7 timeless leadership lessons from legendary IMG founder Mark McCormack
If you've never read Mark McCormack's classic book, "What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School: Notes From A Street-Smart Executive," you should go get a copy (for around 10 bucks at Amazon.com), call a time out one day, and spend time absorbing its lessons on how to read people, listen, create the right first impression and make people pay attention to what you have to say. Though the book is more than a quarter century old, it is filled with the timeless straightforward advice of one of the most successful entrepreneurs America has seen.
In 1960, McCormack founded a company with less than $500 in capital, a firm that gave birth to a new industry we know today as sports management and marketing. That company was International Management Group (now IMG), which has offices around the world and a valuation in the billions of dollars.
His company represented all sorts of great sports stars, such as golfer Arnold Palmer, footballer Herschel Walker, tennis’ Martina Navratilova and others too numerous to mention. McCormack was the guru of sports agents, but he was more than that. He was the man who believed in the basics of negotiating aggressively, keeping things simple and being straightforward in all communications.
He gave countless lectures to businesses and colleges, including Harvard Business School. Until his untimely death from a medical error while undergoing surgery in 2003, McCormack was known as someone always worth listening to, a beacon of simple common sense in a world where it was sorely lacking.
McCormack was known for his ability to read people accurately when negotiating with them. In his book he outlines seven principles he felt were critical to successful negotiating. With so much bargaining taking place today among providers and insurance companies, vendors, governmental entities and patients, learning how to negotiate properly is becoming a crucial skill in our industry.
Here are the seven points McCormack describes:
1. Listen aggressively. Too often we are so absorbed in our own thoughts that we forget to truly listen to what the other person is really saying and how he or she is saying it. McCormack believed that most people tend to tell you more than they intend to, and consequently he would pause before replying, with that uncomfortable silence often filled resulting by his interlocutor saying even more.
2. Observe aggressively. Many years ago author Julius Fast wrote a book entitled, "The Art of Listening," and to this day it is considered one of the premier classics on how to listen to others effectively. Like Fast, McCormack believed that body language could tell you all sorts of things about how someone is feeling when talking.
3. Talk less. The corollary of point one is to avoid saying too much. By keeping your comments to a minimum, you learn more, hear more and see more. McCormack says that too often we ask a question and then have a tendency to answer the question ourselves. Silence is golden.
4. Take a second look at first impressions. Over the years I have learned that taking a second look at someone is not a bad idea. That is not to say that I do not believe in first impressions, which are often accurate. However, on first meeting, someone may have been in an unusual mood or received some bad news. It is always worth bringing a fresh eye to a second encounter.
5. Take time to use what you've learned. McCormack put it this way: "If you are about to make a presentation or phone call, take a moment to think about what you know and what reaction you want. From what you know of the other person, what can you say or do to be most likely to get it?" Too often we get on the phone and literally play it by ear and don't get the result we want. In short, slow down, think and plan.
6. Be discreet. This is a little bit tricky but very important. McCormack believed that discretion was the better part of reading people. Consequently he cautioned that the idea of using what you have learned is not to tell them how insecure you think they are or to point out all the things you have perceptively intuited that they may be doing wrong. McCormack believed that if you tell them what you know, you would blow any chance of using your own insight effectively. Also, don't provide the other party with any unsought insights into yourself. You give away your advantage that way. Let them learn of your qualities and achievements from others.
7. Be detached. This is the most critical element in any negotiation. "If you can force yourself to step back from any business situation, particularly from one that is heating up, your powers of observation will automatically increase," he writes. "When the other person gets hot under the collar, he or she is going to be more revealing than at almost any other time. If you come back with an equally heated response, you will not be only less observant, you will be revealing just as much about yourself. I am practically a missionary for the importance of acting rather than reacting in any business situation. Acting rather than reacting allows you really to use what you have learned. It allows you to convert perceptions into controls. By reacting, by failing to step back first, you are probably throwing this powerful advantage away. If you don’t react you will never overreact. You will be the controller rather than the controllee."
Too often negotiations fall apart because the parties involved haven't done their homework. As a result, people walk away from the table disillusioned and bitter. McCormack's insight is to do your homework, know what you want and listen as aggressively as you can to the other party and don't give the store away by talking too much. Brevity is always in vogue when speaking or writing.
Good luck.