May 15, 2023 by Mike Manazir – (4-5 minutes) Failure to innovate can be the death of your business. A number of mighty companies have lost their lives due to leadership complacency. Kodak was once the world leader in photography, but the company failed to adapt to the rise of digital photography. Despite inventing the … Read more

May 8, 2023 by Mike Manazir – (4-5 minutes) In June of 1942, the Japanese Navy sought to expand its territorial gains in the Pacific by launching an assault on Midway Island, a strategic location for both the US and Japan. The US Navy, led by Admiral Chester Nimitz, was tasked with defending the island … Read more

May 1, 2023 by Mike Manazir – (4-5 minutes) How do you adapt to change and turn uncertainty into an advantage? In Chapter 21 of my book, Learn How to Lead to Win – 33 Powerful Stories and Leadership Lessons, I share the impact September 11, 2001 had on our crew. It is a day … Read more

April 23, 2023 by Mike Manazir – (4-5 minutes) Chapter 30 of my book Learn How to Lead to Win: 33 Powerful Stories and Leadership Lessons is titled Don’t Micromanage. I talk about how I taught my officers to drive the ship. Driving a large ship like the Nimitz in the San Diego harbor can … Read more

April 18, 2023 by Mike Manazir – (4-5 minutes) Trust is everything. It was 1994. I was in a Fokker 100 circling 14,000 feet above the Ft Bragg drop zone. I was doing my first free fall jump with the U.S. Army Golden Knights.  I’d been trained as a pilot in the use of parachutes, … Read more

MIKE’S GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION – PART THREE March 7, 2023 by Mike Manazir – (4-5 minutes) Chris Voss calls them calibrated questions. There is magic in the words, “Help me understand?” Many of us, especially A-type personality leaders are usually in a hurry to get to the bottom line of an issue or story … Read more

MIKE’S GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION – PART TWO February 28, 2023 by Mike Manazir – (4-5 minutes) A group of Vistage CEOs were asked that question, and all hands went up. “Do members of your teams fail your expectations more often than they fulfill your expectations?” Some hands came down, but more than half remained … Read more

MIKE’S GUIDE TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION – PART ONE February 22, 2023 by Mike Manazir – (4-5 minutes) Communication is HUGE for high performing teams! I tell the story in my book Learn How to Lead to Win that as the Captain of the USS Nimitz, I was concerned about the morale of my crew, all … Read more

How do you deal with what goes through your head (and gut) after you’ve had a traumatic failure? February 13, 2023 by Mike Manazir – (1 minute) Click this link to hear Mike share one of his epic failures that required him to eject out of his F-14 Tomcat… and how he processed the trauma … Read more

This week’s blog post can be found here: https://sothereiwas.us/episode/39/