Month: June 2011

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Leading With Vision

A New York Times article, Lessons in Longevity From I.B.M., by Steve Lohr used IBM reaching the 100-year old mark to call attention to practices that contribute to an organization’s longevity.  A noteworthy point made is that past success can impede future success.  The article seems to suggest that all companies will lose their dominance and only a few will be able to survive beyond the dominance they once held.  Although this may be a common occurrence it should not be concluded that it is inevitable! Continue reading →

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Hidden Lessons in Leadership #26

Bing Gordon, partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, claimed in a New York Times interview “that people want leaders who give them confidence.  In a start-up company or in a creative process, there’s turmoil.  Every day feels like you’re looking into the maw of a black hole, and you want somebody around who’s confident, who you think is competent, who can kind of create a floor and say: Don’t worry.  It’s not going to get worse than this.” Continue reading →

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Why Educate

Why educate? For cognitive development!  We see ourselves as intelligent beings and therefore we see the need to use our intellect to acquire knowledge in support of cognitive development. Operationally education involves disseminating facts from within various subjects/disciplines and then testing for retention and recall, with the percent passing a test being the indicator of educational success. Continue reading →

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Total Ecology Economics

Because economic theory and practice touches much of life in society, its practice has far-reaching implications.   In a recent New York Times OP-ED article Thomas Friedman describes the effects of our consumer-driven growth model of economics upon our future. Continue reading →

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A Viable Society Requires A Viable Citizenry

Raising of the Middle Class

In a recent research report (Addressing the Problem of Stagnant Wages) Frank Levy and Tom Kochan note: “In the three decades after World War II, a central feature of the American economy was a mass upward mobility in which each generation lived better than the last, and workers experienced earnings gains through much of their careers. In short, the American Dream was alive and well.” Continue reading →