One top-flight executive who has exquisite reality recognition and thus survival skills has raised listening to a high art.  His name is Andy Grove.  Back in 2001, I interviewed Grove, then the CEO of Intel Corporation.  He is a legend in the annals of technology and business.  Grove discovered the impurity in silicon (sodium) and thus helped launch the whole computer age.  He also co-founded Intel, the dominant manufacturer of computer chips and microprocessors.  And he is known to be as tough as he is brilliant. 

Well, he certainly was testy the day I interviewed him.  I could see him grilling his press person as they approached the conference room in which my camera crew and I were setting up.  When he reluctantly sat down, he barked that he didn’t have much time.  I tried to make some friendly small talk.  Grove would have none of it.  I explained that we were there to learn how he thought, to find out what his philosophical paradigm was.  “What makes you think I have one?!” he snapped.  Not until the fourth or fifth question did he relax his guard, finally convinced that we weren’t wasting his time. 

Grove is a person keenly aware of risk and opportunity.  He told us that when he was a boy, he and his mother assumed gentile identities and hid from the Nazis.  As a college student he escaped Hungary just ahead of the advancing Soviet Red Army.  On the central subject of prescience, or recognizing reality before others, Grove stressed observation, listening, and gathering of information, what he called the “absorption” of data. 

“You have to immerse yourself like a sponge into the environment and make yourself available to be influenced by people who want to influence you, who have to influence you… so each of these decisions properly has to be preceded by a period of absorption.  ‘Listening,’ if you wish.”

Note that Grove stresses that there are people in your path who have information for you, people to whom you might not typically listen -- people who are in a position to see what you can not see, and “have” to communicate with you.  This need stems from their sense that their knowledge is important, telling, or helpful. You may find it disturbing simply because it doesn’t fit within the premises upon which you are making your choices. These individuals may be far down the organizational ladder, they may be naturally reticent, they may be persons you rarely listen to, they may be children… but what they have to say may help you tremendously in your business, relationships or even your health. 

Series on the 19 Personality Traits of the Best Human Beings:

• Introduction: The Good Among the Great: Personality Traits of the Best Human Beings
• The Clearer, More Efficient Perception of Reality

Donald Van de Mark has interviewed hundreds of leaders in business and politics including: Andrew Weil, MD, former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, Jack Welch, Starbucks' Howard Schultz and Intel's Andy Grove, in his nearly 3 decades as a correspondent and anchor at CNN, CNBC and public television. He integrates practical tips from these great leaders to provide a riveting motivational speech on the personality traits of successful people. Donald is also the host of the corporate training video, The Wisdom of Caring Leaders. 

Donald will host the New York Institute of Finance webcast on the  Wisdom of Caring Leaders on August 11th at 12:30 EST.

This is the big one when it comes to earthly success.  I’ve found that the single biggest advantage that moguls and power brokers have over the rest of us is that they ‘get it’ faster and with less effort than the rest of us.

Some of the best observers of human nature also found that recognizing reality, warts and all, was necessary to succeed.  The late 20^th Century psychologist, Abraham Maslow wrote that the top one percent in terms of psychological health has a “greater freshness, penetration, and efficiency of perception.”  The late, great psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck wrote, “Mental health is an ongoing process or dedication to reality at all costs.” 

Know this -- if you’re navigating life with a clearer mental windshield, then all of your thinking, judgment and choices improve.  If you develop a fresher, more penetrating perception of what people around you want and how situations actually arise, it will be as if you have a kind of x-ray vision into others’ motivations as well as circumstances… and even the future.  You will spot frauds faster, you will trust your own impressions more, and you will get much better at predicting outcomes.

This is the first of 19 short essays based on Abraham Maslow’s research into the best individuals he could find.  He believed that only one percent of mankind, maybe less, was truly healthy, autonomous adults.  Maslow died before he could pursue data-rich research; so much of this is his theory or a very educated set of observations about the exceptionally strong temperamentally.  However, after interviewing hundreds of the world’s top business and political leaders, I found that Maslow’s 19 traits to be spot on when it comes to a subset of ultra achievers – the good among the great.  Conversely, I found another subset, actually maybe the majority, among the high and mighty – the hyper-aggressive, to be profoundly lacking in many of these traits.

