Columbian Leadership

A hilarious article in today's NY Times detailed a story over 250 years in the making. A story of leadership, arrogance and come-uppance. I encourage you all to read the full article.

Colombians dressed up for Independence Day, including one as the one-legged military hero Blas de Lezo.
                        Credit Andrea Bruce for The New York Times       

In 1741, a 186 British warships and 26,000 men, including 4,000 American colonists, tried to conquer Cartegena, protected by 6 warships and 6,000 men. The Columbian leader, Blas de Lezo, repulsed the men, losing an eye and a leg in the battle. His statue marks the site of the battle, incorrectly portrayed as missing an arm as well.

All was as it should be until October 31 of this year when Prince Charles of England visited and unveiled a black granite plaque hailing “the valor and suffering of all those who died in combat whilst seeking to take the city” was placed at the colonial fort where British troops were repulsed nearly three centuries ago.

This display of arrogance was not lost on the Columbians. “In London, why don’t they put up a tribute to the Nazi pilots that bombed the city during World War II?” asked Juan Carlos Gossaín, the governor of Bolívar, according to local news media.

On November 5th, Jaime Rendon, a local animal rights activist and gadfly took matters, and a small sledgehammer, into his own hands. He smashed the plaque, was arrested, quickly released and is now a national hero.

“You don’t play around with history here,” Mr. Rendón said. “You’re not going to put up a plaque in New York in honor of the people who knocked down the twin towers, isn’t that right? For us it’s the same thing.”

Now the pedestal on which the broken plaque stood has become a tourist attraction and source of national pride.

Photographing the pedestal that held the plaque honoring British attackers.
                        Credit Andrea Bruce for The New York Times

Destructive Heroes and Brilliant Jerks

Great article in today's Times about someone we sometimes run into at work: 'Destructive Heroes'. These are the people who are effective at their jobs but abusive to their co-workers. Because of their effectiveness their obnoxious personalities are tolerated by the organization, to the detriment of their colleagues.

Scott McGohan, chief of McGohan Brabender, has dealt with a destructive hero — a persona that once described him. CreditMaddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Rather than just complaining about these people, the article discusses the negative effect these people have on their companies. In one case the company totaled up the hours spent cleaning up the messes created by this high-flier and found that the "Brilliant Jerk' (another name for this type) cost the company more than he made. And that didn't even count the cost to employee morale.

In his training seminars, Mr. Sullivan, president and managing partner at the Shamrock Group, a management consulting firm in Denver, could count on two things whenever he asked, “How many of you have had a destructive hero in your midst?” About half of those in attendance would raise a hand. And of those, “Almost 100 percent said the same thing: ‘We waited too long to deal with it, and it cost us a lot.’ ”

“Get rid of the brilliant jerk as fast as you can,” said Cliff Oxford, founder of the Oxford Center for Entrepreneurs in Atlanta, who has registered the URLwww.brilliantjerk.com and is writing a book to help companies deal with such employees (Mr. Oxford also wrote about the topic for The New York Times’s You’re the Boss blog.)

“Teaching over 100 courses,” Mr. Sullivan said, “I’ve never had one person tell me they converted a destructive hero.”

I have had my own experience with these people and they are not always men or in sales. In my current position, a highly intelligent QA Director who won't suffer fools has intimidated the entire staff until she doublechecks everything done and belittles every small mistake made. The end result is that projects drag twice as long as needed.

Lithuania declares energy independence from Russia

What do you do when you are a small, former Soviet Republic, trying to make it on your own but tied to Russia's gas monopoly? Lithuania has figured out a way to break this strangle-hold that Russia has used to freeze out Ukraine and threaten to do so to other former Eastern Bloc countries.

The floating natural gas terminal Independence arriving in Klaipeda, Lithuania, on Monday.CreditPetras Malukas/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

This article explains how the Lithuanians have brought in a mobile factory for converting Norwegian Liquified Petroleum Gas to Natural Gas and parked it just off-shore. It may cost more than Russian gas but this independence comes at a price that the Baltic states are willing to pay.

Dutch tolerance led to New York's greatness

Great op-ed by Russell Shorto in today's Times showing that the secret to New York's success lay in the roots of the Dutch 17th century tolerance for others. Here is the full essay but I'd like to pull some excerpts here:

 In founding New Amsterdam in the 1620s, the Dutch planted the seeds for the city’s remarkable flowering. Specifically, the Dutch brought two concepts that became part of New York’s foundation: tolerance of religious differences and an entrepreneurial, free-trading culture.

