BK Communiqué Author Lists Blog

Five Reasons Why You (Nor Anyone Else) Can Claim that They Are Self-Made

2011-12-29T16:49:00.000-08:00

In Brian Miller and Mike Lapham's new book, the authors argue how the myth of the self-made and successful American is not just damaging but in accurate. No one is self-made because at different crucial junctures, both government and society have contributed heavily to any individual's success.

Here are just five examples of outside factors that are often overlooked but still crucial to the success of any person or venture:

Five People Who Learned Leadership Later

2011-12-28T17:05:00.000-08:00

As Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller illustrate in their latest book, leadership is an ongoing process that has no end point. There is no juncture at which one can (or should) say, "Okay, I am now a leader, I need not learn any more."

To illustrate this point, here are five world-famous people who did not step into their greatest leadership roles until they were much older in life:

1. Ethel Percy Andrus: The retired school principal is the founder of the largest organization for older people in the nation and among the largest in the world. Ethel was 74 when she founded AARP. Read more about her here.

2. David Cohen: Liberal Democrat and stalwart fighter for civil rights and a champion of the poor who served on the Philadelphia City Council for 38 years until he passed away at age 90. he was still fighting City Council when he passed away just a few weeks shy of his 91st birthday. Read more about him here.

3. Sarah Louise Delaney: A committed civil rights pioneer who rose to fame and became a leadership model to many after publishing her New York Times bestselling work "Having Our Say." She was 103 years old when she published the book. She published another book at the age of 107. Learn more about her here.

4. Mary Harris "Mother" Jones: A prominent American labor and community organizer who co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World. In 1902, at the age of 66, she was called "the most dangerous woman in America" for her success in organizing mine workers. She continued to work and speak about union affairs well into her 80s. Learn more about her here.

5. James Fisher: A celebrated blacksmith who returned from retirement to become the first person over the age of 100 to achieve the ACA qualification.

Big Goals Start with Small Changes

2011-12-27T16:01:00.000-08:00

As Ken Blanchard indicates in his foreword to Ken Jennings and Heather Hyde's book, change does not always have to stem from huge and life-altering events. Everyday changes in small measures can add up to a big difference.

Here are Ken and Heather's list of five small changes that anyone can make in their daily lives that can contribute to the greater goal:

1. Pick Just One Positive Behavior: Pick one behavior and commit to practice it every day. For instance, if you want to become known as an encourager, find three occasions every day when you see someone doing good work and recognize them for it. Put three coins in your left pocket each day and each time you encourage someone, move the coin from your left pocket to your right pocket.

2. Connect with Just One Colleague: Most jobs, functions and projects in organizations are highly interdependent, but people try to operate as if they weren’t. Select someone who is working on a project with you or working on a project that directly or indirectly impacts you. What power does that person have over your ability to achieve your goals? What power do you have over their outcomes? Talk over how you can help each other reduce effort. Challenge each other to come up with a specific request or offer of help that will make a positive difference in your shared goals.

3. Just Listen to One Person at a Time. All coaching starts with great listening – being really present to the one who is trying to do their very best thinking. Next time a friend asks you to listen about an important decision they’re making, ask them “What do you care most about achieving by making this decision?” Then just listen without interrupting, probe for details, maintain a relaxed and attentive presence, and resist the urge to react or think about your response. The other person will eventually reveal their deeper, greater goals.

4. Have People Share and Trust One at a Time: Sometimes lack of trust occurs simply because people haven’t had the opportunity to share hopes or concerns in a “safe space” – a forum where they won’t be judged negatively for sharing. To build trust at your next work meeting, suggest that you begin with asking each person present to state the greater purpose for the meeting -- from their personal perspective. End the meeting with another round for each person to express what’s working well with trust and alignment, and where they see opportunity to expand trust.

5. Examine Just One Unexpected Success. It’s funny how larger companies forget that unexpected success is really important feedback that should be paid attention, rather than just celebrated and then disregarded. Find an unexpected success in your work that occurred somewhere on the fringes of your efforts, rather within the core of your focus, and see what it tells you about your customers, your products and your future.

Five Ways Corporate Personhood Directly Impacts You

2011-11-29T14:57:00.000-08:00

Lawyer, activist, and author Jeffrey Clements has been fighting for years to overturn the Citizens United case which granted corporations the same rights as citizens in terms of campaign spending and free speech.

But doesn't this decision only impact politicians and big business? Actually, no. Jeff presents below five ways in which corporate personhood impacts you directly (and negatively):

1. Your voice and your vote. Corporations now have the ‘free speech’ right to spend unlimited money in every election, from the presidential race to state and local judge elections, from the water district to the local school board elections. Corporations can now influence what happens in your own community and (quite literally) your own back yard.

Example: In the November 2010 mid-term elections for Congress, corporations spent hundreds of millions of dollars in undisclosed, un-sourced electioneering activity, adding to the most expensive mid-term election in US history. Why would monolithic companies put so much money into local elections? Think about that when the next Wal-Mart opens in town.

2. Your food. Laws requiring disclosure of the use of genetically modified drugs used in animals and in food production are now unconstitutional, held to be violations of the “corporate speaker’s” right not to speak.

Example: Monsanto’s genetically modified bovine growth hormone drug (rBST) that makes cows produce unnatural amounts of milk and is illegal in virtually every democracy on Earth because of potential side effects for humans. In the U.S., the FDA approved the drug. Monsanto has fought successfully to strike down state laws requiring dairy products made from cows treated with rBST to be labeled as such.

3. Your land, water, air, and life. Corporate ‘speech rights’ have struck down laws that previously required utility corporations to stop promoting energy consumption contrary to the state policy of energy conservation. Unregulated corporate lobbying and election spending results in laws and subsidies favoring multi-billion dollar fossil fuel corporations over innovative but relatively cash-poor alternative energy companies.

Example: 500 mountains, 2500 miles of streams and headwaters, and numerous communities in Appalachia don’t exist anymore, obliterated in the past decade by coal corporations engaged in unregulated mountaintop removal coal extraction; 10,000 excess deaths each year from coal-burning utilities; 29 coal miners killed in April 2010 mine explosion labeled “industrial homicide” by the United Mineworkers Association.

4. Your job and income. Citizens United and corporate ‘rights’ are not about speech, they are about power. When the people are not allowed to regulate corporate election spending and lobbying, we have crony capitalism, where those who fund the policymakers get the policies that favor the few who control the largest corporations. For global corporations that have the capital to ‘pay-to-play,’ the American employment market is the same as any other in the world -- an expense to contain or eliminate.

Example: In 1980, before corporations had a Constitutional trump card over our laws, the average CEO made 42 times the average employee salary. Now that average CEO multiple is 263 times the average employee wage. Between 1950 and 1980, average income rose 75%, from $17,719 to $30,941. Between 1980 and 2008, average income went from $30,941 to $31,244, a gain of $303 in twenty-eight years. The more money that is paid to the people at the top, the less there is for everyone else.

5. Your politics and your time. Corporate personhood will fracture the late 20th century political arrangements. The old alliance of Chamber of Commerce corporatists with small government conservatives and libertarians in the Republican Party will break. The alliance of Wall Street corporatists with progressives in the Democratic Party will break.

Example: The last time that corporate personhood fueled a dangerous Gilded Age, Americans built a movement of Republicans and Democrats, populists and independents to enact four Constitutional amendments between 1913 and 1920. They ensured the Congress had the power to adopt a national progressive income tax; they required that Senators be elected by the people; they guaranteed the right of women to vote. And, well, they also put Prohibition into the Constitution (to be removed by another amendment a decade later).

Today, fundamental reform is coming again: Seventy-eight percent of Republicans, Independents and Democrats oppose Citizens United and support a People’s Rights Amendment to the Constitution to reverse it. More than two million have signed resolutions.

Five Good Reasons NOT to Step Up (and Five Better Reasons to Do It Anyway)

2011-11-24T23:50:00.000-08:00

John Izzo's latest book is all about the importance (and difficulty) of stepping up to address and help solve problems and speak when others may not or be afraid to. It's a challenge and there are many good reasons why people don't want to do it.

However, John knows those reasons and has more reasons for why you should do it anyway. In fact, here is his list of the Five Good Reasons You Shouldn't Step Up, and Five Better Reasons Why You Should Anyway:

Reason #1 to NOT Step Up: I Am Only One Person so it Won’t Matter if I Step Up

The Reason to Do It Anyway: It’s easy to forget that every movement or organization started with one person! When one person acts it often inspires others to act. Every action creates a ripple. The power of aggregate influence occurs when our actions are added to the actions of others. All you need is the belief that you can and the willingness to take that first step.

Reason #2 to NOT Step Up: People Who Stick Their Necks Out Get in Trouble

The Reason to Do It Anyway: Sometimes this is true but more often than not, it’s just a myth. The reality is that people who speak up and take action and challenge the status quo are actually perceived as leaders and more likely to get promoted (and research supports this). Did you know that if not for two frontline up-stepping employees at Starbucks who refused to listen to their superiors telling them that the public would never go for it, the Frappuccino would have never been created? Today that one product alone is a billion dollar business.

Reason #3 to NOT Step Up: I Might Fail So I’m not Going to Risk It

The Reason to Do It Anyway: Yes, you might step up and fail. But failure is not the worst thing -- regret is. Until you step up you may never know how powerful you are. Sitting back and doing nothing when you see a problem while knowing you can do something about it could leave you feeling worse than if you took a risk and failed. What if you succeed? You’ll never know if you sit passively on the sidelines. No risk—no reward.

Reason #4 to NOT Step Up: Who Am I to step up? I Don’t Have Anything to Offer.

The Reason to Do It Anyway: Whenever we think of stepping up it’s easy to think, “Who am I to step up?” Maybe we think we are not talented enough, influential enough, or courageous enough. Nothing could be further from the truth. The people who most often step up are not especially gifted or powerful people -- just ordinary folks who did extraordinary things. A classic example of this is the story about a homeless, unemployed dumpster diver who started a recycling revolution.

Reason #5 to Not Step Up: Other People (with Greater Responsibility) Should Step Up First

The Reason to Do It Anyway: We have no control over what other people do, whether it’s your boss, your spouse, your coworkers or your neighbours. Just because they should, it doesn’t mean they will. But we have the freedom to take action ourselves. Research shows people who are passive tend to be less happy and less successful than those who actively take responsibility and try to make things happen.

Five Lessons to Learn from China

2011-11-09T13:38:00.000-08:00

Long a controversial nation that has drawn media scrutiny and public ire, China still remains a superpower to be contended with. Here are five good lessons to learn from China:

1. Progress at a Fast Pace
A brand-new six-lane highway opened in suburban Shanghai in October, 2009. The whole thing took about two years to build — roughly the time it would take to get the bureaucratic regulatory permits for a new highway in the U.S. If, that is, you could get them at all. There's no direct translation into Chinese of the phrase can-do spirit. But yong wang zhi qian probably suffices. Literally, it means "march forward courageously."

2. Have a Strong and Rigorous Educational System
After decades of investment in an educational system that reaches the remotest peasant villages, the literacy rate in China is now over 90%. (The U.S.'s is 86%.) And in China, students don't just learn to read. Equal emphasis is put on science and maths education, resulting in a rigorous but academically superior educational system. The Chinese understand that there is no substitute for putting in the hours and doing the work and accept the rigors of the educational system. Chinese students, according to a 2006 report by the Asia Society, spend twice as many hours doing homework as do their U.S. peers.

3. Take Care of Your Elders
In China, senior-care costs are, for the most part, borne by families, and putting people in homes is frowned upon. For millions of Chinese, that's a burden as well as a responsibility, and it unquestionably skews both spending and saving patterns. Still, there are benefits that balance the financial burden: grandparents tutor and look after the young children while Mom and Dad work; they acculturate the youngest generation to the values of family and nation; they provide a sense of cultural continuity that helps bind and sustain both community and society.

4. Spend Less, Save More
The savings rate in the U.S. is currently about 4%. In China, the household-savings rate exceeds 20%. It is partly for straightforward policy reasons. As indicated above, wage earners are expected to care for not only their children but also their aging parents. And there is, to date, only the flimsiest of publicly funded health care and pension systems, which increases incentives for individuals to save while they are working. In addition to this, Chinese culture, like the cultures of many other East Asian countries, esteems personal financial prudence, and has done so for centuries.

5. Look for Long-Term Growth Over Short-Term Benefits
The Chinese government isn't frantically building all this infrastructure just to create make-work jobs. And kids aren't studying themselves sleepless because it's a lot of fun. China is striving to become what it has not yet become. Culturally, hard work today means a much better life decades from now for those who will inherit what people today helped create. The benefits of growth are not measured within the span of a single lifetime. The Chinese view of progress is one that stretches over multiple generations.

These were excerpted from several reports on China's growth by Time Magazine and specifically the work of journalist William Powell.

Thoughts? Reactions?

Five Teamwork Lessons from Geese

2011-11-04T14:56:00.000-07:00

These facts have been attributed to numerous individuals including a pastor, a biologist, a Buddhist monk, and an environmentalist. The source is not important, the lessons are:

Geese Teamwork Fact 1: As each goose flaps its wings it creates an "uplift" for the birds that follow. By flying in a "V" formation, the whole flock adds 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew alone.

Lesson: People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.

Geese Teamwork Fact 2: When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of flying alone. It quickly moves back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front of it.

Lesson: If we have as much sense as a goose we stay in formation with those headed where we want to go. We are willing to accept their help and give our help to others.

Geese Teamwork Fact 3: When the lead goose tires, it rotates back into formation and another goose flies to the point position.

Lesson: It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership. As with geese, people are interdependent on each other's skills, capabilities and unique arrangements of gifts, talents or resources.

Geese Teamwork Fact 4: The geese flying in formation honk to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.

Lesson: We need to make sure our honking is encouraging. In groups where there is encouragement, the production is much greater. The power of encouragement is the quality of honking we seek.

Geese Teamwork Fact 5: When a goose gets sick, wounded or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it to help and protect it. They stay with it until it dies or is able to fly again. Then, they launch out with another formation or catch up with the flock.

Lesson: If we have as much sense as geese, we will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong.

The Five Diversity Myths Still Alive and Well in Corporate America

2011-10-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

Martin Davidson holds post-graduate degrees from both Harvard and Stanford and is a professor and Chief Diversity Officer at the Darden School of Management at the University of Virginia. His latest work delves into why diversity initiatives are so faulty in the American workplace. Here he presents five of the most common diversity myths that still rule most American businesses:

Myth 1: Having diversity will increase performance and profits

Why it’s a myth: Having greater diversity in your team and in your organization only helps if you understand what to do with it. Bringing together people of different ethnicities, genders, or sexual orientations and saying “go to work” is a blueprint for failure and several studies bear this out. The key is being strategic about what kind of diversity you need to get the job done and going after it.

Myth 2: If you increase the number of women and people of color, you have increased your diversity

Why it’s a myth: Of course gender and ethnicity play a role in the way people see things. But the value of diversity doesn’t come from the appearance of a person. Rather, it comes in taking advantage of diverse perspectives to create business results. You can have a group that very much looks like the rainbow, but thinks pretty much the same -- and in that case, you haven’t increased your diversity at all.

Myth 3: Diversity efforts always benefit women and people of color

Why it’s a myth: White males are the generally the dominant group in the U.S. workplace and often believe they have the most to lose -- jobs, promotions, status -- when it comes to diversity. But women, people of color, and other people who are different also resist when diversity rhetoric and norms of behavior single them out and put them under a microscope. If diversity is only about counting heads, neither the organization nor “diverse” employees benefit in the long run.

Myth 4: A diverse workplace is ideally a harmonious and integrated workplace

Why it’s a myth: When diversity is working at its best, people are constantly bumping up against new ideas and perspectives that challenge long-held beliefs about how they see the world. I don’t know about you, but that activity usually unsettles me. A workplace in which differences are being leveraged is dynamic, energized, emotional and rarely boring. If you think that the ultimate vision for true diversity is constant harmony, think again.

Myth 5: Corporate leaders who want to increase race and gender diversity will make it happen

Why it’s a myth: Leaders constantly juggle the need to meet business goals with the need to meet diversity goals -- often causing them to choose between either increasing race and gender diversity, or focusing on corporate performance. Because diversity is not well-linked to performance, they have to choose that which will take precedent -- corporate performance. An added cost: these leaders -- who really want to do the right thing -- end up worried that they will be seen as biased because they aren’t making progress with diversity. The only solution to this is to make diversity efforts and corporate performance one in the same. Leveraging difference, not managing diversity, can do just that.

Thoughts, reactions, ideas?

Five Things You Didn't Know About the Aravind Eye Hospital

2011-10-03T13:44:00.000-07:00

This eye hospital in South India manages to provide world-class eye care to millions despite the fact that the overwhelming number of their patients are poor and cannot pay. The story of Aravind can be read in the book Infinite Vision.

Here are five more things you probably didn't know about Aravind Eye Hospital:

1. They never close and they never slow down. Aravind keeps its surgical equipment in operation 24 hours a day, which reduces the cost-per-surgery significantly. Also, doctors focus only on performing surgeries and leave nurses to handle pre-op and post-op care, which increases doctor productivity. These actions allow the hospital to operate on the poor at no cost while still being profitable. From April 2009 to March 2010, Aravind treated over 2.5 million out-patients and performed over 300,000 surgeries for poor patients.

2. They have McDonalds to thank for their modus operandi. Aravind's founder (Dr. V) was inspired by McDonald’s restaurants and wanted to model the eye hospital on them. Dr. V. was fascinated by the service efficiency, speed, and consistency of McDonald's operations and wanted to transfer that same process to the Aravind system as a way to cope with the increasing numbers of patients who began turning up at the hospital's door.

3. It’s still a family business. Today Aravind's top management team of nine executives are all Dr. V's family members, and all but two are doctors. Twenty-four other relatives work at lower levels in the hospital system's hierarchy.

4. They're not a charity and don’t ask their doctors to forego healthy salaries in order to serve the poor. Aravind's administrators can afford to pay market rates and competitive salaries. They recruit doctors from their own training institute, which offers an internationally-recognized two-year postgraduate specialization in ophthalmology. While doctors at privately run hospitals face pressures to deliver revenues, Aravind encourages "honest medicine,” with a balance between clinical practice and community work.

5. They make their own lenses and instruments – which are of such high quality that they are imported to over 120 countries. Up until 1992, Aravind was importing lenses at almost $150 per unit. By adapting technology initially sourced from the U.S., Aravind was able to produce its own lenses within an affordable price range of $2 to $10 each. Today they manufacture 2 million lenses a year and export them to over 120 countries (and have 7% of the global market share for intraocular lenses by volume). Their product portfolio has expanded to include suture needles, microsurgical blades, lasers, and eye drops.

So, what are the lessons we in the United States could learn here?

Top Five Political WTFs of 2010

2011-09-14T14:48:00.000-07:00

Thom Hartmann presents his video selection for the top five political trends and moments in 2010 that made so little sense that they bordered (and at times crossed over) into the absurd.

Five Alternate Tips for Establishing Personal Presence

2011-09-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

Dianna Booher has been writing about professional presence and communications for decades and has a number of bestselling titles under her belt.

Here she lists five lesser-known techniques that are easy to remember and yet make all the difference when establishing presence and influence with others:

1. Take a stand: Stand to the left side of a group when you deliver laugh lines and you’ll get a better response (as opposed to the right side, where you should deliver emotional stories and appeals).

2. Observe the one-sentence rule: Recognize the importance of summarizing your concept or idea down to its core essence. If you can't summarize your idea in a single sentence, you're going to have a significantly more challenging time trying to convince the folks in the boardroom.

