With all the gloom and doom we’re surrounded with these days, this video clip from Harley Davidson should provide you a little encouragment: Screw it, let’s ride.

Recently I received a discouraging email from an individual in a government organization who is battling terrible working conditions and well-intentioned by seriously flawed government regulations. This person had found value in one of my books and was looking for encouragement. She thought if I could speak to her and her team, it might help.

It might help, but it wouldn’t be enough.

There are some things that attitude alone won’t solve. Attitude may be the launching pad but it isn’t always enough. What is needed in this organization is serious structural change that is, unfortunately, beyond the abilities of individual employees.  Unless leadership deals with the substantive issues things like encouragement, attitude and positive talk will be inefficient bandages on a serious wound.

Using a positive attitude as a quick fix in the face of more serious challenges will either make you a cynic or create cynics of those around you. It is important to have the right attitude as you address any challenge or opportunity. A negative attitude closes doors and limits options. But we do ourselves a big disservice when we think attitude along is always enough.

If you missed the Audi ad during the Super Bowl, it showed a man in bed inside a classic estate who is awakened with oil all over himself. He throws back the covers and screams as he finds the grille to his deceased Rolls Royce. It was a clever nod to the classic scene in The Godfather (in case you aren’t old enough to remember.) Out front an Audi R8 drives away as a voice over tells us that old luxury is officially put on notice.

Speaking at the Automotive News World Congress, Audi’s chief of marketing, Scott Keogh said that Audi would try to embody “new age values” and that those values would come “mostly from the West Coast.” He contrasted Audi’s “new luxury” with “old luxury” as typically associated with Europe.

All this is fascinating stuff even if you don’t give a rip about automobiles. It is part of a bigger trend that has impact not only for sales and marketing but literally every aspect of any business.

The trend is the redefinition of concepts.

I’ve been an advocate for the importance of defining precisely the intent and meaning behind words commonly used within an organization so that there is shared meaning. (What do we mean by “customer service?” How do we define “selling?” What is “distinctive?”) I’ve lately begun to see that the bigger and more important challenge is in redefining concepts; in refusing to play by the rules of old and unquestioned concepts. Innovation, excitement and potential progress are to be found in these redefinitions.

Audi is attempting to redefine “luxury.” Success won’t be determined by an entry in the dictionary, but by buy-in from existing and potential luxury buyers who are tired of the traditional concept.

All of us would be well to identify the primary concepts that drive our businesses and to questions whether we can invigorate them with new life and appeal through redefinition. In today’s competitive world, that’s one of the things that leaders do.

This past Sunday I heard Clint Hurdle speak at my church. Clint is the general manager of the National League Champion Colorado Rockies. I took several pages of notes. He had lots of good stuff to share.

Winning the National League Championship was “truly magical and truly humbling.” “I’ve been embraced by so many people in Denver and Colorado. I was always embraced by the people on our cul de sac…”

“There are two kinds of people,” he said, “those who are humble and those who are about to be.”

One of the things I liked most about Clint was that he was both humble and self-effacing. He didn’t tell us what we needed to know; he told us what he had learned. He is a person who has gleaned wisdom from his life experiences.

Sports Illustrated wrote a piece on the faith of the Rockies and said you were more likely to find a bible in the locker room than a Playboy.

Clint was overt in his faith. “We believed as long as we remained faithful we’d be blessed. We didn’t know how or when. It takes courage to be patient in today’s society. God was the filter to all our decisions: ‘Would this be pleasing to God?’”

Pastor Mark Shupe interviewed Clint. He asked, “What do you say to people who say it would have been a perfect ending if you’d won the World Series?”

“I’d say they’re right!” was his immediate response. He went on to say that there is no entitlement, only opportunity. “We didn’t feel sorry for the Diamondbacks or San Diego when we beat them, so we didn’t expect Boston to feel sorry for us when they won.”

Clint Hurdle–and I’ve not met him in person–seems to have a very clear sense of priorities and sense of himself. It wasn’t, according to him, always that way. He was a star right out of high school and called a phenom when he played for the Kansas City Royals, but he made a lot of mistakes he regrets. A low point, he says, was when he realized “…I’m breaking people’s hearts everywhere I walked. I’m not proud that I’m twice divorced but it is part of my story.”

