Mandate for Change

August 17, 2026

Good morning! Remember when it was the Ides of June?!  It’s already the Ides of August and beyond.

• Coming to you this morning from the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Toronto, Ontario (Canada).
  • Our oldest son and his family live here and we try to visit as often as possible, which averages to probably about once a year these last two decades.
  • It’s almost exactly 1,000 miles from our front door to theirs… and, you’ve got to battle the terrors of Road #401, a calamitous 16-lane nightmare.
  • Every city claims to have the worst drivers, but few will compete with Toronto for the worst roads.
  • As Toronto rises from Lake Ontario toward the north the elevation increases gradually — thus, a hill.
  • By way of the crow we are about 15 miles from downtown, but don’t ever think you can travel the distance in 15 minutes… it could take hours.
  • According to the best data available, Toronto is a diverse and eclectic city of about 7,200,000 people.
  • All of Canada, including the arctic wilderness areas, has about 40,000,000 people — and so, Toronto has 18% of the country’s people.
  • By comparison — and who doesn’t like to compare and contrast?! — New York City has about 20,000,000 people — half of ALL of Canada.
  • The United States has about 340,000,000 people — so the United States’s largest city boasts ~6% of the country’s population — thus enjoying only 1/3 the relative impact of Toronto.
• There has been some current interest in exploring the U.S. Declaration of Independence, a worthy pursuit.
  • Among the more improbable realities associated with the writing and promulgating of The Declaration of Independence was logistics.
  • There were no cars, no trains, no planes — only horses, boats, foot travel — and a mule or two.
  • There were no communication methodologies beyond written messages, speaking, and sending written messages via some sort of human messenger.
  • The postal service was not yet invented, though certain functions of it existed.
  • No telegraph yet, no telephone until a century later, no steam engines for steamships or rail cars… no internal combustion engines.
  • Getting a message from Point A to Point B could take weeks or even months… and it was at risk of being intercepted and the writer being charged with treason, a capital offense.
  • Some of the delegates to the Second Continental Congress traveled 1,000 or more miles to gather with the others in Philadelphia.
  • No one thought about logistics back then, of course, because everything was just the way it was, the norm.
  • Still, it amazes and fascinates me when learning about how frequently people traveled… amazing fetes (no pun intended) when considering the odds and obstacles.
  • The Congress was not authorized by King George nor by Great Britain’s parliament…
    • … it was convened illegally in order to address grievances and to coordinate a common cause, resolve, and morale among the 13 colonies.
    • The so-called Boston massacre and the subsequent Lexington/ Concord shot heard ’round the world had occurred more than a year earlier.
    • It wasn’t a foregone conclusion the Congress would vote to secede from Great Britain, but you could have guessed it based on the roster of those gathered in Philadelphia.
• Breaking news:  We’ve just learned from documents discovered recently in London that considerable back-channeling communication directed at preventing a revolution was still happening between at least one delegate to the Continental Congress and contacts in the British Parliament.
  • And, why would this shock us?  Of course there were all sorts of conversations such as that happening between and among thinking people.
    • Actually, the documents weren’t discovered… they’ve been there all along, but in the private collections of family members.
• Where to?
  • I’ve experienced all 50 states of the United States (airports don’t count, you know the rule) and its one district, though to none of its 14 territories.
  • I’ve been to six of the seven continents if we are still naming and counting them as they have been for a few centuries.
  • I’ve seen the Gulf of Mexico several times — which is fortunate since it apparently no longer exists!
  • I don’t have any desire to go to Antarctica, though I would in a minute if the occasion arose.
  • I’ve been to about twelve countries other than my own, though it could be more, I always forget one or two.
  • Where should I go next?
  • (If you read up above, the answer might well be Maine where Joshua Chamberlain lies in a simple grave near Bowdoin College.)
    • But, where else?
    • Ireland — where many of my ancestors lived before braving the Atlantic to come to North America — and where countless cousins no doubt still farm and scramble to survive
    • Alaska — though I’ve been, I’d return in a minute
    • France — all of it, really, for the food, the culture, the history, and the countryside… I imagine it as heavenly
    • Greece — though I’ve been, I’d return in a minute
    • Nepal — I should endeavour to at least SEE Mount Everest
    • Belgium — for the pommes frites
• Every leader decides whether to mandate change or to be a catalyst for change.
  • Most opt to mandate.
  • It’s easier, quicker, and someone did it that way to them — hence, modeling or mentoring.
  • The problem is mandating change gets compliance (maybe).
  • Activating organic or collaborative change gets commitment.
  • There are times when mandating a change is necessary, but more often than not, mandating is the easy way out for the leader, not for everyone else.
  • Note to self:  Perception is everything… I have often perceived I was acting collaboratively and in a non-mandating sort of way, but…
  • … more often than I care to remember, those experiencing the change reported it as mandated or at least quasi-mandated.  (Hmmm?)
  • Note to self #2:  Most of my mentors throughout the 1960s had backgrounds in the military and/or top-down corporate worlds.
  • I watched, listened, learned, was inspired… and copied their style.
  • I work hard at re-learning, I really do.