Public television works hard to engage young learners and build the skills needed for a jump-start on life. We need our youngest to be curious, resilient and empathetic, and prepared for the jobs of the future.
In our society, I see public media as a lever. It pushes people by elevating them and their sights. It brings them into more thinking and understanding, and it brings us together.
In an organization that is unwilling to change, find the opportunity to talk and interact with people - figure out why they don't want to change. It could be habits. It could be people's personal equities and reputations are defined by the role they're in or the process they've mastered.
The military does very well taking average people and making them very good leaders.
America needs a restart. It has long devoted its energies to solving its many big problems - unequal opportunity, crumbling infrastructure, lagging education, inadequate training in a changing economy, and threats to peace around the world.
We are a nation of innovators and problem-solvers who sparked revolutions in democratic government, civil rights, communications, flight, rural electrification and technology. We are a country defined by ideals now in need of rescue.
The basic DNA we've got to implant in leaders now is adaptability: not to get wedded to the solution to a particular problem, because not only the problem but the solution changes day to day. Creating people who are hardwired for that is going to be our challenge for the future.
America needs a big idea that plays to its strength. It should look to national service.
We should get to the business of providing at least one million opportunities each year for young Americans to spend a service year with peers who are different from them - by race, ethnicity, income, politics and religious belief.
The reality is when you make 'America First' a bumper sticker and pump it overseas, what you're telling them is 'America Only'.
If we want to be members of the world community, we need to think that way.
My dad was always the soldier I wanted to be.
One of the big takeaways from Iraq was that you have to not lose confidence in what you are doing. We were able to go to the edge of the abyss without losing hope.
We want to make the insurgents come to us. Make them be the aggressors. What I want to do is get on the inside looking out - instead of being on the outside looking in.
Throughout history, the organizational evolution of the military has been inextricably linked with that of the business world.
Our bureaucracy had excelled at compartmentalizing intelligence - we had a 'need to know' system - but by 2004, it was impossible to foresee what elements of our organization would and would not need to know a given piece of information.
Industrial technologies that allowed for increased mechanization in 19th-century armed forces also spurred Frederick Winslow Taylor to develop his 'Scientific Management' doctrine in Philadelphia steel mills.
What I really want are students who want to partner with other people, to be part of an organization and to influence people so that they can accomplish things that the organization would not have accomplished otherwise.
There is no avoiding the realities of the information age. Its effects manifest differently in different sectors, but the drivers of speed and interdependence will impact us all. Organizations that continue to use 20th-century tools in today's complex environment do so at their own peril.
If you sit down with British officers or British senior NCOs, they understand the sweep of history. They know the history of British forces not just in Afghanistan but the history of British successful counter-insurgencies - Northern Ireland, Malaysia.
