Testimonials (Customer question - IntelDissem's answer - Customer's follow-up comments):

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What are some methods to attract a top CEO to run my company?
(Asked by Victory Darwin; President, University Of Victory, Canada)

You may be kissing many frogs before you locate Prince Charming. Attracting a top-level CEO is one of the most challenging situations any management team can face. May I recommend the following for your consideration: A.) Court your candidates well; they have options. They want to feel/know that you really want them, that you are going to take the time to give them the rest of the items on this list (please see points B-J). Do not just offer lip service; where there is smoke, there is fire. Have one-on-one dinner meetings; lunches with a group of managers; if the candidate looks interested, invite them with their spouse out for dinner (better yet, over for dinner). The candidate needs to get to know you and vice-versa. The two of you need to commit time and energy into building up a relationship that both of you will need, once the work begins. B.) Present a meaningful vision of what you are trying to accomplish. Measure (some) progress against this vision over time, or the candidate will lose motivation rapidly. C.) Surround the candidate with other “A" type people. The best people like to work with the best people, and they like to see meaningful progress! D.) Give/present the candidate with meaningful work. Enough said. E.) Set high goals with short-term deadlines. High caliber people need a high bar and need to know that you are counting on them to deliver. Short deadlines help get people focused on the real work. E.) Involve the CEO candidate in important conversations, possibly even planning sessions. People want to contribute and be "in the know". F.) Stretch, but don't snap; like stretching a rubber band as far as one can without breaking it. This is a fast method for top caliber people to develop as getting their goals met becomes more difficult for them - which is the challenge they seek! G.) Provide hard-hitting, constructive feedback. Constructive feedback is good. Ironically, most managers shy away from giving it. Tell them what you observe and what you think. Focus on the themes instead of the details. A good CEO can and will want to do the right thing, so it is up to you to help define what that means. Of great importance to note is that you might be wrong in your position - so give the candidate honest feedback; be open to their comments/thoughts. H.) Reward with appropriate compensation packages and other motivational vehicles. The best leaders have many times the productivity of average people. You can afford to pay them well relative to the present average. Rewards, such as additional responsibilities, acquisitions/mergers, or a junior staff member(s) for direct support, are highly appreciated and may yield even more productivity (physical rewards, trophies, award certificates, etc., are also great motivators). I.) Advance your candidate over time. You can "advance" your CEO by giving them greater operational responsibility. If they are truly the best of the best, your business will benefit! J.) "Team work" is the only option available to you (i.e., everyone needs to play well with each other in the sandbox). To do this, you (and your CEO) need to monitor events carefully and provide prompt feedback to those that are not playing well together (if you have kids, this analogy will make perfect sense). No one wants to play with the kid in the sandbox throwing sand or hitting the other kid in the back when he isn’t looking… It takes a good product, a solid vision, a great team, a true opportunity, and plenty of growth-room to attract, retain, and motivate the power players who consistently score points for their team. The above are but a few short points of a very discussion-intense topic.

....From Victory Darwin.....Well said! Thanks.  I'm back to running it myself, this time trying to get things more automated and focus on the 20% work that gets the 80% results.

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What is your opinion on styles of teaching in various countries?
(Asked by Shawn Carter; Deals Desk Manager - Latin America, Strategic Accounts, NA Wireless at Openwave Systems)


Presently, there are over 190 separate education systems in the world, which operate over 12,000 institutions of higher education, vocational, primary/secondary, adult, and specialized schools. National patterns of educational organization and structure, cultures, and customs vary extensively. Every country in the world is in fact governed by unique laws, procedures and international obligations. A curious paradox emerges as one considers schooling and teaching across the many cultures of the world. There is enormous variation among cultures re the ways people learn - there is a remarkable similarity across nations re how the opportunities to learn are provided through formal schools and school systems. It is frequently forgotten that "schooling" is only one of a vast array of social institutions that humans have invented to provide opportunities for their young people to learn; it is an invention of relatively recent origin (at least mass-scale schooling). The broad-scale provision of education as an instrument of statecraft and state development was effectively invented in Prussia during the Napoleonic era. The Prussian system then quickly spread across the world, often through colonial imposition and, in some cases, through cultural borrowing. Fundamentally, “formal education” was set by the experience, attitudes, and understanding of the industrialized era. The basic elements of the Prussian system are still with us today (compulsory education, classroms, teachers, standard curriculum, etc.). There are a variety of explanations and/or theories regarding how and why this particular pattern of organizing and providing teaching for young people has become almost universally overlaid upon the wide diversity of ways in which young people learn to learn. Within this cross-national paradox, there is, however, a great deal of irony. It has been clearly demonstrated that this standard model of teaching and schooling has frequently proven very dysfunctional for learning among children from cultural groups different from its place of origin. Additionally, the accumulated literature from cognitive and learning psychology, anthropology, and comparative education has increasingly demonstrated that it is also inherently dysfunctional for children and adults from those very cultures of origin. The (Prussian) system, in short, is inherently inefficient and ineffective. People of every age and culture simply do not learn well under these arrangements. These traditional, but now nearly universal, patterns of teaching and schooling are an artifact of the misconceptions of a different time and, for much of the world, a different place. But now that patterns are in place, it seems nearly impossible to get rid of them, and even the richest nations are able to alter them only slightly at great effort and cost, and usually only over very long periods of time. In the closing decades of the 20th Century, however, new school systems have begun to appear that are breaking the forms of formal schooling in quite fundamental ways (child-centered, rather than teacher-driven pedagogy; active, rather than passive learning; peer tutoring; etc.). These new systems are so far producing remarkable learning gains, especially so among extremely poor and marginalized children. Early indications suggest that these newly developed schooling and teaching systems are far more flexible and successful in adapting their approaches to the variations among cultures in how people learn to learn. But little serious research has been done to try to understand how and why these new programs seem to work so well in promoting learning among very diverse groups. That is a challenge for the twenty-first century.

....From Shawn Carter......Wow!.......Very good historic answer to the question. I really enjoyed it. Very neutral, scientific look at the question. Quite excellent. Thanks...

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Which is the most aknowledged reference in human history for heroic resistance against a more powerful enemy?
(Asked by George Karahalios ( LION ); Legal, Finance & Government Affairs at Kids2020 Foundation; Reputation Consultant at Tradelink SA; Vice Chairman at IUIC, Athens, Greece) 
 

....... I opine that there are non-military levels that are just as important for discussion and consideration. Jonas Salk - Polio vaccine inventor. While at NYU's medical school, Salk spent a year researching influenza; the flu virus had only recently been discovered. Salk was eager to learn if the virus could be deprived of its ability to infect, while still giving immunity to the illness. Salk succeeded and this became the basis of his later work on polio. In 1947, Salk accepted an appointment to the UofPitt Medical School; and with the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, Salk saw an opportunity to develop a vaccine against polio. In 1955 Salk's eight years of research paid off. Human trials of the polio vaccine effectively protected the subject from the polio virus. Salk fought against an uncountable number of harmful biological cells. Martin Luther - A German monk, priest, professor, theologian, and church reformer. His teachings inspired the Reformation and deeply influenced the doctrines and culture of the Lutheran and Protestant traditions, as well as the course of Western civilization. Today, nearly seventy million Christians belong to Lutheran churches worldwide. Some four hundred million Protestant Christians trace their history back to Luther's reforming work. Luther stood up to the power of the Catholic Church. Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci - An Italian polymath: scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, musician, and writer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time, and the man with the most diversely prodigious talent ever to have lived. His Mona Lisa and The Last Supper occupy unique positions as the most famous, the most illustrated and most imitated portrait and religious painting of all time, only approached in fame by Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. His Vitruvian Man is also iconic. Leonardo conceived of ideas vastly ahead of his own time; the helicopter; the tank; the use of concentrated solar power; a calculator; a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics; the double hull; etc. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were feasible during his lifetime. Some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the modern world of manufacturing unheralded. Lenorado devoted his life to fighting small-mindedness and ignorance. Aristotle - A Greek philosopher, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on diverse subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry (including theater), biology and zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, and ethics. Along with Socrates and Plato, Aristotle was one of the most influential of the ancient Greek philosophers. They transformed Presocratic Greek philosophy into the foundations of Western philosophy as we know it. Some consider Plato and Aristotle to have founded two of the most important schools of Ancient philosophy; others consider Aristotelianism as a development and concretization of Plato's insights. Aristotle's system of thought remains the most marvellous and influential ever conceived by any single mind. Probably no other thinker has contributed so much to the enlightenment of the world. He founded the sciences of Logic, Biology and Psychology and anticipated the coming of the Industrial Revolution, a full 2000 years in advance in his work "Politics": "If every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others,... if the shuttle would weave, or the plectrum touch the lyre, without a hand to guide them, then chief workmen would not need assistants, nor masters slaves". Aristotle influenced almost all of western philosophy and science; he too fought small-mindedness and ignorance.

....From George Karahalios.......I appreciate your answer and especially the time spent and the effort put for us to enjoy.  Extremely touching, well structured, but most and above all, very objective in terms of weight and balance.  Thank you very much for sharing this brilliant aspect of things, facts...... Warmest greetings from Athens, Greece.