Bill Peel

I'm truly blessed.  My family and friends know that I love to read and get creative inspiration from a wide range of sources.  My mentee (and friend) Marium, recently gifted me with two books.  "In Pursuit of Inspiration," by Rae Dunn was provocative from cover to cover.  She believes, as do I, that "we are all born artists."  Consider this quote.  "Children need no artistic instruction.  When you put a crayon in a two-year old's hand, they instinctively begin to draw.  There is no hesitation, no inhibition, no resistance."  How true!   I often use an exercise in a facilitation session where I give the participants a sheet of paper and a large tip marker.  Each sheet is different and has one amorphous shape on it.  I ask them to draw something on the paper that uses the shape and tells the group something about them.  It's amazing how many of the people struggle with drawing it "right."  Given the ...

Winning  teams spend an inordinate amount of time preparing.  I recommend that you use a simple rule of thumb -  spend one-hour planning for every minute of presentation !  In other words, if you're preparing for a 30-minute presentation, invest a minimum of 30 hours in the research, planning, and rehearsal of the presentation.  The results speak for themselves!

It's amazing the ideas that arise when I'm on long drives through the countryside.  In the Fall of 2018, while traveling to attend a board meeting of The Jeffersonian Institute in Jefferson, Texas, I heard a program on National Public Radio ( NPR podcast ).   Thanks, Sirius.  You're my lifesaver on driving trips, along with Audible. The program told the story of how communities of people, large and small, were reading together, uniting diverse groups and creating a common cause.   The broadcast (check out the link) sparked an idea.  What if Mays Business School was reading the same book at the same time - students, faculty, staff and even former students. I pitched the concept to Bailey Urban, the energetic and vivacious leader of the Mays Transformational Leadership initiative, who was all over it.  As was the case in the communities profiled by NPR, I told her that we (Mays) would buy the books and give a copy to anyone who was willing to participa...

It was a pleasure to be interviewed as a part of the Texas A&M University College of Architecture “Lessons in Leadership” program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwWUVwIuFMU

I  was in a large lecture hall at Mays Business School, waiting for a presentation by the “U.S. National Elevator Pitch Champion.” Everyone in the room was at least four decades younger than me, but I was intrigued to hear from the widely celebrated speaker. He had just coached the A&M Pitch team to victory in the largest and most lucrative pitch competition in the world. That alone piqued my interest. In a quick moment a hand reached out and said, “I’m Chris! Thanks for being here.” As the evening unfolded, I was enthralled with how eloquently Chris Westfall shared his philosophy, his “Leadership Language,” and how he engaged and entertained the audience.  It’s challenging for this charisma to convey in writing, yet, this book articulates the foundation of Chris’ award-winning philosophy. I burned through two highlighters, and eventually had to change colors, to capture the points that resonate in his “10 Leadership Factors.” What looks like a simple (and possibly fast)...