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Jun
16
Ode to Cincy Enquirer’s Writing Rollergirl
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So we might need to update the lyrics a bit from 1981, but I wore out my walking shoes listening to that album.
Good luck, Lauren.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:05 pm June 16th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jun
16
Lou Pinnella won’t kick dirt, the Petries are outta the White House & more on tiers for Redhorse
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Tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine has Made for Dad written all over it:
Lou Pinnella (is he really 63!?)
How many tiers you want with that race? (see also Psychobilly’s straw poll)
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:33 pm June 16th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jun
16
Ode to Cincy Enquirer’s Writing Rollergirl
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So we might need to update the lyrics a bit from 1981, but I wore out my walking shoes listening to that album.
Good luck, Lauren.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:05 pm June 16th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jun
16
Lou Pinnella won’t kick dirt, the Petries are outta the White House & more on tiers for Redhorse
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Tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine has Made for Dad written all over it:
Lou Pinnella (is he really 63!?)
How many tiers you want with that race? (see also Psychobilly’s straw poll)
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:33 pm June 16th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jun
16
Harvard Business Review: Psychology of Ted Strickland is spot-on
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This New York Times’ What’s Offline Saturday feature couldn’t back up my opinion about how Governor Ted Strickland has been making his moves, or holding his cards better if I’d paid them to write it:
[Dean of the University of Toronto Business School, Roger] Martin contends that the more beneficial thing to do [rather than examine a leader's actions, to help us improve work life, make better decisions or plan our careers] is study how great leaders think.
He has, and he has concluded that they process information differently than the rest of us do.
“They have the predisposition and the capacity to hold in their head two opposing ideas at once,” he writes. “And then, without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other, they’re able to creatively resolve the tension between those two ideas by generating a new one that contains elements of the others but is superior to both.”
Martin expounds on this idea in The Harvard Business Review June 2007 article, How Successful Leaders Think, which appears to be a teaser for his forthcoming book, The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking, due out 12/07. I might not be into extreme sports or extreme journalism, but I’m definitely into extreme multi- and interdisciplinary education and experience. Martin’s book sounds like a treatise that runs tangential to that passion and could help us determine whether Strickland and his team are integrative thinkers.
Remainder of the tease from the NYT:
Mr. Martin calls this process of consideration and synthesis “integrative thinking,” and contends that it is this ability and not a “superior strategy or faultless execution that is the defining characteristic of most exceptional businesses and the people who run them.”
Intriguingly, Mr. Martin, who interviewed 50 exemplary leaders in doing his research, says many successful executives aren’t aware that this is the way they go about processing information.
I completely believe that. Gathering, accessing and synthesizing information is the only way some of us know how to approach an issue. Anything else feels incomplete, inadequate and doomed to failure. Likewise, if you never buy it when someone refuses to flesh out a problem and instead says, “It’s complicated” – really meaning that someone doesn’t want to give an answer, doesn’t know the answer or is too lazy to take the time to explain the problem, then you’re probably an integrative thinker too.
Of course, intergrative thinking can also lead to procrastination and completion problems because you seek to identify every possible perspective and ways to include or mitigate them. But that’s another HBR story.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:00 pm June 16th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jun
16
Harvard Business Review: Psychology of Ted Strickland is spot-on
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This New York Times’ What’s Offline Saturday feature couldn’t back up my opinion about how Governor Ted Strickland has been making his moves, or holding his cards better if I’d paid them to write it:
[Dean of the University of Toronto Business School, Roger] Martin contends that the more beneficial thing to do [rather than examine a leader's actions, to help us improve work life, make better decisions or plan our careers] is study how great leaders think.
He has, and he has concluded that they process information differently than the rest of us do.
“They have the predisposition and the capacity to hold in their head two opposing ideas at once,” he writes. “And then, without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other, they’re able to creatively resolve the tension between those two ideas by generating a new one that contains elements of the others but is superior to both.”
Martin expounds on this idea in The Harvard Business Review June 2007 article, How Successful Leaders Think, which appears to be a teaser for his forthcoming book, The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking, due out 12/07. I might not be into extreme sports or extreme journalism, but I’m definitely into extreme multi- and interdisciplinary education and experience. Martin’s book sounds like a treatise that runs tangential to that passion and could help us determine whether Strickland and his team are integrative thinkers.
