UNCONVENTIONAL THINKING BLOG

When I was a boy, my parents introduced me to organized religion. It didn’t go well. From the start, it became clear that I wasn’t big on anything “organized.”

Through the years however, I searched for the great value religion brings: something grander and greater than yourself to believe in. I always believed in God, but never in the flawed men and women who stood at the lectern and pretended to be His messenger.

I recently watched the films, “Fargo” and “A Serious Man,” for what must be the 20th time each. What is so fascinating–beyond the directors’ extraordinary artistic capabilities–is the prism through which they view life.

I don’t think there’s any question that Steve Jobs is the greatest CEO\entrepreneur of all time.

Yes, Gates, Rockefeller, Kroc– these guys were all wonders in their own right, who lived and worked in another dimension. But Jobs’ ability to create, execute and create again, to rise, fall and return greater than he was in each previous incarnation– all of this makes him the best the world has ever seen. For the US, a national treasure.

In real life, things don’t come in neat packages. In fact, they are often messy affairs, deadly ones, with consequences that come flying at us with the speed and furor of a Kansas twister. Or worse.

No one knows this better than leaders. They have to face down ugly challenges where there is no right or wrong just bad and worse. And sometimes deadly.

In one way, it’s like the birth of Christ. It set up a line in history that separates all that came before and after it.

That would be the emergence, the rise, of Google.