What holds you back? It’s a deceptively common question, but it only gets provocative (and useful) when we decline to accept the first answer. Especially from ourselves. I remember the first time I really heard it myself. It was 20 years ago this month at a major business conference where I ventured into a conversation with a person sitting next …
This was no boating accident
It’s that feeling you get when a fire truck goes racing by – you wonder what happened but you’re just glad it isn’t you. Wells Fargo Bank saw its sterling brand go up in flames last week as the feds fingered their community banking division for creating two million bogus accounts using customer funds without their knowledge. Analogies escape us. …
Contrarian By Nature
It was just a few months ago that the global stock markets crumpled under the hammer of the Brexit vote. Exchanges around the world logged losses totally $2 trillion in just two days, with indexes down an average of 7-8% worldwide. A friend of mine was bemoaning the turmoil and asked me (misdirected in that I know almost nothing about …
The Irresistible Pull Of Purpose
It was supposed to be all about getting away. The annual “Platinum Club” retreat was a treat for the company’s top sales performers — several days at a swanky resort in the Dominican Republic with fabulous food, drinks, music and outdoor sports. It had been a great year, and they had earned it. Normally, the on-site resort staff at such …
It’s more than a game
Football, if not most sports in general, is our idolatrous avatar. The gladiators on the field breathe life into our highest ideals when they excel; we are repulsed when their fumbles or thuggery betray us. The coaches and owners are the bosses we always wish we had, or wish we could never see again. It’s a blood sport, on many …
The Value of Values
We are heading into the holiday season, so we know that begins the advertising parade of: Retailers proudly announcing they will not be open on Thanksgiving. We’re bucking the tide of commercialization of the holidays because we’re all about family as one of our values. We’re not even opening on Friday morning until at least the dew has been warmed …
Restoring Our True Gifts
When was the last time you built something — I mean the stand there in the garage or backyard or craft room with a satisfied smirk on your face kind of build? A “build” that forced you out of your comfort zone, came with sparse instructions, confronted you with few tools other than your wits and resolve? One where the …
Leadership By Design
When was the last time you walked through or looked up at a building – public or private – and felt moved? Where was it? What did it stir in you – a sense of history, drive, hope, ambition, care, purpose? When was the last time you worked with a leader who made you feel the same way? Daniel Libeskind is …
A command of leadership
What a horrible way to die. That’s the strangest but most riveting thought as I stooped and dodged my way through the dark green interior of the B-17 parked in the throbbing sun at Lunken Field in Cincinnati last weekend. Barely room for two crewmen to pass each other in here as the plane would buck and dodge through a …
Finding Your Voice
A long time ago, I had B.B. King’s album Live At The Regal. I also had an acoustic jazz guitar given to me by my fourth-grade teacher, who sensed I would develop a more enduring affection for music if I wasn’t planted on a piano bench ham-handing passages from Chopin. I was fascinated by the sounds that poured out of my …