. We’ve got this. Now we’re saying, okay, let’s take on more. Well, how exactly would we do that?”
And he had a wonderful way of expressing it. He said, “If you aren’t also trying to test to your edge of incompetence, I’m not sure you deserve to be here a year from now.” You need to stretch and say, “Okay, this is where I am today. I’m a mediocre trumpet player, but I just get my jollies every time I’m sent a sheet music that says intermediate from beginner. I’ve graduated. Everybody wants to be able to do that. What’s it going to take to push yourself just a little further than you’re comfortable?’”
Once again, I think we often can look at our careers as thinking we’ve done a lot of work, we’ve done it well, and we do deserve the advancement, that’s for sure. And yet this next job is going to be involving maybe getting out of your comfort zone in addition to being curious and then doing some skill building.
Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Okay. I like that a lot. Well, then can we walk through some key steps? So, we’ve got a mindset associated with humility and being of service and trying to help those who are higher-up succeed. And then if we’ve got that in place, what are some of the other top things you recommend we do?
Mark Thompson
Well, I’d say that one of the things that would be helpful is to think about yourself as a utility infielder. In sports, you know, that’s the person they throw onto the baseball field who can play more than one position.
So, if there are other types of opportunities, projects, collaborations with teams in other parts of the organization, in other words, kind of branch out across and see if there isn’t a way for you to get support from your boss to be able to help her or him with their reputation and the position of the department by supporting your division or having involvement in a new strategic initiative. So, you don’t have unlimited energy. You obviously don’t have unlimited time.
But to show the interest, I’d say that your punch list should be for this next year as we look at this wonderful year ahead, if there’s any resolution you had, it would be, “What else could I be doing in this current organization that would allow me to expand my experiences, my impact, my reputation? And what would those be?”
And what that does is it allows you also to test, “What do I really am interested in?” You’re going to try some things, “Oh, well, I don’t need to do that again.” Others, you might find as even another step in your career path. So, to be very intentional about setting your goals for the coming year to be one where you’re thinking about growing and getting noticed by expanding what you volunteer to do throughout the organization.
Pete Mockaitis
And so, there’s many directions, as you mentioned, that we might choose to take on and grow in. Do you have a top listing of the key things to demonstrate, or your book cover has a checkbox with a check mark in it, like the key boxes that we want to check and show others that we’ve checked?
Mark Thompson
Absolutely. So, number one is this idea that you’re thinking about the success of your boss, which we noted a moment ago. What is it that will make them successful in the year ahead? What is it that you could be contributed to that would allow them to be able to build their reputation? So that’s step number one.
Step number two is to really start to map some scenarios so that you can reach out across the department or other organizations so that you can get more experiences within that organization. Step three is to think about what kind of skill-building that might involve. Maybe you need to take an extra class. Maybe you’re going to learn something more about AI. Maybe there’s an opportunity for you to double down on a skill that you want to complete, which requires some fluency in something that you need to accomplish.
The next step is then to think about the stakeholders who are going to be making the decision, “How can I spend time with the people that I know who they’re going to ask about whether I should be advanced or not?” And start to find reasons to hit them in the cafeteria or go to lunch or spend some time with all those who have an impact on the decision that’s going to be made, those stakeholders that are so essential?
And then make sure that you are part of a regular feedback process in your organization. What I found, and you’ll see in the book, is that there’s at least two dozen types of psychological and personality assessments that people can take that are often brought in by the HR department to try to see, “Do you really have the temperament and the background that we need for the next job?”
This is definitely the case at the C-suite and the CEO level. There’s probably more tests out there than ever. And so, what I like to do is give people a sense of patience in undergoing that kind of activity of taking an assessment or getting some feedback. But it can be a gift because you can learn so much about yourself by using these tools.
You just have to calibrate for the fact that, when you do get feedback, especially from assessments, that it’s not necessarily an attempt to find the truth about you. It’s an attempt for you to become more self-aware of what perceptions you might generate in other people’s thinking about you.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well said. Well said.
Mark Thompson
In other words, it’s not the truth, right? I mean, when it comes to psychology, there’s never an absolute 100% correlation coefficient. It’s really more a matter of, “So, if I’m leaving the impression that’s like this, why are people having that perception?” If you can open your heart and mind to that, and it’s not easy, that makes you really incredibly accelerate your progress quickly.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, I like that a lot because many times the way these tools, these assessment reports’ outputs are phrased, it’s like, “Oh, on this dimension, on this construct, on this competency, you are at a 2.3.” It was like, “Oh, no, that’s a low number. I am bad at this.” Just to remember, “Ah, the assessment is not actually capable of telling me that I’m bad at this. It’s only capable of telling me the people’s perception of me on this.”
Mark Thompson
Thank you. Yes, exactly. Right. And I think that’s the interesting thing about integrating that feedback into your life, because you might feel that that’s a statement of the facts and that might hurt, the way you’re describing it. It’s interesting how perceptions are actually harder to change on the part of others than the facts are.
You can actually demonstrably become a better listener in meetings six, seven, eight times, and on the ninth time, blurt, interrupt, get short, and then they’ll say, “Yeah, no, Mark never listens.” And part of that is on you and parts on them because part of it is that it can be a little more convenient to stereotype each other, “And he just, Mark just talks and nobody listens. That’s just how he is.”
And then, “I don’t have to really, if Mark’s my boss, then I may not have to really invest in trying to find my voice and finding a way to speak to power and scroll up the courage to talk to that person.” So, it kind of lets them off the hook, because I’m just not a nice guy. The perceptions, too, also kind of stick for the reason that we don’t practice them with enough rigor and enough regularity.
That’s why readiness is really about a practice. I mean, you know, if you’re a musician or you play a sport or there’s some skill that you’ve developed, you’ve probably noticed that you get better when you practice it. And for me, particularly, if I don’t, I atrophy really fast. So, I think that ends up being the opportunity that most people are facing. If you want to be ready for the next gig, then practice and see how you might be able to show up differently.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. I’m curious, when you talk about this issue of perception, it’s tricky. We, human beings, we think what we think, we perceive what we perceive, we form opinions and judgments of others, and sometimes they’re accurate and sometimes they’re not. But, nonetheless, individuals’ perceptions will influence or decide whether or not we do advance. So, do you have any pro tips on just common mistakes that make other people think less of us that we should be on the lookout for to avoid?
Mark Thompson
Absolutely. And the context ends up being in the book, with respect to this notion of what you’re describing for really reaching out across, because if you’re going to be a chief executive, you’re going to lead a whole organization. The biggest blind spot ends up being saying that, “Because I was great at what I was doing in this part of the company, and I assume that I understand all the other executive functions in the company.”
And so, to be able to slow down and consider what is really the context in which people are expressing their value set or their needs based on, as I mentioned earlier, they might be the general counsel, they might be a lawyer, they’re going to talk a little differently than a chief marketing officer. They’re going to show up in a way that frames what they care the most about.
In the case of the lawyer, it’s probably, “Well, we need to be in compliance, and we need to make sure that people are safe, and that we don’t get ahead of ourselves.” And the marketing person was saying, “Yeah, but we need to reach everybody, and we need to be able to have impact, and we need to be able to light up people’s emotions,” and you’re both right.
And so, to the extent that you can start to be willing to learn a little bit of the language, and I talk about kind of conversational, you don’t have to be totally fluent in the language of all the other stakeholders. But I think what happens is that people will very much appreciate your interest in them. People appreciate when you ask about their functional area, when you are, we talked about curiosity earlier.
If you really show that, you get a lot of points in terms of their perceptions of your openness, your intelligence, and your appeal because you’ve talked about them, and you’ve talked about what they care about, and you’ve been able to explore in a deeper way what lights them up.
I wrote a prior book called Admired, which I have here, which is entirely about this, where we looked at the most admired people in companies. And what we found is that we all expect to be valued, respected, and admired for what we contribute. And we want to be valued, admired, and respected even for our intentions, not even what we’ve accomplished, but because we have good intentions.
And then we asked people, we did a national survey on this, then we asked people, “Well, how well have you come to understand what the people who you are relying on for that feedback, what they value, and what they’re interested in? I mean, do you know how they want to be valued and admired and respected?”
