Leading Thoughts for July 16, 2026

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Eric Ries on the incoherent organization:

“An incoherent organization is one where what gets rewarded contradicts what gets proclaimed. Where the values on the wall are betrayed by daily reality. Some such companies claim they value innovation but ostracize those whose experiments fail. Others promise work-life balance while ensuring only workaholics are invited to strategy meetings. Still others swear they put customers first but praise employees who engage in deceptive sales practices. Departments clash due to opposing cultures-product aspires to be Apple, but finance aspires to be Goldman Sachs. The result is a company at war with itself. And like a human body suffering from an autoimmune disease, it becomes increasingly weak and vulnerable.”

Source: Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad... and How Great Companies Stay Great

II.

Walter Lippmann on the forgotten foundation of democracy:

“What separates us from the totalitarian regimes is our belief that man does not belong to the state. This is true. But if we are to be clear about what that really means, we must say also what it is that man does belong to. There are, perhaps, many different ways of saying it. But there is no better way of saying it than to say it as the authors of our liberties were accustomed to say it. They said that man belonged to his Creator, and that since he was, therefore, an immortal soul, he possessed inalienable rights as a person which no power on earth had the right to violate. This was what the founders of the American nation meant when they said that all men were created equal.”

Source: The Forgotten Foundation, Today and Tomorrow, December I7, 1938

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:08 AM
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