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Welcome to our Ideas That Matter, a
list of ideas, issues, and trends. Once in a while a new idea
pops up that infects our thinking and changes how we view things.
When that happens it ends up here. So visit us every now and
then
and
see what
new ideas have appeared on these pages.
LATEST
IDEA
Times
are tough, deal with it!
Part 2 in series exploring the Idea Sets of Good
to Great.
The bad news just keeps on coming ( and we don't
count on it easing up any time soon) – but making
it through when the going gets tough requires more than perserverence.
Lessons for making it though can be found in
the story of Vice
Admiral Jim Stockdale. Stockdale, the highest
ranking officer in the Hanoi Hilton, spent eight years enduring
endless torture and soul-destroying treatment. In the end,
he made it home with body and spirit intact. But Stockdale
didn't know he would make it. How did he face each day for
eight years not knowing for sure he would survive in the end?
Would the pain and suffering be worth it?
According to Stockdale, in order to survive the
darkest nadir we need to have faith that in the end we will
prevail, but never ignore the most brutal facts of reality,
no matter how hideous they appear. This incongruent combination
of blind faith and brutal facts creates an intriguing paradox.
Jim Collins named it the Stockdale Paradox in his book, Good
to Great.
Collins and his research team spent five years
revealing the secret ingredients that transforms a good company
to a great company. They discovered that the great companies
embraced this paradox. They knew, some how, some way, in the
end they would prevail – and they were willing to face the
most brutal facts of their reality to get there. The paradox
enabled the great companies to make the really tough decisions
needed to grow and prosper.
Read
an excerpt from Jim Collins that discusses how good-to-great
companies left themselves stronger and more resilient,
not weaker and more dispirited.
In
Love and War by Jim and Sybil Stockdale
Jim Stockdale teaches us that freedom is a state of mind
and that the two greatest weapons of enslavement are guilt
and fear, not bars and walls.
Stoic
Philosophy was a source
of inspiration and consolation for Vice Admiral Jim
Stockdale
throughout
his life and captivity.
OTHER IDEAS
Click here to visit the other ideas that have captured our curiosity and helped shape our perspective.
COPYRIGHT
This work on this page is licensed under a
Creative
Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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