“I was a people-pleaser. I used to spend money to buy things I didn’t need to impress people I didn’t like.”

Then he said, “I don’t have anything or anyone to blame it on except the choices I made.”

Those words earned my utmost respect. No excuses. No blame. No whining about circumstances. What he said, in my opinion, is the essence of character.

His wife Carla influenced him greatly to recommit his life to Christ. He had become a Christian in high school but, as he says, “kept Jesus in my wallet and brought him out a couple times a week.”

“When I asked Carla to marry me, she said ‘Until you find a way to make you happy you don’t have a chance to make me happy.’”

Married now with two small children, Clint says his wife gives him five minutes when he comes home at the end of the day to decompress from managing a professional baseball team and “…then it is time to be husband and dad.”

Clint and I attend the same large church. I’ve probably seen him a dozen times before and didn’t know it. He just blends in. He is an ordinary guy who continues to do extraordinary things. His prayer, he says (and now one of my prayers as well): “Lord, help me be a simple man in a complex world.”

I won’t.

Yes, he was an incredibly talented coach, and he had an amazing record.

He was also the poster child for bad behavior excused by fame.

Never met him and have nothing personal against him. It’s just that I’ve seen too many tirades, tantrums, screaming, yelling, kicking of chairs and foul language to respect his accomplishments. I acknowledge the success but disagree with how he achieved it.

My commentary on him doesn’t take away from the success of his players or his teams.

Consider: if a coach behaved like Bobby and didn’t have a winning record, would he still be on the payroll?

Of course not. We don’t tolerate that behavior. Unless you win a lot.

Leadership shouldn’t divorce character from competence.

I recently emailed a strategic business partner with some very positive feedback about a program I’d done for his client. Rather than evaluate my own performance, I find it more effective to let the client grade my performance.

The original email included a glowing review.

Today I received a response from my business partner. It was brief: “Do you have this person’s email address?”

That was it.

No “nice job.” No “thanks for taking care of my client.” No acknowledgment.

I’m a big boy, and while disappointed, my feelings weren’t hurt. But I made note with my staff: business relationships are built one transaction at a time. Little things, like a lack of acknowledgment, not sending a thank you note, and insensitivity all add up to either make or break the relationship.

We’ve got high technology but it doesn’t replace low people skills. Better to get a reminder of the importance of the little things as a victim of the faux paux than as the perpetrator.

Remember when Bill Clinton took issue with Chris Wallace on national TV? Everybody had an opinion. Did Clinton overreact? Was he justified?

I’m pretty sure Bill wishes he hadn’t lost his cool. It reminds me of something I once heard Dallas Willard say. It went something like this: “You never do anything better when you’re angry.”

I wish I remembered that more often. And Bill Clinton probably does, too.

A recent article in USAToday about fake accents said, “…faking an accent can be considered cool, not unauthentic…”

How can anything fake be considered “not unauthentic”?

Our culture considers to butcher words and concepts for convenience. Katie Couric said moving outside one’s comfort zone “almost always makes you uncomfortable.” Another butchered concept, only it got airtime on national television. Moving outside your comfort zone, by definition, means you’ll be uncomfortable.

Granting that Ms. Couric was just sloppy in her choice of words, let’s return to “fake” becoming a form of “authentic.”

In a world where Second Life is a popular online virtual reality–you can be anyone you choose to be–why wouldn’t we start rearranging the meaning of words and concepts?
And if we do, what’s the harm?

To have value, words must have fixed and shared meaning. While the definition of words can and do change over time, we’ve never accepted individual capriciousness as a valid reason for change.

Bill Clinton was the first public example of redefinition I can recall. Suddenly “oral sex” stopped being “sex.”

Underneath authenticity under attack is the problem of relativism. Why use an external and absolute standard when you can create your own? It isn’t just that people can’t agree on an absolute external standard, it’s that they don’t want to. It is inconvenient to answer to a higher purpose, principle or power.

The result: authentic fakes, or fake authenticity. Sometimes comfortable discomfort. Things that no longer belong to the category they came from.

And an overall demise of the ability to communicate and live with clarity.