Leading From The C-Suite: Jay McDonald On Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective C-Suite Executive
An Interview With Doug Noll
Surrounding themselves with “Yes” people. Nothing can be more damaging than a team of folks who will not tell you the truth. This is a different form of isolation. Many potentially good leaders fail because they do not allow or embrace differing experiences and inputs.
As part of our series called “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective C-Suite Executive,” we had the pleasure of interviewing Jay McDonald.
A former CEO, Jay McDonald is an Executive Advisor based in the Atlanta area that has sat on many Boards and worked with companies of all sizes. He received his MBA from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, where he served on the Board of Trustees. Jay has compiled the wisdom learned over his forty-year career into his latest book, Strategic Jaywalking: The Secret Sauce to Life and Leadership Excellence. A graduate of Stanford University’s Executive Leadership Program, Jay has been a contributing expert to The Wall Street Journal, NBC News, Forbes, Fast Company, Axios, Fox Business and more.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
My story is one of strategic jaywalking, as outlined in my book, Strategic Jaywalking: The Secret Sauce to Life & Leadership Excellence. As a young boy, I was always entrepreneurial, with paper routes, lawn mowing, house painting, selling Christmas cards, and doing odd jobs to make spending money.
As a student at Georgia Tech, I also worked 30 hours a week while being a full-time student. The last of those roles was in the mailroom of the C&S Bank, where I learned lots about both banking and business, continuing in banking after graduation. After getting an MBA from the Darden School at the University of Virginia, I resumed my early banking career in corporate and commercial banking, where I received a real-world education in finance and all kinds of businesses. This led to my first entrepreneurial opportunity at age 34.
Becoming an owner and President of the South’s largest sporting goods distributor provided a new foundation of experience as a leader and owner in a thriving and growing enterprise, which we grew by four-fold over eight and a half years before selling to Russell Corporation, an American Stock Exchange company.
Flunking retirement at age 42 for the first of five times, I proceeded to embark on a career of serial entrepreneurship in different industries, including investment banking, publishing and printing, online services, manufacturing, distribution, software as a service, and wealth management. Now, having served on over 20 corporate and non-profit boards, authoring books, and keynote speaking, I serve as an Executive Leadership Coach and mentor through the Vistage Worldwide platform for over a hundred C-suite leaders and emerging leaders, building on my many professional and life experiences to help others be their best through in-depth questioning and by holding them accountable.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
The most life-changing story happened to me when I flunked retirement for the first time. When we sold the sporting goods business to Russell Corporation, I figured I would never set another alarm clock, would play golf when I wanted, and pretty much travel and do as I pleased. What I didn’t know about myself at that time was the need I had for purpose, for being a part of the game of business, and for self-actualization.
After about three months, I was climbing the wall. I connected with a successful entrepreneur in Atlanta, Tedd Munchak, who was a great role model and thought provoker. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, he caused me to become far more self-aware. Friends who had worked with me when I was in corporate banking had subsequently entered the investment banking business and started The Breckenridge Group, a middle-market merger and acquisition firm. They invited me to join as a principal, which I did. Eighteen months later, I started a new firm, McDonald, Withers & Hughes (now The Middleton McDonald Group, Inc.), in investment banking and consulting, with two friends in the M&A, technology, and intellectual property space. We did lots of deals and collected great fees. One of our clients was the third most prolific inventor in history at the time, Jerome Lemelson, with over 700 patents.
I learned much about myself during this period. The investment banking business combined my financial background with my operating experience and created great success in a transactional business, buying, selling, financing companies, and monetizing intellectual property and technology. The money was good, as were the relationships, but generally, after we helped someone sell their business, they went to the beach or the mountains, and we needed to find a new client.
It dawned on me that I am wired to run businesses, to be an operator, and I love businesses that “make money while you sleep” … repetitive revenue businesses. Except for investment banking, every enterprise I’ve worked with or owned has been a repetitive revenue model. It took about six years for me to realize this about myself, and I’ve been blessed ever since.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?
It is “Life is a contact sport.” I made it up years ago. My opportunities in life have come from every direction imaginable. Virtually all have been from referrals (contacts) from folks I’ve met along the way. My life’s story is built on personal relationships.