Remainder of the tease from the NYT:
Mr. Martin calls this process of consideration and synthesis “integrative thinking,” and contends that it is this ability and not a “superior strategy or faultless execution that is the defining characteristic of most exceptional businesses and the people who run them.”
Intriguingly, Mr. Martin, who interviewed 50 exemplary leaders in doing his research, says many successful executives aren’t aware that this is the way they go about processing information.
I completely believe that. Gathering, accessing and synthesizing information is the only way some of us know how to approach an issue. Anything else feels incomplete, inadequate and doomed to failure. Likewise, if you never buy it when someone refuses to flesh out a problem and instead says, “It’s complicated” – really meaning that someone doesn’t want to give an answer, doesn’t know the answer or is too lazy to take the time to explain the problem, then you’re probably an integrative thinker too.
Of course, intergrative thinking can also lead to procrastination and completion problems because you seek to identify every possible perspective and ways to include or mitigate them. But that’s another HBR story.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:00 pm June 16th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jun
16
The Psychology of Governor Strickland
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The media – blogs (here, here and here for example) and mainstream (i.e., here and here) – have written often this week about Gov. Ted Strickland’s support to ban cash payouts. Even the Plain Dealer published this editorial that seems to commend the governor while also contradicting its position last fall in support of Issue 3 (Ohio Learn and Earn – legalizing casinos and slots).
But the governor’s pronouncement shouldn’t have surprised anyone. And certainly not the PD’s editorial board, given that its OPEN staff wrote this over a year ago.
I don’t know Ted Strickland. I’ve only met him a handful of times, although two of those times were fairly up close and personal, via his Meet the Bloggers debate with Bryan Flannery and an off-the-record conversation I had with him following that debate – a conversation that included the topic of gambling.
But, from the MTB debate transcript, I give you the current Ohio governor’s very first stated position, during his campaign, on the record, about gambling in Ohio [the context of my one word question, "Casinos," is that we were doing a free association/lightening round kind of thing to elicit answers]:
Jill Miller Zimon: Ok. Casinos.
Ted Strickland: Do you want me to go first, Bryan?
Bryan Flannery: I can go, if you want.
Tim Russo: Nobody wants to touch that one!
Ted Strickland: It is a question that I get frequently. I don’t believe that casino gambling represents the future economic… Ohio’s economic future. I approach this matter, not from a moralistic point of view. You know some people see gambling as sinful or not sinful. I am fairly libertarian in the way adults can choose to spend their recreational dollars, but I am also aware of the detrimental effects that casino gambling brings to a community or to a state. So I am not a candidate for Governor who is enthusiastic about casino gambling.
Tim Russo: Would you support legalized casino gambling in this state in any way?
Ted Strickland: I would not be an advocate for it. If it appeared on the ballot and the people voted for it, I wouldn’t have the capacity to veto that. So I believe that’s the only way that casino gambling could become a reality in Ohio, if I were Governor, for the people to say we want it through an initiative.
Gov. Strickland’s current moves are completely and totally consistent with that stance. And anyone who wants to spin the current moves, will do so. But those of us who were there, who care about and respect the record of what was said at the debate and have followed what Gov. Strickland has done, and not done, on this issue, know:
Gov. Strickland made a politically savvy and internally consistent statement about his feelings on the issue of gambling. That statement represents the major league cognitive dissonance that arises from being the leader of a state whose people may want something different than what the leader wants. And the leader can take this way out, for those who choose to see it that way – him included – if he wants.
But he’s never not defined that way out before.
This is the psychology of Ted Strickland’s campaign, of his win and of his governorship. And in today’s climate, with the way most people feel torn about issues – social, economic, personal, legal, environmental – this psychology plays to each of us. Forget how the MSM repeats over and over that people are more polarized than ever. That’s wrong. People who do PR and marketing and construct messages – whether political or otherwise – want to force us to label, they want us to think we’re looking at a polarized population. And, I’ll admit, quickly clinging to a label that seems to make sense is quick and easy.
