Ego, "the 'I' that distinguishes us from others," including "our self-esteem and self-image," but also "our conceit and self-importance" is a tricky, tricky&nbsp;beast.&nbsp; A devil on our shoulder, a gremlin in the machinery.
On the one hand, it is necessary, essential.&nbsp; Without it, we are paper dolls, folded by the least life has to offer or brings our way.&nbsp; But too much of it and we are rigid, always right, enrobed in our self-righteousness and sense of entitlement or destiny.
In its extremes<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;too much and too little<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;it is&nbsp;as easy to spot as the peacock.&nbsp;
Too Little, Exhibit A: The abused, who apologizes for her abuse.
Too Much, Exhibit A:&nbsp;The tyrant, whose way is the only way.
In between, we find a&nbsp;diorama of figurines, from the insecure who, like the puffer fish, make themselves appear larger than they really are as an act of self-protection.&nbsp; Or bullies,&nbsp;the&nbsp;hyenas of humankind, who identify those whom they perceive as a step slower or out of sync with the herd, catching them alone at the watering hole or in a wild turn on an open field.&nbsp; Or the indignant.&nbsp; Or&nbsp;sometimes even martyrs, who originally felt called to champion a cause in someone else's name, or on behalf of others, but who&nbsp;may lose their way once they close their ears and become tone-deaf to the changing landscape or situation at hand.
There are dozens and dozens of archetypes smeared across&nbsp;our little&nbsp;stage, each of us&nbsp;having played many such parts in the course of our life.
I see it every day; we all do.&nbsp; For all his "honesty" and "straight talk," Donald Trump is periodically behaving&nbsp;rather badly: mean, divisive, sometimes employing hateful speech that borders on bullying, leaving very little room for the gray of life and which is, to my way of thinking at least, sexist, racist, superior, bigoted.&nbsp; I'm as ready as the next guy for a transparent leader, for spin-free and politics-free zones.&nbsp; Gosh, our country needs&nbsp;this desperately.&nbsp; We are lost; marooned.&nbsp;&nbsp;There is no America, just islands, camps, tribes, parties, factions, lobbyists, separatists.&nbsp; And Trump's absolutely&nbsp;right: political&nbsp;correctness can be a blight.&nbsp; But to lump entire people into&nbsp;categories, to deride said&nbsp;categories, to marginalize others, to be dismissive about what Warren Buffett succinctly describes as "the lottery of birth" (having been blessed, due to grace or chance alone, to be born in the United States or any progressive country) is absolute foolishness.&nbsp; Trump's&nbsp;name is so fitting, because his ego trumps everything.&nbsp; He appears to believe that he is right about everything and is equally intolerant of&nbsp;contrary opinions.&nbsp; I cannot fathom the circus his governance style would&nbsp;create.&nbsp;&nbsp;As much as people might like it&nbsp;to be&nbsp;the case, government does not operate like business.&nbsp; There are times I&nbsp;absolutely wish it did, but our government is a legislative democracy, not an autocracy or private venture or profitably oriented enterprise with shareholders and so, on the face of it, his approach will always be unsuitable.&nbsp; We need a statesman or stateswoman, but one who can, in fact, effect change to create unity, whether through the next figurative moonshot or something else larger than partisan politics.
But he is not alone, for if we are not careful, and when we are our worst selves rather than our best selves,&nbsp;a great many of us could be castigated for our example.&nbsp; It's not just politicians who believe they are above the law, or professional athletes, or celebrities.&nbsp; No, in&nbsp;a world that Andy Warhol would have loved, we are each enticed to create, proliferate, and maintain a cult of personality, be it through Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or&nbsp;Tumblr or wherever.&nbsp;&nbsp;
And the irony is not lost on this writer,&nbsp;who named a company after himself.
But we shall get to that.
Whether we lack ego, and&nbsp;forfeit ourselves to others' pleasures or dominion, or overcompensate for our shortcomings by bullying, or believe we are the smartest person in the room...chosen, designated, called, destined, whatever...and adopt a narrow-minded and "me-centric" worldview, we all fall short.
When things must be our way, or our way is the only way, or our way is the right way, well,&nbsp;one's world becomes very tiny indeed.&nbsp; It is inclusion, involvement, collaboration,&nbsp;diversity, delegation,&nbsp;even situationally appropriate submission that&nbsp;returns oxygen to the room, enlarges the table, leads to variety and better ideas and more amazing outcomes.
The "heroic manager" (be it a command-and-control throwback to 1955 or Steve Jobs himself in his early days before his dismissal and wandering in the desert which led to contrition)&nbsp;is a dying breed.&nbsp; I still stumble across it now and again, but even in the&nbsp;military, and paramilitary organizations, and the church itself<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;organizations which have every right to practice bureaucracy, considering they are among our oldest and were originally designed as hierarchies<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;I see&nbsp;autocratic management&nbsp;becoming all the more pass&eacute;.&nbsp; People are simply too aware, too educated, too empowered to abide it.
So where does this leave the leader?&nbsp; How does he or she strike the right balance, the right chord?&nbsp; How much ego is too little, and how much is too much?
As was put to me yesterday in conversation, "Perhaps like all things, Blake, it's a matter of moderation.&nbsp; One must constantly shift and find the right gear."
Well said.&nbsp; I couldn't agree more.
In hindsight, and with foresight, this is true.&nbsp; There are certainly issues in life which are black and white, but it is also true that most are quite complicated, and with complication comes&nbsp;different perspectives on&nbsp;the same issues, alternative paths up and out and, therefore, a whole lotta gray.
Among others, which are arguably too esoteric or spiritual for a business blog, two northern stars which have often guided my own sensibilities are derivatives of The Golden Rule and&nbsp;The Craftsman's Pride.
Regarding the former, I often ask myself, "In this situation, how would I want someone to treat my daughter?&nbsp; If she were to come home and share this scenario with me, to describe others' treatment of her, how would I feel about that, about them, about her behavior in this situation?&nbsp; And what would I do if the shoe were on the other foot...if I was 'the jerk' in her story?"&nbsp; It is true: only at my best am I so enlightened, but it's a star nonetheless, one which usually compels me to pause, to breathe deep, to ponder, and which later convicts me to re-think my ego, stance, position, or sense of self-righteousness or indignation.
Regarding the latter, a craftsman's pride, the company is called Leath Group because we are a group.&nbsp;&nbsp;And foremost, one that stands behind&nbsp;its work<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;so much so that we are willing to sign our name to it, like a silversmith or cobbler of old who put his initials on the bottom of his&nbsp;wares or inside a pair of boots he'd lovingly stitched.&nbsp; It's not&nbsp;ego behind the name, its personalization and accountability and a nod to simpler times.&nbsp; We could have named ourselves ACME Inc. or Consortium Consulting but, honestly, I prefer buying from Jim or Bob or Steve, not some faceless conglomerate, and so we began our work in that vein, and it stuck.
