
“The time will come when our successors will wonder how we could have been ignorant of a thing so obvious.”
— Seneca
Leaders begin with a powerful vision, communicate that vision relentlessly, and then execute on it.
But it starts with setting the vision so that every stakeholder understands what they’re trying to achieve.
Without that common ground—that shared experience—we lack the ability to move at the same pace or in the same direction.
That is, when we inhabit the same space but have a fundamentally different view of reality or of morality, it’s untenable.
A House Divided
When he accepted the nomination for U.S. Senator for Illinois in 1858, Abraham Lincoln gave his famous House Divided speech. The country was riven by the issue of slavery. Democrats were slave-holding oligarchs, Republicans were the party of the free north that opposed the expansion of slavery.
His opponent, Senator Stephen Dougl…
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