CORPORATE SIDEKICKS in the BUSINESS PRESS - Part 1
Posted by
Jack Fiala on Thu, Feb 16, 2012 @ 09:52 AM
He's No Dummy
Published in the OHIO BUSINESS JOURNAL
BY John Sullivan
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The Max Q & A
Max certainly has a way with words ... and interviews.
He graciously sat down with Ohio Business for a quick conversation. We’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether it was a constructive interview.
Ohio Business: Max, I have so many questions for you. I hardly know where to begin.
Max: Why not near the end?
OB: You’ve been performing in business meetings for more than 25 years, yet your looks never change. Do you follow a strenuous fitness regimen?
Max: No, I get enough exercise just pushing my luck.
OB: Max, I don’t think...
Max: Of course you don’t think. You’re a reporter. It’s not in your job description to think.
OB: I’ve got a good mind to end this interview right now.
Max: If you had a really good mind, you’d be writing for Time.
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Most folks are afraid to tell it like it is to an executive. Not Max.
Executive: Since you're a communications expert, what's the key to crafting a memorable and effective speech?
Max: That's easy. The best speech has a good beginning and a good end. And they're both real, real close together.
Executive: What would you say to a senior executive whose organization is stagnating?
Max: Just keep having long meetings every day until you find out why nothing's getting done.
Executive: OK, one last question. What have you learned by working with some of America's greatest business leaders?
Max: That half of being smart is knowing what you're dumb at.
Max knows dumb. He's a dummy himself, though he prefers to be called a "character with an attitude for business." For 26 years, he and Jack Fiala have been telling business leaders the things that no one else would dare tell them.
Fiala's Dayton-based Corporate Sidekicks, the only business of its kind in Ohio and possibly the nation, has been setting the record straight with executives. Max comes to life at corporate events and interacts with an executive presenter based on a custom script, written by Fiala with executive input. Max's — and Fiala's — success is based on one of the oldest theatrical principles around: the audience's "willing suspension of disbelief" and acceptance of Max as a real person who knows what is going on and speaks out about it.
Max is operated by Fiala and his wife and business partner, Pauline. Both remain out of sight during the live performance while Max is projected onto a video screen for his routine with the executive. Hidden microphones pick up audience reaction and allow Jack to ad-lib.
Max gets more than laughs. He also proves to the audience that while managers may not have solved the problems lampooned in the presentation, they at least acknowledge their existence. This eases tensions and makes for a friendlier crowd, one more receptive to new ideas and change. That explains why clients as large as General Motors, United Van Lines, Goodyear and Boston Scientific Intercontinental all use Corporate Sidekicks to help deliver their message. All of them get higher ratings and better attendance at their events because, after seeing Max, attendees return to future sessions to see what he will say next.
TO BE CONTINUED...