(The third installment in my twelve-part blog series A Leadership Vision for America) In my last installment, I introduced the idea that successful organizations are led by someone with a compelling vision.  A compelling vision comprises knowing who you are (your significant purpose), where you’re going (your picture of the future), and what will guide your journey (your values). Let’s take this concept, one segment at a time, and apply it to Washington. A significant purpose (who we are). In helping people develop a significant purpose, one thing I’ve learned is that you don’t want it to be complicated. A purpose statement simply needs to tell everyone involved what business you are in. When I coauthored Lead with LUV with Colleen Barrett, President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines (whose stock symbol is LUV), I was eager to find out why they were the only airline that was able to make money year after year in an industry that historically has lost money. One thing that became very clear was that Southwest has a compelling vision every one of their employees understands. When I asked Colleen what business Southwest Airlines was in, she smiled and said, "Southwest Airlines is in the customer service business—we happen to fly airplanes." That’s certainly simple and straightforward.  From the president to the frontline employees, everybody knows that is their purpose. That’s why, year in and year out, they are voted one of the top customer service providers in any industry. Walt Disney started his theme parks with a clear purpose. He said, "We’re in the happiness business." That is very different from being in the theme park business. Being in the happiness business helps cast members (employees) understand their primary role in the company. A clear purpose tells you the reason for your existence. In other words, it answers the question "Why?" rather than just explaining what you intend to do. So, what’s the purpose of the United States?  Are we in the business of being a role model for democracy?  What about the quality of life of our own people—where does that fit in our purpose statement?  Right now, I don’t think we have a clear sense of what business we are in as a country. What business do you think we are in? Next time: What is the picture of the future for America—where is our country going?

Artificial intelligence can seem a lot like magic. How do self-driving cars navigate through traffic without human input? Just how does Siri come up with answers to your questions? And how does the AI technology used in serious games work? Do you think you need to be a super smart programmer to see beyond the […]

(This is the fourth installment in my twelve-part blog series A Leadership Vision for America) Last time, as part of my thoughts on what we can do to make a positive difference in Washington, I gave you the first component of a compelling vision: having a significant purpose. The second aspect of a compelling vision is a picture of the future. What do you want to be true in the future that is not true today? If you do a great job at what you’re doing, what will happen?  Focus on the end result, not the process of getting there. And your picture of the end result should not be abstract—it should be a mental image you actually can visualize. Southwest Airlines’ dream has always been for every American to be able to be with a friend or a relative in a happy time or a sad time. Everyone should have the freedom to fly—that’s why they are a low-cost airline. When cofounder Herb Kelleher saw in the 1970s that the only people who were doing much flying were business people or the wealthy, he decided that wasn’t right. He asked, "Why can’t everybody have a chance to fly?" and that’s when they decided they were going to "democratize the skies."  Democratizing the airways is Southwest’s picture of the future. Jack Bowsher, former Director of Education for IBM and author of Educating Voters for Rebuilding America, suggests a picture of the future for our country that I think most Americans could get passionate about: "Americans want to live in peace and be able to support themselves financially throughout their adult years with at least a middle-class standard of living. During their lifetime, they will need affordable health care and excellent education systems. … In their senior years, retired Americans should be able to continue living an independent life with the help of a government pension plus the income they can earn from their investments. Americans will always enjoy the personal freedom that the United States Constitution guarantees all citizens." So what’s the picture of the future for our country? Where is the United States heading? What will a good job look like? I don’t know that our leaders have good answers to any of these questions. The first and second aspects of a compelling vision—a significant purpose and a picture of the future—are powerful, but those two components alone do not create a truly enduring vision. I’ll explain the third element-clear values—in my next installment. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas on how we can help create a more effective leadership vision for America.

