Bad things happen. Bad things have always happened. So have good things. Bad things have always gotten more notice and attention than good things. This is true in business, personal or political life. In today’s always-on, ever-connected world, the bad things are swiftly and broadly distributed and repeated (retweeted?) and amplified by the media to [...]
As I remember it, only a few weeks ago we were ALL focused on understanding, containing, stopping, beating, or otherwise thwarting a potential pandemic of something we have come to know all too well as COVID-19. We ALL wanted to neutralize the threat and protect our people; we had our focus on the greater collective [...]
Are you ever stupid? Well, I am, sometimes. Unfortunately, being stupid is easier these days than ever before. But before I get into that, let’s establish some meaning on the topic. Being stupid, or stupidity, in my mind was always the opposite of, or lack of, intelligence. I have been known to think or say, [...]
Anyone can have thoughts and come up with ideas. They are both free and plentiful. How do I know? How many notebooks, file folders, WORD documents, Evernote folders, and OneNote files are crammed with ideas, “good” ideas? And what are these ideas doing? They are sitting in digital or analog files. Just sitting, that’s all. [...]
Rice University Football Stadium, September 12, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy put the United States and the rest of the world on notice. The US was going to put a man on the moon and bring him home safely by the end of the decade. He went on to say why he had committed [...]
Evolutionary biologist Leigh van Valen (1973), used the Red Queen as a metaphor for his evolutionary principle that regardless of how well a species adapts to its current environment, it must keep evolving to keep up with its competitors and enemies who are also evolving. Van Valen’s inspiration for the metaphor came from Lewis Carroll's [...]
The best leaders have withstood direct contact with life's realities. “A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life's realities—all these are marks, not ... of superiority but of weakness.”
January 1 is a marker for new beginnings, an opportunity for a reset, or a clean palette upon which to write or draw the next lines of our future.
In a client meeting I inquired about a mutual acquaintance I had not seen in a long time. My client said, “He plateaued early.” I discovered our mutual friend was tracking in new orbits now; new friends and acquaintances, new hangouts, new everything. Long term relationships, plans, and priorities – and all that goes with [...]
“I recently had the opportunity, responsibility and privilege of apologizing to a colleague.” “You mean you HAD to apologize to someone, right?” “Well, I didn’t HAVE to, I chose to take advantage of the opportunity to clear things up. It was my responsibility in that I contributed to the misunderstanding at least 50%. It was [...]
