Leadership

A voice crackled over the radio: “Orlando Approach, 120 Foxtrot Tango, you are cleared for the space coast tour, contact NASA Tower on 126.2.” This is how my first encounter with Kennedy Space Centre, on Florida’s east coast, began. At fifteen hundred feet at the controls of a Piper Warrior, I flew North past the launch pads, the vehicle assembly building – so big it has its own weather system, or should have – and then down the almost endless runway where the Shuttle lands. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sunlight sparkled on the water on both sides of the cape. It was an impressive, even awesome, sight.

Every manager has one goal: to foster a healthy, prospering work environment that brings employees together to get work done. Unfortunately, so many managers who have just been promoted or are looking to impress fall short. Why? Because they fall for the many damaging management myths.

Effective managers combine different types of communication, such as email, IM and phone calls, to repeat and reinforce key messages.

Listen very carefully, I shall say this only twice…

This secretive and exciting institution seems so far removed from our everyday working lives that it’s hard to imagine it has anything in common with mundane management or business basics.

The reality, however, is very different from Fleming’s fiction.

I had heard about John Boyd’s legendary Patterns of Conflict before I read his biography but I had never seen it. So I went on a quest to find it!

Regular readers will know that I have an interest in military history.  (See How to improve morale and confidence and Interview with Stephen Bungay.) I’m reading an excellent biography of John Boyd (Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War) at the moment and this has really got me thinking.  I’m going to write a review as soon as I’ve finished it.