An Interview with Tom Voccola  

by Brett Modesti, CEO of WindStar Mortgage

 

The main theme in your book, The Accidental CEO -- A Leader's Journey from Ego to Purpose, is centered on leaders knowing themselves.  How did you come to write about that?  Was it from personal experience?

Yes, it was.  And it was a rather dramatic experience.  I became a CEO the way most do these days.  I started the company.  And it grew from zero to $18 million in a very short time.  And I did really great. Until I didn't.

 

What do you mean you did really great until you didn't?

Well, in 1989, after successfully running my company for just about ten years, I mean I had the yacht, the house on the water, the new cars and the big bucks, but in 1989 the world changed and I lost everything almost overnight.  I lost my my money, my house, my second wife, my kids and my confidence.  For someone that was supposed to know it all I didn't see this coming. I mean my entire life went away and I had no idea it was even in trouble.  Clearly there were some things I was blind to.  It was this event that got me to ask the tough questions that led to exploring why I failed as a CEO. 

 

You say that 97% of CEOs get their job pretty much by accident.  That's a high number.  How did you determine that and what are some of the accidents you talk about?

Over the past fifteen years I've interviewed hundreds of CEOs. The first question I ask them is how they got their first CEO job. It turns out there are four major ways CEOs get the job.  Entrepreneurs start companies and they grow up around them.  Or dad dies and leaves it to them.  Or they go in one day and the board fires their boss and they put you in the seat.  Or, less likely, they work their way up and finally get picked.  By the way, the picking was random and therefore an accident as well.  The first time is almost always an accident.  There is no training to be a CEO.  No certification course you can take.  It just happens one day because you work hard.  And as soon as it does people around you treat you like you have all the answers.  Believe me, you don't. No one does.

 

There aren't many books written about CEOs, especially ones in crisis.  What made you write a novel rather than a how-to book?

I'm an entrepreneur, I don't have a Ph.D. in psychology and I'll never run GM, and yet I am talking about some complex issues here.  Issues other business authors mention but haven't yet addressed, issues of self knowledge, and the incredible power of Purpose and Passion.  I wanted to address these things in a meaningful way, so I felt a novel would be an easier, more entertaining way to introduce some new ideas to a largely ego driven, skeptical audience.  It's an interesting story that leaders can relate to.

 

In your book you talk about the Surprise Factor, what is that?

The soft stuff, the invisible and unpredictable things that occur that cause us to react our way through our lives.  The assumptions and innuendos, the limiting beliefs, the relationships and our inability to communicate with one another that causes all the drama in business.

 

For example, in the movie The Up Side of Anger, the entire plot is about a husband running off to Sweden with his secretary.  The wife is so mad she never calls him.  She builds her life on anger and hurt that affects her relationships with her daughters all on the belief that her husband ran off with a bimbo.  It turns out, after three years have passed and she is living with a new boy friend, that the poor guy did no such thing, but fell in an old well in the back yard and died. 

 

The surprise factor.  We react to what the world throws at us instead of getting all the facts.  We search every innocent traveler and live in fear rather than getting to the source of the hatred. We second guess our employees rather than have an open discussion.  Amazing. We refuse to talk with each other because of fear they may be right.

 

Dealing with CEOs would seem, to the rest of us to be difficult.  What gives you the ability to do it well?

I guess I understand them.  I've lived in their shoes.  And I love them for it.  These are really amazing people.  The job is not an easy one.  And I know that fundamentally, no one goes to work to do a bad job.  That includes CEOs.

And I'm not intimidated by the title.  They're just people like you and me. 

 

You suggest that people are born with both Ego and Purpose and that for the most part our Purpose is ignored.  On the surface that sounds pretty simplistic; can you give us a little more depth here?  This brings to mind the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other.

Interesting picture isn't it.  And it's more accurate than you know. Ego, our little devil self, is about survival and for the most part will do anything to survive. Yet Purpose, metaphorically our angel self, is about possibility.  Sounds sappy, but it's the absolute truth.  Ego is a 5 year old.  Purpose is divinely guided spirit.  Which do you think will give you more peace of mind?  An automatic computer program with the mind of a 5 year old that reacts to everything and everybody as a threat, or that part of you that is mature, wise, caring and full of contribution for others?

 

You seem to take a pretty hard stance against Sarbanes-Oxley, the new corporate governance law that was recently mandated by the federal government.  What do you find so offensive about it?

