This Leadership Now Workshop is for leaders who spend a great deal of time looking ahead toward the next 2-3 years. I believe the second presidential administration of Franklin Roosevelt holds important clues as to the likely direction of the second presidential administration of Barack Obama. As a leader who plans, visions, and thinks ahead, you need to know these clues. The session will be … [Read more...]
January 8, 2013 by
January 4, 2013 by
I met one of my alumni for coffee today. The time I spend with my alumni is always thoroughly enjoyable. We chatted about dozens of things. I'd like to share one of them with you. People-eaters. What is a people-eater? In leadership, I think a people-eater is a leader who uses his or her followers with no regard as to their growth and development. They're interested in squeezing out the last … [Read more...]
January 4, 2013 by
I've got an odd request for you as we start 2013. Pick a river near you, one that has an accessible bank. Then, circle four dates on your calendar for the upcoming year. Make sure each date is in a different season--winter, spring, summer, and fall. Then, on those dates, go to the river bank and sit down for several minutes and watch the river. Look sharp. Look keenly. Jot down a few notes about … [Read more...]
December 31, 2012 by
I've noted in the River section of the website that I think the separation between past and future is tissue-thin. I say this because when you think about it, the present (right now, this instant) is really the thinnest slice of time. This moment, whatever your definition of it, has vanished. It's now in the past. The present, I maintain, is a tissue between past and future. So, today is December … [Read more...]
December 14, 2012 by
Today I’m preparing for my next Creative Conversation with a client. The 1-hour session is this coming Monday. The topic is Theodore Roosevelt River. Specifically, my client and I will be exploring 1901-1905, the first presidential administration of Roosevelt. We’ll be looking closely, carefully, for applications to my client’s River. These applications are right there, waiting for us to … [Read more...]
December 14, 2012 by
Today, of course, is the time of tragedy. A gunman, aged in his early 20s, shot and killed nearly 30 people in a school in Newtown, Connecticut. Among the dead as of this writing are 18 children and both of the killer's parents. My first thought is this: there is a strain of total emptiness running through a swath of American youth. Whether guns, explosive, drugs, or something else, a shockingly … [Read more...]
December 13, 2012 by
We spend a lot of time in the future. Maybe more than we realize. The future is a major part of leadership. Because of that, we would do well to be more aware of how frequently we refer to the time that is ahead of us. I’ll give you two examples from current events. First, the Obama Administration has announced lately that the government of Syria won’t be allowed to use chemical weapons against … [Read more...]
December 10, 2012 by
The meeting-after-the-meeting is a reality of leadership. In case you don’t recognize it from my phrasing, I’ll describe it to you. You go to a meeting. By definition, it has more than one person. It is pre-arranged. It usually has an agenda; if not, there is at least some shared thought about a topic that needs discussing. Also, most meetings come with a general idea of duration. The … [Read more...]
December 4, 2012 by
Listening, we’re told, is one of the keys to leadership. Instead of smashing ahead with only their thoughts and desires in mind, a leader listens. A leader listens to others. We’re also told that there is more than simply listening. There is active listening. That’s when you’re engaged and connected to the other person or other people—those to whom you’re listening—that you can practically repeat … [Read more...]
November 27, 2012 by
I’ve starting doing something new with one of my favorite and most requested sessions, Abraham Lincoln and the One-Armed Man. Each time before I conduct the session, I copy out, by hand, the Gettysburg Address. It’s fifteen of the best non-family minutes I’ll spend on any given day. For the time it takes to copy it down, I’m doing something that Lincoln did, that he actually, physically, … [Read more...]