3. Talk to the back row: Project to those farther away from you rather than keeping your eyes on the friendly faces down front when you speak to a group. Talk to those seated in the back row, last seat. Your brain will automatically adjust your energy level, voice, and body language to project so that you can engage those people at a distance. Those even closer will engage with you as well.

4. Pause before you launch. Talking on trajectory makes you look nervous. Whether just leaving your seat to walk to the front of a meeting room, simply rising from your chair at the conference table, or joining a conversation when someone asks your opinion, pause before you begin will increase the impact and importance of what you say.

5. Stick to the facts. Prefer verbs and nouns to adjectives and adverbs. Verbs and nouns express facts (or what sounds like fact). Verbs motivate, persuade, and demand action. Adjectives and adverbs express opinions and therefore invite people to nitpick and argue.

Thoughts? Reactions? Other ideas?

Six Keys to True Prosperity

2011-08-16T16:10:00.001-07:00

These are the six keys to a prosperous life, as outlined in Ethan Willis and Randy Garn's book, Prosper.

1. Locate Your Polaris Point. Everyone’s unique Polaris Point is their vision of what they want to become, to achieve, to contribute, to create. It also includes realistically determining the role money will play in those aspirations.

2. Live in Your Prosperity Zone. When your earnings are aligned with your Polaris Point, that's when you're living in your unique Prosperity Zone. If you have a Polaris Point that your earnings cannot support, or if your earnings overwhelm your Polaris Point, then you are not in the Prosperity Zone. The Prosperity Zone is when your Polaris Point and earnings are in balance.

3. Earn from Your Core. Sustainable prosperity flows from your unique abilities. Make an inventory of what really motivates you. What do you do that feels more like play than work? The more you leverage the energy that flows from that kind of passion, the bigger the competitive advantage you can deliver, and the more income you can make.

4. Start with What You Already Have. You have hidden assets all around you to waiting to be discovered and put to use. The pursuit of prosperity is fueled by an awareness of the abundance you already have, not the abundance you believe you lack. The fullness of your plate when you start matters less than the fact that, however little your plate contains, you notice that your plate isn’t empty.

5. Commit to Your Prosperity Path. You have a prosperous life of your own creation and are now empowered by a clear direction (your personal Polaris Point). Apply your core abilities and resources, have metrics to measure your progress against, and make yourself accountable. Decide to live the life you really want.

6. Take Profound Action. Here’s where you implement the prosperity plan that marries personal satisfaction with a sustainable income stream. Persistence is required in taking the next step and the step after that, on the long-distance path to prosperity. There are no get-rich-quick schemes, only that law that stipulates that as you sow, so shall you reap.

Five Ways True North Groups Can Save Leaders

2011-08-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

Bill George and Doug Baker argue for the value of True North Groups in their new book of the same title. Leaders and others need a small group of people with whom we can have in-depth discussions and share intimately about the most important things in their lives -- both personal professional.

Here are five traditional pitfalls all leaders encounter and how True North Groups help them avoid such scenarios:

Pitfall #1: No one for you and other leaders to talk to about challenges and dilemmas. The missing link for many leaders is having a safe place where they can share their experiences, challenges, and frustrations, and get honest feedback.

True North Groups provide small, intimate peer groups where people talk openly about their issues in confidential settings. There are not very many places left where a leader can voice his or her concerns and issues without getting tangled up in corporate politics, disclosure issues, or similar problems, and yet all humans need to communicate, share, and even vent. True North groups provide the arena for such exchanges.

Pitfall #2: Getting on the slippery slope to unethical behavior. All leaders face ethical dilemmas and doing the right thing is often not as easy as it sounds. Because group members maintain each other's trust, a leader who feels that he or she is veering too close to an ethical precipice and get support and advice from others who have also been in the same space.

In a True North Group where people share their deepest feelings and greatest difficulties, group members feel comfortable in challenging you when they think you are losing your bearings or deviating from your beliefs and values. Because they know your life story, they are able to perceive how prior events in your life or your motivations may be influencing your decisions today.

Pitfall #3: Having blind spots that keep you and other leaders from seeing their impact on others. Most leaders have blind spots – characteristics they are unaware of – that tend to get in the way of understanding how their leadership is impacting others. Effective leadership comes from a place of authenticity, which is the essential quality of leaders with high levels of emotional intelligence, or EQ. In our experience, we have not seen leaders fail for lack of IQ, but have observed many leaders fail who lacked EQ. The essence of EQ is having a high level of awareness of yourself and your impact on others.

True North Groups provide the feedback that enables leaders to understand their blind spots, open up hidden areas, and gain a deeper understanding of who they are. These groups offer a unique environment for people to develop self-awareness, self-compassion, authenticity and ultimately, self-actualization.

Pitfall #4: Trying to be someone different than who you are. An important part of leadership is accepting yourself -- your weaknesses as well as your strengths -- and having confidence that others will accept you for who you are. However, this is a lot easier said than done. Our natural inclination is to show strength and hide weaknesses -- even more so if you're in a leadership position.

The support and confidence the group will give you enables you to face difficult situations in your life and work and navigate them successfully. Many people report they discuss life experiences with their True North Group that they have shared with few people in their lives. Others report seeing their crucibles in entirely new ways. This can lead to a healthy reframing of one’s most difficult experiences. Revisiting painful and difficult times and exploring their dark sides can be a healing experience.

Pitfall #5: Not appreciating others for their differences and what can be learned from them. We are all prone to judgment of others based on their backgrounds and experiences because we tend to be wary of those who are different from us and don't readily trust them.

In a True North Group you learn to accept others, celebrate their differences, and learn from people whose life experiences differ from yours. This dynamic gives you the capacity for sharing yourself in intimate ways and for being more open with others. In learning about crucibles others have faced, you realize you are not alone in facing great challenges. Intimate sharing builds trust among group members and leads to higher levels of self-awareness and sensitivity to others.

Five Reasons I Had to Write This Book

2011-07-12T13:29:00.000-07:00

Deepak Malhotra thought that the business bestseller "Who Moved My Cheese?" made some good points about the need to anticipate and adapt to change, but he also took issue with the book’s core message: accept that change is inevitable and beyond your control, don’t waste your time wondering why things are the way they are, keep your head down and start chasing after more cheese. So he wrote "I Moved Your Cheese", which offers an altogether different perspective—one that challenges the notion that we are simply mice in a maze, subject to the designs of others and destined to chase blindly after cheese.

Here are the five compelling reasons he felt he had to write this book:

Reason # 1: Because some of the greatest barriers to success are internal. In the face of established practices, traditional ideas, scarce resources and the powerful demands or expectations of others, we often underestimate our ability to control our own destiny and overcome the constraints we face -- or think we face.

Reason # 2: Because we need more people who will challenge the old way of doing things. We need to think twice before telling would-be innovators, problem solvers, entrepreneurs, and leaders that instead of wasting their time wondering why things are the way they are, they should simply accept their world as given.

Reason # 3: Because what is impossible to control today, may be possible to control tomorrow. Even in situations where things are beyond our control, we should do more than blindly accept our fate. We should still seek to understand why the change was forced on us, how we might exert greater control over our lives or business in the future, and what it would take to escape the kinds of mazes in which we are always subject the designs of others.

Reason # 4: Because we're often unaware that we are in the maze. Too often we are blindly chasing after the cheese, and not stopping to think whether the goals we are chasing are the correct ones. This is as true for students who are picking a major, as it is for graduates picking a career, or mid-career folks working towards the next promotion.

Reason #5: Because intellect and intent are often not enough. For the most difficult problems we face in business and in life, being smart, hard-working and well-intentioned is not sufficient. We need to challenge longstanding assumptions, see the old in new ways, and be willing to chart our own, unique course towards success.

Five Companies That Are Not What You Thought They Would Be

2011-07-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

It's always easy to tell which companies are doing good work and behaving and which ones are not, right? Actually, it's not. Some companies are very good at covering up their misdeeds while others get lumped with some ugly accusations that never go away despite all that they do.

For this issue, the authors of Good Company list companies that are not what you thought they would be by assigning a “Good Company” grade of A to F to five major players in the Fortune 100. The grade is based on their status as good employers, good sellers, and good stewards of the environment and their communities.

Here are five of the more surprising companies and their grades:

1. Walmart -- the company that so many love to hate –- earns a C (rather than the F that many readers might have expected). Why? Partly because of its significant advances in going green on a humongous scale and its use of its core capabilities to tackle hunger.

2. CVS Caremark -- operator of thousands of neighborhood drugstores -- received a D. It racked up government penalties of over $38 million in recent years due to Medicaid prescription drug fraud and potential violations of federal privacy regulations. On top of that, it got lousy marks as an employer.

3. Disney –- the “happiest place on earth” —- (appropriately enough) earns the highest grade of A. It did so by getting the basics -- being a good employer, seller and steward -- and by abiding by the law and avoiding greedy behavior.

4. Hewlett-Packard -- seen for decades as a paragon of corporate virtue -- only earned a C. Dismal scores from its employees on HP as a place to work were among the negative categories that offset some of HP’s more positive attributes, including its high green/sustainability rankings.

5. Goldman Sachs -- for many the poster-boy for corporate greed -- earns a B. Although many readers may grind their teeth, saying that Goldman deserves an F, there is in fact a great deal they have done right over the years. But to thrive in the future, they are going to need to improve their performance to an A or risk a future of mediocrity or worse.

You can find details behind these grades – as well as the grades of other Fortune 100 companies – at the Good Company Index.

So what do you think? Did Bassi and co-authors get it right or wrong? Chime in below.

Eight Ways to See a Baseball Game

2011-06-20T16:33:00.000-07:00

People tend to see things in a very "flat" way. However, there are in fact many ways to experience even the most basic activity, which means businesses can now offer customers a whole range of immersive encounters. Joe Pine and Kim Korn have explored what this multiverse offers in their new book Infinite Possibility.

For example, thanks to the multiverse and using their core theory of the eight key types of immersive models, Joe and Kim explain how there are actually eight ways to participate in a simple baseball game:

1. Reality (Space, Matter, Time): You are in the bleachers of your hometown baseball team, cheering them on.

2. Augmented Reality (No Space, No Matter, Time): While watching the game, you are checking your iPhone for stats on the players, information about the game, and checking in on FourSquare.

3. Alternate Reality (Space, No Matter, No Time): You are playing an online Rotisserie league based on real players’ performance in actual games, but translated into a web-based computer experience.

4. Warped Reality (Space, Matter, No Time): You are attending an old-timer’s fantasy camp with retired players, and maybe even old uniforms from a time gone by. No aluminum bats here!

5. Virtuality (No Space, No Matter, No Time): Ah, here is a familiar category. Your Playstation video game is entirely virtual.

6. Augmented Virtuality:(No Space, Matter, No Time): This is a tricky one! You send your favorite Little League player a physical Hallmark greeting card that shows his favorite characters in 3D when he holds it up to his computer screen.

7. Physical Virtuality (No Space, Time, Matter): This realm brings the virtual to the physical. Design your favorite baseball stadium in LEGO’s on your computer — LEGO will send you a complete kit in the mail.

8. Mirrored Virtuality (Space, No Matter, No Time): Major League Baseball Gameday allows you to review every throw and every hit from various camera angles in 3D. One game could be relived for hundreds of years if you wanted to see it all!

Five Reasons Why the Talent Leaves

2011-06-13T16:50:00.001-07:00

Wendy Axelrod and Jeannie Coyle's new book explores how talent development can best be facilitated by the managers the talents work with every day. Developing talent is important, especially since simply retaining talent is enough of a challenge. Every day, organizations lose their highest-potential employees to things that could have been avoided. Here are five of the most common avoidable reasons why the talent leaves:

1. Ineffective Ways of Giving Feedback and Measuring Performance. This is not about the contents of the feedback but the way in which the feedback is communicated. Many companies do not do a very effective job at giving feedback and even a positive interaction can leave the talent irritated. Feedback is usually non-existent or "breezed through" hurriedly giving the impression to the employee that the company doesn't really value them.

2. Wandering Priorities. Most companies are great at setting up a strategic directive but lousy at sticking with it. The talent then ends up giving his or her all to something that has -- since being assigned -- become a lower-level priority for the organization (but no one told the talent that). That kind of frustration and feeling of disrespect will have 'em heading for the door.

3. Not Keeping Other Talents in the Organization. Top talent often measures itself against others, so when a talented individual is in a group with other talented individuals, it creates an energetic and fulfilling working environment. However, pairing top talent with moderate to weak performers not only slows down the talent but makes him or her question their value to the organization and how much growing and learning can be done within that particular workplace.

4. Corporate Bureaucracy. Often cited as one of the most common reasons people leave organizations, bureaucracy is tolerated by companies of all sizes and not just larger institutions. In order for talent to develop, it must be allowed to explore and expand in non-traditional ways ("freedom to grow"). If there's a strong bureaucratic vibe in the organization, the talent feels obstructed and blocked at every turn. He or she will immediately leave for another place where they have more room to move.

5. A Lack of Exciting Projects. Everyone has a small measure of work that is administrative and perhaps dull, and talented individuals don't expect each day to be a exciting challenge. But often these individuals are never given anything that challenges them and gives them an opportunity to exercise and develop their talents. Sooner or later, boredom and the inability to do anything outside of the most mundane of duties will drive the talent out.

Thoughts? Responses? Ideas?

Five Lesser-Known Facts About Mother Teresa

2011-05-27T16:27:00.000-07:00

She was an incredible leader and remains an inspiration to this day to the global order that she founded as well as common people in all walks of life. But, like all of us, she was human and had the same frailties and often had to make the same compromises that all of us do in order to get things done. Some have argued that Mother Teresa should not be granted sainthood, but many have also argued that it is what makes her human that makes her worthy of recognition. Decide what you will, here are five things about Mother Teresa you probably won't like to hear:

1. She was not always strong in her faith. Documents and private letters that have been found (many published in the edited collection of her writings called Come Be My Light) attest to several periods in her life when Mother Teresa questioned her faith and the power of God, stating at one point, "Deep down, there is nothing in me by emptiness and darkness."

2. She had a reputation for treating others in her order callously. Many former nuns that worked with Mother Teresa and her order have come forward to claim that there were many practices instituted by her holiness that were almost draconian. One of these nuns, Susan Shields, who worked with Mother Teresa for nine years, has written for decades trying to dispel "The Myth of the Mother." She wrote in an article that "In San Francisco, the sisters were given the use of a three-story convent, but they pushed the mattresses out the windows and removed all the sofas, chairs and curtains... the house was made to conform to a way of life intended to help the sisters become "holy." The heating remained off all winter in this exceedingly damp house. Several Sisters got TB during the time I lived there.”

3. She accepted money from crooks and thieves. Christopher Hitchens has written in his bestseller, The Missionary Position, that Mother Teresa accepted $500,000 from famed bilker Charles Keating. When it was revealed to her by Charles Turley, then the Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles, that Keating had stolen the money and was asked to return any portion of it that she could, she refused to comply or even respond. She also accepted $10,000 from John Roger, a fanatical and corrupt cult leader who claimed to be superior to Christ.

4. She underwent an exorcism because demonic possession was suspected. In her later years, she became even more temperamental, reportedly flying into a rage for minor issues and behaving erratically. In fact, her mood became so erratic that she even underwent an exorcism at one point.

5. The millions of dollars Mother Teresa's charities took in remain unaccounted for. Several investigators including author and documentarian Aroup Chatterjee have discussed the economics behind how the charities operated and how the medical care that was dispensed to the needy was severely lacking and not representative of the millions of dollars that were being contributed by people worldwide. In the BBC 4 documentary, Hell's Angel, it is pointed out repeatedly that all sisters in the order lived in poverty in the same hovels as those they served and that medical care was severely lacking. But when questioned as to where the funds that were being funneled into the organization were going, no answer was forthcoming.

Misconceptions? Easily misinterpreted errors of assumption? Rumors? Or just evidence that like us all, Mother Teresa was a human being?

These Aren't Your Old-School Customers

2011-05-17T15:17:00.001-07:00

Chip Bell and John Patterson's new book Wired and Dangerous explores how the customer relations field has changed rapidly with the advent of new technology and new options and how businesses need to update their ways of dealing with those customers or risk shutting down.

In this post, Chip and John list five ways in which customers today are different from customers yesterday -- and what this means for you:

1. Yesterday: Unhappy customers would write a letter to the CEO or ask to speak to the manager.

Today: They post a rant or complain on Yelp or their blog or Twitter or start a Facebook page against the business.

Why You Should Worry: The presence of social media and the internet means that this is no longer an issue between a customer and a company, it’s a public brawl and everyone is invited. Worse yet, people have the tendency to believe the customer, so you’re suddenly feeling threatened by a whole bunch of people you don’t even know.

2. Yesterday: Customers would raise issues and then wait a reasonable length of time for the business or company to address those issues

Today: Customers raise issues and want resolution or compensation immediately.

Why You Should Worry: We are now an instant gratification-based culture, which means that anything other than an immediate positive response runs the risk of being seen as stalling for time or worse yet, completely ignoring the customer. If you don’t have a strategy and process in place for immediately addressing such issues, you could end up in trouble.

3. Yesterday: Customers had three channels of communications with organizations: face to face, a phone call, and snail mail -- accessible only Monday through Friday from 9 to 5.

Today: Customers have unlimited channels of communication that includes a “party line” (social media) to all their friends available 24/7.

Why You Should Worry: Unless your company's channels are congruent and customer-centric, the customer will use his or her own channels to destroy your reputation before you even wake up the following morning!

4. Yesterday: Customers paid most of their attention to getting what they wanted or needed, not to the experience associated with that acquisition. If you offered a quality product or service at a fair price, you could stay in the game.

Today: Customers demand a great experience in addition to a high-value product or service -- and at a fair price. Also, they determine how good your experiential offer is by comparing their experiences with other businesses they interact with. This is why mom-and-pop shops are competing with Amazon.

Why You Should Worry: With customer service expectations increasing by 33% a year and with the many great service providers from whom they draw memorable experiences -— Zappos, Nordstroms, Disney, etc. -- if you are not constantly enhancing the quality of their experience, you will be left behind by those who are.

5. Yesterday: Customers were relatively subservient to a few established and often corporate sources of consumer advice -— they bought what Madison Avenue, MTV, and Hollywood told them to buy.

Today: Customers are king -— they are empowered and emboldened by their capacity to influence the marketplace through the Internet and social media. These customers also wield more power than their corporate counterparts -- the most carefully massaged piece of publicity for any product can be readily undone by an anonymous consumer's clumsy rant.

Why You Should Worry: The idea that the customer as king is as flawed as the one that argues that the organization as king because neither approaches are sustainable today. Smart businesses build the principles of partnership into the design and delivery of service to customers so that both parties have a vested interest in the success of the product.

Four Principles to Access the Source of Innovation

2011-05-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

At the heart of what Joseph Jaworski discovered during this fifteen-year journey as a way to understand and access the Source of wisdom and creativity – the place from which profound innovation flows – are these four principles:

1. There is an open and emergent quality to the universe; a group of simple components can suddenly re-emerge at a higher level of self-organization as a new entity with new properties.

An example of this is what I describe in Synchronicity about my experiences with the search-and-rescue team during the immediate aftermath of the Waco tornado. The team “automatically” operated at a higher level of self-organization; leadership shifted seamlessly “in the moment” and as required; and tasks were performed without “conscious awareness”.

2. The universe is a domain of undivided wholeness; both the material world and consciousness are parts of the same undivided whole.

