In The Strategic Leader, I suggest that leaders are responsible to create the conditions by which individuals and organizations can flourish.  Consider these two examples. 

Years ago, the central common bond among my executive team was a love of farming. Having come from a non farming childhood, I had difficulty being accepted into the group on any basis except competence.  I set out to hone my farming instincts and not only participated in hay baling, castrating bulls, and butchering pigs but started gardening.  I got a bunch of books on the subject and set out my plants, and watered as directed in a small space in my yard.  Lo and behold, I soon had giant watermelons, corn as high as the sky and all the tomatoes and zucchini I could eat in two years. 

Is your model of change

a waterfall or a geyser?

The Strategic Leader Network (SLN)

 Did you ever go to a meeting and listen to face of the company spend the whole time talking about profits, market share, and growth? 

 t The Strategic Leader Network (SLN)

Is your organization's conception of change a relay race or soccer?

 In a relay race the baton is passed in a sequential, linear, structured way. In a soccer match, the ball is passed up the field in a non sequential, nonlinear order.

Blind Spots and Fenderbenders

Jennifer Freeland - Guest Blogger -

 The back cover page of the New York Times Magazine, April 4, 2010, displayed an advertisement for the Acura MDX Advance. Normally, I wouldn’t pay any attention to a car ad because I’m not in the market.  This ad was different. The small black dot on the upper left center of the page looked out of place. I wondered why it was there.

I was on a panel discussing the most important features of leadership at The Hague, Netherlands a few years ago when I heard the most profound story of the importance of coherence and shared vision and the role competition, cooperation and collaboration play in it. 

It seems that after the fall of the Berlin Wall emancipated countries and cities across the Soviet bloc became a beehive of activity to create a new vision.  It seems that in one such city, the newly elected Mayor commissioned an artist to do a rendering of the city that captures its essence.  His hope was to create a mural that would be on display in the lobby of City Hall that displayed the energy and goodness of the city in an image.  

In my book, The Strategic Leader: New Tactics for a Globalizing World, I present the tactic of Running for Daylight.  Basically it means to know where the goal line is, preplan, run in place for a while, and when an opening occurs pounce on it vigorously.

Do you remember the movie, City Slickers?  Jack Palance played the sometimes scary cowboy named Curly, and Billy Crystal as the city slicker [Mitch] looking for perspective on a dude ranch vacation.  At one point, Curly asks Mitch - Do you know what the secret of life is?  Seeing that Mitch is puzzled, Curly holds up one FINGER and says THIS!  The incredulous Mitch says, “Your finger is the secret to life?” Curly responds, “One thing; just one thing!  You stick with that and the rest just don’t matter.” The inquisitive Mitch asks, “But what is the one thing?”  Curly smiles and responds, “That is what you have to find out.”

Often, in our personal life or organizational lives we fail to take Curly’s advice and don’t ask the big ques