It’s often remarked that the two remaining taboo topics in today’s world are your age and your salary. This in an era where sex n’drugs n’ rock n’roll have made discussion of previously off-limit topics like frequency of intercourse a commonplace (Sex and the City conversations are routine in Silicon Valley watering holes).

But it’s an odd thing about life at the top: CEO’s have no privacy. There’s dozens of sources that tell us everything about a CEO except the color of their underpants. Forbes reveals that HP’s Mark Hurd is 49 years old, and earned in excess of $23M in the 9 months he spent at HP in 2005.

Over at GE, they helpfully provide a Bio of past CEO Jack Welch that includes the year of his birth (1935). Since Jack is one of the best-known CEO’s in the world it’s not just his age and past remuneration that are widely known, but every aspect of his marital history and most of his private life.

Perhaps CEO’s have a tendency to brag about these two aspects of their life that the rest of us jealously guard. Jack and Suzi Welch don’t seem to shy away from publicity – they have books to sell. But the average CEO is probably uncomfortable with everyone in their organization knowing their age and tax bracket. It’s the price they pay for the top job.

Meanwhile, the further down the organization you go the less people know about you. If you are responsible for cleaning the offices or cutting the grass outside the building no-one even knows your name.

The position of the CEO is like that of a President or head of State. They are given power and privilege but they must sit in the hot-seat as the ‘man in the middle’. The Western Spiritual Adept Adi Da Samraj spoke of this in one of his first published talks in Los Angeles in 1973:

Just so, HP sacrificed Carly; the US sacrificed Nixon, and tried the same with Clinton. Talk is that Bush is fighting that tendency right now. Want to know the color of Ken Lay’s underpants over at Enron, stick around, Court-TV will have details at eleven.

Oh, today is my birthday. I was born in 1952.

I earn considerably less than either of the CEO’s mentioned above.

I prefer light blue boxers.

Following my experiences with pop-psychology tests for confidence and self-esteem, I was interested to see Lucy Kellaway’s Monday morning column in the FT (subscription required) discussing ‘The links between self-belief, incompetence and success’.

Focusing on the relationship between these attributes in large companies, she quotes a recent study which bears out the truth in Garrison Keillor’s well-known close to his weekly update from Lake Woebegon, where all are ‘above average’:

She correctly points out:

Based on her own interviews with top managers and CEO’s she found that most who make it to the top of large corporations need sublime self-confidence since:

I find this an accurate observation, proven time and again by those I’ve met at the helm of large enterprises, who bear the risks she identifies (witness what many call the blind confidence of a Carly Fiorina or a Scott McNealy).

However, for independent businesspeople, like most of the members of the National Speakers Association, self-confidence and self-esteem are a requirement to be ‘at the top’ of your own game. The marketplace – your customers – will ruthlessly identify any incompetence. Success requires self-belief.

Welcome to Lake Woebegon, where all the public speakers are above average.

Leslie gives us a fascinating glimpse under the hood at Burson-Marsteller, the mainstream PR Agency where she works.

The Burson Asia-Pacific CEO gathered his Tokyo staff together for a hour-long slide show about his latest family vacation in Africa. Apart from sharing more than we needed to know about the status of his son’s private parts, the incident struck Leslie as a wonderful moment where:

Quite.

However, when sharing private family moments with fellow workers, all managers, not just CEO’s should ask themselves a few questions:

Better might be to post family snapshots to one of the many photo-sharing websites, such as this best of breed site, now part of HP. Colleagues have the opportunity to vicariously share your travel experiences when, and if, they chose to do so. While it denies the executive an opportunity for puffery, it can still reveal their human side.

Michael Lee suggested that, since professional speakers can only charge fees that their self-esteem can bear, ProTrackers consider taking a confidence test.

I’ve just spent 15 minutes in an attempt to find a ‘Confidence’ test on this site. In my opinion, there isn’t one.

Here’s what I *did* find:

[1] The site required you create a user account at no charge.
[2] You are then presented with different categories for tests (relationships, personality, health, career). Many require you purchase a number of ‘Credits’ at a cost of $2.95 each (most tests are 2-7 credits) or pay a $14 flat monthly fee. However, there are ‘Abridged’ tests available at no charge.
[3] There are 225 tests in total. A search for ‘confidence’ did not return results, but I did find an abridged (i.e Free) ‘Assertiveness test’. This asked a list of rather obvious questions such as:

After answering 10 questions I was given a score of 78 out of 100 and a brief reading:

Ho hum….

Be interested to hear from anyone who ponies up $$ for the full monty and how the test results impress you – it maybe that, as with many things in life, you get what you pay for. Or it may be that, as was said by H.L. Mencken, no web site in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of plain people.

I think I can say that with confidence.

Saturday found over 30 prospective and current members of the National Speakers Association (NSA) at the kick-off the year-long Pro Track training program: “Taking Emerging Speakers to the Next Level”.

We’ll meet once a month for a boot camp of basic training in the techniques and business of the professional speaker.