Our ethos, however, which may fly in the face of our branding<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;and gosh, I hope it does not<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;is generally one of anonymity.&nbsp; We are, at our core, creators and cultivators commissioned to plant and grow something small which, if successful,&nbsp;becomes our client's, not our own.&nbsp; Like any parent, our ultimate success and joy&nbsp;are best revealed in the well-being of our child.&nbsp; Try as we might, there are always genetics and internal/external forces beyond our control with which we must contend, but we strive mightily to be good examples, good role models, and to love unconditionally and without bias.&nbsp; To create great work products, deliver great services, then let them go.
Along the way, whether one is a politician, business leader, military leader, church leader, parent, you name it, one is constantly shifting gears while also remaining consistent and directed and pulled toward a northern star.&nbsp; This creates the much needed sense of stability, for oneself and others, while also fostering adaptability, malleableness, suppleness to bend in the wind without breaking.
To know oneself, one's strengths and weaknesses, and to be confident in his or her being, while also being willing to become invisible when it is the right thing to do, or to take the reins and grab the mic and take the stage when it is the right thing to do is precisely the shifting of gears that I'm describing.&nbsp; And as you know from personal experience, there is no rulebook, it is often gray, and it requires a deft touch, an ability to read the room and the situation, and the courage to vanish or show-up and absolutely represent.
Sometimes, it even requires we, as told to me by a former mentor, "Know when to lay it down and walk away."
I find, and perhaps you'll agree, that sometimes "the I" that is in each of us can become an Idol.&nbsp;&nbsp;Or, something that we do, or are, or perceive we stand for can become idolatrous because it means too much to us, it defines us, is addictive to us, or we cannot walk away from it when we should.&nbsp; We become obstinate, intractable, stubborn; we cannot let it go.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Consider these examples, all of which are complicated and have 50/50 sides:
If the day came, weeks or months from now, that Donald Trump found himself unsupportable or unelectable as the Republican nominee, would he fade quietly into the sunset, returning to his enterprises, supportive of those who remain, or would he bash the remaining and perhaps choose to run Independent, thereby splintering the country further and weakening his professed party in the process?&nbsp; In his rulebook, what comes first: self or the greater good?&nbsp; And what is right?&nbsp; Is there a right?
If a County Clerk found herself in violation of the Supreme Court's ruling and refused to issue marriage licenses to&nbsp;same-sex couples, should she stand her moral ground or yield to public opinion and let someone else do the job?&nbsp; What is right in this situation, who determines it, and what's the proper gear for the terrain?&nbsp; These are thorny issues for our Republic, the sort that define church, state, and the separation thereof.
If a hygienist in a dentist's office found herself to be the source of division and gossip, should she walk away for the health and betterment of the practice, or remain?&nbsp; Should she be loyal to the hand that feeds her, or loyal to her own personal convictions, cause, and sense of justice or injustice?&nbsp;
If a corporation becomes a cult of personality, or is represented in the public sphere by a spokesperson who generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue then does bad things in his or her personal life, should this person remain the spokesperson?&nbsp; What is the cost of collateral damage, the price of&nbsp;a corporate soul, and how does&nbsp;an organization&nbsp;tally it?&nbsp; There is a sea of examples to represent this conundrum, from Evel Knievel and Ideal Toys to Tiger Woods and Nike.&nbsp;
In each of these scenarios, one's ego is relevant.&nbsp; The candidate, the clerk, the employee, the representative: each&nbsp;is forced by circumstance to&nbsp;take stock, every conceivable&nbsp;path forward&nbsp;having gray alleys and obstacles, each alternative leading to personal consequences, some of which result in more or less polarization and none of which are simple, easy, or politically unambiguous.
In David Simon's HBO miniseries, Show Me a Hero, Yonkers' mayor Nich Wasicsko initially finds himself victorious, largely because of an unpopular political issue, public housing, which creates an opportunity for him to be the alternative candidate and steal the race.&nbsp; Two years later, the same thing happens to him, and for six more years he pursues the idol of political fame and purpose, repeatedly falling short and, rather than simply walking away and starting a legal practice, he clings to the past, fails to see it for what it was, becomes chronically depressed, and takes his own life standing at his father's grave during the week of his final election loss.&nbsp; It is a searing, heartbreaking story; a Greek tragedy of epic proportion, but set rather intimately in the fourth most populous city in the state of New York.
Kenny Rogers crooned, "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run."&nbsp; It's good advice, and we only wish the gears were thusly labeled.&nbsp; They are often inscrutable, caked in mud, clogged with debris from life's trails, and impossible to free.
I have walked away, and I have doubled down.&nbsp; I've won some, and lost many more.&nbsp; There were rarely buzzing, directional neon signs pointing the way; it was often a sense of intuition that necessitated a light touch (which is in contrast to being grabby-grabby, like the raccoon in Where the Red Fern Grows who won't release the shiny silver object within the log and gets scooped up by Billy and placed in a burlap sack).&nbsp; The illusions of power, of control are precisely that, as Anthony Hopkins&nbsp;reminds Cuba Gooding, Jr. in 1999's Instinct.&nbsp; 
Most everyone learns this lesson, eventually.&nbsp; Our sense of importance, of power, they can become idols in our heart, things which&nbsp;over-inflate our sense of self, distracting us from what is right,&nbsp;or pure,&nbsp;or good.&nbsp; Virtuous.
Left to one's own devices, he or she can lose sight of the big picture, or the long game, or the fact that our lives are but brief sparks, and legacy casts the longer shadow.
So stand for something, and be up for something, possessing a strong and firm foundation of ego that is not subject to whims, or peer pressure, or bullying, or popularity, or the transient in life like fad or fashion, but also be as selfless as possible, as modest and humble and quiet in spirit, knowing that one's works and craftsmanship and contributions to others and to causes greater than oneself are what matter far more, benefit multitudes more, and ultimately lead to greater peace, fulfillment, and contentment in this world.
###