And the process of actually finding out what that is for your boss, for your peers, for the people who have impact on your boss, is an incredibly engaging and exciting prospect for…People love talking about themselves. They love talking about their journey and then, all of a sudden, they cut you slack when you share your point of view.
There’s very little of that. There’s not enough today, I think, in society of that kind of conversation of trying to understand. Steve Covey, who wrote, The 7 Habits of Most Effective People, and is famous for all of that, he used to always talk about, “Seek to understand before seeking to be understood.” And that would be game changer.
That would change the stakes, you know, “Once I’ve demonstrated that I’ve heard you and that I understand you.” I think people are reluctant to do that because I may have to, it sometimes implies that I agree with you by saying that I understand what you’re saying. And it’s not the case. And what I’m saying is, “I respect and admire and value what you’re saying. I’ll decide later whether I agree. But I’m not giving anything up.”
I think people think it’s zero sum that way. It’s either my way or your way. And I think if you consider, why it is people are thinking the way they are, why your boss is triggered by something, it’s probably because she or he is being judged by their bosses for something that you could help with that would get you promoted.
Pete Mockaitis
Right. And when you’re having these conversations to try to gain this understanding, are there any of your favorite go-to questions you love here?
Mark Thompson
One of the things that’s probably the most surprising is, “Who do they admire?” It’s interesting, when I asked you that question and I asked you to kind of form a picture in your head or your listeners right now, think about somebody that you really, truly value, admire, and respect, who you know, not just someone from history, but someone who touched your heart that you feel that way about.
And what’s nice about that is you can know a person really well and ask them, “I could ask Pete who I don’t know at all, ‘Who do you admire?’” Neither way would it be creepy. But it is actually rather intimate because people give you a very deep answer. They’ll talk about that mom who had endless patience, who supported the family and exhibited the kind of grit and effort to support to make this family successful.
And then you’ll ask them, “So, what is it about her that you’d like to be?” They’re almost always anyone you describe that you admire is someone who’s exhibiting attributes that you aspire for. And, all of a sudden, you ask this of a board member or your boss or someone that you can’t maybe say, “Could we sit down and have a deeper conversation about what drives you?” It’s like, “No, you’re not going to get that option.”
But if you ask who they admire, and really lean into it, people love talking about that person. And if you’re listening deeply, you’re going to find out that, “Wow, my boss really, okay, she really admires grit. She really admires the hours that I put in, maybe kind of even more than something else that I thought she needed.”
So, the people we admire is a metaphor for the goals and aspirations of the person you’re asking, which is something that we learned from our prior research. And it’s certainly true for great CEOs who go from having one boss, a supervisor, to 12 bosses, the board. And so, they have to do that with everyone, “Who do you admire? What’s driving you? What are you looking for in my job?” And those are the ones that get the job and keep it.
Pete Mockaitis
Well, thank you. Okay. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?
Mark Thompson
“You’ve got to be the change that you wish to see.” Often, that’s attributed to Gandhi. I don’t think that’s actually a precise quote from him. But to role-model what we’re seeking or hoping is a very hard and high standard to hold yourself to. And yet that’s what really is the most convincing.
If you’re going to be in a position, in a role right now, where you’re asking people to do things, well, how are we showing up that represents that so that ends up being a reinforcement, not hypocrisy? So, that’s one, I think, that’s very powerful in leadership.
Pete Mockaitis
And can you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?
Mark Thompson
Yes, we did a study on one of the most surprising attributes of who you can stand to work with. And many situations in which people work, collaboration is really, really hard. And one of the studies that was conducted by Bonita Thompson, actually at Vanderbilt, who owns the construct in collaboration, found out that you can actually work with someone you don’t like, but you can’t work for somebody you don’t trust, and there’s miles difference between the two.
Because there’s plenty of times where we’re working with people that we don’t exactly feel great about being with. You can’t always like everyone all the time. But if you feel like you’re in a situation where there isn’t that bridge of trust, that there isn’t kind of at least a mutually held trust that we’re both sharing the same goal, that’s an absolute game changer in terms of demotivating folks to work together.
I think a lot of folks find that surprising. It’s like, “Really? You can work for somebody that you don’t like?” I think that’s really important to understand, because the circumstances of work today are certainly stressful enough that that can often be the case.
Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. And a favorite book?
Mark Thompson
My favorite book was Contact, actually.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, about the aliens?
Mark Thompson
Yes.
Pete Mockaitis
That’s fun. So, I was like, “So, is that about networking or building relationships?” “Oh, no, that’s the alien movie.”
Mark Thompson
I knew you wouldn’t see that coming. I thought it would be obvious or not be obvious. What’s interesting about that one is, actually, there actually is a way to segue anything back to the dialogue of leadership, right?
Because we talk about wanting innovation, we talk about wanting to have out-of-the-box thinking, and I think often the reason most organizations and most of us actually have a hard time innovating is because it feels a little bit like you’re talking about little green men or something that is not relevant, and so we instantly reject it.
And we don’t see what, you know, if we dig a little deeper, while we’re hoping for creative change, we’re hoping for innovation, sometimes, you know, once we hear it, we reject it so soundly that we never do advance. And I see a lot of organizations lose their way because they don’t take a little bit more of a Star Trek approach to saying, “Okay, it’s not here in the known universe or in physics, but if we really want to innovate, if we really want to be creative with something, we start there.”
My most actionable fun book on this topic, it was Creativity, Inc., where the folks at Pixar talked about making billion-dollar bets on movies. I mean, that’s the riskiest thing. And they always started there. They always said, “Okay, we’re going to hold our brainstorming sessions in three rooms. And the first room is going to be the one where “no holds barred” on the creativity.” So as crazy as it could be.
There’s nobody shooting anything down there, and they capture all that. It’s not until the next session in the next room that they start to curate, “Okay, so how do these ideas fit with what we’re good at doing and what we have the talent here to do, and that we think that we could accomplish in the time that we have?” And then you start to winnow it down to those framings.
And it’s not till a third meeting where you’re saying, “We’re not doing that. We’re not doing that.
We’re not doing that. We’re just doing this. We’re just doing this,” and they start to winnow it down. I think we close too early on our brainstorming sessions. And do that with your career. Think about kind of what would be the boldest thing you could do in the new year and how you might go about it.
The critics aren’t invited to that first meeting. It’s really more about you continue to imagine, because the self-critique and the critique by others doesn’t usually get you to first base or even second base. So, let yourself go nuts about the year that’s coming forward, and then think about then how to get a little more practical about how to operationalize that in the context of a real life, and then set it into goals going forward.
And that’s how I’ve found the highest achievers, those who become CEO-ready or ready for the next gig, kind of, are able to open their heart and mind and start to really put a plan together, because you deserve that. You really do deserve that if you aspire to be ready.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?
Mark Thompson
The tool that I use to be the most awesome thing in my job was the 360. Get one, have one, be a part of it, make sure that you get the regular feedback in all directions. I always had to breathe deeply to realize that maybe not all the feedback I got would be ideal. And it’s always been an unlock. It’s always been an accelerator. It’s always been something that allows me to kind of get better faster than anyone else when I was wanting to be promoted so I could get noticed.
Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?
Mark Thompson
The habit is gratitude. It’s not something that we naturally, or at least I naturally, leap to every day. Be grateful for the people and the opportunities you have. Actually, Hubert Joly, going back to the Best Buy story, he said, “Pressure is a privilege.” If you have the pressure of doing something really hard, that’s also an opportunity to be kind of grateful for that, “Well, I’m getting a chance to do this. It’s hard. It’s really challenging, but I get a chance to really make a difference.”
Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that people quote often and you’re known for?
Mark Thompson
What I’m known for is you can’t really scale your organization or scale your ambitions any faster than you can scale yourself. You’ve got to be able to invest in a way, in yourself, before you can expect it ever to be an outcome in that wonderful, cool company of yours.
Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s good. And, Mark, if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?
Mark Thompson
I’d point them to ChiefExecutiveAlliance.com or just look up CEO Ready, which is just being released.
Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?
Mark Thompson
I think that you deserve a promotion in this next year. Map a plan. Think about that as strategically as your biggest project and get some loving critics around you. Get some feedback, and most of that from your boss, and then put it in motion. That’s what you deserve.
Pete Mockaitis
All right. Mark, thank you.
Mark Thompson
Thank you.
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