Leadership Mojo

What Can You Do to Build a Fully Sighted Organization?

    A fully sighted company anticipates and "sees" the obvious and the not-so-obvious events, dynamics, and influences that are critical to success versus ignoring it. According to author Margaret Heffernan who wrote Willfull Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril says such blindness happens when there are things we should know, could know, but somehow manage not to know.

    Heffernan, who was born in Texas, but grew up in the Netherlands spoke at a Vancouver conference recently. I was deeply impressed with her work, which reminds me a great deal of the themes I also find relevant - such as how to avoid drinking the  Kool-Aid of group thinking.

    One of Heffernan's pet peeves is multi-tasking. Getting to the point, the brain doesn't do it, as I

Alex Ramsey Challenges You: A Non-IQ Quiz on Logic for Leaders

    When asked to prove if something is true or false, people tend to focus on confirming "the rule" as stated, rather than falsifying it.  Humm that's sort of a brain twister, isn't it? As a result, even supposedly smart people can be quite illogical. That is, according to research psychologist Keith Stanovich, a prof at University of Toronto. His most recent book is What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought.

    One way to prove what he means is this simple exercise, which I challenge you to take.  It will give you an experience of what he means if you are willing to try it. And even if you do not get the correct answer, you'll learn more about yourself for the next time you are presented with a parallel situation: Imagine four cards sitting on a table.

Carl Sewell's Customers for Life

             Car magnate Carl Sewell's book Customers for Life makes an important link between customers and employees. Treating one group well over the other is not an "either-or" concept, in spite of the fact such seems to be the case in some companies. Let's see, a comparison between two airlines comes immediately to mind: one that gets it, and one that doesn't.  Can you guess which?

            "They (employees and customers) are equally important," Carl says.

             This concept impressed me years ago when I first read his book. It's difficult, if not impossible, to create a corporate culture of brilliant customer service if management treats employees badly. His thinking follows along these lines of human nature: Employees, in a pinch or under stress, are going to act the way they have been treated. Treat them well, and they are going to be far more likely to understand how to treat customers well. What Sewell looks for is not the sort of behavior you're likely to learn by memorizing a script. It's the kind of stuff that comes on the fly, in the heat of battle, when it counts most.  Let's see, and those airlines I'm thinking of, are....?

The Ghost Map

    A peculiar phenomenon follows me when I walk into a book store: Books speak to me. I'm not schizo. I don't literally hear words such as, "You hoo, here I am." On the other hand, I might as well, since the end result is the same: I buy them. Could you resist a book that spoke to you?
     I am magnetically drawn to certain volumes and can't explain why. When this happens, I simply know to buy. Such was the case recently at one of my favorite independent bookstores, Warwick's while I was in La Jolla, California. For synergistic reasons that became clear to me later, The Ghost Map, a book I'd never heard of nor expected to have any interest in, was the one that yelped at me. The choice was oddly prescient considering current events as well as an unexpected encounter on the plane to Southern California.
     You see, The Ghost Map is all about the great cholera epidemic of London in 1854, and the day I bought it was the day Swine Flu jumped across the border into the United States and declared a pandemic - only when I handed my credit card to the clerk, I didn't know any of that news.
      

Shakespeare on Risk: Anything New Under the Sun?

            "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures. "
                                                                    William Shakespeare From Julius Caesar

           And you thought this economic crises was personal? Since Shakespeare spoke about similar challenges as those we face today 500 years ago, no less grand and world changing than today's financial crises, the eternal nature of difficult times gives us some perspective.
            The greatest challenge we face is in recognizing the signs and then is being flexible enough to adapt and react without creating tragedies. (By the way, Julius Caesar is a tragedy. That's something we want to avoid, right?....) When working with clients at LodeStar Universal, my role is to make sure that people things clearly, choosing courses of action that prevent tragedy.
            Shakespeare, through his plays, presents timeless issues. Here he tells  us that timing, free