RFL spills over into the mainstream media and back into the blogosphere

My RFL this week entitled The Way of Toyota, Great Companies, and Mary Zatina generated some really interesting comments about Mary Zatina and about the theme of focusing on your people on the RFL blogsite. As usual, readers write some cool things.

But RFL did not stay within its own confines this week. Instead, in addition to the blogsite comments, A columnist took me to task in the Detroit News for what he considered an insensitive attack on domestic auto producers. And the next day another columnist at the same paper opined that he was all wet. Then that spilled into the blog world. I thought about giving you links to all those pieces, but decided against it. The comments are mostly about Toyota, loyalty vs. truth telling, and domestics vs. internationals. Yes, vs. vs. vs. and more vs. You can find them easily enough if you like that kind of stuff.

I’m more interested in getting up above that fray than staying in that ring of either/or, right/wrong, black-and-white. The RFL obviously touched a nerve, and that caused me to wonder: Well, what’s that all about? What does this flare-up teach about leadership? And about communication for leaders? Why all this heat? A GM manager named Frank Brady wrote a very thoughtful and heartfelt comment on my blogsite (it’s the 13th comment down), and I responded to Frank’s message. I’d love to have you read Frank’s and my reflections right here and add your insight to the discussion: