To all our highly valued clients and acquaintances:
How Do You Work? In your life? At your business?
A real-time, no-nonsense example for us to look at and possibly learn from.
Since we last wrote to you, to say the world is changing in historically unprecedented ways right now is a huge understatement. Over the last few weeks, many have had 14-15 hour days, keeping pace with client questions and concerns, as well as some getting very worthy referrals as they go.
While discussing the larger financial picture with a number of your colleagues over the last several weeks, as well as what would be better to reduce stress, avoid burnout and maintain stamina in our business practices, one Financial Advisor pointed out an article to me from Fortune Magazine from a little over 2 years ago, interviewing a dozen accomplished people.
You can find the total article at this website link below.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/02/news/newsmakers/howiwork_fortune_032006/index.htm
Secrets of greatness: How I work -
A dozen accomplished people tell what works for them.
By Cait Murphy, FORTUNE assistant managing editor (March 16, 2006: 3:17 PM EST)
However, I was particularly fascinated by an interview with Hank Paulson, given the incredible leadership role that he is playing right now on both the national and international stages.
Immediately below, you can find the article link and the text to the interview with Hank Paulson.
I was especially impressed with his very high standards of client service orientation, exceptional and frequent communication, disciplined and highly productive work routines, his health and well-being commitments, and his balanced approach to his life and family as a whole.
As his name and picture continues to appear in national headlines on a daily basis, he has served me as a source of additional inspiration and challenge, in terms of taking responsible initiative to make the most of my time and my life. Maybe his leadership role may help you that way as well.
http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/fortune/how_i_work/frameset.12.exclude.html
Hank Paulson
Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs
Executive summary: Work the phone -- and the clock.
I've never used e-mail, but I'm a huge voicemail user. I do a couple hundred voicemails a day. And I return every call right away, whether it's a client or someone in the firm. There are positives and negatives to this. I don't have a lot of time for small talk.
Occasionally there are wing nuts who call, and I pass them on to Julie, my assistant. But Julie doesn't screen my voicemails. The people at Goldman Sachs have to be able to get to me. Clients have to be able to get to me.
I've always spent a lot of time on the phone. Even when cell phones were a novelty in the 1980s when I lived in Chicago, I was using one of those huge Motorola phones as I walked from the train station to the office. This past Christmas, my wife, Wendy, and my daughter, Amanda, and her husband and I spent ten days hiking in Chile, and my daughter took so many pictures of me with this big satellite phone attached to my ear.
When I got back to the office in January, I called 60 CEOs in the first week to wish them happy New Year. I had never done that before, but it was great. I asked them about their business and their relationship with Goldman. I spend at least a third of my time on Goldman people and culture -- we have to be the employer of choice in our industry. So I spend time at business schools and am very involved in recruiting.
Last year we started a Chairman's Forum to raise awareness of the importance of business judgment. I taught more than 25 sessions to all 1,200 of our managing directors in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. That's culture-building. Forty percent of our earnings comes from outside the U.S., so I travel a lot.
Whenever I travel, I take time to exercise. When I go to China -- which I've been to about 70 times in the past 16 years -- I book my flight so it arrives at 6 a.m., which is the earliest you can land. I check into the hotel and go right to the treadmill in the gym. Then, starting at 8 a.m., I'll go back to back to back until 9 at night. I'll get up the next day and do the same thing. I make sure to leave in the evening so I can be back at work in my office in New York the next morning.
I've always been very efficient and disciplined. If I have a business dinner, people know that it should start at 6:30 and be over by 8:30. When I'm home in New York, I'm asleep at 10. I'm up at 5:30 and try to work out four or five times a week. Once or twice a week, I run four miles in Central Park. I used to do seven-minute miles. Now I'm up to eight and a half or nine.
-- Interviewed by Patricia Sellers, Fortune editor at large
We appreciate our relationship and we thank you for keeping us engaged and allowing us to do our best to be of service – til the next time we speak, meet or connect, we are…
Always looking to serve you with productive and revenue generating ideas.
Enthusiastically yours,
Best – Coach Don |