The Dean of the program is a 20-year veteran of pro-speaking: Michael Lee

Michael, a 5th generation Asian-American, was dragged kicking and screaming into his niche market: delivering seminars, training, consulting and coaching on how to sell more products and services to the multicultural market in America (mainly to Realtors and Auto salespeople).

Embodying the true spirit of NSA founder Cavett Robert, Michael is giving freely of both his time and his ‘trade secrets’ by coordinating the program every month (giving up a valuable day which he could spend at home with his family – no small matter for a guy who spends 90+ days in hotel rooms, from Racine to Rochester).

We heard from a graduate of the 2005 Pro Track training, Cynthia Beck, who is about to launch her first book — written as a direct result of the information she picked up in the program. Cynthia’s tips for success included showing up for meetings and fully participating – something she did last year, despite fighting mononucleosis and caring for a sick child!

The bulk of the first day was spent watching all 30 of us, one by one, delivered our 3 minute elevator pitch to introduce ourselves and share what we wanted out of the program. This was videotaped:

I was amazed at the range of expertise and backgrounds in the room. We had Realtors and retirees; sociologists and swim coaches; conversational theorists and Italians who conversed with gestures; the daughters of Toastmasters and the sons of Chemical Recycling Plant owners, not to mention the great-grand-daughters of former slaves (no-one confessed to being the great-grandson of former slaves owners, but Dr. Martin Luther King ‘s dream was alive in the room); workaholics and writing coaches; ex-Playboy Bunnies and ex-ski instructors (one stoked the slopes the other stroked the folks). Some lived down the road in Redwood City or San Francisco, others had driven from Sacramento and Fresno. One crossed state lines from Carson City, Nevada.

It’ll be a fascinating year getting to know these folks and be a part of the process of discovering the opportunities and overcoming the obstacles to becoming a professional speaker.

Factoids:

Notable quotes:

“Lack of income is the biggest obstacle to making the transition to full-time professional speaking”
“You can only charge what your self-esteem will bear”
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”
“Your niche is not a topic but an identifiable group of people who want to hear what you have to say”

I’m in a large conference room in a hotel just south of SFO with 85 National Speakers Association members about to experience “Open Space Technology” for the first time.

The meeting has just begun, and inside a large circle of chairs, the facilitator Ric Giardina is slowly walking the perimeter of the room making eye contact with each person, promising us that “whatever happens is the only thing that could happen”. This Zen-like statement is followed by others, such as “Whoever shows up are the right people” and “When it’s over it’s over”.

Luckily, these ‘technology’ behind these platitudes is quickly explained in very concrete, practical terms.

What is Open Space?

How Does Open Space Work?

This is exactly what happened on Saturday. Those who jumped to the center instantly became conveners and wrote down their topics:

The topics were posted on the wall, centered on the theme ‘Taking My Speaking Career Where I want to Go”

All part of the village marketplace of meetings about to happen, or not (if no-one chose to attend):

Ric made another few circuits of the room asking anyone thinking “why hasn’t anyone written down the issue I really want to see discussed” to get into the center and create a poster for that topic.

The results:

I spent Saturday at the NSA/NC chapter meeting. Over 85 people attended. As always, a fascinating array of people – the big wheels of Public Speaking such as Patricia Fripp and National NSA President Rick Jakle – mingled with first timers. A large number of potential members were there. They’ve signed on for the year-long Pro-Track training that starts next week. I’ll be blogging about my experience throughout the year as I attend Pro-Track and learn the secrets of the professional speaking business.

I talked with a couple of people on Saturday who completed the 2005 Pro-Track and had found that it changed their lives. One completed the book she had been meaning to write for four years. Another began holding the first training seminars that were to be the foundation of his full-time business. If Pro-Track lives up to the promises made it should be a worthwhile investment of my time (one full-day meeting per month with project work between times).

The main part of the Chapter meeting was an exploration of Open Space Technology. I’d tried to prepare for this by going online to check out the reference we were given. Maybe I’ve been in high-tech for too long – I was looking for ‘technology’ to do with virtual meetings, shared white-boards or other devices to facilitate distance learning. I could not have been more mistaken. Open Space is very much about face-to-face interaction where everyone participates to the extent they wish and must ‘prepare to be surprised’. I was certainly surprised by the experience. I’ll write about this in my next posting….

Lois comments that women newly elected to run countries (Liberia, Chile, Germany) are meeting with voter approval since they are better listeners, and asks:

Why is it that women are succeeding as CEO’s of countries, but not of businesses?

Certainly Mark Hurd seems to be doing a better job at HP than Carly did in her later years. Few US companies have women close to the top.

However, remember that Maggie Thatcher was known as the ‘Iron Maiden’ partly because she was less emphatic than some of her ‘wet’ cabinet members. Her reputation was as a strong leader who talked at people rather than listened to them. So the sexes might not divide easily in communication styles as evidence from a few recent elections would have us believe.