The ability to rapidly inject automated entities into a simulation is an area of simulation-based training that is ripe for enhancing capability without increasing cost.  The problem is that all instructors have unique needs for what they want their entities to do for a given training event.    As such, entity authoring technology must enable […]

 (This is the fifth installment in my twelve-part blog series A Leadership Vision for America) Our leaders in Washington first need a compelling vision if they are going to move this country in a positive direction.  In recent posts I’ve covered two elements of a compelling vision: A significant purpose—what business we are in as a country; and a picture of the future—where we are headed. The last component of a compelling vision is having a clear set of operating values. What will guide our behavior as we move forward?  This is critical. I’m amazed that of all the organizations I’ve worked with or visited around the world, fewer than ten percent have had a clear set of operating values. Without values, it is a free-for-all. Even those organizations that have a set of values often have too many values. It’s hard to remember eight, ten, or twelve values—much less have them guide your behavior. They may be framed beautifully and look nice on the wall, but they have little meaning to anyone. So what you want is a few values—three or four—that people can focus on and live by. Also, organizations should rank order their values. Why is that important?  Because sometimes values conflict with each other.  If values are not rank ordered, people can choose any value they like and justify their behavior. Southwest Airlines has four values. Their number one value is safety, which is understandable given their business. They then have three values they choose not to put into rank order because they want people to engage in them all every single day:  a Warrior Spirit, a Servant’s Heart, and a Fun-LUVing Attitude. A Warrior Spirit means that if you have a job, do it. Give it your all. A Servant’s Heart means that their people are there to serve, not to be served. And the Fun-LUVing Attitude of Southwest employees is legendary—it’s one of the things that sets them apart from the competition and contributes to their success in the airline industry. What are the operating values that guide the behavior of our leaders in Washington? I don’t know of any agreed-upon values. Even if our politicians individually have good intentions and good values, without big-picture values for our government, it becomes a free-for-all.  To me, the values that run our country now are driven by the squeaky wheel—when someone protests, we focus on their values. I think we are in desperate need of a set of operating values everyone can agree upon that can guide our journey as a country. What do you think? Is this possible in today’s political climate?

Alex Trebec: "We have a 57 year old male smoker with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  He has a history of diabetes in the family…"  … BEEP. Alex:  "Watson?" Watson:  "What is experimental drug trial 3?" Alex: "Why do you say that?" Watson: "…" Alex: "Watson?" Watson: "…" As everyone who follows our blog is probably aware, IBM’s […]

(This is the sixth installment in my twelve-part blog series A Leadership Vision for America) In the past several weeks, I have gone into detail about the first secret our government leaders need to know to improve our system in Washington:  Have a compelling vision.  For a compelling vision to endure, all three elements—a significant purpose, a picture of the future, and clear values—are needed to guide behavior on a day-to-day basis. A perfect example of this is the way Martin Luther King, Jr. outlined his vision in his "I Have a Dream" speech. By describing a world where his children "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character," he created powerful and specific images arising from the values of brotherhood, respect, and freedom for all—values that resonate with those of the founding values of the United States. King’s vision continues to mobilize and guide people beyond his lifetime because it illuminates a significant purpose, provides a picture of the future, and describes values that resonate with people’s hopes and dreams. Once you have a clear and compelling vision, you can establish goals that help people determine what they should focus on right now. In his book Educating Voters for Rebuilding America, Jack Bowsher suggests six potential national goals that would achieve the picture of the future he proposes: Peace with strong defense and Homeland Security systems Prosperity and a rising standard of living with high level of employment Adequate and affordable health care system for all Superior and affordable education systems Efficient and affordable government Decent retirement for senior citizens I think Jack is really on to something with these goals. I would love to see each of our presidential candidates identify the key goals he wants to accomplish nationally, and then spell out his plans and programs to achieve those goals. Rather than debates, candidates could participate in goal accomplishment sessions: First they would have to agree on the key goals to accomplish in the country within the next four years, and then each would give his own strategies to achieve each goal. Wouldn’t you love to hear our candidates lay out their specific goals for America and then clearly explain how they expect to accomplish those goals? Do you think this idea is realistic, unrealistic, optimistic, idealistic, or something else? Next time, we will move on to the second secret for how our leaders in Washington can turn things around:  Treat citizens as their business partners.