Back to reality and how the good guys among great achievers are wedded to it: Great individuals are realistic about everything, including themselves.  Most of us don’t critically examine our “selves” – our strengths and weaknesses, faults and foibles, fears and longings.  We don’t test our assumptions, nor do we look stoically at the repercussions of our actions.  We certainly don’t recognize our blind spots.  And we all have blind spots.

Indeed, whole societies have blind spots.  Remember how a majority of Americans believed that the Iraqi’s had weapons of mass destruction, even after it was proved that they did not. 

One of my favorite quotes is also a favorite of Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman, Charlie Munger -- “Recognize reality even when you don’t like it – especially when you don’t like it.”   

OK, but how?  First of all, shut-up.  Second, listen.

This is the start of a series on the 19 Personality Traits of the Best Human Beings.

Introduction: The Good Among the Great: Personality Traits of the Best Human Beings

Donald Van de Mark has interviewed hundreds of leaders in business and politics including: Andrew Weil, MD, former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, Jack Welch, Starbucks' Howard Schultz and Intel's Andy Grove, in his nearly 3 decades as a correspondent and anchor at CNN, CNBC and public television. He integrates practical tips from these great leaders to provide a riveting motivational speech on the personality traits of successful people. Donald is also the host of the corporate training video, The Wisdom of Caring Leaders. 

Donald will host the New York Institute of Finance webcast on the  Wisdom of Caring Leaders on August 11th at 12:30 EST. Click here to register for this free event. 

I’m a newsman.  Like all news people, I have a beat -- a territory I cover. Mine is the mega-successful. I’ve investigated and reported on those who have reached “the top of the top” in the fields of politics, business, and culture. People like Warren Buffet, Martha Stewart and Bill Bradley.

Everybody knows these people’s accomplishments. There’s no news there. What I do is observe them at length and interview them about how they think and make choices, so I can decipher how their minds and hearts work. 

From doing hundreds of interviews, I’ve found many of these newsmakers to be ruthless and some, even miserable. They’re feared if not hated, not only by their competitors, but by their associates and staffs. What’s more, they care little about the plight of others and the world at large. A few even seem to hate themselves.

Among these mega-successes, however, there’s another group; a minority that’s exceedingly aware, egalitarian, happy, balanced, and genuinely decent. Their associates and staffs love them, and their competitors respect them. These people seem to care deeply about others, and use their positions to help the larger world.

They're a more elusive subset – a small minority who don’t seek the limelight even though they’re often in it, and whose achievements endure as the world changes.  They fascinate me. They’re the good among the great. 

While researching these extraordinary human beings, I started to see patterns of behavior and attitude: in what motivates them, how they think and behave. I recognized the same personality traits and private strategies echoing among all these good people.  And every one of them was happy to share how they think, why they believe certain things and behave in certain ways… and how most of us can learn and adopt all of these same traits.  

The best among us are not just big-name successes. You probably know some wonderful, uncelebrated characters in your life.  I do too.  I’ve been lucky enough to know several all my life, who have taught me about success in more intimate, but no less valuable ways. These are people with the same traits who thrive within and contribute mightily to their families and communities.

That then is what my upcoming essays will be about. They will be a "how-to" guide to life success. I will describe the nineteen personality characteristics that are common among people who succeed at life.  They are successes materially, emotionally, even spiritually. They will be profiled in my upcoming book which is a peek into the lives of great human beings.  It will provide ways for you to identify the traits in others and adopt some yourself, so that you might make an even bigger impact on the world.

Here's the first of the 19 traits: 1. Reality Recognition or Reality vs. Perception

Cheers from Sonoma,

Donald

Donald Van de Mark has interviewed hundreds of leaders in business and politics including: Andrew Weil, MD, former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, Jack Welch, Starbucks' Howard Schultz and Intel's Andy Grove, in his nearly 3 decades as a correspondent and anchor at CNN, CNBC and public television.

He integrates practical tips from these great leaders to provide a riveting motivational speech on the personality traits of successful people. Donald is also the host of the corporate training video, The Wisdom of Caring Leaders. 

Donald will speak at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club on July 16th, 2009 about great and good leaders, the subject of his upcoming book.