My friend and colleague, Jim Kranzusch, is a chimp. I'm pretty sure he's always been a chimp. He has even turned "chimp" into a verb ("I chimped him."). Jim has a track record of being an effective manager, a natural leader, and a wise counselor - all due in no small part to the fact that [...]
Monty Roberts is a horse whisperer. He is one of a few horse trainers that use specific methods to start horses rather than break them. Roberts notes that the “secret” to his process is clear and in the open for any and all to see: horses have their own ways of communicating, el lenguaje del [...]
Do you ever feel like you're arguing with idiots? Most of them actually aren't (idiots). Some probably are. For those, remember, "It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument." (Wm. G. MacAdoo) In most business and professional discourse someone has to be the grown up and it might as well be you. Here's [...]
We all need to get away sometimes. "Away" doesn't have to be somewhere exotic, or some place that involves boarding passes or long car trips. Not even a weekend getaway. Just a respite; a brief time out from the day-to-day routine that provides a recharge, a renewal, or a reset. One of my favorite breaks [...]
According to vulture-territory.com, the California Condor has been protected since 1953 and was listed as an endangered species in 1971. By 1986, for a variety of reasons, the wild populations had sunk to single digits. Soon the three remaining California Condors were captured and joined twenty-four others in captivity. The birds have adapted reasonably well [...]
My client began the conversation with, “I hate politics!” As a senior vice president in a large closely held firm she had seen plenty of office politics and she didn’t like what she had seen - and experienced. In my previous post I introduced some thinking about politicians as leaders. The other side of the [...]
Perhaps it’s the season - election season - that’s generating more frequent discussions from my clients and others about how politics fits, or doesn’t fit, into the context of leadership, and vice-versa. My initial reaction to these discussions begins with the Forrest Gump-like assertion that leadership is as leadership does. Before we go any further, [...]
My mother was a third grade teacher. There was a boy in her class one year who had been socially promoted through first and second grades without having learned to read. You can imagine the host of other problems this created for him academically and socially. My mother decided this would not stand and it [...]
I love the 4th of July. Even when considered in the ever-dimming light of history, it captures much of what has been exceptional about the United States. This morning at church we celebrated and honored, as we always do, those who have served this country in the cause of freedom and liberty. Part of that [...]
