• Introduction
• ENVIRONMENT
• SELF-MASTERY
• PERFORMANCE
• LEADERSHIP
• FINAL THOUGHTS

As leader, you are the environment.

What is the ideal environment?

The ideal environment is one that transforms obedient citizens into functioning individuals.  People are empowered to perform at their best in an environment of freedom, justice, and peace.

The premise is that good ideas come from anywhere.  So while cracking the whip may work in a restaurant or construction site, what makes great organizations is their ability to tap into the core strengths of each individual.

Who creates the environment?

We are shaped by our environment.  And we in turn shape our environment. 

We choose our environment, by choosing our job, friends, and where we spend our time.  Choose your environment carefully, as you’re really choosing the next version of you.

What are barriers to creating a great environment?

Freedom and fairness are often incompatible concepts.  Case in point in politics: Liberals and Conservatives.  Conservatives believe in freedom over fairness.  They want people to keep what they earn, and exercise their freedom of choice.  Liberals believe in fairness over freedom.  They want everyone to have equal opportunity to education, health, regardless of money.  

Balance in a great environment is difficult.  Imbalance is natural.  Here are some examples:

• Freedom without Safety - Extreme freedom by definition results in anarchy, like giving guns to everyone.
• Freedom without Fairness - Extreme freedom allows the rich to exploit the poor, the strong to extort the weak.  Without rules, many will suffer.
• Fairness without Safety - An eye for an eye, and soon we're all blind.
• Fairness without Freedom - The concept of democracy is majority rules, not necessarily protecting minority rights.
• Safety and Fairness without Freedom - Communism tried and failed, as freedom is what gets the best from people.

Is there balance in our environment?

There are so many signs of imbalance, for example, in the American situation.

• The richest one percent of America owns half the country's wealth that's not balance
• Gun Control - Freedom is okay, but not when your safety is threatened!
• Medicare - Is it fair to let the medical system to financial bankrupt the sick?
• PATRIOT Act - Is it okay to take away basic freedoms, with the promise of improving safety?
• Revenge and Death Penalty - It's fair right?  But an eye for an eye means the violence may never end.
  

How do we know that these tasks constitute the complete list?  

Based on the ground-breaking work “Built to Last” by Jim Collins, the three key components of performance are: talent, passion, and alignment.  Iterating through the possibilities we can confirm that none of the three leadership components is optional.

• Training and organizing without inspiration will result in people who just passionlessly goes through the motions of work.
• Training and inspiring without organizing will result in wasted individual efforts performing duplicated tasks, while roles go unfilled.
• Inspiring and organizing without training will result in people lacking the skills put in stressful positions.

Nested Menu

• What is leadership?
• Who is the leader?
• What do good leaders do?
• Will this really work?

Favorite Links

• HelpGlobe
• jotThis

© 2008 Sherwin Shao