Since I can’t send gifts to each of you, I thought I’d offer up a video of me dancing along with one of my infamous rhymes—what more could anyone want?

Christmas comes just once a year
as does its spirit, too, I fear.
It would be nice to keep peace and goodwill,
but after the First it’s all downhill.
Perhaps this year we could arrange
for each of us to make a change;
revamp our MAP and maybe then
we can leave closed minds in 2010.

Have a wonderful day and enjoy your people.

Berkeley Breathed, Berke to his friends and fans, authored the Pulitzer Prize winning Bloom County comic strip until he chose to move on to other projects (he writes children’s books, designed greeting cards and has a new movie coming out). For those who miss it or were too young to have enjoyed his biting satire in Bloom County you can buy the complete collection in book form.

The amazing thing about Breathed is that no matter what he was always funny and, therefore, unforgettable, “Negative humor is forgotten immediately. It’s the stuff that makes us feel better about our lives that lives long. Much more satisfying. Enter children’s books.”

He voiced something that I constantly wonder about, “I will go to my grave in a state of abject endless fascination that we all have the capacity to become emotionally involved with a personality that doesn’t exist.” This is as true of “intellectuals” as it is of those who swim in the deep end of popular culture; it’s just not as obvious.

He said, “I could draw Bloom County with my nose and pay my cleaning lady to write it, and I’d bet I wouldn’t lose 10% of my papers over the next twenty years. Such is the nature of comic-strips. Once established, their half-life is usually more than nuclear waste.” So true; some comics are now drawn by the children of the originator.

Comics aside, breathed offers up some useful life wisdom.

In a world of warring ideologies that offer no room for comprise I hope these words will resonate and stick with you, “Despite what they tell you, there are simply no moral absolutes in a complex world.”

And finally, the most important thought of all, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”

Something to think about, especially at this time of year.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/silwenae/4543865563/

Sometimes good things arrive in my inbox amidst the silly videos and spam.

And so it was yesterday; I was thinking about what to write when this arrived and it seemed the perfect answer—assuming, that is, that you are as tired as I am of the rising tide of hit pieces so prevalent this election.

Fable of the Porcupine
It was the coldest winter ever and many animals were dying because of the cold.
The porcupines, realizing the situation, decided to group together.
This way they covered and protected themselves; but the quills of each one wounded their closest companions, even though they gave heat to each other.
After awhile they decided to distance themselves one from the other and they began to die, alone and frozen.
So they had to make a choice: either accept the quills of their companions or disappear from the Earth.
Wisely, they decided to go back to being together.
This way they learned to live with the little wounds that were caused by the close relationships with their companions, but the most important part of it was the heat that came from the others.
In this way they were able to survive.
Moral of the story:
The best relationship is not the one that brings together perfect people.

The best relationship is when each individual learns to live with the imperfections of others as opposed to dying alone in the cold.

What do you think? Will humans live up to the example of porcupines or die alone in the cold?

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/2854029427/

Mid-term elections are coming up, so I thought I would share some something I wrote a couple of years ago.

In general, I’m not a cynical person, In fact, I’ve always said that I’d rather be a chump than a cynic, but I also believe in two old adages,

(This post generated some interesting comments.)

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

The first time it’s a mistake, the second time it’s experience and the third time it’s stupidity.

I try very hard to avoid the third time.

But time and experience have taken their toll and my cynicism has increased over the years—especially in politics.

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.

In most elections I find myself going to the polls, holding my nose and voting for whomever I see as the least offensive candidate—the one I believe will do the least damage—and maybe even buy us a bit more time to find real solutions.

But I don’t hold my breath.

Solutions mean going against entrenched interests—the same interests that pony up the money needed to win the next election.

And so it goes.

Albert Einstein said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

Sad to say we’re at the same level that created them—if not lower.

(This post generated some interesting comments.)

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.

Better results would require real leaders and even a few statesmen if we were lucky, but again, I’m not holding my breath.

What do you think would really make a difference?

Image credit: Atom Smasher

How can a week of discussion focused on ethics and cheating not touch on politics? Especially when it’s that time of year and media is filling the air with conversation, clamor and rants by and about those running for public office.

It’s a frustrating time for those who don’t blindly vote an ideological ticket; frustrating because most campaigning is focused on trashing the opponent as opposed to anything constructive.

I listen to people complain about the negativity when it’s aimed at their candidate, while sagely nodding at its appropriateness when coming from their side.

I listen to the rants against incumbents, but hear little about what should be done, other than ideological platitudes.

They all talk of the importance of leadership, while demonstrating none.

In a post a couple of years ago I wrote, “Sadly, the oxymoronic coupling of ‘leader’ and ‘politician’ usually is just plain moronic.”

Proof of that is showcased in an analysis of how Rod Blagojevich got elected.

How did we, the people, end up with this mess?

It can’t just be blamed on Obama or even on Bush—it’s been developing for more than seven decades.

It stems from our collective MAP and the arrogant world-view we developed after WWII; the abandonment of our melting pot roots; the entitled mindset that taught generations of Americans to covet and indulge in unsustainable lifestyles and, more recently, the replacement of thought by ideology.

How can we, the people, clean it up? How can we find more statesmen and fewer politicians?

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/2244832648/

That the things I read influence what I write as is obvious from today’s post and yesterday’s companion piece.

It started with summaries of, and links to, five major leadership research articles in The Washington Post, one of which concluded that “increasing team cohesiveness” was a far more important leadership act than the traditional one of “driving results.”

Other of the studies focused on the need for leaders throughout the organization, not just in the C suite, and the growing need for decision-making that considers more than the bottom line.

Next, a post by Wally Bock led me to Mike Myatt’s excellent post on defining leadership and the ensuing discussion, which is well worth reading.

But I have a question that I believe goes to the heart of any effort to define leadership.

Does your definition of leadership require the leader to agree with you?

Let’s look at Mike’s definition, since it is one with which most people would be comfortable.

“Leadership is the professed desire and commitment to serve others by subordinating personal interests to the needs of those being led through effectively demonstrating the experience, wisdom and discernment necessary to leverage trust & influence to cause the right things, to happen for the right reasons, at the right times.”

Would you consider the person a good leader if the right things happened at the right time, but for reasons with which you didn’t agree, i.e., their ideology was different from yours?

This distinction is most obvious in political and religious areas, but is present in business, too.

For example, if someone provided a solution to the oil slick who espoused an ideology the opposite of yours would you welcome the solution or would the differing belief/philosophy cause you to respond negatively?

Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr

The more I read/hear about leadership the less I understand.

Every day there are stories talking about someone’s good leadership or bad leadership—the adjective determined by whether the author agrees or disagrees with the vision/words/actions.

The stories cross the spectrum—politics, sports, business, religion, civic, non-profit, parenting [whatever].

I think the stories about “bad” leadership annoy me most.

Is a leader bad just because the author disagrees with the vision/words/actions?

If person A aspires to a specific positional leadership role is it enough to disagree with the vision/words/actions of the person currently in that role or does it behoove person A to present a cogent alternative?

Armchair leadership has the same value as Monday morning quarterbacking.

It is far to easier lash out, bash and tear something down, than it is to offer well thought out alternatives.

Emotions are more easily manipulated than minds—especially since ideology has replaced so much of independent thought.

Ideology isn’t just conservative vs. liberal; greed is an ideology, as is me-centric.

I think good leadership requires a more balanced approach, including the ability to say, “I was wrong,” rather than a dogmatic clinging to the vision/words/actions that are steering the ship straight onto the rocks.

What do you think?

Flickr photo credit to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/treehouse1977/3003180321/

Enron is back in the news because Jeff Skilling’s appeal is currently in front of the Supreme Court (his sentence may be reduced or overturned on a technicality).

Arthur I. Cyr, Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College, offers an interesting commentary on Skilling, the Enron debacle and Arthur Andersen.

Leadership personality is telling in any organization. Skilling from early days as a McKinsey consultant was notorious for an exceptionally aggressive, grasping style. Business author and former colleague Tom Peters described him as apparently able to “out-argue God.”

The damage that attitude causes knows no bounds and holds true wherever it is found.

Enron, stock option backdating and finally the derivatives of the financial meltdown are all from the same seeds.

In hindsight, Enron’s death was symptomatic of growing global problems. In an age of great prosperity and exceptionally cheap credit, people fairly easily could put greed before good judgment.

Greed before good judgment says a lot, but not quite all.

Even when greed isn’t the driving force there is ideology—an inflexible force that proponents claim eliminates the need for any judgment at all.

Good management, however, requires flexible, insightful human strengths. Regulation and law enforcement only provide context.

Cyr’s final comment sums up the true solution as well as the why rules and even laws don’t work.

Image credit: Svadilfari on flickr

“The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.” –Cynthia Dunbar, another Christian activist on the Texas board of education.

I have nothing against Christians or Texans; as the saying goes, some of my best friends are Christian and a few are Texans.

But I have a lot against the idea that tomorrow’s K-12 textbooks will be written to conform with the desires of the Texas educational system and the 7 Christian activists who have decided that the time is right to try to reshape the history that children in public schools study—in their version Robert Kennedy is not a “significant American,” but Newt Gingrich is.

The state’s $22 billion education fund is among the largest educational endowments in the country. Texas uses some of that money to buy or distribute a staggering 48 million textbooks annually — which rather strongly inclines educational publishers to tailor their products to fit the standards dictated by the Lone Star State.

This could go a long way to homogenizing thought and reducing international respect still further, not to mention encouraging hate, bigotry and ignorance.

But what else should I expect from a place where Republican Rep. Betty Brown suggested in testimony that “Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are “easier for Americans to deal with,”” and Brown’s spokesman insisted that the comment had nothing to do with race.

Nuff said; rant over; thanks for listening.

March 18: I couldn’t resist adding a link to this great Mike Luckovich cartoon that sums my rant up so nicely.

Image credit: haldean on flickr

I’m not a sports fan so I rarely read sports articles, but this one from ESPN’s Mike Reiss caught my eye. Although he was talking about the Patriots, I believe it is applicable on a much wider stage.

Have we gone leadership crazy? …

In an instant, got-to-have-it-now society, the knee-jerk conclusion that the Patriots lacked leadership seemed to be one that many rallied around. … But to lay the season’s struggles on that is overlooking the more important issues: The Patriots need more playmakers, management needs to be sharper in identifying and keeping that talent, and coaches need to be better at cultivating, scheming, and communicating with players when their situations get sticky… Start there, then factor in the importance of better locker-room chemistry, and you’ll have a more accurate reflection of what went wrong in 2009 and what steps the club needs to take in 2010 to improve.

No matter where you look, business or politics, you’ll find that most commentary focuses on the lack of/need for better leadership, especially when it comes to Washington.

Just think what a difference if our national political scene included

• more playmakers,
• managers who were sharper identifying and keeping talent,
• everybody better at cultivating and communicating, instead of scheming, and
• better locker-room chemistry.

Notice that the most important is listed last.

What a difference it would make in their ability to find viable solutions, instead of ideological posturing.

Image credit: HikingArtist on flickr