Recent global events made me think of Clarence Darrow, not for his defense of evolution, but for something else he said, “As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.”

A powerful concept and one that has been true since humans started walking upright.

So I decided to check out some of his other comments and see how applicable they still were.

Darrow was no lover or ideology, especially when it was religiously-based; he saw doubt as a driving force of change and believed it needed to be actively shared to survive, “Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.”

I found this comment particularly apropos after reading today that the Oxford Dictionary gave its stamp of approval to OMG and LOL, “Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?” Good question.

People flock to hear Tony Hsieh explain why he built a happy culture; I wonder if he ever quotes Darrow, “If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.”

Darrow was a lawyer and acted with passion, because he believed in the importance of truth, “The pursuit of truth will set you free; even if you never catch up with it.”

Wise words and a good concept to add to your life credo.

However, in spite of his ideals and profession, he was pragmatic, if not downright cynical, about the world in which he lived, “The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.”

Finally, here’s one for all the managers who claim they want their people to ‘think outside the box’ and be more creative, but react negatively if they disagree with the ‘accepted wisdom’, “To think is to differ.”

Have a great Sunday!

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What does it take to be an entrepreneur? According to Anthony Tjan, Founder/CEO of venture firm Cue Ball, you need to be an architect (big-picture planning), storyteller (research and selling), and disciplinarian (executing).

It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and endless hours, and you often forget that running really hard does not necessarily equate with running in the right direction.

It doesn’t always start with a formal business plan or even with a specific idea. Innovation strikes in different ways as you will see.

Robert Croak is CEO of Silly Bandz, the hottest new kid craze.

Croak is an opportunist who has found the greatest opportunity of his life. “I’m the luckiest guy alive right now. I don’t think you’re going to find anyone who has a reason to be happier than I am,” he says. “I have the hottest toy, the hottest fashion product on earth. All the right people like Silly Bandz. Everyone asks who my publicist is. I don’t have one. We don’t advertise. All we do is viral marketing. This is happening on its own.”

Tod Dykstra, founder of Streetline Networks, watched cars circling the block in San Francisco looking for cheap parking.

Streetline’s system lets parking authorities identify crowded streets and jack up parking-meter rates block by block. The idea is to encourage drivers to stop circling and get off the streets—either paying for a municipal garage or heading to a less crowded neighborhood. San Francisco and Los Angeles are now installing Streetline technology.

Many people believe that entrepreneurs are all risk takers with a horror of working for large companies, but that isn’t true. What is true is that they go through many of the same efforts and traumas as the more traditional ones.

Gary Martz is a senior product manager at Intel, who proves that the three skills Tjan describes are just as applicable in-house as outside.

Intel nearly killed off WiDi… “They literally laughed me out of the room.”

Anil Duggal, a physical chemist at GE’s research labs, had to go to the Feds for funding when Jack Welch was GE’s boss, but it was a different story when Jeff Immelt took over.

First, Duggal had to develop a genius for getting funded. The idea of manufacturing lighting with a method akin to newspaper printing was a tough sell. In the late ’90s, he managed to buttonhole U.S. Energy Dept. officials visiting GE to look in on other projects. The $1 million grant that resulted helped keep the project going. Then in 2001, Jeff Immelt, still new in the role of CEO, challenged GE engineers and scientists to strive for breakthrough ideas. Today, OLED and LED research get about half of GE’s R&D budget for lighting.

As you can see, a common thread that runs through these stories is that entrepreneurs see things differently from the rest of us. They see what is and needs to be, or should be, or could be.

Ben Huh saw the potential of a site called I Can Has Cheezburger, raised some money and $10K of his own savings to buy it and then used the concept to create the 53 sites that make up Cheezburger Network.

“It was a white-knuckle decision,” he said. “I knew that the first site was funny, but could we duplicate that success?”

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedroelcarvalho/2812091311/

Do you take time to think and reflect or do you stay so connected and engaged that you end up listening to someone else and forming your opinions from their thoughts instead putting in the hard work to think for yourself?

Do you enjoy quiet time or do you find silence scary or even depressing?

Anecdotal evidence shows that while most people are uncomfortable with silence, others are actually terrified by it. Not the silence of a sensory deprivation tank, just natural silence; the silence that come from turning off and unplugging from our wired world. No iPod, cell phone, TV, radio, etc.

