Education

July in the United States of America is best thought of as the month in which Independence Day is celebrated. Independence for the United States of America was born out of conflict. By its very nature, that conflict was won and independence declared because of a strategy based on solid information and knowledge of the area in which the conflict was being fought and an equally good working knowledge of the capacity and capabilities of the soldiers involved. However, George Washington would not have proven himself to be the great military leader and indeed the great President of the United States that he was, if he were not also ‘attuned’ to the culture within the military he led and as President, within the newly formed union of the United States of America.

If you have been in one of my audiences as I spoke, read one of my books, or watched one of my videos, you may have heard one of my leadership philosophies: “We don’t lead out of our position; we lead out of our lives…”

Climate change demands lower carbon dependency in electricity generation and transportation, by far the two largest global economic sectors in terms of energy use. Clean power solutions already exist: Today 40% of U.S. power generation comes from non-fossil sources, and the electric power sector consumption of fossil fuels is at its lowest level since 1994—25 years of continuous progress. However, 95% of transportation energy comes from fossil fuels.

It seems that everyone is moving to the cloud these days. A recent Gartner report stated that 75 percent of all databases will be deployed or migrated to the cloud by 2022, with just 5 percent ever considered for return to on-premise servers. Gartner goes on to say that this trend is mainly around analytics databases and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications. That’s a lot of vital data moving out of on-premise server rooms and being handed over to third party vendors!

Travel incentive programs have been used as a tool to motivate and engage employees since the 1970s. In recent years, experiential rewards such as travel have been growing in popularity.

On Thursday last week, May 9, I was watching one of the business TV channels to learn about the status of our trade war with China, and the anchor announced that President Trump was about to speak. I stayed on the channel to listen, and, surprise! The first sentences Trump pronounced had nothing to do with China, and everything to do with surprise medical bills: “This must end. We’re going to hold insurance companies and hospitals accountable…this will be something that will have a big impact…” the president said.

It makes sense that when an organization such as a Government agency is looking to create a ‘wonderful’ workplace, it needs more than just a ‘political’ restructure to make it happen. Some may even suggest that the notion of a Government agency being the most ‘wonderful’ place on earth to work, is the antithesis of the reality of working in a Government organization.

It can be very challenging to maintain or grow within a career as a military spouse. Military life is filled with PCS moves, deployments, regular family obligations, and much more. For some, military life also means the challenges of injuries or health issues. This often means trying to find a new job with every move or trying to maintain a career despite the challenges of military life.

These questions are usually asked out of frustration, and they will not help you get the answers you seek. Such questions tend to be disrespectful and demeaning, especially as they are usually accompanied by a negative tone and motivation. Unfortunately, all of us have likely either asked or been asked these types of questions.

Changing daily practices is about creating new habits: clarifying desired practices, evaluating current practices, then closing any gaps. Research says that developing new habits requires demonstration of new behaviors for 21 days – and there’s no time like the present to start!