The Profit

Wacky leadership ideas that worked

Unconventional ways to inspire greatness

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It really is lonely at the top—especially for CEOs who desire leadership training.

According to a 2013 study conducted by the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Miles Group, nearly 100 percent of CEOs welcome coaching and leadership advice, yet nearly two-thirds didn't receive any. The study indicated that nearly half of senior-level executives also lack leadership coaching.

Maybe part of the problem is that staid leadership methods don't work. Once a surefire recipe for execs to nod off while counting down the hours to lunch, leadership training no longer means status quo PowerPoint slides and dry motivational speeches.

From inspirational texts and intensive solo pursuits to group training programs, leaders are staying on top of their game—and inspiring others—in some surprising ways.

Don't assume it's always about sheer results: Management at top companies are tapping into previously disregarded practices to stay focused and productive and to inspire everyone from the new intern to the most jaded senior management.

By Sarah Chandler, special to CNBC.com
Posted 27 June 2015

Switch it up

Dan Aykroyd pats the shoulder of Eddie Murphy in a scene from the film “Trading Places.”
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It sounds like the beginnings of a Hollywood remake of the Eddie Murphy classic "Trading Places," updated for the dot-com era: Take a wacky techie—who's never worn a suit and tie outside of a funeral—and stick them in a training program at a notoriously conservative corporation. Wait two weeks. See what happens.

In 2008, Google and Procter & Gamble, at opposite ends of the spectrum both in corporate training practices and in fashion, swapped staffers to experience each other's company training programs and business-plan powwows.

The learning opportunity became quickly apparent. Google executives were surprised to learn that a big promotion for P&G's Pampers brand didn't include any "motherhood" bloggers covering it, according to a Wall Street Journal account at the time. P&G employees couldn't believe that the Google team didn't understand the importance of the color orange as part of the branding of Tide detergent.

While such shake-ups might be more the exception than the norm, corporate and management training programs are starting to look less and less like they did in the "Mad Men" era, especially as technology continues to upend industries and force new ways of thinking under the threat of becoming quickly extinct.

Make them laugh

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If you've ever taken an improvisation class, then you know the first rule: Say yes. When students begin classes at Chicago's famed Second City theatre—whose training program honed the likes of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Steve Carell—it's one of the first things they learn. Yes keeps the conversation flowing and keeps an active focus on shared goals.

Companies are saying yes to improv.

Take Boom Chicago, an international comedy theater in Amsterdam founded by Chicago natives in 1993 that's seen the likes of "Late Night" host Seth Meyers grace its stages. In the past several years, Boom Chicago has taught improvisation and comedy workshops to employees at Heineken, Unilever, Royal Dutch Shell and ING.

"Everyone is chasing that start-up culture they read about, but they don't know how to reach it," said Boom Chicago co-founder and creative director Pep Rosenfeld. Improvisation works for corporate culture because it allows good ideas to be nurtured by teams that trust each other in a structure that encourages communication.

"The teams take risks together, and they laugh together. And it turns out that taking risks and laughing are two of the best bonding experiences there are," Rosenfeld said.

Learn a new language

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a dialogue with students as a newly appointed member to the advisory board for Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing, Oct. 22, 2014.
Tsinghua University | AP Photo

The gasps were audible among a group of Chinese students last year when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg surprised everyone by leading a half-hour discussion in Mandarin. While critics deemed Zuckerberg's mastery of the language proficient, if accented, the move was nothing if not a strategic––and unexpected––leadership move. At the time his speech was delivered, China's number of active Internet users had already hit 618 million, and that figure is still growing. With Facebook banned in China, that number represents tremendous untapped potential.

Zuckerberg's bold presentation goes against that assumption that it's unnecessary for English speakers to learn a foreign language in order to remain competitive in the international world of business. By delivering a speech to an overseas audience in their native language, Zuckerberg not only brought a more human face to the Facebook monopoly but successfully delivered upon the ethos that ideally, social media is at once local and global.

