Puppet Show Second

"If I told them once, I told them a hundred times; Spinal Tap first, Puppet Show second."

This is Spinal Tap, 1984

We all need priorities even if some of our priorities are simple and misguided. In one famous pseudo rock-umentary, the metal band Spinal Tap finds itself performing before a "festival crowd" and the band, noting the promotional marquis are dismayed to find that they are billed second to a local puppet show. Rather than absorb this obvious slight, the band takes the stage and tries to perform a jazz metal set written (on the spur of the moment) by the bass player, Derek Smalls. The band has fared poorly and the puppet show crowd has thinned measurably.

We can all learn from the antics of the anti heros of the Spinal Tap saga as they drift without purpose like tiny steel balls in the great pachinco game of the American landscape trying to keep their integrity in the face of endless and dismal failure and disappointment. We realize that we will never sacrifice our self esteem as they have! Each morning as we get up to go to work we can look in the mirror with the assurance and know that in our own lives we will always recieve top billing.

Moral: Always put yourself first and the puppet show second.

Cartoon Credit: Lawrence Gilson

The Yellow Russian Tank

The picture on the left is one of the photos from my portfolio. Many of my writings and stories in this blog reflect back to the two years I lived in northern Israel as a volunteer on a border kibbutz called, Gonen. A 'kibbutz' is a community of Israelis who have decided to live in a collective settlement. They share the responsibilities of working, raising the children, running the business of the community and looking out for the interests of the members. What you are looking at is something that belongs to the members of Gonen. You have never seen this 'thing' before and never will again.

This is a working Russian T-34 tank.

In this picture, the tank has undergone some clever modifications so that it could be useful to the workers in the settlement. The first thing you will notice is that the tank is painted yellow. This paint job is to prevent the pilot of a passing Kfir or F15 fighter jet from thinking it was a real Russian T-34 tank. The tank also had its turret gun removed and was fitted with a 60 foot boom with a 'cherry picker' cage at the end so that someone could stand in the small cage and trim the tops of trees.

The kibbutz workers would drive the tank to their fields of trees to be trimmed and then cut down for use in the factories. The worker in the cherry picker would navigate up and down the tops of the trees trimming and pruning while another person drove the tank slowly up and down the rows of trees all day. As someone who drove the tank for several months, I can tell you that it is fun for about 10 minutes then it gets monotonous. The drivers seat is in the very front of the tank under where the turret gun would be and the giant diesel motor spits smoke and oil all over the inside of the tank (and up your back) while you drive it. There are basically three gears and a clutch and brake inside and the treads are maneuvered with levers that stop one tread so the other can keep rotating to turn the tank. It is very loud in the tank so I used to wear headphones all day. The operator in the cherry picker would communicate his signals by a series of air horn blasts. Those times when I got to work in the cherry picker were much more fun than driving the tank itself and riding atop the 60 foot boom while the tank was moving was pretty cool. The hydraulics in the basket were not that great so when I would press my foot onto the 'down' pedal, the boom would shoot down really fast until it got near the ground then stop suddenly.

Here is an archive photo of a World War II Russian T-34 tank on the battlefield. At that time, the T-34 was a feared weapon and was considered to be one of the best tanks in the world.

The members of kibbutz Gonen found their old tank after the Six Day War and had it brought back to the settlement so they could 'fix it up'. Gonen was built as a frontier settlement on the old Syrian border many years before the annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981 by Israel. The tank was supposedly used by the Syrians in their war with the Israelis although it was, by that time already very old. This particular tank is maintained and used as a piece of farm equipment. Talk about 'turning your swords into plowshares'.

Anyway, now you can say that you have seen a photograph of a yellow Russian tank (it even has a sun bonnet on the top to keep out the rain). You have learned a bit about an Israeli kibbutz. And you have seen a photo of the tank when it was in use by the Russians during World War II.

After you read this entry, be sure to read the one entitled 'Flying Kites in the Holiday Season' which will be posted soon. The Flying Kites blog entry is about two young people who are out to save orphaned children in the Third World and is much more important than this short, pointless one about a worthless yellow tank! Yellow Russian tanks never got anyone in the holiday spirit but I assure you that the one about our friends working in Kenya and India and their remarkable story will get your holiday season started off on the right foot.

