The word power is drenched in ambivalence.

Power seeking is supposed to be terrible and politically incorrect and so any desire to  want and  keep power remains steeped in fear and disdain.

Please. 

Nothing gets done without power. Nothing noteworthy anyway. The Black Power revolution required the power to mobilise resources and people. The reinvigorated UNC required a powerful momentum led by one woman who had to dig deep and find the power of her voice to stand agaisnt her maixmum leader. 

Obtaining power requires will and skill. Ask Kamla. Ask Patrick. They both have to to do  the work, and acquire  the  gumption to direct their  energies  productively. 

Power comes from their  ability to build a reputation, (good or bad),  to  create efficient and effective networks of social relations, (yes, CPEP workers  included) to  act and speak in ways that build influence (We will rise)  and create and employ resources-things that voters want and need.

Power is about moving the masses toward one belief. Come May 24th your role to overcome its ambivalence.

Is this the way it should be done?

Can you help me?

I can’t do it like you?

Take a look at this?

Can you re-do this for me?

If you’re a leader when do these questions ever get to be too much?

Sometimes the questions don’t always come with the words. Sometimes they come in work not done right. Repeated mistakes. The missed deadlines. And so  as a leader, you want to do it all but you can’t, else you render the team irrelevant and you become depleted.

Seth Goodin made a good point last week. He said that  people are just begging to be told what to do and atributes the reason to this: "If you tell them what to do, the responsibility for the outcome is yours, not theirs. They are  safe."

But  that’s not leading, it’s a cop out.

When asked, guide, provide direction, toss in a new ways of thinking  but never the full answers, every and all the time. And  please, don’t take over the workload.

For you, it will  be the only way to carve out the time to lead. For them, it’s the only way to build critical thinking skills.

This morning I shall lead a team of 8 in a presentation for a chunk of new business in the tourism sector.

We’ve spent many, many hours getting our strategic thinking and  creatives just right, including a 28-hour work day over the Independence holiday. My friend and colleague, Nikola L, impressed by the effort remarked, “You guys will win. There’s no way the others are putting that much effort into it.”

I am not sure. Not about the effort but about the winning. 

Today, we will go up against two of the  the top advertising firms in the country, McCann Erickson  and Lonsdale Saatchi & Saatchi.  Their names  are  salt in the advertising  world. We, on the other hand, we are like the little engine that could armed with what we think is  a remarkable strategy and smack on  creatives.  

We get the fact that we are the underdogs. At the same time, we’ve moved beyond that  and because of this great belief in our ideas, we’re convinced we’re the ones to beat.  

Still, am I nervous? A bit. Do  I feel a bit of discomfort.  Heck , yes, heaps,  and I only just discovered why on Sunday morning at 3:00 a.m  when I could not sleep and  re-read Seth Godin’s  ‘Tribe’  for the third time searching for a clincher that would soothe.

Here’s what jumped out...

“It’s uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers. It’s uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail. It’s uncomfortable  to challenge the status quo. It’s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle. When you identify the discomfort, you’ve found the place where a leader is needed.”

I think these are very wise words that  will be my guide at 10:30 this morning. Today, that  discomfort feels pretty much okay.

I hope you wish us luck.

 My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America. 

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 If you're at the office like me but wishing you were at home in  front the 'telly' with popcorn in one hand and the remote in the other, don't despair, there is  a myriad of ways to watch this historic day on-line. Here's  how. 

I believe in a place called Hope," said Bill Clinton as he sought the nominations of his party more than  a decade ago. Funny how that line is relevant today.

Clinton was referring to an Arakansas town, but clearly there was a lot of figurative meaning in the word.

As I join with millions the world over praying  for the  world to  change on November 4th,  Hope takes on added significance.  Its very importance  is that it provides people with dreams. Dreams that touch people, excite, and arouse them.

Once it was Marx, Kennedy and  Martin Luther King who bought the world their  dreams.

Now its  Obama who stands in a place called Hope. The question is: is that space potent enough and relevant enough for  the disparate American 'tribes'  to unite behind.  I pray that it is.

 

Whenever there is a new, hot thing that promises the next nirvana, marketers begin tripping over themselves. How much money should they spend on it? How fast can they adopt it? How quickly can they get the competitive edge?

 

The answer is not for long. 

An interconnected world that makes the globe a village means that early adopters have a competitive advantage for just a second, if they’re lucky. And that’s before another something new and hot comes along or before a competitor spends a couple a million dollars more to pull ahead of the pack.

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