But it’s not enough. Labels rarely are. We are in the age of nuance, no matter how deep you have to look to find it (that just means people have been intimidated into burying it, ask any moderate anything – as in, Republican or Muslim or Jew for that matter – about that) and this governor knows that. (It’s also why Ken Blackwell lost miserably.) And it’s why his approval ratings are so high.
Wisely, Ted Strickland and those around him have aligned his beliefs and abilities with voters’ sentiments. And they’ve done a damn good job. Spinners can spin all they want, but believe me now and hear me later: it doesn’t make a bit of difference to many voters in Ohio because for every issue about which they feel conflicted, someone – either Strickland or someone on his staff – has read that conflict and is putting it into the equation that results in how Strickland responds.
So far – that formula has responded with the flexibility necessary to keep Ohioans happy. What it really needs to do, at least within the next 9-18 months, is show tangible results in our economy and education system if it wants to 1) help elect a Democratic president and 2) stick around beyond one term.
X-posted at Progress Ohio.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:44 pm June 16th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jun
16
Harvard Business Review: Psychology of Ted Strickland is spot-on
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This New York Times’ What’s Offline Saturday feature couldn’t back up my opinion about how Governor Ted Strickland has been making his moves, or holding his cards better if I’d paid them to write it:
[Dean of the University of Toronto Business School, Roger] Martin contends that the more beneficial thing to do [rather than examine a leader's actions, to help us improve work life, make better decisions or plan our careers] is study how great leaders think.
He has, and he has concluded that they process information differently than the rest of us do.
“They have the predisposition and the capacity to hold in their head two opposing ideas at once,” he writes. “And then, without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other, they’re able to creatively resolve the tension between those two ideas by generating a new one that contains elements of the others but is superior to both.”
Martin expounds on this idea in The Harvard Business Review June 2007 article, How Successful Leaders Think, which appears to be a teaser for his forthcoming book, The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking, due out 12/07. I might not be into extreme sports or extreme journalism, but I’m definitely into extreme multi- and interdisciplinary education and experience. Martin’s book sounds like a treatise that runs tangential to that passion and could help us determine whether Strickland and his team are integrative thinkers.
Remainder of the tease from the NYT:
Mr. Martin calls this process of consideration and synthesis “integrative thinking,” and contends that it is this ability and not a “superior strategy or faultless execution that is the defining characteristic of most exceptional businesses and the people who run them.”
Intriguingly, Mr. Martin, who interviewed 50 exemplary leaders in doing his research, says many successful executives aren’t aware that this is the way they go about processing information.
I completely believe that. Gathering, accessing and synthesizing information is the only way some of us know how to approach an issue. Anything else feels incomplete, inadequate and doomed to failure. Likewise, if you never buy it when someone refuses to flesh out a problem and instead says, “It’s complicated” – really meaning that someone doesn’t want to give an answer, doesn’t know the answer or is too lazy to take the time to explain the problem, then you’re probably an integrative thinker too.
Of course, intergrative thinking can also lead to procrastination and completion problems because you seek to identify every possible perspective and ways to include or mitigate them. But that’s another HBR story.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:00 am June 16th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jun
16
The Psychology of Governor Strickland
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
The media – blogs (here, here and here for example) and mainstream (i.e., here and here) – have written often this week about Gov. Ted Strickland’s support to ban cash payouts. Even the Plain Dealer published this editorial that seems to commend the governor while also contradicting its position last fall in support of Issue 3 (Ohio Learn and Earn – legalizing casinos and slots).
But the governor’s pronouncement shouldn’t have surprised anyone. And certainly not the PD’s editorial board, given that its OPEN staff wrote this over a year ago.
I don’t know Ted Strickland. I’ve only met him a handful of times, although two of those times were fairly up close and personal, via his Meet the Bloggers debate with Bryan Flannery and an off-the-record conversation I had with him following that debate – a conversation that included the topic of gambling.
But, from the MTB debate transcript, I give you the current Ohio governor’s very first stated position, during his campaign, on the record, about gambling in Ohio [the context of my one word question, "Casinos," is that we were doing a free association/lightening round kind of thing to elicit answers]:
Jill Miller Zimon: Ok. Casinos.
