When I first heard Martin Luther King deliver the “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, I was on a ladder in Detroit, painting a house and listening on my transistor radio. Later that fall, when I was a senior at Ferndale High School where race riots were breaking out, I remembered the powerful speech. As I felt compelled to take some action, I decided to bring together student leaders from both races to talk to one another about what we could do to relieve the tension and resolve …
For most of my life, I’ve used a simple goal-setting method that I learned from a colleague as a young man. I write my goals on index cards using this format: What? The specific, measurable goals that I want to achieve and the date that I set them. (No vague dreams.) By when? The date for achieving the goals. (Research shows that 90-day goals can be most effective. Longer-term ones tend to get lost; shorter-term ones come to resemble to-do lists.) Why? The …
Doug Schneider, a good friend of mine, recently sent this LinkedIn post to me. Doug Is a very wise man, whom I have seen, over the past 20 years, rise from the ranks to become a successful CEO of a software company which he took public in 2013. I got to know him when he was an executive in charge of innovation at Thomson Reuters in Ann Arbor. His advice in this piece is spot on. I hope it encourages …
Giving Thanks Please tune in to watch my interview on A2 Insight with Jim Trost on the following days/times: Wednesday, 11/21 at 8:00pm; Sunday, 11/25 at 8:00pm; Monday, 11/26 at 5:00pm; Wednesday, 11/28 at 11:10am; Friday, 11/30 at 2:00pm; Saturday, 12/1 at Noon; and Tuesday, 12/4 at 7:00pm; all on cable channel 17. In these days of discord, something we all can agree about is that we benefit this week from pausing and thinking about what we are grateful for …
Last Friday morning, Leaders Connect gathered at Zingerman’s Roadhouse to honor our Veteran’s and learn some leadership lessons from four esteemed military officers: Eric Fretz, Len Haidl, Demond Johnson, and Skip Walton. Each told us stories about their time in the service including their missions, and deployments. Along with these stories came lessons in leadership that we can apply to our personal and professional lives. Eric Fretz, who served 20 years in the Navy, with a very memorable deployment in Iraq, …
Leadership Lessons from Military Officers In celebration of Veteran’s day I will be hosting a special edition of the Leaders Connect Breakfast on Friday, November 9th. The entire session will be devoted to leaderships lessons from the the military. The presenters are four military officers, one still active, who are now prominent leaders in the Ann Arbor community. The will discuss how the lessons they learned from the military have empowered them to be successful in their current leadership roles. …