Cyrus Freidheim - Commit & Deliver

Contents

PRAISE FORCOMMIT & DELIVER

A top-tier management consultant, CEO, and respected board member, Cyrus Freidheim has done it alland all exceedingly well! From this wealth of experience, Cyrus shares with us his incisive lessons learned to help us achieve business success and, more importantly, lead a full and good life.

Paul Evanson

With a decades-long career at the top of the business world, there are few people better equipped to advise the next generation on how to succeed in business than my friend Cyrus Freidheim. Readers of Commit & Deliver will have the privilege of learning from someone with unmatched experience as a management consultant, board member, and CEO in a wide variety of industries, including telecommunications, transportation, and media. I thank Cyrus for his generosity in sharing so much of what he knows, and I recommend this book to anyone, young or old, who is looking for guidance on how best to put themselves on the right path in life.

Senator Rob Portman (R-OH)

The reader gladly sails through history and endless encounters, rewarded by timeless wisdom of a life well lived. A most remarkable and enjoyable read.

Peter Georgescu, Chairman Emeritus, Young & Rubicam

Commit & Deliver presents the richness of professional opportunities in business and civic organizations and a roadmap of how to capture them.

Jack Welch, Author, Educator, and former Chairman and CEO, General Electric

ALSO BY CYRUS FREIDHEIM

The Star of Africa

Notes from Grampa

The Trillion-Dollar Enterprise

This book is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information about professional development. Neither the author nor the publisher is engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services by publishing this book. If any such assistance is required, the services of a qualified financial professional should be sought. The author and publisher will not be responsible for any liability, loss, or risk incurred as a result of the use and application of any information contained in this book.

Commit & Deliver copyright 2021 by Cyrus Freidheim

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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First E-Book Edition: October 2021

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021020364

ISBN 9781953295675 (print)

ISBN 9781637740019 (electronic)

Copyediting by Rebecca Taff

Proofreading by James Fraleigh and Lisa Story

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Cover design by James Reyman

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Mitzi, Lynn, Stephen, Scott

and

My Many Mentors from
Childhood Through Retirement

Grampa, congratulations on your new book, Commit & Deliver.

We cant wait till we are old enough to read it!

Luke, Ethan, Madison, Juliette, Louis,

Edouard, Alexander, Leo, and Ana

CONTENTS

I t was the fifth inning in game three of the 1932 World Series at Wrigley Field in Chicago, with the score tied at 44. The great Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees came to bat and the Cubs dugout and fans went wildscreaming and even throwing tomatoes at him. Ruth took two strikes, paused, and pointed his bat at the center-field bleachers. On the next pitch Ruth hit the most famous home run in baseball history to the back of the center-field bleachers. He committed, and he delivered.

In August 1981, almost seven months after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the fortieth president of the United States, the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) went on strike, illegally. He told them publicly that the strike was illegal and that anyone remaining on strike in forty-eight hours would be fired. He repeated his order several times during the next two days. At the expiration of forty-eight hours, he fired the 11,000 controllers who remained on strike. In the interim, plans were put together to manage the nations airways with supervisors, non-striking controllers, and military controllers so the airline system operated safely with 80 percent capacity for the time it took to hire and train new controllers. PATCO was decertified, and the fired controllers were banned from working as controllers for life. No one ever doubted that President Reagan was a man of his word after that. He committed and delivered.

While these are dramatic examples, they do illustrate the power of Commit and Deliver. It is a simple conceptyou say you are going to do something, and you do it. You dont equivocate with either. The resultpeople will learn to believe you, to trust you. Bullies and opponents will fear you. Everyone will respect you and understand that your word is your bond and that you are a person on whom they can depend.

While the concept is simple, execution is not so easy. The consequences of committing and not delivering can be serious in many ways, including damaging your reputation for reliability and trustin addition to making a mess of things. Do not draw red lines or make big promises without knowing you are able to deliver and will. As in the case of President Reagan and PATCO, he had to be convinced of his legal right to fire the strikers and the feasibility of operating our airways safely without 11,000 PATCO controllers. Before you make a commitment, you need to do the research and planning necessary to know how you can deliver. No time for hunches, guesses, or shooting from the hip. A commitment is just that, a commitment.

Who likes people who commit and deliver? In business: your boss, your board, your shareholders, your bankers, your suppliers, your unions, your partners, your subordinates, your teammates, your regulators, your community, and most important, your customers and clients. In your personal life: every member of your immediate and extended family, starting with your spouse, wants you to commit and deliver, as do your organizations, your clubs, your schoolmates, your teammates in sports, all those who depend on you. When is commit and deliver important to you? Always.

Who doesnt like you to commit and deliver? Your competition, opponents, and critics. You will infuriate them.

This book was written for anyone interested in learning how business is conducted from the perspectives of a management consultant, a CEO, and a member of the board of directors.

Specifically, for:

Teenagers who are wondering what the business world is like and are considering collegewhether to go, which colleges to apply to, what to major in, whether to go full-time.