Musings

There are no right answers to wrong questions. This was the title of my keynote address at RECON22, the 2nd Annual Recovering Leadership Conference hosted by the Kimmell Foundation for Recovering Leadership. I was asked to talk about reimagining our metrics, and since I am an engineer, that seemed a reasonable topic to request of…

I watched The King recently. The 2019 movie about King Henry V depicts the struggles of a young king thrust into power by the death of his father and brother. Early in his reign, Sir John Falstaff, his most trusted friend, says, “A king has no friends, only followers and foes.” This may be true of kings,…

When was the last time you had a vacation? I’m not talking about just time off; I’m talking about time where you didn’t think about what was going on in your absence from work.  Spending a week with a bunch of CEOs can be refreshing but also challenging. I always learn and hear things that…

Friday, I was on a return flight from Utah. The flight attendant was making the usual announcements when something caught my attention. We were being instructed to put our electronics in “airplane” mode. On a phone, airplane mode disables the cellular radio so you can’t send or receive voice calls or text messages. Unless the…

I was recently in Chicago and noticed a sign mounted next to a stop light at an intersection. It read, OBEY YOUR SIGNAL. I found it interesting and ironic at the same time. I mean, if a person isn’t willing to obey the traffic signal in the first place, what impact will another sign have…

I recently stopped by a friend’s office to see him. He was dog-sitting for his daughter, and Bo was hanging out in the office for the day. Bo had a rubber ball, and he really wanted to play fetch. There was a problem, though. Bo didn’t want to let go of the ball. He would…

I got to see the Killers in concert this past weekend with three of my sons. It was a great show, and it was great spending time with my sons. We drove to Ft. Worth, and I was thinking about the trips we took when they were younger and they would be impatient for us…

Carrots don’t improve your vision; toads don’t give you warts; you use more than 10% of your brain (all of it actually); coffee won’t stunt your growth; and cracking your knuckles won’t cause arthritis. It is amazing how many things we easily believe that are not true. In fact, the less we know about something,…

There was once a man who was traveling when he was attacked and beaten to the point where he might have died. Two different people came by, but neither helped, one possibly out of fear and one perhaps out of selfishness. Then a stranger happened by and had compassion and helped the man until he…

I noticed her face was wet, and water was running down onto her leopard print shirt when the little girl that lives across the street came running over to my driveway. When she saw I was outside, she asked her mother and then carefully looked both ways before crossing the street. Once safely in my…