In the 17th century, when it was universally held elsewhere in Europe that a strong society required intolerance as official policy, the Dutch Republic was a melting pot. The Dutch codified the concept of tolerance of religious differences, built a vast commercial empire and spawned a golden age of science and art in part by turning the “problem” of their mixed society into an advantage. Dutch tolerance was transplanted to Manhattan: They were so welcoming that a reported 18 languages were spoken in New Amsterdam at a time when its population was only about 500.

While many economies elsewhere in Europe were still feudal, the Dutch pioneered an economic system based on individual ownership of real estate. That came about because the Dutch provinces occupied a vast river delta, in which land was at or below sea level and therefore constantly under threat. People in those communities banded together to build dams and dikes and reclaim land. The new land was not owned by a king or a church. Instead, the people who had created it divided it and began buying and selling parcels. That incentivized a whole society, fueled the growth of an empire, turned the Dutch into entrepreneurs and made them the envy of other Europeans.

McCain challenges Obama on Russia's invasion of Ukraine

For those are curious what John McCain would have been like as president rather than Barack Obama, here's a chance to see what the old war hawk would do in today's Crimean crisis.

In a recent Op-Ed, McCain criticizes Obama in his lead up to and handling of the crisis. He says Obama lacked resolve in Afghanistan and Iraq and allowed Bashar-al-Assad to cross his 'Red Line' without repercussions. He claims that Putin sees this lack of resolve as weakness to exploit.

McCain doesn't recommend military action other than NATO exercises, but he strongly insists on sanctions, removing Russia from the G8 and refusing Russian oligarchs places in the West to "park their ill-gotten proceeds."

It's a rare occasion to see how two leaders would deal with a crisis. Let's see what Obama does.

Pakistani Hero

The grave of Aitzaz Hasan on Friday. Basit Gilani/European Pressphoto Agency

Heros come in all shapes and sizes but one constant remains. Will you give your life to save others? 

On Monday, a 15 year old boy on his way to school spotted someone wearing his school uniform but acting suspiciously. He confronted the man and tackled him when he tried to escape. The suicide bomber detonated his explosives, killing himself and Aitzaz Hasan. This selfless act saved the lives of scores of his fellow students. Read more about him in this article.

Now Pakistan is calling for this hero to be honored for his stand against Taliban extremism. I'll add my voice to the chorus.

Why doesn't the Egyptian Leadership prevent rapes?

In Mubarak's Egypt, with the omnipresent police force, women walked the streets in relative safety. Now, under the auspices of the Muslim Brotherhood, there can be as many as 18 rapes in a single square in a single evening. Most are gang-rapes by groups of men.

The response by the Muslim Brotherhood? "Sometimes a girl contributes 100% to her own raping when she puts herself in these conditions." Read the NY Times article for more shocking details.

Some ultraconservative Islamists condemned the women for speaking out: "You see those women speaking like ogres, without shame, politeness, fear or even femininity," declared a televisions preacher, Ahmed Abdullah, also known as Sheik Abu Islam.

Such a woman is 'like a demon,' he said, wondering why anyone should sympathize with those 'naked' women who 'went there to get raped."

On YouTube you can find videos of these horrific attacks.
I think a fair judgement of the effectiveness of any government is how well it protects its people. Using this creterion, the new Egyptian Government is extremely ineffective.

Clever project to block illegal tunnels

A Palestinian clearing a tunnel of sewage in Rafah, between Egypt and the southern Gaza StripBy FARES AKRAM and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK  Published: February 20, 2013

For centuries, governments have fought against those trying to tunnel in or out of their installations. Whether it was sappers trying to tunnels under castles to knock down walls, prisoners escaping prison camps or drug smugglers sneaking into the US, there has been a one-upmanship battle between the tunnelers and those detecting them.

The latest battleground has been the tunnels between Egypt and Gaza used to smuggle weapons into this dangerous area. The Egyptians have come up with a simple but effective measure to fight them: Raw Sewage. Simple, but effective.

