As an historical body of path-finders, the Ancient Romans did not think in terms of sustaining competitive advantage, or have much use for trends, fads, and experiments. Rather their vision was more broad and expansive, with the drama of life or death often hanging in the balance. Consequently, their visions were at times both fierce and noble. Ancient Roman leaders more clearly believed in sustaining the quality-of-life of their citizens while growing their empire to ensure the continuity of leadership for those yet to follow. Just as Roman citizenship was held as a great honor and was the aspiration of many, a secure Roman existence and its preferred quality-of-life was believed to be the outcome of performing at the highest level attainable.

Today, two Latin words crystalize this ancient and proven commitment to leadership - "Ultima Thule," an ancient Roman expression meaning the highest effort attainable. Inspired by these Ancient visions, Dr. Raymond Newkirk has derived a more concise expression for 21st Century leadership urging us to achieve the highest level of performance attainable. This term is Ulthule© . It is achieved by integrating advanced knowledge in such diverse areas as Group Work, Group Dynamics, Human Activity Systems, Systems Thinking, Psychology, Ethics, Learning, Performance, Communications, Diversity, Social Cognition, Mindfulness, and Design Inquiry.

Ulthule© leaders are persons who master this transdisciplinary view of leadership to achieve Group Work performance at the highest level attainable. Ulthule© Group Work is the outcome of Ulthule© Leadership. It is the result of team effort at the highest level attainable, or Ultima Thule, to meet the requirements of Group Work performance for customers, managers, workmates, and others. Ulthule© leaders attain Group Work performance well beyond the effort that sustains competitive advantage and Information Technology leverage.

Most issues faced by leaders are the human performance kind. Over the last half of the 20th Century, management thinking has adopted the evolutionary reductionist view of self-regulating structure in which impersonality in corporate systems became the preferred approach for improving organization performance, especially at the top. In this morally unimaginative view, people became merely a means to an end in which individuality is sacrificed to profitability. This thinking, however, has led to a more coldly, dehumanized work environment in which many people are left feeling empty or otherwise dissatisfied with leadership. Even in situations where people-centered programs came to the forefront, they merely served to maintain current leadership approaches, or technically speaking, maintain asymmetrical relations of power.

In many instances, this perspective has resulted in the proverbial mess which is perpetuated by really empty leadership. What Dr. Newkirk discovered in these situations is that management practice has become very trend-centric, often abandoning solid principles of human behavior and Ulthule© Leadership to grab the competitive advantage without regard for the community of Group Workers who make all success possible.

SMI is aware what this thinking means to the future of your organization, its people, and level of Group Work performance. Now that businesses and their employees are reeling from the logical conclusion of such management reductionism and unimaginative morality, something more substantial is needed to meet the call of leadership for improving Group Work performance. Dr. Newkirk has designed the Ulthule© Leadership and Group Work approach to develop genuine leaders who can tap the reservoir of advanced knowledge and experience needed to build meaningful visions for the future and who are willing to participate in their own self-design.

Ulthule© is a powerful, interactive leadership approach that empowers all levels of an organization. For executives, Ulthule© provides a dynamic leadership approach that integrates each domain of the business environment. For Information Technology managers, Ulthule© identifies and enables the prerequisites for succeeding in a Virtual Commerce, high performance environment. For end-users, Ulthule© presents a high performance process for participating with technical groups while achieving business performance at the highest level attainable. For business partners and stakeholders, Ulthule© provides a leadership approach that ensures a safe and effective business relationship. For everyone, Ulthule© provides an effective approach for transferring knowledge about leadership and Group Work performance from one group in the work environment to another.

The Ulthule© Leadership approach offers what you need to guide your own visions in a world forever changed by the challenges of the evolutionary reductionist view of management. Ulthule© Leadership is the result of more than 3,000 years of development! While many trends and fads to leadership and management practice have their day and then rapidly disappear, lasting about two to three years, Ulthule© Leadership is perennial and has already built great empires.