Dolphin: One Leadership Quality that Really Matters

Blog Wisdom, Cultural Intelligence, Methods & Process
YARC YARC

Emphasis added.  By this definition, no leadership to be found in Washington, D.C.

This One Leadership Quality Will Make or Break You

Mike Myatt

Forbes, 19 December 2011

One of the most often overlooked aspects of leadership is the need for pursuit. Great leaders are never satisfied with traditional practice, static thinking, conventional wisdom, or common performance. In fact, the best leaders are simply uncomfortable with anything that embraces the status quo. Leadership is pursuit– pursuit of excellence, of elegance, of truth, of what’s next, of what if, of change, of value, of results, of relationships, of service, of knowledge, and of something bigger than themselves. In the text that follows I’ll examine the value of being a pursuer…

Here’s the thing – pursuit leads to attainment. What you pursue will determine the paths you travel, the people you associate with, the character you develop, and ultimately, what you do or don’t achieve. Having a mindset focused on pursuit is so critical to leadership that lacking this one quality can sentence you to mediocrity or even obsolescence. The manner, method, and motivation behind any pursuit is what sets truly great leaders apart from the masses. If you want to become a great leader, become a great pursuer.

A failure to embrace pursuit is to cede opportunity to others. A leader’s failure to pursue clarity leaves them amidst the fog. Their failure to pursue creativity relegates them to the routine and mundane. Their failure to pursue talent sentences them to a world of isolation.  Their failure to pursue change approves apathy. Their failure to pursue wisdom and discernment subjects them to distraction and folly. Their failure to pursue character leaves a question mark on their integrity. Let me put this as simply as I can – you cannot attain what you do not pursue.

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Marcus Aurelius: Hackers to Attack Feds Over Manning?

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Government, Law Enforcement, Media
Marcus Aurelius

Feds involved in Manning prosecution enter hackers' crosshairs

By Aliya Sternstein

NextGov, 12/20/2011

A government-hired forensics specialist and an Army investigating officer could face online backlash from WikiLeaks supporters who are unhappy with this week's prosecution of a U.S. soldier accused of releasing confidential government files to the anti-secrets website, a computer engineer affiliated with hacktivist group Anonymous said.

Read full article.

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Chuck Spinney: Democracy & Truth or Tyranny & Lies?

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DoD, Gift Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Officers Call
Chuck Spinney

My close friend Mike Lofgren writes an important essay describing the nature of ‘truth' in the Orwellian echo chamber that is closing the American mind in the 21st Century.

Chuck Spinney
The Blaster

DECEMBER 20, 2011
by MIKE LOFGREN, Counterpunch

According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has appropriated $806 billion for the direct cost of invading and occupying Iraq. Including debt service since 2003, that sum rises to approximately $1 trillion. The White House estimates the number of U.S. military wounded at 30,000; the web site icasualties.org states that U.S. military fatalities from the Iraq war now stand at 4484. It is impossible to estimate precisely the numbers of Iraqi civilian deaths, but they are frequently cited as being in excess of 100,000. There are now around two million internally displaced Iraqis in a country of 30 million inhabitants. As United States armed forces (but not up to 17,000 State Department employees, contractors and mercenaries) leave the country, Iraq is plunging into a sectarian and ethnically-fueled political crisis. Even if it survives that crisis and remains a unitary state, it will almost certainly be pulled closer to the orbit of Iran, our bogeyman du jour.

In view of the crippling costs both human and financial as well as the strategic and moral disaster the invasion of Iraq precipitated, what sort of verdict do you think our leaders – leaders representing a presidential administration ostensibly opposed to the invasion and promising hope and change – bother to offer us? While junketing in Turkey on December 17, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told the press the following:

“As difficult as [the Iraq war] was, I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world.”

One’s only reaction to this statement is to blink in disbelief and wonder: is Panetta that stupid, or does he think that we, the supposedly self-governing citizens of this country, are that stupid?

Read rest of article.

Jon Lebkowsky: Adriana Lukas – how to avoid hierarchies – the five laws of heterarchy

11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence
Jon Lebkowsky

Adriana discusses her thinking about heterarchy, including initial thoughts about five laws of heterarchy.

A heterarchy is a system of organization replete with overlap, multiplicity, mixed ascendancy, and/or divergent-but-coexistent patterns of relation. Definitions of the term vary among the disciplines: in social and information sciences, heterarchies are networks of elements in which each element shares the same “horizontal” position of power and authority, each playing a theoretically equal role.

“Hierarchies seem to be like oxygen: they’re all around us, pervasive, visible only to those who study them. Hierarchies are the most efficient system for management and distribution of scarce resources… given that the physical world is defined by scarcity of all sorts, it goes a long way toward explaining hierarchy as our default organizational structure….There is potential to come up with alternatives to our hierarchical organizational defaults, and I think that would be good news for all those trapped in stifling and disempowering organizations.”

 

John Robb: How Do I Clean Up My Online Image?

Blog Wisdom, Cultural Intelligence
John Robb

Question: How do I clean up my online image?

Lots of people seem to be getting value out of these posts on personal resilience, so I will keep adding them.

Question:

Do you know of any service that will check a person's exposure on the web? I wasn't always as careful with my online activities as I'm trying to be now, and it'd be nice to know what sort of damage control I'm looking at in terms of going forward with my personal brand.

Answer:

Type your name into Google.  Take a look at the first 3-5 pages of links you get (as well as the images).  If you don't see that much, don't worry about it.  If you see anything that you control and can delete, do it now. It will take a couple of months, but it will eventually fade away.  Other than that, there isn't much you can do about it.

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Reform Coalition: “True Cost” Economics & Genuine Progress + True Cost RECAP

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Analysis, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, General Accountability Office, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Office of Management and Budget, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

Definition of ‘True Cost Economics'

An economic model that seeks to include the cost of negative externalities into the pricing of goods and services. Supporters of this type of economic system feel products and activities that direct or indirectly cause harmful consequences to living beings and/or the environment should be accordingly taxed to reflect the somewhat hidden costs.

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John Robb: YouTube Censorship by the Millions

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Impotency
John Robb

What do you think of the following: YouTube has an “informal system” that allows companies with copyrights to automatically scan all uploads for potential violations. If the software detects the “possibility” of a violation (image, tune, trademark, etc.), it automatically tells YouTube to delete the content. This software is so automated, it can censor millions of uploads a day without human intervention.

Here's an example of how this censoring system was used to block speech that Universal music found objectionable:

A site called MegaUpload, a “large file” sharing service based in Hong Kong, is targeted by copyright holders, including Universal Music, for shutdown. They believe the site makes “copyright piracy” easier.

To fight back on the media front, MegaUpload, a popular (50 m users a day), pays $3 million to produce a music video that promotes the service. The video features big name musical talent.

MegaUpload posts the music video to YouTube to share it with a global audience.

Universal Music, uses special access it has the to the YouTube system (inappropriately named the “content management system”) that allows it to scan all videos posted to the service for potential uses of Universal musical content or the mention of or likenesses of artists it has under contract.

Universal Music identifies that several of its artists are in the MegaUpload video. It automatically signals YouTube to remove/take down the video. YouTube complies. It does so automatically and without verification that Universal even has a valid claim to the copyright. Why?

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