Strategic Leadership Newsletter: Volume 4, Number 2

Jefferson Strategic Leadership Newsletter reports information relevant to the Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University) Doctor of Management Program in Strategic Leadership (DSL) and its community including personal and professional events and accomplishments, new practices, research, opportunities, and suggestions

Our Invisible Enemy

The novel coronavirus is invisible to the eye because it is microscopic measuring 80-160 nanometers in size; a nanometer is one billionth of a meter. While we cannot see it in the air or on a surface, millions of us have seen the virus in full color when we discuss it on the local and national TV news, in articles and stories online, and in print media. This is because the virus is routinely pictured and used to attract us to the information being presented. The paradox is that millions of people can now recognize this invisible enemy. Repeatedly presenting this image is a good idea. When we have a prototype design in mind, we more readily believe and act as if it is physically present. This means that we are more likely to believe and act in ways that can prevent, contain and protect ourselves and others

Strategic Leadership Newsletter: Volume 3, Number 4

Jefferson Strategic Leadership Newsletter reports information relevant to the Jefferson (Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University) Doctor of Management Program in Strategic Leadership (DSL) and its community including personal and professional events and accomplishments, new practices, research, opportunities, and suggestions. You are encouraged to forward the Newsletter to friends and colleagues to expand awareness and to brand yourself as a community member. You are also invited to recommend people or organizations to be added to the mailing list. Contact Jefferson Strategic Leadership Newsletter by emailing [email protected]

Disruptive Effects of the Coronavirus – Errors of Commission and of Omission?

It is increasingly evident that the coronavirus disease, COVID-19, is more than a health problem; it is and will continue to adversely affect work and workplaces, education, families and social engagements, political and environmental dimensions, and financial indicators. Apart from its health ramifications, the crisis is revealing serious challenges in the global supply chain. Those difficulties are, at least in part, consequences of unwise, short-sighted business decisions made over the course of decades to outsource and downsize

Structure and correlates of cognitive aging in a narrow age cohort

Aging-related changes occur for multiple domains of cognitive functioning. An accumulating body of research indicates that, rather than representing statistically independent phenomena, aging-related cognitive changes are moderately to strongly correlated across domains. However, previous studies have typically been conducted in age-heterogeneous samples over longitudinal time lags of 6 or more years, and have failed to consider whether results are robust to a comprehensive set of controls. Capitalizing on 3-year longitudinal data from the Lothian Birth Cohort of 1936, we took a longitudinal narrow age cohort approach to examine cross-domain cognitive change interrelations from ages 70 to 73 years. We fit multivariate latent difference score models to factors representing visuospatial ability, processing speed, memory, and crystallized ability. Changes were moderately interrelated, with a general factor of change accounting for 47% of the variance in changes across domains. Change interrelations persisted at close to full strength after controlling for a comprehensive set of demographic, physical, and medical factors including educational attainment, childhood intelligence, physical function, APOE genotype, smoking status, diagnosis of hypertension, diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, and diagnosis of diabetes. Thus, the positive manifold of aging-related cognitive changes is highly robust in that it can be detected in a narrow age cohort followed over a relatively brief longitudinal period, and persists even after controlling for many potential confounders

Systems View of Coronavirus

No one envisioned the kinds of problems that emerged from the novel coronavirus nor had anyone considered its interactive scope. Now is the time to begin to redesign our processes and systems so that when confronted again we can cope and navigate better. Everyone needs to be a partner in these redesigns and each of the health, social, educational, and other systems must be integrated because it is their interconnections that coproduce and give meaning to our lives