I learned about this during his conversation with the noted physicist David Bohm, who told me about Bell’s Theorem -- that if you separate the two particles in a paired two-particle system –- putting one particle in New York, say, and another in San Francisco –- then if you change the spin of one of these particles, the other particle will simultaneously change its own spin. Bohm said “The effect is a simple consequence of the oneness of apparently separate objects.” He added, “We are all one.”

3. There is a creative Source of infinite potential enfolded in the manifest universe; connection to this Source leads to the emergence of new realities.

Consider the discoveries of Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci or Jonas Salk. Like them, each of us has access to infinite wisdom and unlimited potential leading to the emergence of new realities -- discovery, innovation, renewal and transformation.

4. Humans can learn to draw from the infinite potential of the Source by choosing to follow a disciplined path toward self-realization and love, the most powerful energy in the universe. The words of philosopher Pierre Telihard de Chardin speak well to this principle. “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness the energies of love and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Many people have experienced a connection with the Source, often when called upon to respond in times of crisis. In these moments of extreme spontaneity and intuitive insight, actions flow seemingly without any sort of conscious intervention -- without thinking, a person simply knows what to do.

Based upon your own understanding of these principles, and what it means to be “in the flow”, what are your individual experiences with the Source?

Five "Facts" About Teams That Aren't True

2011-04-18T21:08:00.000-07:00

Harvard Professor of Psychology Richard Hackman has received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, and the Distinguished Educator and Distinguished Scholar Awards from the Academy of Management. Richard's latest book examines team dynamics.

Some teams have lots of time to mull things over before eventually deciding what they are going to do. Others do not have it so good: they have to solve hard problems in real time and cannot start over if things are not going well. That can be plenty hard -- and is made even harder by five common misperceptions about what actually shapes team performance.

Fact #1: Harmonious teams perform better. They operate smoothly and don’t have to waste time on pointless debates about how to proceed.

Actually: Quite the opposite, research shows. Conflict and disagreement, when well-managed and focused on a team’s objectives, can generate more creative solutions than one sees in conflict-free groups. Conflict, so long as it is about the work itself, can be good for a team.

Fact #2: It’s good to mix it up by bringing in new members. Newcomers bring energy and new ideas to a team. Without them, members risk becoming complacent, inattentive to changes in the environment, and too forgiving of fellow members’ miscues and misbehavior.

Actually: The longer members stay together as an intact team, the better they do. As unreasonable as this may seem, the research evidence is unambiguous. Whether it is a basketball team or a string quartet, teams that stay together longer play better together.

Fact #3: Having the right people on a team is the key to success. Analyze the task to figure out the knowledge and skill that is needed and then pick the highest-level experts you can corral (instead of hobbling the team by staffing it with nice people).

Actually: Expertise by itself is insufficient. If a team is to be successful, all members need to have at least modest capability in working collaboratively with others. Besides, if needed expertise does not exist within the team, members always can seek it from outsiders.

Fact #4: The more information, the better. Teams that have too little data run the risk of making erroneous assumptions and heading off in the wrong direction.

Actually: Teams sometimes drown in data. Large quantities of information don’t always help clarify a murky situation. Indeed, more data sometimes actually makes it harder to figure things out. It’s not the amount of information that counts, it is the choice about what information the team gets and uses that can spell the difference between success and failure.

Fact #5: Face-to-face interaction is passé. Now that we have powerful technologies for communication and coordination, teams can do their work much more efficiently at a distance.

Actually: Distributed remote teams are at a considerable disadvantage. There really are benefits to sizing up your teammates face-to-face in real time. A number of organizations that rely heavily on distributed teams have found that it is well worth the time and expense to get members together when the team is launched, again around the midpoint of the team’s work, and yet again when the work has been completed.

Thoughts? Reactions? Comments?

Five Things To Walk Out Of (and Five Things To Walk On To)

2011-03-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

Meg Wheatley and Deborah Frieze's latest work, Walk Out Walk On, takes you inside seven communities around the world where people walked out of limiting beliefs about change, leadership and their own potential, and walked on to experiment with new beliefs and practices that made it possible to solve seemingly intractable problems. The book focuses on seven common assumptions that, if challenged, can liberate people’s creativity and capacity. Five are offered here to stimulate your own thinking; see what they provoke from your own experience.

1. From Power to Play
Most leaders believe that people are not self-motivated, that without directive control, no work gets done. They use external means, both punishment and reward. Yet when people are engaged through imagination and play, creativity blossoms in just about everybody. Seemingly impossible work is accomplished, and we experience joy both in the process of working together and in the results we create.

Question: Have you experienced times when your imagination, playfulness and creativity blossomed? What conditions led to this?

2. From Efficiency to Resilience
Conventional attempts to solve problems of scarcity focus on efficiencies—attempting to do more with less by cutting budgets and staff, minimizing resources, optimizing outputs. Yet resilience is achieved through a wide variety of small local actions that create the capacity to adapt to unending challenges.

Question: Think of times you have been adversely affected by the efficiency mindset. What have you learned? What, in your experience, creates the capacity for resilience?

3. From Hero to Host
When a community stops waiting for a hero to save it, it discovers internal resources and solutions to solve otherwise intractable problems. Using collaborative processes that rely on everyone’s contribution, people create long-term solutions that they fully support.

Question: How often do you play the hero, wanting to help people by rescuing them? How often do you trust other people to come up with their own solutions?

4. From Transacting to Gifting
Today’s transactional culture promotes self-interest and scarcity; people strive to take as much as they can and accumulate more than they need. In a gift culture—common in most traditional societies—people know they’re interdependent. When we give to one another, we are gifting to ourselves. Generosity prevails and money loses its disruptive power.

Question: How are the demands of consumer culture impacting you, your family, your work? Have you experienced times when gifts of service or work were freely offered, no strings attached?

5. From Scaling Up to Scaling Across
Taking things to scale doesn’t happen vertically through one-size-fits-all replication strategies, although this is today’s dominant approach. Change happens as local experiments move horizontally through networks of relationship, scaling across communities and nations. People become inspired by one another’s discoveries and create their own initiatives; they also support one another as pioneers.

Question: Do you know of small local efforts that grew large not through replication, but by inspiring others to keep inventing and learning?

Thoughts? Reactions? Ideas?

A Nation United

2011-02-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

Daniel Seddiqui challenged himself to hold fifty jobs in all fifty U.S. states within 50 weeks -- and succeeded! Despite the wide range of culture, jobs, attitudes, and social dynamics he encountered, Daniel noticed five traits of all Americans regardless of location:

Trait One: Pride in One’s Work
It doesn’t matter if they were miners, factory workers, or television reporters – each worker showed great pride and meaning in what he or she was doing. A cheesemaker felt his work contributed just as much, and was just as important as the work of a scientist. Everyone was truly dedicated to their work, and believed they were contributing to a better society.

Trait Two: Kindness to Strangers and Outsiders
Whether you're in the supposedly intolerant bible belt, the economically depressed rust belt, the free-flowing Big Easy or the supposedly rude Big Apple, everyone had the audacity and heart to care for a stranger in need as though I was their own friend. Regardless of where I was, people showed kindness and charity.

Trait Three: An Optimistic Outlook
No matter what predicament they face, Americans stay true to their diligent work ethic by continuing to keep high spirits and hope. Many times I encountered people who were struggling or going through rough patches, but in all cases, it was very evident that they believed firmly that their situation would improve.

Trait Four: Open-Mindedness
There's barely any place left in this nation that does not have an intermingling of several cultures -- either through racial diversity or immigrant populations. In all cases, I noticed that people had learned to live amongst each other and respect each others' practices and beliefs. I lived and worked side by side with African-Americans, Indians, Whites, Latinos, Asians -- even the Amish -- and I rarely heard or saw any judgments being passed on the basis of ethnicity, origin, or beliefs.

Trait Five: Respect for Innovativion
Everywhere I went, I saw people striving to improve, be more productive, and take risks. We consistently reinvent ourselves and use any and all resources to create new ways of living.

Not that different after all, are we?

Five Poor Excuses for Ignoring Your Past

2011-02-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

Author John Schuster's new book is all about the power of your past and how it can be an effective learning tool -- in stark contrast to the current trend that dictates that only the "now" is important and the past should be discarded entirely. Why are people so eager to disregard their past? Well there are a number of supposedly good reasons, and here John lists five of them and explains why they really aren't such good reasons after all:

Reason One: Certain memories can be painful to recall.

Good Reason? It would seem so. No one enjoys pain, and if it happened a while back, why rehash it now?

Why It’s Wrong: Like it or not, that pain is with us today even if it’s invisible. Events in our life shape us, painful ones included. We devised strategies to cope with these negatives, and some may have worked well for years but are now in your way. That is why we have to look back at the negatives -— to affirm the good strategies we devised and refine them, and recast the painful memories that lead us into poor strategies. We need to find new lessons, ones that benefit rather than weaken us.

Reason Two: The past is dead. I much prefer to be in the now.

Good Reason? Possibly. The past is irrevocable, and can never be fully sorted out. It’s better just to concentrate on the moment, live your values, and move ahead step by step, knowing that the present is all you ever really have.

Why It’s Wrong: Being in the now is an excellent practice, but it is just not nearly enough. Remember what Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It is never even past.” The past lives on in ways that are not helpful if we leave unfinished business there. So we cannot discount the past in service to the now. Try as we might to breathe and be present, we can’t even be fully in the now when our many positive gifts from the past stay unclaimed and the negatives remain to still be recast.

Reason Three: I am goal-oriented, progress-motivated, busy person. Reflection is not my strong suit.

Good Reason?: Yep. Having an action-based orientation favors all kinds of outcomes for me -— achieving goals, advancing my career. Slowing down to reflect is not in my make up.

Why it’s Wrong: We all have busy streaks when reflection is not going to happen, nor should it in those times. But in the Excited States of America, one of our cultural flaws is an addiction to speed always, everywhere. Reflecting on our pasts helps us stay goal-oriented, because it gets all of us behind the right goals chosen to match our uniqueness, not parts of us behind goals we acquired because we picked them up somewhere while we were busy being action-oriented.

Reason Four: I had a great childhood and adolescence. Why dig into it and make more work for myself?

Good Reason? Figures...I'm well-adjusted and I don’t need therapy. I am about the most normal person I know.

Why it’s Wrong: Many of us had great childhoods, but there is still work to do. Sometimes we flat out forget the gifts of our past, and don’t define ourselves around these gifts and lessons. We can romanticize and sentimentalize our pasts and not see the really difficult fixes that we had to work through. This keeps us on our surface and away from our depth.

Reason Five: I was immature/impulsive in my past, and I had no control over some of the things that happened. I know this now, so what’s to learn?

Good Reason? Why not? Who hasn’t chalked up a memory to inexperience or immaturity, and since we think that now we’re mature and we survived and even thrived to this point, what’s the reason for going back?

Why It’s Wrong: Sure, we are succeeding in some ways, and we all do things that are immature and later regret it. On top of that, things happened to us beyond our control. But how we acted on impulse when we’re younger actually tells us a lot about our own passions and weaknesses and what is important to us now and what isn’t. Think of these moments as those periods in your life where you were truly honest with yourself and see what you can learn about yourself from them. Also, remember that the things that were out of your control can lead to subtle or not so subtle strategies of victimizing yourself or demonizing others.

Good enough reasons for ya?

This Ain't Your Mama's Green Marketing

2011-02-09T14:31:00.000-08:00

Green marketing has certainly changed a lot over the last several years, and Jacquie Ottman knows this because she has been working in this arena since 1989 (when "being green" just meant you lacked experience in a particular field). Jacquie wants businesses and companies to keep in mind five new lessons for green marketing with authenticity and impact:

Lesson One: A single customer can bring down your entire green strategy.

Disgruntled customers don’t patiently write a letter to the CEO these days. We live in a wired world where individual consumers have incredible reach to markets through their blogs and tweets. All it takes is for one influencer to notice a problem or issue and bring it up to others. From there, it spreads virally across firewalls and nations. And remember, greenwashing is a very tough accusation to come back from.

Lesson Two: Green is entirely mainstream now.

At one point it seemed that only a niche market really cared about environmental sustainability and you could usually catch them by looking for Birkenstocks and vegan recipes. But now, everyone — including suburban families, corporate heads, and government departments -- have all gone green. You are no longer selling green to a small cross-section of the public, you are selling green to everyone.

Lesson Three: Price, performance, and convenience no longer guide consumer purchasing.

Nowadays, values guide consumer purchasing. Historically, consumers bought solely on price, performance, and convenience, but today they look at how products are sourced, manufactured, packaged, disposed of. Even such social aspects as how factory and farm workers are treated all matter.

Lesson Four: Companies need to tell the whole story

BP, ExxonMobil, and SIGG learned this lesson the hard way. Today's brands gain trust by practicing radical transparency, disclosing the good and the bad. Consumers are smart enough to know that some waste is inevitable in any production process, they just want companies to be honest about it and constantly be working to reduce it.

Lesson Five: Today's consumers look at the entire life-cycle of a product.

A product's life used to begin the moment it was purchased and end the moment it was consumed, broken, or discarded. However, modern consumers want businesses to have accountability for how a product was created and overseen even before it hits store shelves, and in the case of many non-perishables, how it will be broken down at the end of its life-cycle to minimize waste.

Your thoughts, reactions, or observations?

Five Reasons to Give Improv a Shot in Your Organization

2010-12-29T13:25:00.000-08:00

There are tons and tons of trust-building exercises and theories but none of them are as active (or as much fun) as improvisation. Here are five good reasons to give improv a shot as your organizational trust-building tool of choice:

Reason 1: We already improvise – every day.
If you think you can’t improvise, take a moment to consider any workday. We all head in with a schedule in our heads and outcomes for the day. I would bet that 90% of the time, that agenda changes on the fly. How do you manage? You improvise. The good part is that if you can master a few simple behaviors that improvisers use on stage, it can exponentially improve your ability to adapt, stay engaged and move on.

Reason 2: Positive behaviors = positive results is a known fact.
The underlying principle of improvisation is the concept of “Yes!” Improvisers believe that contributions should always be greeted with agreement – at least at first. Not all ideas are kept, but the act of positive reaction changes how people feel about their value, their part in a project and about you. A 2001 paper from the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations found that for every 1% improvement in the service climate (a company in a good mood), there’s a 2% increase in revenue.

Reason 3: Committing to the game creates accountability.
After an improviser says “Yes!” they immediately say “and.” That simple word, “and,” allows them to add an idea, a joke, and a flavor to the scene onstage. When they add their piece, it also means that they are committed to the scene. They are in it and will stick to it through failure or success. If we could all jump into our work with the attitude that will be positive and add our contribution, every time, everything would be done faster, better.

Reason 4: Improv removes the fear of making mistakes and managing the unexpected.
Improvisers make mistakes and encounter the unexpected all the time. More importantly, when faced with those occurrences, we acknowledge it (instead of shoving it under a rug), think about how it could be used for the good of the scene or comedy, and move on. Instead of running, fretting or obsessing about the unexpected, you can make mistakes into opportunities by working like an improviser.

Reason 5: Fun is a good thing.
The most successful executives and high-performance teams which whom I’ve worked always include fun in the list of why they’ve done so well. Being willing to laugh, work like it’s play, and act like a team is the best way to spend the many hours you are away from your home and family.

Convinced? Interested? Still scared? Tell us…

Five Ways Scenario Planning Could Have Averted Major Disasters

2010-12-25T23:41:00.000-08:00

Author Tom Chermack is a seasoned academic with impeccable corporate credentials as well in the field of scenario planning.Scenario planning derives from the observation that, given the impossibility of knowing precisely how the future will play out, a good decision or strategy to adopt is one that plays out well across several possible futures. Tom lists below the five ways in which scenario planning exercises by Companies and organizations (such as BP) could have averted the oil spill and ensuing crisis.

1)Consider Internal Dynamics. This may come as blasphemy to many scenario planning professionals. Scenario exercises have almost always focused on external events and forces, because the purpose is commonly to explore and understand what is going on out there. Given that more and more companies have global reach, and many have revenues that exceed small nations, a failure to explore internal dynamics can be a major oversight. Toyota is a prime example of an internal oversight that led to an organizational crisis. A secondary benefit of using internal dynamics as major forces in scenario exercises is that it brings the scenarios immediately closer to the users. Using an internal factor as a major critical uncertainty can help managers see how their actions could make a difference, and creates a set of circumstances in which their judgment matters, and they can see how their decisions might play out.

2) Explore Unlikely Scenarios -- Do Not Assign Probabilities. Scenarios existed that contained the events of September 11, 2001. The scenarios were dismissed as “unlikely” because the odds of their occurrence were deemed slim. This is a great lesson in the purpose of scenarios. The purpose is to explore and understand unlikely events that could fundamentally impact an organization (and increasingly, our world). Assigning probabilities is a sure way to dismiss the unlikely scenario elements and defeat the purpose of any scenario planning effort.

3) Consider Responses. Many scenario exercises fall short of considering responses in each scenario. One of Peter Schwartz’s key questions for each scenario is “What will we do IF…”, yet this basic question is often overlooked. These do not have to be detailed contingency plans, but general responses to environmental conditions are critical. BP Amoco might never have been able to anticipate the problems that caused a major leak in the Gulf of Mexico, but general approaches to handling a potential disaster should have been considered long before drilling for oil. The potential for equipment malfunction is almost a predetermined element -- why not anticipate it?

4) Realize Regional Differences. Scenario planning use is on the rise, which is a good sign. Scenarios are powerful tools that can help people clarify their perceptions. More and more scenario projects are being undertaken for global events. For example, the UNDP website posts scenarios for India, China, Global Warming, Global Economies, etc. While these are useful starting points, they become a backdrop for more detailed scenario work. This applies to almost any complex phenomena -- location, resources, environment, and landscape all matter. This is a good reminder of Pierre Wack’s thinking that you must begin with macro scenarios, and, like a camera lens, you zoom in on the details according to a more specific location or issue.

5) Celebrate and Communicate Success. Many companies are currently using scenarios with great success. A great example is the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, MN (I was born and raised in the Twin Cities). Disaster scenarios were documented and well integrated with emergency response teams in Minneapolis, which is why the response was so rapid and seamless. Yet, not much was publicly communicated about the success of the response effort. The swiftness could be attributed to good planning, anticipating unlikely events, and thinking through responses, all of which would make for a good case that many city planners could learn from.

I urge company and community leaders to share their successes -- as we will be doing with our work through the Scenario Planning Institute at Colorado State University. I welcome your thoughts, comments, and observations.

Five Common Convening Mistakes

2010-12-07T22:44:00.000-08:00

Craig and Patricia Neal have been organizing gatherings and meetings for decades across the nation and have a pretty solid idea of what works and what doesn't. However, even seasoned conveners still make mistakes when bringing people together.

In this entry, Patricia and Craig list the Five Most Common Convening Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them):

1. Not "Staying Connected": Convening is about being open to relationship rather than closed. It is a challenge to choose to stay connected and open when our lives and schedules are full and our time is precious. Stay connected by knowing who you are and how you want to be in relationship with others. You always have a choice when you walk into a meeting: do you want to be connected, or stay closed? Choosing connection can lead to collaboration, creativity, purposeful outcomes.

2. Fearing Rejection: The fear of rejection can derail our ability to extend a wholehearted and sincere invitation. Invite often – for all kinds of things – and experience acceptance and rejection as others’ freedom to choose rather than a personal success or failure. We often think that colleagues are too busy to talk beyond the cursory business at hand, but when we persevere, people are grateful for the opportunity to catch up and reconnect. Our fear of rejection, rather than rejection itself, was holding us back.

