Tom Heffner, host of the Next Year Now podcast, just posted his interview of me. Tom and I got to be friends following up this podcast, based on our mutual passion for learning and practicing leadership skills, education, values, and many of the things you read about here, so you’ll hear the chemistry. Plus, he came to these areas from a science and aerospace background, as I did. As Tom[…] Keep reading →

I’m pleased to have appeared this morning on Bold TV with GenFKD. Here are links to watch: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BoldTV/videos/560713460953279 Periscope: https://www.pscp.tv/BoldGlobalMedia/1yNGakoNlnrxj I appear at 3:45 for about seven minutes. Here are highlights BoldTV made:

I wanted to share some thoughts on reading The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World by Andrea Wulf, one of the New York Times’ 10 best books of 2017. Who is Alexander von Humboldt? The New York Times review of the book explains: Alexander von Humboldt was the pre-eminent scientist of his time. Contemporaries spoke of him as second in fame only to Napoleon. All over the Americas[…] Keep reading →

Leadership, entrepreneurship, and other performance-based professional practices are fundamentally social and emotional. Traditional academics teaches you to comply, not to lead or take initiative. It teaches intellectual skills, which are perfect for the knowledge worker of the mid-twentieth century. Those days are gone. Today’s challenges are social and emotional—how to create relationships and learn people’s problems so you can solve them. Learning to lead, innovate, create, and solve people’s problems[…] Keep reading →

People tell me how their lives are too busy to act on their environmental values. “I wish I could pollute less,” they say, “but I don’t have time.” I happened on a passage in a book on Thomas Jefferson, who actively farmed while President of the United States. You may say, “But the nation was smaller then.” First, you don’t have to farm to live by your values. You have[…] Keep reading →

Sometimes people who want to know to lead ask directly, How do you lead? I don’t think they’re asking a question that will help them improve their leadership. You can walk and talk, but you’d be hard pressed to describe how you do it beyond generalities like “you put one foot in front of the other.” No one taught you the theory behind language or walking. You practiced until you[…] Keep reading →

Why the Environment Needs Leadership Leaders know guilt, blame, doom, and gloom don’t work. What works better? Here’s one effective way to lead: Go where the people you want to lead are–emotionally, not necessarily physically. That is, learn what they care about and connect those motivations to the task. Then the task will feel meaningful and purposeful to them. They’ll do it for themselves. They’ll thank you for leading them to work. What doesn’t[…] Keep reading →

10 Signs U.S. Universities Are Sabotaging Themselves Moody’s downgraded higher education to “negative.” S&P agreed. Finances aren’t the problem. Leadership is. S&P predicted a bleak future for higher education last week. Last month Moody’s downgraded the sector to from “stable” to “negative.” Leaders know financial issues usually aren’t root problems but point to them. Here are 10 signs pointing to problems among American universities independent of finance, from most obvious leading to the broadest and most important. 10. The most[…] Keep reading →

Should New York City Sue Mayor de Blasio? Will New York City’s mayor stop personally doing what the city is suing tobacco companies for? Last week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio explained why the city was suing five fossil fuel companies: For decades, Big Oil ravaged our environment. They knew what they were peddling was lethal, but they didn’t care. They used the classical Big Tobacco playbook of denial, denial, denial, and all[…] Keep reading →