We are always making impressions and having an influence on others, whether positive or negative. It’s important to do every job or role as your best self, not only for your own self-respect but to honor your commitment to others. This helps to weave a lifetime reputation that will always pay dividends. We never know who we may meet who will have a lasting and important influence on our lives and opportunities.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on your leadership style? Can you share a story or an example of that?
As a young person, I attended church every time the doors opened. The Bible was taught completely. In my adult life, I would say that I’m more of a spiritual person than a religious one. The rituals and judgments regarding differing religions were off-putting and seemed contradictory to Biblical teachings.
As a book, the Bible is quite powerful. It shares lessons of history, good and evil, role models, faith, values, and an optimistic view of the future. Through it my values were shaped, and those values are the foundation of my leadership style.
It’s important to practice what you preach, to seek perfection knowing only One was perfect, to learn from failures, to treat others with kindness and respect, and always to have a growth and learning mindset. I’ve fallen short of many Biblical teachings in my life. As a person, I always try to continue to improve, to learn from my mistakes, and to always provide a giving, helping hand. Personally, I try to be forgiving and grateful, and to treat others as they would like to be treated. “Doing the right thing” is an important mantra.
As a leader, these values, learned early and continuously, are my foundation as a person and a leader, and have guided me through many tough decisions, challenges, and options. My faith has picked me up when I was down and buoyed me when things were going well. These early principles provided a positive outlook on life and people, which helped me to make decisions with vision, clarity, and perspective. Without the Bible, God only knows where I might have landed. I continue to read its scriptures and lessons daily.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
In my company, I think the differentiating characteristics are mostly about the quality and caliber of folks with whom I get to associate professionally as clients. We work together as peers in leadership peer groups through Vistage Worldwide, on boards, in keynote talks and workshops, and through my many connections on social media platforms. I learn from these outstanding leaders daily to keep my pulse on the real world every day. My varied past experiences, coupled with the surfeit of experiences of the leaders I’m with daily, allow best practices to be shared and developed on a continuous basis.
As a result of iron sharpening iron, my clients have had outstanding success. They’ve grown far more rapidly than comparable firms in their industries and built shareholder values to record levels … I’ve had clients sell for combined values of more than $5 billion. During the Pandemic, all my eligible clients were able to receive the Payroll Protection Program loans, and the federal governing standards forgave all. Our best way of standing out is through the excellent referrals we continue to receive from existing and former clients.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
People skills/empathy:
A talent I got from my mother was always being friendly and genuine with everyone. I always try to treat everyone with respect, no matter their station in life. It is important to put yourself in another’s shoes. Putting others at ease and being authentic with them helps to build trust. Trust is the glue that creates great organizations.
With one of the organizations I led, we were the largest publisher of real estate advertising in the United States, both in magazines and online. We were in the multi-family (apartment) space but had only 12 magazines and were a small player. We decided to grow it substantially, which meant we had to attract the best people internally and as customers. We built a team that went from 12 markets to over 120 markets in a few short years. We became a national player because we had the best folks in the industry and listened to our clients.
The trust and team camaraderie we built created outstanding value. We sold the company for a great price, and the major value component was our leadership team and employees. They stayed on and continued to build the multi-family brand of the firm, Apartment Finder, into an even more dominant player and was again purchased a few years ago by CoStar, forming the most dominant online presence of data and information in the multi-family industry, with a team whose core was hired and developed by us.
Focus:
While I am a decent multi-tasker, a skill that has served me well is my ability to focus. As a leader, you are pulled in many differing directions by lots of people. Being able to prioritize your decisions, your energy and bringing clarity to your vision for your team are critical to optimizing the future and achieving goals.
Focus has allowed me to provide vision and clarity to my teams in building multiple firms in different industries to significantly higher levels of influence, revenues, opportunity, and profitability. This allowed exceptionable exits for all shareholders at optimized values.
My focus was on building a team that would succeed me and creating a strategic direction embraced and followed by all to achieve our goals and objectives while serving as a mentor and role model for the organization. By helping to build sustainable teams with clear direction, purpose, and motivation, we were able to build legacies by establishing businesses that grew with the same teams far after I had exited as their leader.
