Last Word From Me … For Now

Our debate/my position is in no way, as someone suggested, a Jim Collins tirade. It is my Raison d’etre … which predates Collins by more than 20 years. Forty(!) years if you go back to my Navy Seabees days in Vietnam. I had two commanding officers. Boss #1: “Shut up and build! Get into the field. Now. Stay there until you’re done!” #2: “Produce great reports on the stuff we never built. Be careful, men.”—I exaggerate, but not much. (Not so incidentally: no surprise, given leeway and room for initiative we were far more careful under Commanding Officer #1.)

Attached as a Special Presentation is a major update of my Grant-Nelson-et al. PPT. These were all men who had a direction in which they were heading to be sure—but always believed vigorous action came first; and that the action per se reshaped the plan, often dramatically, more than the “vice-versa” (plan-shapes-action).

Off to Norway, without much carry-on, in two hours.

[I think this is really the last post before Tom leaves.—EH]

Erik Hansen posted this on August 11, 2006, in Strategies.
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