How To Create A Modern Day Legacy

Legacy in the Making is the fascinating new book where authors Mark Miller and Lucas Conley provide readers a toolkit for how to be a modern day legacy builder for your company/brand.

The tool kit provides the roadmap for leaders who can harness the power of long-term thinking in a short-term world; the skill needed to create a modern day legacy.

The fascinating part of the book is the stories from the authors’ exclusive interviews with modern legacy thinkers who are transforming business as we know it – stories from The Honest Company, Grey Goose, Taylor Guitars, Girls Who Code, and the San Diego Zoo.

“These are the legacy builders that are out-performing rivals, attracting and keeping the best talent, and changing the way others engage with their work and think about their own legacies in the making,” explain the authors.

Modern day legacy building is a new kind of legacy creation that simultaneously encompasses what was and what will be. Modern day legacy building leaders bridge the past, the present, and the future. “Legacies in the making will always benefit from traditions. Being perpetual means ensuring that those traditions, however, never become too traditional,” says Conley.

Miller and Conley encourage modern day legacy builders to involve their employees. For example, by encouraging its employees to let the brand’s beliefs inspire their behaviors, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company sparks a positive feedback loop. Their empowered employees create Wow stories, guests leave with lifelong memories, and the brand maintains an active channel of inspiring case studies that inspire other employees (resulting in more Wow stories, attracting more guests, and so on).

In this example rather than reading from its brand’s history, The Ritz-Carlton employees are helping to add to it – authoring its legacy each day to drive growth, relevance, and impact.

Equally important to legacy building is to clearly communicate your brand’s/company’s why. “Most brands talk about what they make and how they make it. Not enough communicate why,” says Miller. Referring to author Simon Sinek’s Start With Why, Miller shares that your what and how (products and services) will resonate more with consumers and colleagues when the why behind them is communicated, authentic and meaningful.

Another step in modern day legacy building is to encourage your employees to focus on the future to bring the past forward. The authors’ example for this is Lexus, which asks what drivers will want years from now, not just today – thereby providing Lexus a consistent pipeline of unconventional ideas to drive its legacy in the making into the future.

“Whereas traditional legacy is static, modern legacy can no more be cemented than time itself,” says Miller. “Embracing this active interpretation of legacy building—one in which your story never ends—involves continually reconciling past achievements and future goals while building your brand in the present.

Prepare to be inspired as you read Legacy in the Making.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

How To Be More Playful To Build Resilience, Navigate Challenges And Find More Joy

“Research reveals that playful adults excel at problem-solving and stress management and consistently report higher life satisfaction,” explains Piera Gelardi , author of the new book, The Playful Way . The Playful Way is a mindset that transforms how you experience everything from airport security lines to career transitions to navigating grief. More specifically, Gelardi says playfulness is: Finding humor and lightness even in tense moments. Staying open to possibilities rather than fixating on one “right” way. Experimenting rather than seeking perfection. Bringing an ethos of curious exploration to difficulties. Finding wisdom in the body when the mind’s tied up in knots. Tuning your attention to notice details and find wonder. Reimagining dull tasks through reframes and games. Improvising when things go sideways. Gelardi guides readers in uncovering the mental barriers and inner critics that restrict playfulness, offering practical techniqu...

How To Unleash The Most Powerful Force In Business

In Marcus Buckingham ’s latest book, Design Love In: How To Unleash The Most Powerful Force In Business , he details the one hidden skill at the heart of all the best leaders today—and what you can do in your own working life to cultivate it. The skill is leading lovingly —what Buckingham calls Design Love In (DLI). Being a leader, whom people say they love working for and for whom they’d walk through walls. A leader who gets the absolute best out of their employees and who builds the kind of team employees desperately want to be on. “Love fuels our resilience, sparks our creativity, and bonds us together as collaborators,” shares Buckingham. “Love means a passionate commitment to something or someone. Love means deep loyalty. Love is advocacy. And, of course, love can also be hard-edged, hence ‘tough love.’” Buckingham recommends leaders create experiences that: Make employees feel bigger. Allow employees to feel safe enough to open up. Help employees flourish. Further, Buckingh...

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership . In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust. The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes. In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter. In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catal...

How To Uncover Your Blindspots To Become A Better Leader

What you don't see about yourself can hold you back as a leader. That's typical for many leaders. What we don't see is what we can't see: we have blindspots . Your blindspots prevent you from achieving your greatest success. “It turns out that we're often not great judges of ourselves, even when we think we are. Sometimes we're simply unaware of a behavior or trait that's causing problems,” explains Martin Dubin , author of the new book, Blindspotting: How To See What’s Holding You Back As A Leader . “Bottom line: until we uncover these blindspots, we can't move forward. The good news is that you can learn to do your own blindspotting .” “Most of us understand the idea of blindspots in a general sense—areas we can’t see, to take the term most literally, or places we have gaps that we may not even realize, to be a little more abstract,” says Dubin. “But in the context of this book, I’m defining blindspots quite specifically: They are...

The Algorithm: The Five-Step Framework That Drives Business Success

From a former President of Tesla, Jon McNeill , comes The Algorithm —the first book written by any of Elon Musk’s direct reports—a transformative guide for leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators who want to emulate the paradigm-shattering approach used to launch Tesla and SpaceX to success. And that transformed Lululemon and General Motors. McNeill had already founded and sold six startups when Sheryl Sandberg introduced him to Elon Musk, who was looking for help at Tesla. McNeill was steeped in the lean principles that had made Toyota a global powerhouse—principles focused on achieving efficiency and optimization by incrementally improving existing systems and processes. What he learned at Tesla was an approach that required radical rethinking to explode the status quo, attack complexity, and set seemingly unrealistic goals. Elon Musk at Tesla called this five-step framework “The Algorithm.” 1. Question every requirement – “Question everything—from produ...

40 Timeless Lessons From Southwest Airlines

A few years ago, Southwest Airlines celebrated its 40th year and was kind enough to share in its in-flight magazine 40 lessons it learned since 1971. The lessons provide good tips for business leaders. If you missed the full list, here are some of the highlights of timeless lessons: Invent your own culture and put a top person in charge of it . A crisis can contain the germ of a big idea . Simplicity has value . For Southwest, simplicity means using 737s for most of its fleet, which makes maintenance more cost-effective and allows more efficient training for flight crews and ground crews. Remember your chief mission . Take your business, not yourself, seriously. Put the worker first . For Southwest, that meant being the first U.S. airline to offer a profit-sharing plan, in 1974. Employees now own 13 percent of the airline. The web ain't cool, it's a tool . Southwest was the first U.S. airline to establish a home page. By 2010, ...

Let's Meet At The Intersection Of Marketing, Leadership And Blogging! A Q&A With Debbie Laskey

Credit: iStock Photo For the past 16 years, I have relied on Debbie Laskey's Blog for expert leadership guidance and always interesting insights into marketing best practices and recaps of marketing trends. Fortunately, through the years, Debbie has also shared her expertise through a variety of postings on my blog, and I'm honored again today to feature Debbie with the following Q&A's: QUESTION: You've featured many leadership experts on your blog through the years. What is a common theme from all the Q&A's? DEBBIE LASKEY : Back in 2011, I met Mark Herbert, a leadership expert and author based in Oregon, as a result of our interactions on Twitter/X. I interviewed him several times, and he provided a quote that I will always remember and share often: "Leadership doesn't require you to be the smartest person in the room. It requires you to block and tackle for others." That quote has appeared on my blog countless times over the years because...

How To Reclaim Your Time And Be Time Smart

“Four out of five adults report feeling that they have too much to do and not enough time to do it,” reports Ashley Whillans , author of the book, Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life . “These time-poor people experience less joy each day. They laugh less. They are less healthy and less productive.” And, in one study, time stress produced a stronger negative effect on happiness than unemployment. Drawing on the latest science, Whillans teaches us how to escape the time traps that make us feel this way and keep us from living our best lives. She explains that the six most common time traps are: Constant connection to technology. Obsession with work and making money. Limited value placed on time. Busyness as a status symbol. Aversion to idleness. The Yes…and then regret it effect. Her playbook shows you how to : take back the time you lose to mindless tasks and unfulfilling chores. improve your "time affluence.” f...

How to Be a Leader – 9 Principles from Dale Carnegie

Today, I welcome thought-leader Nathan Magnuson as guest blogger... Nathan writes : This is it, your first day in a formal leadership role. You’ve worked hard as an individual contributor at one or possibly several organizations. Now management has finally seen fit to promote you into a position as one of their own: a supervisor. You don’t care if your new team is only one person or ten, you’re just excited that now – finally – you will be in charge! Unfortunately the euphoria is short-lived. Almost immediately, you are not only overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a team, but you quickly find that your team members are not as experienced or adroit as you. Some aren’t even as committed. You find yourself having to repeat yourself, send their work back for corrections, and staying late to fill the gap. If something doesn’t change soon, you might just run yourself into the ground. How did something that looked so easy ...

How To Survive And Then Reset To Ultimately Thrive

“Uncertainty is here to stay. Rather than seeing it as an obstacle to overcome, integrate it into your strategic approach to invigorate your high-growth potential and outperform competition under any market condition,” explains Rebecca Homkes , author of the new book, Survive, Reset, Thrive . “Most books aren’t honest enough about how hard it is to reset ,” adds Homkes. Yet, resetting and leaning into change is essential. “If you are ready to embrace change as a central element of your growth strategy, this book is for you.” Homkes’ book is a timely, comprehensive, and essential read for business leaders looking to take the next step toward ensuring high growth for their companies. The book brings together more than 15 years of Homkes working directly with high-growth companies of all sizes and across a wide variety of industries. Survive, Reset, Thrive (SRT) is a practical and innovative interconnected three-mode approach : Survive : Stabilizing ...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog