22 February brought the 150th anniversary of the birth (22 February 1857) of Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, a man who is known and respected throughout the world for, among many things, founding of the Scouting movement. Beginning in 1907 with an experimental camp for 22 boys in Dorset, England, the movement expanded throughout the British Commonwealth, and then quickly spread throughout most of the world. Many boys and girls have participated in programs that endeavor to develop citizens who are physically, mentally and emotionally strong. Many of these young people have moved into positions of leadership in our society directly as a result of the character development, citizenship training, and personal fitness that are commonly referred to as the “Aims of Scouting.” Baden-Powell passed away on 8 January 1941. Among his papers was found a message, part of which is:

“Happiness doesn’t come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that that you can be useful and enjoy life when you are a man. But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that, at any rate you, have not wasted your time, but have done your best.”

Information on Scouting is available at www.scouting.org (Boy Scouts of America, National Council • P.O. Box 152079 • Irving, Texas)

Other Bytes

Here are some of the things going on in and around the engineering community:

• “The Tests of a Leader” is the focus of the January 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review; (85(1), 2007, www.hbr.com). Leaders are always being tested; from the first decision of a new boss; to the many decisions experienced leaders make on a daily basis. Not always is the leadership test passed. We all learn from our mistakes. In one of several articles in this issue on the topic (“Becoming the Boss,” pp. 49-56) Linda Hill discusses her research on making the career transition to management. Among other things the author discusses some of the common misconceptions about what it means to be a boss — misconceptions that often cause beginning managers to fail. This article is valuable reading for anyone transitioning to a leadership role. Another article “Courage as a Skill” (pp. 58-64) Kathleen Teardon discusses how courageous action is a special kind of calculated risk taking. People who become good leaders prepare carefully to strengthen their chance of success when making a bold and risky move. The author discusses six discrete processes that lead to a successful high-risk decision. Many other interesting articles on the subject of “tests of a leader” are published in this issue.

• The twenty-first century will be both exciting and perilous. Today, young people have enormous opportunities to shape the future of humanity. In “The 17 Great Challenges of the Twenty-First Century” (The Futurist, 41(1), pp. 20-24, 2007, www.wfs.org), James Martin discusses these 17 interlinked and mutually reinforcing challenges. In the introduction to the article the author states: “Solutions exist, or can exist, to most of the serious problems we will face in the decades ahead. The bad news is that the most powerful people today have little understanding of the solutions and little incentive to apply them.” The author believes that whether civilization survives or not will be up to the “transition generation: — today’s young people.

• Organizations are learning the importance of the connection between good human resources and profitability. In “Measuring the Value of HR” HR Magazine, 51(12), pp. 44-49, 2006, www.shrm.org/hrmagazine), Robert Grossman discusses the experiences of one company in setting up a state-of-the-art talent development system that provides a one-stop online location where employees and managers go to set goals, craft development plans, trade feedback, acquire skills, and chart their progress.

• Effective communication of decisions in the workplace is often the exception rather than the rule. Often decisions are made by a group of people who lead the organization and are then communicated to those affected. The way that a message is communicated to employees has a lot to do with its acceptance and its eventual organizational success or failure. In “Decision Downloading” (MIT Sloan Management Review, 48(2), pp. 77-82, 2007, http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/), Phillip Clampitt and Lee Williams discuss three primary reasons for ineffective downloading of decision messages. The authors then discuss a four-stage process that can be used to effectively download decision messages.

• “Keys to Your Future” is the title of an 18 page inset in Canadian Business (80(3), 2007, www.canadianbusiness.com). The editors discuss five trends that will shape entrepreneurial business in 2007 and they provide suggestions on how you might respond to the trends. Career savvy individuals are constantly scanning forecasts of the future so that they may make strategic steps to ensure their career success.

• AT&T was named the company of the year in Forbes magazine’s ranking of the best managed companies in America. “Whitacre’s Way” (Forbes; 179(1), pp. 84-90, 2007, www.forbes.com) Dennis Kneale discusses the strategies used by the chairman of AT&T to build the largest telecom company in the world.

 

E-mail this page to a friend Tell us what you thought of this article