Being Honorable in the 21st Century

…..Weiner, Spitzer, Woods, Schwarzenegger, and some French guy named Strauss-Kahn … imagine the problems we would be wading through now if John Edwards would have found his way to the White House in 2008 … Alas, they all have a common denominator. They are human beings, not only capable of failure but prone to it.

Wanted: International Leadership, Bring References

Just like a school yard bully, Moammar Gadhaffi tried to call a time-out recognizing that his fortunes were changing as Europeans and the Arab League prompted stabilizing initiatives in response to his terroristic behavior. Alas, it was too late as it began raining Tomahawks over his forces in Libya.

He still owes Japan a huge debt of gratitude for temporarily distracting a media already known for their short attention span while he caused his own tsunami of death and destruction half a world away. Cable and network news journalists using experts du jour on speed dial evoked Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and picked apart heretofore hidden design flaws of Fukushima Daiichi while a madman hired mercenaries to complement his military in openly murdering his own people.

Hey Dad, Are we going to be okay?

…. The truth is we’ve been here before, more than once. We know the way out. The question is: Do we, as Americans, still have the guts to make the tough choices and execute the plan knowing that the healing process will be more painful than our current condition, or will we kick the can down the road and leave it for our kids to take care of. Time is of the essence as we have levied some pretty high financial stakes this time around. Recorded history reveals what  prominent figures had to say about the crisis’ that surrounded them. 

The Cream Still Rises

Too often I have seen the wrong people ascend to the top of an organization. By wrong, I mean charismatic but inept, valuing results over integrity,

VAdm Bill Gortney, 'Shortney'

favored by seniors but held in contempt by peers, and all too often administratively fluent but operationally bankrupt.

The past week has put two names on the front pages that are truly deserving of their ascendancy to leadership in a large organization. I am lucky enough to count them both primarily as friends and secondly as former colleagues.

An Antidote for a Corporate Cancer

Greed and Pride. Eliminate these two malignancies and your wildest imagination couldn’t begin to take you to

Poster Boy

where we could be in this world. The antidote for these two deadly sins is a persistent dose of relentless accountability. Unfortunately, those infected with greed tend to resist the accountability antidote because of their own pride. In the advanced stage of this cancer they continue to infect themselves and often tend to spread it to those around them.