One of the easiest ways to get bad information as a leader is to punish the person who gives you information you do not like. You may never announce that disagreement is unwelcome. You probably will not put it in an employee handbook. But people are remarkably good at figuring out what happens when someone challenges the boss. Maybe the person gets cut out of the next meeting. Maybe their idea is dismissed before they finish explaining it.

Last week, I stood at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C. talking to researchers about something most of them were never really trained to do: Raise money. That sounds strange when you say it out loud. We spend years teaching researchers how to understand disease, design studies, analyze data, publish papers, and defend their science. Then, increasingly, we turn around and say:

We have gotten very comfortable asking one question about almost everything: What is the return on investment? In business, that is usually a reasonable question. In medical research, it can become a limiting one. Some of the most important scientific work does not begin with a product, a treatment, or a clear path to revenue. It begins with a question about how something works, why a biological process behaves the way it does, or what researchers still do not understa

Virginia International Raceway started with a lot of promise. Both cars were fast in practice, and the team seemed to be getting the setups where they needed to be. The No. 46 qualified P5. The No. 64 qualified P28 overall and P2 in Bronze. We had two good cars and two good opportunities. Then racing happened.

There is a version of leadership that looks impressive from the outside. The leader is everywhere. Every decision comes through them. Every problem gets escalated to them. They know every detail, answer every question, and somehow keep the whole thing moving. People usually call that dedication.

Healthcare reimbursement formulas can look like administrative details buried in spreadsheets and regulations. Until one of them is wrong. In 2006, I discovered an error in the way Medicare calculated payment rates for hospitals across the country. It was understating payments by roughly $1 billion per year. What followed was years of appeals and litigation involving hundreds of hospitals before the matter was ultimately resolved.

Road America finally gave the No. 46 car the result it had been working toward all season. The No. 64 had a more difficult afternoon. We arrived at Road America encouraged by the progress we had made with both cars. The handling was improving, the setups were beginning to transfer more effectively between the 46 and the 64, and for the first time this year, we felt like we were developing a clearer direction across the team.

When people think about philanthropy, they often think about the moment a grant is awarded. The announcement is made. The funding is secured. Photos are taken. Everyone celebrates. Then what? That question doesn't get nearly enough attention. In biomedical research, a grant is rarely the finish line. More often, it's the starting point. Discoveries don't happen on a predictable schedule, and meaningful scientific progress almost never fits neatly into a two- or three-ye

Heading into Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP), we knew we had work to do. The setup wasn't exactly where we wanted it to be when the weekend began, but by qualifying we felt like we had made meaningful progress, particularly with the No. 46 Ford Mustang. The No. 64, however, was facing a very different challenge after losing nearly an entire practice session to mechanical issues.

Agreement feels good. It makes meetings shorter. Decisions move faster. Nobody leaves the room irritated. If you are the person in charge, a team that agrees with you can make you feel pretty smart. That should probably make you nervous. I have spent enough time in business, healthcare research, and racing to know that disagreement is often where the useful work starts.

We went into Watkins Glen feeling optimistic. Team TGM had tested at Watkins Glen a few weeks earlier, so we arrived with recent experience and a reasonable sense of what we thought the cars would need. Testing is valuable because it gives you time to work through setups, gather data, and arrive at race weekend with fewer unknowns. At least, that is the idea.

Healthcare is rarely out of the headlines. One day, the conversation centers on rising costs. The next, it’s physician shortages, access to care, insurance reform, or the latest medical breakthrough. Each issue deserves attention because every one affects patients in meaningful ways. But amid all of these discussions, I think we sometimes lose sight of a more fundamental question.

When people think about medical breakthroughs, they often think about the discovery itself. A new therapy. A promising clinical trial. A scientific advancement that changes the way we understand disease. What often gets overlooked is where those breakthroughs begin. They usually start with people. Specifically, researchers willing to spend years asking difficult questions, testing ideas, and pursuing answers that may not come easily.

When people look at race results, they usually see the finishing position. What they do not see are the dozens of decisions, adjustments, setbacks, and variables that shape those results long before the checkered flag falls. That was certainly true for Team TGM at Mid-Ohio. We arrived with high expectations for both cars after a productive test session the week before. We believed we had a strong handle on the setup and felt prepared for the weekend ahead.

Most organizations say they value accountability. Far fewer actually build systems around it. In leadership, mistakes are unavoidable. Decisions get made with incomplete information. Strategies fail. Communication breaks down. Sometimes execution simply falls short. The real difference between strong leadership teams and struggling ones is not whether mistakes happen. It is what happens after they do.

For all the discussion around healthcare reform in the United States, one issue continues to sit at the center of the problem: We still spend far more treating disease than preventing it.

Racing has a way of humbling you quickly. You can spend weeks preparing, reviewing data, refining setup, and building strategy, only for a race weekend to go sideways in a matter of laps. That’s part of the sport. And honestly, it’s part of what keeps people coming back. Our recent weekend at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca was a perfect example of how unpredictable racing can be. One car had an outstanding race. The other barely had a chance to race at all.

When a race ends, most people focus on the result. Where you finished.Who won.What went wrong or right. But in racing, the real work starts after the checkered flag. Because the result tells you what happened. Data tells you why

Leadership is often discussed in terms of strategy, decision-making, and results. Those matter. But there’s another responsibility that doesn’t get as much attention, and it shapes everything else: Setting the tone. Whether it’s intentional or not, leaders establish the environment in which their teams operate. How they communicate, how they respond under pressure, what they tolerate, what they prioritize—all of it sends a signal. And over time, those signals become cul

Most people think progress in cancer research happens in big moments. A breakthrough. A headline. A new treatment. What they don’t see is everything that happens before that. The years of work. The failed experiments. The collaboration across institutions. The early ideas that don’t yet have enough data to qualify for traditional funding. That’s where a lot of the real progress starts. And it’s where cancer research philanthropy can make a meaningful difference.