Game of Toads

Well, I guess I'm not a complete nerd.

I gave Game of Thrones (the book, not the HBO series) a serious try and went pretty far into it before tossing the crumpled volume aside. My fantasy gold standard is The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books, hallowed volumes each, but there was a less sophisticated problem with GOT: I only liked one character.

Solamente uno.

That may be a minority opinion but it can be difficult to keep turning pages when all of the characters but one are repellent. 

Have you ever encountered that problem with a novel?

Quote of the Day

There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. 

- Winston S. Churchill

The Revelation of Why

View From the Ledge examines Frank Chimero's essay on the importance of why versus how. 

Very interesting.

Tremble and Obey

Comically Vintage pretty much nails the reaction whenever notice of a staff meeting arrives.

Term Limits for CEOs?

I sometimes wonder if it would make sense for companies to set formal 7 to 10 year "term limits" on their Chief Executive Officers. Doing so would have several advantages:

1. For every genius forced out, there would be far more executives who reached their peak performance years before the departure date. The term limit would be the board's safety net, permitting an exit without rancor.
2. The practice would give added weight to succession planning.
3. It would encourage potential contenders to stay on in the hope of eventually winning the post.
4. It would permit fresh air to enter top management and perhaps even reveal questionable practices which have been suppressed.
5. It would motivate the CEO to get key projects completed before the departure date.

I would add one more item: Once two years have passed since the CEO's departure, the board could bring the person back. Such actions should be rare but there are times when the option may be needed.

Miscellaneous and Fast

Wally Bock has a list to consider when looking for a leader.
Sensory Dispensary has Emile Zola on truth.
The main theme to "El Cid."
Sage magazine: Wendell Berry and the resettling of America.
The Screaming Orphans: "Foggy Dew."
Two songs from a classic western.
FutureLawyer has info on the $500 pallet house.
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog: The air marshal who blew the whistle.
John E. Smith asks "How's Your Now?"
The trailer for "Crossbones."

Wind Your Clock

Start the day by going to Mick's Leadership Blog and reading E. B. White's letter to a man who'd lost faith in humanity.

Quote of the Day

Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth . . . . That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplanted by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast. 

- Viktor E. Frankl

Art Break: Franzetta

Art Contrarian looks at the comic book art of Frank Franzetta.

The System Review

A chunk of this afternoon has been dedicated to a "system review." I've been going through files and project boxes to make sure that everything is where it should be (at least theoretically).

The process has also involved reading notes to myself and discarding ideas that once were deemed brilliant. Only a few of those notes have survived and they'll probably get chopped next month.

Most of one large project will be going to the shredders. All is now in place to keep The System working smoothly but for one vulnerability: The above-mentioned notes.

It is a rare day when I don't scribble in a Moleskine notebook or on 3 by 5 note cards. Those are nice reminders but they cover a variety of subjects and so then must be shifted to a Fat File. 

[For those who are new to this blog, I keep Fat Files on topics due to the fact, learned through brutal experience, that items placed in Fat Files are not lost while those put in small specific Thin Files become needles in haystacks.]

There is an Absent-Minded Professor aspect to all of this which has its pros and cons. At least I don't resemble the newspaper publisher who had to buy the evening copy of his paper in order to find his home address but I can already hear the groans of FutureLawyer and other tech types.

Let them groan. I can see daylight.