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| June 26, 2007 |
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| Whether you like or dislike his opinions, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson is the epitome of the self-defined leader. Check out this Democracy Now! interview with Amy Goodman, and note his comments about his good friend, Mitt Romney. (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/25/1421228) |
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Hillary has a big problem. And I’m bummed. Five years ago, I really wanted her to ultimately sit in the Oval office. I thought she was bright and made a ton of sense on many issues, and I thought the country was prime for more feminine influence in its leadership.
Sure, she is now on the correct side - for electability purposes - of the Iraq war issue, but her path there makes me question – all right, doubt - her leadership capabilities. I have been following her position on the war closely since 2002, and there is no other way to characterize it other than 100% political. Check out the June 3, 2007 issue of The New York Times Magazine (article link), written by Jeff Girth and Don Van Natta, Jr., which squares with my notes about her over the past five years, and you’ll see a candidate who has acted like a candidate – as opposed to a leader - from the outset. First, she voted for the war in October 2003. At the time, she argued that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and gave assistance to Al Qaeda. In so arguing, she clearly did not read, although she had access to, the complete classified version of the 90-page N.I.E. report that raised a substantial doubt that Hussein in fact had WMDs or had any connection with Al Qaeda. (Senator Bob Graham read it and urged his fellow senators before the October vote to read it because it undermined the argument for war.) Just prior to the October 2002 vote, she voted against a bill sponsored by Carl Levin that would require a two-step process, i.e., seek a UN resolution allowing force and, if not procured, come back to Congress for a final vote on going it alone against Iraq.
For the next two years, she sounded like President Bush on Iraq. In February 2005, she visited Iraq and spoke about how well the war was going. She told “Meet the Press” that it would be a mistake to withdraw troops or to set a timetable for withdrawal. As electorate sentiment turned against the war later that year, Clinton went on record for the first time supporting a Demo proposal for asking Bush to prepare a timetable for withdrawal. The proposal failed, but this marked a change in Clinton’s stance.
In a letter to supporters in November 2005, she established her position that her October 2002 vote in support of the war was conditioned upon Bush’s promise to exhaust diplomatic means before using force, and Bush had not honored his promise. Interestingly, she personally met with Bush in December 2005 and said not one word about the Iraq war. This most recent explanation for her vote remains today.
What has continued to shift, however, is what to do about the situation. From November 2005 until recently, she has favored withdrawal, but without a timetable. But in May 2007, she voted against the emergency war funding bill, at least implying that a deadline is now needed. Her web site now says she supports a plan that would have troops out of Iraq by 2013.
So…how does she fare as a leader? Unfortunately, not very good. Self-defined? Hell no! I have no idea what she values and believes. Credible? No way! Stunning lack of consistency and congruency in words and actions. Personally, I have no confidence in her. Courageous? Where? All I see is her trying to figure out where the pack is and getting in front of it. |
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| June 25, 2007 |
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I think the 2008 presidential election is going to be about only two things: What is his or her position on Iraq? Who is the best leader? The two elements are, of course, not independent.
On Iraq, we have just over 2/3 of Americans opposing the war and wanting us out. If the election were today, we’d elect a president who agrees with us on this issue. That puts most of the Republicans out of the running…if the election were held today.
On leadership, way more than 2/3 of Americans have been watching…indeed feeling… a leadership vacuum develop over the past six years and want it filled with a leader who offers what we expect in a president.
Politicians must be or do the following to be effective as leaders: (1) produce results (positive outcomes or the effects desired by constituents); (2) self-defined (intimately know their values, beliefs, higher purpose, and vision of the future, and express them clearly); (3) forward-thinking (envision exciting, positive possibilities for the future); (4) credible (possess competency and displays consistency and congruency in words and behavior, such that others have a deep confidence in their abilities and character); (5) inspiring (listen deeply to constituents to discover a common purpose, then give life to their vision by communicating it so that constituents see themselves in it); (6) people oriented (openhearted, with a genuine love for people); (7) courageous (able to make the tough calls and perform the tough tasks, and willing to take risks) (8) energetic (possess a deep reservoir of positive energy and the ability to generate new energy throughout the ups and downs of political life); and (9) focused (able to concentrate energy and attention in the pursuit of their objectives).
The Bush vacuum? Certainly in producing results (there haven’t been any significant positive outcomes or effects desired by the majority of Americans), forward thinking (telling us each week how we are going to die at the hands of terrorists isn’t quite the forward thinking trait we want in our leaders), credibility (I don’t even have to comment here), inspiring (he doesn’t give a shit what we think), people oriented (“openhearted” just doesn’t fit with all the sponsorship of torture, spying, and killing), and energetic (the frat boy likes his sleep, even as Rome burns). While he is self-defined, Americans are puking on his definition. And while he is courageous and focused to some, he’s utterly stupid to what is becoming an overwhelming majority.
To come: How well do the candidates fill the vacuum? |
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| June 21, 2007 |
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Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco mayor, is now engaged in a big battle with a supervisor who alleges Newsom uses or has used cocaine. This after last October’s report that the 39-year-old Newsom was dating a 20-year-old woman who was seen drinking at public functions, and February’s revelation that Newsom had an affair with the wife of his campaign manager and good friend, and that he was seeking help for alcohol addiction.
What about a leader immersed in drama? Can he really be effective? I think not. I mean, how could he? Bring enough drama around yourself as a leader, and your credibility will erode to the point you can’t do your job as a leader. Credibility means “possessing competency and displaying consistency and congruency of word and behavior, such that others have a deep confidence in his or her abilities and behavior.” I don’t get the feeling a whole lot confidence is being engendered by Newsom’s words and behavior of late.
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| June 19, 2007 |
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Ironically, like the nutrient-rich ashes from which the phoenix rose, the primary cause of intuition’s fall — technology and the resulting flood of data pouring into our left brains — is fueling its revival. We are overwhelmed with data. We are confused. We are tired. We are ungrounded. We are not making better decisions than we used to. We are not behaving better. We need to find an anchor in the storm — an anchor that will help us manage the data better and with less stress, an anchor that will make the data more relevant and thus help us make better decisions and behave better, an anchor that will bring us closer to reality, that will ground us and rejuvenate us. That anchor is intuition.
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| June 18, 2007 |
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During the past two hundred years, most people have shifted from balanced brain beings to primarily left-brain beings. As the velocity and complexity of life accelerated, we increasingly focused outward. This change was not due to a conscious choice; we were simply been overwhelmed by the external world. With very little time to ground ourselves amid the onslaught of external data, we lost confidence in intuition. We came to rely disproportionately on rational thinking.
Technology. Ever so insidiously, technological advances opened up data channels, or means of exchanging information. They began to overfeed our left brains. Today, we simply don’t have time to fully use our right brain and, specifically, its powerful ability to intuit. Intuition has largely been crowded out of our existence as a tool. It still exists, of course. We have each experienced the first impression that proved to be absolutely correct. Yet we just don’t have the time or energy to use or develop our intuition. And because we don’t use it much, we don’t trust it much.
Childhood Conditioning. As technology began to change the shape of industry in the nineteenth century, industry began to change the shape of families and education. As men and women began working away from their homes and farms, the education of children changed from home schooling to collective education. Schools began to proliferate and their attendance increased. To effectively manage them, teachers, administrators, and parents understandably, increasingly relied upon objective tools. The result was that the left brain, home to the thinking process necessary to formulate a “right” answer, or distinguish between a right and wrong answer, increased in importance vis-à-vis the right brain.
Social Conditioning. Another phenomenon of recent history is the development of a culture that discourages personal responsibility. Our governments, court systems, and religions encourage many of us to believe we are without power. Many of us believe our lives are determined by other people and forces beyond our control. With the pervasiveness of this belief, it is easy to see why we ignore and distrust this powerful driver of intuition that burns inside of us. We feel these outside forces have control over us and they want “correct”—objectively defined and verifiable—behavior from us. We’d better provide that behavior or we will suffer.
Fact Addiction. Somewhere along the way, in our pursuit of the “right” answer, many of us became addicted to facts. Indeed, we associate “facts” with virtue and rightness. Many think that those armed with facts are more credible, indeed better, than the unarmed. But what is a fact? It’s a mere snapshot of reality. As a snapshot, it is limited in time, range, and context. First, it is only valid as of the time of the snapshot. What existed at the moment of the snapshot is now different and will be different again at every moment going forward. Second, the snapshot only captures a limited range of reality at the time of the snapshot, and its value is maximized only where we can understand it in the context of everything outside of its range. While I may try hard to document the reality outside of the snapshot, it is impossible for me to really know everything that existed outside the range.
The Mega-Size Organization. With the booming human population and our creation of the Industrial Revolution and Information Age, the number of large organizations has increased dramatically and organizations have increased dramatically in size. Today leaders of large organizations are often far removed from both the members of their organization and the people—such as customers, suppliers, and shareholders—who influence the organization from the outside. They create policy and then employ multitudes of people to execute it. They control the behavior of their employees the only way they know how—through objective means. Performance and productivity are measured, weighed, and analyzed. Just as there is little room for pe |
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| June 17, 2007 |
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At some point in the millions of years of human evolution, the right side of the human brain (the inward focused, non-logical side of our brain, fueled from deep within, versus the left side, which houses our rational, logical capabilities and is externally fueled and focused) developed a capacity for intuition. Until the last two centuries, we relied upon intuition as heavily as we relied upon our other five senses. We were “balanced-brain beings.”