Ego: Destroyer of Worlds

Public Speaking, Stage Fright, and Beyond

True Thanksgiving

Intriguingly,
I&rsquo;ve had four separate yet equally intense interactions recently with clients
who have identified themselves&mdash;or been identified by others&mdash;as
&ldquo;workaholics.&rdquo;&nbsp; 




Too
much of anything, be it rest/relaxation, exercise, eating (regardless the meal)
can be a bad thing.&nbsp; After all, it&rsquo;s the opposite of balance and
moderation.




So
when does work broach holism (Greek
for &lsquo;all, whole, entire, total&rsquo;)?&nbsp; At
what point does one&rsquo;s love for work become more destructive than constructive,
more toxic than healthy, more problematic than advantageous?




Well
first, let me share what four clients recently said about work, and explain why I
found it fascinating:

<ul>
	<li>
	<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt">
	Client 1: &ldquo;I rise early, stay late and often skip lunch because I&rsquo;M A MAN POSSESSED AND LOVE WHAT I DO!&nbsp; My wife will hound me, &lsquo;What did you eat for lunch today&rsquo; and I have no defense.&nbsp; Lunch never crossed my mind.&nbsp; I sat down at 8:30 and the next time I looked up it was past 2:00.&rdquo;
	</div>
	</li>
	<li>
	<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt">
	Client 2: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m the guy who gets pumped on Sunday because TOMORROW&rsquo;S MONDAY!&rdquo; 
	</div>
	</li>
	<li>
	<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt">
	Client 3: &ldquo;Is it a problem that I love what I do and would do it every waking hour if no one stopped me?&rdquo; 
	</div>
	</li>
	<li>
	<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt">
	Client 4: &ldquo;[Malcolm] Gladwell writes about &lsquo;10,000&rsquo; hours to mastery.&nbsp; Piece &lsquo;o cake; blew by that a long time ago!&rdquo;
	</div>
	</li>
</ul>

&nbsp;&nbsp;


Here
we have four people, representative of others, to be sure, who obviously love
what they do, become consumed by it, and wonder what all the fuss is about
&lsquo;work&rsquo; and &lsquo;since when&#39; did it became a dirty word?




I&rsquo;m
not sure I&rsquo;m the best person to submit any counter-arguments to their
attestations, because they actually sound a lot like me, but I will say this:
work becomes workaholism when it crowds, clouds and chokes other people and
interests in &lsquo;exclusionary&rsquo; ways.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s
not the work itself that&rsquo;s the problem, it&rsquo;s the consequences and collateral
damage.&nbsp; 




To
say it most efficiently: when work so defines one&rsquo;s personhood that it
prohibits the flourishing of anything else, Houston, we have a problem.




Loving
one&rsquo;s work, one&rsquo;s job is actually not a curse.&nbsp;
Quite the contrary, it is a blessing.&nbsp;
One becomes absorbed, possessed, and time literally flies by.&nbsp; This is a wonderful, zone-y state in which to
perform, excel, love, live.




But
when your spouse, children, or significant others rarely see you&mdash;or rarely get
to visit with you because you always have your nose in your phone, your eyes
on the screen or your butt in the office, well, that simply won&rsquo;t do.




Not
for long.




There&rsquo;s
certainly burnout, though more likely for workaholics is to experience the
inevitability of dropped relationships.&nbsp;
Late arrivals.&nbsp; Missed
appointments.&nbsp; Slipped schedules.&nbsp; Leaky end-times.&nbsp; Broken promises.&nbsp; Eroded reliability and credibility.&nbsp; 




There
are few blessings more deep and rich than to love one&rsquo;s work.&nbsp; In fact, as I&rsquo;ve written before and you may
recall, the word &lsquo;vocation&rsquo; derives from the Latin &lsquo;vocare,&rsquo; which means &lsquo;to be
called.&rsquo;&nbsp; And Viktor Frankl, author of Man&rsquo;s Search for Meaning and progenitor
of logotherapy argued decisively about the importance of &lsquo;finding meaning in
one&rsquo;s work and life itself.&rsquo;&nbsp; 




I
find that for those who truly love what they do for a living, work is a career,
not a job.&nbsp; Effort and time simply fly
by.&nbsp; In short, their entire life is
richer because their work-life is rich.




In
such instances, I think of work as &lsquo;vocare-therapy,&rsquo; because one is abundantly
fulfilled by work and derives great joy from it.




But
to love one&rsquo;s work at the price of family, of spirituality, of outside
interests, hobbies or personal pursuits is to&nbsp;ski along the edge of a
razor.&nbsp; Sooner or later, one will lose
his or her balance, slip and pay the inevitably high price.




In
the words of Henry David Thoreau, &ldquo;Know
your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it,
unearth it, and gnaw it still,&rdquo; but don&rsquo;t do so in isolation, at the expense of
relationships that matter, or to the detriment of yourself and all that you
might be&mdash;were you to broaden your horizons.




And for heaven&rsquo;s sake, don&rsquo;t be the fool who
strives to work so tirelessly, valiantly, or sacrificially from the age of 18
to 58 in the hope of collecting seashells for thirty years thereafter.&nbsp; These people often forfeit too much along the
way and, with little to do in their twilight years that &lsquo;gives back&rsquo; or &lsquo;adds
to others,&rsquo; they generally find &lsquo;retirement&rsquo; to be the most onerous season of
all.&nbsp; Especially in light of declining
health and barely-known children who have long since moved on and whose wings eclipsed any shallow roots.




Don&rsquo;t wither and fade in the 4th
quarter of your life; find something to do that is altruistic and contributory, just as Bob
Buford describes so wisely in Halftime.&nbsp; After all, if the first forty years are
about success, you owe it to
yourself&mdash;and others&mdash;to make the final forty about significance.

When is Workaholism...Bad?

