Jamy Bechler

Providing Insights on Leadership and Success. Coach Bechler is a John Maxwell Leadership Team Member.

Roger Penske and My Dad

As a youngster, my dad would serve as a firefighter for the races run at Michigan International Speedway.

Please click here to listen to the 2-minute audio version of this email.

M.I.S. was less than 10 miles from my house. My brother and I plus one lucky friend would look forward to the four or five races each summer we’d attend.

This was before the era of luxury boxes and suites, so we’d sit behind pit row with the racer and pit crew families. I got to meet a lot of cool people and collect my share of autographs.

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Episode 081: Former FBI Lead Negotiator Chris Voss

Chris Voss is the author of Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It, CEO of Black Swan Group Ltd., and a former lead negotiator for the FBI.

Prior to 2008, Chris was the lead international kidnapping negotiator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the FBI’s hostage negotiation representative for the National Security Council’s Hostage Working Group. During his government career, he also represented the U.S. Government at two (2) international conferences sponsored by the G-8 as an expert in kidnapping. Prior to becoming the FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator, Christopher served as the lead Crisis Negotiator for the New York City Division of the FBI. Christopher was a member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years.  He was the case agent on such cases as TERRSTOP (the Blind Sheikh Case – Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman), the TWA Flight 800 catastrophe and negotiated the surrender of the first hostage taker to give up in the Chase Manhattan bank robbery hostage taking.

During Chris’s 24 year tenure in the Bureau, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI but Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. He is also a recipient of the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service.

Chris has taught business negotiation in the MBA program as an adjunct professor at University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.  He has taught business negotiation at Harvard University, guest lectured at The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, The IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland and The Goethe School of Business in Frankfurt, Germany. Since 2009 Christopher has also worked with Insite Security as their Managing Director of the Kidnapping Resolution Practice.

In today’s episode, we discuss:

  • Is real life FBI negotiating like what we see in the movies
  • How we can use negotiating skills in our every day lives
  • Strategies for dealing with customer service representatives
  • How to be the smartest and most interesting person in the room

[Read more…]

Episode 007: Culture of Good Co-Founder Ryan McCarty

Ryan McCarty is the former director of customer and employee relations at TCC, the largest Verizon Authorized Retailer in the nation. He was hired by the CEO, Scott Moorehead, who grew TCC from $135 million to $1 billion in sales. Together, Scott and Ryan created a culture that empowered employees through a powerful cultural movement.

Under Ryan’s guidance through TCC’s “Culture of Good,” which enables others to do good in their communities for the value of the investment rather than the return on investment, TCC donated $1 million to Riley Hospital for Children; provided 250,000 backpacks full of school supplies to children; gave away supply packs to 5,000 teachers; and contributed $100,000 in grants to organizations focused on improving the environment.

Ryan created Culture of Good, Inc. to inspire other businesses to create truly altruistic programs that make the world a better place. Ryan believes in order for a company’s Culture of Good to be successful and meaningful, giving back must be engrained in the foundation of its core values. Through Culture of Good, Inc. Ryan helps other organizations engage the hearts of their employees and empower them to make the changes they wish to see in their communities.

In today’s episode, we discuss:

  • How the partnership between Scott and Ryan occurred over chips & salsa
  • By decreasing their employee turnover, TCC saved more than $5 million per year
  • Why other companies don’t create a culture of good
  • That having a cool CEO and leader that is open-minded is key
  • How any company can do more good in their business and the community

[Read more…]

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