Me:  Siri, I have a headache. Siri:  I found 3 drug stores fairly close to you. Me:  Is the pollen bad? Siri:  I don’t know the Rating for "Pollen" (Director: Louis Shwartzberg) (Runtime: 1h 17m) [G] In my last blog I talked about transparency as a way to increase interaction and trust between humans and […]

(This is the seventh installment in my twelve-part blog series A Leadership Vision for America) I’ve laid out the first secret that would help our leaders bring America back to a healthy state:  Create a compelling vision by knowing who we are (our purpose), where we’re going (our picture of the future), and what will guide our journey (our values). If our leaders had a clear, agreed-upon vision, it would help them set national goals they could focus on. But they shouldn’t try to figure everything out by themselves. That leads me to the second secret. The Second Secret: Treat Citizens as Your Business Partners Assumption: The more that people are "in the know," the greater their commitment to work together to help solve problems. In my work in the business world, one of the things that has bothered me the most is watching leaders of companies in financial trouble go behind closed doors and make all the decisions by themselves in an attempt to turn the situation around.  It’s amazing to talk to people in those organizations who didn’t even know there was a problem until major layoffs were announced. Those people certainly didn’t feel like business partners—they felt like victims. A lot of people don’t know that Southwest Airlines is over eighty percent unionized. When employees were first asked to vote on being union members, they came to cofounder Herb Kelleher to tell him what was going on. He said, "I love unions as long as they will let you sit on the same side of the table as me. If they want us to sit on opposite sides of the table, vote them down." Union leaders have been present at every leadership meeting I have attended at Southwest Airlines. That’s quite a different story from other airlines that fight with their unions or even declare bankruptcy to break union contracts. At Southwest, they are one big family of business partners. That’s why I think many Americans don’t trust politicians—because they don’t treat the American people as business partners. They don’t share information with us. We know we’re going through a difficult time but we don’t really know the facts. Politicians are sitting around Washington trying to figure out solutions to our problems and they haven’t asked us to help. My wife Margie and I were recently in Australia visiting a business colleague, Lindsay Fox, who founded Linfox Transport. When we first met Lindsay in 1977, his company was doing about $10 or $15 million in annual business. Today, Linfox does over $1 billion annually just in logistics—not only in Australia but also in countries all over Asia. He’s one of the most respected businessmen in Australia. Several years ago when Australia was having a big problem with unemployment, Australia’s then-prime minister asked Lindsay and the head of the trade union association to take to the road. They visited major cities and towns in Australia to share the facts about the unemployment problem and to try to convince business owners to provide work for unemployed people.  This approach helped generate over 60,000 new jobs. Why? Because they went to the people, shared the information, and asked for help. Lindsay was quoted as saying, "It’s incredible what you can do when you believe you can work through it. This is why it’s tremendously important to work with the government, with friends, and help people." Our leaders need to do the same thing. Be honest with us. Tell the American people what the issues are and then go to communities around the country, let us know how we can help, and listen to our suggestions. I guarantee you that the citizens of this country have lots of good ideas and are willing to work with our leaders to find solutions for America’s problems. Jack Bowsher, former Director of Education for IBM, agrees with my contention that Washington should treat our citizens as business partners. He argues, "To protect our way of life and our standard of living, we Americans must become more involved in seeking the truth about the key issues that are being debated and voted on at all three levels of our government." If our leaders in Washington would start seeing American citizens as true business partners, it’s amazing to think of what we could accomplish together. Would you agree? When it comes to getting America back on track, I believe involving every segment of society is essential. I’ll talk about that in my next post.

Thinking about reactive behaviors, I’m reminded of a paper I read in graduate school called "Today the earwig, tomorrow man."   I still love the title and was intrigued by the idea that understanding the behaviors of "simple" creatures might in some way lead to understanding human behaviors?     While there is utility in understanding how insects […]