Think about a world where the only data you could access is that which you perceived through your tongue, ears, skin, nose, and eyes. Physically, you were limited by how far your feet would carry you. In your effort to survive, you undoubtedly relied greatly on rational thought and your left brain. You saw rain clouds gathering on the horizon, sensed cooler temperatures and higher humidity on your skin, and deduced that rain was likely and you better bring in the meat that was drying on racks outside your cave. But the amount of data that could be perceived through your five senses and fed into your rational thought processes was so limited that you also relied greatly upon the non-logical senses in your right brain—that is, you relied on your intuition. You may have felt the presence of valuable water beyond a distant mountain. Long before you saw or heard anything, you likely felt the threat of an approaching pack of predatory animals. Simply by seeing the silhouette of a stranger approaching in the distance, you may have sensed he was from a friendly tribe and thus meant no harm. In fact, in shamanic cultures, going back tens of thousands of years, the greater your intuition, the more likely you were to be the tribal leader and healer.
Next: The Fall Of Intution. |
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| June 13, 2007 |
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Nearly all executives I work with are plagued to some degree by the nasty infection of micro-management. A high-impact leader doesn’t disempower people, diminish their confidence, sap their initiative, and stifle their ability to think for themselves. The reality is that if you micro-manage enough, you are just about guaranteed that the folks you are micro-managing will not be able to function without you. High-impact leadership is about active involvement – using knowledge to probe and question, bring weaknesses to light, and rally people to correct them.
My advice to micro-managers (once they see themselves doing it, which often takes months and even years – leaders just don’t want to admit to the infection), dispensed on almost a daily basis, is to work to replace themselves. When you are replaceable as a leader, you have succeeded. I tell micro-managing executives, "Set a goal that, in three months, if you were to die suddenly, your company will function without a hitch and possibly better than if you were alive." Most say, "But why would I do that? If I become replaceable, what is my value?" My answer: "That is exactly your value. This is what the best leaders do. You will be highly valued because of your ability to build an organization that does not need any one person steering the ship. Look at Jack Welch. The greatest testament to his leadership ability is the fact that he left and Jeffrey Immelt, without a hitch, made it an even better company." |
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| June 9, 2007 |
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| The BlackBerry 8800 smartphone rocks like no other device I've owned. I've been a Berry user since 1999 and a Berry phone user since 2003. I always felt I was missing out on a lot of features offered in non-Berry phones, but believe the Berry platform for handling e-mail is superior to any other. This 8800, though, is the "great catch-up." Same old fantastic e-mail system but with enhancements like wireless sync of any change made to Outlook's calendar, contacts, notes, or tasks. Make a chenge on your device and moments later it appears on your desktop. And vice-versa. A trackball mouse that puts the old scrolling wheel to shame. Brilliant color screen. Full QWERTY keyboard, a bit more cramped than older Berries but very manageable. Fast Internet access. I'm actually posting this blog via the Berry's Internet, 1,000 miles away from my computer. And a terrific Telenav GPS system (for a few dollars per month) that has worked easily and flawlessly across the country. It also has a media center that I bolstered with an optional 1G card. I downloaded a thousand family photos and watch a slideshow at least once a week. I can also load music and video on it if I want. No cam, but who cares? Bravo to the RIM/BlackBerry folks. Doesn't get much better than this. |
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| Re my June 7 post on travel, my friend and business partner, Carl Stratton, points out that the leaders of our commercial airlines are absolutely crazy to not be dramatically improving the passenger experience in the face of the air taxi business that is about to explode into a viable alternative to commercial air travel. Probably not certifiably crazy, but something's whack. Are they blind, making a poor business judgement that the competitive threat is not real, or perhaps too strapped for money or too regulated to effect any real changes? Who knows? But I'd be shorting airline stocks now. |
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| June 7, 2007 |
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| Just finishing a week of zig-zagging across the country on commercial airlines (with two flight cancellations, two delays, filthy airplanes, non-sensical security, and a few hostile flight attendants) and feeling more strongly than ever that every company that has highly paid executives traveling frequently has to look hard at the option of using private jets. Post 9/11, commercial air travel sucks in every way. And with the dawn of the new very light jets costing under $2 million, the economic case is much easier to make. Old school says private jets are the ultimate indulgence in luxury. New school says they are fast becoming a business necessity. |
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| A young fellow by the name of Tim Ferriss and I share a fantastic literary and media agent, Steve Hanselman of LevelFive Media (www.l5m.net). Tim recently published the runaway bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek (www.fourhourworkweek.com). Steve introduced Tim to me a few weeks ago and Tim shared a number of his book promotion ideas with me. I just read his book and recommend it highly for a few reasons. First, it’s highly readable and fun. Second, he really captures the spirit of a great number of twenty-somethings who are not interested in the mainstream career paths of our and prior generations. They want to enjoy life as it unfolds in the present moment. They don’t see much value in busting their asses and working crazy long hours just to save money so they have a stash set aside when they retire. In fact, and I love this because I totally agree, they don’t really understand the whole concept of retirement. I love the energy and passion with which he communicates this, and we as leaders would be foolish to not listen closely and try to understand how it affects us and our organizations. Third, he offers great practical tips, with resources provided, for simplifying both our personal and professional lives. Finally, he has some great ideas for building successful product-based businesses with minimal effort. I don’t know that we can all create four-hour workweeks out of this book, but I know we would all be better off in some way or ways for having read this book and applying some of his ideas. |
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