If you are a data driven organization and measures of performance are important to you, it might be helpful to understand the measure that influences all other measures…. This great conversation is about cracking the code in creating a persistent measure of organizational trust that impacts the engagement and performance of your people.
Leadership=Trust. Now you can measure it. Now you can activate it.
Where does your future begin?
You are born, assimilated into a family and community culture. Go to school. Have experiences. And come out the other end with a worldview: a narrative of who you are and the world in which you live.
What is it that allows some to prosper, personally and professionally, in this story of our lives?
Zach Kosturos doesn’t answer that question. His life does. Listen to a Great Conversation about learning, being, and doing and see if you can find the upgrade we need to take to create the future we desire.
He stares out the window. Although he loves learning, he learns in a different way than formal education will allow. He loves helping people, especially if he can fix things for them. He would rather be working with his hands then sitting at a desk.
And, yet, we don’t have an educational system that works well for him. And we have a society that doesn’t necessarily honor his gifts unless it goes through the manufacturing system called college.
In this Great Conversation, we explore an alternative reality that is woven into the very fabric of the home that serves you, that provides you clean water, clean warm air, and takes away your sewage.
You will be surprised what the possibilities are for an 18 year old high school graduate, that surpasses in 4 years what they could achieve through a college degree.
Your team is in the room. It is a strategic moment. High risk, high reward. And you are the team leader. How do you help them navigate this moment of risk and opportunity?
This is happening in board rooms, executive management team meetings, and in organizational teams throughout your company. Do you have the language, processes, and tools embedded in your people so they can meet the moment that matters?
A different mindset is needed. One you vet for before hiring. One you ensure is part of the onboarding process. One that is persistently refreshed and used.
In this Great Conversation, we tease out whether Dr. Gav Schneider might have the recipe for this and whether it can break out from being a “security” program and into the mainstream toolbox for leaders up and down the corporate ladder. It is called “Presilience”.
Enjoy another Great Conversation on the future of work.
Infinite variation is problematic when it is an expression of your purpose and your processes. At the other end of the spectrum is infinite sameness. As a consumer you see the sameness in many products and services. How to choose? These are the bookends of a Great Conversation with the Founder and CEO of The Demand Creation Institute, Sean Stormes.
The stories we tell ourselves and others. The stories we fail to tell. They do matter. They define us and the things we create and the people we work with to create.
Stories change our world and the people within it.
This Great Conversation with a storyteller, Chris Hare, does not hold back on the sense of urgency we all need to have in capturing the essence of who we are and what we are creating.
My hope is that this spurs you to a Great Conversation so that you can write the story of your future.
David Nicastro: we will miss your physical presence in our lives. This is my reflection on your impact on me and the security industry.
We work all of our lives. Some of us retire with accolades from the organization we worked for; stories and attaboys from our peers. We achieve titles and honorifics that are then dutifully recorded in an obituary after we die. And that is okay. For those left to mourn. Perhaps even necessary.
But every once in awhile you run across somebody who wants to see you shine. And this is the thread that connects David Nicastro to all of us.
Before he contracted cancer, I had him on The Great Conversation Podcast in November 2021, so we could talk about the horrible situation that had occurred with the United States exit out of Afghanistan. several months before.
I urge you to listen to it.
You can hear his voice, filled with emotion, talk about the apex of his career; receiving letters in Dari, one of the official languages of Afghanistan, thanking him and his company for saving their lives. David can only think of one thing, they now had hope and they now had the freedom to pursue their dreams.
For David and his company, Secure Source, this was not unusual. Whether it was an individual in crisis or a community suffering a natural disaster, he was there.. Many of us had him on speed dial because he could feel your sense of urgency and respond in kind.
David, I am still carrying you with me; your smile that could light up a room, your sense of humor, and, most of all your stories of hope and dreams. Enjoy the podcast that is attached to the end of this blog and obituary.
David Wayne Nicastro, 71 years old, resident of Hansville, WA, passed away on July 1, 2024, after a year-long battle with metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Dave was born on December 19, 1952, the only child of Domenico Nicastro and Helen Shaffer in Providence, Rhode Island. Dave attended La Salle Academy and went on to join the US Marine Corps in 1971. He was stationed as a Sergeant at the US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon from 1973-1975.
In 1974, David met Marian Siderius, whose father, Colonel Robert Siderius, was positioned with the US Army as an Attaché in Lebanon. After returning to the United States, David attended the University of Maryland, majoring in criminology, David went on to work in the US Secret Service for President Jimmy Carter. He married Marian in 1977 and they had 3 children: Domenic, Rosemary and Elizabeth.
After leaving the Secret Service, David kickstarted his 40-year career in the private security industry by providing executive protection for dignitaries such as the Saudi royal family and notably the current King of Jordan and his siblings (while they were attending school in Washington, DC). In 1983, David accepted the position of Director of Global Security for Koch Industries in Wichita, Kansas.
In 1993, Dave founded Secure Source International in Grapevine, Texas, selling the company in 2007 and reinstating it again in 2010. He remained President and CEO until the time of his death. Dave loved the security industry, especially traveling the world and meeting people.
Dave was predeceased by his father Domenico and mother Helen as a child, but supported and loved by many aunts, uncles, and cousins, especially his cousins Claudia Nicastro-Batty and Leo Gannon. He is survived by his beloved wife Marian, children Domenic, Rosemary and Elizabeth, and grandchildren Amelia, Makenna, Kieran and Hoss.
Note: We will all be gathering to celebrate him and reconnect in his spirit. Here are the details:
Monday, Aug. 12 @ 2:00pm PDT
Location:
Failla & Hamer Residence
41195 Foulweather Bluff Rd NE
Hansville WA 98340
Do you ever feel stuck? Do you ever feel threatened? Does every new change threaten you?
When you have conversations with others, are you trying to win? Trying to defend a position?
Then, perhaps, you might be stuck.
In this great conversation with social researcher and author Michael McQueen, we learn what is is to be Mind Stuck, and how we might discover a new way to see and be seen.
We create tools. The tools help us off load burdensome tasks as well as act as highly leveraged fulcrums to expand our energy and minds. These tools have helped us create. They have helped us build. They have helped us cure disease. They have helped us mitigate threats, from both human and animal.
And now we have artificial intelligence. However, many of the implementations are failing because we are deploying management and process thinking from the industrial age.. Ironically, in the era of the machine we have become one.
Our great conversation with Brian Evergreen, author of Autonomous Transformation: Creating a more Human Future in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, is enlightening as we pause to consider our next steps on our path to value; as individuals, businesses, and the world.
We are all on the journey of becoming. And we hope and pray, that at the end of the journey we are whole. For all of us that means being loved for who we are. And to get there, we need to establish trust in ourselves and in others.
Trust. Could it be the foundation of everything we touch? Are we not all builders? And if so, wouldn’t we want to build all the relationships we have in this life on top of a platform of trust? And wouldn’t it make sense if that same platform that builds those relationships would be the fuel that drives innovation and change within the organizations we live and work in every day?
This is a great conversation that holds nothing back. This is not an easy fix; especially if you do not have a roadmap. This conversation is about that roadmap that will create the scaffolding that will help you build a beautiful business and a beautiful world.
Go to the dictionary. Go to the university. Go to your next event.
Wherever you go, you will find different paths to leadership proficiency. But if you pause a moment and look around, you will find people making a difference. Usually through others. What language are they speaking?
We have a great conversation with the author of Leadership Language and discover a level of authenticity that is effective and inspirational that we can adopt in our own circle of influence.
Lives of quiet desperation. We have been pulling on the quote from Thoreau for awhile in our great conversations. Our great conversation on the Future of Work with this dynamic and inspirational leader may provide you the nudge to seize this moment to recognize your impact on others and help create an engaged culture of impact and purpose with your team.
Whenever you attempt to capture knowledge it is useful to understand that it is a snapshot in time. Very little of what we learn will survive as true given the unique nature of change. However, it is a platform for growth as long as you have access to the real time experiences of change that are occurring. We explore this idea in this great conversation with a security consultant attempting to create a bridge between the rear view mirror and the road ahead. The conversation applies to any market anywhere.
We run a company. We want to attract great people. We want them highly engaged. We want them aligned with our core values and our mission. We want them to be innovative. We need them to be team players.
How do you create a process for doing so?
We have a great conversation with one of the great leaders who helped shape a well-known and respected leadership framework for a Fortune 100 company.
Get ready for a great conversation with Allan Church, P.h.D.
We are builders; in our markets and our world. We are given the opportunity to align our vision, mission, and goals with stakeholders who share our values. We impact their lives, personally and professionally. Our definition of wealth is creating something that has mattered to people, customers, markets, and the world. We are owners and we deeply want a path to that value.
I am interviewed for the first time on the methodology I call The Path to Value™. I was a reluctant interview. But one of my previous interviews convinced me to leave these footprints in the sand before time washed them away.
Join me in a great conversation.
I cannot imagine what it is like to be treated as if you are invisible. And I cannot imagine only being seen, labelled, and dismissed because of the color of your skin. But, as we all know, it happens. You have two choices when this occurs. Play the victim or play the game better than those who have dismissed you. This is a story of being invisible while “infusing the system to diffuse the system”. This is truly a Great Conversation with a new best selling author, Doug Melville, the multi-generational grandson of a collection of amazing men.
Love it or hate it, the term “Holy Grail” is often used in life and business to describe something that has always been unobtainable. The pursuit of the “unobtainable” takes patience and indomitable faith.
The pursuit of a leadership development program that can crack the code of an organization’s people, lifting them to a new level of engagement with the organization’s vision, mission, and purpose, feels unobtainable, especially given the millions of dollars invested and the meager measurable return on investment it has produced.
This Great Conversation with Dr. Daniel Hallak of WiLD Leaders, gave me hope in this “impossible” dream. Perhaps it will for you too.
At our best we are learners. And those who rise in their journey, are best equipped to be masters of their craft by the learning DNA. But as we go down the road, it might be useful to know where the major turns might be. As well, learn the risks and opportunities we might experience.
This is a Great Conversation with a accomplished observer of The Three Turns of an Executive Leader.