But it’s only in silence that

• your mind can wander unfocused down paths you would never think of intentionally;
• unconnected scraps can coalesce to form new ideas;
• you can dig around and learn what actually comprises your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy)™;
• really get to know yourself; and hopefully
• become best friends with yourself.

I wonder if it was silence that fostered the great thinkers and philosophers of the past as opposed to what passes for wisdom these days. Perhaps the natural silence led to self-knowledge and knowing gave them the ability to formulate their great ideas.

Did the enforced silence of prison nurture Nelson Mandela’s ability to conceive his vision and eventually articulate it to the world?

No matter your age, try it. Unplug and get comfortable—with silence and with yourself.

Make silence your friend and watch your (and your people’s) happiness, satisfaction and creativity soar.

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You’ve heard of Cesar Millan, the “Dog Whisperer,” but the item in the article that grabbed me was a quote from another article by Malcom Gladwell in the New Yorker article that “quoted scientists and dance experts analyzing how Mr. Millan’s bearing instills confidence. The conclusion: his fluid movement communicates authenticity better than words could.”

Sadly, the authenticity conveyed by the fluid movements of Jeff Skilling, Bernie Madoff and a host of recent “leaders” proves that authenticity isn’t always the best yardstick.

People are much like dogs, although the words used to describe their reactions are different.

We talk about dogs and other animals ‘sensing’ things; we accept that children have a kind of built-in radar that makes them pull away from fakes and evil-doers.

Adults insist on giving benefit-of-doubt to either their thinking or their gut, which means they frequently get burned.

I’m not saying that we should ignore the rational thinking in favor or instincts or vice versa; rather we should tune in to both equally and include them in our evaluation.

If there is anything we should learn from the people who brought us to the current economic point, it is that our judgment needs to encompass all the data we can accumulate and that we should ruthlessly strip out any assumptions.

We’ve always been told that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck, but these days it may be a hunter with a great robotic decoy.

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I love the pithy, brilliant one-liners that have come down through history. The old ones usually specify ‘man’ or ‘men’, because in the era they were said women were ignored—but that doesn’t change their validity, value or applicability to both sexes.

I don’t know how old this Japanese saying is, but it certainly is true if you’re in the wrong corporate culture—“The nail that sticks up gets hammered.”

The same bosses who make free with the hammers often love consultants, but the problem with many of them is beautifully summed up by Colin Powell when he said, “Experts often possess more data than judgment.”

Cardinal Newman said that “A gentleman is one who never knowingly inflicts pain.” Assuming that is true, we have a hell of a lot of folks walking around, on and off Wall Street, who aren’t gentlemen

A similar truth was stated by Pascal when he said, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” Sadly, we have millions of cheerful folks from every religion around the world doing their damnedest more completely than ever before.

Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.” Does that mean that all those people doing something to to those who disagree with them are good people?

Sadly, the one that makes the most sense, and probably answers my previous question, is a true jewel from George Bernard Shaw, who said, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. All progress, therefore, depends upon the unreasonable man.”

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I don’t understand the current obsession with other people’s lives, in fact, I find it very weird.

Whether it is a public figure or not, the desire (need?) to know every little detail, what they are doing every minute of their lives, the products they use, their ups and downs to be almost obsessional.

This kind of interest used to be reserved for the intimacy of real friendship or close family relations—and even then there were boundaries—but now anyone is fair game.

Apparently I’m not as out of it as I thought; many people are shutting down their Facebook pages for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are the effects they notice on their own MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).

Others are leaving because they don’t like the commercialization, which I find amusing. Any mass human congregating, past, present or future, will attract those who want to sell their product. Why anyone would think it would be different because the location is in the cyber-world is beyond me.

However, if you are going to indulge, I suggest that you focus on what you are doing when you do it, because the repercussions of not doing so will follow you all your life and beyond. That’s serious when you consider that 45% of employers search social media when hiring, 65% didn’t extend an offer because of what they found and that number will continue to grow.

Other than malicious intent, two things happen on social media.

• Not thinking, which causes people to post stuff to venues in which it doesn’t belong and giving access to “friends”—who may not be next week.
• Not focusing, which leads to pilot error though the ease and simplicity of clicking the wrong button.

Consider this post, sent to me by a friend, as a great example of the dangers of multitasking while updating Facebook.

