Nobel Laureate Albert Schweitzer, perhaps best known as a medical missionary, knew a thing or two about finding satisfaction in life. “I don’t know what your destiny will be,” he once said, “but one thing I do know. The ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how…
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Ken Blanchard is to leadership development as Bill Belichick is to football and as Oprah Winfrey is to media. He thinks big thoughts, innovates with big ideas, and does it all in a way that makes you say to yourself “Well, of course. That makes perfect sense.” By any measure, Blanchard is one of the…
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My travels have taken me to many interesting sites around the world: Michelangelo’s majestic David in Florence. The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Mount Rushmore. Scotland’s Edinburgh Castle. London’s Big Ben. But I’m especially drawn to sites that, although beautiful in their own way, are more about function than aesthetics. I love lighthouses. The first lighthouses…
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In this rush-rush digital age, many people rely on email and text messages for their communication. Smartphones and keyboards can certainly provide efficiency. But if effectiveness is what you’re after, human conversation is still the best way to connect with other people to reach mutual understanding and solve problems. Unfortunately, a lot of people still…
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The world is getting too small for both an Us and Them. We do not have separate fates. Like it or not, we are bound together. This is a reality in all our venues: As a family around the kitchen table. As a community in the town square. As a nation currently polarized as perhaps…
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For many people, January is a time for reflection and resolution. Reflection on achievements (and opportunities missed) in the previous year, and resolution to do better in the new year. The paths to personal improvement are as varied as opinions on goals worth pursuing. Nearly six years ago I offered my view on the value…
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Regardless of where we may stand on someone’s spectrum of identify politics, many of us are both disturbed and sickened by today’s public discourse. Social media, TV talking heads, and once-respected media outlets have devolved into steaming caldrons of vitriol. The incivility is on display even (especially?) in the once-hallowed halls of Congress. Whatever happened…
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For any leader at any level in any organization, clarity of purpose is a critical ingredient of success. In other words, you must know where you’re headed and why you’re headed there. A compass provides the ideal metaphor. Just as a compass points toward a magnetic field, your personal “true north” directs your path and…
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Being a long-time student of leadership, I’ve naturally heard a lot of pithy quotes about the subject. One of my favorites is from Margaret Thatcher: “Being a leader is like being a lady. If you have to remind people you are, you aren’t.” Well said, Madame Prime Minister! And another, by John Quincy Adams: “If…
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