Liz Handy just sent us a copy of a booklet for which she did the photography. It's a project she put together with a carers' group in part of the UK. Liz has a technique developed from David Hockney's montages (he did a huge Grand Canyon by sticking together Polaroids, you may remember). Liz's approach is to take photographs of people that represent different aspects of themselves, then put them into the same picture; so you will have three different versions of someone in different poses in the picture, representing the different facets of their life.

It occurs to me a lot of us are leading through a downturn - tough trading conditions, whatever you want to call it - for the first time. So, Douglas Adams' advice from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, is the best of all - Don't panic. Those of us who are old enough to have been through previous downturns are still here. You will be too. And so will your organization if you lead it right (no pressure, then).  

After the awful Madrid plane crash last week, I was contacted by Pedro Algorta, who survived a plane crash in the Andes in 1972. He asked me to look at his blog. Part of my interest in leadership is how ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things, and how leadership (self-leadership and with the help of other leaders) can make that happen. Sometimes we only become aware of our ability to perform at extraordinary levels when facing the unfaceable, as Pedro did. Here are the key learning points he says come out of his survival experience.

Spotted in Hub Member Nick McCormick's newsletter 'The Be Good News':

"The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.

The last is to say thank you.

In between, the leader is a servant." -- Max De Pree

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