In January, 2008, when I was writing Leadership Turn, I wrote that politicians aren’t leaders.

We have no leaders, let alone statesmen, just ideologues, elected by like-minded ideologues, who care only about getting reelected, bringing government money back to their constituency and making lucrative connections in the event they aren’t reelected or are caught by term limits.

The following month I considered the difference between politicians and statesmen.

Politicians talk it — Statesmen walk it
Politicians run to win — Statesmen run to serve
Politicians are ideologues — Statesmen are open-minded
Politicians, “it’s all about me” — Statesmen, “it’s all about them”
Politicians focus on the next election — Statesmen focus on the future

In 2010 I reprised parts from them in another post about the idiocy of ideology.

Einstein also said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Americans must be insane; we will go to the polls flip the party in charge and expect different results.
Based on the past, what we will get is a different ideology that screws up differently, not better results.

Sadly, nothing much has changed in the intervening years; a notion that will be proved tomorrow.

Please note that much of the interest and value in these posts is found in the comments and discussion they generated.

Flickr image credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Of all the high profile entrepreneurs who have built wildly successful companies my favorite is Tony Hsieh.

Hsieh is amazing from his MAP and the culture it engenders to the lengths he’s willing to go to propagate and share it—which includes renovating an entire city.

Hsieh is one of those increasingly rare people with an abundance of common sense who eschews ideology and focuses on doing real good in his community well beyond what’s necessary.

A healthy take on doing good by doing well in a very capitalistic way.

Hsieh calls this effort the Downtown Project, a $350 million urban experiment to build “the most community-focused large city in the world” in downtown Las Vegas.

The $350 million breaks out as follows, $200 million invested in land and buildings; $50 million for small businesses; $50 million for tech startups/companies and $50 million to be used for education.

Typically companies like Zappos build spectacular campuses offering their employees all the amenities in their own little world, but that approach actually went against parts of the Zappos culture, which promotes unstructured interactions among the staff.

Hsieh took that attitude and created a different vision for the new campus.

He leased the former City Hall — smack in the middle of downtown Vegas — for 15 years. Then he got to thinking: If he was going to move at least 1,200 employees, why not make it possible for them to live nearby? And if they could live nearby, why not create an urban community aligned with the culture of Zappos, which encourages the kind of “serendipitous interactions” that happen in offices without walls? As Zach Ware, Hsieh’s right-hand man in the move, put it, “We wanted the new campus to benefit from interaction with downtown, and downtown to benefit from interaction with Zappos.”

In typical Hsieh fashion the effort is summed up in a way that reflects what is really needed from today’s business leaders.

“Every factory in the world is doing everything to maximize R.O.I. We’re doing everything to maximize R.O.C.—Return On Community.” –Tony Hsieh.

Flickr image credit: Charlie Llewellin

While looking for something in my old posts I came across this one and decided it was a good time to post it again.

Choose the Freedom to Change

“The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future, too.”
–Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Eugene O’Neill

I recently ran across this quote; it’s been years since I read the play, but that poignant line, with its message that what has been is and irrevocably will be has always left me feeling depressed and angry.

Depressed because it revokes hope.

Angry because it’s the antithesis of everything I believe.

It proclaims that we, whether individuals, organizations or countries, can’t change; that we are locked on our trajectory with no rudder and an endless supply of fuel.

That thought represents a type of MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) I’ve constantly rejected, while embracing the belief that anyone can change if they choose to make the effort.

Not that it’s simple or that it’s easy, but that it can be done.

I’ve done it and am in the process of doing it again.

You’ve done it and can choose to do it again.

Whether you choose an opportunity or pass it by, each one changes the present and alters the future, because your MAP changes with each decision.

Not necessarily large changes, but changes none the less and those changes will impact your next decision and so on throughout life.

You can avoid changes by embracing a rigid ideology that eliminates decisions by turning a blind eye of all divergent opportunities or by allowing someone else to decide for you in the name of followership.

What will you choose to do?

Flickr image credit: David Reece

A few years ago I share how a manager turned his organization around by learning to laugh at himself.

Is laughing at oneself becoming a lost art?

Has ideology—management, political, religious—become so entrenched that people are losing their perspective?

99+% of the time you will be better served by sitting on your dignity than by standing on it.

Why?

Because you will learn far more sitting; people will talk to you for the simple reason of believing they will be heard.

Moreover, you will not come off as a pompous ass to your team, which, in the long run, will mean more creativity, higher productivity and less turnover providing you with better reviews, improved compensation, more opportunities, an enhanced career path and a happier life.

So go ahead; sit already.

Flickr image credit: headexplodie

Most of us live with one kind of fear or another, although few of us admit it. Fear often masquerades as something else—envy, arrogance, failure, success—to name just a few. Bertrand Russell provides interesting commentary on fear in it’s many guises.

“Fear makes man unwise in the three great departments of human conduct: his dealings with nature, his dealings with other men, and his dealings with himself.” This explains much of what’s going on in the world today.

Fear not only paralyzes us it builds in our minds until it’s many times its original size; as Russell points out, “Until you have admitted your own fears to yourself, and have guarded yourself by a difficult effort of will against their myth-making power, you cannot hope to think truly about many matters of great importance . . .” I would add that ‘of great importance’ doesn’t necessairly mean global in scope or world-changing—unless you mean your own little corner of the world.

These days superstition is rampant and cruelty—physical, mental and spiritual—abounds in epic proportions at every level of human intraction. It’s worse now than ever before because technology has shrunk the world, given a louder voice to these evils and muted what wisdom is available. Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom . . .

Envy is another form of fear; fear that someone has more, but as Russell points out there is always someone with more… “Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.”

Fear feeds off fear and can be overwhelming. Fear of technology is usually well masked, but it can be substantially diluted if you remember that technology is finite, while humans deal in the infinite. There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship.”

Fear drives ideology, ideology preempts thought and not thinking kills or, as Russell said, “Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.”

Russell didn’t name it, but he had a wonderful take on ideology, “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”

Have a wonderful Sunday.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Happy President’s Day.

Sad to say that the quality of those in the office over the last 50 years has gone seriously downhill from the quality of the first 50.

Several years ago I wrote

We have no leaders, let alone statesmen, just ideologues, elected by like-minded ideologues, who care only about getting reelected, bringing government money back to their constituency and making lucrative connections in the event they aren’t reelected or are caught by term limits.

and have added to and reposted the full original a couple of times (be sure to check out the link to the original comments).

Based on the current political activity it’s not likely to improve any time soon (this applies to both Houses of Congress, as well as state, regional and local races).

Ideology is the primary lens through which all actions are viewed and any real value to the country and its citizenry is a distant second.

What are your thoughts? What can be done to change this?

Flickr image credit: Kurt Magoon

There is only one quote today; not because Imre Lakatos didn’t say anything else worth quoting, he did, but because I want this one to stick in your head.

The year is more than half over and we are swiftly moving into election mania times and 2012 will be far worse.

“Blind commitment to a theory is not an intellectual virtue: it is an intellectual crime.”

So I offer this bit of what I consider wisdom, especially for all those who vote an ideological ballot, whether it’s the Right, the Left or somewhere else.

We aren’t living in an era in which we can afford blind commitment to anything, so dust off your skepticism, put away your knee-jerk reactions and put on your thinking cap—the country needs you.

Flickr image credit: quinn.anya

There are hundreds of sites that highlight Independence Day with stories, articles, quotes, etc., so I didn’t feel the necessity of augmenting them. However, I did like the idea of finding some interesting quotes on the subject of independence.

Applying the freedoms recognized by the Declaration of Impendence to woman was a radical idea when Leland Stanford said, “I am in favor of carrying out the Declaration of Independence to women as well as men. Women having to suffer the burdens of society and government should have their equal rights in it. They do not receive their rights in full proportion.”

But it was Susan B. Anthony who recognized that true freedom comes from being able to take care of oneself. “I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth. The sense of independence and security is very sweet.”

It was Henry Ford who recognized that money itself wasn’t the key to independence, “If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.

Henry Van Dyke saw independence as a first step only, “In the progress of personality, first comes a declaration of independence, then a recognition of interdependence.”

Where as Marianne Moore celebrated impatience in the quest for independence, “Impatience is the mark of independence, not of bondage.”

The thought of bondage is what kept Samuel Dash out of politics, “I’ve always wanted to be my own person and stand by the things I believe in and I thought I might lose that independence if I ran for political office.”

Alexis de Tocqueville made this comment back in the first half of the Nineteenth Century; sadly, it’s just as true, if not more so, today. “I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.”

Personal independence has great value, just as it offers great satisfaction to those who achieve it, but, as Stephen Breyer warns, “Independence doesn’t mean you decide the way you want.”

I would phrase it a bit differently; your independence doesn’t give you the right to interfere with someone else’s.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewbain/8065537/

I’m not particularly sentimental and, by today’s standards, I’m a pretty private person, at least on-line. Last Memorial Day I wrote about my father and heroes, this year I have nothing personal to offer, but I did find a poem that sums up my attitude to who deserves the credit for the life I value.

It is the veteran, not the preacher, who has given you freedom of religion.
It is the veteran, not the reporter, who has given you freedom of the press.
It is the veteran, not the poet, who has given you freedom of speech.
It is the veteran, not the protester, who has given you freedom to assemble.
It is the veteran, not the lawyer, who has given you the right to a fair trial.
It is the veteran, not the politician, who has given you the right to vote.
It is the veteran, who salutes the Flag, who serves under the Flag, whose coffin is draped by the Flag.
–Father Denis Edward O’Brien, USMC

As to those who dishonor them by using their funerals as a staging ground to flaunt their ideology I have one simple comment, go to hell.

Because that is where you belong.

Flickr image credit: NCinDC

“You’re fired!”

Donald Trump has made those two words made famous since the start of his reality show, but they had power long before that.

‘You’re fired’ are fearsome words; words no one wants to hear form their boss.

They are the ultimate power source for managers, especially those who practice a top-down, command and control style.

The amount of research that has proven that approach to be passé is too great to be cited here (but it is easily googled). And the one place ‘you’re fired’ has never cut any ice is in politics.

It cuts no ice because those in a position to say it have no one to say it to other than their own staff.

Unlike corporate bosses, politicians can’t fire those who disagree with them; who actively work to undermine their vision; who publicly heckle and harangue them.

But at all levels, local, state and national, you see dozens of people running for office whose main qualification is having run a successful business.

Donald Trump is (IMO) a hilarious example of this.

Can you imagine him trying to manage Congress, since he couldn’t fire members that didn’t toe his line? And while Presidents do have that power over their Cabinet members, the political fallout from firing one is enormous.

No matter what political flavor you prefer, consider the applicability of the environment from which they are coming and the political environment to which they want to go.

It’s likely that the higher they were on the corporate or small biz ladder the less likely they will deal well with their loss of power and the reality of today’s politics.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/5440002785/