Curiosity:
It’s been said that “Curiosity killed the cat.” In my case, inquisitiveness has been an important quality for my success. I’ve always wanted to learn, to know more, and to dig deeper. This insatiable curiosity has helped me to learn from the grassroots where the “rubber meets the road.” I’ve always believed that leaders get their best direction from the field … your employees, customers, vendors, and even your competitors. Learning from all these constituents provides road maps to success.
Every business I’ve led was a new industry for me. To learn and immerse myself in these new adventures, I adopted a Sherlock Holmes mindset by wanting to learn all I could early and often. One example is in the sporting goods distribution business; my mentor introduced me to the head shoe buyer for Belk Store Services, Tom Morris.
I told Tom I was a recovering banker who knew little about athletic shoes other than being a user. I asked if he would teach me the business about not only my products but also my competition. I asked for all the strengths and weaknesses of each brand, quality, consumer desires, price points, and most importantly, how each fit into Belk’s athletic shoe marketing strategy. By learning from the master from the ground up, we were able to position our product in a strategic and competitive position, which led to the revenues from Belk for our shoe line being the highest in the country for many years.
On another front, when I became President & CEO of Network Communications, Inc., the world’s largest publisher and printer of real estate publications, I spent my first few days in distributor training. I wanted to learn what our distributors were being taught so I understood the fundamentals of the business. That same week, the head of our largest product line informed me that over the next three months, there would be over 30 meetings throughout the country and Canada with all our distributors. He asked if I’d like to travel to a few. I said I wanted to attend all of them. What better way to hear from the “street” what was working and what could be done better? It was an outstanding learning experience and helped establish the foundation of our business strategy for the next seven years.
Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader?
One of the toughest decisions I ever had to make as a leader was a potential career change. It affected not only me but the people I led and the organization where I’d spent my early career … people and customers I cared for and respected. It also caused me to step out of my comfort zone, to take a chance, and to bet on myself.
A longtime bank client of mine approached me and indicated he had a client with a great business in the sporting goods industry who had no succession plan. Knowing I was a sports nut and a good businessperson, he thought I’d be a perfect fit to become his client’s successor, buy the business from him, and continue his client’s legacy.
My banking career was flourishing. At a very early age, I was leading the largest commercial lending division for the largest bank in the South. The bank’s senior leadership had told me that I was one of three people who would ultimately be President of the bank, assuming I didn’t screw up. I had just co-authored a book to train bankers on lending and financial statement analysis throughout the country published by the American Bankers Association, Corporate Banking: A Practical Approach to Lending. I was faced with the proverbial bird in the hand vs. two in the bush decision.
After much reflection, family discussion, and self-assessment, I told the President of the bank I was leaving to become an entrepreneur and business owner. I told him I loved the bank and its people, and I loved our customers; however, I wanted to see how good I might be at owning my own business. I knew I was a good banker and could fall back on it if things didn’t pan out, but I wanted to bet on myself. He informed me my name was before the Board that very month to be promoted to be one of the youngest Executive Vice Presidents in the history of the bank. I shared my gratitude and said I was committed to being an entrepreneur. He wished me the best and granted me his full support. To this day, I still do business with my former bank. It was one of the best decisions of my life, and in many ways, I wish I had trusted my instincts earlier in life.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a C-Suite executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what a C-Level executive does that is different from the responsibilities of other leaders?
My point of view is primarily from having been a CEO and owner for a major part of my career while also working with and coaching C-suite leaders from many industries. The major difference between C-suite leaders and other leaders is in the scope of their work. C-suite leaders must have a more strategic and global outlook and must be versed in a multitude of matters, including technology, diversity, global markets, and the social and political climates faced by their organizations.
The C-suite roles entail being engaged with many outside influences and folks with differing cultures and objectives. These leaders need to be quick studies and able to separate the important from the less important. They must be able to prioritize, to communicate effectively, and to be perceptive to our changing world. It’s been said we’ll have more change in the next ten years than in the last 100. Proactive change emanates from the C-suite. Being a visionary, who knows much about a lot, stays in tune with current events, and is somewhat B/S proof by being able to separate the relevant input from the irrelevant, is a requirement.
Both C-suite leaders and other leaders need many of the same elements in the talent toolbox. Today more than ever, soft skills trump hard skills. At the core leadership level, hard skills such as technical know-how, specific experiences, and training are necessary to perform many of the jobs. At all leadership levels, people skills such as empathy, building trust, and motivating others are critical. Leaders need to “play well in the sandbox.” More people fail at their jobs due to a lack of soft skills rather than a lack of hard skills. It is important to have empathy, to be a great listener, and to be an authentic and real person. Respect comes to leaders who share these qualities at all levels.
In summary, the main difference in the roles of C-suite and other leaders is not talent but scope. All leaders need similar qualities. The folks in the C-suite have a broader mandate, and hence they must have a wider and deeper view of the entire enterprise, its impact both socially and in business, its opportunities, risks, strengths, and challenges. Its leaders must be flexible and adaptable to a world of artificial intelligence, robotics, supply chains, and an ever-changing work environment and labor force. All leaders should be great at identifying, hiring, and retaining top talent. Those who are the best at this will be the most successful.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a C-Suite executive? Can you explain what you mean?
Myths are in the eye of the beholder, so here goes. In some circles, I think folks think the C-suite is an ivory tower of bliss, luxury, and isolation. It can be a little of all, but it should never be apart from the real world.
Some of the myths include:
- What got you there will keep you there. While a smidgen of this is true, leaders must always continue to learn and grow. A better approach is to enter the C-suite with an open mind and realize you know little. Sure, you build on your prior experiences, but always seek to improve.
- As a business owner, you work for yourself. Isn’t it great to own your business? Yes, it is. In reality, the business owns you. It’s a 24/7 365-day-a-year role. As an owner, you’re responsible for every employee, their families, your vendors, your customers, and, if you borrow, your lenders. Ownership, whether in principle or in reality, is a serious responsibility that no leader should take lightly.
- You don’t have to work as hard. You must work even harder to remain successful. You should also work much smarter. You are a role model, and everyone is following your example.
- The C-suite leader has superhuman qualities. Never. They are humans, just like everyone in the organization. They make mistakes, sometimes make poor choices, and are far from perfect. Leaders take responsibility and are accountable. Admit your shortcomings and vow to learn from your failures.
- C-suite leaders don’t need to develop their leadership team and surround themselves with great people. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It’s an absolute that leadership is about developing more leaders. Outstanding leaders are always creating succession plans and building teams for the future.
- C-suite leaders have all the answers. Great C-suite leaders should have great questions and seldom have all the answers. They should be seeking the best of many alternatives. They should never isolate themselves with “yes” people. A leader wants and needs diversity of thought and opinion, where the best ideas win.
What are the most common leadership mistakes you have seen C-Suite leaders make when they start leading a new team? What can be done to avoid those errors?
- One is thinking they have all the answers. They don’t. Be open to what’s going on. Ask questions, and most importantly, listen to learn not to respond. Don’t act too quickly. You need to learn who the most talented folks are. Your team and others will give you, as a new leader, the guiding light to success.
- Micromanaging. The worst thing a leader can do is not trust their team to perform. It breeds resentment. Leaders must delegate to develop people and multiply everyone’s efforts. Not doing so will cause the best to leave and only those who cannot find other opportunities to stay.
- Isolating themselves. A world without input and diverse opinions is void of clear thinking and ideas. Great leaders surround themselves with people better than them and folks who shore up their weaknesses and complement their strengths.
- Making decisions too quickly. Shooting from the hip is never good. Remember, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Gather relevant information before going with your preconceived biases. On the other hand, delaying decisions too long can also be a problem. More later on this.
- Surrounding themselves with “Yes” people. Nothing can be more damaging than a team of folks who will not tell you the truth. This is a different form of isolation. Many potentially good leaders fail because they do not allow or embrace differing experiences and inputs.
In your experience, which aspect of running a company tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?
People skills. Business is about people, whether employees, vendors, customers, shareholders, and stakeholders. Critical skills are the interpersonal and soft skills necessary to motivate, build trust, and communicate effectively with everyone with whom the company works. Empathy and listening are paramount to engaging teams and creating lasting and powerful relationships.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective C-Suite Executive”? If you can, please share a story or an example for each.
