Just Plain Interesting Articles - Steve On Leadership

Why Did You Buy That Toilet Paper?

Photo by Elly Johnson on Unsplash It wasn’t until last week when I started writing this article that I really understood why I bought extra toilet paper two years ago. More on that in a minute. Do you think you are an “effective” leader? If you do, then you know how to influence people. After all that’s what Stephen Covey teaches us in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Dale Carnegie, too. When anyone says “yes” to a purchase or job assignment or volunteer opportunity or vote decision, they likely have been “influenced” in one of seven [...]

By Steve Wood|2022-05-05T21:21:27-04:00May 5th, 2022|Books, Just Plain Interesting|

Planes, Chutes, and Seinfeld

Photo by Thomas Park Most of us are looking for anything to feel good about these days. One thing I do to feel good is to look for and appreciate high quality. Here are three "quality" observations this week involving planes, parachutes, and Jerry Seinfeld that all make me smile. A Tip of My Hat to American Airlines. On Saturday my wife, Patti, returned home from New Orleans where she had gone with a few high school friends. Even though the weather on this end was a little rough, all went well on her non-stop return flight to [...]

By Steve Wood|2022-03-16T13:30:32-04:00March 16th, 2022|Books, Just Plain Interesting, Team Leadership / Teamwork, Teams & Culture|

When a Nightingale Sang Statistics

Until recently, if you said, “nightingale” I would think of a bird. If someone had asked me if I had ever heard of Florence Nightingale, I would have said, “Sure.” If they then asked me who she was, I would have said, “A nurse, I think.” But what I did not know was she wasn’t only a nurse, she was a game changing statistician whose statistical work saved thousands of lives and the course of medical sanitation forever. Florence Nightingale. Nightingale was born in May 1820 into a wealthy British family in Florence, Italy, the city she was named for. [...]

By Steve Wood|2021-04-29T12:01:59-04:00April 29th, 2021|Just Plain Interesting, Women Leaders|

Lie Detection – You Aren’t As Good as You Think

Photo by Beliaikin When I went into banking out of college in the mid-1970s I was trained on how to make loans. I remember my boss saying something like, “You look like a trusting young man, Steve, and you are going to want to believe everything people tell you - but don’t. While most people will look like they are telling you the truth and they are, other folks will look like they are telling you the truth, but they aren’t. Don’t base a loan decision on how someone appears, deceptive faces are not obvious.” He told me [...]

By Steve Wood|2020-03-05T13:28:12-05:00February 27th, 2020|Books, Just Plain Interesting|

Sir Elton John – Why a Leader’s Life is Worth Changing

Once in awhile, I realize what a quiet and uneventful life I lead. That happened recently when I finished Elton John’s new autobiography, Me. I have long been a fan and so I was curious to learn about his life. I was especially interested to learn about his temperamental side and how he turned his life around and became a leader in the world’s battle with AIDS. Photo - Taron Egerton Before I share a few, brief interesting takeaways, I must urge you to listen to the audiobook rather than read it. While Elton does read the opening [...]

By Steve Wood|2020-03-05T13:33:58-05:00January 23rd, 2020|Books, Just Plain Interesting|

A Billion Dollar Russian Spy Who Colluded with America

Most of us like a good spy story – one filled with suspense and intrigue. Of course, we know there is no way a real spy could survive most of the antics the fictional spies encounter. Thanks to a book referral by my colleague, David, I just finished reading a non-fiction spy story that is intriguing, inspiring and sad. Adolf Tolkachev. The book is called The Billion Dollar Spy and was written by David Hoffman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, national intelligence expert, and Washington Post reporter. The spy was a Russian citizen named Adolf Tolkachev. Tolkachev was an electrical engineer [...]

By Steve Wood|2019-04-18T17:34:52-04:00April 18th, 2019|Books, Just Plain Interesting|

Yikes, Why Can’t Everyone at Work Just Get Along

One of the toughest challenges leaders face is how to deal with two team members who aren’t getting along. It is especially problematic when each person on their own is a positive contributor, but the conflict between them is disrupting the team. If you don’t care about your work culture, you could do what one manager did – rent inflatable Sumo wrestling suits and have the two parties fight it out in front of their teammates. If you prefer a more peaceful approach I recommend you do what I do – listen to Judy Ringer. Judy is an expert in [...]

By Steve Wood|2019-03-28T11:06:01-04:00March 28th, 2019|Books, Just Plain Interesting|

Three Ways You Might Contribute to Road Congestion

It seems like it was just a few years ago that we relied only on our faithful mail carriers to deliver our very few mail order packages. And most of this mail was delivered by two legs on the sidewalk. But two relatively new consumer habits have changed all that and are helping clog our streets – 1) Single product, online purchases from places like Amazon; and 2) The use of Uber and Lyft. And soon a third force is going to really impact traffic - driverless vehicles commonly called autonomous vehicles or AVs. Package Delivery. In the days leading [...]

By Steve Wood|2019-01-15T11:47:00-05:00January 15th, 2019|Just Plain Interesting, Uncategorized|

Leaders Beware – Google Done Taught Me Everything I Know

I have been a defendant in only one court case. Sadly, that case contributed to my loss of interest in teaching college and is directly related to today’s topic. I’ll tell you that story later. When our founding leaders formed the United States, they wrestled with this paradox – How to protect individual rights and protect individuals from themselves. Well-educated in the history of mankind, these founders knew that humans are naturally social beings and very susceptible to going along with the crowd. They worried how misguided crowds could destroy the great country they envisioned. One social trend that really [...]

By Steve Wood|2018-10-19T09:43:05-04:00October 18th, 2018|Just Plain Interesting, Learning Styles & Skills, Uncategorized|

A Short History of Manipulating You – Interested?

The recent story of Facebook and how it sells us out has been a surprise to many. What you might not know is that human “attention” has been manipulated and sold for years. And this is exactly what Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Google are doing – they are watching what gets your attention and then they sell this knowledge. The buyers then work hard to manipulate your buying behavior. Tim Wu in his new book The Attention Merchants tells us the history of how businesses have studied what gets our attention and then how they sell that attention-grabbing knowledge to [...]

By Steve Wood|2018-06-25T21:53:24-04:00June 25th, 2018|Books, Just Plain Interesting, Uncategorized|