Sunday, February 15, 2009

What If this is as good as it gets?

"What if this is as good as it gets?" That's the line Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) delivers in the movie "As Good as It Gets" as he scans the depressed faces waiting for their 50-minute hours in the psychiatrist's anteroom.

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Posted by Marty Linsky at 3:59 PM | 2 Comments
Tags: reset, emotion, passion

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Dangers of Leadership

For better or worse, the current crisis is a terrific leadership learning laboratory. But first, check out David Leonhardt's column in Wednesday's NY Times today. He does a much better job than I did last week of laying out the spend-or-save dilemma. The headline? Spend to save. Lots of homey examples. The one I like the best is to buy a seltzer-making machine.

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Posted by Marty Linsky at 4:03 PM | Add the first comment!
Tags: leadership, crisis

Saturday, February 7, 2009

My Piece of the Mess, Part II

I do want to be a good citizen. I am old enough to remember JFK's challenge to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." While I think "country" is a rather arbitrary boundary - think family, neighborhood, community, or world - I take what he said seriously.

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Posted by Marty Linsky at 4:08 PM | 1 Comments
Tags: congress, jfk

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

My Piece of the Mess, Part I

OK, ok. I made no millions by investing with Madoff, nor did I lose millions investing with him. But life is pretty good. No complaints. Nice New York apartment. Wonderful healthy family. Steady work. Can pay my bills, up to now at least. What's not to like?

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Posted by Marty Linsky at 4:05 PM | 2 Comments
Tags: investment, madoff

Thursday, January 15, 2009

In Praise of Selfishness - Part II

Besides taking care of yourself, leadership requires selfishness in another, very different way. You have to believe in what you are doing, totally committed to your purpose, absorbed by it, willing to sacrifice other important, but not as important purposes in its behalf.

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Posted by Marty Linsky at 10:15 AM | Add the first comment!
Tags: leadership

Sunday, January 11, 2009

In Praise of Selfishness as a Leadership Behavior - Part I

On the many friends and acquaintances who have been cut down by cancer, three good friends, two women and a man, stand out because they died fairly close in time to one another, relatively young, and sharing a way of being in the world which is pretty uncommon in my experience.

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Posted by Marty Linsky at 10:13 AM | 2 Comments
Tags: obama, leadership, selfishness

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Leadership and Experiments

In David Sanger's News Analysis in the NYT on Saturday, an anonymous person, described by Sanger as "a member of the Obama foreign policy team" was quoted as saying "there's going to be no time for experimentation."

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Posted by Marty Linsky at 10:13 AM | 1 Comments
Tags: obama, adaptive leadership, clinton, experimentation, geithner

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Memo to Obama: Beware of Technical Expertise

This is a critical time for Barak Obama. He has no more important task than picking personnel.

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Posted by Marty Linsky at 10:12 AM | 2 Comments
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Saturday, November 8, 2008

Obama is already delivering losses

y favorite definition of leadership, the one I am really addicted to, is that leadership is disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.

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Posted by Marty Linsky at 10:11 AM | 1 Comments
Tags: obama, clinton, leadership, emmanuel

Friday, November 7, 2008

When McCain Lost His Soul

Not that anyone cares, but it might be good to remember back in the summer when this campaign for the Presidency was a lot closer than it seemed on November 1. Pundits attribute McCain's sizable defeat to the swooning economy, but I think his downfall started back in late August, right before the convention, when the maverick in McCain gave way to the dark forces of win-at-all-costs.

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Posted by Marty Linsky at 10:10 AM | Add the first comment!
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