Leadership, teamwork, democratic workplace
On Riga city streets – which is where I am right now – it’s easy to glimpse many faces, young and old, bemused or blank. Waiting to cross the street, I scan the faces assembled on the other side. When the green light goes on, we cross and get a closer, if surreptitious, look….
My blog on a star performer( in my eyes) who morphed into an alienated follower (AF), has me reflecting on how that happened. How did someone I valued and relied upon turn into an oppositional follower? Answering that question took me back to my “I quit!” blog of a few years ago.* Was it me…
A week ago, a friend invited my wife and me to a Czech pub, Sveiks, Švejk! Ads proclaim the restaurant is inspired by the ‘Good Soldier Šveik’, the not so “simple”, good-humored, hero of the epic novel, The Adventures Of Švejk. That restaurant inspired me to revisit and then revise extensively my 2015 blog…
Three times now I’ve seen the Oscar and Golden Globe winning film, the enigmatic Flow/Straume. The last was an exceptional event with a full symphonic orchestra! Caption: At the Riga Arena, May 23, 2026, the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra performed the film’s score, composed and conducted by Rihards Zaļupe. Since I’m always on the lookout…
“A stupid question deserves no answer”, that’s the surprising. ill-tempered rejection I got from a staff member. She was a “top hand,” as they say out in cowboy land. She not only did her job but inspired colleagues. And, besides being a doer, she was a thinker., so her response was doubly disappointing. The question…
I’ve learned much about myself through experiential education (EE) or adventure learning. Most of my EE take aways are personal and relevant less to a group than to my own ways of leading. Highly personal learning is often the case with team building events. Some people get little more out of it than another gripe…
At my advanced age, Shakespeare would have me a “Lean and Slippered Pantaloon”, his stage 6 of 7. Stage 6 is better than the final one: “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” But, I digress. A week ago, my wife and I hosted a small “development” gathering of alums living in Oregon, 3000…
An A.D.T. (American District Telegraph) Kid carrying a Death Message marked “Rush” stopped in front of a Show Window containing a Picture of James J. Jeffries (a champion boxer) and began to weep bitterly. A kind-hearted Suburbanite happened to be passing along on his Way to the 5:42 Train. He was carrying a Dog Collar,…
The Members of a Legislature, being told that they were the meanest thieves in the world, resolved to commit suicide. So they bought shrouds, and laying them in a convenient place prepared to cut their throats. While they were grinding their razors some Tramps passing that way stole the shrouds. “Let us live, my friends,”…
I have written about a number of literary cliches which I’ve come across in my reading of murder mysteries from the golden age of detective fiction, the 1920s and 1930s. There was the ever nimble fat man, and the sinister “deal table”. Also, I have alluded to the “elephant in the room” cliché/trope. Today…