Tag Archive for: Wayne Schmidt

Walking the Talk

George Dom, commanding officer and flight leader of the Blue Angels during the late 1980’s, has never seen levels of trust as low as they are now. The crisis of trust is vividly apparent to someone whose leadership/team experience meant those who inhabited his world personally came to work every day and literally put their […]

Out of the Blue

It’s 2016, so let’s have a happy new year. And in this space over the next several months, let’s chew over how we know and choose good leaders. We will explore from an angelic perspective—Blue Angel, that is. The members of our US Navy’s precision flying team are ‘youngish’. There is nothing abstract about the […]

Led by Grace

It frequently happens at this time of year—this stretch between Thanksgiving and year-end holidays. We are apt to be a few degrees out of our normal routine—auto pilot off—when suddenly, ZING! A moment of grace, instead of passing unnoticed, slips through and hits home. We are fully awake to life in that instant. And somehow, […]

Hey Sport!

All Indianapolis mayoral administrations of recent decades will testify that professional sports are essential to the city’s financial health. The same is true in cities across the nation—and benefits do not end on the bottom line. Sport enterprise pumps money through the community, draws desirable residents, commerce, and industry, and instills vitality in the culture. […]

Thought Leaders

Stop reading at the end of this sentence and choose someone whose thinking you pay attention to, someone whose opinion you value. The person you hold in mind is a thought leader. You may well be a thought leader yourself. At the very least, you have the potential and opportunity to rival the best because […]

Two Questions

The founding fathers explicitly warned fellow countrymen to distrust government and to remain vigilant in their suspicion. They knew full well the tendency of those with a measure of power to steadily encroach on those with less, until the latter are fully subjugated. We were to be a nation of citizens, not subjects. That meant, […]

Elevate Your Expectations for Downtown Development, Part IV

In my Indianapolis Business Journal column listing 10 things Indianapolis could do to make our already thriving downtown an even better place to live, the fourth item was: Face up to the fact that urban dwellers may not have cars, which means we’ll need more forms of public transportation. Yes, the Indiana Pacers Bikeshare is […]

Hasten Slowly

“Make haste slowly” was the motto of Emperor Augustus who found rash behavior abhorrent especially in military command. Emperor Titus expressed the same, having Roman coins inscribed with the motif of a dolphin entwined about an anchor. The tireless speed of a dolphin and the grounding stability of an anchor were symbols Romans could readily […]

Elevate Your Expectations for Downtown Development, Part III

In my Indianapolis Business Journal column listing 10 things Indianapolis could do to make our already thriving downtown an even better place to live, the third item was: Mix in more housing individuals can afford. Starter living units with lower price points will lure sought-after young professionals earlier. Energy consumption will make housing and retail […]

Leadership Moment from April

Ford Motor Company provided an exemplary model of communicating their core value when they launched “Quality is Job One”. That concise message not only informed prospective buyers where Ford’s major emphasis was placed, it communicated to Ford’s employees the intention they were to fulfill. The word may seem a nebulous abstraction but “value” is the […]