Rules of honest journalism: Jim Lehrer [INTEGRITY], [TRUTHFULNESS], [HONOR], [JUSTICE]

Jim Lehrer's Rules of Journalism

Posted: 05 Dec 2009

The NewsHour's "retired" logo

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS Television – one of the most respected daily news programs in television history – will have a high tech facelift this coming Monday. Everything I've seen that they are doing is spectacular. The updates will make the best even better, in my opinion.

Not only will NewsHour continue its legacy and reputation for superb coverage of major stories, everything on the air will be mirrored and expanded online in ways the other TV news programs never dreamed of.

In announcing the changes, the program's host, Jim Lehrer, took a moment to underscore his rules of journalist that act as a beacon for excellence at his program. I'm very proud to share his remarks here:

I practice journalism in accordance with the following guidelines:

• Do nothing I cannot defend.
• Do not distort, lie, slant or hype.
• Do not falsify facts or make up quotes.
• Cover, write and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me.
• Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story.
• Assume the viewer is as smart and caring and good a person as I am.
• Assume the same about all people on whom I report.
• Assume everyone is innocent until proven guilty.
• Assume personal lives are a private matter until a legitimate turn in the story mandates otherwise.


Jim Lehrer

• Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight news stories and clearly label it as such.
• Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes except on rare and monumental occasions. No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously.
• Do not broadcast profanity or the end result of violence unless it is an integral and necessary part of the story and/or crucial to its understanding.
• Acknowledge that objectivity may be impossible but fairness never is.
• Journalists who are reckless with facts and reputations should be disciplined by their employers.
• My viewers have a right to know what principles guide my work and the process I use in their practice.
• I am not in the entertainment business.

~ Jim Lehrer

Source: David Henderson - consultant, author, journalist

"The 100% commitment experiment" in marriage [LOYALTY], [TRUST], [TRUTHFULNESS]

The Secret to a successful marriage is...

If you're married, your primary relationship in life is with your spouse. And of course, the strength of that relationship will go a long way to determine your happiness in life.

Vic Conant, the president of Nightingale Conant, has been a good friend for over twenty years. Not long ago he wrote an article called, The Keys to Successful Living that focused on things we can do to improve our marriages. It was terrific!

Vic acknowledged that a few years ago, he had some problems with his marriage to the point where he was considering other alternatives. But he wanted it to work and decided to try what he called "the 100% commitment experiment," (not 99%, but 100%). He said in doing so, something magical happened. He began to look for the positives and began to enjoy his wife more each day. She naturally responded by being much nicer to him. He said it began an amazing transformation; and today, after 36 years of marriage, they've never been happier.

As Vic discovered, there is a remarkable difference between a commitment of 99% and 100%. At 100%, you are seeing your problems all the way through to their solutions. At 99% we can still find a way to take the path of least resistance...and usually do.

And guess what? "The 100% commitment experiment" not only works for marriage...it also works for life.

This is one of 50 ideas to motivate yourself in my book Charging the Human Battery. So many times, it's not what you say, but how you say it that turns the switch from "off" to "on." And that's what happened to me when I first read Vic Conant's story about the remarkable difference between a commitment of 99% versus 100%. The light bulb went on!

Passing of University founder, prominent philanthropist, Dr. Eloy Anello [SERVICE], [LOVE]

A truly dedicated servant to humanity, founder of Bolivias premiere University, Nur, has passed - bless his memory!

"No one who crossed his path could fail to be touched by his unbounded energy, by his sincere love of humanity, which he brought to every enterprise he undertook in service to the Faith." - The Universal House of Justice (full message below)

A favorite prayer of his:

If it be Thy pleasure, make me to grow as a tender herb in the meadows of Thy grace, that the gentle winds of Thy will may stir me up and bend me into conformity with Thy pleasure, in such wise that my movement and my stillne...ss may be wholly directed by Thee. - Baha'u'llah http://is.gd/45IDx

Flowers at the World Centre.

