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The Big Picture of Business – Tribute to a Great Mentor. Remembering Cactus Pryor.

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One never forgets their first mentor. I have had several great ones, who in turn taught me the value of passing it on to others. That’s why I advise businesses, write books, speak at conferences and more.

That first great mentor sticks with you always. Mine was legendary humorist and media figure Cactus Pryor. He died August 30, 2011 at the age of 88.

I started working for him in 1958, at KTBC Radio in Austin, Texas. A new show had premiered on TV entitled American Bandstand. I was 10 years old and wanted to be the Dick Clark of local media. Cactus was the program director and morning radio personality. His show, filled with humor, humanity and music, was the natural lead-in to Arthur Godfrey Time, which we carried from the CBS Radio Network.

Cactus was 34 at the time that he began mentoring me. He had grown up around show business. His father, Skinny Pryor, owned a movie theatre and entertained audiences with comedy routines during intermissions. Cactus was inspired by all that he saw. He joined KTBC as a disc jockey in 1945, becoming program director. When the station signed on its TV station on Thanksgiving Day, 1952, Cactus was the first personality on the screen. He welcomed viewers and introduced the first two programs, the University of Texas vs. Texas A&M football game, followed by the Howdy Doody Show from the NBC-TV Network.

Cactus had been doing his morning show from his home, with his kids as regulars, with the repartee being similar to Art Linkletter interviewing children. Early in 1958, he was doing his morning show back in the studio. I started as his regular on Saturday mornings, and he gave me segments to do.

From him, I learned several early valuable lessons:

  • You cannot be a carbon copy of everyone else. He wanted me to like and respect Dick Clark but not become a clone of him.
  • Being one of a kind is a long quest. He wanted me to set my own tone and not be labeled by others.

From Cactus Pryor and a 24-year old newscaster named Bill Moyers, I learned that if you take the dirtiest job and do it better than everyone else, you will be a solid expert. In the good old days of regulated broadcasting, stations had to keep logs of the music, to avoid the hint of Payola (a growing controversy at the time). I kept the logs and learned about the music, the record companies, the composers and much more.

Stations also had to perform Community Ascertainment by going into the community, inquiring about issues, and assuring that broadcasting addressed those issues. That’s where I learned to file license renewals. That’s where I learned the value of public service announcements and public affairs program, which deregulation precluded broadcasting from doing. From that mentoring, I fell in love with the non-profit culture, the organizations and the client bases affected by them. That early Community Ascertainment lead me to the lifelong championing of not-for-profit groups and their fine works. From that experience, I still advise corporations to set up non-profit foundations and do good deeds.

The early days of television were creative. Cactus hosted a local variety show on Channel 7. He interviewed interesting locals, showcased local talent and did comedy material. One of his advertisers was an appliance store and, while showing the latest TV sets, Cactus kicked their screens to demonstrate their rugged qualities. When the station left its first temporary home at the transmitter atop Mount Larson, Cactus was carried out in the chair in which he was sitting, a symbol that the variety show would move to the new studio at the corner of 6th and Brazos.

Cactus began developing special characters, with unique personas. That first year in which I worked with him, he created a puppet, Theopolous P. Duck. It was inspired by Edgar Bergen’s characters. Mr. Duck delivered jokes with a cultured accent. He appeared in comedy spoof segments on local KTBC-TV shows, such as Now Dig This (hosted by Ricci Ware), Woman’s World (hosted by Jean Covert Boone) and the Uncle Jay Show (hosted by Jay Hodgson).

During that time, he developed a famous sign-off phrase. Network stars had their own, such Garry Moore’s “Be very kind to each other.” Cactus used the phrase: “Thanks a lot. Lots of luck. And thermostrockamortimer.” He joked that his made-up term meant “go to hell.” But really, he wanted to tantalize people into thinking bigger thoughts and being their best.

Cactus loved to play on words, giving twists to keep the listeners alert. He used turns of phrases such as “capital entertainment for the capitol city” and “that solid sound in Austin town.” In talking breaks for our sister station (KRGV), he said “that solid sound in the valley round.”

He taught me how to deliver live commercials and to ad-lib. In those days, we would do live remotes for advertisers, inviting people to come out, get prizes and meet us at the external location. Doing such remotes got us appearance fees, and they really drew for the advertisers.

Through the remotes, I learned how to feed lines and develop the talent to speak in sound bites, as I do for business media interviews to this day. I was with Cactus at a remote for Armstrong-Johnson Ford. The out-cue was to describe the 1959 Ford model. Cactus said, “It’s sleek and dazzling, from its car-front to its car-rear.” That was a cue for the studio DJ to play a commercial for the Career Shop, a clothing retailer. Today, when I use nouns as verbs and place business terms out of context to make people think creatively, I’m thinking back to Cactus Pryor.

One remote on which I joined Cactus was for the fourth KFC franchise in the United States. We got to interview Colonel Harlan Sanders on his new business venture. Little did I know that, 20 years later, KFC would be a corporate client of mine, and I would be advising them how to vision forward, following the Colonel’s death.

Music programming was important to Cactus Pryor and, thus, to me. Mentees of his understood and advocated broad musical playlists, with the variety to appeal broadly. Under a “service radio” format, different dayparts showcased different musical genres. He believed that virtually any record could be played, within context. One of the programming tricks that I taught him was to commemorate Bing Crosby’s birthday each May by playing “White Christmas” and other holiday hits out of season, which got the listeners fascinated.

In those days, you could play rock n’ roll hits from the KTBC Pop Poll, a list that was circulated to local record stars as a cross-promotion. There were also positions in the “clock” devoted to easy listening artists, instrumentals, country cross-overs and what Cactus called “another KTBC golden disc, time tested for your pleasure.”

Cactus liked rock n’ roll but wanted to see that easy listening records got proper attention. He would indicate his interest in notes on the green shucks that encased the records. As a write this section, I’m holding “Many a Time,” a 1958 release by Steve Lawrence, an easy-listening star who was beginning to also be considered a teen idol. Here’s the dialog from this record jacket: “Plug hard as hell. Experiment to see if we can get it on the Pop Poll. Cactus.” One of the DJ’s wrote, “How hard is hell?” Cactus wrote a reply, “Hard, ain’t it hard.” Steve Lawrence would subsequently have many teen hits (Pretty Blue Eyes, Portrait of My Love, Go Away Little Girl, Walking Proud, etc.).

Humor was the beacon over everything that he did. Cactus began recording comedy records, such as Point of Order on the Four Star Label and still others for Austin-based Trinity Records. He began writing a humorous newspaper column, Cacti’s Comments.

Besides his radio work, Cactus Pryor got bookings as an after-dinner speaker. In the early years, he gave comedy monologues and historical narratives. Always lively and entertaining, he inspired audiences to think the bigger ideas and look beyond the obvious. I follow his tenets in delivering business keynotes and facilitating think tanks and corporate retreats.

His gigs got more humorous. Cactus created different personas, replete with costume and makeup. His first was a European diplomat who had the same voice and inflection as Theopolous P. Duck. He would deliver funny zingers, often touching upon political sacred cows. Then, he would peel off the mustache and ask, “Ain’t it tacky?” He would then divulge that he actually was humorist Cactus Pryor from Austin, Texas. The act was well accepted and perfected during the era when our boss, Lyndon B. Johnson, was President of the United States.

Cactus did national TV variety shows. He was the “other Richard Pryor.” He continued developing characters and entertaining audiences up through the 1990’s, when his son Paul had begun doing the circuit as well. Paul is a funny satirist as well, something that I had known back when he was a school buddy of my sister Julie.

John Wayne called Cactus “one of the funniest guys around” and invited him to appear in two classic Wayne movies, The Green Berets and The Hellfighters. I recall visiting Cactus on the set of The Green Berets in Benning, Georgia, and seeing him keep stars John Wayne, David Janssen, Jim Hutton and Bruce Cabot in stitches in between shots and poker games.

Though national fame beckoned, he kept his roots in Austin, claiming, “There is no way to follow laughs onstage but with pancakes at City Park.” He stayed in his beloved Centex community. He did write books on Texana and history. There were contributions to the news-talk stations. He kept active until the Alzheimer’s.