Can you imagine the reaction of hiring managers, potential mates or future kids? Even if it had been posted privately there is nothing to stop a “friend” who is angry from reposting it.

Once it’s out there it’s out there forever—definitely the wrong kind of immortality.

I’ve said many times, both here and at MAPping Company Success that social media never dies and people need to think about that.

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Are you aware of the new teaching approach in middle school English classes that gives kids a say in which books they read?

The approach is known as “reading workshop” and “…students choose their own books, discuss them individually with their teacher and one another, and keep detailed journals about their reading…”

I sent the article to my niece, who alternates between teaching and being a school librarian. She started as a teacher, was driven out of it by internal politics and unreasonable parents, got a Master of Library Science and spent a few years as school librarian and is now back to teaching.

She wrote back, “This is how I teach!  Cool!  Thanks for sending it.  It is controversial and some English teachers think I’m nuts but I love it!”

My niece, along with many others, is the type of teachers we need more of—they love reading and learning and work to pass that love on.

But there is a lot of opposition to moving away from the way reading has been taught.

“In the method familiar to generations of students, an entire class reads a novel — often a classic — together to draw out the themes and study literary craft. That tradition, proponents say, builds a shared literary culture among students, exposes all readers to works of quality and complexity and is the best way to prepare students for standardized tests.”

I bolded the last five words because they are the crux of the problem.

Is the purpose of school to prepare for standardized tests or to teach kids to think?

Are communities stronger and the workforce more cohesive because the people all read To Kill A Mockingbird in eighth grade? And what of those educated elsewhere?

What serves the future better, a love of learning and reading or the skill to ace a standardized test?

At which do you want your kids to excel?

Which skill set do you want to hire?

What do you think?

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Thanks to Mary Jo Asmus at Intentional Leadership for hosting the August Leadership Development Carnival.

The carnival offers great posts from excellent thinkers on leadership, management and a host of other topics. It’s a great way to stimulate your brain, whether you agree or disagree with the ideas.

Click over and start thinking!

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It seems to me that more people spend less time thinking then at any previous time in history.

They’re more interested in Michael Jackson’s estate than their state’s budget problems; they choose for whom to vote based on attractiveness and clothes; social media fills all their time with thousands of friends to whom they tweet, but don’t talk…

“Language is a wonderful thing. It can be used to express thoughts, to conceal thoughts, but more often, to replace thinking.” –Anon

Then there are those who treat thought and action like marriage and kids—they no longer know which comes first or that they should go together…

“Failures are divided into two classes –those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.” –John Charles

Or you might prefer this version…

“A thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all.” –Anon

Of course, there are those who expect the wonks to supply the roadmap and have no idea what to do when they don’t…

“When policy fails try thinking.” Or abscond to ideology, which precludes all thinking.

Here are words of wisdom for those who still believe that ‘leaders’ can solve the world’s ills, instead of causing them; one can only hope they are taken to heart…

“Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece.”

Finally, if none of the above has sunk in I’ll go straight to the heart of the subject…

“A man [or woman] who does not think for himself does not think at all.”

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What do you think about, other than beer, food and fireworks, on this day that marks our freedom?

I have three suggestions for you.

How long since you actually read the Declaration Of Independence? What better way to spend some time with your kids/relatives/friends than reading, discussing and perhaps even thinking about it? Better yet, make it a tradition, a yearly habit that will yield enormous benefits—guaranteed.

If your thoughts include the troops fighting far away, then you can say thnks without breaking the bank. For less than you probably spent on your celebration you can click Over to Any Soldier and do something active for our troops, rather than just talking about how brave they are and grateful you are.

“Any Soldier Inc. started in August 2003 as a simple family effort to help the soldiers in one Army unit; thus, our name. Due to overwhelming requests, on 1 January 2004 the Any Soldier® effort was expanded to include any member of the Armed Forces in harm’s way.”

Finally, promise yourself that this year you’ll give yourself and those around you the greatest gift of all—room to change.

Embrace change yourself and encourage it in others.

Not all change is good, but all change is necessary. Even if you have to retrace your steps and change differently not changing is worse—it leads to stagnation, which leads to death.

Have a wonderful Fourth, I wish you much joy on this important holiday. But before you sign off to party, click over to Leadership Turn and watch a truly spectacular exhibit of grace and talent by the US Army.

Image credit: MykReeve on flickr globetraveler2 on flickr