Jim Collins of Good To Great fame jumps into the dump-on-Scott bandwagon with a really poor reading of history. In his new book, Collins comes up with a new thesis as to why some companies do better than others:  because they’re like Roald Amundsen and they deliver consistent positive results at a given level, year […]

In this article, innovation author Robert F. Brands uses the story of the race to the South Pole to draw lessons about best practices and innovation. I’m in complete agreement with the ideas he’s trying to reinforce, that the best innovation combines the use of best practices and new ideas.  Good messages, though, are no […]

How funny is this? It’s amazing to me that the “leaders” in the fastest-dying part of the West continue as though it’s not obvious that THE.  GAME.  IS.  OVER.

A long time ago, Peggy Noonan was brilliant. We will never forget them this morning as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God. President Ronald Reagan said that on January 28, 1986, after the space shuttle Challenger had exploded shortly after […]

I have to admit I felt a bit funny traveling to my hometown for the funeral of a friend I knew for over thirty years, Mark “Biff” Fitting.  After all, it’s not like we were an everyday part of each other’s lives.  I worked for him for a couple summers in the early ’80s, and […]

I wrote a few months back about what I see as our crisis of leadership, and how — in both business and politics — we suffer “leaders” who want only the perks of position, and none of the awesome responsibilities. I’ve seen two additional regular phenomena as I’ve studied the problem. The first is that our leaders today have […]

The vast majority of us could never have made it as Navy SEALs.  But we could still learn a lot from how they’re “made.”  This article tells something about that. I loved this passage: What kind of man makes it through Hell Week? That’s hard to say. But I do know—generally—who won’t make it. There […]

The US Navy will christen the guided missile destroyer USS Michael Murphy today.  Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy commanded a four-man squad in Afghanistan on a mission to find a Taliban commander.  As told by fellow SEAL Marcus Luttrell in Lone Survivor:  The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team […]

This is a great article about who we should hold up as examples for our kids.  Kudos to the SEALs on a job well done.

Much ink is being spilled these days about the failure of our elites.  I agree with the overall notion; in both government and business, we’ve seen colossal incompetence on display. I think a huge part of the problem is that our leaders don’t really want to be leaders.  Too many of those who are reaching […]