The Wisdom of Oz

"Dear me!" remarked the Scarecrow, "what unhappy thoughts you have to be sure. This is proof that born brains cannot equal manufactured brains, for my brains dwell only on facts and never borrow trouble. When there is occasion for my brains to think, they think, but I would be ashamed of my brains if they kept shooting out thoughts that were merely fears and imaginings, such as do no good, but are likely to do harm"

The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum

The Scarecrow of Oz is one of the most recognizable literary characters in the last one hundred years. Simple minded and pragmatic, he bumbles through each story and adventure, a warm and cheery companion to his friends as they experience strange adventures in the Land of Oz. We who live in the real world could all learn something valuable from the Scarecrow, a character who has every reason to pass through life feeling humiliated and self concious. The Scarecrow is frail and fragile, he is made of straw and cannot walk for any length of time without stumbling and falling down. He is timid and fearful but is the first one to offer to sacrifice himself for the good of his friends if danger awaits them. He even looks comical and in his early adventures found it difficult to gain the respect of his peers because of his ridiculous appearance.

I had a friend many years ago when I lived in the Middle East. This fellow, Richard was from South Africa. Richard had fallen into some type of machinery when he was a very small child almost losing his life in this tragic accident but was somehow saved and stitched back together. When I met him he was about twenty years old and had arrived to live and work on the settlement I lived on at the time with many other travelers from all over the world in northern Israel. When the doctors had put Richard back together again after his accident they had done the best they could but his appearance could only be described as alarmingly peculiar. Richard was about five foot six inches tall but one shoulder was hunched higher than the other. His hands and legs and body on his right side were all normal and strong but the machine he had fallen into had caused his head to be severely injured and his left arm and leg were weak as though he had suffered a stroke. One eye was false and was sewn in place lower on his face than the other eye and he had a wry grin because of severe muscular nerve damage which left him with a sort of unilateral sneer and he spoke out of the right side of his mouth like Humphrey Bogart. The right eye was undamaged and peered with a directness that made you forget that the other eye had been lost. He had hair that was not exactly lusterous but did, for the most part cover the majority of his scalp. One other thing that was very obvious about Richard from the moment he arrived on our settlement in northern Israel, women loved him.

This strange looking fellow had spent his entire life being stared at, pointed at, laughed at and judged. He looked like the character of Quasimodo in the famous book, 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'. He set out from South Africa and planned to travel the world on his own. Richard was not part of a tour or a University junket, he was a regular vagabond traveler and accepted the risks and hazards of life without any safety net just like anyone else. He made his way from South Africa and traveled up the coast of Africa to Egypt and finally to Israel all the while enduring the strange looks and passing comments of his fellow travelers. Suffice it to say that if Richard was standing right next to Mick Jagger, Bono or the Queen of England, Richard would be the person you would notice first and would be more memorable than any international celebrity.

Women loved Richard because he had an infectious sense of humor, the quickest wit and the most winnning smile of any of us in that small community. He would tell the rudest jokes and laugh through the one side of his face while tears of laughter would come out of his good eye. Richard clearly loved women but more surprising than that, he expected that women he met would love him back. And they did. Looks clearly were'nt everything where Richard was concerned and, in his case, looks were a potentially severe impairment to his social life. It did not matter to anyone and it was surprising how quickly we forgot his poor facial reconstruction once he became our friend. Within several months, the Lebanon War started and we volunteers scattered back to Europe and elsewhere. It is rare in life to meet someone who so completely overcomes adversity and hardship so as to leave a lasting impression of only courage and laughter with the people he meets.