3. Making Assumptions: We say “assume and doom.” When we assume others know what a gathering’s all about, we put our gathering squarely in the realm of the unknown. Make the purpose and desired activity for a gathering as clear and explicit as possible – even if it seems unnecessary. At one important meeting, knowing we had only an hour, we jumped right into the action items. We neglected to set the context, assuming we were all on the same page. At the end of the meeting, people had different understandings of the purpose of the meeting and were not aligned in a commitment to action.

4. Reluctance to Impose Our Will on Others: “You’re not the boss of me!” How often have we said or heard words like that? But providing structure, environment and terms of engagement is a crucial part of convening. People need structure. If there is no structure, people look to create it. At a recent family gathering, we felt we should not be too controlling, but this led to a lack of clarity in stating the terms of engagement or agreements for a discussion. Everyone jumped in, in their own way, with cross-chatter and began talking over one another. It would have been better to state our expectations ahead of time to enable all people to be heard.

5. Impatience and Judgment: The compelling desire to “Just get on with it!” can rush us obliviously past the most important pieces of wisdom and capability present in our gathering. Remember, anyone included is equally important and essential. At the beginning of most meetings we do a check-in to hear from everyone. This one time we were 15 minutes late. we suggested we skip the check-in and move right into the agenda. Halfway through the meeting we realized we didn’t have everyone’s attention and didn’t have the necessary alignment to make important decisions we were there to make.

There are actually four other scenarios that generate obstacles for effective convening but we chose the the five most common. What do you think? Did we choose the five most common? Do you have any feedback or ideas for us?

Five Tips for Effective and Authentic Personal Branding Using Social Media

2010-11-25T19:14:00.000-08:00

David McNally and Karl D. Speak’s expanded and revised version of Be Your Own Brand provides an updated and expanded framework to their pioneering work on personal brand. This fresh new approach is built upon the platform that everybody has a brand and anyone can become a strong brand.

A new addition to their new book is the role social media plays in becoming a stronger brand. Here are five tips taken from the expanded and revised version of Be Your Own Brand on using social media to build a stronger personal brand:

Tip #1: Your IRL and URL should be consistent. How consistent is your IRL (in real life) presence compared to your URL (how you interact in the social media world) presence? The tools and energy of the social media space can create perceptions about your personal brand that may or may not be consistent in the real world. Be careful not to inadvertently create a disparity between your IRL and URL personal brands.

Tip #2: Actually make a difference through social media. Social media is a powerful, game-changing tool for many of us. Use the power of social media to make a difference for someone or a group of others that could not have been achieved without it.

Tip #3: Make your brand distinctive, relevant and consistent. Be very thoughtful and purposeful about the impressions you make in your social media activities. Make sure your activities reflect the dimensions of your personal brand (as stated in your personal brand platform). Are you getting credit in the social media for the real you?

Tip #4: Use judgment deciding who to “friend.” Remember we are known by the company we keep. Having more people in your social media network is not always better. Be thoughtful and selective about adding people to your direct network. Keep in mind you have no control over your digital friends’ connections, being guilty by association can be a hazard!

Tip #5: What you post is never off the record. Are you ready to defend your posts in the social media space? You know, whatever you post is never off the record, so to speak. Be cautious and assume that whatever you post will find its way to places you had not planned on. Think twice before you hit the return key!

Five Regrets That Shouldn't Be

2010-11-23T16:52:00.000-08:00

Author Marc Muchnick knows about the power of regret and how it is a crippling force in many people's lives. The problem is that it doesn't need to be because many so-called regrets are actually powerful motivators and educators.

To illustrate this point, Marc presents his list of The Five Things We Tend to Regret -- And Why We Shouldn't Regret Them:

Regret #1: Taking a chance on love only to find heartache in the end.

Putting your heart out there is not easy, and when our quest for love results in disappointment it can be disillusioning, demoralizing and downright depressing. What we have to remember is that it’s tough to find love if you don’t take the risk of making your heart vulnerable. While there is always the possibility of rejection or coming up empty handed, that is better than the regret of not having tried.

Regret #2: Paying your dues in a job that ultimately leads to nowhere.

No one wants to wind up in a dead end job after working hard to succeed. Whether because of a reorganization, someone else getting promoted into a position you wanted, or opportunity simply drying up, the end result is the same: it feels like you’ve wasted your time. But have you? After all, weren’t there learnings along the way? Think of what you can take with you from this experience and where you’re headed in the future. Look at it as a chance to get clear on what you want out of your career.

Regret #3: Getting in a disagreement with someone you really care about.

It would be wonderful if we always agreed on everything and never had any friction in relationships. But that’s not reality. Disagreement and conflict are inevitable, even with people we dearly love. The trouble is when we hold our feelings in and avoid confrontation, we consequently feel stifled and fail to communicate. Even worse is when we act like things are okay when in fact they are far from it. Every healthy relationship has conflict; the key is taking the time to work through it.

Regret #4: Feeling guilty about taking a break from work.

There is something to be said for having a strong work ethic. But sometimes we get so caught up in our careers and have so much on our plates that we actually feel bad about taking time away from work. Somewhere along the line we convinced ourselves that stopping to take lunch, working less than ten hours a day, or using all of our vacation days is not a good thing. Moreover, with e-mail and texting we are essentially always “on call.” The result is that we spend so much time working and thinking about work, we forget about living and enjoying life. Give yourself permission to take a break – you’ll never look back at the end of your life and regret not spending more time at work.

Regret #5: Not being able to say goodbye to a loved one.

Losing someone that we care about is never easy, but sometimes we are unable to say our final goodbyes due to distance, finances, or other obligations in life. The guilt – and regret – that we feel in such situations can be overwhelming. What we must realize is that our sadness is also because we truly miss this person. Although you may not have the closure you wanted in the end, the good times you spent with this individual while here on Earth cannot be taken away. Take time to reflect on the experiences you shared together and realize that those special moments are forever.

Engagement Gone Wrong

2010-10-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

All organizations institute change processes at some point, and most do it very poorly -- which is what compelled author Richard Axelrod to write "Terms of Engagement" in the first place.

Here, Richard lists The Five Ways Organizations Mess Up Engagement (Despite Their Best Efforts):

1. Ignore unfairness
Everyone has a fairness detector. When it reads unfair, you disengage. Leaders who award themselves bonuses while they lay off thousands promote unfairness. Leaders who treat people badly yet remain in leadership positions set off unfairness alarms. When your fairness detector reads unfair, the innovative and collaborative part of your brain shuts down. Not good if you want a productive organization.

2. Create thermometer solutions
A leadership team was upset about the low employee-recognition scores from their employee engagement survey. They proceeded to create a new employee-recognition program. One year and another survey later, employee-recognition scores remained unchanged. This is a typical thermometer solution⎯you read the results and create the solution without understanding the underlying cause. Had the leadership team reviewed the results with employees, they would have learned that a simple thank you would have sufficed.

3. Increase engagement gaps as the few decide for the many
Have a tough problem? Find a sponsor, hire a consulting firm, and create a solution. Then worry about “buy-in.” In most corporations, this is the way change happens. In this scenario, leaders and consultants are highly engaged in challenging work. Meanwhile, the engagement gap increases as employees sit on the sidelines and worry about what “they” are going to do to “us.” The engagement gap shrinks when you widen the circle of involvement from the get-go. People connect to each other and to the issue, they learn from each other, innovation occurs, and the foundation for a speedy implementation is set.

4. Constrain talent
Why does Chris, a check-out clerk, love to work at Best Buy? What makes West Monroe Partners one of the best places to work in Chicago? Instead of constraining talent, they unleash it. Chris, a twenty-year retail veteran, is able to make her own decisions at Best Buy⎯decisions that required supervisory approval at former employers. The Chiefs Program at West Monroe Partners provides time for employees to work on issues they think are important, issues for which they have energy and passion. The Chiefs Program is so successful that West Monroe Partners made it part of their recruiting program.

5. Conducting time-wasting, energy-sapping meetings
As conducted in many conference rooms, meetings are fast-track disengagement vehicles. It is in meetings where people decide to sit on their hands or put their whole-hearted selves behind what needs to happen. In our workshops, leaders are able to identify within five minutes what it takes to create a meeting where no one looks at their BlackBerry as well as a meeting guaranteed to put people to sleep. When leaders realize that every meeting is an engagement opportunity, they stop putting people to sleep and start conducting engaging meetings where no one looks at their BlackBerry.

Thoughts? Reactions?

Five Deens that Make the Difference

2010-10-22T10:33:00.000-07:00

Author Ibrahim Abdul-Matin is a practicing Muslim and a dedicated environmentalist. It would surprise many to know that these two aspects of his life are essentially the same thing. This is because Islam advocates for sound, humane, and sustainable environmental practices.

In fact, many Muslim groups and organizations have been putting environmentally-conscious principles into practice for a while now. Below, Ibrahim lists five examples of measures being enacted by Muslim organizations and governments worldwide to encourage greater environmental guardianship:

Example 1:
Greening the Hajj (Holy Pilgrimage to Mecca/Medina): The Saudi Government
Hajj is the single most largest gathering of humans on the planet Earth. Upwards of two million Muslims each year gather in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to pay respects to the Holy City and to participate in thousand-year-old traditions signifying their commitment to God. With this gathering comes a giant carbon footprint including transport vehicles such as airplanes and cars, and waste products from packaged food and water bottles. The Saudi government is working on both fronts to reduce energy emissions and trash. First, the government is developing a rail system with stops for all the cities that are visited during the Hajj. By 2011, the train will transport almost 72,000 passengers every hour, reducing the need for automobiles by thousands. Then, the Saudi government aims to ban plastic bottles -- thereby dropping the some 100 million plastic bottles accumulated after Hajj, to zero.

Example 2:
Zero-trash Iftars during Ramadan: The DC Green Muslims
Ramadan is the holy month when Muslims fast for 30 days -- each day from sunrise to sunset. Ramadan is also a time of community development -- each night, to break the fast, hundreds of people come together at mosques around to country to eat and pray together. This is called, "Iftar." Iftars can generate a lot of trash including paper products, leftover food, and assorted plastics. The D.C. Green Muslims held the first ever "Zero-trash Iftar" this past Ramadan. At this Iftar, attendees had to: bring food to share in a reusable dish; bring their own water bottle or drink receptacle, and bring their own plate, cutlery and linen napkin. Food is served by volunteers and each person is asked to only take what they know they can finish. The result: Zero-trash and inspiration to make every Iftar one without waste.

Example 3:
Making meat more than Zabiha: Establishing www.greenzahiba.com
Zabiha is to Muslims like Kosher is to Jews. Zabiha meat is sacrificed in a very specific way -- with a single cut to the animal's jugular vein to minimize pain and to drain all blood, preventing bacterial infection, and is also blessed. Considering meat is a staple of most Muslim diets, there is a push for Zabiha meat that comes from animals who have lived a good life. Consumers wish the meat to be from animals that were free-range, grass-fed, and well-treated by family farmers. Green Zabiha is advocated for in the Quran. Yasir Syeed, founder of GreenZabiha.com, wants Muslims to raise, harvest, cook, and eat food with a deeper consciousness.

Example 4:
Greening the next generation: Santa Clara Muslim Green Team
The Muslim Community Association (MCA) is one of the largest Muslim congregations in Northern California. They are also home to the Muslim Green Team - young people dedicated to saving the planet because they believe it's their religious duty to do so. Each year, they sponsor an Eco-Fair, showing the adults of their community fun and unique ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Hundreds attend the Eco-fair, and everyone gets a reusable canvas bag and reusable stainless steel water bottle. The Muslim Green Team sets an example for everyone in the community.

Example 5:
Helping developing countries choose energy from Heaven: The Miller Family
The industrial world has gotten ahead by relying on energy from Hell -- oil, coal, non renewable sources that require extraction and destruction. As the developing world tries to catch up, they have a choice. The can choose to follow in the footsteps of the the developed world, or they can choose to innovate and turn from followers to leaders by choosing energy from Heaven. The Miller Family -- American Muslims dedicated to harnessing solar energy -- are helping the Sierra Leonian government install solar panels throughout the country's capital of Freetown.

Thoughts? Reactions? Questions?

Five Things You Need to Stop Believing about Entrepreneurship

2010-10-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

Chris Rabb knows a lot about entrepreneurship and its rewards, but he has also learned (and written his book) about the limitations that seemingly invisible factors enforce on a number of entrepreneurs. The Horatio Alger myth states that anyone with a good idea, drive, and pluck and succeed, but Chris disagrees.

Here are five ways we have been programmed to think about entrepreneurship that are entirely inaccurate:

1. Entrepreneurship is Part of the American Dream
Whether you read Horatio Alger or if you listen to the financial gurus on television, all you need to achieve material success in business, it appears, is to work hard, have a great idea, and radiate positivity. The problem here is that as straight-forward as this advice may sound, it's simply not true.

There is no statistically significant correlation between hard work, development of an objectively great idea or embodiment of a positive outlook on life and conventional business success. It's called the American dream because it is just that -- a fantasy not rooted in any reality.

2. Entrepreneurship Means Small Business and Small Entrepreneurial Ventures Represent the Backbone of the American Economy.
Entrepreneurship is really more about innovation and opportunity than it is about smallness. Small businesses are defined by the Small Business Administration (SBA) as any for-profit, non-farm firm with fewer than 500 employees. That's over 99% of all U.S. firms! So, does that mean that 99% of all businesses are also entrepreneurial?

Just because a firm is small or new doesn't make it entrepreneurial. And the reason small businesses are considered the engine of the U.S. economy? Because 997 out of every 1,000 firms is a so-called small business. That's just cloudy math.

3. Entrepreneurship is inherently good, ethical, and beneficial to all.
Entrepreneurship is not inherently good. The value spawned by entrepreneurship can be every bit as destructive as it can be creative.

Remember Enron? Enron was emblematic of corporate entrepreneurship. They created opportunity through bold innovation to maximize profit. Starbucks Coffee was a great independent, entrepreneurial venture before it became the mom-and-pop-coffee-shop-killer. Entrepreneurship is agnostic. Like so many things, it can be leveraged in service of greed and graft or for puppy dogs and rainbows. The choice lies in the hands of the founding teams, their investors and how society advocates and rewards entrepreneurs to conduct their businesses.

4. Entrepreneurship Symbolizes a True Meritocracy.
Entrepreneurship appears to be one of the last pursuits that most people believe takes place on a level playing field. Unfortunately, these people are just plain wrong.

Assuming you're not a eugenics buff, it would stand to reason that the rate of business participation in the U.S. would more or less mirror the diverse demography of our country. It doesn't. While anyone can start a business, what it takes to fund, grow and sustain a business is highly predicated on the extent to which you have and know how to leverage invisible capital. Invisible capital is that fickle mix of human, social, and cultural capital that together encompasses your skills, experiences, resources, knowledge and networks along with the ascribed assets one has that they cannot control or change such as gender, ethnicity and class of origin. Invisible capital determines on which side the playing field rises.

5. This country needs more entrepreneurs!
We don't need more entrepreneurs or businesses in this country, we actually need fewer but better prepared business owners.

Every year about two million people start new ventures. Most of them meet an unceremonious end, and most of the ones that are still afloat are just barely so. The reality is, according to the Kauffman Firm Survey, it's easier to be accepted into an Ivy League college (16%) than it is to grow a business that will survive 4 years, generate annual revenues of $25,000 or more, and hire at least one employee (12%).

Given those odds, and given how, unlike your college choices, there are no "safety schools" when it comes to entrepreneurship, why would you push people in this direction?

Which of these misconceptions about business and entrepreneurship surprise you most? Which do you quietly admit you (used to) embrace?

When You Are Not to Be Trusted

2010-09-21T15:20:00.000-07:00

Authors Dennis and Michelle Reina have spent decades studying issues of trust in the workplace. A commonly held misconception is that a breach of trust in the workplace has to be serious -- like the CEO committing fraud or a manager being accused of a crime. The fact is that there are breaches of trust that happen daily. Here are five breaches of trust that you probably didn't even realize that you may have been guilty of:

1. Failing to acknowledge a colleague’s efforts:

We’re all moving fast, and sometimes we forget to say “good job” or even the most basic “thanks.” This is more than manners, it’s about respect. One of the subtle and yet insidious betrayals people experience at work is not being fully seen or heard. Not being recognized hurts at an innate level, and it doesn’t take too many missed “thank you's” to add up to deep-seated resentment.

2. Missing a deadline or two:

Life happens and you miss a deadline here and there. No big deal, right? Wrong. Each time you don’t deliver, you are making the implicit assumption that others are available to work around your schedule. You betray trust because someone — your boss, your colleague, your assistant — was depending on you. Each time you miss a deadline, you reinforce their perception that you think you’re more important and that they can’t depend on you.

3. Arriving late for meetings:

When you consistently arrive after the scheduled starting time, you’re breaking trust because your colleagues sense that you’re wasting their time and that you may possibly think that your time and your job are more important than theirs. They end up feeling disrespected, insulted, and devalued. Over time, those feelings define your relationship, and trust begins to erode.

4. Micromanaging:

Most micromanagers are surprisingly unaware that they are micromanaging. You may think you're paying attention to details and being thorough, but those you manage feel that you are watching and just waiting for them to mess up. That’s really how employees experience micromanaging. They get the sense that you don’t trust them to get the job done. And if you don’t trust them, why should they trust you? Trust begets trust. Mistrust begets mistrust.

5. Discourteous, insensitive or rude behavior:

Before your second cup of coffee, sure, you might bark an order or two. And when things get rolling, you lose your temper now and then. Hey, that's just how you are, right? Wrong. Even if you’re nice as can be much of the time, your outbursts may well damage your relationships. You're showing that your behavior is unpredictable and brash. When people don’t know what to expect, they are less likely to trust you.

Have you been on the receiving end up these behaviors? How did you feel? And if you’ve inadvertently acted in these ways, how did you turn things around?

Don't Hold On!

2010-09-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

Peggy Holman knows a lot about change in organizations and communities and she wrote Engaging Emergence to help people not only deal with unexpected and chaotic change, but even come out ahead by engaging it proactively.

But proactive engagement means letting go of some things just as much as discovering new things. To help you navigate, Peggy presents her list of The Five Things We Need To Let Go Of To Effectively Deal With Emergence:

1. Give Up Command and Control. Ever tried to tell a complex system what to do? Imagine ordering the health care system to be affordable and accessible! We can't control a system but we can engage it so that order arises.

Example: Open source software. What principles and practices inspire thousands of programmers to contribute millions of hours to create software for public use?

2. Give Up Habit and Routine. If we keep doing what we've always done we’ll keep getting the same old results. Let go of the stories that define “the way things are” and try something different.

Example: Using fossil fuels. What alternatives can eliminate, reduce, or better serve our energy needs?

3. Give Up Top-Down Decision-Making. When the situation is complex, no one can grasp it all, much less have all the answers. It takes multiple perspectives and skills to make a difference.

Example: Google employees spend 20% of their time working on something of their own design, resulting in such products as Gmail and Google News. What’s the benefit of creating conditions in which people follow their passions in service to something larger?

4. Give Up the Existing Order. When we know how things work, we can keep it neat and tidy. If we want innovation, expect to dip into the unknown. While it may be messy, ultimately, order can arise anew.

Example: Journalism as we have known it is dying. Between the holes created by its demise and the many new experiments underway, the current landscape confusing! What is possible as a new system is born?

5. Give Up Thinking That You Have the Answers. When we think we know, there’s no need to learn or to change. Questions that spark curiosity focus our intentions and invite those who care to participate.

Example: An inquiry being pursued by the National Institute of Corrections: “How do we reduce the prison population by half while maintaining public safety, in eight years?” What question inspires you?

Thoughts, responses, reactions? Chime in below.

I Think I Love You

2010-09-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

Built to Love's authors Peter Boatwright and Jon Cagan explore how truly successful products address a customer's emotional needs by delivering something that satisfies on a much deeper level than even what the consumer may realize. Because of this, the consumer loves the product and the product's creator has garnered a loyal customer for life.

And how do customers fall in love with particular products? Believe it or not, it's not really all that different from how people fall in love with one other. The authors describe their six-stage courtship process below:

Step 1: Casual interactions (otherwise known as dating)
At the outset of any relationship, certain details can get things started, or prevent them from getting going. Looks, for example; but of course it goes beyond looks. Each and every interaction of the potential customer with the product or service is a touchpoint, a point at which that potential customer may receive value. Since the product’s appearance creates emotional takeaways for customers, whether planned or unplanned by the company, the design of each aspect of the product form should be intentional and calculated as a means to deliver specific and desired emotions. The same is true with other points of interaction.

Step 2: A courtship where initial attraction turns to love (the getting to know someone or some thing for more serious consideration)
If a customer is going to get serious, the product has to really deliver. But it has to do more than deliver on a performance task. The customer will really get serious when the product doesn’t just do the right things, but it makes them feel the right ways. And feeling is what it takes for them to fall in love, which leads to...

Step 3: Engagement
Once engaged, people are attached. Once attached, people are engaged. Emotions reach us deeply, engaging us to respond. It is emotion that instigates people to tell others about the products that they own, creating word of mouth that is the most powerful marketing force in today’s networked marketplace. Brides show off their rings; engaged customers show off the products that they love.

Step 4: Long term commitment... and satisfaction.
In the committed relationship, one with daily interaction, positive (or negative) emotions are maintained and renewed with each experience, eventually outweighing those felt early in the relationship. In the same way, product emotions are ongoing, substantiated and renewed with each product experience, and product emotions have the power to completely replace emotions surrounding the original purchase decision. So unlike the emotions designed to get a quick sale, here today and gone tomorrow, product emotions are the “feel-good” aspect of the product, those that endure for the lifetime of product use and maintain loyalty.

Step 5: Becomes an extension of who you are... and part of your identity
Just as there is a oneness in marriage, where each person becomes part of the other, captivating products become part of the customer’s identity, a badge of who they are. Some people are iPhones, others are Blackberries. Some are Starbucks, others are Dunkin’ Donuts. It wouldn’t feel right to have it any other way.

Step 6: Can't see yourself happy without it
As people in love anticipate and expect their time to be spent together in order to be happy, so is the relationship between the happy consumer and his or her product. People who fall in love with a product can’t see themselves without it.. providing strong impetus for eventual re-purchase of that product, as it wears.

In love yet? Tell us!

Five Questions to Ask in Tough Times

2010-08-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

Margaret Wheatley's book Perseverance addresses the importance and relevance of remaining strong and steadfast in times of uncertainty and change.
To help us when we encounter difficulties, Meg has put together this list of five questions to ask yourself to help you stay aware, focused and clear in those moments when you feel like giving up:

1. Who do I choose to be for this time?
This is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself. Perseverance is a choice and you have to consciously make the decision to persevere, to not give up. When everything is going wrong, when we’re being unjustly criticized, when we’re exhausted, it helps to remember our deeper identity, who we’re trying to be, what we’re trying to accomplish.

2. Who do I know that has persevered in hard times?
Everybody has someone in their family, now or in the past, who have gone through much more trying times and persevered (otherwise we wouldn’t be here). Learn more about them and their stories. If nothing else, you’ll know that your struggles are not that big a deal; it’s just your turn to persevere. And our loneliness ends as you become aware of the many strong shoulders of those who’ve gone before that you now stand on.

3. How am I being negatively affected and influenced by my current situation?
The negative dynamics of this time—anger, aggression, anxiety, fear—can’t help but affect us. The only way we avoid being dragged under by them is to notice when they show up in us. How often are you getting angry these days? What’s your personal level of anxiety or fear? How impatient and urgent are you?

4. In my current situation, what’s the opposite of persevering?
The surprising fact is that the opposite of perseverance is not giving up, but withdrawing. We decide to protect ourselves, to not be bothered by others, to just get on with our life and abandon any notions of serving others or making a difference. Self-preservation works for the short-term, but it never leads to long-term steadfastness and satisfying contributions.

5. How have I weathered hard times in the past?
Now that we’re adults (or appear to be), it’s important to notice that we’ve gone through difficult periods in our life and we’re still here! If we can recall these difficult times, we’ll be able to notice what skills, perspectives and relationships gave us the capacity to persevere. It’s important to give ourselves credit for having gotten this far, and to consult our own hard-won wisdom for the challenges that confront us now.

Thoughts? Chime in below.

Let Your People Network!

2010-08-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

Marcia Conner and Tony Bingham’s new book makes a strong case for the use of social media -— commercial products including Twitter and Facebook, as well as enterprise-strength counterparts like Socialcast and Socialtext -— to spur on corporate culture where people learn together, nonstop.

Here Marcia offers five reasons to encourage employees to tweet:

1. Twitter Streamlines Communications: While Twitter’s 140-character limit might lead you to think there’s not space to convey meaningful messages, with practice your succinctness will improve. This new skill can then be used in meetings, during presentations, and in other settings where crispness earns attention and gets results.

Example: The 325 characters above could be tweeted in just 81 as follows: “Think of Twittering as prepwork for an elevator pitch completed by the 2nd floor.”

2. Twitter Widens Conversations: Ask the people in your Twitter network a question, and they will respond with expert testimony, gut-level hunches, and field views you wouldn’t see otherwise. Those you reach may then send your question to their network, creating a multiplier effect. You can also enlist help en masse by asking people to focus on the same issue for a short burst of time to find a creative solution quickly or collaboratively brainstorm without having to order in lunch.

Example: While preparing a presentation, the CEO of localization company, Milengo, sought stories of people translating social media tools. Within a few hours he received links to six instances to showcase.

3. Twitter Keeps People Current Without Expending Much Time: The limited character format trains you to approach tweets with a headline scanner's mindset -- skimming countless post quickly, ignoring uninteresting ones, and evaluating compelling ones without adding significant cognitive loads. This allows you to rapidly process a stream of messages to get up to speed on any situation, and then efficiently turn your attention back to other tasks.

Example: Track your competitor’s accounts to gather business intelligence. Scan a local news station’s feed for weather and traffic updates affecting your drive home. Follow the author of a book that influenced your work to hear what she’s thinking about now.

4. Twitter Increases Awareness of Others: When you commit to filling your Twitter stream with interesting messages, you start to look differently at every piece of information you touch. After recognizing that a book, blog, report, or stat will contribute to your work, you reflect on whether other people would benefit too. You ask yourself, “Why is it interesting?” or “What new ideas does it ignite?” or “Might other people glean value?” By posting a link to the materials alongside your take, you elicit other people’s perspectives, which can also quicken your work.

Example: Directing others’ attention to an article you don’t quite agree with or completely understand may lead to a more convincing explanation from someone in your network which can then elevate your thinking (or convince you to move on to other sources). Questions asked about something you wrote might challenge you to reframe a hypothesis or provide more concrete examples.

5. Twitter Makes You Smarter, Quicker: Training programs can be boring and static, while Twitter can be energetic and spontaneous. The combination of timely information, delivered with personal touches, engages you emotionally and cognitively, sparking creativity and interest in learning more. Not just an information disseminator, Twitter facilitates a dialog so knowledge gets extended, transformed, reshaped, and built on as you and the people you are learning with actually create new and better ideas.

Example: Aaron tweets an idea he’s been noodling on. Gina mentions she’s working on a related project. Clark sends along a link to an article he read a few months ago. Jane comes on line a few hours later, sees this back and forth and has an epiphany that leads to a blog post she publishes the next morning. Aaron reads some of the post that afternoon in a meeting, where he also thanks his boss for encouraging people to use Twitter at work, and articulates how his idea can dramatically streamline a process that’s been vexing the organization for years.

Thoughts? Responses? Ideas? Tweets?

Five Ways to Network...the Wrong Way

2010-07-20T15:40:00.001-07:00

Author Devora Zack is the anti-networking networker. She knows that the traditional ways of networking present real challenges to those who are introverts or otherwise networking-averse and so has focused her attention on effective connecting techniques that work for those of us who break out in a sweat whenever we put on a name badge.

Truth be told, the traditional techniques aren't all that great to begin with. Devora outlines below five mainstream networking approaches -- and why they're wholly ineffective:

Approach 1: Meet as many people as possible at a particular event or gathering. Yeah, it sounds great until you realize that this is the real-world equivalent of spamming where you try and force yourself into everyone's inbox without knowing anything about them, who they are, and what they do. Yes, you are casting a wide net because you never know, but you fail to make an impression on any single person because you're too busy covering the room.

Approach 2: Get as many business cards in others' hands as possible. Have you ever gone home after a networking event of some kind with a pocket full of business cards? As you flip through them, do you notice that you've already forgotten who some of these people are or what they even look like? That's exactly what someone is thinking at the same time as they look at your mashed-up, sweaty business card, just seconds before it goes on their email list for their newsletter about advanced government auditing procedures (no offense to government auditors).

Approach 3: Attend even a cattle-call career-networking event -- opportunity is opportunity. Sure, the event description states "Employers from major companies will be in attendance -- everyone welcome!" What this usually means is that there'll be one or two lower-level reps who'll be pretty exhausted from repeating their company's focus on diversity/environment/ethics/creativity/etc. to the two hundred or so people that show up for each employer, resumes in hand. These reps also end up handing the resumes over to someone else who makes the initial HR decisions. This doesn't mean that such conferences are a total bust, but it does mean you should do your homework to get details ahead of time.

Approach 4: Never eat alone. There's nothing quite as charming as sitting with someone who chomps loudly and has bits of food hanging off the corners of his or her mouth -- and at one time or another, you were that person. Even otherwise, many people feel uncomfortable eating with others (remember the rule about no pasta on the first date?) or don't want to time their chews so that they can also talk without spraying the chicken kiev. Eat alone if that's what makes you comfortable, and order the ribs with extra hot sauce.

Approach 5: Have a drink or two to "take the edge off." The whole idea of meeting with others in a professional capacity tends to make a lot of people nervous and uncomfortable, so they figure they'll have a drink or two to loosen up. In most cases this is fine, but when you're nervous, your self-discipline can be compromised. Also, you probably haven't eaten that much which means you'll metabolize the alcohol in a more potent way. There's a fine line between just settling your nerves and stepping into realm of even mild intoxication -- too many people don't know when they've crossed that line, but others do, and it's not a good thing.

Thoughts?

Five Phrases That Don't Help in Negotiations

2010-07-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

Don Hutson and George Lucas have been in the negotiations arena for a long time -- as academics, as consultants, as professional negotiators, and as authors. They've learned a lot of things in the time they've been doing this work that they want to educate others about.

Words and statements in a negotiation are like a hammer. You can use them to build a house or to just beat the heck out of your thumb. Below are five examples where small twists to what you say can make a huge difference. Change the words and you can change your fate.

1."We need a 5% to 10% [or substitute your percentage range numbers accordingly] price increase." People think this shows flexibility, but in reality it indicates you are uncertain what you want and lack confidence that you deserve any increase at all. It's not like they're going to say,"Oh, I have to give you 10% more or I could not sleep at night!"

2."You did not understand me." This is actually a highly competitive comment that people use when they think they're clarifying things. The statement should be, "Perhaps I'm not explaining myself as clearly as I should be." The onus should be on you to insure you got the point across.

3."We can live with that price, let's tie the deal down." This sounds wonderful, but you may have just told the other side they left money on the table. Even if you like the number and it has been a collaborative encounter, you still want to ask a few questions in terms of what is included and not included so they other side does not feel they made the deal too fat.

4."We are asking for $[enter amount] but that number is negotiable." Of course all numbers are negotiable, but you just told them you do not think what you are selling is worth the amount you quoted. State your number, and per point #1 above, state it as one number and not a range. Also, state the number slowly, in a low and confident tone, while looking not only in their eyes, but almost like you're looking into the back of their skulls.

5."We can't possibly get you the item by [deadline date]." You think you're being clear, but in reality you just stated your inability to deliver by this date as a non-negotiable. Non-negotiables should be very few in number and generally tied to legal, ethical, and organizational policy issues. A better answer is to come back with, "That date is going to be a challenge, we could make that happen but only if you are willing to sign a contract today, pay for express shipping, and identify a contact person on your side we will have direct and open access to 24/7." With this response you may have just gotten the agreement of your dreams.

Thoughts? Responses? Other tactics? Chime in below.

Five Supposedly Good Reasons Why People Don't Set Goals (and Why They're Wrong)

2010-06-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

International bestseller Brian Tracy found out that only 3% of adults have clear, written, specific, measureable, time-bounded goals. And by every statistic, they accomplish ten times as much as people with no goals at all.

Brian lists below Five Supposedly Good Reasons Why People Don't Set Goals (and Why They're Wrong):

Myth One: “I already have goals; I don’t need to set any.” People who say this also say that their goals are to be rich, thin, happy, successful, and live their dreams. Buy these are not goals, they are wishes and fantasies common to all mankind. A goal is like a beautiful home, carefully designed, revised continually, upgraded regularly, and worked on constantly. If it is not in writing, it is merely a dream or a wish, a vague objective with no energy behind it.

Myth Two: “I don’t need goals; I’m doing fine.” Living your life without goals is setting off across unknown territory with no road signs and no roadmap. You have no choice but to make it up as you go along, reacting and responding to whatever happens, and hoping for the best. If you are doing well today without written goals and plans, you could probably be doing many times better in the future if you had clear targets to aim at and the ability to measure your progress as you go along.

Myth Three: “I don’t need written goals; I have them all in my mind.” The average stream of consciousness includes about 1,500 thoughts a minute. If your goals are only in your mind, they are invariably jumbled up, vague, confused, contradictory and deficient in many ways. They offer no clarity and give you no motive power. You become like a ship without a rudder, drifting with the tides, crashing into the rocks inevitably and never really fulfilling your true potential.

Myth Four: “I don’t know how to set goals.” No wonder. You can take a Masters degree at a leading university and never receive a single hour of instruction on goal setting and achieving. Fortunately, goal setting is a skill, like time management, teaching, selling, managing, or anything else that you need to become a highly productive and effective person. And all skills are learnable. You can learn the skill of goal-setting by practice and repetition until it becomes as easy and as automatic as breathing. And from the very first day that you begin setting goals, the progress you will make and the successes you will enjoy will astonish you.

Myth Five: “Goals don’t work; life is too unpredictable.” When a plane takes off for a distant city, it will be off course 99% of the time. The complexity of the avionics and the skill of the pilots are focused on continual course corrections. It is the same in life. But when you have a clear, long-term goal, with specific plans to achieve it, you may have to change course many times, but you will eventually arrive at your destination of health, wealth and great success.

One last point. Goal setting has been called the master skill of success. You have two choices in life: You can either work on your own goals, or you can work for someone else, and work on achieving their goals. When you learn the master skill, you take complete control of your life and jump to the front of the line in your potential for great achievement.

Any thoughts? Ideas? Responses?

Mark Levy's Five Rules to Disobey in Freewriting

2010-06-25T10:21:00.000-07:00

Mark Levy, bestselling author and founder of Levy Innovation, wants you to know about the power of freewriting and how it can help find answers to problems, reach goals, and enhance creativity. But using freewriting means discarding some "traditional" standards.

Here's the (much abridged) freewriting process: fix a problem in mind, open a blank document on your computer, set a timer for seven minutes, and begin. Write as fast as you can -- without stopping for any reason -- about your problem.

That's it? Not quite. Below, Mark lists Five "Traditional" Rules and Standards You Should Toss Aside for Effective Freewriting:

First Rule to Break: Don't time yourself. People don't time themselves when they write because they've been taught that timing oneself causes a distraction and puts the focus on time rather than quality of work. Well, forget that rule. Do time yourself. When the timer starts, you start. When it finishes, you finish. By using a timer, you can forget about logistics and spend your attention and energy on writing flat-out.

Second Rule to Break: Stop to think as you write. Forget that training that asks you to measure out each word carefully with forethought. While freewriting, it’s important to keep writing no matter what’s happening in your mind. That means, if you’re stumped, write about being stumped. If your thoughts are choppy, put them down choppily. Stopping for more than a second gives your internal editor a chance to reengage and disrupt the process.

Third Rule to Break: Write at a leisurely pace. Don't. If you freewrite too slowly, you’re writing, not freewriting. You want to write fast enough so that your internal editor slackens its grip. That means, if your editor is running at five miles an hour, write at six miles an hour. Your fingers needn’t fly over the keyboard. They just need to move at a clip slightly quicker than your norm.

Fourth Rule to Break: Stay on topic. Too much focus is a bad thing in freewriting. Sticking too closely to a linear route is probably what’s got you blocked in the first place. As Edward De Bono says, "Great ideas are only logical in hindsight." Our minds like to roam. If you start thinking about a TV show you’d like to watch, or a trade your favorite ball team is planning, write about those digressions.

Fifth Rule to Break: Write only from your own experience and reality. Yes, disregard. Since freewriting is done for your eyes only, feel free to make up characters and tell tall tales. Why? They free up the mind and force fresh perspective. Once you come up with an interesting idea in fantasy, you can always bring it back to reality and see if it can be made useable.

Give it a shot and then tell us about your experience below.

Ten Common Sense Principles for a New Economy

2010-06-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

David Korten is very concerned that we still haven't learned out lessons from the last meltdown. The proof? Here is David's list of Ten Principles that Sound Like Simple No Brainers, But Directly Support Actions So Radical as to Invite Instant Dismissal:

1. The proper purpose of an economy is to secure just, sustainable, and joyful livelihoods for all.

2. GDP is a measure of the economic cost of producing a given level of human well-being and happiness. As with any well-run business, the proper goal is to minimize the costs of a given level of useful output, not to maximize them.

3. A rational reallocation of real resources can achieve the essential reduction in aggregate human consumption required to bring the human species into balance with Earth’s biosphere simultaneously with improving the health and happiness of all.

4. Markets allocate efficiently only within a framework of appropriate rules that maintain the necessary conditions of competition, cost internalization, balanced trade, domestic investment, and equality.

5. A proper money system roots the power to create and allocate money in people and communities to facilitate the creation of livelihoods and ecologically balanced community wealth.

6. Money, which is easily created with a simple accounting entry, should never be the deciding constraint in making resource allocation decisions.

7. Wall Street financial institutions devoted to speculation, the inflation of financial bubbles, risk externalization, the extraction of usury, and the use of creative accounting to create money from nothing unrelated to the creation of anything of real value serve no social purpose, are all forms of theft, and should be regulated or taxed out of existence.

8. Greed is not a virtue; sharing is not a sin. If your primary business purpose is not to serve the community, you have no business being in business.

9. The only legitimate reason for government to issue a corporate charter extending special privileges favoring a particular enterprise is to serve a clearly defined public purpose. That purpose should be clearly stated in its charter and subject to periodic review.

10. Public policy properly favors local investors and businesses dedicated to creating community wealth over investors and businesses that come only to extract it.

Energized? Offended? Chime in below!

Five Ways to Find Meaning in Madness

2010-06-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

Alex Pattakos has successfully translated Viktor Frankl's key principles for finding meaning in life into our daily world. It's not very easy to do, but it is possible to find meaning and learn a great deal from setbacks other than the traditional "I-know-not-do-that-again" lesson.

As an exclusive to the Author blog, Alex presents below The Five Ways We Can Find Meaning in the Setbacks and Problems We Experience Daily:

1. See setbacks as a way to believe in meaning. Whenever we suffer -- no matter what the severity of our suffering is -- we have the ability to find meaning in the situation. Meaning exists in all scenarios and believing that means you'll be able to find it in the roughest patches. Also, meaning is not a singular value -- look for the "mini-meanings" along life's paths, not simply for the "BIG" answers to the questions that life asks.

Example: If you experience a tragedy but you don't acknowledge the value of meaning, it's too easy to start believing that you are a powerless "victim" of circumstances and nothing more. We all know people who are like this and we know how damaging such a self-fulfilling prophecy can be.

2. Use adversity as training for your attitude. In all situations, no matter how desperate they may appear or actually be, you always have the ultimate freedom to choose your attitude. This doesn't mean you can force yourself to be happy because something awful happened, but you can choose how you react and interpret an awful experience. Your choice of attitude is a first, and a very important, step towards finding meaning in any given situation. Choosing your attitude empowers you and builds your resiliency to misfortune.

Example: Ask yourself with absolute honesty whether you usually confront situations with a focus on positive outcomes. Your attitude dictates how you'll perceive events and how you'll grow and learn from them -- or not. Focused properly, your attitudinal predisposition positively influences your search for meaning, but done wrong, it can also thwart it.

3. Use an unfortunate event as an opportunity to gain perspective. Seek to look at both the situation and yourself from a distance as a removed third party. Learning when and how to separate yourself from a situation not only can help you deal with the stresses associated with it but also can help you find ways to deal with the situation effectively because you see options you wouldn't otherwise notice. A key strategic aspect to this removed perspective is a sense of humor. Humor can be used to put distance between yourself and your situation while also helping you find meaning in your plight.

Example: Have you ever been so close to a stressful situation that you felt frustrated and immobilized because you had tunnel vision and couldn't see other factors in the periphery? Now, imagine the same situation if you had been able to take a step back and laugh at yourself instead of tightening the blinders. Do you see how differently the situation would have been resolved?

4. A bad scenario is a good excuse for a break. Deflecting your attention from a problem or otherwise challenging situation to something else positive can help you cope with the situation by putting it into a more manageable context. Even a quick "mental excursion" can be healthy, help you deal with adversities. This capacity also provides us with opportunities to find the deeper meaning in our predicaments.

Example: Have you ever found yourself "day-dreaming" when confronting a stressful situation and realized that it actually helped you ease your tension? Can you see how focusing on something positive can get you "unstuck?" No one ever found meaning or resolution in single-minded obsession, but "taking a break" actually moves you closer to finding value in a tough predicament.

5. A tragedy is a tool to relate to more than yourself. By directing your attention and relating to something or someone other than (and more than) yourself, you increase your chances of finding meaning in life. Authentic meaning often comes as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Finding meaning in tragedy or setbacks, in this regard, is less about oneself and more about extending beyond oneself.

Example: Have you ever confronted a challenge in which you were more concerned about others than you were about yourself? An amazing dynamic occurs when you rise beyond yourself in service to others -- an understanding of values outside yourself. Relating to others is a key part of finding meaning.

I welcome all of your thoughts and reactions (and stories) below!

Five Bad Assumptions

2010-06-04T16:41:00.000-07:00

Marcia Reynolds has researched and studied extensively about high-achieving women and their ways of thinking and reacting to various scenarios. She's also noticed that there are certain erroneous assumptions that many successful and smart women make that can create a hefty brain-lock cycle from which is it very difficult to escape.

As an exclusive to this blog, Marcia Reynolds presents below five core assumptions that lock women into rigid perfectionist patterns:

Assumption #1: There is a right answer and it is mine

If you are the best and the one who knows, then you have an answer for every question about things that are important to you. No one dares to disagree. Always being right not only hurts your relationships, it is a heavy responsibility to bear.

Assumption #2: Everything is up to me

Things will spin out of control or fail if they aren’t done by you. As a result, you will overwork, take on too many projects, and resist sharing your work with anyone else.

Assumption #3: I will always be disappointed

Whether it's a job or a relationship, you start out excited about the possibilities, then you feel let down. This is due to the unreasonable standards you set up which no job or relationship can meet in the long run. The truth is, this behavior gives you an exit door so you never have to commit to ironing out your problems. If you don’t release your attachment to disappointment, you will always focus on what is wrong.

Assumption #4: I don't need help

You are a strong, smart woman so you don't need anyone to help you succeed. You can figure it out on your own. Unfortunately, this assumption is a horrible waste of your precious time. Letting other people help you is more efficient, it builds relationships, and you look stronger as a leader.

Assumption #5: I have to be great at everything I do

For the first time in history, women are brought up to believe we can do anything. To make up for lost time, this message is being delivered with a vengance. As a result, girls interpret the words to mean, "I must be great at anything I choose." As they mature, the greater their knowledge and experiences, the heavier is the "burden of greatness." When one accomplishment is complete, they quickly search for the next great thing to conquer. As a result, they restlessly wander with no clear purpose. This realization launched the idea for my research and the book, Wander Woman.

Thoughts? Responses? Suggestions? Ideas?

Five Simple (But Not Easy) Ways to Build Your Community

2010-06-01T15:58:00.000-07:00

Peter Block is a bestselling author, speaker and legend in the organizational development world. His current passion, and the subject of his latest book, is community -- how to create it, nourish it, and sustain it. Real life satisfaction becomes possible only when we join our neighbors to live and create a community that supports our family and makes us useful citizens.

"The consumer society encourages this romantic idea that schools can raise our child, doctors can keep us healthy, institutions and services can care for the vulnerable, police can keep us safe, government will care of the land, and there is out there a global company will move into our city and save our local economy. The reality is that we already possess the ideas, the tools and the support to create a neighborhood that can raise a child, provide security, sustain our health, secure our income, care for our vulnerable people and get us work to do. Each of these is within the power of our community. Each is within walking distance. Here are five simple, though not easy to do steps to satisfaction:

1. Become gift-minded. Find out the gifts of each person in the neighborhood. What do they like to do, what do they know that they would be willing to teach other people? Skills such as training a dog, sewing, gardening, fixing a car or babysitting children can be useful to everyone.

2. Welcome Strangers. There are people nearby that we do not know. We are shut off from them by like-mindedness. Instead of staying in your social core, create a welcoming to those who are not part of the core circle but are still part of the neighborhood. This is not just hospitality because we need these people -- all people -- to make the neighborhood function. We do not have to particularly like them, but we need them to function as a community.

3. Discover Local Association Life. Dozens of formal and informal associations, groups of people who come together by choice to do something they enjoy exist in all neighborhoods and communities. Find out what and where these groups are and join one. If you can't find a particular group, start one. Groups can be for just about anything: a coffee group, a book club, dog walkers gathering, or those interested in the history and preservation of the neighborhood where you all live.

4. Choose to be a Connector. Every neighborhood has people who know just about everyone and like to find out what people love to do and bring them together. Be one of these people. Find a friend and knock on doors up and down the block asking what people like to do and would like to share with others. Meet with other Connectors and talk about building the social fabric of the place. Discuss how to support small local businesses, including the many being operated out of homes. Connecting is not just for adults, however. Find out what the neighborhood children are interested in and give them a function related to that interest. Doing so lets the youth know that they are vital and needed.

5. Finally, See it all as a Social Movement. This is a movement to reclaim into our own hands the capacity to find satisfaction. It is a social movement called localism. It marks the end of the dominance of consumerism and has been underway for decades. The movement remains invisible because it holds no large financial interest and is not in the job descriptions of people we call "leaders." Therefore it is not called news, it is minimized by calling it "human interest," but it is vital and kinetic. All of this is explored both in The Abundant Community and the website; abundantcommunity.com.

Join us in this movement, tell us your story, hear what others are doing that works, find each other. It is a world based on gifts and relatedness. Radical but doable."

Chime in below with your thoughts and responses.

What Women See, and Why It's Important

2010-04-27T14:43:00.000-07:00

Women see the world through a distinctive lens and can use their vision to their advantage. Author Sally Helgesen provides this posting's list of The Five Things Women Notice -- and What Organizations (and Men) Can Learn From Them.

1. Women take a robust scan of the emotional temperature in a room. Women employ their capacity for broad-scale notice in order to read what people in a meeting are feeling. Are they present and engaged, or do they feel isolated and awkward?

Example: One woman in our book was asked by her employer to “just notice what goes on in a meeting” She came back with vital observations about a key partnership in jeopardy. Her employer dismissed the information, saying that “by notice I meant notice if the numbers add up.”

2. Women employ multiple senses when summing up a situation. Notice isn’t just about what we see—it derives from multisensory impressions.

Example: Details matter. An otherwise powerful conference will not make as positive impression if the sensory aspects of it are unpleasant. Sound, smell, temperature and feel affect our judgment and how we remember. Yet most organizations don’t know how to use sensory information.

3. Women notice if the daily experience of work is rewarding. This sounds like a no-brainer, but many organizations tend to emphasize abstractions when offering incentives and rewards rather than supporting an employee’s ability to enjoy the daily practice of work.

Example: In our survey on differences in how men and women perceive, define and pursue satisfaction in the workplace, we found that women are less likely to be motivated by what a job might lead to in the future if they also perceive that job as offering a low quality of life in the present.

4. Women notice when collegiality is not valued. Many companies have learned to speak the language of teamwork and collaboration, but their policies do nothing to support it.

Example: In most sales units, providing support to help a team member meet a goal is neither recognized nor rewarded. People are instead graded and ranked on their individual achievements.

5. Women notice when other women’s suggestions get overlooked in a meeting. They see it as a sign of disrespect to women in general.

Example: Jill offers an idea at a sales conference. No one responds. Ten minutes later, Jim makes the same suggestion, using different words. This happens all the time. Men who notice this have a great opportunity to show their support for women by speaking up: “Great idea, Jim! I see you’re building on what Jill suggested.”

What are your thoughts and responses?

Five Ways to Be A Better Social Networker

2010-04-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

There's an old New Yorker cartoon that shows two dogs sitting at a laptop. One says to the other, "On the internet, no one knows that you're a dog." Yes, the internet offers anonymity, but it also seems to encourage some bad behavior and poor judgment when it comes to online interactions. Deanna Zandt has worked with technology and social media all her life and has noticed that even the most experienced networkers lapse into bad habits from time to time.

For this reason (and for the purposes of educating new social networkers), Deanna presents this issue's list of The Five Mistakes People (Even the Professionals) Make with Social Networking:

1. Thinking like it's television. Many organizations see social networks like Twitter and Facebook as just another way to broadcast about the work that they're doing, whether that's selling products or promoting advocacy. This is akin to showing up at a party, getting on a chair, and yelling to everyone that you're awesome. Don't broadcast, have conversations. Your audience is a community of people, not a mass of passive listeners.

2. Talking only about yourself. Again, you wouldn't do this at a party, would you? Social networks function a lot like ad-hoc, informal get togethers. You ask people what they're up to, you share some of what you're doing, and you pass on good news from friends or interesting things you've seen and read. There's a lot of give and take; only about 20-30% of your posts should be about your own work or mission.

3. Crafting "messages." While it's certainly worthwhile to make sure the material you're sharing on social networks is part of the bigger picture of the work you do, being overly careful about "staying on message" can ring hollow with your community. Remember, social networks are comprised of humans interacting with each other -- treat yourself, and your community as the living, breathing creatures they are.

4. Showing up only to vent. This is a personal pet peeve of mine. I get really irritated with people who never participate in the thriving conversations on social networks, and only post grousings about the clerk at the grocery store or how terrible Jetblue's customer service has become. Social networks can be sounding boards, for sure, but they're so much more than that.

5. Reading lists of do's and don'ts. Yep, I'm getting a little meta here -- time for me to take some of my own medicine. Really, my point in saying this is that there are an awful lot of social networking "gurus" out there who try to prescribe all kinds of behavior for their own ends (often selling something). But much like our interactions offline, we shouldn't be limited by how a consumer-oriented culture wants us to behave... so really, just get in there and be yourself.

Give us your social networking wisdom, reactions, and thoughts below.

Right Here, Right Now

2010-03-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

Steve Arneson knows leadership development better than most. Prior to becoming an executive coach, Steve was Senior VP, Executive Talent Management and Development for Capital One and played a principal role in Capital One being named by Hewitt and Fortune magazine as one of the Top 20 Companies for Leaders between 2005 and 2008.

Before joining Capital One, Steve was VP of Organizational Effectiveness at America Online (AOL) and VP of People Development for Time Warner Cable. Prior to AOL, Steve worked as Senior Director of People Development for PepsiCo.

Have a look at Steve's list of the five things you can do immediately to develop your leadership skills that won't cost a dime:

1. Document your leadership journey. One of the most insightful things you can do as a leader is to look back at your own career, and identify meaningful “lessons learned” from your experiences. Packaging these lessons into a crisp “story” gives you a powerful presentation about your growth and development as a leader.

2. Confront your hardest-held positions. Admitting to yourself where you’re “dug in” on issues or positions can be a great way to open your mind to alternative solutions. Make a list of all of your most hardened beliefs, and brainstorm other points of view – it can help you become a more well-rounded leader.

3. Practice your coaching skills. Coaching is very different from giving directions or merely providing feedback. Coaching puts you in a facilitative frame of mind, where your goal is to help others examine problems or find their own solutions. Coaching involves asking questions, and can set you apart as a manager. People love to work for a leader who is also a great coach.

4. Get to know your team. Too many leaders are afraid to learn about their team members beyond the job. Don’t make that mistake – get to know your people. Take an interest in their personal lives, their hopes and dreams, their families and hobbies. Interview them about their lives beyond work, and see what happens. People want to work for someone who cares about them as individuals, not just as employees.

5. Reflect on your leadership. Every day, ask yourself three questions as you commute home – “how did I show up as a leader today?” “What did I communicate today?” “Who did I develop today?” If you keep your leadership top-of-mind and self-evaluate about how others are experiencing your leadership, you’ll become a more effective leader.

Ready?

Five Purpose Myths

2010-03-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

Most of us want to believe that there is a purpose to life, that our being here does mean something, that what we do matters. The lesson for us is that behind every great deed is at least one individual who grasped the purpose moment to make a difference. And the only place we can find this kind of motivation is within.

If, however, you feel inclined to dismiss purpose as bigger than life with no practical application for your own life, you may be subscribing to some commonly held myths about purpose. Here is Richard Leider's list of the five most common purpose myths:

Myth #1 To have purpose means I must do something completely original.

Can you really recall anything that is totally new? Almost every idea or creation is an extension or synthesis of previous efforts. New breakthroughs are built on existing fundamental truths. Like runners in a relay race, we simply do our part to carry the baton another leg of the race.

Myth #2 Only a few special people have true purpose in their lives.

This is the most commonly rationalized of all myths. History, however, is filled with great contributions made by ordinary people who had virtually no experience or expertise in the areas where they made a real difference. In fact, being a novice gives us permission and courage to step into things with fresh passion and purpose.

Myth #3 True purpose comes as inspiration or revelation. Until that time comes, I might as well keep plodding ahead.

Inspiration comes to those who seek it. We don't find beautiful shells unless we're on the beach. If we believe in the the "pop in" theory of purpose, rarely will find it. If we wait for purpose, we end up being waiters our entire lives.

Myth #4 Purpose is nice but impractical. I need to make a living!

Thoreau captured it nicely when he wrote, "It isn't enough to be busy. Ants are busy." The question is what are we busy about? Waiting until the right time is as futile as trying to save money by putting away what we don't happen to spend. The only way to uncover our purpose is to take time from some other activity to explore or contribute to that which we care deeply about.

Myth #5 It's too late; I'm too old. I should have figured out my purpose long ago.

Purpose is a cradle-to grave quest. Jobs end, people go though transitions. Some even retire. The purpose quest, however--having a reason to get up in the morning--never ends. And, it is is vital to our health, longevity and, ultimately our happiness.

Any thoughts or ideas about purpose? Chime in below.

Five Nations You Never Knew Had Atrocious Human Rights Records

2010-03-05T14:39:00.000-08:00

Everyone has heard about the horrors committed in the Congo, China, Darfur, and parts of the Russia, but did you know about these nations?

1. Turkey -- Has the most human rights violations of any country among the forty-seven signatory states of the European Convention on human rights. In a tally of the number of judgments entered for Turkey in 2009, 356 cases out of a total of 1,625 put the country in the worst violator class. In only nine cases out of the 356 did the court find there was no violation.

2. Egypt -- Though it prides itself on having the only secular government in the Middle East, Egypt has a terrible record of torture and abuse of prisoners and detainees; executive branch limits on an independent judiciary; denial of fair public trial; restrictions on civil liberties -- freedoms of speech and press, including internet freedom; and discrimination and violence against women, including female genital mutilation. Egypt is considered by Amnesty International to be one of the top twenty violators of human rights globally.

3. Yemen -- The government has signed several international human rights treaties, and even appointed a woman, Dr. Wahiba Fara’a, to the role of Minister of the State of Human Rights. However, credible reports state that abuses still run rampant, especially in the areas of women's rights, freedom of the press, torture, and police brutality. Arbitrary arrests of citizens and searches of homes, especially in the south, remain commonplace. Judicial corruption, inefficiency, and executive interference undermine due process. Freedom of speech, the press, and religion are all restricted and carefully regulated.

4. Sri-Lanka -- The decades-old civil war may be over, but the human rights abuses have only grown in this small island nation that once used to boast a thriving tourist industry (Marco Polo reported that upon landing on the island, he thought he had discovered the biblical Garden of Eden). The South Asia Human Rights Index reported that Sri Lanka is the worst human rights violator in South Asia. Discrimination, torture and brutal punishment, lack of expression and corruption are listed as the main issues the nation grapples with.

5. Uzbekistan -- Often used as the butt of jokes by Sasha Baron Cohen's character Borat (and therefore assumed to be a harmless nation of farmers), Uzbekistan is actually a rough place. Leader Islam Karimov's regime controls everything with brutal efficiency. In 2005, during an open meeting in the town square, an estimated 10,000 people gathered, expecting government officials to come and listen to their grievances. Instead, Karimov sent the army, which massacred hundreds of men, women and children. A 2003 law made Karimov and all members of his family immune from prosecution forever.

Any that didn't make the list that you can think of? Any that are on the list that shouldn't be? Chime in below.

In the Heat of the Moment

2010-02-23T14:02:00.000-08:00

In Larry Dressler’s new book, Standing in the Fire: Leading High-Heat Meetings with Clarity, Calm, and Courage, he offers proven principles and practices to help us make wise decisions and take deliberate action even when others are being swept away in the emotional intensity of the moment. There are hundreds of “personal demons” that can derail us in the midst of conflict. Here are five of Larry’s favorites:

1. Certainty — We make being right or having the best ideas more important than arriving at the best resolution. When this demon takes over we become argumentative and closed to what others have to say. Required mind-shift is from an ardent “I have answers” to a sincere “I have questions.”

2. Inflexibility — When we are caught off guard by unanticipated information or dynamics we try to control people, outcomes, and process rather than work within the new reality that has emerged. When this demon is present we can become anxious, resentful or blind to new possibilities. Required mind-shift is from “Surprises are disruptive and unwelcome” to “Surprises are gifts to work with creatively.”

3. Ego — We identify too strongly with some idealized image of ourself, deciding that preserving this image is more important than learning something new. The presence of the ego demon is often expressed through defensiveness and shame. Required mind-shift is from “I should be...” to “I am still becoming...”

4. Prediction — We become preoccupied with what might happen in the future rather than attending to the current dynamics of the conflict. The worry demon often causes us to unnecessarily act on our negative predictions as if they have already occurred. Required mind-shift is from “What bad thing might happen next?” to “I can only influence what is happening right now.”

