On the outskirts of the thousand-year-old city lived a philosopher who taught that the world was simple and that happiness was within the reach of every man, instantly. A young man who was dissatisfied with life went to visit this philosopher to get to the heart of the matter. This youth found the world a chaotic mass of contradictions and, in his anxious eyes, any notion of happiness was completely absurd.
- From The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
Many of these are the same people who wanted trigger warnings, safe spaces, and prompt action against micro-aggressions.
That's all right. We understand the game now.
And we aren't playing.
The Hill: Jonathan Turley on Alvin Bragg's bizarre prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
Since I have some creative work to do today, I prepared by mowing the lawn.
Great ideas. Never fails.
Every habit and capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking, and running by running . . . therefore, if you want to do something make a habit of it, if you don't want to do that, don't, but make a habit of something else instead. The same principle is at work in our state of mind. When you get angry, you've not only experienced that evil, but you've also reinforced a bad habit, adding fuel to the fire.
- Marcus Aurelius
Courage and Kindness; Patience and Urgency; Range and Focus; Feeling and Detachment; Curiosity and Indifference; Thought and Action.
If you believe elementary and high schools are supposed to be preparing students to become productive citizens, then current events illustrate that your expectations are not being met.
If you believe that public colleges and universities are supposed to be institutionally neutral, then a visit to the departmental webpages is in order. Many departments are far from neutral. The idea that campuses are places where Truth is a central value is risible.
In short, the definitions and images of several decades ago are no longer in place.
The good news is that a movement to restore the quality of those institutions is growing.
I remember when I left the Army many years ago. I searched for a variety of jobs. Had degrees in Government and Law, great experience from the military, and had written a well-received book on the Arizona Right to Work Law.
In close to one year's time, I had four job interviews.
Just four.
With the fourth, I finally landed a job.
An experience like that stays with you.
My advice to those of you who are searching for jobs is don't give up hope. The way jobs are filled is often hit-and-miss and grossly illogical.
The American Spectator: Autumn Mackenzie reviews Abigail Shrier's new book.
"An amazing bad-ball hitter, [Yogi] Berra was skilled at reaching for balls out of the strike zone and hitting them out of the park. Yet for all his aggressiveness at the plate, he rarely struck out - only 12 times in 597 at-bats in 1950."
- From The New York Yankees of the 1950s: Mantle, Stengel, Berra, and a Decade of Dominance by David Fischer
"There are three things you can do in a baseball game. You can win, or you can lose, or it can rain."
- Casey Stengel
Let's make it casual and conversational with practical case examples.
The goal is not to scare people about their ability to lead but to reassure them that if they follow the basics - not the Beverly Hills Exotic Fromage School of Leadership - they'll be fine.
But the basics, despite the name, can be hard since they involve having out-of-body Big Picture experiences as well as direct eye contact while using words of one syllable.
There's also a whole lot of introspection.
I don't care how long you've been in the field, you never stop learning.
Granted, "Human Capital" is worse, but the term "Human Resources" is one of the most odious terms in modern life. It evokes geological visions of ore rather than people.
We need Personnel Departments, not the Human Resources deviations.
Related reforms: replace "Political Science" with "Government" and "Social Sciences" with "Liberal Arts."
Bring back "Humanities."
There are many fine writers out there right now (such as Mark Helprin) but don't let them distract you from oldies such as these:
The assumption is that successes are trumpeted from the rooftops while failures are hidden.
It is surprising how often successes are uncelebrated possibly because they are taken for granted or the people behind them do not take the time to note just how extraordinary the achievement was.
An insightful executive, manager or technician leaves an organization for another opportunity.
How much attention is devoted to ensuring that the person passes along important knowledge to the team or the successor?
In my experience, the answer is very little.
The person heading the organization may know a great deal about the organization and yet may also be one of the last people to know what is going on within the organization.
"They got to the top in such silence that they not only deceived the guards but did not even arouse the dogs, animals that are startled by noises in the night. But they did not deceive the geese, which had not been killed despite the shortage of food, since they were sacred to Juno. This was the salvation of Rome. Marcus Manlius, an outstanding soldier who had been consul three years before, was aroused by their honking and the beating of their wings. He seized his arms, at the same time calling the rest to arms. As the others trembled, he strode forward and, with the boss of his shield, thrust back a Gaul who had already gained a foothold on the top of the hill. The Gaul slipped and fell, toppling those nearest to him. The nearest Manlius butchered as, in their fear, they dropped their arms and clung to the rocks with their hands. By now the rest of the Romans had amassed and were repelling the enemy with javelins and stones. The entire line collapsed and tumbled headlong down."
- From Book 5, section 47 [The Gauls climb the Capitol by night. Rome is saved by the sacred geese and the prompt action of Manlius.]
Just as there are people who brighten a room by entering it, there are those who brighten a room by leaving it.
Don't underestimate the influence of negativity. One person with a negative attitude can pull down an entire team.
I don't care how brilliant a person is, if that brilliance is accompanied by a lousy attitude, you're usually wiser to go with a reasonably smart but uplifting alternative.
As the old line goes, hire for attitude and train for skill.
"People used to tell me that business administration is for the practical life and philosophy is for the spirit. Through the years I have found it is exactly the opposite - I used philosophy much more practically."
- Israeli General Herzl Halevi
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting. They were coming toward where the flag was and I went along the fence. Luster was hunting in the grass by the flower tree. They took the flag out, and they were hitting. Then they put the flag back and they went to the table, and he hit and the other hit. Then they went on, and I went along the fence. Luster came away from the flower tree and we went along the fence and they stopped and we stopped and I looked through the fence while Luster was hunting in the grass.
- From The Power and the Fury by William Faulkner
"We are ready."
"The project was done on time."
"Twelve people attended the meeting."
"There were no complaints."
Consider the potential gaps in all of the above.
Words can reveal and they can also conceal.
Einstein didn't invent the theory of relativity while he was multitasking at the Swiss patent office.
- David Meyer
Sasha's eyes were set in a huge pan-shaped head and he studied Arkady as someone who might share his misery. The bear was a towering beast but his customary roar was weakened by alcohol. His mate, Masha, sat on her rump, a half-empty bottle of champagne pressed to her breast. A plaque on the zoo guardrail read "Sasha and Masha, American Brown Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis)." That sounded about right, Arkady thought.
- From The Siberian Dilemma: An Arkady Renko novel by Martin Cruz Smith
The other night I was looking through a book by a respected British historian who was contrasting the records of General Ulysses S. Grant and General Robert E. Lee.
At one point, the book has the following comment by Grant about Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Virginia:
"What General Lee's feelings were I do not know. But my own ... were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and so valiantly, and who had suffered so much for a cause."
Hold on, I thought. Something's missing!
A quick search of Grant's excellent autobiography found the full quote:
"What General Lee's feelings were I do not know. As he was a man of much dignity, with an impassable face, it was impossible to say whether he felt inwardly glad that the end had finally come, or felt sad over the result, and was too manly to show it. Whatever his feelings, they were entirely concealed from my observation; but my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on the receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and so valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us."
Nicholas Bate is more than kind.
If you scroll down his blog, you'll see all of his books - fiction and non-fiction - and realize his range.
The man never sleeps.
I am getting into a Marie Kondo approach with my office.
Large trash bags. Banker's boxes. Clear objectives.
And a ruthless standard as to what gets thrown out.
All I need now is the right background music.
Sitting beside the road, watching the wagon mount the hill toward her, Lena thinks, 'I have come from Alabama: a fur piece. All the way from Alabama a-walking. A fur piece.' Thinking although I have not been quite a month on the road I am already in Mississippi, further from home than I have ever been before. I am now further from Doane's Mill than I have been since I was twelve years old.
-- Light in August by William Faulkner
You shouldn't give circumstances the power to arouse anger, for they don't care at all.
- Marcus Aurelius
For a long time the horizon had been a monotonous flat blue line separating the Pacific Ocean from the sky. The Navy helicopter raced forward, flying low, near the waves. Despite the noise and the thumping vibration of the blades, Norman Johnson fell asleep. He was tired; he had been traveling on various military aircraft for more than fourteen hours. It was not the kind of thing a fifty-three-year-old professor of psychology was used to.
- From Sphere by Michael Crichton
... What they don't want to admit, at least not publicly, is that most American students don't read much anyway and quite a few, left to their own devices, would not read at all.
Their moronic national babysitter, the television set, took care of that. In 1991, the majority of American households (60 percent, the same as in Spain) did not buy one single book. Before long, Americans will think of the time when people sat at home and read books for their own sake, discursively and sometimes even aloud to one another, as a lost era - the way we now see rural quilting-bees in the 1870s.
- From Culture of Complaint by Robert Hughes (1994)
If you're on a board of directors, do not assume that the other board members read the minutes. In my experience, most of them do not unless they have a pet project that's being discussed.
If you've applied for a job, recognize that application letters and resumes receive little attention. So too with job applications. The way careers are shaped via such indifference is nothing short of scandalous.
If you've had an important business meeting, the odds that more than a small percentage of the attendees were listening are remote. As the great C. Northcote Parkinson noted years ago, more attention will probably be given to trivial matters, such as reserved parking spaces, than to major issues that could produce disaster.
What all of the above means is it is dangerous to assume attentiveness or a sound sense of priorities.
Many organizations survive despite a routine neglect of key matters.
My journal is a private affair, but as I cannot know the time of my coming death, and since I am not disposed, however unfortunately, to the serious consideration of self-termination, I am afraid that others will see these pages. Since however I will be dead, it should not much matter to me who sees what or when. My name is Thelonious Ellison. And I am a writer of fiction. This admission pains me only at the thought of my story being found and read, as I have always been severely put off by any story which had as its main character a writer. So, I will claim to be something else, if not instead, then in addition, and that shall be a son, a brother, a fisherman, an art lover, a woodworker. If for no other reason, I choose this last, callous-building occupation because of the shame it caused my mother, who for years called my pickup truck a station wagon. I am Thelonious Ellison. Call me Monk.
- From Erasure: a novel by Percival Everett
A great luncheon meeting at a great spot.
After a broad overview, the meeting produced two priorities.
Only two but very important.
NPR responds to Uri Berliner's critique.
Not persuasively, but it was a response.
The Center for Health and Biosciences has advice on navigating the digital age for children.
Taiwan legally requires parents to restrict their children's use of electronic devices.
"What is America but beauty queens, millionaires, stupid records, and Hollywood?"
- Adolf Hitler in 1939
Nicholas Bate notes two powerful and reliable business tools that are easy to use.
I use them every day.
The Free Press: Uri Berliner on what happened to National Public Radio.
I listened to NPR for years. That practice steadily declined and completely ended when they refused to cover the story about Hunter Biden's laptop.
Then in August 1939, on the eve of war in Europe, the Army held major war games at Plattsburgh, New York, to find out what it could do. Fifty thousand men were put on the field - but more than two-thirds were part-time National Guardsmen. They quickly lost their direction as units haplessly bumped into one another. Without radios to issue orders, soldiers began wandering in search of officers to give them. Some stumbled on lines of Good Humor trucks parked in a field: The Army had been forced to hire them to serve as decoy tanks because there weren't enough real tanks or armored cars to go around. "The U.S. Army," Time magazine said, summing up, "looked like a few nice boys with BB guns."
- From Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II by Arthur Herman
Phoenix was not supposed to be a good place to see the eclipse.
The daughter of an old friend went to Toadsuck, Arkansas for the event, which may not be that great either, but you'll return with memorable t-shirts.
Anyway, my astronomy-loving son had gotten the right glasses and so once I returned from some client meetings, I joined him in our quasi-sunny front yard and looked up.
It was impressive.
Some things match the hype.
Way to go, Moon.
Michael Gerber on a common business fallacy: "If you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does technical work."
As time went by our need to fight for the ideal increased to an unquestioning possession, riding with spur and rein over our doubts. Willy-nilly it became a faith. We had sold ourselves into slavery, manacled ourselves together in its chain-gang, bowed ourselves to serve its holiness with all our good and ill content. The mentality of ordinary human slaves is terrible - they have lost the world - and we had surrendered, not body alone, but soul to the overmastering greed of victory. By our own act we were drained of morality, of volition, of responsibility, like dead leaves in the wind.
- T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom
It's only in fairy tales, novels, and Hollywood movies that wishes come true simply from wishing. It will not happen to you. In real life, successful people, those who get what they want out of life, ask for those things over and over again.
- Ben Stein
I recommend reading some novel or nonfiction work that is completely outside of your usual interests.
Do it at least twice a year.
A personal example: The White Road: Journey into an Obsession by Edmund De Waal. It is about the history of porcelain.
When it comes to making change, Yogi Berra was only half right: it's never over till it's over - and it's still not over then. The same battles keep reoccurring in companies and in politics, and you've got to be there to fight them with your eyes on the long-term outcome.
- Alan M. Webber, Rules of Thumb
I sat in a drab Soviet hotel room in May 1992. Gunfire rattled the windows. Across the room, on a bed with a nasty brown blanket, sat Marcus Warren, a British journalist. We had been trapped in the hotel for hours, as battles raged on the streets outside in Dushanbe, the capital city of Tajikistan. We had no idea how many had died.
- From Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life by Gillian Tett
It's been a while since I posted a list of films that can spark interesting discussions about leadership. Please feel free to recommend additions.
You've seen "The Lincoln Lawyer."
Well, from the wilds of Florida an announcement has been made: "RV Lawyer" is out.
In 1861, Richard Ewell, a Confederate lieutenant general, wrote about the Union forces: "There is one West Pointer, I think in Missouri, little known, and whom I hope the northern people will not find out. I mean Sam Grant. I knew him at the Academy and in Mexico. I should fear him more than any of their officers I have yet heard of."
Here, you're comfortable. Here, you're inspirational. Here, you're invisible.
And there, right there, you are sitting on a railroad track and a train is approaching.
If careers were sailing ships, most would make it from Europe to North America (or vice-versa) but few would go from one specific port to another.
Some would hit icebergs. Others would drift to and remain at one of the islands.
The point of this exotic vision is to urge specificity and frequent progress checks.
Drift is not your friend.
The U.S. Secretary of State has said that Ukraine will become a member of NATO.
Have they really thought that through?
If the reasons for many employment selections were clearly and honestly stated, competence would rank no higher than third.
Commentary magazine: Seth Mandel on when stars bungle their big political moments.
Background.
Recent training.
Reading habits/publications.
Heroes.
Achievements.
Setbacks.
Hobbies.
Strengths.
Weaknesses.
Typical workday.
Amount of time on social media.
The first undercover agent I met way back in the Seventies had very long hair and a beard. He was wearing a dirty yellow t-shirt with a full portrait of Mickey Mouse on the front. He chain-smoked throughout the meeting.
The other agents were in Germany. I was not to acknowledge them. They were passing as Germans and everything about them - their fluency in German, the slang, their body language, and every article of clothing - had been dissected for authenticity. Any gap, of course, could be dangerous.
The next agent was in a completely different part of the country. She'd gotten a tattoo during the assignment. Her police supervisor said that troubled him. "There is a chance," he said, "that she may be on the verge of going too far into the role." He'd seen that before and it could make things unpredictable. Unpredictable is not good.
The final ones were observing motorcycle gangs. They were big, heavy, and greasy. One had a large chain as a belt. They operated with clear boundaries and admitted that if one notorious gang entered a bar where they were drinking, they immediately left. Why? Because the gang was extraordinarily violent. Anyone operating undercover risked either getting hurt or blowing their cover.
Undercover is undercover. The last thing wanted is escalation.
I am reviewing possible PowerPoint slides for an upcoming leadership workshop.
Less is more when it comes to PowerPoint.
As a result, I am seriously considering just using a flip chart.
[Over the years, I have received notes from class participants thanking me for NOT using PowerPoint.]
It can help to handle a job that you like as if someone, somewhere, would like you to be replaced.
Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances. For years we lived anyhow with one another in the naked desert, under the indifferent heaven. By day the hot sun fermented us; and we were dizzied by the beating wind. At night we were stained by dew, and shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of stars. We were a self-centered army without parade or gesture, devoted to freedom, the second of man's creeds, a purpose so ravenous that it devoured all our strength, a hope so transcendent that our earlier ambitions faded in its glare.
- From Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence
It was a Wow moment.
Am getting re-hooked on space.
Many thanks to Elon Musk and his team.
[Stanford psychiatry professor Anna Lembke] calls the smartphone the "modern-day hypodermic needle," the delivery mechanism to which we now turn for whatever it is that we crave, whether it's validation, distraction from boredom, or a trigger for our ever-present propensity for anger.
- From Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age by Frank H. McCourt, Jr.
Good start. Flow. Flow. Group Exercise. Flow. Flow. Speed Bump! (Where did that come from? Remove it.) Flow. Group Exercise. Flow. Flow. Flow. Quiz. Flow. Flow. Wrap-Up.
All workshops are a mix of prose and poetry. Neither can be omitted.
Each section should have something they'll want to pass on to their friends.
The men had been hiding down by the gatekeeper's lodge for half an hour or so, passing a bottle of the best between, and then, the gatekeeper having been carried off to bed, they dodged up the path at six in the evening and looked at the great house with the warm lights lit in each window.
- From "The Terrible Conflagration Up at The Place" in I Sing the Body Electric! by Ray Bradbury
Jonathan Turley on the Easter versus Transgender fiasco.
The PETA potato part was a nice contribution to the nitwittery.
