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Nineteen years ago today, I was in Washington D.C. attending an Army conference in a hotel – 2,700 feet from the point of impact of American Airlines Flight 77. After the explosion, we all went outside to see a large black plume of smoke rising from the Pentagon.  Our host had offices at ground zero…

Whether in the military, the corporate world, or in our day-to-day lives, effective communications have always been important. This is particularly true for leaders. Having a clear understanding of HOW your audience will best receive your message BEFORE you transmit is a skill that can be taught. We can communicate the same message to a…

The more senior you become, the broader the organizational span of control. Still, there’s still only 24 hours in a day. How do you keep everything organized and moving forward?  In a word, delegate. An excellent article from the November-December 1999 issue of the Harvard Business Review is titled “Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?”…

And Forks in the Road I can’t tell you how many times – in both my personal and my professional life that I’ve reached a fork in the road and thought that I should turn right, but circumstance took me left.  At the time, I thought “Why is this happening to me? How did this…

When I was a young Major at Command and General Staff College years ago, I attended – with hundreds of other aspiring warriors – the annual Spring visit and presentation by the Chief of Staff of the Army. After his pitch, a student asked, “Sir, what does it take to succeed in today’s Army?” After pondering a…

In the era of instant communications: Email, Text, Podcast, Twitter, cable, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and perhaps dozens of others I’m not even aware of, an oft-made mistake is “pushing send” too early. We see this on Twitter almost daily – with both the famous and infamous. Occasionally, it is followed by “so-and-so removed their post”…

Have you ever worked for a bi-polar, Jekyll and Hyde personality? One who sucks up to the boss but is abusive with subordinates? I have…. When interviewed by a panel for the job I currently have, I was asked “If you had 30 seconds in an elevator to convince the hiring official you are the…