There are certain basics all C-suite leaders need. These include high character and integrity, competence, courage, and being a role model.
1. Judgment:
I call this “coming in from the rain” or “walking-around sense.” Some may call it common sense or street smarts. Great leaders need to wade through tons of information to set priorities to decide what to do and what not to do. It requires saying no far more often than you say yes. Remember, No is a complete sentence. They need to select the right team and deselect those who are not a good fit. People skills, emotional intelligence, and the ability to understand folks’ feelings and needs are all important judgment qualities. Assets and time must be allocated optimally.
Kodak is a story that comes to mind. At one time, it was one of the best companies in the country. It led the world in cameras and the film used in them, and it had a cash cow in the film-developing industry. It also owned the patents and intellectual property for digital cameras and photography. Because its revenues and profits were booming, it chose to ignore the coming trends and technology developments. At one time, our firm, NCI Group, processed 35,000 rolls of film a week, had over 90,000 photos and logos in our database, and printed and distributed 10 million magazines a month. We had gone to digital processing, photoshop, and other technology advances years earlier. We tried to alert Kodak of the trends as digital photography quality continued to improve, making digital cameras and technology much less expensive and easier to use. All our input fell on deaf ears as Kodak stayed married to the status quo and ultimately went out of business. It’s a great example of being wed to the past as your future flashes before your eyes.
2. Self-awareness/Humility:
Top leaders should be keenly aware of their shortcomings, strengths, personality traits, blind spots, and areas of vulnerability. They must have a clear view of how others see them and be sensitive to what’s happening around them. While a leader needs to be confident, she/he should have humility and vulnerability. These are important for relating to the many people they will lead. They should walk the walk, be authentic, and, most of all, be caring. A leader is always growing as a person and as a leader. Charisma and positivity are great qualities for no one can be a leader without followers.
As a board member of a business, we had a CEO who lacked self-awareness and integrity. The company, in its early days, failed to meet financial projections regularly, requiring additional investment by us as investors. Sadly, I finally asked the CEO, “Which would you prefer, to be CEO or rich?” He owned about 20% of the company. He had the potential to realize much more in value than his salary. We couldn’t fire him because there was a clause in the LLC agreement that required a super-majority to relieve him of his duties, and he had friends and family with enough shares to block it. We ultimately sold the firm to a NY Stock Exchange company for a decent return on investment but could have gotten 3X more had the CEO had the self-awareness and humility to allow someone with more experience and integrity to run the company. He would have benefited in the same geometric upside that didn’t occur due to ego and self-absorption.
3. Curiosity:
As mentioned previously, curiosity is the hallmark of learning and growing. We develop our people by coaching them and questioning them, so they may self-determine their actions, which will lead to ownership by them. Having a great desire to learn the whys behind issues and opportunities will lead to choices and a broader perspective. In our changing world, adaptability will be a major asset to any leader and organization. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, said, “Of all the emotional intelligence competencies, strength in adaptability predicts success most often.
After Hurricane Katrina, friends of mine and private equity investors started a sign manufacturing company in Mississippi, just north of Gulfport and Biloxi, to rebuild the Gulf Coast. They built a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and partnered with a top sales professional and an operations person to launch the business. After several months of little in sales and losing several hundred thousand dollars per month, I got a call and was asked to become CEO and either close and liquidate it or turn it around.
My first task was to understand what was happening, why we weren’t generating sales, and where we were losing money. Talking to several in the company and to customers, it quickly became apparent we needed to restructure the organization with more efficiency and accountability. Getting direction and input from the folks in the know made it apparent to shift the responsibility to a new General Manager, who was employed in sales. We quickly turned it from a losing operation to making several hundred thousand per month. This permitted us to sell it to an industry player successfully. Curiosity included the trust-but-verify process in this case.
4. Communication Skills:
A leader is a communicator in every way. Having these skills, both written and verbal, are required. A leader is micro-messaging every second of every day. Leaders need to be sensitive to how their body language, behavior, appearance, and all they do influences those they lead and do business with. A huge element of communication is being an open-minded listener. Our actions are also communication vehicles, as actions do speak louder than words. Consistency in our actions builds trust and confidence. As leaders, we should be sensitive to all our deeds and behaviors as they reflect our leadership and our organization.
