Photo by Robert F. Sargent, US Coast Guard It’s one of the most iconic images from WWII. Usually it’s used to highlight the impossibly courageous men shown storming Omaha Beach during D-Day, and quite appropriately so. This article, though, focuses instead on the boat, and its inventor and manufacturer, Andrew Jackson Higgins. Who’s ever heard […]

As I’ve increasingly published my thoughts about the proper way, the moral way, to treat the people we’re privileged to lead, I’ve seen an interesting phenomenon among some of those who agree with me. They’re waiting for someone else to do something about it. Look at the comments to this LinkedIn post by Caroline Fairchild, […]

I’m halfway through Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family by Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia. It’s affirmed something I’ve felt for a long, long time: that most business leaders are doing it all wrong. This passage hit me like a ton of bricks: I remember a conversation I had […]

Caroline Fairchild, Senior News Editor at LinkedIn, shared this article by her friend Dan Lyons about the burgeoning culture of overwork in Silicon Valley, with her own questions for her readers about workplace expectations and hours worked. It struck me as cognitive dissonance that in the nerve center of technology, which should be liberating us […]

“I dedicate this book to every hardworking American who wakes up in the morning asking themselves what went wrong.” Danielle DiMartino Booth worked on Wall Street and as a financial columnist at the Dallas Morning News, then worked her way up at the Federal Reserve District Bank in Dallas, eventually advising Dallas Federal Reserve President […]

Okay, that’s click-bait. You should really treat your people like I treat my dog. (Well, not literally, because there are those people who consider belly rubs in the workplace inappropriate.) I try never to walk past my dog Hunter without at least giving him a pat on the head. Most of the time, I take […]

I’m in the midst of reading *Coral and Brass* by General Holland “Howlin’ Mad” Smith, his account of his many years of helping to shape the modern Marine Corps. Last night I was reading how the Marines, as WWII broke out, had wanted an amphibious tank, and that their wishes were fulfilled with the development […]

Reports this morning say that Google has fired the engineer who anonymously published a screed against the company’s diversity and inclusion dogma. I find the furor over the article rather informative. Most telling of all has been the response from those invested in the status quo, evidenced primarily by the official Google response to all […]

I’m a “novitiate” in the Boy Scouts of America Wood Badge advanced leadership course. Six weeks ago I finished the “practical phase” of the program, which consisted of two separate, very intense, 3-day weekends of training. At the very end of the second weekend, our Course Director Brent Loudin wrapped it up with his message […]

Note: This is a post I originally published on LinkedIn in February 2015. Yesterday I got the news that my old friend Pat Dowd had just died after a long battle with cancer. I’m republishing this here in his honor. My mind is running through a whole bunch of high school memories of Pat, not least […]