Donovan Campbell Returns With "The Leader's Guide" - A Call for Servant Leadership

Donovan Campbell has built upon the success of his first book, "Joker One," and has turned his focus to examining the nature of effective leadership. "The Leader's Code - Mission, Character, Service and Getting the Job Done" is all about developing a mindset and a heart for servant leadership.

Readers of the White Rhino Report will recognize Campbell  from our review of "Joker One."  Campbell was also a keynote speaker  at The White Rhino Intersection.

White Rhino Report Review of Joker One

The author uses stories from his own experience in the Marines Corps and in the world of business - sometimes to point to success and at other times to confess to failure on his part to always act like the kind of ideal leader he is advocating for in this book. Campbell's transparency is one of the great strengths of this work.

The organization of the subject matter is logical and helpful. Campbell breaks down effective leadership into its component parts - Mission, Humility, Excellence, Kindness, Discipline, Courage, Wisdom, Virtue. Within each chapter he shares vignettes from the lives of leaders - either as examples to emulate or to avoid. He then offers questions that encourage the reader to engage in personal reflection on t he topic covered in the chapter, and then he caps off the chapter with a succinct summary.

This book is a much-needed addition to the growing stack of books that purport to teach leadership. This author has lived and continues to live what he preaches in the book, which sets it apart from many of the other volumes in this genre.

I recommend this book strongly to anyone who aspires to lead others with integrity and effectiveness.  I have been privileged to have known Donovan Campbell since his days as an MBA student at Harvard Business School, from which he graduated with top honors as a Baker Scholar.  I have seen him wrestle with both the theory and the execution of the principles outlined in this book. This is not ivory tower theorizing, but real leadership lessons refined in the cauldron of the battlefields of war and of business. 

Enjoy

Al

Landfill Harmonic: "The Recycled Orchestra" - A Remarkable Story of Music and Reclamation

The Recycled Orchestra

My friend, Rick Mavrovich, just made me aware of this remarkable project.  In a garbage dump in Paraguay, musical instruments are being fashioned from trash and lives are being reclaimed.  The project is described below in the Kickstarter campaign description.

A heartfelt & moving story of how instruments made from recycled trash bring hope to children whose future is otherwise spiritless.

Landfill Harmonic reveals a mind-boggling, inventive effort to change that - musical instruments made from trash. In the barrios of Paraguay, a humble garbage picker uses his ingenuity to craft instruments out of recycled materials - and a youth orchestra is born. Music arises and children find new dreams.

About Landfill Harmonic

A film about “The Recycled Orchestra”, a group of children from a Paraguayan slum who play instruments made entirely of garbage. It is a beautiful story about the transformative power of music, which also highlights two vital issues of our times: poverty and waste pollution.   

The world generates about a billion tons of garbage a year.  Those who live with it and from it are the poor – like the people of Cateura, Paraguay.  And here they are transforming it into beauty.  Landfill Harmonic follows the orchestra as it takes its inspiring spectacle of trash-into-music around the world. 

Production began in 2010 when we traveled to Paraguay to film the children and the orchestra. We returned to the village in 2011 to film and check on the progress of three young children who recently entered the orchestra. We then resumed filming in 2012. We will also continue to follow the story in 2013. Landfill Harmonic shows how trash and recycled materials can be transformed into beautiful sounding musical instruments, but more importantly, it brings witness to the transformation of precious human beings.

Favio Chávez: Director of the “Los Reciclados” orchestra

Check out the Youtube video that gives an overview of this inspiring project.

Youtube.com - Landfill Harmonic

This link will take you to the Kickstarter site that gives a more complete description of the project and its broader vision.  The Kickstarter program has been fully funded, so this link is for information only at this point.

Landfill Harmonic Description

I am sending this article to friends around the world hoping that they may be inspired to use the same ingenuity in their developing world communities.

Enjoy!

Al