Three Other Things I Learned About Business From Democratic Presidential Candidate Martin O'Malley

Have A Thick Skin And Three Other Things I Learned About Business From Democratic Presidential Candidate Martin O'Malley

For an individual business owner like myself, O'Malley - like most of the other candidates running for the country's highest office - brings something else of significant value to us. Management experience.

Martin O'Malley is running for President. And of course his positions on issues affecting business and the economy are important. But for an individual business owner like myself, O'Malley--like most of the other candidates running for the country's highest office--brings something else of significant value to us. Management experience. Think about it--he was Mayor of Baltimore and Governor of Maryland each for eight years, and a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University teaching courses on business and public policy. And of course, as President, he'll be using all of these years of managerial skills to run the Federal government. I'm interested in what he's learned. About people, and management and leadership. And in under a half-hour, here's what I learned.

I learned that in business, you don't manage people.

You accomplish things. "This is what I was told many years ago," said O'Malley. "And it's how I like to run an organization." . .

Finally, I learned the secret for keeping your people motivated.

Let's face it, O'Malley's got a tough struggle ahead of him to win the White House. And you know he's going to have a lot of ups and downs over the next few months. Kind of like any business owner. So how does he keep his team motivated? By keeping them focused on the mission. "Through it all I just keep reminding everyone what we do and why we're doing it," he told me. "I don't want to dismiss the importance of paying people well, but it's not all compensation. It's a higher aspiration. I would like to believe that we're part of something much bigger than ourselves and that as humans our work is important and needed. That's one of the joys of public services."

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