Earlier this week, perhaps our most beloved client expressed the difficulty their organizational leaders have "incorporating strategic thinking into their daily routine."
Because this challenge is more universal than unique, I thought I would offer up some suggestions that might remind each of us how to do this&mdash;and more consistently.&nbsp; After all, it&rsquo;s tough to see "the theatre of war" within the fray and fog of it.
Attached is a <a target="_blank">seven-page, 3000 word summary with 15 recommendations</a> for how you can be Strategic...Now.
<a href="../../blogging/file.axd?file=2012%2f4%2fBeingStrategicDaily_v3.2.pdf">BeingStrategicDaily_v3.2.pdf (449.10 kb)</a>
Tally-ho!

Being Strategic—Now!

This past week, as I&#39;ve spoken with several professional salespeople, I&#39;ve been ruminating on the importance of hope.&nbsp; Again.&nbsp; It&nbsp;seems that I&#39;m always coming back to it...


You know&nbsp;about hope, right?&nbsp; (It&#39;s much more than simply the birthplace of Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee.)


Hope is the&nbsp;meme that undergirded the entire 2008 Obama presidential campaign,&nbsp;best captured&nbsp;when artist Shepard Fairey&nbsp;rendered that&nbsp;iconic, colorful&nbsp;poster.


Hope is the thing which animates, in large part,&nbsp;logotherapy as created, defined and lived by the&nbsp;inimitable Viktor Frankl.&nbsp;

<iframe src="http://seg.sharethis.com/getSegment.php?purl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blakeleath.com%2Fblogging%2Feditors%2Ftiny_mce%2Fblank.htm&amp;jsref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blakeleath.com%2Fblogging%2Fadmin%2FPages%2FAdd_entry.aspx&amp;rnd=1327015042238" width="0" height="0" frameborder="0" name="stSegmentFrame" style="display: none"></iframe>
<div id="sound">
Hope is the thing which, reliably, Shakespeare wrote about in his 29th sonnet:
</div>
<div>

</div>
<div>
When, in disgrace with fortune and men&#39;s eyes, 
I all 
alone beweep my outcast state 
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless 
cries 
And look upon myself and curse my fate, 
Wishing me like to one more 
rich in hope, 
Featured like him, like him with friends 
possess&#39;d, 
Desiring this man&#39;s art and that man&#39;s scope, 
With what I most 
enjoy contented least; 
Yet in these thoughts myself almost 
despising, 
Haply I think on thee, and then my state, 
Like to the lark at 
break of day arising 
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven&#39;s gate; 
For 
thy sweet love remember&#39;d such wealth brings 
That then I scorn to change my 
state with kings. 

</div>


(I know what he meant when he wrote it) but hope is also the thing that Benjamin Ola Akande (economist, scholar and Dean of the Business School at Webster University in St. Louis) declared, &quot;Is not a strategy.&quot;


(I know what he meant when he wrote it) but&nbsp;it is also the thing that salesman Rick Page wrote an entire book about&nbsp;under the title&nbsp;Hope is Not a Strategy.&nbsp;


And yet today&mdash;and every day&mdash;to those who say, &quot;Hope is not a strategy,&quot; I say poppycock.&nbsp; Balderdash.&nbsp; Baloney.&nbsp; Hogwash.&nbsp; Hooey.&nbsp; Malarkey.&nbsp; 


Hope is THEE strategy.


Hope is THEE magnet that&nbsp;draws each and every one of us upward and forward day after revolving day.


Hope is&nbsp;THEE spark that ignites our fuels and energies, our passions, our meaning.


Hope is&nbsp;a common denominator in virtually every&nbsp;pure denomination, every thriving culture, and&nbsp;any thriving relationship.


There is more to life than &quot;hope,&quot; to be sure.


But in the words of Andy Dufresne (as written by Stephen King in&nbsp;the classic 1994 film adaptation of&nbsp;Shawshank Redemption), &quot;Remember, Red&mdash;hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.&quot;


Hope, unquestionably, is a formidable meme&mdash;a living, breathing, organic, transmitted, viral idea that infects and inoculates humankind.


Martin Seligman proved it (again) in his definitive masterpiece, Learned Optimism, when he documented that the single, most determinant attribute of successful salespeople is not experience, not competence, not discipline, not people skills, not technical prowess, not mastery of the features and benefits but is, instead, flat-out and simply:&nbsp;optimism.&nbsp; 


&quot;That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.&quot;


Hope = Optimism.&nbsp; 


So make your calls and fill your pipeline, but remember this: preceding and succeeding any great pyramid, project, process&nbsp;or plan is the utter hope of it.&nbsp; The dream of it all.

The Primacy of Hope

This past week I spent some time with a&nbsp;company renowned for being a &quot;high tech systems integrator.&quot; 


It got me thinking just a couple degrees differently, so I thought I&#39;d pay the perspective forward. 


