Earlier this week at the Palm Springs International Film Festival we watched a new film, “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.” The film, adapted from the 2007 novel of the same name by Paul Torday, tells the story of feckless British fisheries expert Dr. Andrew Jones [played by Ewan McGregor], who is approached by consultant Harriet Chetwode-Talbot [played […]
Category Archives: Life in General
Real Leaders
During the 2000 presidential campaign, David Foster Wallace, the novelist, essayist and humorist best known for his 1996 novel “Infinite Jest,” covered John McCain‘s unsuccessful bid to become the Republican Party’s nominee for President for Rolling Stone Magazine. He rode with McCain’s Straight Talk Express for a week in February of that year and wrote […]
Have You Stereotyped Yourself?
I had been planning to write an article about stereotypes, and recently started wondering about the word “stereotype.” I had this idea in mind that the concept was somehow warped, since when I think of stereo-anything, [e.g. stereophonic speakers, stereoscopic viewing] it implies to me that there is a duality or multiplicity of perspectives being […]
Growing Older or Getting Old?
Four months ago today we made the very difficult decision to euthanize King, our beloved canine companion for the past eight years. It’s taken me this long to steel myself sufficiently to write about him. The vet who examined King at the San Clemente Animal Shelter estimated that he was between five and seven years […]
Good Coach, Bad Coach
Except for those unfortunate few of us who, like moths attracted to a flame, find themselves drawn toward every new piece of reporting on the scandals at Penn State and Syracuse, most of us are sick and tired of hearing about so-called “coaches” who took advantage of their titles and positions to abuse young boys. […]
In God We Trust?
As the American populace waits to see whether the Congress’s supercommittee can agree on some kind of plan to avoid across the board cuts to all government programs — including the liberals’ “untouchables” [Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid] along with the conservatives’ sacred cow [Defense] — it looks as if our government of elected representatives has […]
The Artful Nudge
[This post was co-authored with Alan Engelstad and Karl Moore, and was previously published in shorter form under the title Nudging Your Way to Real Change at Forbes.com. Alan is an adjunct professor at McGill’s Desaultel Faculty of Management where he teaches this approach at the International Masters for Health Leadership. Karl is a professor at the Desautels […]
A Belated Thank You
Twenty years ago I went to a leadership development program called LeaderLab at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina. We spent a week in Greensboro, then worked on our leadership action plan back at the office for about three months, then reconvened in Greensboro for a week to revisit and revise our action […]
Running in Place
Here’s a proposition: Purpose is the ACT of consciously applying our motivated strength and resources to people and projects that move us and in which we believe. That’s more than a mouthful to swallow in one bite, so let’s parse it into edible chunks. It’s an “act”, so it implies that we have to DO something, […]
In Praise of Curmudgeons
In response to one of my recent blog posts, a friend suggested that I was becoming a curmudgeon. I wasn’t really sure whether I should feel insulted by the comment. I decided to look the word up in the dictionary. According to the Miriam–Webster Dictionary, a curmudgeon is “a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man.” […]