About the Book

What's Your Lie? puts you on the back nine, where you make the results happen.

Ten chapters are packed with golf and business stories that help you learn the key principles to finding your leadership strength while improving your golf game.

We begin each chapter with a "Lie" - a short presentation of behavior on and off the golf course to help you see how behavior manifests no matter where you are. Then we explore the key mental, emotional and behavioral differences between top-flight professional golfers and their weekend counterparts. By drawing the parallels to business situations, we help you see how the focus and understanding you see on the pro golf tour will improve your ability to address a given issue.

Table of Contents

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Introduction: The Pro Shop

The 10th Hole: Play Your Own Game
Playing great golf is really about playing the game you know how to play, and successful leadership rests on identifying and using the unique strengths of your organization, your team and yourself to achieve the best possible results.

The 11th Hole: A Perfect Swing Does Not Make a Perfect Game
While many professional golfers have perfect swings, and many business leaders have impressive educations and credentials, any number of successful ones do not. They know that perfection, whether on the course or in the office, is not the grail. A winning attitude, superior course management and a dependable and effective short game outweigh a perfect swing any time.

The 12th Hole: You Think You Got It!
In business and in golf, it's a never-ending quest: any time you think, "Okay, now I've got it," life and the golf ball will conspire to prove you wrong. And that's what keeps us coming back for more, on the links and in the office.

The 13th Hole: Practice on the Range, Play on the Course
It's both true and a truism that practice always creates good results; practice is important, but only if it's productive. In golf and business, it's important to learn to practice the right things based on your current talent, confidence and the specifics of your situation. And you need to learn when to stop practicing and go and play.

The 14th Hole: One Coach at a Time
If it ain't broke, don't fix it…but the minute things start to go south, everyone runs off to find a miracle cure. Just as golf gadgets will never really improve your game, how many times have you seen management bounce from one consultant to another, searching for a magic answer? Learn the importance of finding a coach who will help you, and stick with 'em to get results .

The 15th Hole: What's My Next Shot
If you watch a foursome of weekend golfers, there's much chatting, and often not very much quiet contemplation, while in a tournament setting the silence borders on reverent. Why the difference? Professionals -- whether on the course or in the office -- make their living by successfully considering a wide variety of factors when choosing their next shot and then focusing on the task at hand.

The 16th Hole: Drive for Show, Putt for Dough
Everyone talks about long drives, but what is it that actually wins tournaments, week after week? The short game. So often in business there's a big drive -- a launch with lots of funding, resources, and fanfare, but if there's no follow-through to the end, results are usually disappointing.
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The 17th Hole: How Well do you Manage Your Bad Shots?
It might look like every shot a tournament pro hits is a good one, but even Tiger Woods says that he hits just six or seven great shots per round. Just think of what each of us can expect to hit. Things in business often don't go as planned; it's the exceptional leaders who win by dealing well with a less than optimal situation

The 18th Hole: Let it Swing
Though it's counter-intuitive, trying harder just isn't the way to hit a longer drive. That only comes when you stop trying, to control everything and "let it swing". In organizations, the common wisdom is that the only way to make things happen is to work harder. What we really need to do is work wisely. Letting it swing achieves outcomes that might be unexpected and are often far beyond those that were targeted.

The Nineteenth Hole
When pro golfers head to the 19th hole, they don't talk about their game; they just have fun. Often amateur golfers spend that time endlessly replaying each hole, ad nauseum. It's hard to improve and enjoy yourself when you judge what you do "for fun." Learn when it's time to relax and enjoy and when you need to examine your performance critically.