Monday Morning Mojo

The New Frontier

Frederick Jackson Turner addressed the American Historical Association at the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893 at the age of 31 with a paper that changed forever the way the world thinks of Americans while at the same time bringing the French word frontier into English parlance. Since that time he has been rebutted and debated, but the idea he introduced held fast.

Turner claimed that pioneers who landed on the east coast of the US fresh from Europe behaved and thought like they had in their native lands. As they moved westward they encountered circumstances and territory vastly different that brought out of them different ways of thinking and acting. These new behaviors were brash, independent, bold, innovative... the very essence of being a frontiersman.

Here is an excerpt from his writing:

". american frontier

..the frontier is the outer edge... the meeting point between savagery and civilization... The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel, and thought. It takes him from the railroad car and puts him in the birch canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin. It puts him in the log cabin... In short, at the frontier the environment is at first too strong for the man. He must accept the conditions which it furnishes, or perish... Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe... The fact is, that here is a new product that is American."

One can imagine a similar frontier in business today. But it is not the harsh circumstances of a land untamed. Today's wild is born of a challenging economy and the complexities of life in the 21st century.

Leaders today find themselves subject to a different kind of danger. Their environment consists of shifting business models, government quagmires, fierce competitors, and upended industries.

The leaders who succeed on today's arduous frontier may be challenged by the harshness and difficulty of current circumstance, but they author the future. They are the progenitors of tomorrow.

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