Much of our education system is stubbornly stuck in old methodologies and beliefs and suggesting changes, as I have painfully learned, is not an easy sell. We have helped a few leading educators and their systems to achieve remarkable results – one school district using our methodologies to move from 800th to 200th in the nation in a few short years.

Fast Company,a frequent chronicler of unfolding trends, presents a brilliant article by Anya Kamenetz describing how mobile technology and open source software and apps are bringing education to students, at a lower cost, in the student’s preferred learning style, at a speed appropriate for each learner, in instantly translatable content, with tracking capabilities and complete mobility. What this means is that the technology industry has aligned with altruistic entrepreneurs to navigate around the bureaucracy and out-of-date thinking of our education system to deliver inspiring learning to students, despite the obstacles presented by a moribund system.

Recently, I asked an audience comprised of the faculty of a major teaching college why we continue to use Victorian teaching methods (and content) in an age when the average teen between 13-17 years old sends nearly 2,000 text messages each month. In other words, they endure an archaic system of communicating in the classroom, relieved by what they do in their real world as soon as they can escape. This is no way to inspire learning in young people who will very quickly grow into leadership positions in our society.

And if we also entirely omit teaching values, integrity, character, service and honoring the sacredness of others in our curricula – we have a recipe – a perfect storm – for developing dysfunctional adults.

But there is hope. As Fast Company reports, “The U.S. Department of Education has earmarked $5 billion in competitive school-reform grants to scale up pilot programs and evaluate best practices of all kinds. Major foundations are specifically zeroing in on handhelds for preschool and the primary grades.”

Let’s hope we learn how to make the grade. And let’s hope some of the brave teachers who are pioneering new ideas maintain their courage in a system that can sometimes present a hostile environment for breakthrough ideas. We need these leaders now, because they are developing our leaders of tomorrow.

From a distance, each horse looks like any other horse. But if you stop your car, or are walking by, you will notice something quite amazing.

Looking into the eyes of one horse will disclose that he is blind. His owner has chosen not to have him put down, but has made a good home for him.

This alone is amazing.

If you stand nearby and listen, you will hear the sound of a bell. Looking around for the source of the sound, you will see that it comes from the smaller horse in the field. Attached to the horse’s halter is a small bell. It lets the blind friend know where the other horse is, so he can follow.

As you stand and watch these two friends,you’ll see that the horse with the bell is always checking on the blind horse, and that the blind horse will listen for the bell and then slowly walk to where the other horse is, trusting that he will not be led astray.

When the horse with the bell returns to the shelter of the barn each evening, it stops occasionally and looks back, making sure that the blind friend isn’t too far behind to hear the bell.

Like the owners of these two horses, God does not throw us away just because we are not perfect or because we have problems or challenges. He watches over us and even brings others into our lives to help us when we are in need.

Sometimes we are the blind horse being guided by the little ringing bell of those who who have been placed in our lives.

Other times we are the guide horse, helping others to find their way.

Good friends are like that – you may not always see them, but you know they are always there.

Please listen for my bell. And if you are the one wearing the bell, then I’ll listen for yours. |And remember – be kinder than necessary.  It is inspiring.

Adapted from an unknown source but sent to me by by friend Wally Amos at http://www.chipandcookie.com/

As I was I checking out one early morning following a recent stay, one of the many delightful front desk staff looked at me, gave a great big smile, and said, “Oh, I just LOVE how you did your hair this morning!”  I am including a picture of my hair here so you understand the brilliance of this remark!

Following a stay there last week, I received an e-mail from the CEO of the hotel.  It said, “Dear Dr. Secretan, Thank you for staying at 21C Museum Hotel. We just have to know…Did you love us? And more importantly…Will you be back? You see, for us, that’s a biggie. Each day we strive to win new fans for 21c and we always want to ensure our loyal fans keep coming back”.

These are times where those in the travel industry – especially the hotel and airline businesses – are reducing service levels (one of the largest chains recently removed the daily delivery of USA Today) and are cost-cutting wherever they can. They blame the economy, a reduction in travelers, and how little travelers are spending.  But as leaders, we get what we expect, and what we intend. So if  you are 21C Museum Hotel, you simply invest more, train more, innovate more and please customers more.

And – VOILA! – you win the Conde Nast “Best Hotel in America” Award.

OK, let’s review this one more time:  slash costs, lay off people, and reduce service levels = a decline in fortunes.  Do the opposite and we achieve increased levels of excellent performance on top and bottom lines that flies in the face of naysayers. QED.  Any questions?

What are the top skills that should be taught to every man, woman, and child who enters our education system? Here are a few that aren’t taught at all:

1. How to Make People Like You and Network

For a skill that affects every area of your life (from dating, to family, to work), its amazing how little people know about this. There is great power in knowing you can reach out to your network whenever you have a problem to solve, to be able to reach key influencers at conferences and meetings, to make an impression on audiences, to project confidence and trustworthiness, and to make friends with other successful people.