These are some lasting business-equitable things that I learned from my first mentor (Cactus Pryor), and I’ve shared them with corporations and audiences all over this world:

  • A great mentor, teacher and role model need not be from the same strata as those whom he-she inspires.
  • Top executives must set standards that others aspire to…including themselves. We train people to be trustworthy.
  • A Body of Work takes time, energy, resources and lots of heart to produce. This holds true for any company-organization and for any person.
  • Defining what is good taste is a matter of judgment, perspective and experience.
  • The process of sharpening and amassing life and professional skills is ongoing.
  • As an integrated process of life skills, career has its place.
  • Whatever measure you give will be the measure that you get back.
  • Getting and having are not the same thing.
  • One cannot live entirely through work.
  • One doesn’t just work to live.

And these are some of the insights that I have developed, inspired by his early mentoring:

  • Never assume that people place high priorities on anything other than meeting their immediate needs. After they’ve used you, they’ll forget you.
  • Set boundaries soon and often. Otherwise, it haunts you for the rest of your life and clouds your productivity. Too much focus is on what you wish you would have said, done and accomplished.
  • See through showboaters. Those who brag about contacts rarely have a clue. Dreamers and schemers are allowed to get by because of other people’s gullible, undiscerning and unsophisticated natures.
  • Learn to say no without apologizing. Say it neutrally and strongly. Mean it.
  • Put things in a crisis mode to illustrate your points. That’s what lawyers do. Couch planning as the only way to avert a crisis. Expect the best, but prepare for the worst. 85 percent of the time, proper planning averts crisis.
  • Etiquette is a direct reflection of what people were/were not taught. Their trustworthiness is reflected in the way they handle themselves, through walking etiquette, elevator etiquette, telephone etiquette, meeting etiquette and networking etiquette. People who we think should know better often do not.
  • Don’t make the margin of profit too low. Once you set low perimeters, people see them as the top ends. They will cut and skim. They will see you as the low-cost provider.
  • People get what they pay for… always have, always will.
  • Senior corporate executives, especially those who rose to the rank of CEO, have had to adapt more in their careers than young people who never rise past mid-management. When young people want it all now and think they know enough, older people are wise enough to see the longer perspective.
  • Things are never simple for one who must make decisions and policies. Many factors must be weighed.
  • One cannot always go the path that seems clearest. One who thinks differently and creatively will face opposition. With success of the concept, it gets embraced by others, who claim to have been visionary all along.
  • Shepherding good ideas and concepts does not get many external plaudits. The feeling of accomplishment must be internal. That is a true mark of wisdom.

Those of us who have known and worked with Cactus Pryor will never forget his humor, his sense of fairness, his encouraging ways, the twinkle in his eyes and the lasting impacts made on our later successes.

About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

How to Employ Leadership Fundamentals… or Falter

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StrategyDriven Management and Leadership ArticleReddit, the on-line bulletin board system that posts entertainment, social networking and news content, gained a high profile, attracted Rock Star investors and a $500 million valuation. Then, it executed several strategic moves with seemingly little communication and proceeded to churn its executive ranks through a revolving door.

In the process, Reddit upset nearly everyone; investors, employees and its fanatical community of users alike. Those users architected, for all intents and purposes, a coup de ‘tat that resulted in Interim CEO Ellen Pao’s departure.

There has been no shortage of prognosticators who have offered their own diagnosis and cure on this self-policed and user-directed site. The sacred cow has been Reddit’s free speech and privacy policies. How can the organization create guidelines for socially responsible submissions when some negative offshoots of free speech-extremism, sexism, hate mongering and vigilantism—threaten Reddit’s integrity?

While addressing the sacred cow, the company failed miserably to articulate its strategy and gain support for its direction. Confusion reigned. There appeared to be a thrash-about in several simultaneous directions. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.

There’s been plenty of unsolicited advice on what to do. Here’s a piece of advice about how to do it. Advance your organization while leading from the front. Employ some leadership fundamentals. Your team and your user community will follow you up the hill, help you capture the enemy flag and celebrate victory with you. I look forward to the party.

First, to hatch a credible plan that has a daylight of a chance to succeed, gain the support of the people who must execute that plan. Collaborate with your people AND your user community. Team meetings, user advisory boards and a consensus approach might take a little time, but a plan concocted in a closet and then jammed down everyone’s throat didn’t work, did it? Share the vision and create a collective energy. You can’t do it alone.

Second, to kick off that game plan, a team must be completely aligned. With that collaborative effort behind you to hatch the plan, you’ve got a much better chance to get everyone on the boat rowing in the same direction. Get your team behind a few tangible goals. Common goals make for an aligned team. An aligned team makes for a focused, bold, impassioned execution.

Third, as you execute that plan, communicate like crazy. Heck, over-communicate. The world of social media is transparent. Make highly visible what you’re trying to accomplish and publicize your score card, what’s working and where you need help. Then pass the credit to those who made the contributions.

Reddit is now in the hands of CEO and returning co-founder Steve Huffman. Here’s the deal, Steve. You’re in a jam. You need to practice some leadership fundamentals. They’ll get you out of that jam. They might keep you out of a future jam to boot.

About the Author

Peter J. BoniPeter J. Boni is Managing Principal at Kedgeway, Inc and author of ALL HANDS ON DECK: Navigating Your Team Through Crises, Getting Your Organization Unstuck and Emerging Victorious (Career Press, 2015).

Three Millennial Mindsets to Embrace and Encourage

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What drives leadership performance? Is it having the right principles or the right mindset? Some may say neither do.

Principles and mindset are not discussed often as being performance indicators. Communicating a vision, hiring the right people, and designing the right systems are more often highlighted as ways leaders can ensure performance. Although each are important, mindset and principles are the starting point, and Millennials are getting this right.

Principles and mindsets, however, may get bantered about with little distinction. Both are essential yet there is a difference.

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About the Author

Jon MertzJon Mertz is one of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business and highlighted as one of the Leaders to Watch in 2015 by the American Management Association. He also is the author of Activate Leadership: Aspen Truths to Empower Millennial Leaders. Jon serves as vice president of marketing at Corepoint Health. Outside of his professional life, Jon brings together a community to inspire Millennial leaders and close the gap between two generations of leaders. Follow him on Twitter @ThinDifference or Facebook /ThinDifference

Get Better Results by Looking at Your Team Differently

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Why do you pay your team members? If you asked them, they might answer “You pay us to work.” If you ask an office-based worker what ‘work’ means to them, you’ll get a list of typical workday activities. They read and write emails. They write reports. They go to meetings and attend conference calls. Those activities that sound appropriate enough, but they don’t give a complete picture of what ‘work’ means to you.

There are two different definitions of ‘work’ in the dictionary. Your team members likely subscribe to the one that defines ‘work’ as “mental or physical activity as a means of earning income; employment.” Given you’re responsible for your team achieving its goals, you probably lean toward the other one which defines “work” as “activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.”

The two definitions are similar in that they revolve around physical or mental activity but they differ significantly on the purpose of the work. The implication here is you must hold your team members accountable for the results they achieve – not the activities they perform. That accountability contributes to the collective results your team delivers. Activities your team members think of as “work” are the inputs that go into getting the real outcome you desire – results that lead you to achieve your goals.

You need to evaluate the amount of output you get from a team member (the results of their work) and compare that to the amount of time and energy you have to invest in them to get it. We call that second piece ‘leadership capital.’ The result of those comparisons is the Leadership Matrix (or ‘the box’ for short). Within that matrix, we define behavioral archetypes from Slackers to Rising Stars and everything in between. The real insight lies in practical advice on how to lead those folks to improve their performance. To assess that performance, you need a deep understanding of the output generated by your team members. Those are the outcomes to assess when placing team members on the Leadership Matrix.

Mike Figliuolo - Leadership Matrix

Assessing the Output of Your Team Members

The output question leaders need to focus on is “are my team members producing the results I need given all the investments – pay, equipment, supplies, my time and energy – I’m making in them?” Assess each team member’s output – results that contribute to your team goals. To conduct this assessment, you’ll evaluate five elements of team member output:

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About the Author

Mike FigliuoloMike Figliuolo is the co-author of Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results and the author of One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership. He’s the managing director of thoughtLEADERS, LLC – a leadership development training firm. An Honor Graduate from West Point, he served in the U.S. Army as a combat arms officer. Before founding his own company, he was an assistant professor at Duke University, a consultant at McKinsey & Co., and an executive at Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He regularly writes about leadership on the thoughtLEADERS Blog.

The Big Picture of Business – The Making of a Classic: Houston Legends. How Entrepreneurs and Business Made City Grow.

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My sixth book is Houston Legends, a definitive history of a dynamic global capitol.

Houston was the first word spoken from the moon. It is the hub of the world’s energy industry, headquarters of medical innovation and entrepreneurial phenomena. For 200 years, Houston has been the funnel to international commerce.

Houston Legends contains secrets of CEOs, trail blazers and community impresarios, from superstar Beyoncé to heart transplant pioneer Dr. Michael Debakey, from aviation pioneer and Hollywood movie mogul Howard Hughes to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, from business titan Jesse Jones to community visionary George Mitchell, from oil drilling inventions to NASA space explorers.

I chose representative industries and community service niches as snapshots of a wider photo album. Not every name and fact is in here, but this business focused look gives perspective to modern life. Recurring themes include pioneer spirit, business innovation, community give-back, growth and vision.

I am a business guru at the national and international levels. My other books are about business, save one on Hollywood (which is big business). This book is a nostalgic stroll down memory lane in Houston, with small doses of business advice thrown in. The purpose was to recall and remember our heritage of business, entrepreneurship and the will to achieve even more.

In researching for this book, I studied dozens of others. Most were picture books and dwelled in the old days from community settlement and emerging society perspectives. It was nice to read about the fight for Texas independence and see pictures of all the old homes that used to be located downtown. This book looks at specters of business, commerce, distribution, consumption and opportunity, which typify Houston’s dynamic growth. Hopefully, this history compliments those books full of old pictures.

I started visiting Houston in the early 1950’s. I had an aunt, uncle and cousins that lived here. Houston was so much bigger and more cosmopolitan than the little town that I lived in (Austin). Today, I see Houston as a collection of communities, economic engines and entrepreneurial opportunities. I work all over the world and finally got the opportunity to write a hometown book.

Houston represents many things to many people. This is where we live and work, where we are educated and entertained, where culture and community pride are stimulated and where we learn some lessons in living together with others.

Houston is a growth community. It has seen industries emerge and mature. It boasts generations of healthy families. It encompasses lifestyles, cultures and opportunity that no other world-class city can match.

Yet, when you look at Houston, it is a collection of neighborhoods, business districts and quality lifestyles. Houston embodies many growing communities, the confluence being an international hub for this nation. Creative partnerships account for Houston’s documented growth.

As the city lives the 21st Century, we celebrate the historical, utilize state-of-the art technology and reflect changing social needs will always be at the forefront of the future. With a sense of pride, reflection and optimism for the future, Houston’s business is dedicated to identifying, meeting and serving every need of our community.

Houston is a collection of neighborhoods, cultures and families. Communities which grow and prosper will analyze and serve the needs of present generations. While honoring the heritage, we carefully plan for the future. Whether in the global sense or on the blocks on which we live, layers of generations comprise our essence.

Every community is a collection of lifestyles, inspired through the structures in which they take place are centers of synergy. Houston leaders are contributing to the quality of life and encompass the needs and activities of Houstonians.

Everywhere that you look in Houston, you see the fingerprints of business. This includes downtown, the Medical Center, the universities and colleges, the Galleria, NASA, Greenway Plaza, entertainment and sports facilities, airports, churches, and schools. As business and industry were challenged to perform at their highest standards, the entire community has benefited exponentially. In the minds of innovators and those who have followed, we care, we achieve, and we look for ways to get better at what we do.

As a result, Houston has experienced several eras of planned, sustained growth. We’re more than a boom or a trend. When reading this history of Houston, you will find the legacy of business on almost every page. Orderly growth has been achieved by mastering technology, business standards and adapting to changing community dynamics. Entrepreneurs have embraced innovation, creativity, safety and commitment to quality.

The best indicator of progress made is to periodically re-examine our best work, celebrate the teamwork involved and then re-apply the winning ingredients toward the next phase of growth. Because our community has mastered the fine art of collaboration, we have many great successes to recognize and admire. Houston Legends are symbolic of the mission and actual practices of community leaders, bringing the best minds and resources into successful business partnerships.

Every facet of business plays a part in facilitating orderly community growth. As our communities prosper, so do our member firms. Collectively, we make artistic, technical, procedural and economic differences in the greater Houston area.

As the city progresses through the 21st Century, we celebrate the historical, utilize state-of-the-art technology and continually seek to improve the quality of life. Strategies which address and reflect changing social needs will always be at the forefront of the future.

About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.