So often, an organization focuses on increasing trust, improving performance, incorporating best practices, etc.&nbsp; Yet generally, these efforts occur within isolation, in silos. 


It reminds me of Dr. Frankenstein&#39;s efforts: try as he might to &#39;create life,&#39; he inadvertently created a monster.&nbsp; &quot;The law of unintended consequences,&quot; to be sure. 


My advice? 


A rising tide lifts all boats, so step back--take some time--and work, as Michael Gerber <a href="http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1281983018&amp;sr=1-1">wrote</a> so eloquently, &quot;on your business, not just in or for your business.&quot;&nbsp; (Do the latter two and&nbsp;your business is master.) 


Ask yourself, &quot;If I were to start anew, from a blank slate, how would I design my organization?&quot; rather than, as Frankenstein did, &quot;If I stitch this onto here and attach&nbsp;that to the other thing...I wonder if I can &#39;create life?&#39;&quot; 


Gerber&nbsp;articulated so thoroughly that it&#39;s rarely about what we use on hand...the &#39;additive&#39; nature of mashing things together.&nbsp; This rarely proves successful and frequently convolutes. 


Far better to reconceive your company as if you were&nbsp;the unbiased&nbsp;systems integrator:&nbsp;&quot;What do I need?&nbsp; What do I have?&nbsp; What do I lack?&quot;&nbsp; And then,&nbsp;come to terms with&nbsp;scrapping anything and everything in order to design, sequence and overlay most efficiently. 


I know it&#39;s hard, because we&nbsp;all love our binkies.&nbsp; But as a wise man once shouted, &quot;You can&#39;t expect me to revolutionize transportation and insist that I keep the horse!&quot;

The Value of Systems Integration

While literally countless important questions swirl around us every day, there are few that stimulate me as much as, "What makes a great leader?"
It's a loaded question, of course, because embedded within it is&nbsp;another question, "Are leaders born or made?"&nbsp; (The short answer, for today, is&mdash;"Yes."&nbsp; But more on that Russian doll another time.)
Leadership is such a perennially important issue and this year is no different.&nbsp; Every generation believes its time is unheralded and novel, and ours is not unique: we&nbsp;continue to live&nbsp;in undeniably tremendous times&mdash;an era of explosive growth, ceaseless change and limitless potential.&nbsp; (But again, the same could be said 4,000 years ago...2,000 years ago, and again during the Renaissance...it is no less true today.)
As always, we need great leaders and greater leadership if we are to continue progressing in fields and practices as diverse as geopolitics, science, economics, finance,&nbsp;spirituality (yes, spirituality), innovation and sustainability.&nbsp; From natural to man-made disasters in Alaska, New York, Sri Lanka and India&nbsp;to Thailand, Haiti&nbsp;and Louisiana, the importance&nbsp;and effects of leadership (or its absence) are&mdash;if we are fortunate&mdash;a broadcast away.&nbsp;
In future blogs, I commit to writing more extensively about leadership at large, but today I will limit my thoughts to the importance of formal education (e.g., the University) as a mechanism and greenhouse for creating and growing tomorrow's leaders and will then conclude with a&nbsp;rough&nbsp;table differentiating poor from great leaders.
My preliminary comments are <a href="https://charlierose.com/guests/6283">inspired today by John Sexton</a>, President of New York University ("NYU").&nbsp; My later comments are inspired by <a href="http://www.johnmaxwell.com/">John Maxwell</a>, author of 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (among other books).&nbsp; 
Though I believe there are indeed few 'new things' under the Sun, to the extent these men's ideas are held tenably together, I am to blame.
&nbsp;
Universities for Tomorrow
Describing the University for Tomorrow requires a few thousand dissertions and years of research, to be sure, so I will simply take a slipshod whack to get your mind whirring.&nbsp; You, along with millions of others who are already studying this opportunity, can do the remaining 99.9999%&nbsp;by filling in the gaps.
Fact #1: 70 of today's 85 oldest organizations are, in fact, universities.&nbsp; (Vatican City and Parliament are examples of the other 15.)
Fact #2: If you want to create a vibrant 'center of thought,' create a great university and wait 200 years.
Fact #3: The universities-within-walls which brought us this far will not lead us into the future.
<a href="http://nyuad.nyu.edu/">What NYU is doing in Abu Dhabi </a>is right on the money: it's primarily about people, programs, teaching and research (and just so happens to serendipitously be what my doctoral program was, but on steroids to the&nbsp;100th power).&nbsp; I attended the modest Union Institute &amp; University, the first&nbsp;"University without Walls" and participated in classes&nbsp;hosted in&nbsp;Brattleboro, Montpelier, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Sacramento and Miami.&nbsp; We regularly&nbsp;embraced eccentric&nbsp;professors on sabbaticals from the Ivy League&nbsp;who operated 'unfettered' from many of the restraints they described occurring in Cambridge, New Haven, Providence, Princeton, Philadelphia, Hanover, Ithaca and NYC.&nbsp;
...but I digress...
What&nbsp;encouraged me about Mr. Sexton's comments was the notion that&nbsp;tomorrow's university is an open, diverse, ecumenical, organic circulatory system of ideas and best practices that&nbsp;will focus&nbsp;on&nbsp;creative, exploratory thought and nuanced discourse.
I couldn't agree more.&nbsp;
Indeed, any university, even the ones mired in the past&nbsp;(the ones we revere, historically)&nbsp;are mandated to help students learn to think (and critically) for themselves.&nbsp; But&nbsp;my impression, far too often, is that university life can quickly become&nbsp;High School 2.0,&nbsp;packed to the gills with&nbsp;memorizing facts, completing rote work, regurgitating information or defending knowledge.&nbsp; Unquestionably, we should&nbsp;possess societal standards of 'minimum knowledge,' but&nbsp;I&nbsp;expect this work to occur more fully in grades K-12.&nbsp; The undergraduate years can round-out this process, but the fact that today's ACT and SAT tests still&nbsp;emphasize standardized knowledge, facts, reading, mathematics&mdash;and some writing (though many admissions boards admit they don't quite know what to do with this&nbsp;element yet)&mdash;I remain concerned that our perspectives are deficient.
While the United States is proceeding toward national standards in 48 of the 50 states, China is migrating toward a more exploratory curriculum designed to create great THINKERS and INNOVATORS rather than fact-regurgitators.&nbsp; The ideal approach is, of course, a hybrid that includes the best&nbsp;of both.&nbsp; We need a hygiene-oriented 'bare minimum' (which should be rigorous, not minimalistic; a 'threshold knowledge base' if you will) combined with strong creative and critical thinking skills.&nbsp; IQ has never been a predictor of leadership success and it never will be.&nbsp; Similarly, while&nbsp;standardized admissions are&nbsp;undoubtedly sufficient at predicting university success, they are representative solely of&nbsp;the coursework&nbsp;comprising undergraduate schoolwork&mdash;which illuminates my point and&nbsp;the&nbsp;'smallness' of what we expect today.&nbsp; Moreover, IQ&nbsp;and standardized metrics will never&nbsp;wholly predict&nbsp;a leader's ultimate&nbsp;societal contributions,&nbsp;service to humankind or&nbsp;general performance, so whatever the University of Tomorrow intends to look like, it must quickly learn to shed historic metrics in favor of indices that get at meaning, contribution and potential.
The single greatest determinant of student performance in the classroom is the teacher's expectations.&nbsp; Knowing this, we should ourselves have the highest expectations for tomorrow's teachers, educators, instructors, professors...and each and every one of them should be well-versed in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect">Pygmalion Effect</a>.
Finally, the university of tomorrow should be a bastion of&nbsp;deep discourse, not soundbytes.&nbsp; Mr. Sexton described at length the disadvantage that today's thoughtful politicians start from when they find themselves embroiled in conflicts with opponents adept at dumbing down exceedingly complex issues.&nbsp; The media loves sticky slogans (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_the_economy,_stupid">"It's the economy, stupid."</a>), but we must have an appetite for prolonged, nuanced,&nbsp;systemic dialogue if we are to more fully understand issues, one another and create students and leaders capable of doing the same.
&nbsp;
Poor&nbsp;vs. Great Leaders
Perhaps contary to popular opinion, the leader at the helm of such a university is not terribly dissimilar from the sort of leader who thrives in enterprise.&nbsp; In the comments of John Sexton and the work of John Maxwell, I see similar threads regarding how students, university officials and tomorrow's leaders interact with the world around them.&nbsp;
In this light, I conclude today's very embryonic blog with the following table&nbsp;differentiating 'poor' and 'great' leaders.&nbsp; I trust that it might prove handy somewhere along the line.
More on these and adjacent thoughts in the weeks to come.&nbsp;
<img style="width: 665px; height: 369px;" src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2010%2f7%2fPoorvsGreatLeadersPDF.png" alt="" width="741" height="202" />

Leadership, the University & Poor vs. Great Leaders

On May 20, 2010 I caught a neat <a href="https://charlierose.com/search-results/?query=Nathan%20Myhrvold">episode of Charlie Rose </a>on PBS&nbsp;featuring an interview&nbsp;with Nathan Myhrvold of <a href="http://intellectualventures.com/Home.aspx">Intellectual Ventures</a>.&nbsp;
(Maybe you remember Nathan;&nbsp;he has been 'everywhere' the last couple years describing everything from IV's "mosquito-zapping laser" to their proposed "water hose&nbsp;in the sky,"&nbsp;theorized to&nbsp;minimize global warming.)
IV has been compared to "Davos...in Birkenstocks."
Whether you're creative, love people who are or fancy yourself a polymath, you'll totally dig Nathan. (Pun intended, given his fascination with paleontology and archaeology.)
It's fun, if only for a few minutes, to imagine how someone like him&mdash;and his "lab crew"&mdash;see the world.&nbsp;
Here's a great <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true">article</a> about Nathan by Malcolm Gladwell, along with a giddy <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_myhrvold_on_archeology_animal_photography_bbq.html">presentation</a> at TED.

