In July of 1970, I found myself standing on the parade field at West Point alongside hundreds of other young men. Seventeen years old, two weeks out of high school, and a long way from Georgia. Several months earlier, two Army football coaches had shown up at my home in Atlanta one evening, and not … Read more
There was a time when scale was an advantage. Or capital. Or access to information. Or geographic dominance. Those days are over. In the Information Age, accelerated by political upheaval, pandemic disruption, social unrest, and technological explosion, those advantages evaporate quickly. What worked yesterday gets copied today and is obsolete tomorrow. I’ve watched this play … Read more
Polarization and the New Leadership Reality Over the past several years, I’ve repeatedly heard a similar question from leaders across industries: “Why does everything feel harder than it used to?” It feels that way, not because people are less capable or because markets are tougher. It‘s because the social environment around us has fundamentally shifted. Polarization has … Read more
One of my favorite scenes in Alice in Wonderland is the part where Alice confronts The Cheshire Cat as she is wandering in the forest: Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice: … Read more
This past fall, I had the privilege of being a guest on Ed Evart’s podcast, “Be Brave at Work;” a podcast devoted to helping people take “the next step” in their workplace. During the podcast, we started by touching on some ‘lighter’ workplace-related topics, including: Transitioning (or not transitioning) from one position or industry to … Read more
“Only the paranoid survive.” – attributed to Andrew Grove, former CEO of Intel Happy New Year! Here comes 2021, and we are rolling into it with all kinds of weird aspects of life continuing from the nightmarish year we experienced in 2020. In addition to an insidious pandemic, there is stress everywhere you look. Unemployment … Read more