Required reading: How to Win Friends and Influence People and How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships.

2. How to Speed Read and the Power of Audio Books

Speed reading and speed comprehension is real. The nominal investment of time it takes to learn pays off in spades for the rest of your life. The same goes with audio books. If you spend an hour per day in the car learning instead of cursing at other drivers, you will have attended the equivalent of an entire semester course.

Required reading: The Psychology of Achievement by Brian Tracey

3. How to Set Goals and Manage Time

Want to know how to get anything done in life? Our school system doesn’t feel that this is worth teaching. If you have ever found yourself being busy all day only to wonder what you accomplished at the end of it, then you need to learn this.

Required reading: Getting Things Done, Eat That Frog, No B.S. Time Management For Entrepreneurs

4. How to Read a Financial Statement

Robert Kiyosaki is fond of saying that the rich teach their children how to read financial statements and the poor do not. Schools have never been very good at teaching people how to get rich, probably in no small part because professors are generally poor and wouldn’t know how to teach it.

Required reading: Cash Flow Quadrant, or this blog article

5. How to Negotiate and Use Contracts

If you want to accomplish anything of significance you’re going to have to work with other people. There is a certain art to structuring good contracts and measuring results. School teaches you none of this and most people have to learn it from the school of hard knocks.

Required reading: Donald Trump’s The Art Of The Deal

6. How to Save and Invest

People are never taught how to build wealth, which is why the nation is in credit card debt. Moreover, people are never taught the power of passive income streams and how to really break free from the rat race of working 9-to-5. There is a whole body of literature on this topic which is never even touched upon in traditional education.

Required reading: The Richest Man In Babylon, The Millionaire Next Door, or Ben Franklin’s The Way To Wealth

7. How to be Successful in Life

Some people have devoted a lifetime to understanding what makes people happy and successful. There are the big three: health, wealth, and relationships. People need to find what they really want to do with their life. There is a lot to learn here!

Required reading: What To Say When You Talk To Yourself, When I Say No I Feel Guilty, Think and Grow Rich, The Way Of The Superior Man

8. How to Spread an Idea and Basic Marketing

The basics of marketing are something everyone should understand. Even if you don’t think you’re in marketing, you’re in marketing. If you have an idea at work, or want to get a raise, or want to convince your kids to go see a movie, then there is something applicable from the marketing world.

Required reading: Dan Kennedy’s The Ultimate Sales Letter, CopyBlogger, The Psychology of Influence

Rushworth Kidder, whose thoughts and writings are always insightful, has recently completed a small pilot survey of members of the Institute for Global Ethics, of which he is the executive Director. The question: What is the most threatening global issue facing humanity today?

Is it terrorism, violence against women, CO₂ emissions, governmental corruption, mass migration, water scarcity, or slavery?

Since the questions in the survey were based on the 15 major issues catalogued in the 2007 “State of the Future” report from the United Nations-affiliated Millennium Project, Kidder’s team asked one of the report’s co-authors, Theodore J. Gordon, to join a follow-up conference call with the survey participants. Gordon conceived of the Millennium Project in the 1980s and remains one of the world’s most highly respected futurists. He’s been studying future issues and trends since well before 1971, when he founded his own consulting firm, The Futures Group. So his answer was surprising.

Of the nine topics in the survey, respondents clustered three of them near the top: terrorism, CO₂ emissions, and mass migration. They followed with a group of five more: corruption; violence against women; global slavery; disease, AIDS, and pandemics; and imbalanced wealth distribution. The ninth issue, shortage of medical professionals, came in well below the rest.

But Gordon said it’s none of the above. He said, “If you look at all of these issues,” he said “and ask what’s common to them all, its lousy decision making.”

“There used to be a time,” Gordon continued, “when I thought futures research, my field, would make its contribution by improving decision making. But I’ve abandoned that thought. We could have the best insight into what the future might be through magic techniques not yet invented and decisions would still be terrible!” Translation: It’s not the specific issues that challenge us, but the way we fail to deal with issues of every sort.

Kidder writes, “That strikes me as a remarkable admission for a man whose life has been devoted to advancing and promoting futures research. Gordon wouldn’t want me to hold him up to unfair comparisons, but if Einstein after decades of work had told us that something mattered more than physics, or if Cezanne had concluded that painting wasn’t what it was all about, or if Darwin had intimated that he was outgrowing his commitment to evolution, wouldn’t we pay attention?”

I find in the organizations that I work for that there is a general weakness in the crispness and discipline of decision making. Too often, it is a disorganized process which relies more on positional power, ego and forces that psychologists call “the shadow” the personal foibles and demons that we all possess.

It’s not that the big issues are not important, but as long as we lack the will and the training to make high quality decisions, rooted in integrity, that are in the best long-term interests of our constituents, we will lurch from one crisis to another and be forever searching for a better decision than the last one.