Thanksgiving 2023: Anticipate, Listen, Act…

After an airline travel day home after the Thanksgiving Holiday with family, you too may be feeling exhausted.

Yet how will you grow from all that you have learned this past week?

Leadership traits are found across our companies, our agencies, our government and also within our respective families.

In the spirit of the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving this past few days, some may have experienced tragedy and others pure joy.

In reality, “Being a true leader requires the continuous ability to Anticipate, to Listen and to Act in any situation.”

Whether there was missed flights, extraordinary traffic, or relatives with unique personalities at the dinner table, your goal shall always be consistent.

Leadership requires your ability to show bravery in the face of tremendous challenges.

Leadership requires your empathy and simultaneously your own trusted actions to show confidence and to build trust with others.

By the time 5th grade was a reality, memories of our long dining table set for another Thanksgiving day meal in a small midwestern town, was always impressive.

Sitting down with our small family and with "Grand Father Keith" and "Grand Mother Mary" at each end of the table, Keith would always start our meal with a short prayer of thankfulness.

For someone who had survived World War combat in Europe, attended U of M and then started a Midwest U.S. family business and now decades later had 4 Grand Kids, our Grand Father had much to be thankful for in his life.

Yet it was his trusted presence, the words he chose from Bible scriptures and his leadership of our family, that shall aways be remembered.

Who will you rely upon in your family, your organization, your neighborhood or your government to be your Senior Leader?

The lone individual with the life experience to guide you. The consistent leadership traits to make you feel safe, secure and cared for in your particular small team.

Leadership begins across our United States and is displayed at home, around a family Thanksgiving table.

Leadership is continuously demonstrating the actions that others will trust and follow into the future.

At home, in the workplace, on the field or across the Video Teleconference (VTC), we all shall have the opportunity to be Senior Leaders.

Are you alert, are you ready and will you show the real leadership to Anticipate, Listen and Act into the future…

Entrepreneur Innovation: An Infinite Game...

Our Teams were all selected by their Senior Leader for the Fall Cohort. Each Team of Two Experts were admitted from Sacramento, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Manchester, NH.

Our proven Cohort Learning Objectives were outlined in the Syllabus. Lean Methodologies. SPRINT Process. Mission Model. Problem-set. Prototype Deliverables. True Innovation.

The time frame was the month of October 2023.

As any “Instructional Facilitator” across a spectrum of training based forums may tell you, people must be challenged.

They must be tested. Yet the process journey shall build continuous “Trust” in each other.

Whether it shall be students in a Spring Quarter at Stanford in the Engineering Department or Experts from private-sector industry from across the United States, the methodologies and process is the same.

What is most remarkable to witness over the course of the learning and the utilization of a proven process, are the final outcomes. Some people will excel and others will fail.

Human Factors are at play, whenever challenging and cognitive focused skill-based learning is in action. As a few examples, ask any instructor at BUD/S. Ask any host of the college legal debate. Ask any SCRUM Master.

Some of it is just plain DNA. Some of it is just a willingness to succeed. Yet most of it has all to do with perception of the relevance of the tasks and the delivered outcomes for each person individually.

Once you have confidence in the learning process and the methodologies for implementation of the science, then our own human behavior becomes the real unknowns.

So what?

The outcomes of success will depend on the ability for two people as a “Team” to coordinate, to collaborate and to deliver continuous innovative solutions.

These innovative solutions shall have application to a specific problem-set within a geographical or extraterrestrial area. They shall be applicable to a series of our most important and critical values.

What kind of values? “On-time All-the-time.” “Zero defects.” Pick the value of what will be measured according to the desired outcome of the solution-set.

If the prototype solution delivered is not meeting the desired value required, then the Team must adapt. The Team shall pivot. The Team shall innovate.

Repeat.

How will your “Teams” learn this month? This Semester. This Quarter. This fiscal Annual Year.

What is your particular mission? What is your destination?

Only 2 out of 10 shall meet and exceed your expectations. Those are the “Two” you must invest your time and valuable resources in to reach your vision.

These “Two”, will become your most valued Leaders, Explorers, Innovators and your next Instructional Facilitators.

Remember, this is an “Infinite Game” that shall never have just winners and losers.

Those who are able to stay in the game shall find their mission objective achievement, week-by-week, month-by-month, decade-by-decade…