For the past eight years I have worked as a volunteer Walking Scorer at the PGA Champions Tour Toshiba Classic at Newport Beach Country Club. It has given me the opportunity to meet, talk with and observe at close hand over fifty Champions Tour golfers, including major championship winners such as Gary Player, Lee Trevino, […]
Tag Archives: life lessons
Playing in the Wind
Golf is a game played in beautiful surroundings. Golfers play out in the open air, on golf courses that are usually carefully cultivated and highly manicured playgrounds, where their bright white golf balls gleam against the green grasses that fill the fairways. Even the hazards the golfers try to avoid can be visually appealing. Bunkers are filled […]
The Tale of the Peacock’s Tail
Have you ever wondered why peacocks developed such long, beautiful tails? It’s simple evolutionary biology. Peahens show a reference for large-tailed peacocks. In the earliest days, this made a lot of sense. A showy tail was a marker of a good, healthy male who knew how to feed himself — a good breeding partner, and […]
Strategic Business Analysis is Messy Business
A while back I asked my son-in-law, who works for Cisco in San Jose, what kind of job he would pick if he were able to choose from anything available at his company. He told me that he’d really like to work on business strategy, maybe performing strategic business analysis. Everyone who has been subjected […]
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]