12 O'Clock High

We are back with our fan favorite Oscar movie month. During the month of February each year, we look at Oscar-winning Best Pictures and consider the leadership lessons we glean from our viewing. This month we look at three: No Country for Old Men, The Sting and The Last Emperor. In this episode of 12 O’Clock High, a podcast on business leadership, Richard Lummis and I take at the 2007 Best Picture winning film, No Country for Old Men. Some of the highlights were: ·     One of the key themes of the movie is the tension between  destiny and self-determination;·     What have been the changes in law enforcement in the former wild west?·     What does it mean to enforce laws on the former frontier?·     Crime has changed and become more sophisticated. The regulator and enforcers must also change; and·     What happens when a hero, or business leader grows old? 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of 12 O’Clock High, a podcast on business leadership, Richard Lummis and I take a look back at some of our favorite (and listener favorites as well) episodes from 2018 and where we may take the podcast in 2019. Some of the highlights were: ·   Leadership lessons (or not) from the US Presidents from the first half of the 19thCentury;·   The ongoing and continued leadership challenges for GE;·   Our exploration of leadership lessons from early 20thcentury Antarctic explorers Ernest Shackleton, Robert Falcon Scott, Roald Amundsen and Henry Worsley; and the modern explorers and Pole racers;·   Our fan favorite leadership lessons from Oscar winning Best Pictures; and·   Top corporate, business and leadership scandals from 2018. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special five-part podcast series, we consider the business leadership issues raised by General Stanley McChrystal (ret.) recent book Leaders-Myth and Reality, which he co-authored with Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone. Using Plutarch’s Lives as their model they considered multiple leaders and leadership styles. These include: Founders, Walt Disney and Coco Chanel; Geniuses, Albert Einstein and Leonard Bernstein; Heroes, Zheng He and Harriet Tubman; Power Brokers, Boss Tweed and Margaret Thatcher. In this episode II, we take up the Geniuses, Albert Einstein and Leonard Bernstein.  Some of the highlights include: 1. There is more to their genius than intelligence, just as there is more to their leadership than genius. 2. Einstein’s correspondence and collaboration demonstrated that the lone genius (and solitary mad scientist) not realistic.3. Bernstein demonstrated that even the most outgoing person needed solitude to compose. 4. They both made genius accessible.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special five-part podcast series, we consider the business leadership issues raised by General Stanley McChrystal (ret.) recent book Leaders-Myth and Reality, which he co-authored with Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone. Using Plutarch’s Lives as their model they considered multiple leaders and leadership styles. These include: Founders, Walt Disney and Coco Chanel; Geniuses, Albert Einstein and Leonard Bernstein; Heroes, Zheng He and Harriet Tubman; Power Brokers, Boss Tweed and Margaret Thatcher. In this episode I, we take up the Founders, Walt Disney and Coco Chanel.  Some of the highlights include: 1. What are creative and obsessive perfectionism?2. How do they help (or hurt) the leadership process.  3. Right Place, Right Time-founders must take advantage of opportunity when it knocked. 4. Founder Dilemma-is it to manage or to create?5. Is leadership about the Mission or People?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special five-part podcast series, we consider the business leadership issues raised by General Stanley McChrystal (ret.) recent book Leaders-Myth and Reality, which he co-authored with Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone. Using Plutarch’s Lives as their model they considered multiple leaders and leadership styles. These include: Founders, Walt Disney and Coco Chanel; Geniuses, Albert Einstein and Leonard Bernstein; Heroes, Zheng He and Harriet Tubman; Power Brokers, Boss Tweed and Margaret Thatcher. In this episode IV, we take up the Power Brokers-Boss Tweed and Thatcher.  Some of the highlights include: 1. A power broker wields influence and symbols like a tangible good. 2. Power is an arrangement among stakeholders. 3. Tweed used the social identity of the Irish as the basis for his power.4. Margaret Thatcher resurrected the feeling of national pride for the British people. 5. There must be a consolidation of and working with groups with which they shared power. Tweed had his lunch club and Thatcher had her breakfast club. 6. The true leadership of power brokers is to manage the followers and institutions which enable them.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special five-part podcast series, we consider the business leadership issues raised by General Stanley McChrystal (ret.) recent book Leaders-Myth and Reality, which he co-authored with Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone. Using Plutarch’s Lives as their model they considered multiple leaders and leadership styles. These include: Founders, Walt Disney and Coco Chanel; Geniuses, Albert Einstein and Leonard Bernstein; Heroes, Zheng He and Harriet Tubman; Power Brokers, Boss Tweed and Margaret Thatcher. In this episode V, we take up the Reformers-Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Some of the highlights include: 1. Reformers must agree to shoulder burdens when asked to or they were thrust upon them. 2. The leadership of Reformers comes through existing structures. King’s leadership came through the framework of the SCLC and strategy of the civil rights movement. Luther’s leadership was more based on commentary. 3. Both used new technologies. Luther used the printing press and King used television.4. Reformers must seize the moment, as demonstrated by King’s ad libs in his I have a dreamspeech.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special five-part podcast series, we consider the business leadership issues raised by General Stanley McChrystal (ret.) recent book Leaders-Myth and Reality, which he co-authored with Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone. Using Plutarch’s Lives as their model they considered multiple leaders and leadership styles. These include: Founders, Walt Disney and Coco Chanel; Geniuses, Albert Einstein and Leonard Bernstein; Heroes, Zheng He and Harriet Tubman; Power Brokers, Boss Tweed and Margaret Thatcher. In this episode III, we take up the Heroes, Harriett Tubman and Zheng He.  Some of the highlights include: 1. The Hero’s Journey is Separation->initiation->return.  Tubman demonstrates setting forth into the unknown, emerging victorious and then returning. 2. Leadership is not magic. It occurs at a specific time and place in certain circumstances. Once again, the right person must be at the right time and the right place. 3. Great leaders must be surrounded by people who enable their activities and find meaning in what they have to offer.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of 12 O’Clock High, a podcast on business leadership, Richard Lummis and I continue to explore leadership lessons from GE. Today, we continue our exploration of the travails at GE, focusing on the mergers and acquisition strategy which led to the company’s problems

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is due diligence? What is zero tolerance? How do these impact employee morale? How do these concepts link together? Richard Lummis and I explore these questions and more in considering the July Houston Astros trade for closer Roberto Osuna.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Richard Lummis and I consider how the Houston Astros went from literally the worst team ever in baseball to World Series Champions, as been chronicled by Sports Illustrated writer Ben Reiter in his book “Astroball: The New Way to Win It All”.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices