This is awfully touching. It’s from the induction of Yes into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in April 2017 – far too late by any measure, but particularly by the one that says that Yes bassist, founder, and the only member to appear on every Yes album, Chris Squire, had already died of leukemia in 2015, two years before the band finally got this well-deserved honor.

This first video has Rush lead singer and bassist Geddy Lee filling in for Chris in a classic Yes anthem, in fine fashion:

But it’s this second one, where lead guitarist chops fairly go to Trevor Rabin, who played the on the original song, that really makes it seem like there’s someone cutting onions. Because perennial lead guitarist Steve Howe therefore just jumps on the Rickenbacker bass and fills in for his old pal Chris, in even finer fashion:

It was some months ago that I read a post on LinkedIn by a young woman company founder extolling her women-led workplace. Now, I have absolutely nothing against a women-led workplace – I’ve known a great many women who did or could lead a whale of a workplace.

But this particular leader, as part of cheering her all-women leadership team, felt compelled to point out (more than once) that they were inventing all their own new rules and practices, since obviously any that had a tie back to “old white men” were automatically wrong or evil. (She was cheered heartily by most of her article’s commenters.)

As I’ve written elsewhere, I struggle to understand why certain people feel that, to build women up, you must tear men down. How can they be blind to the poisonous fruit that action harvests?

And how can it be in any way acceptable, in 2018, to be blatantly racist, ageist and sexist – all in a single phrase – in business communication? Or hell, in ANY communication? And then be cheered for it??

But the young lady’s article got me thinking about certain old white men who were among those she universally disparaged. I’ve written about one in particular before, but I thought I’d share his story once more as a counterpoint to that woman leader’s naked contempt.

Colonel Rick Rescorla is the man whose photo graces the cover of General Harold Moore’s book We Were Soldiers Once… and Young. He was a platoon leader during the Ia Drang battle in Vietnam that’s chronicled in the book. He was one of Major Myron Diduryk’s men in the 2^nd Battalion of the 7^th Cavalry. Rescorla would survive both that battle and that war. (Diduryk, on the other had, never had the chance to become an old white man. He took a fatal machine-gun burst to the stomach in the doorway of his Huey helicopter on my 5^th birthday.)

Rick Rescorla was born in Cornwall, England. He first served as a paratrooper in the British army, moving on to a stint as an intelligence office in Cyprus and a commando in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Then he became a mercenary for the US Army, which led him to that famous battle documented by General Moore. He got his US citizenship after the war.

It was many years later that he was an “old white man” leader. He’d built a civilian career in safety and security, eventually becoming the Vice President for Corporate Security for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. in New York City. There he was routinely ridiculed and laughed at for the evacuation drills he insisted the company conduct in its corporate offices.

Nobody is laughing now.

Most of his charges survived the war he didn’t, the one that began in earnest at Ground Zero, the World Trade Center, on Sept. 11, 2001. Morgan Stanley lost just six of their 3,700 WTC employees in that attack. Rick Rescorla, age 62, was one of them. He’d spent hours directing the evacuation of employees, despite orders from the New York Port Authority for people to stay put. He died when he went back for a final check of the company’s floors and Tower #2 came crashing down with him inside. The survivors owe him their lives.

He left behind a wife of just 2-1/2 years, Susan. They got to speak just briefly as the situation developed:

Susan Rescorla watched the United Airlines jet carve through her husband’s tower, and she dissolved in tears. After a while, her phone rang. It was Rick.

“I don’t want you to cry,” he said. “I have to evacuate my people now.”

She kept sobbing.

“If something happens to me, I want you to know that you made my life.”

The phone went dead.

Rick Rescorla was hailed by those who knew him, from one end of life to the other, as one of the bravest men they’d ever met. It was that courage coupled with a deep caring for those in his charge that made him the unparalleled leader he was, despite being an old white man.

I’ll leave you by addressing a slightly modified version of one of my favorite passages from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol to the woman leader who felt so comfortable dismissing a whole category of people because of their age, race, and sex:

So perhaps, in the future, you will hold your tongue until you have discovered where the [old white men are], and WHO [they are]. It may well be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to [lead] than MILLIONS like this [old white man].

PS – My sources for the above information are here and in We Were Soldiers Once… and Young. Please do read both. I’ve really only scratched the surface in this article.

Professor Barry Brownstein had a superb article this week about government coercion in political opinion that’s part and parcel of socialism. His timing was fortuitous, because big news items highlighted decision-makers in the business world who desperately need his lesson. His piece serves as a stark warning against the current push to have corporations play politics. Companies can’t use the same brutal tools to starve people into compliance that a totalitarian government can, but their scope for evildoing is still awfully big.

This week’s big news is about the Nike ad featuring unemployed pro football player Colin Kaepernick, whose fame is entirely due to his protests against alleged racist police brutality, which consisted solely of showing public disrespect to the US flag and national anthem at NFL games.

Less splashily but in a similar vein, Levi Strauss & Co. announced a major escalation of their financial support for gun control proponents.

For both moves, there was a huge outpouring of support from those whose own politics match what these companies are pushing. And there was a huge backlash against these actions by those who disagree. From a pure sales standpoint, time will tell what the impact of these actions are on sales for each company.

But sales, while hugely important, are only one of many priorities for corporate executives. From a responsible and ethical leadership point of view, the jury is already in. There are two enormously obvious problems with corporate leaders signing their companies up to play politics like this.

First, Nike is a longstanding public corporation. Its shareholders expect a leadership focus on the business, not on political distractions. Yet CEOs and Boards are now comfortable spending corporate dollars to push their own personal politics. (I defy you to show me a company jumping into politics where the ideological bent doesn’t exactly match the personal politics of the executives making that decision.) Were a lower-tier employee to do such a thing, it would most likely lead to summary termination. And rightly so – in simple terms it’s called theft; in HR-speak it’s “misallocation of company resources.” But as I’ve pointed out many times in other venues, the #MeToo movement highlights the tip of a raging executive malfeasance iceberg: too many business executives believe the rules are for the little people. It’s high time all employees, at all levels, are held to the same standards of behavior and ethics.

Second, whether a company is public or private, its leaders are supposed to be servants of all their employees, all their customers, and all their shareholders. Yet by jumping on political bandwagons, they’re effectively announcing that only those who share their personal politics are welcome. Oh, they won’t go out and fire people willy-nilly for having different opinions. (But let’s not forget last year’s scandalous behavior at Google, where the company not only fired engineer James Damore for his non-politically-correct political opinions; the CEO and VP of “Inclusion” also went public to blatantly misrepresent what he’d written and to shame him. If anyone deserved be fired in that case, it was those two.) But what message does open support for certain politics send to employees? For them, it becomes a chilling effect, sending a clear message that it’s not safe to talk about certain ideas in the workplace – for those on the wrong side of the political aisle, that is. (I wonder how my fellow NRA members working for Levi’s feel right now, for example.) For all the current blather about diversity, this behavior drives anything but. For shareholders and customers of opposing politics, meanwhile, it’s effectively a hostile takeover of a previously trusted company. None of that is right or ethical, and it surely isn’t acceptable leadership.

If you’re an executive and you want to play politics with a company, go found one for yourself on those principles. People do it every day, and the corporate leaders we’re talking about are plenty wealthy enough to do so. But if you lead a public company, or a private one that has a longstanding history of political neutrality, your personal political opinions don’t just magically become that company’s “values” overnight. Get over yourself. And if you can’t exercise restraint and judgment with your politics, get out of the executive role. You don’t deserve it, and your stakeholders deserve a hell of a lot better leadership.

There’s a social aspect here as well, one that is the exact opposite of what these misguided execs believe. They’ve adopted the mantra that our current political disagreements “are too important for us to remain silent.” (By the way, they’re free to speak all they want as private citizens – within the same limitations as those imposed on all their employees, that is.) But as Professor Brownstein points out, “The standard of living we take for granted depends upon minimizing the exercise of coercion.” When fat cats – whether they’re government or corporate types – cow classes of people into silence, our whole society suffers.

I lived in lovely Cadillac, Michigan, twenty years ago. During my few years there, I was heavily into mountain biking, and my pals John Van Eden and Harry Milton and I did a lot of traveling around to the different local trails in the northwest Lower Peninsula.

My absolute favorite was a section of the North Country Trail, a 4,600 mile trail primarily for hiking, which stretches from North Dakota to the New York – Vermont border. The section in question is called the Marilla section, and it runs along the Manistee river for about seven miles each way. It’s beautiful single-track, with lots of exposed roots to contend with – but most of all, it winds up and down the river bluff, making for an extremely challenging ride.

I was up that way over the weekend for some Scouting stuff, so I brought my ancient K2 along and spent some time Sunday reliving my past glory. Between legs unaccustomed to off-road riding anymore, and the accompanying lack of technical skills, it was a lot slower going than back in the day. But it was no less fun.

This week I debuted as a contributor at Forbes.com, fulfilling a lifelong desire I’ve had to be “officially” recognized as a writer. It’s been a very interesting road getting here, and looking back I can’t help feeling that losing my little sister Michelle was a big turning point.

Michelle was a writer too. She had a popular regular column in the Wakefield News/Bessemer Pick & Axe, a print newspaper serving the area where we grew up in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She wrote about general interest topics, often relating them to her experiences as a teacher and education administrator.

At the same time, I was writing and editing a newsletter at General Mills, tied to my various jobs there, and I was also blogging. Michelle often commented about how similar our writing styles were.

But my General Mills career stagnated, and I wound up leaving the company and taking a hiatus from most writing. Michelle continued to write, but she had her own problems, much bigger than mine. You see, she was tortured by demons I don’t begin to understand, her whole life long. They became too powerful for her two years ago, and she died far too young, at age 49.

In the days and weeks after that happened I was mostly numb, but one thing I did was take a look at my life and think about what I wanted to be different. Probably the biggest conclusion was that, if Michelle wasn’t around to write anymore, then I needed to get back to it myself.

But I had a big motivation problem. And that got far worse when my Mom died just a few months later. For the next year plus, I was lost. Oh, I went through all the motions – I got all the critical stuff done at work, I kept all my outside commitments pretty well afloat, kept up with my family’s needs (at least I think so), and I probably looked pretty much the same as ever externally. Internally, I lost a huge chunk of my usual ambition and drive. My fitness program was spotty at best, and despite committing to getting back to writing, I didn’t get back to writing.

And then I did. Because Michelle’s voice was always there, about our writing styles being so similar, and along with it was my knowledge that she wasn’t out there writing anymore. So, slowly, I got back into the game. I started back to blogging – once a month at first, then every few weeks, until eventually I was posting regularly once a week. I also started becoming more active on LinkedIn, using it to publicize each blog post, but also to become more vocal about things I cared about in the business world.

And one day not long ago, one of my contacts there shared a post from one his colleagues, looking for someone with manufacturing expertise to write magazine-length articles for a client of hers. I e-mailed my interest and got a nearly immediate reply connecting me with an editor at Forbes. After another few e-mails and a phone call with her, I had a contract. This all happened in a matter of days.

A couple of things, then: First, there is a God and he has a plan for you. Keep your eyes and ears and options open so you don’t miss it. Second, Michelle is gone, but she’s also still here; it was her inspiration and that bond we shared in writing that got me back to doing something I’ve always loved, and to a place where now I can reach a lot more people with it.

Thanks, Shell. I love you.

I recently signed on as a contributor for Forbes, to write manufacturing articles for them. Here’s my first one.

Let me start by saying that, no, this is not about anyone in my family or circle of friends needing the services of this amazing cancer hospital for children. Thank God for that.

My old college pal Fadi Kiameh posted this story on LinkedIn about actor Danny Thomas and how it came to be that he founded St. Jude. Read the whole thing – it’s just marvelous.

For me, the story also dredged up a whole slew of memories about St. Jude.

I went to college in Memphis, where the hospital is located, and my school hosted regular blood drives for them. That’s when I first learned about St. Jude, and also when I first began giving blood. I became a regular donor, feeling awfully proud to do my little part to help those kids. (It also didn’t hurt that I had a bit of a crush on the attractive older sister of one of my classmates, who was one of the hospital’s nurses who regularly worked the blood drives. That surely helped me overcome my fear of needles.)

I graduated and moved away, but kept giving blood to other organizations, so there was a halo effect at work there that helped others in need. (I’m O negative, the universal donor, so I’m very popular at donation centers.)

A few years later I married my college girlfriend, who was from the Memphis area, and we both got to missing the place. We moved back there just over a year after we got married.

I was still giving blood, but someone familiar with the hospital shared with me that St. Jude had to pay for blood they got from other organizations, even if it was given in the hospital’s name. So I started driving, every couple of months as I became eligible again, downtown from the western suburb where I lived to give blood directly to St. Jude. I did that for years, and they sure appreciated it.

Also during that time, the hospital began airing infomercials for fundraising. I’d seen bits and pieces of them and it was awfully moving, so I was already in a mind to donate. One evening I walked into our apartment living room to find my young bride in tears, watching one of the fundraising commercials. “Do you want to donate?” I asked gently. She nodded and smiled through her tears, and the next thing you know we were signed up for an automatic monthly donation. That was probably 25 years ago, and I’ll tell you, a monthly donation is a wonderful thing. I don’t say this to brag at all – it surely wasn’t anything I thought about at the time – but we’ve now given tens of thousands of dollars to St. Jude. I can’t think of a better place to say that about. St. Jude never charges its patients a dime.

Eventually a great job opportunity came along and we moved away from Memphis. I still give blood, but I sure miss giving it at St. Jude. But thanks to our donations, we get a monthly e-mail (thanks, Dee Briscoe!) along with snail mail updates that keep us connected with all the great things going on there.

Trust me, I count myself blessed to A) not need their services, and B) be able to help them in the little way I do.

I know I just asked you guys a couple weeks ago to donate for dental care for those in need, but if you’ve got some other cash to spare, send it on down to Memphis, will you?

“I sometimes wonder about the doors that stay shut when you can’t afford a smile.” – Louis M. Profeta MD

Dr. Profeta is one of my favorite writers, and his recent article with the quote above hit home with me in a really big way.

You see, I played a part similar to that of the young lady Dr. Profeta treated.

When I was growing up, my parents made a little go a very long way with me and my six siblings. We never wanted for much, even though raising a family of seven kids on a single government salary had to be a huge challenge for Mom and Dad.

Dental care, unfortunately, fell by the wayside. I had molars literally crumbling to pieces at a young age, but I made not a single dentist visit from about age eight to age fifteen.

I was lucky in one way – my front teeth were only minimally affected by the otherwise rampant decay that took hold by the time I was a teenager. So my smile remained pretty well normal. But a big laugh was a visual nightmare.

Something changed when I was fifteen – maybe better insurance coverage? – when suddenly my Mom sent my brothers and sisters and me to a local dentist, Dr. Donald Sandell.

I remember very hushed but astonished tones between Dr. Sandell and his hygienist at my initial checkup. Particularly memorable was the incredulous, “Look at #14!” That particular tooth was decayed almost to nothing.

I made countless follow-up visits, getting fillings in God knows how many teeth, and a root canal and crown for #14. Dr. Sandell was a Godsend. He annoyed the stew out of me with his constant admonitions to “open wider,” but he did marvelous work. A good many years ago one of my dentists offered to replace the silver-toned crown that caps good ol’ #14 with a modern white one that would look like a real tooth. I declined. Why do away with Dr. Sandell’s handiwork? That crown has been in my head for more than three decades. It’s a good lesson in humility too – there’s always a reminder there at the very edge of my wide smile of the difficulties of the past, where a bit of shiny silver gleams.

I’ve had marvelous dental health since Dr. Sandell worked his magic. Indeed, the main work I’ve had has been addressing the same problems he dealt with – lots of decay required too-big fillings, and those have caused other problems over the years because of the expansion-contraction realities of the materials he had to work with back then. But I still have all my teeth, in one form or another.

Lots of folks aren’t as fortunate as me. They never get the break I got at fifteen, and dental care falls by the wayside their whole lives. Dr. Profeta’s article got me thinking that I should try to help those people, and I searched for suitable charities.

There’s not that much out there. One that popped up and looked pretty good, though, is the America’s Dentists Care Foundation. Wanting to make sure my dollars (and anyone else’s, for that matter) go for the right things, I went straight to “the horse’s mouth” and spoke with their Executive Director, Bill Blasing. He made a believer out of me.

The ADCF, Bill explained, is “the center of a wagon wheel.” They purchase, maintain, and provide low-cost rentals of high-end dental equipment in mobile trailers. These travel to almost all the states in the US to support dental Missions of Mercy and other clinics that provide free dental care to those who can’t afford to pay for it. Their goal is to provide, as Bill put it, “the closest thing to an in-office experience, in a mobile setting” as they possibly can.

At its core, he said, it’s about caring for and loving these people in need. So it’s their goal to provide the very best support for the dentists, hygienists, and other volunteers who make these clinics happen. They’re celebrating ten years of doing so later this year.

The ADCF will get my support. I hope you’ll consider supporting them too.

PS – hey Dr. Profeta, they do a Mission of Mercy clinic in Indianapolis every other year.

You sometimes have no idea of the effect a seemingly insignificant episode can have on a person.

One of the most meaningful memories I have from growing up is the time my Dad showed absolute faith in me.

Our tiny Catholic school system in our tiny hometown in Upper Michigan ran an annual spaghetti feed fundraiser. It was a huge deal (for us, anyway), with meal service in the parish halls of all three Catholic churches in town. Kids and parents alike worked to prepare some of the food in advance, to make and serve the complete meals on the day of the event, and to handle all the other tasks like manning the till, clearing tables, cleaning up messes, and so on.

One year, when I was around 13 or 14, I was doing the money collecting with another boy a few years older than me. At one point my Dad came by to check on us, and calculated that $20 had gone missing from the till.

The other boy was very quick to accuse me of taking it. My Dad didn’t miss a beat. He stared the other kid down and said, “No, Jim did not take that money.”

It was very obvious by his expression that my Dad strongly suspected that the other boy had taken it. But he didn’t accuse him. The other kid hemmed and hawed and quickly found a reason to do some other job, and my Dad took over at the collection table with me. And he never said another word about it. The whole thing took just a few very short minutes.

But those are minutes that have stuck with me. All these decades later, I still get a lump in my throat knowing my Dad had that absolute faith in me.

And I’m certainly not perfect, but I try like the devil to live up that amazing lesson my Dad gave me.

I think a great way to approach life is to consider deeply all the moments you can never get back.

To illustrate, let me give you an analogy. For a good chunk of my career I was a Packaging System Engineer with General Mills, providing technical help to the work teams who put cereal into the packages you buy at the store. One of our key pieces of machinery took the filled inner bag of cereal and put it into the box, or carton. It was aptly name the cartoner.

The cartoner had a conveyor of individual buckets that the filled bags were dropped into, and the conveyor never stopped moving when the line was running. When we ran well, every bucket had a bag in it and the cartoner ran non-stop, putting out a finished cereal box every second.

But the machines that put the cereal into the bags, aptly named the baggers, were a problem, and often we’d have cartoner buckets with no cereal bags in them. To stress the operational impact and the need to keep the baggers going, I took to pointing out to my operators that every empty bucket was a missed opportunity that we could never get back. (It probably annoyed the crap out of them, but hey, isn’t that part of an engineer’s job?)

Life is like the cartoner. The important moments are the cartoner buckets, and your time – your presence – is the cereal bag. You either put it in the bucket, or you don’t – but you never get another chance at that particular bucket.

My younger son and I just got back from Webelos camp. I wouldn’t have missed this bucket for a million bucks: