The Leader’s Essential Checklist

April 7, 2025

Good morning! A shout-out to Tom from Vermont, a longtime friend and reader, who dropped by last week for a visit and to procure some 50-years-old sourdough starter. He also glimpsed world headquarters and was curious as to how this column was produced; he further suggested I go into Podcasting.

For each of the last four years, counting this one, I was to have been in Augusta, Georgia right about now.

Looks like it was not — and is not — meant to be.

I WILL enjoy some of it on the television — as well as last week, too, when the Spaniard won.

Even if you’re not a fan, read:  The Golf 100, Arkush  — the best golfer of all time, woman or man, is revealed using hard data.

• You’ve heard it, E-Mail is dead, a dinosaur-way of communicating.
  • Not so fast you naysayers and those who sit in haughty judgment.
  • E-mail by far dominates internet usage with ~333 billion messages sent daily (that’s 42 per human per day!)
  • Text messages, the second-largest category of internet usage, are a distant ~24 billion sent daily.
  • Data are not readily available for how many of those E-mails are Sp’Am and/or Junque.
  • Ooooops, we should have read further before typing; I just found data suggesting 45% of all E-Mail messages are Sp’Am or Junque.
  • There are 1.58 billion Tinder swipes per day!
  • If you consider 5% of the world’s population might be in that market, it’s actually fewer than 10 swipes per day per person.
  • Follow those Tinder swipes and thoughts down the primrose path and you’ll have a steamy novel.  (Visual Capitalist, 2025)
  • One more:  ~151,000,000 cumulative hours per day are spent in ZOOM meetings.
• Leaders continue to struggle with hybrid or virtual work arrangements,
  • but the problem may be that they’re paying attention to the wrong things.
  • London Business School professor, Gratton, explains how focusing on tasks — not locations — can transform productivity and satisfaction.
  • There are limitations to traditional productivity metrics in hybrid work.
  • Specific tasks can be matched to appropriate work settings.
  • Be crystal clear — and honest — about the deal you’re making with employees when discussing/ deciding upon workplace flexibility.
  • Involve employees in workplace design.
  • Communicate and enforce non-negotiable principles (core values) such as customer satisfaction and leaders modeling the behaviours they expect from their people.
• It seems as if we never tire of searching for the secret sauce for successful leadership — and so we’re happy to amplify what has appeared in this space previously.
  • The leader’s Essential Checklist:
    • Be Bold!  Do we have a clear and compelling vision that reframes what winning looks like — and is it owned by the whole organization?
    • Alignment!  Have we created a short list of clearly-defined BIG MOVES (strategic imperatives)?
    • Resources.  Are we actively reallocating resources (people, dollars, management) to our highest priorities, even when it’s difficult?
    • Culture.  Are we targeting and systematically addressing specific areas of cultural change to further execute our strategic imperatives?  (Change = Scary!)
    • Structure.  are we characterized by a balance of stability and agility so as to maximize effectiveness and execution?
    • Talent.  Do we have the right talent in the right places — and do we have a strong bench?  (Informed by Deward, Etc., et al.)

Worms in Retreat

by Michael A. Mullin  2025The plump befuddled robinsits on a lonely weathered branchwith its feathers all fluffed and itsshoulders hunched against the brutal windwondering why in the worldit took the early flight up northwhen a foot of snow was predicted.

These accumulate from week to week… I can’t bear to take leave of them… these are not required re-reading:

“The only way of really finding out a person’s true character is to play golf with him.”  (Wodehouse)

“Tell the truth, tell it all, tell it now.”  (Holtz)

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for a new and richer experience.”  (E. Roosevelt)

“Surely it is much more generous to forgive and remember than to forgive and forget.”  (Edgeworth)

Sometimes what you need most you want least.

“Certainty is the great enemy of unity… the deadly enemy of tolerance.”  (Harris — Fiennes in Conclave, 2024)

“My brothers and sisters, in the course of a long life in the service of our Mother the Church, let me tell you that the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end. ‘Eli Eli, lama sabachtani?’ He cried out in His agony at the ninth hour on the cross. ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.”

“The wildest colts make the best horses.”  (Plutarch)

“What is more important in a library than anything else — than everything else — is the fact that it exists.”  (MacLeish)

“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”  (Clemens)

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”  (Clemens)

Here are a few words most of us don’t want to hear:  Discipline — Patience — Persistence — Focus — Clarity — Vision — Integrity — Listen

A single word for your focus and reflection all throughout 2025:  Clarity

“Don’t play the notes, play the meaning of the notes”  (Casals)

“War is the continuation of policy by other means.”  (von Clausewitz)

“What would our lives yield if we focused on who people ARE rather than what they aren’t?”  (YT)

“I find I’m less concerned about the storms at sea surrounding me than I am interested in living at peace within myself.”  (YT)

“The things we need to hear the most we pay attention to the least.”  (YT)