“You got to love all your players. And the ones that are toughest to love need the love the most….The job as a coach, like you are of service and you can’t just pick who you want to play….You have to figure out that effective way.”

-Pat Murphy, coach of the World Series Champion Milwaukee Brewers. This quote comes at 13:10 in his post-game press conference.

Coach Murphy’s remark provides one of the most condensed expressions of the leadership philosophy to which I’ve been long committed that I’ve ever heard. It came in the middle of ample reason to celebrate, for the fans, the people of Wisconsin, the city of Milwaukee, my Brewers-loving family, and for a team that I’ve listened to on the radio while driving endlessly in service to Clients while providing for my family and covering medical bills during my first spouse’s seemingly endless years of illness. Love for them and love for Clients was and is the motivation, even when love is complicated.

So, through tears of rejoicing and elation after a first-ever championship, my heart swelled even more to hear the coach of the team start with love rather than animosity and with deep listening and perception over threatening behavior, calling forth gifts instead of expecting accolades, sharing the leadership through developing others instead of manipulating, expressing humility rather than braggadocio, pointing to the work of others instead of claiming a self-made victory.

• This is what I want to offer Clients.

• This is what we want our Maestro-level Leaders Cohort participants to experience, and then bring to the workplaces they steward.

Future value is found in humble service, a heroism found in working the fundamentals day in and day out, and loving others as they grow into their own awareness of the contribution they can make to a team that wins.

A World Series win, won this way, has me hoping that humans can beat the fever of hatred, alienation, self-loathing, and desire to destroy. May we return to love as something offered first, even when it is not yet, and maybe never, returned.

-mark l vincent

“Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family.” - Proverbs 7:4

This brief note comes each Sunday morning to: (1) Maestro-level leader cohort participants, (2) Executive Advising clients, (3) and colleagues. You can opt out at any time. You are welcome to share with others. Your brief, thoughtful contributions are welcome. ©Maestro Suite Advisors. All Rights Reserved.

“Stand by your agreement and attend to it, and grow old in your work.”

-Ecclesiasticus 11:20

We can read a line like this as we read any leadership poster: a quick glance, a nod, and on we go. But what does it ask of us? To keep our word, work hard, and die at our desk? Surely there’s more to it.

Let’s read it again, stopping to consider, bringing curiosity:

—What was my agreement, and what does it mean to attend to it?

—What is my work, and how do I grow old in it?

An executive’s work is stewardship of the enterprise’s mission: advancing it and preparing others to carry it forward. Sometimes that stewardship means stepping out of a role so others can take it up. The work continues, even when we no longer occupy the captain’s chair.

To grow old in our work is not to stay fixed in time. It is to keep learning and growing—and to know when to step out of leadership while continuing to develop others.

Learning brings us into contact with our shadows and limits, as well as deeper wisdom and skill. It teaches us to perceive and seize the moments before us, not only to think in chapters or seasons. And it asks us to build others’ capacity to carry the work forward, perhaps to new heights, though not always as we hope.

This is the agreement we signed up for: to keep advancing the mission, keep learning, and prepare others to carry it forward. So let’s grow old in our work by continuing to do it.

-mark l vincent

“Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family.” - Proverbs 7:4

This brief note comes each Sunday morning to: (1) Maestro-level leader cohort participants, (2) Executive Advising clients, (3) and colleagues. You can opt out at any time. You are welcome to share with others. Your brief, thoughtful contributions are welcome. ©Maestro Suite Advisors. All Rights Reserved.

Are we ever balanced?

Aren’t we always moving to and from from our centeredness?

Always!

Some rebalancing feels easy….sort of and on occasion.

• Example: not ordering dessert at the restaurant.

Sometimes we can’t find the center and harm results.

• Example: pushing harder to win a point in an argument when you’ve already gone far enough.

Stopping rarely happens precisely on the balance point with no further adjustment needed.

We are more likely to stop at the outer edge,

when we deny that we face away from the center,

when we’ve lost vision and choose the extreme.

Then we aren’t just stopped.

We are stuck,

surrendered and oblivious

We are choosing not to live with needed and simultaneous force and counter-force.

To balance, to come close,

is to be present, conscious, aware,

not escaping into inattention and unconscious behaviors.

It isn’t balance if we stop the balancing act because we think we are centered.

The more balanced a person seems, the more you can be assured oppositional forces are dynamically at work to keep them upright.

Back and forth.

Not stopped or stuck.

And we live and lead on.

-mark l vincent

Going Deeper: Marketing Balancing Marketing Objectives

Balancing is not always a linear back and forth. Sometimes it is rotational, or a 360 wobble at any point across a diameter because all angles effect all angles. That is, balancing is not just a place between two points. More often, it is among a variety of counter-weighted tensions. You can see this in Sage Group Collective Member Laura Patterson’s book Marketing Metrics in Action: Creating a Performance-Driven Marketing Organization.

Her simple diagram on p.29 shows the balance a performance-driven marketing organization must find among market acquisition, market penetration and market monetization.

We might want to think of balance as something more for the personal habits side of life, or making the most of both work and life (why we do we say this as if work is not part of life?). But balance among is something you find everywhere when you begin to look. And when your eyes are open to it, you also have opportunity to be less helpless and hapless amidst countervailing forces. After all, that is how one experiences the thrill of surfing.

For Your Backpack:

The Maestro Effect: Future Value, Succession, and Legacy in Business.

Special Offer! Are you a senior leader? Are you thinking more about careful succession planning?

Between now and 31 December 2026, if you complete the Third Turn Assessment, we will send you a copy of the book detailing the Maestro-level Leaders approach.

There is no follow up email or phone call unless you specifically request one.

Use this link to complete the assessment and provide your shipping information.

About the Sage Group Collective

*The Sage Group Collective is a curated circle of experienced executive leaders and facilitators designed for leaders facing complex, high-stakes decisions that benefit from disciplined peer wisdom and outside perspective.*

For leaders in their Second and Third Turn — especially Maestro-level leaders carrying questions of continuity, succession, enterprise value, and stewardship — the Collective provides focused Case Conversations that help clarify the real issue, widen the field of insight, and support better executive judgment.

Learn more:

• Sage Group Collective website

• Sage Group Collective on LinkedIn

“A leader is best when people barely know that he exists... When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say: We did this ourselves.”

-Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching

A successor can inherit the seat and still deliver more of the same. That may feel safe. It may even look “competent.” But if the work you carried in your Third Turn is about shaping what comes next—not just preserving what is—then “more of the same” is not continuity. It is drift.

Let’s let that sink in for a moment….

This is why naming a successor is so hard. You are identifying them with future value in mind, not managing what already exists, especially those elements that must give way to what is next, many of which are expressions of your leadership.

When you are no longer in the mix, what is going to happen?

• Will people and their workstreams revert to familiar habits, especially because you are no longer the main supplier of pressure?

• Will your methods be copied without folks understanding the original intent?

• Will your team protect yesterday’s wins at the expense of tomorrow’s relevance under a new leader?

A successor does not merely take your seat; they inherit responsibility for the future.

Which means the most important hand-off is often not operational. It is philosophical:

• What are we here to protect?

• What are we here to change?

• What must remain non-negotiable?

• What must be re-imagined?

The best succession work I know has this in mind: “We aren’t giving you my job. You are receiving the emerging set of opportunities and problems.”

May your needed courage to do this keep on growing!

-mark l vincent

“Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family.” - Proverbs 7:4

This brief note comes each Sunday morning to: (1) Maestro-level Leader cohort participants, (2) Executive Advising Clients, and (3) colleagues. You can opt out at any time. You are welcome to share with others. Your brief, thoughtful contributions are welcome. ©Maestro Suite Advisors. All Rights Reserved.

“The love all…sultans feel for paintings, illustrations and fine books can be divided into three seasons. At first they are bold, eager and curious. Rulers want paintings for the sake of respect, to influence how others see them. During this period they educate themselves. During the second phase, they commission books to satisfy their own tastes….they amass prestige while at the same time amassing books, which after their deaths, ensure the persistence of their renown in this world. However, in the autumn of a sultan’s life, he no longer concerns himself with the persistence of this worldly immortality.”

—Enishte Effendi in My Name is Red

I wish to acquaint you with Enishte Effendi, a central, fictional character from Orhan Pamuk’s novel about manuscript making and miniature painting in 1590 Istanbul. Pamuk, a Nobel Prize for Literature winner, puts words in Effendi’s mouth that very nearly describe the three turns of executive leadership we so often discuss in Maestro-level Leaders.

The wise Enishte utters the above words on the last night of his long life, describing the sultans he observed: their love for collecting paintings, books, and manuscripts, building and populating the data centers of their time.

What starts out as a desire to show the world that one is capable, continuing to become a singular vision to make an impact, ultimately moves to a different concern because the person (a sultan in this case) begins to realize that all they have accomplished will not accompany them into or beyond death. Everything they have accumulated is ultimately worthless to them. Other, less tangible things, are what matter in the end.

Let’s think about that further for just a moment, from our own succession stories.

The development of a successor is not just recognizing their ability to be a strong Second Turn leader. That would be more of their same, wouldn’t it? And less of what you have brought.

Rather, naming a successor is about their growth into Third Turn leadership. This is actually what they are succeeding into! Otherwise, if the Second Turn leader inherits your seat just to do more of what they’ve already been doing, it is a step backwards for everyone, a de-evolution, because they are not stepping into and beyond where the Third Turn leader (you) was going.

What we are doing as we develop those Third Turn job descriptions, future balance sheets, and Maestro-level Leader maps and strengthen the articulation of our leadership philosophy is making it possible for someone to move beyond where we have taken things, with the most important thing in mind.

May your courage to create this possibility increase!

-mark l vincent

Dr. Frumi Rachel Barr regularly channels her cat’s voice (her cat is actually named Ducky) over on Substack. Dr. Barr graciously gave us permission to repost this muse on the subject of resilience.

I fell off the window ledge once.

I would prefer not to discuss the details.

What I will tell you is this:

I was back on the ledge within four minutes.

Not because it didn’t matter.

Because it did.

The ledge is my post.

The ledge is my purpose.

The ledge is where the work happens.

Falling off it was not a sign that I should find a different ledge.

It was a sign that I should improve my landing.

Humans treat setbacks as information about their potential.

They fall and conclude they are not meant to fly.

They lose a client and decide they are not cut out for sales.

They launch something that fails and interpret it as evidence about who they are rather than data about what they tried.

This is a category error.

A setback is information about a specific attempt under specific conditions at a specific moment in time.

It is not a verdict.

Ducky did not redesign her entire life after the ledge incident.

Ducky assessed the situation.

Ducky identified the contributing factors.

Ducky made a small adjustment.

Ducky got back on the ledge.

The view was exactly the same.

The squirrels had not moved.

The breeze was still there.

Nothing about the ledge had changed.

Only Ducky was slightly wiser about the edge.

Setbacks are not stop signs.

They are corners.

You do not stop at a corner.

You turn.

🐾 Ducky

Chief Recovery Officer

🐾 The Ducky Principle

Observation: Ducky fell off the window ledge. She was back on it within four minutes. The ledge is the post. The falling is not the story.

Entrepreneur Lesson: A setback is information about a specific attempt under specific conditions: not a verdict on your potential. The error is treating temporary failure as permanent evidence. Assess, adjust, return.

The Framework: Back on the Ledge: a three-step resilience practice: assess what actually happened, identify the one adjustment that addresses it, and return to the work before the moment of doubt becomes a decision.

Action Question: What setback are you currently treating as a verdict when it is actually just data? What is the one adjustment that would let you get back on the ledge?

Going deeper: Resilience when your parents are aging

A frequently experienced and seldom discussed issue for many company owners and leaders is caring for aging parents. Being married once, means there are up to four aging adults whose ability to navigate their last years, months, weeks, and days is in rapid decline. Marry more than once, and depending on the quality of relationships, there can be even more. It is also a time when children and parents who were long estranged find a way to come together to make peace. Put money in the mix, especially where matters like inheritance and health care are involved, and whatever dysfunction exists in a family system is sure to surface.

It becomes a reminder, not just to organize and settle a parental estate, but to get one’s own house in order.

Margarett Barrett pioneered a law practice around protecting family assets. As an attorney, a business owner, and daughter to an aging mother, she’s seen and lived these issues from every angle. Practicing in Minnesota, she’s developed a national network and is happy to help connect executives to reputable resources. She can be contacted here.

The quality of her life and leadership make her a beloved asset as a Founding Member of the Sage Group Collective.

For the backpack:

Sage Group Collective Founding Member, Dr. Mike Mantel, put this book in my hand the day I met him, a compelling read about bringing a life-sustaining and sustainable water supply to places in the world who have suffered generations without it. Mike’s significant career journey moved him through a Fortune 500 C-Suite into global development, and then to the CEO role for Living Water International, which grew extensively under his leadership.

-mark l vincent

About the Sage Group Collective

*The Sage Group Collective is a curated circle of experienced executive leaders and facilitators designed for leaders facing complex, high-stakes decisions that benefit from disciplined peer wisdom and outside perspective.*

For leaders in their Second and Third Turn — especially Maestro-level leaders carrying questions of continuity, succession, enterprise value, and stewardship — the Collective provides focused Case Conversations that help clarify the real issue, widen the field of insight, and support better executive judgment.

Learn more:

• Sage Group Collective website

• Sage Group Collective on LinkedIn

“You always need to be thinking about who can succeed you and take the team or organization to the next level.”

-Brady Pyle, former NASA HR Executive

Out of This World Leadership, the title of Brady Pyle’s work, is a word play not just on his years at the space agency but on his Christian faith as well. The subtitle makes that faith infusion clear: Living the Fruit of the Spirit to Live Well.

Pyle’s approach, then, is not self-reliance nor stepping on others in order to rise, but humble service in advancing the mission. This form of service also advances others.

He writes: My philosophy has always been to bring people to my team that I could see leapfrogging me in the organization.¹

This means, as he later says, that we treat people as if they were what they ought to be, rather than engaging them only when they can do something for us now.

One more distinction between leading and managing! Especially when one must manage the hiring process.

A Maestro attends to the future of the mission, even then.

-mark l vincent

¹This sounds remarkably like slingshotting your successor into the future, a phrase we use repeatedly in Maestro-level Leaders.

“Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family.” - Proverbs 7:4

This brief note comes each Sunday morning to: (1) Maestro-level leader cohort participants, (2) Executive Advising clients, (3) and colleagues. You can opt out at any time. You are welcome to share with others. Your brief, thoughtful contributions are welcome. ©Maestro Suite Advisors. All Rights Reserved.

“A good mentor hopes you will move on. A great mentor knows you will.”

-Higgins, in Ted Lasso, Episode 2

I am so fortunate.

A generation of elders and supervisors poured into me. Then there were the close friends where we did a lot of mutual sharpening.

This was not a teaching me something because payment or repayment was demanded. It was prepping me to walk alongside still others. They knew I would move on.

Two examples come to mind:

(1) Aunt Sadie - My grandmother’s sister. She lived in the same city with my family, and we were often in the same church services where she always had doublemint gum and a readiness to help me learn to sing in harmony. Later, when I was grown, we enjoyed singing in an upside down way, with her taking the tenor line and I would sing the alto.

It was just a little after that that I was singing in my young children’s ear, helping them follow the notes, and to pick up the melody. Thank you, Auntie!

(2) Dean Unsicker - A married college student, picking me up on Saturday morning in his beat-up van, the route he had to gather recyclables, turning it in for cash he used to buy me lunch at Wendy’s, during which he taught me the inductive method of study. This approach prepped me with a lifelong skill: first college and then to walk alongside scholars and extremely intelligent and practiced enterprises leaders. I could actively engage and contribute to the conversation, think forward to possibilities and the outline of moving to a solution. This was not due to any raw intelligence I hold, but because someone took an interest in me as a 14 year old, and taught me how to focus my thinking while putting in the work.

The rigorous, inductive method, what we sometimes call W5H is the heart of the consulting approach I’ve been privileged to advance, facilitating scores of people learning to do the same. Thank you, Dean!

These are two of hundreds of such scenes. The weight of them taught me to build into the world rather than to take out of it.

I’m describing the base ingredient of Maestro-level Leadership. More after me because I was here. Doing it better and grander than ever, especially as we give way to others. And as they move on.

-mark l vincent

“Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family.” - Proverbs 7:4

This brief note comes each Sunday morning to: (1) Maestro-level leader cohort participants, (2) Executive Advising clients, (3) and colleagues. You can opt out at any time. You are welcome to share with others. Your brief, thoughtful contributions are welcome.

©Maestro Suite Advisors. All Rights Reserved.**

Time theft is a grand larceny.

Big or small, formal request or inconvenient demand, it siphons away precious grains of sand.

• Give us five years and you’ll get equity.

• Looky here!

• Can we go over this again?

Fear accompanies my writing these brief muses, believing someone somewhere might read it.

Am I wasting your time? It’s too precious a gift to waste.

The remainder of my life, your life too, can be counted in mere weeks.

I want to pour mine out well, purposeful in direction, freer from time leaching and leeches.

Time pours out. I hold power only over intention and direction.

Come and sit.

Visit with me mutually—a conversant, considerate communion.

And watch how our focused and beneficial being and doing

soar forward into the hope others carry in their hearts.

This is how we reclaim and expand our allotted time.

-mark l vincent

Going deeper:

If anyone knows about time leaks, it’s Laura Patterson, Member of the Sage Group Collective.

She has a special name for the worst time of all time leaks: RANDOM ACTS. No-one to my knowledge has written more about the painful cost when randomness is not addressed. We aren’t talking about time given to creativity and innovation, rather Laura’s work to provide solutions that drive discipline and rigor to what has been or is being decided, driving value leaks away.

In a recent podcast, Laura explores effective board meetings. Who among us hasn’t experienced wasted time when we agree to board service: fiduciary or advisory? Who among us hasn’t become wary of having our time wasted yet again? Give a listen.

In my backpack:

I came across this title from Laura, written as she was launching her company, Vision Edge Marketing. Only rarely do I put a book in front of others I’ve not yet read. I’m watching my mailbox for its arrival! As with most books on my crowded shelves, I look forward to marking it up, dog-earing pages, and putting help;ful perspective I find there to good use. Having come to know Laura and her professsional sharpness, I’m eager to learn more from her mastery of the subject.

About the Sage Group Collective

*The Sage Group Collective is a curated circle of experienced executive leaders and facilitators designed for leaders facing complex, high-stakes decisions that benefit from disciplined peer wisdom and outside perspective.*

For leaders in their Second and Third Turn — especially Maestro-level leaders carrying questions of continuity, succession, enterprise value, and stewardship — the Collective provides focused Case Conversations that help clarify the real issue, widen the field of insight, and support better executive judgment.

Learn more:

• Sage Group Collective website

• Sage Group Collective on LinkedIn

“Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, and we will have multiplied the intelligence – the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization – a billion-fold.”

– Ray Kurzweil

This AI thing….

It reminds me of moments like:

• taking up running again after having been lazy…that moment when, after a few runs, that you feel extra lung capacity developing.

• studying a new language, literally feeling your brain carving new creases as it embraces unfamiliar vocabulary.

• that moment in dance class where the rhythm of the waltz landed in your body and you were no longer trying to remember.

• when you water skied as if you never had an issue getting up without the rope being torn from your hands or getting face planted.

• when your fingers landed on the guitar frets just so and the chord sounded beautiful and resonant, as if you always knew how to play effortlessly.

Using AI agents, especially when in a purposeful work flow, you can feel your brain change, new found and extended capacities kicking in.

Something good or ill is developing. Will it be something that makes you more efficient and effective, or leaves you further behind than ever doing more than even artificially-human possible?

And isn’t this the timeless problem showing up yet again, the timeless irony to solve, the increasing work loads made possible by the convenience of our tech?

How are you choosing strategically on this go around—with your grandchildren’s grandchildren in mind?

Tomorrow carries the freight of our choices today, either as a burden to bear or as a buoyancy that conveys others along.

-mark l vincent

“Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family.” - Proverbs 7:4

This brief note comes each Sunday morning to: (1) Maestro-level leader cohort participants, (2) Executive Advising clients, (3) and colleagues. You can opt out at any time. You are welcome to share with others. Your brief, thoughtful contributions are welcome. ©Maestro Suite Advisors. All Rights Reserved.

“Aging Grays-fully”

-from a t-shirt my Father gave me when I turned 50.

The shirt was a convoluted joke reflecting the sense of humor that resides in my family.

In 2013, my Dad heard the Geriatric Physician, David Bernstein, speak at the Safety Harbor, FL Chamber of Commerce. Dr. Bernstein had published his reflections in a book titled, I’ve got some good news and some bad news: YOU’RE OLD. Dad thought it a meaningful and fun gift to buy the book and present it to me for my 50th birthday. A joke that I was getting old.

The humor did not end there because Dr. Bernstein used an acronym in his helping those of us who actually have birthdays in accepting the aging proces. His acronym was GRACE:

G - Goal

R - Roots

A - Attitude

C - Companions

E - Environment

But, rather than print “Grace” on the t-shirt, Dad played on the word, changing it to “Grays,” joking about the gray that was showing up in my beard.

Dad’s good-humored intention was to invite me to choose to live well into my later years as he choose to do. Part of this was his love for me, and a greater part, I think, was the missionary-type zeal he felt in financially serving the same population that Dr. Bernstein served medically. My Dad was 70 at the time, fully intending to work until he couldn’t, serving people in their 90s who needed to convert financial instruments to better provide for them and their families.

Two years later, my Dad learned he had vascular dementia. He told us at a Christmas family gathering. We had just found out that my wife, Lorie, had an untreatable tumor and we couldn’t bear to add bad news to bad news by telling everyone after what we had just learned about Dad. We held off for several weeks. Before that year was out, Lorie had passed away. And by the next year, Dad no longer knew my name.

I’ve been thinking of these things because I finally began reading that book he gave me, and I’m writing this note as I prepare to preach at the 175th anniversary of the North Danvers Mennonite congregation, the last one I served as an intentional interim, doing so in the last months of Lorie’s life. I will be surrounded by people who followed the pattern of grace-full living they experienced from their parents and their parents before them. They are the grandchildren’s grandchildren of the people who first plowed the fields of Central Illinois.

In all this, I’m reminded, yet again, of how short and unpredictable life is. We need to live by grace long before we have the grays.

-mark l vincent

“Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family.” - Proverbs 7:4

This brief note comes each Sunday morning to: (1) Maestro-level leader cohort participants, (2) Executive Advising clients, (3) and colleagues. You can opt out at any time. You are welcome to share with others. Your brief, thoughtful contributions are welcome. ©Maestro Suite Advisors. All Rights Reserved.

Incompetence surely abounds.

Easily addressed when one is open to learn,

expecting not to learn it all immediately,

ready for more.

But who can hold this posture?

Who quickly recognizes their resistance as a threat response,

rather than a signal that information they need to embrace,

or a skill to develop,

stands in front of them, inviting?

And, when having struck the learning posture,

who does not get knocked about?

Structural and relational pressures are sure to come saying,

“Don’t move!”

“Run!”

“Pretend you get it.”

“Stop!”

Succumb to these pressures

and we remain unlearned,

stuck,

until we can postpone it no longer,

if we even arrive there.

And too often, if we learn,

we flee the learning posture,

take on the knowing one,

becoming the source of pressure for others to not learn.

We welcome their knowing what we know,

not learning what we refuse to face.

-mark l vincent

Going Deeper with Jim Gettel

Talk to Jim Gettel, a Member of the Sage Group Collective, and you meet a lifelong learner. A conversation with him would be fluid and could move from philosophy to business law to organizational development to congregational development and back again. He’s written books and developed resources for all of these fields.

The Sage Group Collective was formed by and is maintained among peers with extensive senior leadership experience. A lifelong learning posture is a key characteristic for those named as Members. Jim is exemplary.

He served as the congregational development and clergy transitions officer both for eighty churches in the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan (2013-2020) and for the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee (2000-2004), and as an independent coach and consultant for churches and nonprofits (2002-2012, and presently). His book, Where Jesus Leads: Helping Christian Communities to Follow, and related resources shared on this website are based in experiences of helping Christian leaders and communities discover joy and new life in walking with Jesus together and bringing others along.

Nonprofits Jim helped start and lead include Our Next Generation (offering academic tutoring, enrichment programs, and social support to central city students in Milwaukee) and Taraja Resource Network (aiding poor families in Rwanda and Uganda with mentoring, educational scholarships, and micro-enterprise grants).

Also with partners, Jim helped start, establish, and manage two staffing companies with over 1,000 employees, an investment banking practice for a large CPA and consulting firm, and a commercial finance practice for a large law firm.

Jim received his BA in philosophy from Northwestern University and his JD and MBA degrees from the University of Illinois. Church related certificates and studies include University of the South School of Theology D. Min. program (Church Development Institute certificate); Episcopal Church Deployment Officer; Safe Church; Lombard Mennonite Peace Center; Alban Institute.

Some time ago, Jim sat down for an interview about his love for Christian communities.

For your backpack: Where Jesus Leads, by Jim Gettel

The focal point for Jim’s work in congregational renewal. An abundant set of related resources for congregations serious about a way forward can be found here.

About the Sage Group Collective

The Sage Group Collective is a curated circle of experienced executive leaders and facilitators designed for leaders facing complex, high-stakes decisions that benefit from disciplined peer wisdom and outside perspective.

For leaders in their Second and Third Turn — especially Maestro-level leaders carrying questions of continuity, succession, enterprise value, and stewardship — the Collective provides focused Case Conversations that help clarify the real issue, widen the field of insight, and support better executive judgment.

Learn more:

• Sage Group Collective website

• Sage Group Collective on LinkedIn

“The present is all we have to live in. Or to lose.”

-Marcus Aurelius

Are you in the room you are in?

With the people you are with?

Working on what is in front of you?

If it is a “no” to any of these, time and money is already wasted. It’s wasted because of the time traveling we are doing, mind and body not in the same place and time because we are stuck in unresolved memories, or a future we have not yet built.

Here are the hard truths:

1. The NOW is where I choose to act. It is all I have. It is all you have.

Supporting this:

1. The PAST can inform the now (the reason I’m such a big proponent of using artifacts in the now).

2. The FUTURE, and the foresight it provides, can guide the now ( a disciplined, visionary leadership is needed in the room).

To maximize the NOW, the only place we can take action, especially as a Maestro-level Leader who is working on future value, succession, and legacy, ask:

• Do I hire someone who can perform…

  • …so I don’t have to?

• Do I hire someone who can manage and direct more…

  • …so I have more margin in which to think and problem solve?

• Do I hire someone who can effect vision and act strategically…

  • …someone who is smarter and more accomplished than me?

These are important questions for the Third Turn Executive peering into the mist and taking the next stepping stone toward future value, with a well-paved operational road behind them.

We move into future value with one well-discerned step at a time.

The one we take now.

-mark l vincent

“Everything You Say or Do Is an Intervention that Determines the Future of the Relationship”

―Edgar H. Schein, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help

Much of my career grew from applying Schein’s academic and field work to help create the profession of Process Consulting. Inevitably, I quote him from time to time.

The Maestro level of leadership is not another leadership theory. It is the most adaptive, far-reaching expression of a person’s executive formation—the sophisticated and artful application of process guidance.

At this level, leaders move beyond the need to be the expert. They recognize that they may not be present to see the full fruit of what they have helped guide.

From this place, leaders suss out those they are developing rather than seeking attention or accolades for themselves. They release task responsibilities so they can remain available to resource those who are coming into their own. They attend carefully to “everything they say or do,” knowing that each action is itself an intervention.

The Sufi community describes a person’s learning reaching a special stage:

“…when the Seeker realizes that they are acquiring knowledge in a range beyond seeking and finding, or being sought.”

Christianity offers a related vision. Titus 2 repeatedly calls women and men, young and old, to grow into reverent sensibility—and calls those who are older to encourage those who are younger in that growth. This is impossible if our need to remain the expert leaves no room for another person to grow.

In this stage of leadership, I have come to understand my vocation differently. I am no longer trading on what I know, how I do it, or my need to demonstrate either. My vocation is to walk alongside others as they find their own place and space within their development. I now have the privilege of approaching others with love from a posture of learning, rather than with expectations of them from a posture of knowing.

Along the way, I am learning to distinguish among those who are growing into executive leadership, those who are pretending to grow, and those who believe they have arrived but clearly have not.

The table below maps seven postures according to what a person does, when they do it, and what follows. As we move down the table, we move toward greater maturity—both in our own development and in what we seek among successors who will steward a world our grandchildren’s grandchildren will inhabit.

Who are you developing toward Level 7?

-mark l vincent

P.S. Andrew Stern and myself are gathering the next Maestro-level Leader Cohort and we intend to start soon. Join us? Get started here.

Launching an enterprise in order to do good—

LLC, partnership, C, S, or B Corp, employee-owned, non-profit…whatever—

by definition requires trust in others and ongoing stewardship.

Fail to meet trust with trust and a benevolent spirit, and you fail from the start.

Along the way, you meet many people.

➪ Some pretenders drop words like ‘mission’ and ‘values’ into complete sentences, sounding impressive. Simon the Magician-ish, they want the secrets, not the stewardship.

➪ Others nakedly oppose, seeing you as a sucker in their binary world of people who are sheep or wolves. They choose wolf. If they find a way to take your scraps, they do so. When they say “winner takes all,” they mean ALL.

➪ A few nod in agreement with trust and stewardship values. They join if they sense safety and security. But they must find freedom from their self-imposed and powerful chains of scarcity thinking. It’s so hard to live as a free and abundant person!

➪ On occasion, because you keep on frog kissing, you meet another steward leader. They might not perfectly map capabilities to needed skills. Hire them anyway. Find a place for them. Put them in your circle. Snap them up before someone else does. They will more than make up for any on-paper deficits. This is one place where scarcity applies. Steward leaders are not abundant!

When largesse links to largesse within a community of steward leaders, a lasting good, true, and beautiful becomes possible.

-mark l vincent

Going Deeper: A Tale of Two Brians

The Sage Group Collective includes Brian Van de Water and Brian Hinton, both of whom cultivate leadership grounded in relentless stewardship. They do not assume people come to their work ready-made. They model executive leadership: in the business of developing talent, not just hiring previously developed talent that all too quickly is outdated.

Brian 1 - Brian Van de Water—As he develops talent and improves processes with his Clients, Brian embodies and imparts the principles of:

• People are your the important asset.

• Conduct with integrity.

• Utilize a team approach.

• Focus on fixing the problem, not the blame.

Brian 2 - Brian Hinton—Chief Human Resources at IEWC, an employee-owned global corporation recently named as a best place to work for its 5th consecutive year. 2026 also brought recognition to IEWC when it was named a Future 50 Company. Brian and his team developed multi-level personal and leadership development initiatives, both hand-selected and opt-in. Brian speaks of intentional people development as a necessity, not a perk for highly profitable companies.

For your Backpack: From Our Two Brians

When IEWC was named a top USA workplace for its Third Consecutive Year, Brian Hinton said the following in an IEWC press release: “We know a great culture is hard-won and easily lost. We are keenly aware that culture is a result of the decisions we make and the actions we take daily.” Consider pulling more IEWC press releases. Their approach to communications and public messaging requires no spin. This search will give you a lot to work with.

Brian Van de Water speaks frequently at industry conferences, often on the Lean approach and Lean Culture. In this article, he defines Lean as: “…not just individual tools or processes applied to one area of the business. When Lean Methodologies are automatically called upon to solve problems in any process used to get things done in your business, you are establishing Lean Culture.” Take more of Brian’s articles with you, which can be found here.

About the Sage Group Collective

*The Sage Group Collective is a curated circle of experienced executive leaders and facilitators designed for leaders facing complex, high-stakes decisions that benefit from disciplined peer wisdom and outside perspective.*

For leaders in their Second and Third Turn — especially Maestro-level leaders carrying questions of continuity, succession, enterprise value, and stewardship — the Collective provides focused Case Conversations that help clarify the real issue, widen the field of insight, and support better executive judgment.

Learn more:

• Sage Group Collective website

• Sage Group Collective on LinkedIn

“I was amazed at the effect of these two notes….”

-Ferdinand Ries, student, friend, and protegé of Beethoven

Ries recalls Beethoven insisting via correspondence that Ries go to the publishing house where a 41-page sonata was already engraved and ready to be printed, to ensure that these two additional notes were inserted just so. Beethoven wanted it done before the music was published and made available to musicians eager to rehearse and play what he composed next. There were no recording devices at this time, and no radios.

From what I know of Beethoven’s life and approach to the art of composition, it was not working from the original draft of the music that drove this tiny insertion, but from how the melody was continuing to play in his head. Especially known in his day for his ability to endlessly and entertainingly improvise, new and better knew no end in the Beethoven brain. There was always NEXT, and WHAT ELSE MAKES IT BETTER.

I’ve spent some hours debating with others whether titans like Beethoven, Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, or Betty Friedan qualify as Maestro-level leaders. Those who are sure they are not might view such a person as “not nice” (often using much stronger descriptive terms), or as someone whose beliefs or cultural values are something to oppose. They mistreated people! They were far below mediocre as family members! They didn’t take care of themselves! They were cruel to friends and employees! Therefore, they should not be considered maestros.

I disagree. I think these arguments miss the point.

At the foundation of a Maestro-level Leader approach is the ability to focus, to tune out that which would otherwise distract, doing so in ways that change the world long after that person has passed off the scene. That level of focus helps a person see around corners in ways the rest of us cannot. It helps them bring something valuable to the larger world that receives benefit. They see two more beautiful, difference-making notes as the rest of us remain mediocre and satisfied, bringing little to nothing.

This profound ability brings a shadow with it, perhaps one where self-awareness or moral choices are not readily considered, and where relationships are too easily dismissed. It is an irony, isn’t it, that someone who can see so much and so far downstream cannot perceive what is nearby and also beautiful and useful?

I offer no excuse for cruelty or immorality. A talented person’s flaws should not be overlooked or excused; they can be overcome with the same level of striving focus that grips the genius to compose, design, or foster a movement. And with that focus, new virtues can be grown that further enhance that person’s contribution to the world.

Two examples:

• Steve Jobs is widely reported to have become kinder as his life neared its end. Perhaps we like his story even more as a result.

• Beethoven’s quick temper began to be matched with his readiness to admit he was wrong. We still listen to his music.

We tell their stories and recall their profound genius. And we are changed.

-mark l vincent

“Artifacts are not artificial. They are visible evidence of love for the mission.”

-Scott Curtis and Mark L. Vincent, in conversation

This week’s conversation with Scott Curtis, one of our cohort members, felt as if this letter was already being written as we talked. I scrapped my plans and tried to capture the essence.

We were talking about artifacts—not trinkets, not paper for paper’s sake, not another form to fill out so a consultant can say a process has been documented. We were talking about those tangible things that carry memory, focus, agreement, intention, and future value when the people involved cannot possibly hold it all in their minds at once.

And let’s be clear, we aren’t talking about everyone’s tech wearables or varied software that captures notes for them individually.

Artifacts are the agreed-upon record of processes and proceedings along the way. This thing we should consult to see where we came from, where we are, what we are learning, and where we are going next. That which we established as our collective reference point and guide. It needs its own seat in our meetings. If we do not have one, we go to our individual memories, and increasingly our individual notetakers, to try to get a replay because we didn’t form an agreed-upon artifact in the first place. And even if we did, we didn’t bring the artifact to the next meeting or review it to help us maintain focus at each succeeding step.

Artifacts are not artificial.

• They are how any love we have for what we are doing takes a shape others can see.

• Artifacts are the means by which wisdom becomes available after the meeting ends.