It wasn't the first time Zuckerberg tried out his Mandarin. He is married to a Chinese-American, Priscilla Chan, and set himself the goal of learning Mandarin in 2010, partly because his wife's grandmother only speaks Chinese. "Priscilla and I decided to get married, so I told her grandmother in Chinese, and she was very surprised," Zuckerberg told his surprised audience in Beijing.

Become a black belt

Ralph Macchio, left, learns physical and emotional discipline from mentor Pat Morita in the film “The Karate Kid.”
Columbia Pictures | Getty Images

Physical discipline, mental challenge and self-defense skills are all key to success in martial arts. So it's no surprise that martial arts has long been used as a metaphor for strong leadership. In 1986, Motorola developed a revolutionary process-improvement program called Six Sigma, in which leadership levels are ranked in a similar fashion to the hierarchy embraced by many martial arts: master black belts, black belts, green belts and so on. In the 1990s, with Jack Welch's adoption of the Six Sigmas techniques at General Electric, the program became wildly popular in the corporate world.

More recently, martial arts have served as a literal, not just a metaphorical, inspiration for many entrepreneurs and executives, notably in the tech industry. If you check out the LinkedIn profiles of many in the tech field, you'll find résumés enumerating not just business accomplishments but with black belts and national championship wins in jujitsu, aikido, karate and tae kwon do, among other disciplines.

From LinkedIn vice president Bob Rosin (black belt, aikido) to Proven.com CEO Pablo Fuentes (blue belt, Brazilian jujitsu ), the upper echelons of management rosters are filled with leaders who bring the discipline, stamina and focus from the mat to the boardroom.

Be mindful

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Trust falls? That's so 1996. Business leaders have turned to meditation.

You might guess that Oprah, the telegenic queen of self-improvement, meditates. Her practice of choice? Transcendental meditation, a technique based on ancient Indian practices that uses mantras to achieve awareness. Among devotees of the mantra-based practice, you'll find hedge fund luminaries such as Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, and Ramani Ayer, former chairman and CEO of the Hartford Financial Services Group.

According to Janice Marturano, founder and executive director at the Minnesota-based Institute for Mindful Leadership, mindfulness training is about more than meditation. "We want our leaders in all sectors of our society to more consistently make conscious choices that are what I call the win-win-win," Marturano wrote by email.

She has the corporate experience to back up her claims. As senior counsel at General Mills during the early 2000s, Marturano created the company's mindfulness program at a time when it was most needed: a period of major growth capped by the corporation's buyout of then-rival Pillsbury. The General Mills program has gone on to train more than 90 senior leaders, offering a four-day retreat program for upper echelon directors and managers.

Give yourself a classical education

Author Dale Carnegie reads his book "How to Win Friends and Influence People." in Chicago on July 7, 1955.
AP Photo

Best-selling management guru books may elicit snickers—much of the business world has moved on to a scientific approach for airplane catch-up reading, thanks to Malcolm Gladwell and "Blink."

But when President Bill Clinton was at the beginning of his first term in office, he invited Dr. Stephen R. Covey to Camp David. The goal? To integrate Covey's principles into his presidency. President Clinton and then-First Lady Hillary would ultimately ask Covey to extend his stay at Camp David.

In 1989, when Covey first published the now classic "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," the book broke new ground in the self-improvement genre with his holistic, modern approach toward transforming personal and professional life.

Central to Covey's work is the concept of a paradigm shift: the idea that profound change is precipitated not simply by action but by proactively shaping behavior based on one's guiding principles. For the business world, a principle-centered approach is fundamentally necessary to create lasting change.

The road-to-success publishing phenomenon dates back to at least 1936, when onetime actor and salesman Dale Carnegie first published "How to Win Friends and Influence People." While it sounds like a handbook for mastering the art of extroversion, Carnegie's approach is inside out, with personal transformation as the first step.