Over lunch Frances described to me her background. I had wondered how she got started, why when the CEO of Ford, Alan Mulaly, gave her a car, she picked it up near Pittsburgh. She told me about growing up near there and going to the University of Pittsburgh. If I remember right, she didn’t finish. It struck me because she is yet another prominent leader who didn’t graduate college. She’s[…] Keep reading →

Frances invited me to her office. The first day I went, I approached the front desk. The security guy was friendly. As he processed my ID he said, “Oh yeah, Frances gets big visitors. Sometimes Generals come in. Four stars, ones from TV. They all have to wait for her.” Impressive! Her office is in a big Park Avenue high-rise office building in the 50s. The lobby had fifty-foot ceilings,[…] Keep reading →

“To serve is to live.” Frances Hesselbein had the fastest, clearest, most direct, and most meaningful answer of anyone I remember asking her passion. Five minutes into our pre-lunch conversation and she went right to the point. Experience and, I believe, only experience enables people to encapsulate great meaning in a minimum of words. I was immediately struck by the power and meaning in these few short words: “to serve[…] Keep reading →

If I measure a book’s quality by how much it changes my perspective and enables me to improve my life, Dr. Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power (1993) is one of the best books I’ve read. He’s written valuable book after valuable books since, up to and including The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It (2018). I grew up believing in equality[…] Keep reading →

If I measure a book’s quality by how much it changes my perspective and enables me to improve my life, Dr. Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power (1993) is one of the best books I’ve read. He’s written valuable book after valuable books since, up to and including The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It (2018). I grew up believing in equality[…] Keep reading →

Sustainability: If You’re Not Patagonia . . . You’re Exxon Today’s top talent won’t work for you, buy from you, or tell their friends about you. Instead, they’ll attack you. I have a way forward. If you have or want customers, employees, shareholders, or media attention, sustainability matters, especially to top talent, especially talent younger than 35. They were born into a dumpster fire of an environment. Damn right, they’re[…] Keep reading →

Sustainability: If You’re Not Patagonia . . . You’re Exxon Today’s top talent won’t work for you, buy from you, or tell their friends about you. Instead, they’ll attack you. I have a way forward. If you have or want customers, employees, shareholders, or media attention, sustainability matters, especially to top talent, especially talent younger than 35. They were born into a dumpster fire of an environment. Damn right, they’re[…] Keep reading →

I would have viewed avoiding flying as missing out until I experienced what happens when I don’t fly. I don’t sit in the corner crying, feeling sorry for myself. I develop the skills to create what I used to pay for. I’ll give a few examples how avoiding flying, or as I put it now, staying local, enriched my life. Wondering how I’d get off North America, I took sailing[…] Keep reading →

I learned more from the Cadets at West Point than they could possibly have learned from me, but retired General Lloyd Austin III invited me there to co-lead workshops on leadership My mentor Frances Hesselbein introduced us. As I type, the Senate is holding hearings on his nomination to Secretary of Defense. I wrote an Inc. story on the experience, “6 Lessons I Learned Teaching Leadership With a 4-Star General[…] Keep reading →