The Scarecrow of Oz is famous for making self effacing remarks about his construction and appearance as he trips, stumbles, catches fire and gets torn apart and his straw scattered through his many adventures. If he makes a passing reference to his ridiculous appearance this self effacing comment is always followed by a hopeful nod and an appeal to the reader not to forget his personal strengths and the story moves on. Since all of the Oz characters are flawed or misshapen in some way, we accept that it is a land full of misfits (just as in real life) so children who read the Oz stories learn to see past these visual descriptions and focus on the hearts and strengths of the characters. Most people we see every day are not as disfigured as Richard but we all have our flaws and many struggle with paralysis, amputations, illness and the curses of old age. As familiar as we all are with the characters in the Oz stories it is so easy to overlook their anomalies and to see the good in them. As we go through our daily lives we should all remember the poorly made Scarecrow who, like many real people, possesses great strengths and courage while suffering the misfortune of having the appearance of consisting solely of cloth and straw.

The Zen of Wile E. Coyote

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Wile E. Coyote...Genius. I am not selling anything, nor am I working my way through college, so let's get down to cases. You are a rabbit, and I am going to eat you for supper. Now, don't try to get away! I am more muscular, more cunning, faster, and larger than you are and...I'm a genius. Why, you could hardly pass the entrance examinations to kindergarten. So, I'll give you the customary two minutes to say your prayers."

What Wile E. Coyote is saying is that since he believes himself to be both intellectually and physically superior to the Road Runner, he sees the issue of 'supper' as pre ordained. It only remains for the prey to surrender and he can then move on to other, more meaningful aspects of his day. Life does not often deliver results in this way. Life must be taken on lifes terms. But that is not to say that we should not approach life with self confidence and self assurance.

In his most recent book, 'Outliers', Malcolm Gladwell details some of the circumstances that lead some individuals to great success and personal wealth. Throughout history only a few people have risen to the top of their chosen professions. These few people have been the recipients of a unique set of life events and opportunities but they have also had tremendous drive, ambition and passion for what they do.

So...who do you picture to be the exact opposite of the upwardly mobile, confident junior executive? I've been reading to my daughters every night for the past several years and it strikes me that the one character in all of the books we have read together that would serve to represent the opposite of Wile E. Coyote is the dull, nearly-silent and depressed character of Mr. Bucket in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'. This ghostly, chronically fatigued and almost invisible character element to the story toils away alone each day in the worst conceivable dead end job; doing physical labor working as the cap screwer in a toothpaste factory. Mr. Bucket cannot come up with a plan to better himself or to support his family except in the direst poverty because, while he is a character with feelings he has no vision, no energy and no passion in life. Mr. Bucket does not consider himself to be a genius and he probably never has.

Closer to the Warner Brothers theme, another character to consider is Elmer Fudd. Always confused and slow-of-wit, ever the stalwart hunter of "wabbits", Elmer lacks creativity, common sense and cannot conceive of a plan to hunt Bugs Bunny that does not begin and end the same way every time. Elmer Fudd does not consider himself to be a genius. He probably does not even know what a genius is.

Bill Gates, George Lucas, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Bill Clinton, the Beatles, Richard Branson and many others in our modern era have achieved tremendous wealth, fame and power. Was it all etherial timing, a particular juxtaposition of the stars or a slight nod from God that created these outliers in our society? Or was it supreme belief in themselves and their personal gifts and abilities along with their relentless attention to the possibility of opportunity that brought riches and fame to them.

For Elmer Fudd to have become rich and famous it would have to be because he accidently ended up in the same cartoon as Bugs Bunny who was a true genius.

And that goes double for Daffy Duck!

Ref: The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979)

The Happiness Scale

"Take care of your people. Create and sustain a business where they can live, not just make a living."
Gary Erickson, Clif Bar founder and author of, 'Raising the Bar'.

Is it possible to create a way to benchmark contentment in the workplace among employees? Can a manager use this tool translate into a healthier and more sustainable business model? I propose a new way of assessing the emotional health of the company; The Cooperative Engagement Scale. The CES will utilize previously untapped descriptive terms and adjectives such as; remarkable, insightful, dedicated, profound, historically motivated and resentful. Since working within the tight bubble of an office or plant is often very similar to working and living in a commune, a boarding school or Israeli kibbutz, we mangers should be able to create a model to assess workplace satisfaction as it relates to a productive group interaction and individual inner calm.