Listen to an edifying talk on Social and Economic Development (for download, in middle of the list) here: http://sed.skyrunner.net/list.php.
Two papers written by him on Moral Leadership:
http://is.gd/45His, http://is.gd/45HjB.
A report on a project he helped initiate: http://is.gd/45HNv
Facebook group in honor of his memory:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/in-memory-of-Eloy-Anello/145648438862

A member of the Continental Board of Counsellors, Eloy Anello, of Bolivia, spoke on the topic "The Life of Dr. Muhajir" at the "Growth and Victories" conference in Ecuador.

Message from the Universal House of Justice (of October 6 or 7) on the occasion of the passing of Dr. Eloy Anello:

"With heavy hearts we received the news of the passing of Eloy Anello, indefatigable and valiant servant of Baha'u'llah. Nearly forty years ago, as the Nine Year Plan was drawing to a close, we urged the friends everywhere to emulate the Baha'i youth, "whose recent surge forward into the van of proclamation and teaching" was "one of the most encouraging and significant trends in the Faith" and who stormed "the gates of heaven for support in their enterprises by long-sustained, precedent and continuing prayer." Among those who had stepped into the vanguard was dear Eloy, who, as a young man, left the United States and settled in Bolivia in the early 1970s, making it his home and dedicating himself to the upliftment of its people. No one who crossed his path could fail to be touched by his unbounded energy, by his sincere love of humanity, which he brought to every enterprise he undertook in service to the Faith. Especially noteworthy were the valuable contributions he made to the progress of the Cause as a member of the Continental Board of Counsellors in the Americas for two decades. How many young people were awakened to the crying needs of humanity as a result of his efforts in this capacity. How many were galvanized to arise and serve the Cause. So dedicated was he to nurturing young minds that he co-founded Universidad Nur in Santa Cruz--an institution striving to apply Baha'i principles to higher education and to programs for the advancement of the indigenous populations.

"May his life of consecration to the Cause serve as an inspiration to those laboring to meet the requirements of the current stage of the Divine Plan. To his family and many friends, we extend our loving condolences. Our most fervent prayers at the Sacred Threshold join yours for the progress of his noble soul throughout the realms of God. We call on all National Spiritual Assemblies in the Americas to hold memorial gatherings in his honor.

- The Universal House of Justice

Photos copyright Bahá'í International Community
http://media.bahai.org/subjects/5794/details
http://media.bahai.org/subjects/locations/holy_places_hai/shrine_bab_gard/6941/details

Doesn't the world need virtues above all? [INTEGRITY], [JUSTICE], [HONESTY], [COMMITMENT]

Françoise Le Goff: Risking Job by Returning Donor's Money

Thanking donors for a generous response to floods in Namibia

A teaser from an interview with Françoise Le Goff in next week's edition of Inspire magazine.

***

What started off as a volunteer activity with the Red Cross in 1977 in her home town of Brittany, France, ended up as a globe-trotting career. Françoise Le Goff's journey has taken her through Chad, Paris, Geneva, and for the past 10 years, back again to Africa (Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa), working in a number of senior roles. In January 2008 Françoise was appointed head of the southern Africa Zone, making her one of the IFRC's (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) seven most senior representatives in the world.

Returning donor money:

On one mission, Françoise arrived in a country and walked immediately into a situation rampant with allegations of corruption against the National Red Cross Society leadership. At her first meeting with the National Society's board, she warned in diplomatic terms of the risks that the organization faced if it chose to do nothing about these allegations.

Warning given, and nothing changed. The process repeated itself at another board meeting: warning, platitudes and promises, and then no action. "I have had experiences where by applying my own principles I risked my career or my standing," says Françoise, recalling the episode. "But I believe that part of living and working in line with values, means taking risks."

And so, having realized that nothing would change without action on her part, she took the decision to return a large sum of money (over USD 2 million) to the donor as she no longer felt that she could vouch that it would be spent and used appropriately.

"When you take risks, you create a process that inevitably takes on a life of its own. But if the risk is taken on principle – be it the principles of an organization or a combination of an organization's and you own – then you come from a position of strength. Regardless of the outcome of the process, your position will remain strong."

In this case, the process validated her decision. At the National Society's General Assembly, the President of the National Society was hounded from the floor – and eventually out of office – with angry allegations of corruption and mismanagement. Françoise's action had given momentum to the growing sense of frustration within the organization. The timing was right.

EBBF: What did you think was going to happen when you gave back the money? What was at stake in your mind?

Françoise: I was indeed not sure of what would happen. I was new in the country and I did not know or realize the level of frustration amongst the local Red Cross membership. However, I did know the donor and I understood the reputation risks for the organization, both of which were key elements in the decision.

But the key issue in my mind was the fact that beneficiaries and vulnerable people were being deprived of support. I was also very aware that my own reputation – my own integrity – was possibly at stake. If I didn't denounce what was happening, I saw that some would see that I was endorsing it. This gave me the courage to speak out. And in the end, this action triggered a change process that was very positive, and very, very successful in the long run.

I based my actions on a few principles such as honesty, professional integrity, and justice – to be the voice for the voiceless.

Source: http://ebbf.org/blog/?p=994

Idea incubation comes in seemingly unproductive times [CREATIVITY], [DETACHMENT], [PATIENCE], [CONFIDENCE]

Break Through by Taking Breaks

Posted: 17 Sep 2009

From Matthew E. May, In Pursuit of Elegance:

Ever wonder why our best ideas come when we're in the shower, driving, daydreaming, or sleeping? Most people know the story of Archimedes' shouting "Eureka!" upon suddenly discovering volume displacement while taking a bath and of Einstein's theory of special relativity coming to him in a daydream. But there are many others:

• Friedrich von Stradonitz's discovered the round shape of the benzene ring after dreaming about a snake biting its tail.

• Philo Farnsworth was plowing a field gazing at the even rows when the idea for projecting moving images line by line came to him, leading him to invent the first electronic television.

• Richard Feynman was watching someone throw a plate in the air in Cornell University's cafeteria when the wobbling plate with its red school medallion spinning sparked the Nobel Prize-winning idea for quantum electrodynamics.

• Kary Mullis, another Nobel winner, was driving along a California highway when the chemistry behind the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) came to him, stopping him in the middle of the road.

• Car designer Irwin Liu sketched the innovative new lines of what became the shape of the first Toyota Prius after helping his child with an elementary school science project involving the manipulation of hard-boiled eggs.

• Author J. K. Rowling was traveling on a train between Manchester and London, thinking about the plot of an adult novel, when the character of child wizard Harry Potter flashed in her mind.

• Shell Oil engineer Jaap Van Ballegooijen's idea for a snake oil drill came as he watched his son turn his bendy straw upside down to better sip around the sides and bottom of his malt glass.

When you look deeper into these ingeniously elegant solutions and brilliant flashes of insight you can see that they came at strange times and in random locations. They didn't occur while actually working on the problem but after an intense, prolonged struggle with it followed by a break. A change of scene and time away seems to have played a part.

Most "creatives"—artists, musicians, writers, etc.—instinctively know that idea incubation involves seemingly unproductive times, but that those downtimes and timeouts are important ingredients of immensely productive and creative periods. But until fairly recently the how, when, and why of being kissed by the muse was something of a myth and mystery, explained only by serendipity.

But now there's some hard science that shows it's not just coincidence.

Neuroscientists examining how the human brain solves problems can confirm that experiencing a creative insight—that sudden aha!—hinges on the ability to synthesize connections between seemingly disparate things. And a key factor in achieving that is time away from the problem. New studies show that creative revelations tend to come when the mind is engaged in an activity unrelated to the issue at hand; pressure is not conducive to recombining knowledge in new and different ways, the defining mark of creativity.

