7 Attributes to Tell if Your Organization is Getting Clobbered

Leadership | The 7 Attributes of World Class Organizations

What can you accomplish in a flash of time?

It lasts about 300 to 400 milliseconds. It occurs about 10 to 20 times per minute.

Over the course of a day, excluding about 8 hours of sleep, it amounts to about an hour and 20 minutes on average, a fair chunk of time in our waking day.

If you consider that the universe is about 14 billion years old, about 54,000 years would pass by during any given span of those milliseconds.

Some might argue that we can’t see anything during that period.

Yes, all that happens in the blink of an eye … about 1/3 of a second.

It ain’t much but in those small fractions, a lot can occur.

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Leadership Insight | Don’t Gamble with the Storm Clouds

Fly to the Light!Just after obtaining his pilot’s license, a dear friend from the Midwest found himself surrounded by unexpected thunderstorms. He clambered for every streak of sunshine he could find, ultimately zigzagging his way to a safe landing:[quote]“That principle is a metaphor for my life. It seems that I…

Leadership | Flying blind? Assume Crash Position!

Do You Need to Start Your Own Bonfire? Barely 500 years ago, Girolamo Savonarola was an outspoken and strident critic of the current order, angrily vilifying the worldly possessions that tempted people to become sinners. He was ultimately excommunicated from the Catholic church, condemned for heresy, stripped of his priestly garments, hanged, and his body burned in the town square in Florence, Italy, a stark and ignominious ending to a life committed to vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Leadership Lessons | Does Mom think you should be a snitch?

“God grant that men of principle shall be our principal men.”

– Thomas Jefferson

Does Mom think you should be a snitch?

Some of you may be familiar with the famed but controversial West Point Cadet Honor Code: “A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do.”

But didn’t somebody say: “Don’t be a tattletale?”

Few of us would doubt the wisdom of “will not lie, cheat or steal”, the core of many of the values we learned as children.
One of the other things we learned as children, though, was, “don’t be a tattletale.”
Be loyal to your friends, don’t snitch on them, and don’t go running to mommy when you observe a small infraction of the rules. It doesn’t help that we’ve seen countless movies since then where a snitch ends up on the wrong side of the grass.

What about the part, “or tolerate those who do”?

Thus, the controversial phrase, “or tolerate those who do.” (more…)

Leadership | Can we really trust you to fake authenticity?

If you’re not authentic, who are you?

What a surprise!

Years ago I was traveling regularly to Asia, and wanted to buy my wife a Cartier tank watch, a style that was very popular at the time.
I visited a reputable jeweler where most of my partners had been shopping for over 20 years, and found exactly what I was looking for. My wife was ecstatic, and I saved a lot of money over what I would’ve spent here.

… and a bummer!

[pullquote]“If you seek authenticity for authenticity’s sake you are no longer authentic.”~ Jean-Paul Sartre[/pullquote]
One day, it stopped working. Cartier is a highly reputable brand, so I didn’t hesitate to send it to their New York facility for repair.
Imagine my stunned surprise when several weeks later they returned it with a note that said it was a reproduction.
A fake.
I not only bought the watch from an established retailer, but I had the beautiful Cartier box, a written certificate of authenticity and a warranty card. All of it was fake.
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Leadership | How many distractions are YOU creating?

How many distractions do you own?

Does it seem like we’ve talked about distractions a lot in the past?
Maybe it’s just the ones in my head that makes me think so … which of course, is a distraction itself. (In the interest of full disclosure, I did write about distractions last April, “Are Distractions Destroying Your Brain?”
In “Just Plans … or Sleeping around”, I responded to the tempest by offering some ideas about how to defend your castle by building a moat, then some barricades, then some lookout posts. (more…)

Leadership | Your mom is watching: Is your moral compass malfunctioning?

You grabbed the last piece of cake before your sister could get it. The principal called and said your daughter broke another girl’s toy because she got to it first. Your son pushed a boy on the playground because that boy got the last place on the teeter-totter.

“You know better than that!” Isn’t that what our mothers would have said — our fathers, too?

Mom always said, “You Know Better Than That”

What made them think that we knew better than that? (more…)

Leadership | How to Keep Smart People from Killing Each Other

How to Keep Smart People from Killing Each Other
This phrase is powerful in so many ways.
Smart people can often be prima donnas – I’ve heard those accusations myself … the first part, of course, not the second (and typically disguised in less elegant terms) … but the brilliance of some people is often more blinding than enlightening.
Fortune magazine recently asked Dr. Mehmet Oz about the best leadership advice he had ever received.

Keep Smart People from Killing Each Other

As a Chief Resident associated with Columbia University, Dr. Oz’ mentor told him that the hardest part of being a leader was “keeping smart people from killing each other.” (more…)

Leadership Lessons | Do you have the magic elixir of True Grit?

What Does It Take to be a Great Leader?

Nothing in life travels in a neat formation accompanied by bugles and cavalry. A lot of it shows up filthy and unkempt, prominent in the mess we’ve made around our foxhole. These lessons are typically the offspring of hubris, naivete and ignorance … or from overlooking the land mines hidden beneath our feet.

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[pullquote]“Being in the lead and winning is not the same thing.” ~ Rory McIlroy[/pullquote]

What a dramatic Masters finish tells us about succeeding

No, really, I had no intention of writing about the Masters golf tournament — again. You might want to start by looking at Madness or a Masters in Business … but, this 75th anniversary “tune-a-mint” that ended a few weeks ago offered more lessons than a kindergarten classroom.

What is True Grit? Do you think you have it?

Most of us think of Rooster Cogburn, either in the persona of John Wayne or Jeff Bridges, when True Grit is mentioned.

But, what is true grit? Never say die? It’s never too late? All those, and more, applied to the crushing legion wrangling for the green jacket on that fateful Sunday. Eight players shared the lead over a few hours on Sunday. As in life, the contrasts were remarkable.

Rory McIlroy, who held the lead over 63 holes of the tournament, entered Sunday with a four stroke lead and watched it quickly evaporate as his game imploded — he shot 80 on the final day — as contenders climbed over him from every side. Eight players as far behind as seven strokes down tied for the lead at some point on that bucolic Sunday afternoon.

Life is perplexing blend of success and failure (more…)