Now, more than ever before

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." With these words, our founding fathers began a proclamation to the world that America was a democratic republic. In [...]

By |2021-01-19T09:45:49-04:00July 3rd, 2012|Life|0 Comments

Leadership has always been hard

As the year 1776 drew to a close, the American experiment was in trouble. In recent months the Colonial forces had suffered much at the hands of the British troops and Hessian mercenaries. They had been routed from Long Island, chased from Manhattan across New Jersey into Pennsylvania. Boston, New York and Rhode Island were [...]

By |2021-01-19T09:45:49-04:00May 8th, 2012|Competence, Leadership|0 Comments

Level 5 failure

In Good to Great, Jim Collins researched and codified a surprising fact: that leadership matters a great deal in taking organizations from good to great. He said that good-to-great leaders seemed to come from a completely different mold when compared to high-profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities. Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, [...]

By |2021-01-19T09:45:50-04:00May 3rd, 2012|Character, Competence, Leadership|0 Comments

The Organizational Hunger Games

In the movie, The Hunger Games, North America has been destroyed by some unknown apocalyptic event and the nation of Panem exists in its place. Pamen consists of a wealthy Capitol and twelve surrounding, poorer districts. As punishment for a previous rebellion against the Capitol, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 [...]

By |2021-01-19T09:45:50-04:00April 26th, 2012|Character, Leadership, Life, Strategy, Thinking Differently|0 Comments

Victims, villains and rescuers

Dudley Do-Right was the hero of a segment of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, a cartoon entertainment show from my youth. Dudley was a dim-witted but cheerfully optimistic Canadian Mountie who was ever trying to apprehend his nemesis, Snidley Whiplash. Dudley was romantically interested in the lovely Nell Fenwick, daughter of Inspector Fenwick, commander of [...]

By |2021-01-19T09:45:50-04:00April 23rd, 2012|Character, Communication, Leadership, Life, Strategy|1 Comment

Political correctness is killing business

Top photo: Dad on left in "Ol' B29" amtrac. Bottom: Dad marked with "x" - "Chow time on Saipan" Click on picture to enlarge. During the morning of February 19, 1945 my father was about to drive a United States Marine Corps amphibious tractor onto the beach at Iwo Jima. This was his [...]

By |2021-01-19T09:45:50-04:00April 18th, 2012|Life, Thinking Differently|2 Comments

Who do you trust?

We encounter people in life who give us – with the best of intentions – advice and counsel that is inherently biased. In the 1967 movie, The Graduate, we find Mr. McGuire (actor Walter Brooke) giving recent college graduate, Benjamin Braddock (actor Dustin Hoffman) some advice about his future: Most of us have experience or [...]

By |2021-01-19T09:45:50-04:00April 2nd, 2012|Competence, Life, Thinking Differently|1 Comment

Three secrets for improved performance in today’s economy

Times are tough and the economic seas are rough. The future is rife with uncertainty. So, what else is new? We, who are beyond a certain age, have seen much of this before. By the way, that doesn't make it any less tough or any more certain. Just familiar. And, to be fair, today's global [...]

By |2021-02-20T19:27:50-04:00February 9th, 2012|Competence, Strategy|1 Comment

What do your subordinates say about you?

This story is told by David Kirk Hart, former professor at Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Management. It comes to me by way of my good friend and storyteller, Jim Ericson. "During World War II, a British war correspondent had gone into Normandy. He was particularly disgusted by the fact that the generals were living [...]

By |2021-01-19T09:45:50-04:00January 17th, 2012|Character, Leadership, Life|0 Comments
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