Chinese Army hacking US infrastructure

The Chinese are becoming more aggressive in their computer attacks on the US. With attacks on major newspapers uncovered and power grids being pinged by the Chinese military we are looking vulnerable.

From a recent NY Times article: 

It makes me wonder why we allow computers to control the power grid to the extent that they do now. If we want to make our country less vulnerable, wouldn't it be smarter to dumb down these grids? After all, didn't we have power grids fifty years ago? Maybe they weren't as efficient as they are now with the networking. Still, how about a back-up system that takes the grids off-line and allows them to run, albeit slightly less efficiently when they perceive they are under cyber-attack?

Seems like a way to stay a little safer in a dangerous world.

Are drones worthy of the US?

Being an immigrant to this country, I really bought into the metaphor of America being the 'Shining City on a Hill.' that the persistent strove to reach. America was the greatest country on earth. It was a hero to all struggling democracies. When I read Tolkien's stories where the eagles always came in at the last minute to save the world, I saw them as the American army rescuing Britain in World Wars I and II.

But look at us now. The eagles are crapping on the citizens of the plains. These drone strikes, while safer for US military personnel and more surgical than boots on the ground or aerial bombing attacks, make us look bad. We are flying above sovereign countries and zapping their citizens at will. The strikes are being made by members of the CIA with little oversight by other members of our government.

Is it just my bad memory or wasn't there a time when we used to say that the CIA didn't have the authority to assassinate people overseas?

It's tough for an old hawk like me to admit it but I don't like the way these drone strikes make our country look bad. I cannot imagine a kid in Yemen or Pakistan looking with pride and envy at America after a building next door explodes and some of his school-mates are killed just because they happen to be near an alleged terrorist.

The whole thing seems like Hercules' hydra to me. For every terrorist we 'surgically remove' three more are encouraged to take up arms against our country to avenge the insult to his pride.

The topic is becoming big news now with Brennan's confirmation. The Times recently ran an article about a Yemeni sheik who had just given a speech against Al Qaeda and was meeting them for talks when he was wiped out by a drone targeting the terrorists. Would have been nice to have his tribe on our side.

David Brooks wrote a nice editorial analyzing the Machiavellian thinking Obama is going through on this issue.

The Huffington Post has an emotional video showing the number of children killed by these drones on this post.

What do you think?

Al Qaeda in Mali

I would find it amusing to hear of barely educated Madrassah boys from Al-Qaeda telling the Islamic scholars of Timbuktu that they knew better what Islam was all about if it weren't for the destruction these savages caused. Fortunately, tens of thousands of priceless scrolls and documents were spirited away to protection before they were destroyed.

Too bad the people of Timbuktu had to endure Shariah law at the hands of these interlopers. This NY Times article details some of the hardships the residents had to face until they were liberated by French soldiers. Beatings of women who showed their faces, amputation of thieves' hands, executions.

Ripples from the Arab Spring are still hitting Saharan Africa in ways that frighten me. Which country will next feel the crushing blow of Hezbollah-financed hordes? Morocco?

How's that Arab Spring working out?

Two years ago when I first posted about the Arab Spring, I was dubious of its chances for success. The choices I laid out were a crushing by the dictatorships or a switch-over to the Muslim theocracies like Iran. I had doubts that a true democracy would come to pass.  I think we can see that my prediction was correct. Egypt has converted to a theocracy that is sponsoring Muslim uprisings around the region. They have been implicated in the Benghazi embassy attack, the Algerian oil refinery massacre and the Malian takeover.

Syrians are still fighting off their dictator with mixed success. Algeria and Tunisia are playing with Muslim theocracies. Will there ever be such a thing as an Arab democracy? I don't think I'll see one in my lifetime.

No great African leaders again this year

For the third time in four years, the five million dollar Ibrahim prize for good governance in Africa was not awarded. The requirements are not too stringent:

1. Be democratically elected
2. Leave office in the last three years
3. Demonstrate excellence in office

Why is this so hard a prize to award? Let's look at some African leaders who left office in the last few years: The Arab Spring saw many dictators leave but they miss criteria # 1.

Ivory Coast's Gbagbo challenged his democratic defeat and sparked a civil war. Senegal's Wade ignored term limits and ran for a third term. Neither demonstrated excellence.

On the other hand, those leaders who missed all three criteria are making billions of dollars a year in government corruption so the prize is probably little incentive.

Is financial aid to Egypt a good idea anymore?

A debate is going on in congress around the awarding of $450 Million in emergency financial aid to Egypt. The aid, designed to assist the emerging 'democracies' from the Arab Spring is being revisited in light of the recent attacks on US embassies after the anti-Muslim video.

Perhaps it's time to reconsider all this aid to countries that are becoming stridently anti-American. We provide $1.3 Billion to the Egyptian military every year. True, most of it comes back in weapons purchases but is that smart? Why are we arming countries run by people who consider the US their worst enemy. They despise our values and live to eradicate Israel. We've been doing this in many other countries with similar values: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Jordan to name a few. Only the aid to Israel seems to be fostering a democracy and values similar to our own.

During the days of the cold war, we were in a financial arms race with the Soviet Union, providing aid to 'our' countries while they supported 'theirs'. But with the cold war over, what are we doing arming countries that seek our destruction?

Egypt threatens to relook at the Camp David treaty with Israel every time we threaten to cut off aid. But that's just blackmail. I really don't see the Egyptian army having any success against Israel. It's time to call that bluff.

Financial aid should be directed towards the building of schools and infrastructure, not the buying of weapons. Right now, the split is $1.30 Billion to the military and $0.25 Billion to other purposes. I'd prefer to see a Greg Mortenson-type using the aid to make real progress in these countries. Educate the women and change the country for the better for good.

Leadership over the ages

I was cruising around one of my favorite sites: I love charts, and found this excellent chart showing the effect various cultures had on their times. For a more readable copy, go to the host website where you can actually purchase the chart. It is also interesting to see which cultures clashed with others, where some emerged from etc.

Leadership on the Bounty

I just finished reading the Bounty trilogy and was struck by the many leadership lessons to be found within. Most know the story of 'Mutiny on the Bounty.' Captain Bligh was the petty dictator. Fletcher Christian the calm leader who, when he'd had enough, mutinied and cast Bligh adrift and returned to Tahiti. But what happened after that was the more interesting part of the story. The trilogy is made up of three books:

The full 'Bounty' trilogy by Nordhoff and Hall.

1. Mutiny on the Bounty, which we just discussed.
2. 'Men against the sea.' The story of Bligh's return to civilization with almost all of the 18 men cast adrift with him
3. 'Pitcairn's Island.' The story of the mutineer's life on their island refuge.

Let's first discuss the different leadership styles of Bligh versus Christian.  Any good book has opposition and this book focused on the two leaders.
Bligh, the petty tyrant, who's only power came from his position as captain and the weight of British Admiralty law. Bligh dominated his crew on their voyage to Tahiti, making unfair demands and obnoxious complaints. He handed out harsh lashings to anyone who he suspected of opposing him. When the ship landed in Tahiti and the men made friends with the natives who wanted to gift them with fresh meat and produce, Bligh commandeered everything for ship's stores. The men didn't trust Bligh because they suspected him of cheating them of their fair rations when the ship left England and pocketing the profits.

Fletcher Christian's leadership style was to trust the men under his command and treat them with the respect they deserved as men and sailors. Christian stood up to Bligh's bullying until his honor as a gentleman was challenged. At that point he chose to make a raft and abandon ship, only deciding to mutiny at an opportune moment. When he mutinied, most of the crew jumped to his side, knowing him to be a fair man. The only men who refused to side with him were some of the officers who well knew the punishment awaiting any British mutineers.

The story is simple and can be seen many times in every organization. Petty tyrants get themselves in positions of power and abuse that power but they always seem to get their's in the end. At least in my experience. Good leaders find followers who will stick their necks out for them when crisis strikes and lead their companies or projects to victory.

Book two offered a different contrast.

Egyptian Election Shenanigans



Banned from the upcoming election: Omar Suleiman, Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, Khairat el-Shater

Citing narrow technical reasons, the Egyptian Electoral Commission barred from the upcoming elections the three most polarizing candidates: Omar Suleiman, the former spy chief under Hosni Mubarak; Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist; and Khairat el-Shater, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Seems like the military is still firmly in charge of the country.

While this allows me to breathe a sigh of relief, what does it mean to the budding Democracy in this land?

We need to stop buying Middle East Oil

In this recent article, the NY Times showed how we are becoming less dependent on foreign oil but its not fast enough for me.

