Leadership Skills from Captain Kirk

As a long-time Star Trek fan, one of my favorite stops during a mid-west vacation last year was at the Future Birthplace of James T. Kirk in Riverside, Iowa. I love the time-travel irony - Future Birthplace indeed.

It's funny how often Star Trek pops up. The first space shuttle (experimental only alas) was called Enterprise.

At the Armstrong Air & Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio you can take your photo alongside lifesize images of all the Star Trek captains (pictured above). 

In college a roommate wrote a paper comparing McCoy, Spock and  Kirk to the Id, Ego and Super Ego respectively.

Natuarally a blog entitled Five Leadership Lessons From James T. Kirk, in Forbes magazine no less, caught my attention:

1. Never Stop Learning
Kirk’s reputation at the Academy was that of a “walking stack of books”. (Before the reboot in the recent movie which made him more of a rebel.) He defeated a Gorn in personal combat becuase he recalled how to make gun powder and a primitive gun in an age of phasers. He out-thought the "unwinnable" Kobayashi Maru test and beat it.

2. Have Advisors With Different Worldviews
The original Star Trek had a dynamic with Kirk, Spock and McCoy that was never again matched. Three very different worldviews working together, not always peacefully.

3. Be Part of the Away Team
It was never very realistic that Kirk led the Away Teams into danger alongside the red shirts. But it was fun and is often a sign of great leadership when the leader rallies the men from the front lines. The next generation was more typical with Picard on the ship and Riker (his #1) leading the Away Teams.

4. Play Poker, Not Chess
Life is more like poker with bluffs then the rigid rules of chess. Kirk was a master of the bluff and outthinking his opponent.

5. Blow up the Enterpirse?
Kirk's first love of his life was the Enterprise. But in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock he destroys it in order to defeat the Klingons and take their ship. Good leaders are driven by passion but that passion can lead to a dead-end if blindly followed, never changing. Great leaders know when to curb their passion, setting aside past successes that have reached their peak, and begin something new.

Bottom Line

Just like James T Kirk,

"we need to keep exploring and learning. We need to ensure that we encourage creativity and innovation by listening to the advice of people with vastly different opinions. We need to occasionally get down in the trenches with the members of our teams so we understand their needs and earn their trust and loyalty. We need to understand the psychology of our competitors and also learn to radically change course when circumstances dictate. By following these lessons, we can lead our organizations into places where none have gone before."
- Alex Knapp

Walt Disney

"I don't make pictures just to make money. I make money to make more pictures."
-Walt Disney

On this day, Dec 15, 1966, Walt Disney passed away at age 65. This year also marks the 110th anniversary of Walt's birth on Dec 5, 1901. I was raised on everything Disney with Micky Mouse & friends on the wall, Disney records as Christmas gifts (I still love the soundtracks to Robin Hood and Aristocats), Disney story books, Wonderful World of Disney on TV, watching Jungle Book at the theater, visits to Walt Disney World, etc. This all seemed quite natural at the time but an article on PJ Media points out Disney was quite the innovator and "invented" many of the experiences I took for granted.

1. Animation

Steamboat Willie (1928), starring Mickey Mouse, is credited as the first animation synchronized with sound and music. Watch it on Youtube to see how clever it was and remember - sound was NEW! Four years later Disney produced Flowers And Trees (1932) in Technicolor and won the first Academy Award for animation. The Old Mill in 1937 was the first short film to use a multiplane camera and it also won an Oscar. [Multiplane means the sun/moon is painted an one cell layer, then middle ground, then foreground and then the "actors" on top. They are stacked with space between each layer and filmed together. The advantage is 3-D depth to the film; you can move in for a close up and the moon in the sky remains small while objects in the top cells get larger.]  1937 also saw the release of "Disney's Folly", a full length cartoon called  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. To the surprise of everyone (but Disney) it was a smash success and won another Oscar for Walt (along with seven honorary dwarf Oscars presented by Shirley Temple).  Disney never stopped experimenting with Animation. Fantasia (1940) mixed classical music with dinosaurs & dancing hippos; Song of the South (1946) mixed live actors with animation.

2. Education

Disney "had a long history of commitment to artists’ training." He held regular classes taught by masters of various media. Zookeepers brought live animals in for the animators to learn how to replicate natural movement. Many animators that created companies to rival Disney were trained by Disney studios. Walt promoted the creation of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and the school opened on land donated by the studio.

By the way, something to look for in recent Disney films; not content just to copy from the past, each film has a visual theme that motivates the animators. In Hercules look for Greek design with red/black colors, sharp angles, pottery & patterns. Look at the Asian animation style in Mulan, etc.

3. Merchandising

We expect toys from films today but Disney was a trailblazer in merchandising.  The studio earned 2.5 to 5% royalty on every item bearing the image of Mickey Mouse (and they are legion). Some of his movie/TV songs became hits like “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” and  Davy Crockett. You would think Hollywood had learned the power of merchandising from Disney but when George Lucas made Starwars, Hollywood saw little profit in it and let Lucas keep all the merchandising rights (big mistake).

4. TV

As early as the 1930's Disney refused to sell the rights to his films to others,

…everybody wanted to buy all our old product. We wouldn’t sell it. We wouldn’t hear of it. We wanted to handle it ourselves, make good use of it.

And indeed he did make "good use" of his films. He discovered he could release the films every 7 years to profitable runs. He made a TV Christmas special in 1950 on NBC and another the following year. In 1954 Disneyland the TV series debuted on ABC with a mix of B&W and color. A few years later he moved to full color back on NBC with  Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.  Walt reused films and created new content for his Wonderful World series. He also started another new hit show, The Mickey Mouse Club. Today we have an entire TV channel owned by and featuring Disney material.

5. Theme Parks
An entire park dedicated to cartoons? Who would have believed it? Since 1955, "Disney theme parks led the industry as the gold standard of excellence in amusement park entertainment."

Bottom Line

PJ Media sums it up nicely,

"Disney filled many roles in his 65 years: artist, husband and father, philanthropist, anti-Communist, filmmaker, and even the original voice of Mickey Mouse. But his greatest role was as an American innovator. From animation to television to theme parks Disney left his mark on our culture and enhanced our lives."

P.S.

The 1928 release of Steamboat Willie resounds to this very day. It's my personal theory that Disney Studios will do anything to keep the copyright from expiring on Mickey Mouse. In copyright law 1923 is a special date, all books and other works published before 1923 have expired copyrights and are in the public domain. Works from 1923-1963, published with notice and with copyright renewed, are protected for 95 years. In theory Mickey becomes public domain in 2023 but as has happened many times in the past century, US copyright keeps getting extended for longer and longer periods. In 1998 the Sonny Bono Act (also called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act by Lawrence Lessig) added 20 years of copyright protection keeping Mickey Mouse from entering the public domain in 2003.

The Alien Eel?

Dallas: [looks at a pen being dissolved by alien's blood] I haven't seen anything like that except, uh, molecular acid.
Brett: It must be using it for blood.
Parker: It's got a wonderful defense mechanism. You don't dare kill it.
-from the movie Alien

If you saw the movie Alien (and then Aliens, 2, 3, etc) you may remember that the monster had a double set of jaws. Inside her mouth of very sharp teeth there was a second mouth with yet more teeth. What an amazing imagination of the monster designer! Or was it imagination?

The moray eel has a second set of jaws in its throat that can launch forwards, like the movie Alien. It bites prey with the first set, and then pulls them in with the second set.

(Image from a clever site called Nature Wants to Eat You which features the jaws of many odd creatures.)

Researchers had to use high speed photography to capture these internal jaws in action. These natural forceps dart forward faster than a blink to seize the flesh of their prey and pull it down the gullet. Just like the movie. And yet the eel jaws are a recent discovery so the monster designer deserves credit for imagining something long before it was discovered in real life.

Bottom Line

Truth is stranger than fiction! (or at least as strange)

May the Force be with You

“I’m Luke Skywalker, I’m here to rescue you.”
- Star Wars 4

PasteMagazine.com has a wonderful article,

Celebrate Star Wars Day with These Sweet Propaganda Posters

Star Wars Day was May 4 (may the 4th be with you). Here are two posters. There are many more including posters from the Empire's point of view. Enjoy!

 

Scouting - fun or survival?

“Her recommendations for a campsite were totally unsuitable. There were no outlets. And there was dirt, and bugs, and ... it rains there. So anyway, we've found a place that's much more us: the Beverly Hills Hotel.” – movie Troop Beverly Hills, 1989

We are a spoiled and pampered generation. My grandparents were used to slaughtering a pig and using all the parts. The bristles become brushes. The blood became “head cheese”. They knew how to “rough it”.

For a while my wife and I enjoyed tent camping. But not backpacking into the rugged wilderness; we traveled by car and stayed at sites with running water & showers. Usually we had a great time. But the thrill of “roughing it” failed in one park when our tent was pitched next to a camper RV with A/C, TV, a kitchen and all the comforts of home.

Many survivalists have noted that Boy Scouts is suffering from the same decline into a suburban lifestyle. There is a belt loop for Computers and one option on the Art Webelos badge is computer-generated graphics. As Den leaders we are afraid to let the 8-10 year-olds handle a knife and our meeting location, a church, has a policy against fires. Hopefully they will learn survival skills as Boy Scouts.

Or maybe not. Survival experts often recommend the Boy Scout handbook as a guide, but only ones published before 1970. Modern Scouts lack the rough mountain man skills of making your own tent and foraging for your food. The edition favored by “preppers” is the 1911 edition that can be download for free at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/29558.

Popular books for teaching survival skills include:
The Dangerous Book for Boys
The American Boy's Handybook Of Camp Lore And Woodcraft
Boy Scouts Handbook: The First Edition, 1911

Bottom Line

I recommend the movie “Troop Beverly Hills” for a fun look at scouting and what really matters (people). A Den Mother from Beverly Hills is a failure at teaching fire skills, knots, first aid, etc. But she and the girls have a great time when she invents new badges for jewelry appraisal, hair styling, fashion, shopping, and other skills suitable for Beverly Hills. But things get ugly at a Jamboree when her girls have to complete against girls who were taught to win at any cost.

Den Mother – “I may be a beginner at some things, but I've got a black belt in shopping!”

Likewise the Boy Scouts of America has adapted to the times and teaches young boys to live in the modern world, not the wilderness. Whether this is good or bad depends on your point of view – do you focus on the existing world or focus and worry about what might happen? I suggest an 80/20 spilt. Make the best of this world but spend some time and resources preparing yourself for emergencies and the future.