Early in his presidency, John F. Kennedy laid out his vision of putting a person on the moon in the next decade. It was positive, forceful, and presented a plan for the future of space exploration. This clarity led to Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon in the summer of 1969.
5. Decisiveness:
Leading is about making decisions. Leadership requires insightful decisiveness. Many in leadership roles seek perfect answers and, in doing so, fail to make decisions in a timely way. Indecision is a decision. It’s alright to make decisions with less-than-perfect information. 70% decisions are acceptable. Remember, we usually have a chance to make more decisions later with additional information. Consider decisions like branches of a tree or forks in a road. We will get other choices except in life-or-death situations.
Never be a conflict-avoider. So many leaders shy away from tough conversations. If there’s an elephant in the room, deal with it. Don’t keep feeding it peanuts, hoping the problem will go away. It never does. It only gets worse. Deal with conflict directly, quickly, and head-on!
As a former Board member recently appointed as CEO and President, I suspected our company had far too much overhead for our current revenues. My gut felt we had “built the church for Easter Sunday.” I communicated our needs to become more efficient, more productive, and achieve higher quality. We evaluated every position in the business, ranked every employee by department from the most valuable/productive to the least, and told the best employees that they were safe and that we would do our best to find roles for them. Retraining and, in some cases reinventing themselves, with our help, would be necessary for us to compete globally. After thoroughly analyzing all factors over almost three months, we right-sized the firm with a 20% reduction in staff from 750 to 600 while reducing expenses by $3 million. We tried to ensure that all released employees had outplacement support and that we helped them sustain their self-esteem. The remaining employees felt a sense of relief, optimism for the future and probably wondered what took us so long to see what they had seen all along. Decisiveness was deliberate, well-planned, and assured employees it was a one-time event. Morale took off, and the business and its customers prospered.
In your opinion, what are a few ways that executives can help to create a fantastic work culture? Can you share a story or an example?
A great culture is one where your employees brag about your firm at backyard barbeques and cocktail parties when folks ask where they work. It is created by caring by top management and engagement of everyone in the organization. Caring is the key ingredient. Not lip service, but instead honest caring about one another on a human level. It means getting to know about them as individuals, their families, their wants, needs, concerns, and fears. This is done through one-to-one coaching, face-to-face conversations, virtually in the case of remote work, and with corporate events to share what’s happening and learn what’s on the employee’s minds. It is also important to tie the results of the business in some way to people’s pay or compensation.
In the businesses I’ve run, we shared 10% of pre-tax profits with all eligible employees through a cash bonus. We also offered premium benefits, including a dollar-for-dollar 401K match. During regular state-of-the-business meetings on a quarterly schedule with all employees on all shifts, we outlined financially how we were doing, what it meant to their profit-sharing on a percentage of their annual pay basis, what they could do to improve revenues and profitability, and let them ask any questions they wanted to ask.
We also held monthly birthday breakfast meetings with me and the other two owners for every employee having a birthday each month for them to ask us anything they chose. We published the questions and answers in a newsletter that went to all households of employees. Often, spouses of employees would come to me at social events and tell me they had never seen a more candid and transparent company in terms of our Q&A at these birthday breakfasts. We held regular cookouts and social events where leaders were the cooks serving the employees. Mostly, we listened to our most valuable asset, our people, and always tried to respond as positively as was practical. Many visitors to our company complimented us on how happy and hardworking our staff members were and commented that all employees seemed to be happy. This culture paid off handsomely, as we were among the most sought-after places for people to work.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
One of the biggest challenges in our country is the break-up of families and the reduced influence of the family unit in our society. A movement I would support is finding ways to bring role models, mentors, and surrogate moms and dads to families that need examples, support, and genuine caring to allow young people to see an opportunity for a better life, better education, and to instill family values which made our country so great. Eradicating divisiveness in our country could start a healing process and close the divide if more of us chipped in as role models and caring citizens.
How can our readers further follow you online?
Website: https://www.jaymcdonald.com
My Book: Strategic Jaywalking: The Secret Sauce to Life & Leadership Excellence
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaymmcdonald/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaymmcdonald
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long terms incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on this link to learn more and apply.