Have you been through an airport lately?  Laws treat the symptom.  Everyone is painted with the same brush. It's based upon fear not on possibility. We never get to the root cause of it all.  Sarbanes Oxley maligns all CEOs because of just a few bad apples.  It says to the average person in the street "Do not trust your leaders." 

 

The fact is that Wall Street's insistence that every company make profit every quarter is insane.  Investor expectation is out of hand.  I've seen CEOs put product in trucks and drive it around the country just to be able to say they shipped.

 

 42% of fortune 1000 CEOs reported that what drives them is fear.   Life doesn't go one way.  Look at any stock chart and you see the economy goes up and down, yet Wall Street expects only up.  Insane. 

 

The CEO seat has an agenda based on survival and profit at all costs.  When you are not clear about who you are, your values, purpose and passion, the seat is going to run you.

 

Can you really help someone find their Purpose and Passion - their true calling -  in just one day?  Or was that the fiction part of your book?

Yes, we can.  It is the most elegant of things.  People want to find it, yet no one ever showed them how.  It is really a simple conversation, a listening really, and their Purpose and Passion just comes tumbling out. It's remarkable.  We've actually had spouses call my partners and me and say "Thanks for giving me my husband (or wife) back."

 

So, can you give us some steps so that the audience can get a feel for how they can become a more powerful leader?

Yes. No matter who you are, to lead anyone you first must be able to master and lead yourself.  And that means knowing who you really are - mastering yourself.  Beyond that, you need to have compassion for humanity.  It's not easy being human. You ever notice that? So mastering relationships is mission critical.  Step three is having a game worth playing. When you are clear about who you are creating value becomes easy.

 

Okay, how do I get to know myself more than I already do? I mean I'm a CEO, father, husband and, as you know, a sailor.  What else is there to know?

You are not those things.  Those are simply roles you play.  Who you are is what you bring to those roles when there is joy in your life.

 

In the book you mention time warps. What does one's Purpose have to do with time? 

There is an interesting phenomenon that takes place when we're engaged in our Purpose and Passion.  We have all experienced moments where time seems to stand still and where we could continue to do what we are doing forever.  Many report it's a feeling of peace, serenity, a freedom from fear or want or concern.  They are simply in the moment.  If we look carefully at our lives most of us can find a few instances in our lives when we had these Peak Experiences.  If we could, we would choose to relive them over and over again.  And we are always trying to get back to them. 

 

What if peak experiences didn't just happen out of the blue, what if we were supposed to feel that way all the time? 

 

Why is the difference between context and content so important to you, and why should it be important to us?

We busy ourselves doing stuff, at home, at work, etc.  Yet it's not what we do but why and how we do it that matters.  For example, my clients happen to be working in a particular industry making a particular product.  What they are making (doing) makes little difference to them, but why and how they make it matters a great deal. When I speak of why and how, I am referring to the employee, customer and strategic relationships that make everything possible.  Paper and computers and steel make little difference without engaged people.  When you focus on the content - most call it the hard stuff - you are going to be much less effective than if you focus on your relationships and the context of the relationship, or the soft stuff.  Think about your workplace, is it adversarial, or friendly, directive or supportive, reactive or creative.  The context of business and life is what's important. An example that puts this is perspective.  We are people, working with people, making stuff for people.  Three quarters of the equation is human interaction yet we continue to focus three-quarters of our energy on the stuff.  It makes no sense at all.

 

You also seem to be saying that Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People and Jim Collins' From Good to Great won't help you become a great leader.  How can you say that, these are internationally recognized authors who have helped millions of people?

I greatly admire Covey and Collins and their works are already classics. I should be so lucky. But I feel there is something deeper they are both pointing to, but fail to bring forth.  They fail to help us gain authentic access to what those that they write about apparently gained access to: our character.  And character is unique to each of us, you cannot borrow someone else's character and expect to be happy or fulfilled.  I define character to be our Purpose, Passion, Values and Unique Abilities. 

 

What most of our business gurus point to are those favorable traits in others and they tell us that if we want to be great leaders we must be just like them.  We must model them. We can successfully model what they do but we cannot authentically model who they be.  I believe that modeling is effective only when we first understand who we really are.  Only then will we be able to successfully model others. 

 

For example: Let's take a common dilemma, we all know that to lose weight there are two things to do: eat less and exercise more.  But many of us continue to fail at it no matter what guru we follow.  Why?  Because there is something deeper, something missing that we have yet to understand about ourselves.  A limiting belief in the background that keeps us from taking the actions we all know will keep us thin and healthy.  As my friend T. Harv Eker says "How you know you know how to do anything is that you are already doing it."

