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Companies thrive when leaders know what’s expected of them

Clarity is key in building and sustaining a high-performing culture. For leaders, this means making sure messages are clear and understood — not ambiguous or confusing — and that everyone knows what they’re supposed to do and how it contributes to the organization’s objectives. Clarity is vital in each part of the organization, and it applies to everyone.  (Here, I am talking about clarity as it relates to the workplace. However, the principles certainly apply to life in general.) Peter Drucker (1909-2005), whom many consider the “father of modern management,” and ...

Letting the volunteer lights shine

When the leaves begin turning yellow, orange, and red, we see Forest Festival volunteers working all over the Elkins community. On Friday we saw the red t-shirts for United Way Day of Action, This week we celebrated volunteers who let their lights shine to help Kump Education Center create a brighter future. Our volunteers helped me remember our shared history and think about the ways we can teach the next generation what we learned from the generations before us about honesty, kindness, and responsibility. Volunteering is an affirmation of our shared humanity. It is the essence of ...

No more happy talk

Activists within the Democratic party have shown energy, staging demonstrations such as “no kings” to “workers over billionaires.” Moreover, California Governor Gavin Newsom has pushed back against the Texas redistricting scheme and President Donald Trump’s attempt to take over American municipalities. Also, Democrats won a special election in Iowa for the state senate. You could say they have enjoyed a good summer. As Lee Corso says, “Not so fast, my friend.” Despite the activist energy and successes, the Democratic National Committee has managed to impede any sense ...

Wanting it both ways

If there is a drawback to Donald Trump’s foreign policy, it is that he wants it both ways. For example, his approach to Ukraine resembles the reaction many Americans had to Vietnam in the late sixties. Surveys in 1969 found that one response was “I want peace, but I don’t want to lose.” Currently, Trump seems to be in that lane. Vladimir Putin’s summer offensive appears to have enjoyed a measure of success. The defense network of hedgehog fortresses with complicated trenches and interlocking lines so assiduously built up by the Ukrainian military has become frail. Any ...

Avoiding the malaise

Herbert Hoover was well-liked in his day, praised for his engineering prowess which he used to tackle major worldwide problems following World War I. He was a natural choice for president in 1928. But then the 1929 stock market crash happened, followed by the Great Depression. None of these things were exclusively the fault of Hoover, and frankly most of what his successor —Franklin Roosevelt — did to end the Great Depression worked until World War II broke out and we flexed our production muscles. But Roosevelt is remembered for ending the Great Depression and Hoover is ...

Governance by threat, not constitutional order

The Constitution of the United States lays out a complex scheme of governance that has mostly worked for the 237 years since it became effective with the ratification of the ninth state, New Hampshire, in 1788. There have been exceptions, of course. Abraham Lincoln took extraordinary steps to quell the rebellion of 11 Southern states. Franklin Roosevelt disregarded judicial precedent and daily reset the price of gold by whim. President Donald Trump, in his second term, has been doing something like the same thing by employing threats of actions outside traditional norms to get others ...