You may know that I do 1-to-1 coaching in my Creative Conversations service. One of my current clients is using the life of Winfield Scott as a way of exploring his own leadership. I'm amazed by Scott. It's a shame we don't have a better understanding of his historical significance. One reason for the lack of appreciation is random and bizarre. Photography emerged as a more common tool in the … [Read more...]
July 16, 2013 by
July 15, 2013 by
Don't know if you'll see this anywhere but I have something to offer from a leadership perspective. I have lots to say or write about the event of the trial and the incident of the shooting but won't do so unless you and I have a chance to chat together or write one another at some length. The point: sometimes, the best decision on communication is to wait for the appropriate venue of … [Read more...]
July 15, 2013 by
I have a paper planner (from the Audubon Society). I have an unsmart phone that I don't think they manufacture anymore. I don't have any technological product that begins with a small "i". I read books made with printed pages. I read a newspaper that folds under my arm. I use a push mower. I drive a 1998 Ford Explorer with 240,000 miles on it. I'm about as out of the mainstream as you can get. … [Read more...]
July 15, 2013 by
A specialty of mine is irregular warfare and the American Experience. Irregular warfare is that which uses ambushes, hit-and-run techniques, and surprise tactics rather than more standard approaches to warfare. Terrorism is a subset of irregular warfare. National security experts often use "asymmetrical warfare" as a synonym for irregular warfare. I mention this to help explain something you see … [Read more...]
June 30, 2013 by
I think the most important thing that we, as Americans, have lost is our sense of the experiment. This nation of republican self-government is an experiment. Beginning as one, it continues still. It is an experiment to see if people with a generous amount of freedom can govern themselves successfully. The presence of the experiment fills every word, every syllable of my sentence just written … [Read more...]
June 29, 2013 by
We can learn a little more about our future by comparing it to how people in 1893 viewed their future. That was the year of the Columbian Exposition, the 400th anniversary celebration of Columbus's landing in the New World. Then, Americans looked at the future and marveled at the big. Today, in 2013, we look at the future and marvel at the small. Columbian Exposition attendees remarked often … [Read more...]
June 29, 2013 by
Another thought stems from the previous post. At the same time that we revel in the wonder of the small, we live in an organizational evolution that resulted from 1893. Our organizations and scales in our present day are massive. Vast. Global, interconnected. You dial a call about a particular service and the call is answered in southeast Asia by a person who can then gain control of your … [Read more...]
June 26, 2013 by
This morning I found a moment shared, incredibly, by Vladimir Putin and Abraham Lincoln. One of Lincoln's tools of communication was to use illustrations from farming life in his speeches and commentary. He once referred to holding the leg of a hog as it was butchered and skinned. Imagine my surprise when, in today's Wall Street Journal, I read that Vladimir Putin was asked about the … [Read more...]
June 26, 2013 by
I'm working on my Leadership Now Walkshop II. That's the second iteration of my Walkshop on leadership and major change. Here's something that I've uncovered: the compression of events can be mistaken for the appearance of chaos. … [Read more...]
