Never Eat Alone

Of course, the man had issued an invitation and I, for one, was going to take him up on the offer. I immediately set about contacting Mr. Buckley to set a date for a meeting. He graciously invited me to his home and even suggested I bring a few friends along.

A few months later, with three other classmates in tow, I arrived at a Co

I couldn't let the opportunity pass. Mr. Buckley wasn't the only Yale alum dissatisfied with the political climate at his alma mater. Other conservative alumni were complaining. Many stopped giving money to Yale outright. I thought I had a solution that would be a real win-win for the campus and for these alums.

What if, I suggested, we create a foundation that allowed disenfranchised conservative alums the ability to give money directly to the undergraduate organizations that represented the traditional values they supported? Yale wins because it would be getting money that it otherwise wouldn't. Conservative alumni win because they could again feel good about their school and their ability to make a contribution. Students win because there would be more organizational diversity and money for campus clubs. What could be better?

Well, I made the pitch and I thought Mr. Buckley embraced the idea. He told me that he had started a foundation to fund a student publication a few years before that had never quite got off the ground. There was, he said, still money in the foundation, and he would be happy to put it toward my idea. That is, at least, what I heard. In my excitement, I left the i's undotted and t's uncrossed for fear of a good thing getting spoiled. "Never sell beyond the close," as they say, and I thought I had the close.

Do they ever add that you better be damn sure both parties know what, exactly, is being closed and that both remember thereafter?

When I returned to campus, I didn't conceal my excitement. I made sure everyone knew that I was the new president of a brandspankin'-new organization. Boy, wasn't I cool? I started searching out other alumni who might be interested in contributing to the cause. I hit the phones, and on weekends, I'd go to New York to pitch other alumni on the new foundation that William F. Buckley and I were starting.

"Bill Buckley put in some money. Would you also like to help out?" I'd ask them. And they did. On each return trip from New York, my head got bigger and bigger as I reveled in the famous and powerful people that were giving me (note the use of "me," not "us") money.

My poor classmates had to suffer my telling stories of my latest escapade to New York. Then, as quickly as it started, my ever-sobrief brush with fame came to a screeching halt.

As luck would have it, Mr. Buckley found himself one day in an elevator with one of the other famous alums who had pledged money. "Bill," this gentleman said, "I matched your contribution to this new foundation at Yale." To which Bill replied, "What foundation?"

It turned out that Mr. Buckley did not recall our conversation. Or maybe he told me one thing and I heard something quite different. Maybe he just thought I wanted to rekindle the magazine. But by then, it was irrelevant. Mr. Buckley could recall only his stalled magazine and a vague reference to restarting it at Yale. He told the other donor he was not the cofounder of a new conservative foundation at Yale, which I'm sure was the way he saw it. At which point, everything unraveled.

The pledges I had received needed to go unrealized, as there was no repository for them any longer. Mr. Buckley didn't return my calls. Most important, and to my shock, my friends who were present and equally excited that day at Mr. Buckley's didn't come to my rescue when I pleaded for them to explain that they had heard exactly what I had heard. My reputation had been tarnished among some important people. I was embarrassed among my friends after I had been gloating. And then to add rock salt to the wound, someone at Yale's college newspaper got wind of all that had happened and created an illustration depicting me as getting wounded by large, famous names being dropped from the sky. Ouch, indeed, and I deserved it.

Looking back now, I'm appreciative of the experience. I learned some valuable lessons. For one, I had to begin the journey to change my leadership style. It wasn't enough to get things done. You had to get things done and make the people around you feel involved, and not just part of the process but part of the leadership. I learned that commitments weren't commitments unless everyone involved knew what was on the table with absolute clarity. I learned how truly small the world is, especially the world of the rich and powerful.

Most important, I learned that arrogance is a disease that can betray you into forgetting your real friends and why they're so important. Even with the best of intentions, too much hubris will stir up other people's ire and their desire to put you in your place. So remember, in your hike up the mountain, be humble. Help others up the mountain along with and before you. Never let the prospect of a more powerful or famous acquaintance make you lose sight of the fact that the most valuable co

29. Find Mentors, Find Mentees, Repeat

To teach is to learn again.

Great musicians know it. So do professional athletes and world-class CEOs. Successful people in nearly every field know that they can't be their best unless they have a good coach in their corner. And now the business world knows it, too: In a fastpaced, fluid, and dynamic environment, where flattened organizations made up of cross-functional teams must respond rapidly to change, mentoring is one of the most effective strategies to get the best out of each and every individual.

Many companies have developed formal mentoring programs with the idea that sharing what you know and learning what others have to teach is just smart management. At FerrazziGreenlight, we have worked with many companies to create such formal programs with the idea that helping employees build relationships for career success reduces turnover and ultimately leads to stronger external relationships for revenue growth as well. One of the more historically successful programs was established in 1997 at one of Intel's largest chip-making facilities in New Mexico.

The people responsible for developing that program wanted to go beyond the traditional notion of mentoring as a one-way process that teamed seasoned executives with ambitious up-andcomers. To the people at Intel, organization-wide mentoring meant creating an inclusive learning network matching people not by job title or by seniority but by specific skills that are in demand. The company uses an intranet site and e-mail to break down departmental barriers and create partnerships between two people who can teach each other different valuable skills that they need to be better employees. The system enables Intel to spread best practices quickly throughout the global organization and develop the best and brightest employees in the industry.