There are established methods of assessing an employees aptitude for certain types of jobs and tolerance to close working relationships with different personality types. The Big 5 Inventory Test is one example of this type of testing and is described as follows:

"This 44-item test, developed by Oliver P. John, Ph.D. and V. Benet-Martinez in 1998, is in the public domain and has been normed on tens of thousands of adults. It provides a score for each of the Big Five personality traits (Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Emotional Stability, Extroversion and Intellect or Openness). Scores on these traits can often explain important issues for adults and thus simplify counseling efforts. For example, an extrovert working as a night janitor was depressed. Finding a day job, where he could relate to other people, went a long way toward relieving his depression."

The thesaurus generates a list of vague terms which may have meaning when placed in a structured context.
Contentment: satisfaction, ease, happiness and gratification

Happiness: approval, fulfillment, contentment

Cooperation: collaboration, teamwork, mutual aid

In Guy Kawasaki's excellent book, 'The Art of the Start' he details his own intuitive way of evaluating his own reaction towards his employees and business partners. Guy has named this The Stanford Shopping Center Test. He writes,"Suppose you are at a shopping center. You see a candidate (or employee or partner or service provider) before he notices you. At that point, you can do one of three things:

1: Scoot over and say hello.

2: Figure that if you bump into him, fine. If not, that's OK too.

3: Get in your can and go to another shopping center.

**If you picked number 2 or 3 don't hire that person. Life's too short to work with people you don't naturally like especially in a small, young organization"

Our new management tool, The Cooperative Engagement Scale should generate a clear picture of a prospective employee's inner calm and sense of purpose and well being. A few test questions might read like this;

1: If you had a Ferrari, what color would you choose?

2: How frequently do you say the word, 'scintillating' in the course of a normal day?

3: Do you let your four year old daughter watch Ultimate Cage Fighting competitions on cable TV?

4: How would you respond if your adult co worker expresses that he or she still believes in Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny?

We all need to work together and to accept each other for our individual strengths and weaknesses. The Cooperative Engagement Scale will be the new way to benchmark our aptitude for cohesion and collaboration. I am working on it every day but would'nt it be great if we could use the internet to allow everybody to submit questions? Now that I think about it I wonder just who in my office actually watches Ultimate Cage Fighting?

References:
Kawasaki, Guy. The Art of the Start. Portfolio Books, 2004.

Erickson, Gary. Raising the Bar. Jossey-Bass, 2004.

The Official American Dog

"To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs." Aldous Huxley

Queen Elizabeth of England has a couple of short, brown furry dogs. George Bush has two short, black Scottish Terrier dogs. The Reagans had a big dog once but they traded it in for a short dog because the Secret Service was afraid that the big dog would pull Nancy Reagan off the Presidential helicopter steps. For the remainder of the Reagan presidency, we Americans were forced to be represented to the rest of the world by yet another small dog. Outrageous! Appalling!

President-elect Barak Obama will be moving into the presidential residence this winter with his family. What type of pet should the Obama family get that we can all be proud of as Americans? I have a few suggestions which I have listed below;
1: Big dog
2: Bigger dog
3: Cat - (only if dogs are not available)

Here are the pets the Obama family should avoid at all costs;
1: Hampsters
2: Ferrets
3: Reptiles of all kinds
4: Birds

I say the selection of a 'First Pet' for the First Family should be left up to the American people! We should be allowed to vote on the pet and have a nation wide bake off to choose the name of the pet. This is an important decision and one the rest of the world will be observing closely as an indicator of our ability to lead the world in other important matters. Mr. Obama cannot be the leader of the free world and own a tiny, furry, yapping pomeranean. The White House Press Corp should be free to walk around the South Lawn without being afraid of having their socks snapped off or their shoelaces shredded by the tiny teeth of an itty bitty dog with a chip on it's little shoulder (or whatever a dog's shoulder is called).

We need an Official American Dog. I cast my vote for the best dog in the whole darned dog world; the Black and Tan Coonhound. You've seen these dogs around the neighborhood but probably not in the movies or on TV. These are the medium sized dogs that have the black and brown patterned coloring with those wise looking, expressive "eyebrows", the friendly dog smile and that calm demeanor. The black and tan coonhound is a dog for all the people. You will not see the black and tan dog in Madison Square Garden parading around for the annual dog show. The humble black and tan coonhound will have been eliminated in the early rounds of the competition before the final dozen compete on television. At the time of the dog show broadcast, the sublime and composed coonhound will be resting in the Green Room in Madison Square Garden having some kibble and telling the other loser dogs that he "did not really want to be there anyway."

The Presidents Dog should be the type of dog that our Secretary of State could take for a walk around the park on a stroll with the Secretary of State from another country as he (or she) negotiate the next free trade agreement without being embarrassed or interrupted by stupid barking or multiple attempts by the dog to pee every three feet. The black and tan coonhound would sit quietly during presidential photo ops without seeming to steal the spotlight. A painting of this stately dog would really look cool on a postage stamp, adding pizzaz and style to almost any postal envelope and kicking the boring Canada goose (and those stamps of old baseball players that I have never heard of) right out of the US Postal Service stamp lineup. How many goose stamps do we need anyway?

So I encourage everybody reading this blog to vote for the Official American Dog! We need a solid canine presence in the White House so that all those other countries that have leaders with dogs will know we Americans mean business and that we are serious Presidential pet pickers!

To view the New American Presidential Dog (that you will be voting for), link onto:
http://www.coonhoundrescue.com/

Ozymandias was a Teenage Camel Tipper

Today's middle managers and plant supervisors work hard for their companies and have had to prove their worth and toughness many times to get where they are. The vision of the grizzled, crew-cut crew boss is someone who, you can imagine ruled the neighborhood as a kid and kept all the other kids in line. If you look around at the CEO's and leaders of business and industry, these seem to be the studious types who applied themselves to the task of learning how to best get along with others and to take advantage of opportunities to advance up the corporate ladder. Each type of leader plays to their strength and each would be ineffective without the other. The leaders of the companies need the leaders of the staff or crew to make the companies work and vice versa. I wonder about these supervisors and team leaders and how they differ from the rulers and conquerers in the ancient world. Leaders are very different today than just a few short centuries ago....

In the famous poem by Shelley, Ozymandias is the fictitious monomaniacal ruler who built his famous city and statues glorifying himself before devastation and tragedy erased all of his achievements from human memory.
I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read, Which yet survive stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; .And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my works. Ye Mighty, and despair!' Ozymandias

What must this powerful ruler have been like as a boy growing up on the high plateaus of Asia? I imagine that young Ozymandias (his friends probably called him 'Ozzy') had a 'discipline problem' and probably did not do so well in school. He was probably a frustrated student in class although he could make small weapons in 'Shop'. Ozymandias probably grew up in a vast metropolis like the ancient city of Balkh, which has all but vanished from the deserts of what we now know as Afghanistan. Lets say he did grow up in Balkh, he must certainly have witnessed violence and death and gained an appreciation for the spoils that come from weilding great power. Like the statue in the poem, little was left of this ruined civilization after it was conquered by Ghengis Khan and others. A typical Saturday night in Balkh would have offered many opportunities for mischief for a young lad out looking for trouble and a chance to prove himself to the other kids in his neighborhood.

In farming towns all over the US the sport of 'cow tipping' is considered a trial of strength and a rite of passage with just a bit of danger thrown in (after all it is a cow). Going up to a drowsy, unsuspecting Jersey at night and pushing the top heavy animal on it's side in the mud is probably lots of fun to a small town teen with little else to do. An ancient desert kid might have practiced 'camel tipping' (goat tipping is for babies) and then had aspirations of world conquest and glory from there as he grew older. The self confidence one gains from trials of strength can open many doors to a young fellow who is trying to better himself. The camel tippers in the ancient world probably grew to become the best conquerers even though they may have lacked such things as; good judgement, social responsibility and global vision. These old guys sure could show how strong they were!