 

You say that getting to know yourself is fairly easy, but the hard part is choosing to be who you are.  Can you explain what you mean by that?

We have the process available to help anyone come to terms with who they really are and why they are here.  It takes about a day.  It's a very elegant yet profound process.  Yet the Ego looks at it and say, hum, that's interesting.  And quickly puts it out of mind, because it looks at everything as a threat to its survival. You have, say, 30 or 40 years practice reacting to your Ego and virtually no experience being your Purpose and Passion.  It isn't easy making the change.  Getting you to awareness is easy, mastery takes a little longer. In fact there are three stages we work on: Awareness, Mastery and Legacy.

 

I like your re-definition of CEO, would you please tell us more about that?

The traditional definition is Chief Executive Officer.  Sounds pretty powerful doesn't it.  It almost implies knowing it all.  Yet no one has the answer to Creating Extraordinary Organizations.  In my view that should be the CEOs only role, to Create Extraordinary Organizations.  And that takes inquiry, not direction. So my definition of a powerful CEO is one engaged in Creating Extraordinary Organizations.

 

Tell me about your BEAR model.

Interesting model.  I'm not sure who came up with it first, but in essence it clearly defines the steps to success.  In essence it says that our Beliefs inform our Emotions which power our Actions which give us our Results.  If you are not happy with where you are as a person, a couple, or an organization, examine your beliefs first.  Change your beliefs and change your results.

 

What can we tell about ourselves from our Peak Experiences?

Peak experiences are not an accident, they are how we are meant to live and experience our lives. They are a glimpse into who we really are.  When you recall one, ask yourself these three question to extract the significance of the event:

1. How did I feel when I was going through the experience?
2. What was special or meaningful to me about the experience?
3. What did I bring to the experience that few others could have?

You say you know the truth about beliefs, what is it?

Yes, of course.  The truth about beliefs is that not all beliefs are true. 

 

What's the difference between Purpose and Passion?

Passion is what you are giving your life for.  Purpose is how we do that.  It's sad that some are giving their lives for a pack of cigarettes.  What are you giving your life for?

 

What's the difference between our Reactive Identity and our Creative Identity?

Our reactive identity is basically our Ego self and includes our experience and resulting beliefs. It is powered by fear, uncertainty and doubt and is focused on what we don't want.  It is automatic, invisible and totally reactive.  It causes all the drama in our lives.

 

Our creative identity, on the other hand, is our spiritual self, and includes our Purpose, Passion, Values and Unique Abilities.  Our Purpose and Passion is powered by the possibility of our lives and is focused on what we want. 

 

Either way, since energy always follows focus, well, we get more of what we focus on. We can focus on what we fear or what we want.  Until one is aware of their Purpose and Passion they are stuck to forever react. 

 

The Gallup Organization had done extensive research that shows that the majority of Americans are not engaged at work.  How would you get more of us to be more engaged?

Gallup is doing ground breaking research. And the numbers are startling.  In that particular study they looked at 800 companies and 8000 managers.  They asked one question: Are you engaged at work?  76% of the managers said no, they were merely handling the status quo.  And 13 % said they were actively disengaged.

 

Gallup recommends the best practice of annually firing the bottom 10%.  I do not. I asked a great many people what made them feel engaged. The universal answer is when we are respectfully challenged, appreciated, responsible and part of a game worth playing.  For that you need people that are in touch with the why of things.

 

You talk about context a lot in your book.  How would you describe the context of work today, and how are you trying to change that context?

To review, context has to do with how and why and content has to do with the what.  Business today is about survival and is based more on ego than purpose, on reaction rather than creation and on fear rather than possibility.  When you live a purpose driven life there is more satisfaction and meaning in our life.  When you run a purpose driven organization there is more satisfaction and meaning in your life. When you bring satisfaction and meaning to an organization and its customers you make a lot more money with a lot less struggle.

 

You describe six levels of engagement in your book; can you tell us briefly what they are and why it is critical for us to know about them?

If you can imagine six levels.  The bottom three are, starting from the bottom and working our way up the scale, are the Environment, Behaviors, Capabilities.  Managers focus on controlling these three as their main ways to run organizations.  The other three are Beliefs, Identity and Spirit.  Leaders work in the arena of Beliefs, Identity and Spirit.

  

What's the difference between a manager and a leader, or are they the same?