Creativity & Genius: Nathan Myhrvold

I stumbled across <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/01/news/companies/dov_seidman_lrn.fortune/index.htm">an&nbsp;interesting article</a> in a recent European issue of Fortune that explores the dollar-value of corporate virtue and, in particular, trust.&nbsp; Perhaps you&#39;ll find it interesting, too. 

But can you really measure the impact of good behavior? One promising area of research is around trust. In his book, Seidman discusses Jeffrey H. Dyer and Wujin Chu&#39;s landmark 2003 study of buyer/supplier relationships among eight major automakers in the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. Dyer and Chu found a strong correlation between trust and procurement costs. The least trusted buyers in the study incurred procurement costs that were five times higher than the costs of the most trusted buyers. Moreover, the least trusted companies in the study were also the least profitable. And companies that trusted each other were more likely to share valuable information like new product designs. &ldquo;Trust between companies leads to more trust,&rdquo; Seidman says. &ldquo;It sets off an upward spiral of cooperative, value-creating behaviors.&rdquo;

Valuating Corporate Virtue?

This morning I received a rather humorous email alleging, &quot;A magazine recently ran a Dilbert Quotes contest, eliciting quotes about real-life Dilbert-type managers submitted by their employees.&nbsp; Here are some of the&nbsp;best submissions from&nbsp;corporate America...&quot; 


<a href="/blogging/file.axd?file=2010%2f2%2fAlleged+Dilbert-Manager+Quotes.pdf">Alleged Dilbert-Manager Quotes.pdf (99.48 kb)</a>

Dilbert Levity

We have to do a lot of this these days, don&#39;t we? 


Squaring of&nbsp;the circle... 


In our personal budgets, we must find ways to make 1+1=3.&nbsp; Or 5.&nbsp; Or 7. 


In our organizations, not only&nbsp;must we find ways to&nbsp;&nbsp;s t r e t c h&nbsp;&nbsp;limited financial resources, but also to periodically work with square pegs currently functioning (or failing to) in round holes. 


Regardless the hurdle,&nbsp;an ability to think&nbsp;outside the proverbial box is paramount.&nbsp; 


Sometimes, when I&#39;m working with a group that&#39;s struggling to think outside the box -- or simply...creatively -- I&#39;ll pass out six toothpicks to each person and make this request:&nbsp; &quot;Using these 6 unbroken toothpicks, create 4 equilateral (equal sided) triangles.&quot; 


For several minutes, most participants struggle.&nbsp; They create pentagrams (!) and beaver dams, but they rarely create four equilateral triangles without great effort, rule-breaking, or toothpick snapping.&nbsp; And almost always, there are gaps/voids and overlapping toothpicks. 


But then, with the briefest guidance and in one fell swoop, they solve the riddle.&nbsp; 


All I have to say is, &quot;Think three dimensionally.&quot; 


And blammo...they make a pyramid.&nbsp; A 4-sided structure comprised solely of equilateral triangles. 


&nbsp;


The problem, of course, lies in our &#39;mental constructs.&#39;&nbsp; Too often, we think 1 or 2 dimensionally.&nbsp; We look at problems myopically or traditionally or quickly...failing to turn&nbsp;them over in our minds like rocks in a dryer.&nbsp; 


Maybe you&#39;ve heard the maxim, &quot;If you do what you&#39;ve always done, you&#39;ll get what you&#39;ve always gotten.&quot; 


Hogwash. 


It&#39;s worse than that.&nbsp; This assumes a polyanna, static view of ecosystems and the world which, of course, is unrealistic.&nbsp; The truth is much harsher: If you do what you&#39;ve always done, you&#39;ll get run over by progress, eaten by competitors, or forgotten by history. 


So, the next time you or your family or your organization face a seemingly intractable or &#39;unsolve-able&#39; problem, think of the toothpicks. 


If they (through the formation of Egypt&#39;s pyramid, one of humankind&#39;s most enduring structures) can remind us the value of creativity and innovation, then many of life&#39;s most daunting problems are half-solved. 


After all, once the solving-scheme is organized, the rest is often a matter of time and sweat, not whether and if. 


Solve on. 


&nbsp;