Today's journal writing and the photographs don't match. The first image below is my photo du jour, and the next three are also from today. I couldn't resist posting some more of the pictures I got in the Mission Gorge fog yesterday. Perhaps I justify including them because they provide a kind of contrast to the brilliant, clear birds of paradise. As a nation, and perhaps as a world, we are facing an eleven month season of political fog. As you could predict, I liked the President's State of the Union address last night. It was a brilliant, clear statement of things as they are in our country.
Christine Legarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, is one of the persons on whom I place my hopes that the world can be spared a global economic meltdown. If I had the power to do it, I would make the report on Legarde in this week’s edition of Newsweek (January 30, 2012) required reading for all Americans. If I had to limit the homework assignment to a relatively small group of Americans, I would choose to have it studied by all members of the House of Representatives and Senators in Washington and all Cabinet Members in President Barack Obama’s administration. Knowing that he has already done so, I wouldn’t have to require the President to read it. I would ask for written reports from all members of Congress. I would grade them based on the attention in their writing to form and content.
In stating the assignment, I would ask members of Congress to pay particular attention to the following paragraphs from the Newsweek essay:
“...Legarde’s approach to running the IMF was quite different from Strauss-Kahn’s. And her first encounters with the 24 board members were a bit awkward. The sessions always tend to be a little ritualized, “like Kabuki,” says a woman who had attended many of them. And there was the question of how to address Legarde: Chairman? Chairwoman? Chair? She settled on Madame Chairman.
‘I don’t know if it’s male versus female, but I am told my management style is more inclusive,’ says Legarde. ‘It has to do with forming a team’s view, having a consensual approach, “wasting time” on occasion to build consensus so that “you will not need to waste it in convincing people to implement.”’
‘Even if it means not appearing as decisive--you know, ‘This is my way or the highway’--I don’t work that way,” says Lagarde. At the end of the day we have to reach a compromise and a common platform, but I think it has to include as many people as possible.” She pauses for a second. “I leave aside the bastards, because that’s one thing that I don’t compromise with: people who lie, people who cheat, people who are not with the group and behave like parasites. That, I can’t stand.’
..........
“The word Legarde keeps coming back to is “confidence.” Without it, nothing works. And confidence comes from leadership. In her no-nonsense way, that is precisely what she aims to deliver--not only for her institution, but for the world.”
In stating the assignment, I would ask members of Congress to pay particular attention to the following paragraphs from the Newsweek essay:
“...Legarde’s approach to running the IMF was quite different from Strauss-Kahn’s. And her first encounters with the 24 board members were a bit awkward. The sessions always tend to be a little ritualized, “like Kabuki,” says a woman who had attended many of them. And there was the question of how to address Legarde: Chairman? Chairwoman? Chair? She settled on Madame Chairman.
‘I don’t know if it’s male versus female, but I am told my management style is more inclusive,’ says Legarde. ‘It has to do with forming a team’s view, having a consensual approach, “wasting time” on occasion to build consensus so that “you will not need to waste it in convincing people to implement.”’
‘Even if it means not appearing as decisive--you know, ‘This is my way or the highway’--I don’t work that way,” says Lagarde. At the end of the day we have to reach a compromise and a common platform, but I think it has to include as many people as possible.” She pauses for a second. “I leave aside the bastards, because that’s one thing that I don’t compromise with: people who lie, people who cheat, people who are not with the group and behave like parasites. That, I can’t stand.’
..........
“The word Legarde keeps coming back to is “confidence.” Without it, nothing works. And confidence comes from leadership. In her no-nonsense way, that is precisely what she aims to deliver--not only for her institution, but for the world.”
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