Lead with Purpose

CHAPTER 3MAKE AMBIGUITY COMFORTABLE BY CLARIFYING PURPOSE

“The first essential for advancement in knowledge is for men to be willing to say, ‘We do not know.’”

—ROGER BACON, THIRTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH PHILOSOPHER

“Every day you read what a terrible age we live in. Well, I’ve heard that all my life,” said Horton Foote to Terry Gross, host of NPR’s Fresh Air radio program in 1988. “I don’t think any age is any worse. There are just new [and different] problems is all.”¹ Foote knew of what he spoke. A native Texan, Horton Foote, who died in 2009 at the age of 92, was one of America’s greatest playwrights, although for most of his life he labored in a kind of obscurity, despite having won two Academy Awards, one for the screen adaptation of Harper ...