By SETH W. FEASTER | Sources: Energy Information Administration; Bloomberg

As the graph above points out, we only curb our thirst for oil when the price goes up. Look what happens when I add the date 9/11/2001 to the above graph:

How many Saudi 911 hijackers were financed by us buying Saudi Oil which was then used to fund Pakistani madrassas dedicated to the overthrow of the US? How much Iranian oil money is going into buying nuclear technology? Finally we're boycotting this Iranian oil but China is picking up the slack.

By SETH W. FEASTER | Sources: Energy Information Administration; Bloomberg

I'd love to see the same energy put into rejecting 'blood oil' as is currently being put into 'blood diamonds'. I, for one, will pay an extra dollar a gallon for gas if I can be assured that none of it was bought from the Middle East. I'll buy it from Alaska, the Gulf, Mexico, Canada, even Venezuela but I don't want to continue funding the sworn enemies of the freedoms championed by the US.

Who will join me in paying extra for 'blood-free oil?'

Kony

After seeing mentions of this video in the news, I was somewhat curious. But then my eleven year-old son was looking over my shoulder as I posted on Sunday and asked where I got my ideas for posts. I told him I read things in the paper, saw them on TV or the Internet. He then asked why I hadn't posted about Kony yet. So I watched the video and decided I also should take action.

Watch the video and try to keep a dry eye.

Sub-Saharan Africa is such a big mess with warlords and religious wars, failed states and piracy, rebels and armies committing atrocities, that it makes me just want to throw up my arms and wash my hands of the entire continent. After all, "What can I do?"

Well, this video answers that question quite succinctly. Force the US government to assist in the arrest of the number one war criminal at large. By the end of 2012. And he outlines the specific steps to achieve this end. They are steps that my children are willing to make. Why shouldn't I make them also?

Now there has been some negative publicity about this movement so let's spend a little time addressing it.
Sure, one of the founders was caught running around naked in San Diego but that was attributed to exhaustion and stress from the criticism. (And it did look like a nice, sunny day...)
There have been complaints that his approach is too simplistic for this complicated region and that the government Kony is fighting uses similar tactics. That's OK by me. Start at the top, capture criminal # 1 and then work our way down the list. DO NOT get involved in African politics.

I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what the world looks like on the morning of April 21, 2012. Who's with me?

Two different leaders on this season of 'Survivor'

Two very different leaders have emerged on this season of Survivor. On the men's team, the biggest misfit of them all, Colton, self-described gay, country-club Republican, has banded together the rest of the 'misfits' (his description of those who were not muscle-bound) into a strong alliance of five.

Look at the way Colton introduces himself:

At first, it seemed that Colton would be the first voted out. When the teams found out it would be men vs. women, he was devastated and kept on wandering over to the women's camp to chat and whine about needing the immunity idol. Shortly after Sabrina gave him one, he became so annoying the ladies had to ask him to leave. But Colton used the power of this idol to forge his alliance and proceeded to lord it over the rest of the men's tribe.

He would sit on his throne and summon his boys, casting judgement on them and wielding his power with impunity. Click on the link to this video to see the way he acts in camp and at tribal council. It makes me sick.

Meanwhile, Sabrina, a 33 year-old teacher, was elevated by the rest of her women's team to the leadership position. Look at her intro:

Her leadership style is much calmer. When two of her tribe argue, she intervenes, calms them down and gets them to move on and focus on their common enemy. Rather than voting to get rid of whoever she doesn't like, she moves to get rid of the one who is causing the most havoc in camp.

The big surprise is the way Colton's tribe follows this jerk. Even to the point of giving up tribal immunity so that he can vote off someone he doesn't like. It helps that you have nuts like Tarzan on there who wants to vote off Lief because he told Bill he was off next (even though this was perfectly obvious). And Lief decides to go meekly to a tribal council where he could be voted off rather than standing up for himself. Why?

The only possible reason is that a winning Survivor strategy is to align yourself with someone totally evil who gets rid of everyone else for you, then allows you to defeat them in the final vote. We can call that the Russell Hantz strategy. Unfortunately there is no correlation to this in real life. Aligning yourself with a dictator until democracy comes around only results in you going down with the dictator at the end.

I'll leave you with this scene from the first episode: