Right on. Sign me up.

I am interested in exploring this matter further.
I would like to take an international practical MBA programme without permanently leaving my work place

I think Jim Carroll is a brilliant, humorous speaker. He's entertaining. And he understands Chesterton's insight about levity vs. gravity. But, these "MBI" tips are basically warmed-over, wholly un-brilliant ideas drawn from about 20 different sources. There is nothing new here. And absence of novelty is the least of the sins. And, frankly, if I see the word "passion" or "passionate" in yet another "How To Be a Better Leader"-style article, I think I'm going to launch a digital insurgency against whomever is the source of this dinosaur-osity-itude-ness. For about a dozen years now, I've seen consultants and others throw the "P" word into their PowerPoints. However, nobody seems to get this basic truth. You can't TELL people to be PASSIONATE. It doesn't work. You have to inspire them by connecting their work to purpose. And in order to do that, in my opinion, one hss to connect one's company to one's community or, at the very least, to SOME LARGER PURPOSE. For it in THESE connections where the POTENTIAL for PASSION resides. But, what I just wrote ISN'T funny. And it doesn't fit nicely into a PowerPoint. And it isn't punchy.

Our real struggle is to have a social context that wouldn't be embarassing if some truly advanced life form dropped in to check us out. We have some great technological achievements that we could point to and then we could show our visitors how we utilize television to pacify the herd and our computer expertise to create diversions for youngsters and weapons for adults. I'm certain that the extraterrestrials would be impressed with how our imagination has manifested itself. Or is that man infested...oh well, I imagine it is time to go.

What you wrote isn't funny. Or punchy. Or easily packed into PP.

But it reads dead right, and is thought-provoking, and a nice emotio-professional wake-up. Many thanks :)

I agree.

Even though some of the leadership info can be redundant, I never tire of learning how to become more excellent in my self and in my job. I find that I need positive reinforcement every day as it does not always come from my leaders or co workers. I often look for my passion to be inspired from outside the workplace.

That's all fine, but I think that a dose of reality wouldn't hurt. There are times where you do things one way versus another. There are times when you go with the status quo and times to challenge it.

The rules posted by whomever sound like they are panacea and guess what - they are not!!

I don't doubt the wisdom of Mr. Carroll, but I think that without context, all of these are meaningless.

What makes a difference between successful innovation and failure (the odds of succeeding are 100 to 1 against - just ask any entrepreneur) is the experience, discipline and execution ability of the people behind any idea, product or service that gets successfully 'harvested' through a 'commercialization cycle'.

I believe that the wisdom of knowing 'why' about anything only can follow after one has mastered the 'how' of it. Without process and disciplined execution, no tangible, useful and reliable anything can be brought to market.

This is the classic dichotomy between the left-brained 'realists' and right-brained 'idealists', and anything useful that ever came to pass is because of the successful collaboration of the two.

So, to all those enthusiasts getting ready to sign up for the Master of Business Imagination, first learn how to make a business run!! Either start your own, or join someone who has started one..

As a recent MBA, reading the MBI manifesto, the “tools” seem to present an insurmountable quandary. The manifesto ascribes “MBI tools” to the new leaders but they target shaking loose patterns ingrained in “old employees”. However, newly minted, career transition –minded MBA’s would find that current HR/employment practices are looking for the opposite of these characteristics in “new hires”:
They are looking for people who see things no differently than they or the company culture does.
An employee striving to spur creativity in other people is disruptive.
An employee’s focus on opportunity in the organization, will not be allowed to threaten existing management structure.
An employee who refuses to accept the status quo is disruptive to the existing culture of the organization they are desiring to join
Bringing ideas to life and keeping them alive is difficult in most organizations and has often spelled the doom of new hires
Having the skill to learn and unlearn implies there are processes to learn and a dynamic environment where these thoughts might change
The employee that refuses to say the word "can't" ends up with uncompensated responsibilities
The employee that accepts challenges with passion and enthusiasm can be quickly consumed if not directed to focus on those “appropriate” ones.
Employees who embraces change rather than shying away from it intimidate managers who think they are the focus of change
Homogenous employee populations make it difficult for the employee who listens to people who are different than them
Employees put their corporate lives on the line for the opportunity to have ideas challenged and debated
Most employees start out with the attitude of instead of saying "it won't work," asks the question, "How can we make it work?" but seldom maintain sustaining momentum to change the existing practices
These newly minted people would derive more help, if the observations and advice delivered focused on how the new hire or career transitioner integrates the MBI & MBA perspectives. Present situations dictate the process as joining the organization, becoming entrenched, and then move out of the trench and operate with these principles. The difficulty with this is that some/most never leave the trench. On the other hand, as Sunil Chhya points out, starting your own business and establishing your own culture may be the only way of allowing the free expression of all of these ideas.

Mr. Snyder speaks the truth. What can new leaders do in an established culture do to change it? Very little, it seems, can be done- even from the middle, much less the bottom. Change has to come from the top, and as Mr. Snyder points out, these leaders are often too "entrenched" and invested in the status quo, for various reasons, to challenge it. What can you do besides leave and either establish your own culture or find the rare organization where these MBI standards actually exist? I would LOVE to hear suggestions!!!

Great Article.
I wish that Lee Scott had listened to just a little of what I tried to tell him and over thirty other executives at Walmart.

I imagine that my lacking an MBA had something to do with it.

They always treated me as if I didn't know anything or as if I were brain dead.

Now the Walmart "Fear Factor" has taken over and I may have to publish my book on my own...when I have no idea.

My feelings are that I have so much more.
It is one thing to have billions of dollars to leave as a legacy and to your family. It is wonderful to have been able to do so many things that are good.
Still, even with the loss of what I at one time felt I had I am at a loss to compare what I have to what they have.

Billions of dollars, whether in cash, stocks, company holdings it’s money and money can be a comfort in a time of loss as it can be at any other time.
Still, the continuation of ignoring the people that helped to compile that money is something that makes a person wonder when money becomes the real God.

Too much time to think and is it what you use time thinking about.

The itch to go back, to start all over again only because that is the norm for you and the way it has been for a lifetime.

The feeling of guilt that can run unchecked and make an average person of any age feel that they have to do because they are categorized as a have not.

What would I use my time on if I had the money to do all of the things that I think of now, especially considering I do not have it.

Money rules the mind and the heart and although some of the most wondrous lives have been ruled by money, many others have gone beyond the need for it and even without it have done wonderful things.

How do you?

At a time when I seriously thought I was finished with new employment beginnings, at a time when life is more than paying the bills and decisions really mean something because if nothing more I need to stand for something I can truly believe in.

If I leave nothing else behind I must leave what I believe in. I feel that even if no one else can, I must write the words that I truly believe.

I could have continued to act as if the way things were, what I saw was unimportant and would have been allowed to continue to work or not work…my decision for a company that was not what it seemed to be when I came across it in 1998.

I could decide, they were right, I was wrong. Even now, I wonder and I hold inside the reasoning that allows me to justify the monetary losses that my family will endure because I bucked the system and even though it looks like my fault to see it on paper, I know and my family knows better.

I know what it may look like. I have accepted that. I also know that proving any of it without the help that could actually say, actually verify, it will always look like something it is not.

I also have the temporary thought that giving up is easier. Starting over is easier. Why?
Because there is no interest as far as the media is concerned as to why it is the way it is.
Because for some reason, yes I would love to make money doing it, yes I would love to be able to show, prove what I say is true. No one will look at any of it, even if I offer it for free.

A few of the people I made promises to understand. Few, very few of the numbers of hard working Americans actually have verified to me that I am not wrong for the way I feel.

I was very tired of the continued attempt to get the entire situation into the open while working hours posted on a wall by another who is only interested in the monetary value of their time and nothing else.

If I could lie to myself and others I could have done it. If I could lie to my family and anyone else who presented the questions that no one would answer I could have done it.

As mom instilled in me, somewhere along the way, I can only feel that I once again made the mistake of looking at the entire company as what it was in a small piece of it by comparison very small.

The illusion of clean…it looks that way but I knew better within no time at all and at that time I continued to work there, I continued to accept something that was not right with the belief that the company would somehow redeem itself.

At a time in my life when I felt fairly down due to the loss of my business and any additional amount of feeling inadequate because those with money could win by default I was looking for something that could in some way make up for it and it didn’t work.

If I had been truly concerned I would have admitted to myself and others in 1998 that they were not even then what they seemed to be. I accepted the status quo. I accepted that being a female was just that being a female and made the attempt to be one of them until the baggage that came with it became too heavy to carry.

As a woman and as one that has worked most of my life I accepted the status quo. I accepted many times in my work life that as a woman I could only achieve so much when it came to business.

It could have happened anywhere, for any company. It just happened that at that time of my life it was this company and that along with the good, there was bad.

(To be continued)