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• The pharmaceutical firm that keeps selling a profitable medication though its researchers know it has significantly adverse side effects
• The hospital that tolerates physicians’ abusive behavior though aware of the distraction their conduct causes during day-to-day practice
• The automobile manufacturer that conceals a discovered defect that could cause fatalities rather than absorb the costs of expensive product recalls

Organizational disasters have resulted recently from each of these fact patterns. I know I’m not alone in noticing how the same kinds of action keep causing avoidable catastrophes.

I recently facilitated a session for senior leaders of a public utility. In all ways, they were confident that they successfully lived by their values, with one exception: accountability.

I had the recent opportunity to participate as a panelist at the Women in Cable Television (WICT) Event held in Seattle. Grace Killelea, Senior Vice President at Comcast, offered a keynote on The Four Cornerstones of Staying Essential.

Can business culture learn a lesson from the high-priced gasoline culture?

Last Friday I dead-lifted 260 pounds. In other words, I picked up a 45-pound bar with 107.5 pounds attached to each end and stood it straight up. It was heavy. It was also one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done in my life.

I’ve thought a lot about leadership over the past few years – it’s what every firm says it needs to build better, more efficient, inclusive ethical and lawful workplaces. Go to any bookstore and the shelves will be lined with first-person or biographical accounts of epic leaders –Washington, Lincoln, King, Patton, Schwarzkopf, Welch, Jobs, Gates. Those leaders are few and far between, and most of us read about them hoping to find nuggets of wisdom we can apply.