Sir John Monash and the Shrine of Remembrance

Posted on March 11, 2019April 13, 2019 by Adrian Farrell

Sir John Monash had one more campaign to fight in 1927 before planning to retire gracefully. For over a decade there had been a groundswell of public support for a memorial to be built in Melbourne to commemorate the 19,100 Victorians who lost their lives and for the 89,000 who served in the First World War. But the form it should take and where it should be located had not reached a consensus. Monash was determined to break the impasse, just like he had broken through the stalemate on the Western Front. Having Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance built would be another defining event in his life and a project most dear to his heart.

Sir John Monash and the Shrine of Remembrance [1, 2] Continue reading→

Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War

Posted on December 22, 2017January 17, 2018 by Adrian Farrell

The Can-Do Wisdom of Florence Nightingale – Part 2 examines the brief period of Florence Nightingale’s public life covering her first nursing experience and then as Superintendent of female nurses at the Scutari Military Hospital in Constantinople during the Crimean War. This is where her knowledge and organizational skills, her observations, her leadership, her network of contacts, and her communications abilities were used to ‘get things done’ when others said it ‘couldn’t be done’.

Florence Nightingale Receiving the Wounded at Scutari[1]Continue reading→

Vincent Lingiari – Savvy Leader of the Wave Hill Station Walk-off

Posted on October 25, 2017August 22, 2019 by Adrian Farrell

Vincent ‘Tommy’ Lingiari’s leadership of the Gurindji people at the time of the Wave Hill Station walk-off in 1966 was a major contribution to the Australian Aborigines struggle for justice and land rights.

Vincent (Tommy) Lingiari AM
13 June 1908 – 21 January 1988[1]
For some 60,000 years these people had successfully managed themselves and their land, an area in the upper reaches of what is now called the Victoria River, some 600 kilometers south of Darwin. Then the first white settlers arrived in the 1880s with huge numbers of cattle. The lives of the Gurindji people would never be the same again.Continue reading→

John Kotter – Leading Change Guru

Posted on April 28, 2017April 29, 2017 by Adrian Farrell

When Professor John Kotter published his seminal work on leading change there was something unusual about this 197-page book written by an academic; there were no references to other works, nor was there a bibliography.

Dr. John P. Kotter
The centrepiece of the book was an 8-step process for leading change. Kotter didn’t even claim credit for this as he said he gleaned it from observing what successful leaders actually did in transforming their organisations and from other cases that had failed.
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John Boyd – Misunderstood Genius of Warfighting

Posted on March 30, 2017April 9, 2019 by Adrian Farrell

How does one begin to pay homage to a warrior like John Boyd? He was a towering intellect who made unsurpassed contributions to the American art of war.
– General Charles C. Krulak, Commandant U.S. Marine Corps

Col John R. Boyd U.S. Air Force (Ret)
23 Jan 1927 – 9 Mar 1997
The UN-dictated rules of engagement for the allied forces operating against North Korea were quite specific. No pilot was to go across the Yalu River into Manchuria (China) under any circumstances. But this didn’t stop Lieutenant John Boyd and his flight leader, RAF exchange officer Jock Maitland, and others from breaking the rules from time to time.
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Cardinal George Pell – Does his leadership pass the wisdom test?

Posted on March 4, 2016May 25, 2016 by Adrian Farrell

Without wise leadership, a nation falls; there is safety in having many advisers.
– Proverbs 11:14

The testimony of Cardinal George Pell to Australia’s Royal Commission into child sexual abuse confirms the crisis in leadership in the Catholic Church – not just in his leadership but also of bishops, cardinals and even the Pope.

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