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BLG Leadership Insights

Being Creative about Creativity

IMG_0275Good ideas, sometimes, come from the least likely places. The most creative minds may come from those individuals who not only think out of the box, but don’t even realize there was a box there in the first place.

In the search for talent and creativity we often look for credentials, in a over- credentialized society, we try to delineate expertise when expertise can’t be delineated, we value experience when experience may be irrelevant, and we reward bureaucratic seniority when such seniority may be dysfunctional. In this world, where knowledge is rapidly changing, where skills and capacities bubble to the surface in unexpected places, in unexpected ways, real leaders have to reach beyond their world for talent and insight.

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BLG Leadership Insights

Deicision Making: Obama and Afghanistan

ObamaSometimes there’s a article that’s both current and essential reading for leaders. If the heart of leadership, as we’ve often argued, is mobilizing people around decisions–it’s vital we look at examples of decision processes that lead to action. The best tutorial is to examine specific cases, for good or for bad, of the decision process.

For the last three months we’ve watched President Obama struggle with his decision regarding Afghanistan. A superb presentation of his decision making process and one I highly recommend everyone read can be found in the New York Times, entitled “How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan.”

Picture credit: AP