Here’s something from today’s NY Times interview with Kristin Gore about her dad’s input into her writing that I haven’t yet heard said by the Bush daughters about their dad: “He’s a fantastic fact checker.”

Great front page article this morning in the NY Times praising the unusual level of fearlessness and selflessness in the current basketball nextgen version of Michael Jordon, Lebron James. It’s an amazing story of a rising star in his early 20’s who’s already surpassed so many of this city’s (Cleveland’s) so-called leaders in leadership.

More from Peter Block’s powerful model for community engagement here in Cincinnati where great things are happening in small groups where speed and scale are less important than authentic belonging in a culture of commitment.

Helping is a subtle form of control
Connection has to come before content
Anyone who wants to promise you safety wants to own you
I’ve been blind to my gifts because I’ve spent a lifetime working on myself
Service organizations don’t know how to monetize gifts, only deficiencies
It’s a sacred act to betray someone else’s expectations
Our new questions are expressions of faith in each other
When dissent is important, there is room for assholes in the community
Every marriage I’ve ever been in, I’ve gotten the same feedback, there is no power in trying to fix myself or others
The structure of belonging is people sharing their vulnerabilities about what matters
Even the past is unpredictable
The job of leader is to convene and name the question

The US government has now spent millions, possibly billions, of dollars on failed rebuilding projects in Iraq, including hospitals, airports, and infrastructure. It’s a project management issue. In one case, when inspectors visited a medical waste management facility, administrators there couldn’t quite locate the key to let them in.

We need a political vision that includes attention to common disciplines like project management that enjoy regular success in US business projects. If we’re going to continue occupying Iraq, it’s the least hospitable thing we can do.

At the Defrag Ohio conference today I facilitated a forum of civic regional thought leaders on the design of curriculum for the development of entrepreneurs. It was a group that inspired and energized itself in the process of sharing previously unshared perspectives, purposes, and practices. There is obviously national scale passion and innovation in this emerging cross-disciplinary venture.

The goods news is that entrepreneurism can be learned whether it’s in the space of arts, sciences, technology, or infomatics. Many of the pedagogical innovations are driven by the acknowledgement that digital media and robust mentored internships will be at the heart of the matter. Among the many points of consensus, agreement that entrepreneurs must be taught by entrepreneurs. Very exciting stuff.

A humbling experience this past weekend, honored as a mentor to this country’s leading executive nurses who, as it turns out, are the emerging innovation leaders in health care. They are doing things that easily and far surpass the will and imagination of their boards, physicians, and policy makers.

Forget about the partisan rhetoric that belies a national indifference to those who deserve access and quality in the care. Many of these leaders are CEO’s in the boardroom, but behind the scenes are innovating in every corner of health care. They are the ones driving the local and state level experiments that we will look to for revolution and evolution at the national level.

The problem is that no one knows this, but that will change as these leaders will capture the optimism deserving of issues at the root of every dimension of life quality. I am very proud of them and am graced to serve.

Here in NY last night I had the chance to spend time chatting with Frances Hesselbein who among other things is editor-in-chief of Leader to Leader, founding president of the Drucker Foundation, chairman of the board of governors of the Leader to Leader Institute, and former chief executive of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. She is one of the top thought leaders internationally on leadership and an amazing human being.

A few quotes from her talk to the Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellows where I am a mentor:

“Dispersed leadership is the leadership of the future”
“Leaders manage permission”
“The power of language is indispensable on our journey toward transformation”