Local Business Owners Named to Prestigious Board November 18, 2007 - Local business owners and leadership educators, Everett and Antigoni Ladd, founders of Tigrett Corp.—Leadership Lessons from History, were named to the Board of Advisors of the prestigious Lincoln Forum. The Forum, led by Lincoln scholars Harold Holzer and Frank Williams, just concluded its annual, three-day conference in Gettysburg on Nov. 18. In the world of Civil War studies, the Forum is considered the best in the country for presenting the newest scholarship on the 16th President and draws a sophisticated, well-read audience each year to an always sold-out conference. www.thelincolnforum.org

Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America, by Andrew Ferguson (New York: Grove/Atlantic Monthly Press, 2007) is a journalist's search for Lincoln's meaning in our times. The author, like many Americans, has been a Lincoln enthusiast since his own childhood. Ferguson, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, traveled the country looking at ways people see and use the image of Lincoln today. Tigrett Corp.'s leadership-based-on-Lincoln workshop received an entire chapter, with the author sometimes admiring, sometimes poking fun, but always giving a good read.

Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Winston Churchill and Sitting Bull have much to teach about leadership. And today’s business executives are listening. . . Famous battle sites, such as Gettysburg National Military Park or Little Big Horn, are increasingly popular as learning laboratories because they engage students beyond an intellectual level. Download the article

And the hottest new training device is the offsite, a company- or department-wide session away from the office. But today’s offsite isn’t a few meetings in a windowless hotel banquet room followed by a round of golf and cocktails. More likely it’s built around a truly exotic challenge. . . But unusual offsites may be tapping into an economic shift that is more lasting than the bull market—the need for “soft” (interpersonal) skills in a quick-moving, unstructured service economy in which advantages are momentary and a slight shift in the business model can mean either big bucks or doom. TIME Magazine, August 8, 1999

Abraham Lincoln is being reborn in some circles as a management guru. . . James Fugitte, president of Fort Knox National Bank in Elizabeth town, Ky., used to worry about repeating his message to workers until he realized: “Lincoln didn’t apologize for telling everybody, everyday” why the country couldn’t be divided. Mike Edl, a vice president of TDS Telecom, a unit of Chicago-based Telephone & Data Systems Inc., finds a lesson in Lincoln’s ability to focus the talents of prickly rivals on common goals. The two executives are “alumni” of Tigrett Corp., a small, management-training firm that uses history to teach leadership. Wall Street Journal, October 30, 1997

A Bibliography of Press Clippings
(Call us for updated listings or copies of articles.)

“Ike's Traits Were Straight” by Steve Watkins, Investors Business Daily, January 11, 2008, part of a series on analyzing leaders and studying their traits.

“Probation Officers Get Lessons from Lincoln,” Orlando Sentinel, July 28, 2003, p. K23.

“Round Top Classroom: Business techniques learned from Gettysburg battlefield,” York Sunday News, October 21, 2001.

“Extreme Offsites,” by Rebecca Winters, TIME, August 9, 1999, in TIME SELECT MANAGEMENT section. Unusual offsite workshops for today’s managers reviewed.

“Executives Get Leadership Lessons from Battlefields: Civil War Sites are Favorites for Tours, Lectures on Strategy and Problem Solving,” by Beth Berselli, Star Tribune, April 12, 1998, page D4, Minneapolis, MN. This is another of the reprints of the Washington Post story.

“Where’s the Boss? Waterloo, Perhaps: Military Lessons Help Managers Win Wars of Commerce,” by Beth Berselli, Hartford Courant, April 5, 1998, page A1, Hartford, CT. This is a reprint of the Washington Post story.

“Positive Ways to Manage Negative People: Work on Changing Behavior, and Then Try Three-Strike Rule,” by Morey Stettner, Investor’s Business Daily, July 16, 1998, page 1, Los Angeles, CA.

“Lincoln’s Modern Job,” by Qiana Johnson, University of Chicago Magazine, June, 1998, page XIV, Chicago, IL. Offers a good brief summary emphasizing U of C grad, Antigoni Ladd.

“Battlefield Seminars and Reenactors Help Teach Lasting Leadership Lessons,” by Lynn Densford, Corporate University Review, May/June 1998, page 16, Securities Data Publishing, Marietta, GA. This is a comprehensive article with color photos.

“Soldiers of the Fortune 500,” by Leah Thayer, Trend Letter, May 14, 1998, page 3, published by The Global Network, Washington, DC. This article offers a good, brief summary of the program concept.

“Cannons of Management: Executives Flock to Battlefields for Training,” by Beth Berselli, The Washington Post, April 4, 1998, page 1, Washington, DC. This is a comprehensive story by a reporter who attended the complete three-day Gettysburg workshop. This syndicated story was also carried under various titles in The Miami Herald, The San Francisco Examiner, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Hartford Courant.

“Learning from Lincoln,” Family Business, Winter 1998, page 53, Philadelphia, PA.

“War and Wingtips: Robert E. Lee as 10-Minute Manager,” Business Week, November 24, 1997, page 8, New York, NY. Focus is on the Battle of Gettysburg.

“Business Bulletin: A Special Background Report on Trends in Industry and Finance,” by Pamela Sebastian, The Wall Street Journal, October 30, 1997, page 1, New York, NY. This short summary describes the historic leadership concept and offers quotes from business executives who attended programs.

“Managing Change with Classical Wisdom,” by John K. Clemens and Antigoni Ladd, The Southern Banker, October 1987, page 12, Norcross, GA. This is the story behind the story—the idea behind historic leadership programs.