Jim Ruprecht is proud to have his book Windward Leadership: Taking Your Organization into the Prevailing Winds and Political Seas nominated for "The Stephen T. Colbert Award for the Literary Excellence" by Stephen Colbert himself.
Jim, and his oldest daughter, Rebecca, met Stephen for a cheese fondue lunch at Kashkaval, a cheese market and wine bar located in that part of New York City known as “Hell’s Kitchen”. They brought copies of I Am America (And So Can You!) for Stephen to autograph, and having completed the first draft of Jim's book, they chatted about the whole writing and publishing process.
Stephen asked Jim about his book and his motivation for writing it. Jim explained that it is about leadership and leading organizational change, and that he had written it for two primary reasons. First, he had some hands-on experience on the subject matter, and since most books on these topics are written by spectators in the stands (e.g., consultants and academicians), or by executives in the owner's suite (e.g., board chairs and CEOs), Jim thought people might find it useful to hear from a guy who spent his career on the field. Second, and perhaps the greater motivator, was that Jim had become increasingly concerned that leadership in too many organizations, at least in too many US organizations, are on a bad course.
Stephen followed up and seriously drilled Jim on what he found concerning about current leadership practices. Jim shared his list of grievances with current leadership practices (essentially recapping "Chapter 4, Abuses and Usurpations" of his book; that chapter so named as an homage to Thomas Jefferson and his list of grievances against the King, thus justifying the colonies' separation from The Crown in the Declaration of Independence).
You can tell what a person thinks about an idea by the questions they ask: if the questions are ones that build on the idea, then they budding promoters; if the questions are ones that tear down the idea, then they are budding detractors. After a series of quite serious questions, Stephen began asking questions that built upon Windward's thesis, eventually even suggesting several books and articles that further supported it.
With that, Stephen pulled out a "Stephen T. Colbert Award for the Literary Excellence" nominee sticker and affixed it to the cover of the galley copy (i.e., an advance reader edition) Jim had given him.
