[May 31, 2014] Interim Veterans Administration chief Sloan Gibson stated that the VA as a whole needs “a change in culture.” The scandal of hiding wait times that appears to have resulted in military veteran deaths is shameful. However, the fix is not in better management systems and processes but in the elimination of the VA’s current employment… Read More »
[May 30, 2014] As regular readers know, I travel across the United States and overseas. Spending time in airports is second nature to me and many other military travelers. Airline service is important. Another important supply of services is rental car companies. I have rented from all the major companies in America – too many to count. Enterprise… Read More »
[May 30, 2014] There has been criticism of the Federal School Lunch Program. A number of experts and pundits rightly pointed out the hasty and ill-conceived program rollout. The faults were outlined in an article I wrote earlier (link here). Yet, today some good news for the program. The First Lady wrote an opinion piece for the New… Read More »
[May 29, 2014] All over New York City, I’ve been finding Yellow Ribbons tied to utility poles with a small United States flag, like the one pictured here. I asked my neighbors and no one seems to know who is putting the ribbons about town. I looked up the source of the yellow ribbon tape itself and it… Read More »
[May 29, 2014] The general rule of leadership is to own up to any mistake you make and do so promptly. In particular, this is true for senior executive leaders. Reasons for admitting your mistakes are many and will be listed here. Exemptions, however, for not admitting a mistake are exceedingly rare. One unfortunate exemption to admitting ones… Read More »
[May 28, 2014] A number of readers have had trouble making their comments seen. The reason is that I’m using a spam filter that removes comments that the reader has not signed-up for posting. At the end of each article is a place to sign-up. It’s easy and no information obtained will be distributed to anyone, period. Your… Read More »
[May 28, 2014] If you want to learn lessons in leadership, don’t watch a movie. That has always been my advice to young leaders. In other words, leadership is learned from relevant, practical experience, not from the comfort of your sofa, observing it from afar. I will admit however, there are a few gems of leadership buried elsewhere… Read More »
[May 28, 2014] The point of this blog has been to articulate those key leader characteristics that set senior executive leaders apart from the ordinary leader. Yet, taking a bit of a twist on this logic, people ask me all the time, “what are those things that great leaders don’t do in order to avoid failure?” My original… Read More »
[May 27, 2014] As a kid who loved all things related to science, I was enthralled with the X-15 experimental rocket aircraft of the 1950s and 60s. Somewhere in the attic is the plastic model I built around the time I started grade school. The engineers who designed and the test pilots who flew these aircraft were leaders… Read More »
[May 27, 2014] Many military veterans are angry by the “brewing scandal” at Veterans Administration hospitals – at least those that I talk to. I call it a brewing scandal because we know there are problems, but we do not yet know the extent of the bad or of the good. One of my first blog entries back in… Read More »