Leadership

Dr. Who and the War of Art

/ Jeff Hora / 2 Comments

The Mark 2 fibreglass (Tom Yardley-Jones) Tard...

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OK, so the title of this post may seem a little like link bait, but stay with me.

I have been a Dr. Who fan for a long time.  Generally each season of the show has some kind of overarching storyline.  This season a race of beings calling themselves The Silence are introduced.  They have a number of disturbing traits, but the back story on them implies they’ve been on Earth for thousands of years and have had a controlling hand in the destiny of mankind.  No one has noticed because they have a particularly disturbing ability: they can erase all memory of themselves from a person’s memory once the person looks away from them.  How do you fight against something when you can’t even remember it when you’re not looking at it?

Where this thought connected for me in my professional development comes with my completion of Steve Pressfield’s excellent book The War of Art last night.

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Slice and dice

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I am in love...

Image by abbyladybug via Flickr
If you follow my blog at all you already know that I have become a fan and follower of Seth Godin (one of my first readings every morning is his blog).  One of the ways he has inspired me is that he has helped me realize that my writing isn’t likely to be, shall we say, a modern masterpiece with every post.
I wish, but seriously, no.
But I am learning that’s OK.  I’m also trying to wrap my head around what this means for other projects, both my own and those at work.

Open the Box 2–The Golden Table

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment
Golden table 2

Image by Underpuppy via Flickr

So I Opened the Box today and found a golden table.

So I thought about what this actually might refer to and I came up with: meetings.

Seriously. Meetings…

When was the last time one of those landed in your inbox and made you respond, “Hot diggety, a meeting!” as you snapped your hand to the Accept button?

…I thought so.  Me neither.  So I had to think about it some more.

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Open the Box 2–The Golden Table

/ / 1 Comment
Golden table 2

Image by Underpuppy via Flickr

So I Opened the Box today and found a golden table.

So I thought about what this actually might refer to and I came up with: meetings.

Seriously. Meetings…

When was the last time one of those landed in your inbox and made you respond, “Hot diggety, a meeting!” as you snapped your hand to the Accept button?

…I thought so.  Me neither.  So I had to think about it some more.

Continue reading →

Reaction is not Solution

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A full tree of probabilities for the Monty Hal...

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There is a common wisdom that if you discover a problem, you shouldn’t make anyone aware of it unless you also have a solution at the ready….something like, “I notice the widget sales on our site are way down, so I propose we drop the price.”
I’m not sure that this is the best way to approach problem-solving, at least not in all cases. Here’s why:

Don’t think like me

/ Jeff Hora / 3 Comments
The global maximum is the point at the top

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I’ve just finished reading Seth Godin’s book Poke the Box and am just finishing Ricardo Semler’s The Seven Day Weekend. One theme that has struck me is the value of diversity in team, thought and innovation.

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Don’t think like me

/ / 2 Comments
The global maximum is the point at the top

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve just finished reading Seth Godin’s book Poke the Box and am just finishing Ricardo Semler’s The Seven Day Weekend. One theme that has struck me is the value of diversity in team, thought and innovation.

Continue reading →

Leaders in non-profits: yes, it’s a business!

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment

My final project for my Leadership in the Digital Age course was a video featuring portions of two interviews I conducted with two people that I left qualified as authentic leaders: Dr. Jim AuBuchon, president and CEO of the Puget Sound Blood Center (Seattle, WA) and president of the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB), and Dr. Scott Dudley, senior pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue, WA.  One of the reasons these two organizations fascinated me is that, while being non-profits, they are both rather sizable organizations with sizable membership and budgets to match….not the way one might initially view a blood bank or a church.

 

Leader X.0–Non-profits

During the course of these excerpts, these two leaders share some early leadership experiences, how social media and digital media influence their leaderships styles, and their guiding philosophies.

Future installments will return to these two leaders as well as include interviews with several others I have met so far.

Leaders in non-profits: yes, it’s a business!

/ / 1 Comment

My final project for my Leadership in the Digital Age course was a video featuring portions of two interviews I conducted with two people that I left qualified as authentic leaders: Dr. Jim AuBuchon, president and CEO of the Puget Sound Blood Center (Seattle, WA) and president of the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB), and Dr. Scott Dudley, senior pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue, WA.  One of the reasons these two organizations fascinated me is that, while being non-profits, they are both rather sizable organizations with sizable membership and budgets to match….not the way one might initially view a blood bank or a church.

 

Leader X.0–Non-profits

During the course of these excerpts, these two leaders share some early leadership experiences, how social media and digital media influence their leaderships styles, and their guiding philosophies.

Future installments will return to these two leaders as well as include interviews with several others I have met so far.

Lead? Who….me?

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Miles Davis

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In The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner, one of the initial calls made to a reader is to first lead yourself. What I have learned so far as I delve into this area of study and experience is how critical it is to discover who you are.  No, seriously….

I really do get how “new-agey” or “self-helpy” that sounds.  If I had been presented with that exhortation earlier in my life, it would have elicited a derisive snort and that would have been the end of it.  However, in the more serious context of the course I’ve been taking and the books we’re been reading (see my earlier post here for background), the skeptic fog has dissipated some.  I have spent quite a bit more time writing out my personal story, rereading it and stepping back to see the touchstone experiences/people/movements that brought me to where I am today.

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