Ted Strickland: Do you want me to go first, Bryan?
Bryan Flannery: I can go, if you want.
Tim Russo: Nobody wants to touch that one!
Ted Strickland: It is a question that I get frequently. I don’t believe that casino gambling represents the future economic… Ohio’s economic future. I approach this matter, not from a moralistic point of view. You know some people see gambling as sinful or not sinful. I am fairly libertarian in the way adults can choose to spend their recreational dollars, but I am also aware of the detrimental effects that casino gambling brings to a community or to a state. So I am not a candidate for Governor who is enthusiastic about casino gambling.
Tim Russo: Would you support legalized casino gambling in this state in any way?
Ted Strickland: I would not be an advocate for it. If it appeared on the ballot and the people voted for it, I wouldn’t have the capacity to veto that. So I believe that’s the only way that casino gambling could become a reality in Ohio, if I were Governor, for the people to say we want it through an initiative.
Gov. Strickland’s current moves are completely and totally consistent with that stance. And anyone who wants to spin the current moves, will do so. But those of us who were there, who care about and respect the record of what was said at the debate and have followed what Gov. Strickland has done, and not done, on this issue, know:
Gov. Strickland made a politically savvy and internally consistent statement about his feelings on the issue of gambling. That statement represents the major league cognitive dissonance that arises from being the leader of a state whose people may want something different than what the leader wants. And the leader can take this way out, for those who choose to see it that way – him included – if he wants.
But he’s never not defined that way out before.
This is the psychology of Ted Strickland’s campaign, of his win and of his governorship. And in today’s climate, with the way most people feel torn about issues – social, economic, personal, legal, environmental – this psychology plays to each of us. Forget how the MSM repeats over and over that people are more polarized than ever. That’s wrong. People who do PR and marketing and construct messages – whether political or otherwise – want to force us to label, they want us to think we’re looking at a polarized population. And, I’ll admit, quickly clinging to a label that seems to make sense is quick and easy.
But it’s not enough. Labels rarely are. We are in the age of nuance, no matter how deep you have to look to find it (that just means people have been intimidated into burying it, ask any moderate anything – as in, Republican or Muslim or Jew for that matter – about that) and this governor knows that. (It’s also why Ken Blackwell lost miserably.) And it’s why his approval ratings are so high.
Wisely, Ted Strickland and those around him have aligned his beliefs and abilities with voters’ sentiments. And they’ve done a damn good job. Spinners can spin all they want, but believe me now and hear me later: it doesn’t make a bit of difference to many voters in Ohio because for every issue about which they feel conflicted, someone – either Strickland or someone on his staff – has read that conflict and is putting it into the equation that results in how Strickland responds.
So far – that formula has responded with the flexibility necessary to keep Ohioans happy. What it really needs to do, at least within the next 9-18 months, is show tangible results in our economy and education system if it wants to 1) help elect a Democratic president and 2) stick around beyond one term.
X-posted at Progress Ohio.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:44 am June 16th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
Print This Post
Jun
16
The Psychology of Governor Strickland
Filed Under Politics | Comments Off
The media – blogs (here, here and here for example) and mainstream (i.e., here and here) – have written often this week about Gov. Ted Strickland’s support to ban cash payouts. Even the Plain Dealer published this editorial that seems to commend the governor while also contradicting its position last fall in support of Issue 3 (Ohio Learn and Earn – legalizing casinos and slots).
But the governor’s pronouncement shouldn’t have surprised anyone. And certainly not the PD’s editorial board, given that its OPEN staff wrote this over a year ago.
I don’t know Ted Strickland. I’ve only met him a handful of times, although two of those times were fairly up close and personal, via his Meet the Bloggers debate with Bryan Flannery and an off-the-record conversation I had with him following that debate – a conversation that included the topic of gambling.
But, from the MTB debate transcript, I give you the current Ohio governor’s very first stated position, during his campaign, on the record, about gambling in Ohio [the context of my one word question, "Casinos," is that we were doing a free association/lightening round kind of thing to elicit answers]:
Jill Miller Zimon: Ok. Casinos.
Ted Strickland: Do you want me to go first, Bryan?
Bryan Flannery: I can go, if you want.
Tim Russo: Nobody wants to touch that one!
Ted Strickland: It is a question that I get frequently. I don’t believe that casino gambling represents the future economic… Ohio’s economic future. I approach this matter, not from a moralistic point of view. You know some people see gambling as sinful or not sinful. I am fairly libertarian in the way adults can choose to spend their recreational dollars, but I am also aware of the detrimental effects that casino gambling brings to a community or to a state. So I am not a candidate for Governor who is enthusiastic about casino gambling.
Tim Russo: Would you support legalized casino gambling in this state in any way?
Ted Strickland: I would not be an advocate for it. If it appeared on the ballot and the people voted for it, I wouldn’t have the capacity to veto that. So I believe that’s the only way that casino gambling could become a reality in Ohio, if I were Governor, for the people to say we want it through an initiative.
Gov. Strickland’s current moves are completely and totally consistent with that stance. And anyone who wants to spin the current moves, will do so. But those of us who were there, who care about and respect the record of what was said at the debate and have followed what Gov. Strickland has done, and not done, on this issue, know:
Gov. Strickland made a politically savvy and internally consistent statement about his feelings on the issue of gambling. That statement represents the major league cognitive dissonance that arises from being the leader of a state whose people may want something different than what the leader wants. And the leader can take this way out, for those who choose to see it that way – him included – if he wants.
But he’s never not defined that way out before.
This is the psychology of Ted Strickland’s campaign, of his win and of his governorship. And in today’s climate, with the way most people feel torn about issues – social, economic, personal, legal, environmental – this psychology plays to each of us. Forget how the MSM repeats over and over that people are more polarized than ever. That’s wrong. People who do PR and marketing and construct messages – whether political or otherwise – want to force us to label, they want us to think we’re looking at a polarized population. And, I’ll admit, quickly clinging to a label that seems to make sense is quick and easy.
But it’s not enough. Labels rarely are. We are in the age of nuance, no matter how deep you have to look to find it (that just means people have been intimidated into burying it, ask any moderate anything – as in, Republican or Muslim or Jew for that matter – about that) and this governor knows that. (It’s also why Ken Blackwell lost miserably.) And it’s why his approval ratings are so high.
Wisely, Ted Strickland and those around him have aligned his beliefs and abilities with voters’ sentiments. And they’ve done a damn good job. Spinners can spin all they want, but believe me now and hear me later: it doesn’t make a bit of difference to many voters in Ohio because for every issue about which they feel conflicted, someone – either Strickland or someone on his staff – has read that conflict and is putting it into the equation that results in how Strickland responds.
So far – that formula has responded with the flexibility necessary to keep Ohioans happy. What it really needs to do, at least within the next 9-18 months, is show tangible results in our economy and education system if it wants to 1) help elect a Democratic president and 2) stick around beyond one term.
X-posted at Progress Ohio.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 6:44 am June 16th, 2007 in Politics | Comments Off
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Jun
16
A follow-up to my previous post re: my school district may allow the superintendent to double-dip.
PEPPER PIKE
Orange rehires superintendent
Orange school district Superintendent Daniel Lukich retired Thursday and was rehired Friday. The school board gave Lukich a three-year contract with a 3.3 percent raise effective July 1. That bumps his salary to $147,325 – a $4,700 raise. Lukich has been superintendent for the past 10 years. Lukich will collect both his pension and salary for his current job, which state law allows. Officials said Orange will save about $20,000 a year because, as a retiree, Lukich is not eligible for health benefits.
The Orange school board accomplished this possibility in a special session.
Here’s another take. Additionally, Lukich was a candidate for the Dublin schools superintendent position. Here’s what Dublin will pay its new super, former Chagrin Falls Superintendent David Axner. The $170,000 base salary is $23,000 above what Lukich is getting, and the rest, when added in, sounds like a lot more than what Lukich will get, but I don’t know any additional details about Lukich’s package. Note how that article indicates that Solon schools, ranked the #2 school system this year in the Cleveland mag suburbs ranking issue, pays as high or higher.
Glad to keep Lukich in Orange through 6/2010.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:36 am June 16th, 2007 in Politics | 2 Comments
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