As Yogi Berra would say, “It was Deja vu all over again.” Five years earlier, we’d conducted introductory service/quality improvement workshops for senior management and head office staff of a large company. Culture and feedback surveys gathered input before and during these follow-up workshops. The company clearly had problems with low engagement, faltering customer service, […]
Read post » “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator,” said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at an international climate negotiations conference. “A recent global survey asked 100,000 16- to 20-year-olds about their attitudes to climate change. More than three-quarters thought the future was frightening, and more than […]
Read post »How’s the world doing? Are we heading in the right direction? Should we look to this new year with dread or hope? How do you answer these questions: Is morality in decline? Are people less kind, less honest, and less good? Do we need to make America/Canada/The World great again? Are rates of violent/property crimes […]
Read post »One evening I was slowly eating dinner with Heather. She waited and waited for me to finish and finally asked me to hurry up. I told her I was mindfully savoring every bite of the delicious meal. She suggested I “savor faster.” “Fast savoring” is an apt oxymoron for our time. We have an epidemic […]
Read post »Simple, succinct, and clear driving instructions. This is solid life advice as well. If day after day of stressful racing around doesn’t manage to actually kill us before our time, it will kill our health, happiness, and effectiveness. I once sat through a scarily high-energy presentation given by a professor specializing in knowledge management. He […]
Read post »Let’s start the year with a big scary dose of gloom and doom! That was the approach of a national media organization with their January 2nd leading headline story: “If you thought 2022 was bad, wait until you see what 2023 has in store for the economy.” It featured a photo of a despondent man […]
Read post »As we look at a new year ahead, what do you think is the state of our world? Are we living in the best of times or the worst of times? Are these statements true or false? The poor are getting poorer as the rich get richer US carbon emissions are rising Home ownership is […]
Read post »Edward Witten, an American mathematical and theoretical physicist, is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He’s a leading researcher in string theory, quantum gravity, supersymmetric quantum field theories, and other areas of mathematical physics. Witten said, “String theory is 21st century physics that fell […]
Read post »The term “metaverse” was coined in the 1992 science fiction novel, Snow Crash, as a combination of “meta” — meaning more comprehensive or transcending — and universe. A core component of the metaverse is virtual reality (VR). VR often uses headsets and motion controllers to create a computer simulated environment. VR is used for gaming, […]
Read post »“Get real!” “You’re not living in the real world.” “That’s a pipe dream that’s completely out of touch with reality!” “Your delusional flights of fancy sound good but in actual fact…” “The reality of our situation is….” “Let me give you a dose of reality.” Anyone trying to stay positive and lead in these turbulent […]
Read post »Julia was exhausted. Business was outstanding. Her team was scrambling to keep up and she was stretched thin. They had trouble finding enough good people to fill the new positions that were being created by the company’s rapid growth. During a family gathering she talked about her crazy-busy life and shared her frustration with a […]
Read post »Life isn’t fair. The world is full of injustice and inequality. Billions live in horrible poverty. Brutal wars kill and maim millions of blameless people. Corrupt governments destroy entire countries’ quality of life. Crooked leaders bilk thousands of investors out of their life savings and drive economies into ruin and throw people out of work. […]
Read post »The light dawned. I was in a meeting with my colleagues, reviewing the rapid changes in our training and consulting business and sorting through our priorities for the coming quarter. We had doubled our already substantial business over the past 18 months. While the growth was exciting, it was also exhausting. We were piling on […]
Read post »Years ago, an elderly couple went to a country fair. The husband was captivated by an animated psychic promising to tell his age and what kind of person he is. He inserted a coin, and the machine sprang to life. The animatronic clairvoyant peered into her crystal ball, mumbled a few words, and pointed to […]
Read post »Are you leading at the speed of change? If the rate of external change exceeds your rate of internal change, you’re going to be changed. Impermanence and disruptive change is a central life force. This never has, nor ever well, change. Constant, unpredictable, and sometimes very sudden change is as predictable and certain as death […]
Read post »I kicked off 2020 with my sixth annual post on how our world keeps getting dramatically and relentlessly better and better and better. As in the five years before that, Lose those News Blues and Leave the Dark Side: The World’s Never Been Better, listed over 30 major improvements and 24 sources for further reading. […]
Read post »What a year!! 2020 is almost over… Like many of us, you’re likely going to stay up on New Year’s Eve just to make sure that old man 2020 is kicked out by a youthful and more hopeful 2021. These holidays will be different — and very memorable! Hopefully, you’ll have some time to pull […]
Read post »Fast and flexible is vital — even lifesaving — today. Recently, we had discussions with a senior leader about his goal to build a more agile organization. This leader had been talking urgently about agility for the past six months. When we started our coaching and consulting work with his leadership team, it soon became […]
Read post »There’s lots of talk about building agile organizations. For good reason. The world’s moving way too fast for traditional approaches. They’re too rigid. Organizations that will survive — even thrive — in these disruptive times are fast and flexible. Agile approaches began a few decades ago with software development. According to the Agile Alliance, “One […]
Read post »In his book, Going Deep, psychologist, Ian Percy outlines a useful change framework. The PIES model helps to chart the depth of commitment to personal, team, or organizational change. The deeper the commitment, the more lasting the change. The first and most superficial level is Political. Appearances are everything. We make a “politically correct” change […]
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