I was speaking about the future with my son recently over an obscenely large steak at an Argentinian restaurant in Mexico City. We’d just seen a real ‘shoot ’em up’ film which just happened to be called Shoot ’em Up. The hero, a kind of homeless James Bond, lives on the street, reminiscent of Lee Child’s character Jack Reach. They are both tougher than tough guys, the kind of character who make the bad guys feel bad that they ever met. Last night’s film was about 500 guys
Tag Archives: eldering
Thanksgiving
A Happy Thanksgiving Day tribute to all our elder friends in Canada!
Thanks for the Elders
You have made my life richer.
And you have made me see the world anew
By bringing your perspective to my life.
Grateful am I for every moment of your time,
Every sharing of your wisdom and experience,
Each intention clarified and held,
But more than these…I am honoured to ‘listen’
To who you are and what you stand for.
Leadership, Legacy and Learning
I just finished leading the first week of a course by the same name as today’s blog. It is a pilot program designed to facilitate and accelerate the transfer of leadership from one generation to the next. Most large organizations and institutions are confronting an unprecedented turnover of executives and managers primarily due to the wave of Boomer retirements. This is not just a personnel problem—it is also a strategic concern because how well we prepare the next generation to take the reins
The Environment and Eldering
After seeing the movie The 11th Hour, I have been thinking a lot about The Eldering Institute. The idea all along has been a strategy for mobilizing a lot of people, both retired and younger to “take on intractable problems”. The foundation for this has been the observation that most older people want to make a difference and leave the planet in better shape than we found it, and younger
Bravo Brazil!
It’s almost springtime in Brazil. I was walking around in a t-shirt two days ago and almost froze to death this evening. The weather is one of the things I can count on to be unpredictable everywhere I go. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon your point of view), I don’t get outside much—mostly I am working inside with groups of people. Today I had two meetings with two groups and was struck by how similar conversations seem to be in this world of global business. Everyone seems
Objectifying Arabs
I, like a lot of us, am disturbed by the whole global state-of-affairs,
especially terrorism. I am also disturbed by how well intended
“pass-it-on” letters can fuel the polarization of views in our nation
and fan the flames of intolerance and mob hysteria. It’s all driven by
fear of course, and as Roosevelt said, “The only thing we need to fear
is fear itself”. How true today.
The “this-is-worth-reading” item that triggered this response was a
letter-to-the-editor by an airline
Community
I am writing a speech. It is the speech I would give to a college graduation ceremony if anyone ever asked me to give the commencement address. So far no one has. In the speech I am telling the new graduates they are as ‘adult’ as they will ever be and that I don’t really have any answers for them. The world is changing too quickly for me (or anyone in my generation) to presume to know what they will need to know in the future. I am also suggesting that, whatever else defines our respective
Rate of Change
I came across an extraordinary six-minute YouTube video called The Shift—a presentation that blows one’s mind with factoids about the rate of change in the world. The Shift they are talking about is a ‘paradigm shift’, meaning our entire worldview, indeed our whole reality, is being turned upside down and inside out by virtue of technology, population and the exponentially accelerating rate of change. Whether we like
Spectator Society
Once again we’re subjected to endless all-channel coverage of events that, while notable, do not justify round-the-clock, mostly prurient commentary. The tragedy at Virginia Tech has spawned copycats at Johnson Space Center and other schools around the country. Most are simply threats, but it just takes one ‘for real’ to fuel the media frenzy.
As we know, the news channels keep a stable of ‘experts’ on hand to give their views on every imaginable subject. Retired Generals give armchair