Look Ahead by Looking Behind

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (book, biography)

Competencies: leadership, conflict management, decision-making, team building, inter and intrapersonal skills

Who benefits: coaches, leadership and management consultants, instructors and teachers in business education, leadership education, management development, any manager, supervisor or employee who enjoys reading biographies

Consultant Usage: stories for use in training, education, team building and coaching leaders and managers

What’s it about? A biography by a Pulitzer Prize winning author of President Lincoln, with an emphasis on the difficult situations and decisions of his presidency. 

The silly season is upon us.  For 10 short months we will be inundated with some information, some data, but mostly spin and then asked to select a new President of the United States.  What you see is very likely not what you get!  So I guess it is appropriate to put my two cents in.

Next Monday is President’s Day.  I think that is when we take time to honor all Presidents.  I am not too sure what we honor in Tyler or Taylor, Harrison or Polk; but I am a big fan of Honest Abe. 

I wasn’t old enough to vote for Lincoln, but after a work life in HRD I am a fan of the way he brought people and ideas together even during the most difficult times…and lest we forget, he probably lived in more difficult times that we do.  He had to deal with a war next door. 

The man had E.Q.

He knew he had his own personal demons.  And he dealt with most of them without modern day psychology or drugs. 

He had great interpersonal skills, bringing together people of extreme views, practicing active listening before it was an official competency, gaining win-win situations whenever possible.

And he was still capable of making strong decisions when needed.  He was a great team builder without ever having gone to a single NTL Institute T-group.

If you are a fan of biographies and have the patience to wade through a very thick book, there are many, many gems in here for the HRD professional.

Happy President’s Day!
[tags]Lincoln, Abe Lincoln, honest Abe, Abraham Lincoln, conflict management, team building, interpersonal skills, intrapersonal skills, EQ, decision making, judgment, win-win, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley[/tags]

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.