• They are how future value stops being a noble phrase and starts becoming something the enterprise can practice.

It’s not a new thing to point out that none of us is omniscient. We do not hold all of our knowledge in conscious awareness at all times. We need referents and guides to keep the main thing the main thing, or we can’t be as focused as we aspire to be.

This is not a small thing for Maestro-level Leaders. By the Third Turn, the leader has often carried an enterprise through years of intuition, sacrifice, judgment, improvisation, and care. Much of what matters most is known, and yet is not as visible as it needs to be. What matters most lives in the leader’s pattern recognition, in a seasoned pause before saying yes, in a question asked at just the right moment, in the way a board packet is read, a successor is encouraged, a risk is held, a Client relationship is protected, or a decision is delayed because the timing is not yet right. That kind of wisdom is real. It is also fragile if it never becomes an artifact.

A Maestro-level Leader’s work is not merely to remember what matters. It is to leave behind enough faithful evidence that others can keep learning from it, improving it, and carrying it forward. Most of all, they use it.

This is why we keep returning to four key elements:

1. The Maestro-level Leader Job Description

Not the job description someone handed you years ago. The one you must now write because your work has changed. The one that names what only you can do now, what you must stop doing, and what the enterprise needs from you in this season.

2. A Future Value Balance Sheet

Not merely a financial statement. A disciplined way to ask: What value are we creating now that will matter later? What is appreciating? What is depreciating? What is hidden, underdeveloped, or at risk? What capital will be needed now and in the future?

3. The Maestro-level Leader Map

Not a strategic plan. A pragmatic record of the path: what has been done, what is underway, what still needs attention, and what must be true if the next generation of leadership is going to inherit more than urgency.

4. A clear and focused Leadership Philosophy

Not a slogan. A usable articulation of how you lead, why you lead this way, what you believe about people and enterprise, and what others can expect when they take up responsibility alongside you.

All four of these Key Elements are artifacts.

• They provide a common frame of reference.

• Each holds a view to the future.

• Each invites a better conversation.

And this may be the deepest point Scott and I were circling: an artifact is not the end of a conversation. It is the beginning and continuation of a better one.

A useful artifact herds partial perspectives into a shared field of attention. It lets the founder, successor, board member, advisor, executive team, and stakeholder look at something together instead of merely looking at one another with private assumptions. It makes the invisible discussable and repeatedly so until it becomes part of our known knowns. It makes the implicit testable. It makes the future less abstract.

This is why artifacts matter so much in succession.

• Without them, due diligence becomes archeology.

• Without them, successors inherit folklore.

• Without them, boards mistake personality for continuity.

• Without them, the enterprise depends too heavily on the memory, charisma, stamina, or improvisational capacity of one person.

With them, the work becomes more generous.

Artifacts let us say to each other, over and over:

Here is what we have seen.

Here is what we have learned.

Here is what we have been carrying.

Here is what still needs wisdom.

Here is where we hope those who follow us will improve on what we began.

It is artifact, not artifice! It is stewardship. It is love for the enterprise and for the people who will carry it next.

So, what artifacts are you and your teams making?

What records are with you constantly, influencing your work, keeping you accountable to your agreed-upon process, helping others continue making better decisions when you or other leaders are not in the room?

You can’t always be in the room!

What conversation keeps recurring because there is no shared artifact to hold it?

And what one artifact, if drafted in the next thirty days, would increase trust, reduce confusion, and serve future value?

I’m being serious here.

Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.

-mark l vincent

This morning’s letter somehow disappeared from the drafts folder. Our apologies for the lateness of release.

“Artifacts are not artificial. They are visible evidence of love for the mission.”

-Scott Curtis and Mark L. Vincent, in conversation

This week’s conversation with Scott Curtis, one of our cohort members, felt as if this letter was already being written as we talked. I scrapped my plans and tried to capture the essence as quickly as I could.

We were talking about artifacts—not trinkets, not paper for paper’s sake, not another form to fill out so a consultant can say a process has been documented. We were talking about those tangible things that carry memory, focus, agreement, intention, and future value when the people involved cannot possibly hold it all in their minds at once.

And let’s be clear, we aren’t talking about everyone’s tech wearables or varied software that captures notes for them individually.

Artifacts are the agreed-upon record of processes and proceedings along the way. This thing we should consult to see where we came from, where we are, what we are learning, and where we are going next. That which we established as our collective reference point and guide. It needs its own seat in our meetings. If we do not have one, we go to our individual memories, and increasingly our individual notetakers, to try to get a replay because we didn’t form an agreed-upon artifact in the first place. And even if we did, we didn’t bring the artifact to the next meeting or review it to help us maintain focus at each succeeding step.

Artifacts are not artificial.

• They are how any love we have for what we are doing takes a shape others can see.

• Artifacts are the means by which wisdom becomes available after the meeting ends.

• They are how future value stops being a noble phrase and starts becoming something the enterprise can practice.

It’s not a new thing to point out that none of us is omniscient. We do not hold all of our knowledge in conscious awareness at all times. We need referents and guides to keep the main thing the main thing, or we can’t be as focused as we aspire to be.

This is not a small thing for Maestro-level Leaders. By the Third Turn, the leader has often carried an enterprise through years of intuition, sacrifice, judgment, improvisation, and care. Much of what matters most is known, and yet is not as visible as it needs to be. What matters most lives in the leader’s pattern recognition, in a seasoned pause before saying yes, in a question asked at just the right moment, in the way a board packet is read, a successor is encouraged, a risk is held, a Client relationship is protected, or a decision is delayed because the timing is not yet right. That kind of wisdom is real. It is also fragile if it never becomes an artifact.

A Maestro-level Leader’s work is not merely to remember what matters. It is to leave behind enough faithful evidence that others can keep learning from it, improving it, and carrying it forward. Most of all, they use it.

This is why we keep returning to four key elements:

1. The Maestro-level Leader Job Description

Not the job description someone handed you years ago. The one you must now write because your work has changed. The one that names what only you can do now, what you must stop doing, and what the enterprise needs from you in this season.

2. A Future Value Balance Sheet

Not merely a financial statement. A disciplined way to ask: What value are we creating now that will matter later? What is appreciating? What is depreciating? What is hidden, underdeveloped, or at risk? What capital will be needed now and in the future?

3. The Maestro-level Leader Map

Not a strategic plan. A pragmatic record of the path: what has been done, what is underway, what still needs attention, and what must be true if the next generation of leadership is going to inherit more than urgency.

4. A clear and focused Leadership Philosophy

Not a slogan. A usable articulation of how you lead, why you lead this way, what you believe about people and enterprise, and what others can expect when they take up responsibility alongside you.

All four of these Key Elements are artifacts.

• They provide a common frame of reference.

• Each holds a view to the future.

• Each invites a better conversation.

And this may be the deepest point Scott and I were circling: an artifact is not the end of a conversation. It is the beginning and continuation of a better one.

A useful artifact herds partial perspectives into a shared field of attention. It lets the founder, successor, board member, advisor, executive team, and stakeholder look at something together instead of merely looking at one another with private assumptions. It makes the invisible discussable and repeatedly so until it becomes part of our known knowns. It makes the implicit testable. It makes the future less abstract.

This is why artifacts matter so much in succession.

• Without them, due diligence becomes archeology.

• Without them, successors inherit folklore.

• Without them, boards mistake personality for continuity.

• Without them, the enterprise depends too heavily on the memory, charisma, stamina, or improvisational capacity of one person.

With them, the work becomes more generous.

Artifacts let us say to each other, over and over:

Here is what we have seen.

Here is what we have learned.

Here is what we have been carrying.

Here is what still needs wisdom.

Here is where we hope those who follow us will improve on what we began.

It is artifact, not artifice!

It is stewardship.

It is love for the enterprise and for the people who will carry it next.

So, what artifacts are you and your teams making?

What records are with you constantly, influencing your work, keeping you accountable to your agreed-upon process, helping others continue making better decisions when you or other leaders are not in the room? You can’t always be in the room!

What conversation keeps recurring because there is no shared artifact to hold it?

And what one artifact, if drafted in the next thirty days, would increase trust, reduce confusion, and serve future value?

I’m being serious here.

Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine.

-mark l vincent

We are analog creatures in an increasingly digital world

The earth-wide tech overlay is getting denser.

Like a global chrysalis, we are apparently expected to enter from our carbon-based Anthropocene and emerge out of it into a silicon-based society.

Hybrid beings, if not entirely digitized.

Supposedly, digitized beings live forever.

Little room is being made for disagreement. It sounds assumed.

I disagree.

To “transform” ourselves, especially our consciousness, out of analog and organic existence to something made of digits and bytes, is an attempt to freeze ourselves in current space. It is an exercise of postponement, and it prevents emergence into deeper wisdom. Time that could have been given to reflection and preparation for what comes next becomes an expensive, intensive effort to delay suffering, one that prevents learning.

Consider the fireflies of Bali. They live an existence of six months to two years as larval beings before emerging into a mere three weeks as sacred light-bearing flying insects who shine, mate, and then return to earth as ashes and dust.

I write those words as a dust-being myself, one who wears tech, starting with my glasses. I use tech, including the keyboard on which I’m typing these thoughts. I also depend on tech, as without it Executive Thinking could not be distributed so widely.

But isn’t that the difference? Using tech, not changing into tech, not losing the beautiful anguish that is our human development process and missing out on the capabilities that come from it. Why limit ourselves by freezing the current moment and failing to emerge into the beautiful beyond?

It doesn’t work in enterprise: “We are set. Let’s keep it this way.”

Why pretend that it works with human existence?

-mark l vincent

Executive thoughts:

What are you seeking: freezing or emergence? Why?

Where are you seeing the temptation to remain as you are organizationally? Personally?

Go Deeper with the Collective:

Thinking deeply about AI and how it touches humans and human systems is something Dr. John Reynolds, a Founding Member of the Sage Group Collective, has been doing from the time Large Language Models were announced. Thankfully, he is writing for all our benefit.

His work on AI and board governance sets the stage for advisory study and conversation.

For your Backpack: Closing the Trust Gap

The Trust Circle: just released by Wiley, TedX Speaker, Founding Member and Case Conversation Facilitator, Daniel Hallak, connects the importance and power of lifelong development of trust to one’s network of relationships.

We know that leaders should not and do not lead alone. His clear outline and approachable material make leadership possible.

This volume is part of the larger set of books Wiley is developing on the subject of Trust, including Rob McKenna’s earlier release: Whole Leaders Wild Trust.

About the Sage Group Collective

*The Sage Group Collective is a curated circle of experienced executive leaders and facilitators designed for leaders facing complex, high-stakes decisions that benefit from disciplined peer wisdom and outside perspective.*

For leaders in their Second and Third Turn — especially Maestro-level leaders carrying questions of continuity, succession, enterprise value, and stewardship — the Collective provides focused Case Conversations that help clarify the real issue, widen the field of insight, and support better executive judgment.

Learn more:

• Sage Group Collective website

• Sage Group Collective on LinkedIn

“Let’s carry on together as best we can, us loners.”

-Yosca Maeda, whose pixel artistry can be viewed here.

I’ve not found many places that join me in comparing long-time, company-building executives to creatives—those who play a long game of focused attention and artistic result: sculptors, painters, makers, writers, architects, and of course, maestros. The comparison works, though.

• Even when surrounded by people, the maestro-level leader sits in an unshared seat, holding a vision others do not yet see, but which at some point must be appreciated. To develop and then to socialize vision requires enough space to be a loner among the marketplace that is served and the people gathered to serve it.

• Our Maestro-level Leaders cohorts bring together such loners to do their most important work visibly, beside others. If this is you, we provide the needed space for this work, alongside others who care about you and your path but are not personally invested in your outcomes.

Our collective experience across an increasing number of cohorts has strengthened the question we’ve learned to ask anyone who considers Maestro-level Leaders, then opts not to join:

What is it you will do?

Doing nothing, delaying, or hoping enterprise continuity and succession will take care of itself is a conscious choice. So is sculpting a vision.

-mark l vincent