The CEO's of business and the leaders of our multi national corporations are no longer the aspiring, sword weilding pillagers and looters that they once were centuries ago. While 'pillaging and looting' are relative terms (and are often accomplished electronically) my point is that the neighborhood bully who ruled the other kids through fear and intimidation probably will not make it to the top of the excecutive food chain by using the same tactics. As in the example of Ozymandias, the face of leadership is changing and the new wave of commanders have to be skilled communicators and negotiators and not just good 'cow tippers' who can bully their peers. Without competent, forward thinking innovators who can work and be productive in a democratic environment we too will go the way of Balkh and Ozymandias and our life's work will be reduced to a footnote on a scrap of rock.

Ancient History Lesson
"Balkh was old long before Alexander’s raid, and its history of 2500 years records more than a score of conquerors. The Arabs, impressed by Balkh’s wealth and antiquity, called it Umm-al-belad, the mother of cities. When the Silk Road was the chief artery of commerce between East and West, Balkh was second to none. But then came Ghengis Khan, and wreaked upon it the utter devastation that has made the Mongols’ name a byword for barbarism. Balkh never fully recovered, and eventually faded into a village; the seat of government shifted to scruffy but vigorous Mazar-e-Sharif. Catastrophe struck in 1220, when Ghengis Khan chose to make an example of Balkh, perhaps as punishment for an uprising. One hundred thousand Mongol horsemen embarked on an orgy of slaughter and destruction that left nothing standing; a few weeks later they returned to pick off the survivors of the carnage." Quoted from Frank Harold

The Upanishads, the Extreme Skier and a Lucky Stroll in a Mine Field

In the book, 'The Razors Edge' by W. Somerset Maugham, a ruthless and crass Polish coal miner surprises the lead character, Larry Darrell during a game of cards by admonishing him about his lack of familiarity with the mystical teachings found in the Hindu Upanishads.

"The Upanishads speak of a universal spirit (Brahman) and an individual soul, and at times assert the identity of both. Brahman is the ultimate, both transcendent and immanent, the absolute infinite existence, the sum total of all that ever is, was, or shall be. The mystical nature and intense philosophical bent of the Upanishads has led to their explication in numerous manners, giving birth to three main schools of Vedanta."

The Polish coal miner cheats at cards and then taunts Larry for all of his searching and reading by saying, "You mean you've never read the Upanishads? You really don't know anything do you."

When Kit Delauriers becomes the first person in history (man or woman) to climb and then ski down the seven highest mountain peaks in the world we marvel at her passion, vision and courage. In her lectures, Kit describes coping with her fear and doubt and her remarkable ability to overcome panic and to reach down and focus on her inner strength to complete her dangerous descent down the Lhotse Face of Everest. Entrepreneurs will tell you that their success in business is the result of vision, insight, endless hours of hard work and, for the very few, an unbroken stream of luck. Reiki practitioners, Therapeutic Touch healers, Craniosacral therapists and mystic visionaries, will relate stories of energy fields and a current of Chi that guides and heals us.

On New Years Day in 1981, I went on a walking excursion with a couple of friends into the hills of the Golan Heights in northern Israel. We were three friends with a picnic lunch, enjoying a sunny morning after the revelry of the New Years Eve party the night before. Going up a familiar road we found a low fence and crossed onto a field and took a shortcut to an abandoned Syrian outpost where we were able to look over the wide expanse of the Hula valley and see the border of Lebanon on the other side. A few hours later after wandering about some more we crossed over another part of the fence and found to our surprise that we had just left a rocky meadow that had not been cleared of land mines since the Six Day War. The Golan Heights are full of mines and unexploded ordinance and these areas are usually well marked since the roads are well traveled and the area is populated. Somehow we had missed the sign and had spent almost the whole day wandering about on a mine field. Oops...

Blogs are supposed to be a platform for journaling our thoughts, ideas and observations. When I think back to that New Year's Day in Israel of aimless sightseeing in the mine field and spin forward to the rich and complex life I experience now as a husband, father, brother, son and doctor, these circumstances and series of life events seem connected. I am the person I am now because of these experiences and have been fortunate enough to be able to advance in life's tournament through hard work, dedication and a quick splash now and then in the slipstream of good fortune that runs through the human experience.

So, what is the thread that runs between ancient mystical teachings, a lucky walkabout through a field of unexploded mines and the achievements of a world class extreme skier who does the impossible? Who knows and, in the final analysis, who really cares. The miracle of my life lies in the daily joy of staying healthy, raising a family, laughing as much as possible and doing meaningful work. Today, these are the simple things I look forward to. Tomorrow, who knows?

Luck? Skill? Mystic conjecture?

Life is a mix of all three.

Reference:

Kit Delauriers Website: http://www.kitdski.com/ and http://pursuebalance.org/
Kit is the first person in the world to have skied off the top of the 7 Summits which are the highest points on each of the 7 continents. This lofty goal was made complete with her October 18, 2006 ski descent from Mount Everest. Kit’s first international climbing expedition was to Peak Siniolchu (6,887 m) in Sikkim, India during April/May of 1998. In addition to being an accomplished skier and ski mountaineer, Kit is an experienced rock climber having led many traditional alpine routes of the Tetons with grades to 5.10. Kit volunteered extensively with the San Miguel County Search and Rescue Team often as team leader for entire rescue operations. She also worked for the Telluride Ski Resort as a professional Ski Patroller for two winter seasons. During this time Kit became a certified EMT as well as highly trained in technical and helicopter rescue.

Upanishads definition: Quoted from Wickepedia.

"Here's to Swimmin' with Bow Legged Women!"

"I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."

Some people aspire to be leaders and managers but they lack the skills and committment to be successful in this role. They react poorly to a changing business and financial landscape and failure often results.

Take the movie, 'Jaws' as a metaphore for a failed business venture and let's examine the circumstances surrounding one of the lead characters. Quint, played by Robert Shaw is a very good example of someone who is forced by circumstances beyond his control to lead others and ultimately meets a bloody death in the jaws of the great shark. We could see Quint's demise unfold from the beginning. The audience knows that his fate will not be a pleasant one because he is inherently such an unsavory character and if someone is going to get their just desserts from the great shark we know it will be the reviled Quint. If you remember the film, we meet the hunter in his harborside shack full of shark trophies. Great steaming pots are boiling the shark flesh from their dead jaws and the walls are festooned with proof of his fishing and shark killing prowess. Quint lives to kill sharks and he accepts the other two men on his boat as useless cargo only because they are paying for the charter. Chief Brody and Hooper learn along with us who this extraordinary character is and how far he will go to destroy the great white shark he has been hired to kill. In the end, the boat is sinking, the shark is winning the fight and still Quint does not give in. He cares nothing for the passengers and it is not in his nature to recruit others to help him to kill the shark the way he has killed thousands of other sharks. To Quint, the other passengers on the boat have nothing to offer, no recognizable skills that he can draw on so in the end he dies alone, with the other two helplessly looking on.

Quint becomes more human to us when the ordering and shouting die down during the first calm evening at sea as the three men sit down in the galley for a shared drink. "Here's to swimmin' with bow legged women!" Quint cackles to his charter mates as his way of lightening the mood and attempting to bond at some level with the two partners he is forced to endure. As the scene unfolds and he and Hooper find common ground in comparing their various shark induced wounds, while Brody is left to contemplate his minor surgical scar and to question his own self worth. Ultimately, the shark scores the final coup de grace and Brody, with the boat sinking beneath him, manages to redeem himself with his weapon and blow the shark and his ingested oxygen tank to smithereens. In an earlier scene you recall that Quint expressed his scorn that Brody's little police handgun was next to useless to defeat this shark.

Leaders great and small with various skill sets and levels of committment dot the historical landscape of every country, town and business. Compassionate, altruistic, genuine world renown figures such as Ghandi, Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela change the world for the better one unselfish act at a time. Monomaniacal potentates such as Sadaam Hussein inflict their malignant narcicissm on humanity and only manage to litter the world with grief and dispair.

Our leaders, bosses and supervisors need to want to lead and inspire, to want to share and experience the advancement and to expect ultimate success from the people in their charge. Inspiring others and stewarding them to become all they can become is an innate skill. Some are better leaders than others. Some companies thrive and succeed while others are devoured by 'sharks' as a result of their poor stewardship.

Quint knew everything there was to know about killing sharks and he had been successful for years. There was no one better and he could prove it. In the end, his lack of ability to develop and implement a creative plan of action for achieving his goal when the landscape of his venture changed led to his undoing and the failure of his mission. Worse yet, in failing to enable and inspire his subordinates, Quint was unable to rely on them when his boat was sinking. Hooper and Brody clearly had skills they could lend but Quint ignored them and passed them off as worthless idiots instead of members of a team that could help him to salvage his downward spiraling shark hunt. Quint ultimately chose the only course he had ever known and followed his own gut feelings, (which ultimately led to his personal contribution to the sharks gut feelings...).

'Leaders' quote by Ralph Nader

The Guru in the Bull Ring

Does effective business management require a skilled leader or can a business be managed and the staff brought together under a common banner by someone who is only a marginally effective (yet compelling) manager? Does an employees faith in the company make the company more successful and enable the manager to do her job with better results, or do we need something more tangible built into our businesses to keep the wheels turning.

In his book, 'Raising the Bar', author and adventurer Gary Erickson details his experiences in taking over control of Clif Bar and restoring his company's "mojo". He drew upon the resources of others who had run great companies and who focused on the quality of the employee work experience and faith in their product line as a barometer of the health of the company. Managing and leading from this afferent perspective is what has helped create the culture of Clif Bar and has kept the company vision strong and ultimately sustainable. When his employees believe in the company vision, there is growth and corporate contentment. Erickson writes, "I realized that mojo was an elusive quality and needed to be carefully tended."

In the Spring of 1979 I found myself living for three weeks in the seaside town of Marbella on the Costa del Sol in the south of Spain. I lived with a dozen other people from all over Europe on the flat rooftop of the Pensao Luisa a few dozen yards from the popular (but expensive) youth hostel. The days were pleasant and the evenings were spent playing guitars, buying pitchers of local sangria and eating 'paella' in the local resteraunts. One day, the whole town was invaded by a curious collection of strangers from all over the continent.

One of many Indian guru's of the day was enjoying modest popularity at that time and had rented out the local Plaza del Toros for a three day festival. Tour buses full of the faithful arrived by the dozens and suddenly our little rooftop was crowded with families and their children, young wanderers and even geriatric patriarchs all ready for three days of dust, harmony and churros. Joining the throng on the first day of the event, I made my way to the bull ring along with the rest of the crowd and managed to secure an admission wristband. With my camera hidden under my shirt, I was able to get a comfortable seat in the stands and to snap photos of the crowds and the Indian fellow himself on his dias. One of my photographs depicts the moment that the guru made his appearance to his softly lit stage in his great beige armchair. The sun was setting and the dust was settling in the bull ring as he made his appearance before the exhausted but elated crowd. I never knew what his message that day was but I spent some time observing the crowd who had left their homes, boarded busses, bought tickets and other objects of reverence and for whom now, the magic hour had arrived. Women screamed, children clapped as they sat on their fathers shoulders. Followers of rival gurus made loud hooting noises before settling into their seats. The festival ended three days later, I am told with a unique bonding event in which the guru sprayed the crowd with water cannons full of colored water into the thousands who cavorted through the bull ring in white attire as they recieved this pressurized rainbow colored baptism. After a few days the people left and the sleepy town was returned to normal.

Having never had anything to do with guru's or cults before, I was interested in who these people were and what could possess them to participate in such an event. Thirty years later I still occasionally glance over the photographs of the crowd on that first dusty day in the evening light of the bull ring and marvel at the effect that this little, non descript Indian man had on his followers. He may not have been a very good manager but he certainly seemed to offer leadership (of a sort) to those thousands who thought they needed leading. Could Clif Bar be managed by such a leader as this? Could this young guru have run a company or a country or is this type of leader only able to lead those who need someone to follow?

The trials and joys of running my medical practice are far removed from the events of that Spring day in a small Spanish town. At times in my daily practice life it is interesting to reflect on the power that some managers seem to have over others and to try to understand how this can translate into leadership. Office staff do not have an inherent need to have someone to lead them or guide them the way the faithful flock to their spiritual guides, but they are searching for that key idea and vision that will sustain them in the workplace and help them return to work each day with energy and committment and.....mojo.