Henry Kissinger on Vision: Seeing Through a Glass Darkly

Henry Kissinger, then U.S. Secretary of State, explained in an interview with Los Angeles Times concerning the risky restoration of U.S. diplomatic relations with China, the dynamics of vision. “What a national leader has to do at such a time, is to take his society and the world, insofar as the issues are international, from where it is to where it has never been. This means he cannot prove the destination is desirable until the society or the world gets there.”

Nixon himself once told an interviewer that the mark of a leader "is whether he can give history a nudge." Nixon recognized that a leader should be inclusive. He wrote in a 1967 Foreign Affairs article, "Taking the long view, we simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations, there to nurture its fantasies, cherish its hates and threaten its neighbors."

Related Interest: Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World

Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:44 AM
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You Have a Business and People Don’t Get It

In a survey conducted by Dan Topf of Management Development International, respondents—a mix of line employees and executives—were asked ten simple questions, such as “What percentage of each dollar the company takes in as sales does it keep as profit?” and “Would customers pay for what you accomplished last week?” The point was to not only get at what the respondents understood about business, but also what they understood about how they contributed to that business. Training contributing editor Holly Dolezalek reported on the results:

The results were mixed, and Topf says that’s exactly the point. All kinds of employees, both higher- and lower-level employees, had answers all over the map for these questions. Some had wildly inaccurate ideas about how much of a company’s sales turn into profits. Others knew what their company’s profit margin was, but had no idea how it was reached; and many said that they believed their company’s strategy would be successful, but that they had no impact on that strategy or on the company’s cash flow.

“The point I wanted to make was that people are responding this way, and it shows something, “ Topf says. “You have a business, and people don’t get it.”

How are we doing at communicating what it is we do and how we determine how well we are doing it? The macro view. When people know where they fit in and what their unique contribution is, they can then move beyond mere employees and become leaders. They can lead from wherever they are in the organization and that will contribute to the bottom line.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:16 AM
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