It has become a tradition for us to publish a poem for the Christmas blog. So much Christmas poetry has either romanticized the day or, especially in modern poetry, found only despair and resignation. What I admire about this poem of Wendell Berry’s is his expectancy in the ordinary. It’s unfortunate that the word “mundane” has come to mean dull and lacking interest or describing something unremarkable because so much of Wendell Berry’s writing is about the mundane. It is about this world. The daily rounds of chores and long relationships. The routines and tasks that are uneventful – at least on the surface.  But that is both the setting…

Last week I wrote about the importance and also the difficulty of letting go. There comes a time when the founder or entrepreneur must turn loose of the tight grip on the venture or it will not survive. It will have the life choked out. But what happens when the time comes to step aside for good many years later? I’ve thought far more in the last several years about succession and the transition of leadership than I ever thought about starting organizations. In so many ways starting was easy. The ideas and the opportunities came and it was just a matter of acting on them. Knowing how to release…

For me, as someone having founded and co-founded several organizations, few things are more satisfying than spending time with men and women starting a company or non-profit. While most of the conversation is about start-up, I try to get around to the topic of what happens when it grows. One of the most useful tools for understanding the lifecycle of an organization is that developed by Dr. Ichak Adizes, the founder of the Adizes Institute. We all begin at the same place: an idea born in response to an opportunity. The new idea becomes an infant dependent on the resources of the founder and that stage may last months or…