No, they are very distinct.  The short answer is that Managers focus on reaction and Leaders focus on creation.  We need both, but unfortunately, just as ego has overtaken purpose, management has overtaken leadership.  It's a natural occurrence.  When everything is a threat in the moment then everything is a reaction to be managed, not a possibility to be expanded.

 

Michael Gerber, in his book the E-Myth, insists that entrepreneurs must focus working on the company and not in it.  You take that one step further and include everyone in the company.  In effect, each person should work on and in the company.  Won't that just create more confusion?

In practice it doesn't.  In fact, it engages people. In the typical organization only a few people are worried about the future.  In a transformed organization everyone has a stake at their own level.  It makes change a rather simple matter when everyone is adept at the practice.  Which would you want, a company where only the CEO is involved in working on the company, or an organization where everyone works on at least some amount of time at their level?  The more everyone is involved, the more empowered the CEO is to lead.

 

You state that today's organizations are based on fear.  Can you expand on that?

Look around our world. 42% of corporate leaders say they are motivated by fear.  Sarbanes Oxley says we can't trust our business leaders.  You can't even take an airplane ride without being reminded at least 100 times that you are not trusted, that danger lurks everywhere. We can't even trust Mother Nature.  We don't have faith in one another nor do we have faith in God.  All of this Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in the world is caused because we, as a species, rely on our Ego and not our Purpose and Passion to guide us. We rely on our lower selves rather than our higher selves.

 

Can you tell us the difference between a directive and supportive organization?

Empowerment.

 

How do you define empowerment?

Empowerment is having faith in someone such that they begin to have faith in themselves.  But that doesn't mean we don't prepare people to be successful. The cynics say the Hope is not a strategy.  I disagree, creating hope and having faith are the two most important strategies in the world.  All who have hope and faith go on to create great things.  The rest hide out trying to avoid making a mistake.

 

You put forth an intriguing 4-step formula to relationships.  How did you come to that?

I've been married three times.  Believe me; developing a relationship formula was a real necessity.  There are 4 steps to creating powerful, lasting relationships.

1. Having Common Ground

2. Knowing what's expected

3. Knowing where you stand

4. Having access to the personal power, or courage, to ask 1,2 and 3.

 

Tell us about your focus on what we want.

Humanity is almost entirely focused on what we don't want.  It doesn't work.  As my good friend John McNeil taught me years ago, Energy follows focus, so focus on what you want.  The big barrier to that is that we don't know what we want because we have been told what to want by others for so long.  It actually takes some getting used to.

 

Earlier you spoke about individuals having limiting beliefs.  Do organizations have limiting beliefs as well? 

Yes they do.  And they are invisible.  They are powerful.  And they limit the growth of most organizations. 

 

How do we get rid of our limiting beliefs?

The first step is the simple awareness that they even exist.  That takes care of a remarkable number of them.  T. Harv Eker, in his remarkable Secrets of the Millionaire Mind seminar uncovered over 50 limiting beliefs Americans have about money.  I had 43 of the top 50.  Believe me, it's made a powerful difference to know what they were and even more to replace them with empowering beliefs.

 

What do you mean by Joe's kid and how does that affect me?

When Jesus went home to Nazareth, he wasn't regarded as the savior, but rather, simply Joe's kid.  Even Jesus couldn't work miracles with a skeptical audience, and he was really upset about it. Even had a few nasty things to say about the situation. We face the same thing Jesus did, people who think they know us, like our family and employees, peers and bosses. Something needs to change for us to grow in these environments.  In the past, that meant leaving home to grow up and leaving our job to get a promotion. But we now know that this is simply an automatic function of Ego keeping the status quo. Unleash Purpose and Passion in those same people, however, and miracles happen.  In organizations we call it reaching critical mass by creating a hard reset of the culture. 

 

 What are the things we should focus on to create an extraordinary organization?  In your book you call it CEOing.

There are four phases to CEOing:

1. Clarity

2. Alignment,

3. Engagement

4. Legacy.

 

You seem to skirt around Religion in your work.  Why?

Let me begin by saying I respect all religions. Neil Donald Walsch in his book Conversations with God defines the five attributes of God. 

1. Love

2. Joy

3. Acceptance

4. Blessing

5. Gratitude 

These are universal.  And it's said to the degree to which you have any one of them you have all of them.  Gratitude, for example, is my religion. I accept that humanity is doing the best they can with what they have.  My job is to help them see who they really are to the degree they are ready, willing and able to see.

  

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us today.

You are very welcome.