Allow me to be transparent in a way that might make all of us uncomfortable. Over the course of the year that I worked at my last unit, I felt quite unaligned to their strategy and culture. I struggled to pin down who, what, and why we were, consistently coming up short. I was (very generously) handed a job that … Continue reading Alignment: Artifacts and Rituals
I saw a post this morning on LinkedIn which I found really intriguing. It proposed a type of icebreaker for facilitated workshops in which every participant shares a personal "Song of the Day" with the group. My initial response was positive. What a wonderful way to visibly, audibly, emotionally demonstrate the diversity in the room … Continue reading On Reflecting and Being Reflected, Musically
Our 14-year old daughter Rebecca died four months ago, on May 6th, 2020. Her death was a slow trauma- the gradual unwrapping of a horrible gift we were forced to accept shortly after her birth, that we were left no choice but to keep revealing. Her death was a violence in slow-motion, carried out over … Continue reading Grief at Four Months
Imagine you’ve ventured deep into a mountainous landscape. Picture that in every direction are miles and miles of hills and mountains, varying in elevation from tiny hillocks to majestic alps... Now imagine that your goal is to find the highest peak possible... but visibility is extremely poor. It’s so foggy, you can’t see what’s beyond … Continue reading The Art of Wandering Downhill
A little over a year ago, we were on another of our family adventures, having taken the long route to Germany, with stops along the way at Liberty Science center in New Jersey, Hever Castle in Kent, England, the Colosseum in Rome, a series of tunnels 40 meters under Naples, Italy, a few flights, a … Continue reading How to Know if it is Raining
In 2007, I was attending the Defense Language Institute’s Mandarin Chinese Basic Course. I was several months in and had a 3.8 GPA, second only in my class to my friend and fellow Airman James Fisher. I won’t say my academic success was because I tried harder than my classmates. I absolutely didn’t. I just … Continue reading It’s Personal
A culture is not a product. It is the emergent outcome of behaviors and attitudes, driven by underlying values and the processes, structures, systems, and habits that inform and are informed by them. Culture pivots on an axis of norms. It is a fickle, complex system- a climate that churns and is churned by sub-climates … Continue reading A few of the things that culture perhaps is and is not, at times.
I don't produce content just for content's sake. I have the luxury of writing only when I have something to say. For that reason, I wasn't planning on doing a themed end-of-year or decade blog post. But seeing all of these splendid retrospectives at the close of 2019 and the preceding decade got me wondering … Continue reading A Retrospective
Whenever we talk about innovation in the Air Force, we inevitably end up stumbling upon that familiar old trope of "The Frozen Middle", which approximately describes the theory of "middle-status conformity", in which those mid-tier leaders with enough power to enable or impede innovation for the majority are incentivized to remain risk-averse by their long-earned … Continue reading Agitate: On Being the Unfrozen Middle
*Warning: Some of the following may contain hyperbole. My wife was once told in an OPSEC (operational security) briefing for military spouses that every day, she should alter her route to work or taking the kids to school... to thwart adversary attempts to establish a pattern of life on her. That's right. My wife. A … Continue reading OPSEC is Bad (rant)
Sounding Slightly Off 