Neuroendocrinologist Ullrich Wagner has demonstrated that the ultimate break—sleep—actually promotes the likelihood of eureka! moments. He gave volunteers a Mensa-style logic problem to solve, one containing a hidden rule enabling the solution. The subjects were allowed to work on it for a while, then told to take a break. Some took naps, some didn't. Upon returning to the experiment to continue working on the problem, those who had taken a nap found the hidden rule quicker and much more often than those who hadn't.

Wagner believes that information is consolidated by a process taking place in the hippocampus during sleep, enabling the brain to clear itself and, in effect, reboot, all the while forming new connections and associations. It is this process that is the foundation for creativity. The result is new insight and the aha! feeling of the eureka! moment.

While no one yet knows the exact process, there's an important implication for all of us: putting pressure on ourselves to try and make our brains work harder, more intensely, or more quickly, may only slow down our ability to arrive at new insights. In other words, if you're looking to engineer a breakthrough, it may only come through a break. Your brain needs the calm before its storm.

Matthew E. May is the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing, and blogs here. You can follow him on Twitter here.

 

From OPEN Forum Articles

The Ability to Prioritize - Making room for what really matters [DETACHMENT], [EXCELLENCE], [WISDOM]

 

The Stop-Doing Strategy

Posted: 16 Sep 2009

From Matthew E. May, In Pursuit of Elegance:

In this recent interview, Campbell Soup CEO Douglas Conant defined his mission in taking the helm eight years ago as being, "to take a bad company and lift its performance to extraordinary by 2011." His strategy was simple enough: developing or keeping only products that ranked first or second in three major categories. That meant, among other things, selling the Godiva chocolate brand in 2008.

Jim Collins, best-selling author of Good to Great, commented on Conant's sale of Godiva by saying, "That gets my attention, when someone has the discipline to let go of what doesn't fit."

Collins firmly believes in the power of a "stop-doing" discipline, a practice that began taking shape during his early post-Stanford Business School career at Hewlett-Packard. On a return visit to the school early in his career, Jim's favorite former professor, Rochelle Myers, reproached him for his lack of discipline. An expert in creativity and innovation, she told him his unbridled energy was riding herd over his mental clarity, enabling a busy yet unfocused life.

Her words rang true: At the time, Jim's life was crowded with the commotion of a fast-tracking career. Her comment made him pull up short and re-examine what he was doing. To help, she did what great teachers do, constructing a lesson in the form of an assignment she called "20-10": Imagine that you've just inherited $20 million free and clear, but you only have ten years to live. What would you do differently—and specifically, what would you stop doing?

The exercise did precisely what it was intended to do: make Jim stop and think about what mattered most to him. It was a turning point for three reasons.

First, he realized he'd been racing down the wrong track, spending enormous energy on the wrong things. In fact, he woke up to the fact that he hated his job. He promptly quit and headed back to Stanford to launch a new career of research, teaching, and writing.

Second, the assignment became a constant reminder of just how important his time is. He now starts each year by choosing what not to do, and each of his to-do lists always includes "stop-doing" items. Collins preaches his practice, impressing upon his audiences that they must have a "stop-doing" list to accompany their to-do lists. As a practical matter, he advises eliminating the bottom twenty percent of your goals... forever.

Third, the strategy helped him identify what factors led the companies he was studying to become "great" while others remained merely "good." The great companies routinely eliminated activities and pursuits that did not significantly contribute to the following criteria: profit, passion, and perfection. All three criteria had to be met in order for any activity to remain in these great companies' repertoires.

In this editorial piece Collins said, "A great piece of art is composed not just of what is in the final piece, but equally what is not. It is the discipline to discard what does not fit—to cut out what might have already cost days or even years of effort—that distinguishes the truly exceptional artist and marks the ideal piece of work, be it a symphony, a novel, a painting, a company, or most important of all, a life."

In an economic environment where time, money and attention are fixed or decreasing, where we must achieve maximum effect with minimum means, having a good stop-doing strategy may hold the key. At the very least, it will allow us to make more room for what really matters by eliminating what doesn't.

Matthew E. May is the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing and blogs here. You can follow him on Twitter here

 

From OPEN Forum Articles

 

Being pro-active in down-times [ATTENTIVENESS], [ZEAL], [INTELLIGENCE], [PURPOSEFULNESS]

How A Business Owner Can Sleep Like a Baby During Tough Times

Posted: 19 Jun 2009

Be scared.  You can't help that.  But don't be afraid. ~ William Faulkner

One of the classic ways to find out what is really going on with a business owner or top-level executive these days is to ask, "What's keeping you up at night?"  Being a small business owner and a formally trained facilitator, I decided to take a different approach and asked 20 presidents of small businesses in marketing, interior design, insurance and a variety of other industries what's allowing them to get a good night's rest.  Here are the highlights of what they shared.

1.  Put in a good day's work. Jumping out of bed, getting to work early, being productive an extra hour or two at the end of a normal day if needed and staying focused and committed to growing the business — these were, of all the pointers, the ones most commonly shared.  No one wanted to be seen as a slacker, indecisive, depressed or out of touch with what's going on in the world.  The word "leader" came up in nearly every conversation or email, as did the importance of being looked at as one.

2.  Connect with upbeat, enthusiastic, high-energy people who share similar business concerns and offer up a whole host of action-oriented solutions to extraordinary day-to-day problems.  One of the things I heard time and time again is that it costs nothing to smile, and oftentimes we forget to do just that (not in a fake way) on a daily basis.  When we don't smile, it can bring a whole operation down into the doldrums — even when it needn't be.

3.  Communicate with the executive team and employees as often as possible to convey what's going on and the steps that are being taken to keep the company strong.  Actively seek input from every paid employee on how to improve the company's performance while maintaining profit margins.  These business leaders are involving everyone in everything, something they said they had not done up until now because they didn't think the employees needed to know.  Well, now they do.  Their lifestyle or job is on the line.

4.  Obsess over listening to customers, employees, vendors, colleagues and friends, and actually take action on what is said.  The presidents even report back to those who shared their thoughts and ideas on exactly what they did differently because of the information.  Of all the tools, this one has helped them the most to sleep peacefully at night.  It's very empowering to everyone.   It shows they really care.  It humanizes them.  And that's a good thing during a downturn.

5.  Emphasize a back-to-basics approach on everything, from how they buy office products to choosing cleaning services (do-it-yourself mentality) to who gets wooed over lunch or dinner for new business initiatives.  The key question to ask before spending money is:  Do we really, truly need this?

6.  Enhance everything they do, from response time to continuous improvement (quality) to total flexibility in how they manage projects.  If they did something in fourteen days, they do it now in four days, with half the number of people.  If a client says, "We're not sure if this will be a marketing, advertising or PR push," they say, "We can be flexible until you decide because we have the expertise to handle all or any one of those areas."

7.  Eliminate unnecessary expenses, from telephone bills (e.g., call waiting, call forwarding) to credit card balances to daily doughnut runs.  They are squeezing out every last little penny to keep their organizations as lean as possible.  An employee at one of their companies said, "We've put the business on a treadmill to trim waste."  No fat, no worries.

8.  Learn to not just live with but love uncertainty, the unpredictability of what's yet to come.  There's a certain strength (oftentimes you don't even know you have it until in a crisis mode) that comes over you when you acknowledge that this might not pass and could be forever.  The business leaders said they look at it this way: It's not your last dance; it's your first, so get in step.

9.  Reconfigure how to become a more nimble, value-added, innovative product, service or market creator. You can't get ahead in an environment like this unless you disrupt industries, trends or markets.  Their intent is to get out there and fire away with untried and untested ideas.  If they don't work, so what?  They said they'd fail fast and move on.  The goal is to generate revenue with a profit wherever and whenever possible.

Don't think of surviving.  Think of thriving.  Action, not words, says it all.  Imagine yourself five years from now and where you will be.  If you can envision it, you can do it.

As Faulkner says, you can be scared, you can't help that, but don't be so afraid that you cannot take appropriate action to move your organization forward.  Sleep well, dear reader.

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