5. Reciprocity — We justify less-than respectful, less-than compassionate behavior in ourselves when those around us are acting with little respect or compassion. When this demon shows up there is a high likelihood that the conflict will escalate. Required mind-shift is from “I will act as I am acted upon” to “I will act based on my purpose and values.”

Do you have some demons in common with Larry or some of your own you want to talk about? Chime in below.

The Power of Circles

2010-01-27T17:20:00.000-08:00

People have been gathering together in circles to foster dialogue and change since the dawn of humanity. Authors Ann Linnea and Christina Baldwin give us five good reasons why circles are so effective in fostering honest and authentic communications within a group:

1. When we change the chairs we change the world. A circle by its very nature places people into positions of equal standing (or sitting). Physically repositioning a group into a circle impacts the mental positions of the participants who feel liberated from the restrictions that hierarchy, status, and prescribed roles usually places on them.

2. More than a shape, circle is a social infrastructure for collaborative conversation. Social infrastructure releases the fullness of participation because every person understands how to contribute to the conversation. We place something that symbolizes common purpose in the center space, articulate agreements of respectful interaction, and lean into the dialogue.

3. Meeting in circle is a sort of a contained treasure hunt. The wisdom we need is in the room, and the only way to truly gather it, think about it, and make decisions based on it, is to hear every voice. Who has the question? Who has the answer? Who knows the next piece? What creative idea will be heard from an unexpected source?

4. Leadership roles are embedded in the rim putting a leader in every chair. Someone volunteers to be “host”—to help the group hold focus, and to design patterns for contributing. Someone else volunteers to be “guardian”—to observe shifting group need, and to signal a pause so that people can take a breath, refocus, and proceed with clarity. Host and guardian work together to serve group purpose, sometimes for one topic or agenda item, sometimes for a whole meeting—these leadership positions rotate, responsibility is shared, and the group seeks to live its wholeness.

5. A Circle transforms group efficiency and cohesiveness through relationship. People who know each other work better together; they solve problems, address issues, trust each other’s good intent, get through hard times, and acknowledge their interdependence on each member of the team.

Ideas, thoughts, or reactions?

FDA Approved, But...

2010-01-22T16:18:00.000-08:00

The FDA is not as tough on impurities as you'd think. We always assume that the FDA has the highest standards for the cleanliness of our foods, which is why it would surprise many people to know that the FDA standards allow for some pretty gross impurities. Here are five FDA-mandated "acceptable" levels of impurities in our food:

1. Canned tomatoes: Two or less maggots or ten or less fly eggs per 500 grams (a regular size can holds about 700-800 grams).

2. Macaroni and noodle products: "An average of 225 or less insect fragments or less per 225 grams in six or more subsamples." Yep, that means each single gram can contain a little piece of an insect.

3. Canned mushrooms: As long as only 10% or less of the mushrooms in any container are decomposed, it's FDA-certified!

4. Wheat: Nine milligrams or less of rat feces in a kilogram (2.2 lbs.) of wheat. Yes, rat feces.

5. Chocolate: Three or less rodent hairs or 90 or less insect fragments in a 100-gram sample (or 1 1/2 rodent hairs or less and 45 insect fragments or less per average candy bar).

Hungry?

Five Things You Didn't Know About Latinos and Hispanics

2010-01-08T16:48:00.000-08:00

Louis Nevaer has written extensively about Hispanic and Latino culture and business. Despite the widespread Latino presence in the U.S., many remain unaware of some crucial facts about them. Here is Louis's list of the five things you didn't know about Hispanics and Latinos:

1. Hispanics are the Nation’s Youth. More than a third of all Hispanics and Latinos in the United States are under the age of 18.

2. Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of the labor market. Since they are almost a decade younger than the general population, Hispanics and Latinos are disproportionately represented in the nation’s workforce.

3. Spanish is now a dominant presence in the United States. In 2009 the U.S. replaced Spain as the second-largest Spanish speaking nation in the world: only Mexico has more Spanish speakers.

4. Hispanics and Latin American immigrants account for almost all the population growth in the US. Because Hispanics and Latinos have higher fertility rates, they account for almost the entire native-born population growth. (Non-Hispanic whites’ fertility rates are below the natural replacement levels; African-Americans are just at the natural replacement level.) When immigration is taken into account, again, Latin Americans represent a disporportionate percentage of all immigrants to the US.

5. More than 34 million Mexican citizens can make a legal claim of one kind to emigrate to the US. The tangled flows of temporary immigration, military service in the US armed forces, and cross-border family relations means that about a third of all Mexicans have a legal claim to settle in the US. That so few choose to do so reflects the distinct cultural values that separate Hispanics from the Anglo-Protestant culture of mainstream American society.

Any other observations, reactions, or comments? Chime in below.

Five Common Scenarios In Which We Resort to the Wrong Approach

2009-12-22T22:49:00.001-08:00

Adam Kahane's newest book argues for the judicious use of both power and love in combination (each combination being unique to the situation at hand) to effect change and resolve conflict in communities and groups. There are many situations where we make the mistake of resorting to pure force (power) to achieve the desired goal, or want to avoid conflict altogether (love) in the hopes that peace will inevitably prevail with kindness. These situations are found not only in war-torn regions of the developing world, but in our everyday lives with our families, friends, and colleagues.

Here Adam presents the five common scenarios where we resort to only power or only love when we should use both:

a. Common Power-Only Scenario #1: We are so afraid of being hurt that we deny or cut off our love and connection to others, attacking them (and/or defending ourselves) aggressively.

Example: Have you ever walked away from a friendship or relationship that felt difficult, because this seemed easier than confronting the person and taking the risk of having to face some unpleasant revelations about yourself?”

b. Common Power-Only Scenario #2: We are so sure of the correctness of our beliefs and actions that we deny or forget that we might be wrong -- and that we might be hurting others.

Example: Have you ever vigorously pushed an idea or initiative that you were certain was right, over the objections of others, only to find that ultimately it wasn't right?

c. Common Love-Only Scenario #1: We are so afraid of hurting others that we deny or cut off our own ambition and power.

Example: Have you ever buried ideas or initiatives that were important to you, because you were worried that they might offend or upset someone you really cared about?

d. Common Love-Only Scenario #2: We are so uneasy with or lacking in confidence in our own power that we pretend we have none -- and so flail about timidly and unconsciously.

Example: Have you ever found yourself manipulating other people towards your own motives because you aren't willing to step up to say what you want and what you are willing to do to get it?

e. Common Love-Only Scenario #3: We are so determined to keep our situation polite or high-minded or whole that we suppress self-expression, dissent, and conflict--and thereby making our situation unhealthy and un-whole.

Have you ever swept problems in a group under the carpet or ignored them in order to keep the group intact, only to find these problems coming back bigger and more destructive?

What are your personal experiences with power and love? Share with the community below...

Five Cases of Professional Self-Deception

2009-12-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

We’d like to think that our grip on reality is pretty solid and we know what’s going on better than most people. We're wrong. Professionals and learned people deceive themselves about their abilities and capabilities as much as anyone else. Here are just five examples from research in the field:

1. "I'm the most competent person here." Ninety-four percent of American university professors think they are better at their jobs than their colleagues. -- Dr. Ashley Wazana in JAMA Vol. 283 No. 3, January 19, 2000.

2. "I don't have biases or prejudices like others do." A Princeton University research team asked people to estimate how susceptible they and "the average person" were to a long list of judgmental biases. The overwhelming majority of people claimed to be less biased than the overwhelming majority of people. --Daniel Gilbert, I'm OK; You're Biased

3."I am a better leader than most." Seventy percent of college students think they are above average in leadership ability. Only two percent think they are below average. --Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isn't So

4."Special allowances should be made for my particular industry." Eighty-five percent of medical students think it is improper for politicians to accept gifts from lobbyists. Only 46 percent think it's improper for physicians to accept gifts from drug companies. -- Dr. Ashley Wazana in JAMA Vol. 283 No. 3, January 19, 2000.

5. "I am not as easily bought off as others." A 2001 study of medical residents found that 84 percent thought that their colleagues were influenced by gifts from pharmaceutical companies, but only 16 percent thought that they were similarly influenced. --Daniel Gilbert, I'm OK; You're Biased

Has this list compelled you to think about any of your own self-deceptions? Anything you’d care to share below?

Five Good Reasons to Challenge the Heirarchy

2009-10-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

Ira Chaleff has spent a lifetime coaching and working with executives on issues of courage. He believes that part of being a good follower, and a hallmark of true followership, is to stand up and challenge our leaders when we disagree with their principles, motivations, or actions.

Sure, it's easier to keep a low profile and not draw attention to yourself, but Ira warns us why taking that route leads to its own share of problems by presenting the five solid reasons why you should speak up to authority when the situation warrants it:

1) Because “boss” is just what you call him or her. Underneath the title is a human being. All human beings are fallible, including you. You’re not challenging the boss’s position, just the blind spot. Helping each other see the limitations in our thinking or the blind spots in our actions helps each of us to be better.

2) Because you believe in the mission of the organization and want it to succeed. If the boss, or the boss’s boss’s boss is contemplating an action based on an inaccurate assessment of the situation, your speaking up can prevent setbacks to the mission. This is good, right?

3) Because you have the courage to live by your values. If we compromise our values enough we cease being proud of who we are. You want to be proud of yourself, don’t you? Living with integrity takes courage.

4) Because no one else is going to do it. We wait for others to step in to the line of fire so that we can piggy-back on them to lessen any negative consequences of speaking up. That’s a problem — everyone is waiting for someone else to step up first, so no one does. The ship goes down.

5) Because it earns you respect from both your colleagues and your bosses. Your boss may not like hearing your challenge, but as long as he or she is not clinically paranoid, a strong boss will respect you for speaking up. So will your colleagues. You might even get promoted. If you do, remember to be a courageous boss.

Thoughts? Reactions? Chime in.

Five Ways To Cool the Air

2009-10-16T16:39:00.000-07:00

Working towards resolving issues or problems can be awkward at first given the raw emotions involved. Author Stewart Levine, no stranger to the negotiation field as a professional consultant, negotiator, and former lawyer, has five key things to observe for a productive and supportive exchange:

1.Don't be so quick to blame or make someone the enemy. Surprisingly, most conflict is not the result of any kind of negative intention but miscommunication or misperception. Because we are all different in our approach to conflict, we need to agree clearly at the beginning as to exactly what the issue is. Inexact language only encourages conflict, so before you start assuming the worst of the other person, make sure you’re understanding the issue at heart.

2. When you are feeling stress, ask for a "time out" until you have your emotions under control. Conflict provokes a stress reaction. Before you can engage in meaningful collaborative dialogue, you must manage your stress. You’d be amazed what five minutes and a glass of cool water can do to reduce the tension.

3. The most powerful form of negotiating is to ask them what they want and create a way to give it to them. And let them know what you want and ask them to work on getting you what you want. Yes, it sounds a lot easier than it is, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t approach conflict mediation with this simple attitude that can make all the difference in the outcome.

4. Conflict lives inside each of us as a story -- it's the way we talk to ourselves about the situation. For both catharsis, and to share details, everyone involved should have their chance to tell their story from beginning to end (as should you), without interruption. And tell the whole story. Withholding vital information never works so you might as well let it all out and deal with it.

5. It’s tempting to try and end a mediation quickly by addressing only a few superficial issues and then concluding the exchange to escape the tension inherent to such meetings. Don't do it. The goal is always to reach a new agreement for the future and not for the present, otherwise the issues will just come up again. Think in terms of a long term resolution, not a short term transaction. Thinking long term will help you to create a sustainable relationship that can last longer and weather the bumps that are part of any partnership.

Remember: almost all conflict is emotionally motivated. The same emotional triggers prevent the resolution of conflict. Deal with the emotion and whatever the conflict was about will resolve itself.

Do you agree with Stewart? Do you have any insights or comments? Chime in below.

Five Things You Didn't Know About Killer Whales

2009-10-06T17:11:00.000-07:00

Killer Whales have always gotten a bad rap (and the name doesn't help). But, as trainers and authors Thad Lacinak and Chuck Tompkins will tell you, they're a lot more interesting than they are threatening. Here are five quick facts that you probably never knew about them:

1. They’re Not Whales. Killer whales are dolphins, not whales. The term “Killer Whale” is actually a corruption of a Spanish Basque term meaning “Whale Killer.” Orcas (as they are also called) will, on occasion, hunt whales for food.

2. They Have to Think About Breathing 24/7. Orcas are active breathers, which means that every breath they take is a conscious act – in other words, they have to remember to breath.

3. They’re Not Killers Either – Of Humans Anyway. There has never been a single confirmed report of an Orca killing a human in the wild.

4. They Don’t Sleep. Orcas don’t sleep – at least, not the way other animals do, because they are active breathers. Orcas “sleep” by shutting down only one hemisphere of their brain at a time, thereby allowing them to both rest in cycles while maintaining control over their breathing.

5. Mama Calls the Shots. Resident Orcas live and travel in groups or pods strictly organized along lines of maternal relatedness. Studies of resident killer whales have been able to identify maternal lineage through the tight bond between mother and offspring. Paternal lineage is unknown. Many of these groups are families that contain up to four generations of whales, consisting of three to nine individuals.

Thoughts? Reactions? Sudden urge to Tivo Animal Planet?

What Do Women Bring to the Table?

2009-09-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

Linda Tarr-Whelan is a premier expert on women’s leadership in this country and internationally. She is a distinguished senior fellow of the national think tank Demos and served as ambassador to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in the Clinton administration and as deputy assistant for women’s concerns to President Jimmy Carter in the Carter White House.

Balanced leadership that meets the 30% Solution – enough women at the table to be heard and heeded brings benefits for everyone. The positive difference works for men and women. Other countries have moved aggressively to tap all their talent, not just half. Here’s what both research and experience show are the reasons why. Women lead the way to:

1. A Better Bottom-line – Companies have a higher profits and weather financial storms better with more risk awareness and less hyper-competitiveness. The self-sustaining “old boys network“ at the top reinforces old ways of business and lacks the flexibility needed for a complex and fast-changing world.

2. Better Policies -- Often neglected issues like education, the well-being of children, ending violence against women and fostering entrepreneurship come to the fore. Regardless of party, women elected officials work across party lines for outcomes, not just “gotcha” politics. The door is wedged open with more opportunity for more women.

3. An Integrated Life – Better family and work policies add to productivity and a higher quality of life, especially family life. With virtually every parent in the workforce, the forced decisions about management of time between family and work can be mitigated by new policies and ways of doing business.

4. A Revitalized Social Contract – the engagement of women in the community is reflected in increased commitment to both personal and corporate social responsibility and longer-term and wider horizons for determining policies and programs.

5. 21st Century Management – Partnerships, teamwork, consensus building and collaborative decision-making are hallmarks of successful businesses – and of women’s leadership and management styles. Mission-driven outcomes are the result. Today’s workforce is increasingly motivated to participate and work for outcomes beyond a paycheck.

Do you agree? Disagree? Have an opinion? Chime in below.

Collective Folly: Five Things to Avoid

2009-09-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

The authors of The Power of Collective Wisdom put together this simple list of the five things to look out for regarding collective folly:

a. Confirmation Bias: We fall victim to the tendency to search for and interpret information in ways that confirm our existing pre-conceptions. Such a bias prevents us from seeing new ideas or other possibilities.

b. The One True Answer: We begin to believe (perhaps because of a too-narrow view of possibilities) that there is only one right answer or approach to solve a problem or arrive at a solution. We become rigid and dogmatic.

c. Polarization, Initial: Individuals and sub groups become polarized in their views and polarized from each other, no longer listening or considering new possibilities.

d. Polarization, Deepening: As levels of polarization grow, each new piece of information or viewpoint becomes additional fodder used to attack an “other.”

e. Impasse: The group discovers it is deadlocked. Worse yet, neither side is able to see how their own rigidity weakens the aims of the entire group or collective. The focus of attention is no longer on the issues needing resolution but on the unreasonable position of the other.

The result? Collective folly, the absence of sound judgment and the potential for a continuum of behaviors ranging from foolish behavior to criminality, evil, and depravity on a mass scale.

Agree? Disagree? Chime in below.

Five Lessons Learned and Not Forgotten

2009-08-04T16:43:00.000-07:00

Every consultant, coach, and business thinker has a list of leadership lessons/do's and dont's, so why should you read Mark's? Because Mark Miller began his Chick-fil-A career working as an hourly team member at the company’s Southlake Mall location in 1977 and worked his way up to the position he holds today as the Vice President for Learning & Development at Chick-fil-A. During his time with Chick-fil-A, annual sales have grown to over $3 billion.

Consider these five leadership lessons Mark learned as he worked his way from the front counter to senior leadership:

Lesson 1: Yes, Leadership Matters. Schools, homes, churches, hospitals, governments, armies and businesses are the product of leadership. Leadership determines the reach, depth, scope and ultimately the success of any enterprise.

Lesson 2: Leadership Always Begins With A Picture of the Future. Leaders always see a better tomorrow, and more importantly, leaders see it before others see it. This vision is formed through a combination of experience, expertise and intuition. The best leaders use this picture of the future to drive the behaviors of today.

Lesson 3: Not Everyone Wants To Be A Leader. In fact, most people are willing followers. But the best leaders are followers too because they serve others before themselves. A servant-leader mentality is what separates great leaders from the mediocre ones. Followers know that it is a gift to be well led.

Lesson 4: Leaders Initiate Change. Great leaders don’t initiate change for change’s sake or to follow whatever is the current trend in management, but for the sake of real progress. This change is often uncomfortable, but it is necessary. Change is the price of progress.

Lesson 5: Great Leaders Earn Trust Over Time. A leader is always being observed, so if the leader's actions are inconsistent with their words, it is immediately noticed. Consistency from the leader creates a platform for trust and credibility - it also creates a model for others to emulate.

Do you have any thoughts, reactions, or other points to add? Chime in below.

Five Misconceptions about Compromise at Work

2009-08-04T15:01:00.001-07:00

Elizabeth Doty has conducted extensive research into personal integrity and authenticity in organizations and has seen how people get caught in traps where they compromise their personal values for what they believe is a greater goal (career, income, etc.). If there's one thing Elizabeth has learned, it is that nothing is worth compromising one's core values. Here are five myths about making compromises at work:

Myth 1: Good companies and leaders don't create unhealthy pressure to compromise. Actually, even good companies and leaders can create an unhealthy pressure to compromise because of leadership blind spots and inattention. One study in 2007 by the National Ethics Resource Center showed that even in companies with a strong ethical culture, up to 24% of employees observed at least one incidence of ethical misconduct within the prior twelve months.

Myth 2: You always know if and when you're crossing a line. The truth is that compromise is more likely to be gradual because systemic blinders make it hard to see at the time. According to Max Bazerman, ethicist and negotiations expert at Harvard Business School, “Even good people sometimes will act unethically without their own awareness.” Numerous studies show this is true, due to biased and faulty perception, and natural human over-confidence.

Myth 3: You should just say no. "Just say no" is one strategy, but you'll need to be ready with more than just that when the pressure hits. You do need to be ready and willing to say no at any time. Yet the main reason people fail to say no is they do not feel strong enough when the pressure hits. The real moment of choice is far upstream, when you build up the personal foundations that give you the independence and courage to do the right thing.

Myth 4: Refusing to compromise means fighting back. Fighting is one option but it's not the only one. It is easy to end up in a battle of egos that is more about being right rather than helping the right thing happen. If you have built your skills, you have several options in addition to fighting back –- including candid conversations and skillful influence. The key is to choose the one that will yield the best outcome.

Myth 5: The company sets the terms. The company may have some terms but more is negotiable than you think. Organizations operate more like social networks than strict chains of command. Decisions and policies are continually shaped and reshaped through daily interactions where followers influence leaders as well as other followers. This means that though there are real risks, there is also room to negotiate if you are
creative.

Thoughts? Reactions? Comments?

Five "Ideal" Manager Traits That Are Myths

2009-07-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

Henry Mintzberg is considered to be one of the top living business and management thinkers.

Henry lists below the five traits that popular business literature posits as the ideal qualities to get from it, and then explains why they are unrealistic:

Ideal Trait Myth #1: You Can Become a Leader. Not always so. If you have leadership capabilities, they are already in your soul. No book or course will make you into a leader.

Ideal Trait Myth #2: You Can Become a Planner. As a manager, mostly you have to react to what happens in front of you. Let the planners plan -- but they can plan operations, not strategies.

Ideal Trait Myth #3. You Can Adapt the Right Leadership Style to Suit Your Situation. Not really. You are not a chameleon. It would be better to just be in a job suited to your own style.

Ideal Trait Myth #4: You Can Use the Latest Tools to Manage Your Organization. Be careful. A tool isn't something you can use in place of a brain. Pick and understand your tools carefully -- not just what's the flavor of the month.

Ideal Trait Myth #5: You Can Read Books Like Managing to Become a Better Manager. That's true! But do you have the time? As a manager, you’re a busy person. That’s why you can read just the boldface sentences in this book and get the gist of it.

Any other ideal traits that need debunking, or do you want to challenge any of the ones listed above? Chime in below.

Why You Are A Victim (But May Not Know It)

2009-07-07T14:08:00.000-07:00

Noah Blumenthal points out that to become heroes we need to realize that we're often trapped in a cycle of victimhood that only encourages passivity and inaction. The truth is that no one makes us victims, we do it all ourselves.

Consider these five ways we make ourselves victims without even realizing it:

1. We let other people own our emotions. “He makes me so mad.” “It’s her fault I feel this way.” No one forces you to feel anything. Whether or not you realize it those feelings are still your choice. Other people have their own issues to work out, and sometimes those issues lead them to push you toward anger or misery. If you accept their push you are making yourself a victim of their action instead of the hero in this story.

2. We allow injustice to make us completely miserable. “It’s not fair.” When this becomes a mantra that rules our emotions, we have become victims of the world around us. Very little in this world is fair, but that’s not the point. We have much to be grateful for and much to do. Focus on the positive elements in your life and you gain the energy to take action against the injustices you see.

3. We get caught up in “Why?” “Why is this happening to me?” “Why do I have to go through this?” There are usually no good answers to these questions. And the questions themselves create more self-pity, sadness, anger, and bitterness. To find a heroic response we need to shift from “Why?” to “What?” “What should I be thankful for?” “What can I do now?”

4. We think that a problem is too big. “Global warming is beyond my control.” “I can’t fight corporate corruption. It’s too wide spread.” Nonsense. Every great challenge is overcome when a multitude of small, perhaps seemingly insignificant, actions become overwhelming in their momentum and force.

5. We equate frightening options with no options. “There’s nothing I can do.” This is just a more comfortable way of saying "I’m afraid of what will happen if I take action." We always have options, though they may be scary. We may need to risk our comfort or ego or luxury or standing, but there is always something we can choose to do.

Do you agree with Noah? Disagree? Other thoughts or comments? You know what to do....

The Art of Turning Walls into Bridges

2009-07-02T07:57:00.001-07:00

Representative Kyrsten Sinema was born in Tucson, Arizona, in 1976 and has lived in Phoenix since 1995. First elected to the State Legislature in 2004, she was re-elected in 2006 to continue serving central Phoenix in District 15. Kyrsten's book, Unite and Conquer, is out now.

Identifying common ground with someone holding different views from you remains the fundamental first step to building a winning coalition. Too often, we assume that we can't possibly work successfully with others who think differently from us. This fallacy builds walls between us that get in the way of reaching our mutual goals. (For some, it's winning a campaign, and for others, it might be taking over the world.) Consider Kyrsten's five quick tips to help you start breaking the proverbial bread with that person you've always argued with:

1. Laugh. And by laugh, I mean laugh at something other than the person you're working to build a bridge with. I typically start with myself. (Luckily, I have lots of flaws so there's tons to make fun of.) If you are uptight and unable to make fun of yourself, or if you're perfect, then laugh at something harmless - like your mom. Laughing with another person breaks down barriers almost instantly, leaving two people enjoying the happy moment that comes with joy, smiles, and a great joke. Once you've shared a good laugh with another person, neither of you will forget that little bond you share.

2. Chill out. We build walls so quickly, laying brick after brick with every rude, insensitive, boorish, or flat-out wrong comment made by another person. Some people specialize in barbs that psyche you into warp speed, building sky-high walls. Only when we consciously remind ourselves that their barbs and boorish comments are about them, not us, can we stop building and relax. Those who make frequent comments that poke others are simply sharing their insecurities about their own selves or positions. Instead of building higher walls in response, think how lucky you are not to be burdened with that insecurity. Responding maturely without ire will not only prevent your walls from going up, they'll chip away at his/her walls, too.

3. Ask about his/her kids. Or his/her alma mater, or sports, or knitting, or favorite food. Actually, ask about anything. When you take the time to learn a little something about another person's life, you get a glimpse into that person's realness. Not only do you see the other person in a new light, that person will see you in a different light as well. It becomes a lot harder to detest the person who shares the same frustration you feel about your 13 year old daughter's phone habits.

4. Take a walk on the wild side. Spend some time learning about the "other side" - whether that other side means another person, group, or just some stuff you understand. Reading the Economist, listening to a sermon, attending a meeting or lecture, or, in my case, watching Fox News -- all are venues to learn about those who are different than yourself. While much of today's media highlights the differences between us, (trust me on this, I am in politics after all) these are often overblown, cartoonish versions of real people and real life. Spending some time learning about the other peopke or their stuff can help demystify them and perhaps even burst some of your preconceived bubbles about them.

5. Listen. This one remains my favorite. It's also the one I'm worst at. Listening to others can be so hard, especially when I am bursting with so many brilliant things to say! But talking and talking and talking without leaving space in your head to listen only pushes people away. Take time to listen to what others say - and more importantly, what they mean. Listening for understanding can break down parts of the wall that are based on misconceptions, rumors, or faulty facts. Listening also symbolizes respect - listening to another, even if you don't agree with his/her statements tells that person that you care and that you respect him/her.

Do you have any other ideas for building bridges or any comments on Kyrsten's hints? Chime in below.

Drucker's Wisdom: Five Nuggets

2009-06-17T16:35:00.001-07:00

Peter Drucker, who died in 2005 at 95, was known as “the father of modern management.” Bruce Rosenstein interviewed and wrote about Drucker both for USA TODAY and his new book Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. Bruce calls it “the self-help guide Drucker never wrote, and the next best thing to being mentored by him.” Consider these five tips for leading a meaningful and fulfilling life from Drucker’s life and work.

1. Live in more than one world
The most satisfied, contented people, in Drucker’s estimation, lead multidimensional lives with diverse people, activities and pursuits. This can provide a cushion against setbacks in life, especially at work, and gives you the opportunity for new knowledge, professional advancement and leadership experience.

2. Tap into the power of an achievement focus
Drucker believed that making money as a primary goal was short-sighted. If you are achievement-focused rather than money-focused, you will gain satisfaction from leaving behind something of value for other people and future generations.

3. Make a (flexible) plan for the coming year
At some point during the year (and it doesn’t have to be the end of the calendar year), assess what worked and what didn’t in your personal and professional life during the past year. Did the results surprise you? They often did for Drucker. This can be an excellent starting point for redirecting your priorities for the following year.

4. Run with success
Drucker ran with what was successful in his life, and didn’t worry too much about things that didn’t work out as well as he’d hoped. (Example: He wrote and published two novels in the 1980s that didn’t sell well.) He had an interesting spin on a well-known saying: “If at first you don’t succeed,” Drucker said, “try once more, and then try something else.”

5. Give back by teaching
Drucker said that no one learns as much as the person who must teach his subject. Think about giving back to society or your profession by getting into part-time teaching, either as a volunteer or as an adjunct professor at a local university.

Thoughts? Reactions? Other Drucker-isms? Chime in below.

More Damage Than Good?

2009-06-09T17:10:00.000-07:00

Andrea Batista Schlesinger is the Executive Director of the Drum Major Institute and a key player in progressive politics and policy. Consider Andrea's five reasons why the involvement of young people in politics, even in the Obama era, is a cause for concern:

1. Young people aren’t really following the news.
Despite being always “online,”today’s young people follow the news less than any previous generation, research shows. Despite the abundance of news updates – or perhaps because of them – young people have developed a habit of superficially grazing on the news and not digging very deeply.

2. Young people connect globally but remain unprepared to act locally.
Our No Child Left Behind era doesn't value civics. Even the best programs, like the Center for Civic Education’s excellent Project Citizen (which challenges children to identify community problems, learn about local government, and propose solutions) reach only a fraction of America's students. Civics teaches young people how to affect local democracy; without it, how will young people learn to interact with their local city governments, school boards, and state legislatures?

3. Millennials are a generation of “problem solvers.”
Some have characterized the millennial generation as problem-solvers who act directly on issues and don’t believe in waiting around for the government to create change. Great! However, real change comes from collectively affecting government policy -- a drier prospect that admittedly holds less appeal for most people and results in less energy and action around the all-important process of changing and creating new policies.

4. Political parties still only care about young people every four years.
Young people remained disengaged from politics up until the last two years because political parties were not interested in their engagement. It's been a brutally self-fulfilling prophecy for too long: parties don't bother to try to get the youth vote out, so the youth don't vote, so the parties don't care. Despite young people's roles in the Obama campaign, don’t be surprised if the larger political infrastructure ignores young people’s political involvement. Until 2012, that is.

5. Certain influential people don't want young people to be informed or engaged.
The Manhattan Institute – an exceptionally well-funded conservative think tank – has a new pet peeve: social justice education. Sol Stern, a fellow, makes a practice of attacking some schools for their desire to engage young people in creating change in their communities. Without such instruction, these young people will not know how to go about creating real change, and possibly do more damage than good.

Do you agree with Andrea or do you feel otherwise? Are there other hidden dangers in political involvement by youth, or is she not addressing other crucial factors that argue against her stance? Weigh in below.

Meetings and How to Do Them Right

2009-05-13T10:38:00.000-07:00

Bestselling authors Mike Song, Tim Burress, and Vicki Halsey outline five ways to cut through the clutter to create shorter, more effective meetings using P.O.S.E.:

The key to reducing meeting time is to P.O.S.E. the right questions before accepting an invitation to an optional meeting:

1. Priority vs. Availability: Rather than check availability first when presented with a meeting invite – check your priorities and goals. Is this really where you need to be spending your time?

2.Objenda: Know the objective and agenda (we refer to this as an Objenda) of the meeting before accepting. Once the purpose and structure of the meeting is clear, you may realize that you no longer need to attend. If you blindly accept a topic as your only criteria for attending – you’ll be sitting in a lot of dead-end meetings. You’ll be better prepared and more productive when you have an objenda for every meeting you attend.

3.Shorten: Many meetings are scheduled for an hour because e-calendar tools like Outlook have presets for one hour. If you only need 40 minutes, override the presets and have a shorter meeting. Never schedule 60 minute meetings, always schedule 50 minute meetings. You’ll cut total meeting time and build transition time in so you won’t be late for the next one. Asking “can we cover this in 20 minutes instead of 60" is a great question.

4.E-Vailability: Sometimes we think we’re available but we’re not. Make sure your e-calendar reflects your true availability -- we call this e-vailability. Schedule me-time into your calendar to signify to yourself and others that you are booked at certain times. You’ll meet less and get more done when you’ve blocked out time for essential projects. Use me time to prep for important presentations, complete complex projects, or sort out a bloated inbox.

What do you think? Helpful? Not helpful? Ideas? Suggestions?

Five Wrong Questions to Ask

2009-05-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

Marilee Adams' second edition of her bestselling work explores further the concept of questions and knowing the right questions to ask at the right times. However, Some of the questions we all ask prove to be more detrimental than helpful. Consider these five questions that you should avoid asking yourself at all times, even though they may still seem natural and familiar. All of these questions have built-in assumptions that can prevent the question asker from being successful or satisfied.

As you go through your day, listen to the questions you’re asking yourself and then wonder whether the inherent assumptions serve you. Sometimes you’ll find that you can be more successful and satisfied by changing your questions.

1. Why can’t I ever get anything right?
This is a bad question to ask yourself because it:
• Assumes that one is, was, and always will be incompetent and unsuccessful
• Assumes that there is nothing one can do about this “truth”

2. How did I get stuck with this idiot of a boss (spouse, child, colleague, etc.)?
This is a bad question to ask yourself because it:
• Assumes that one had no responsibility in contributing to this situation
• Assumes that one is good and pure and it’s everybody else who is deficient

3. What dumb thing is he/she going to say next?
This is a bad question to ask yourself because it:
• Assumes that whatever the other person says is always dumb
• Assumes that he or she never has anything helpful to say

4. How can I’m prove that I’m right (and everyone else is wrong)?
This is a bad question to ask yourself because it:
• Assumes that being right is the “end all and be all”
• Assumes that ones own point of view is the only right one
• Assumes that only one person or point of view can be right and valid

5. Whose fault is it? What is everybody else’s responsibility for this problem?
This is a bad question to ask yourself because it:
• Assumes that what’s important is finding a person to blame rather than focusing on resolving whatever the problem is
• Assumes that it was only others who contributed to the problem, not oneself

What questions do you think are the wrong ones to ask?

Five Ways That Introverts Make Good Leaders

2009-04-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Kahnweiler dispels the myth that introverts are at a disadvantage in leadership roles. If anything, Jennifer argues, introverts have special skills that actually make them very good leaders. Consider the five ways introverted leaders tend to:

1. Think first, talk later. Introverted leaders think before they speak. Even in casual conversation, they consider others’ comments carefully, and stop and reflect before responding. Their tendency to be more measured with words is a major asset in today’s recession, when no leader can afford to make a costly gaffe.

2. Focus on depth. Introverted leaders seek depth over breadth. They like to dig deep—delving into issues and ideas before moving on to new ones. They are drawn to meaningful conversations—not superficial chit-chat—and know how to ask great questions and really listen to people’s answers.

3. Exude calm. Introverted leaders are low-key. In times of crisis, they project a reassuring, calm confidence—think President Obama—and regardless of the heat of the conversation or circumstances, speak softly and slowly.

4. Let their fingers do the talking. Introverted leaders prefer writing to talking. They opt for e-mail over the telephone and meet face-to-face only when necessary. Today, their comfort with the written word helps them better leverage online social networking tools such as Twitter—creating new opportunities
to be “out there” with employees as they deal with uncertainty and fear.

5. Embrace solitude. Introverted leaders are energized by spending time alone. Sufferers of people exhaustion, they frequently need to retreat to recharge their batteries. These regular timeouts fuel their thinking, creativity, and decision-making, and when the pressure is on, help them be responsive— not reactive.

Agree? Disagree? Thoughts? Chime in below.

Five Reasons for Not Apologizing

2009-04-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

John Kador's new book focuses on the power of effective apology. John does want to warn you, however, that sometimes issuing an apology is not the right thing to do. Here are five situations where an apology may do more damage than good:

1. When an apology would cause harm.
Delayed apologies—apologies for an event that occurred long ago—are risky. The victim may welcome an apology even after years or decades. Or the apology may revictimize the victim. Here’s the test: if you conclude that your apology is guided more by redemption for yourself than compassion for the victim, then let a direct apology go. Deal with your issues in confession or therapy.

2. When it’s likely that you will repeat the offending behavior.
Be honest. If you can’t commit to ending the offending conduct, then an apology is just another excuse.

3. When you’re not prepared to provide restitution.
You can’t talk your way out of a situation you acted your way into. If you borrowed your friend’s car and got a parking ticket, then you have to pay the fine as the central part of the apology. If you can’t afford to do that, then you can’t afford the apology.

4. When the offense hasn’t happened yet.
Apologizing in advance is bogus. The very essence of apology supposes accepting responsibility for an event that has already taken place, expressing regret that it happened, and promising not to repeat the behavior. Apology is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. To suggest that a proposed behavior is less regrettable if you pre-apologize for it and then do it anyway is just moral laziness.

5. When someone else is responsible for the offense.
It’s meaningless for you to apologize for, say, the excesses of The Crusades. You weren’t there. In technical terms you have no standing to apologize. By the same token, if the party who should apologize refuses to do, you can’t do so on their behalf. What if the offender works for you? You can certainly apologize for your own carelessness (deficiencies in hiring or supervision, for example), but one adult cannot apologize on behalf of another adult.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Want to say something? Say it below.

Five Ways Our Culture Doesn’t Look at Issues in Terms of the Long Run

2009-04-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

The Rev. Dr. Michael A. Schuler serves as the Parish Minister of the First Unitarian Society of Madison. During his 17-year tenure, the Society has grown rapidly to over 1300 adult members and approximately 200 active affiliates; 450 children are registered for Church School and youth activities. In his book, he discusses how and why our culture is obsessed with material gain and instant gratification and how this will do a tremendous amount of damage to our planet and our communities. here are five places where our culture seems so focused on the quick returns that it doesn't take into account the long-term damage:

1. Encouraging the rapid depletion of the planet's natural capital by externalizing those costs, thus keeping the price of commodities artificially low.

2. Allowing poorly-conceived "cookie-cutter" development proposals to undercut efforts to preserve and protect the most unique an livable qualities of our towns and cities.

3. Failing to consistently emphasize the personal and social benefits provided by enduring personal friendships and partnerships.

4. Seducing individuals and institutions into "get rich quick" schemes rather than promote a sustainable and ultimately more prudent approach to financial planning.

5. Successfully creating a near-universal craving for nutritionally deficient and environmentally toxic fast- and convenience foods.

Any thoughts, responses, or arguments? Chime in below.

The Four Ways You Can Waste Your Employee Recognition Budget

2009-04-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

At some point or another you’ve been ‘rewarded’ for your hard work with only a t-shirt or some other form of recognition that just didn’t cut it. Cindy Ventrice has made it her life's work to educate managers about how to build real recognition programs that notice and value employee contributions. Here are five common types of recognition that still tend to be used despite having no positive effect:

1. Employee of the Month Awards –For most people, Employee of the Month is the first program that comes to mind when they think employee recognition. It is also the type of program that is most likely to be a supreme failure. Why? Generally, employee reaction is one of three: “Why did they pick her?” “It figures, since he is the bosses pet,” or “Who’s turn is it this month?”

2. Bonuses/Incentives – Bonuses and incentives get misclassified as recognition, but they are compensation. If you expect bonuses to change the level of satisfaction with recognition, you will be disappointed.

3. Trinkets – T-shirts, mugs, pens with the company logo, your employees have figured out that these are advertising, not recognition. You can turn a trinket into effective recognition. Provide a specific, sincere message along with the trinket and it becomes an example of meaningful recognition.

4. Gift Cards and Catalogues – There is a whole recognition industry built around gift cards and catalogues of merchandise, and they are definitely popular. Yet most of these awards end up being perceived more as compensation than recognition. Again, it comes down to the message that is attached to the award.

Meaningful recognition is always about the message. When you have the budget, awards are fine—if you remember to make them tangible reminders of something positive.

Do you agree? Disagree? Have other examples of recognition that are basically useless? Write in your comments below.

Ten Words to Help You Care for Your Soul (and Those of Others)

2009-04-02T14:28:00.000-07:00

More than a decade of working with others who are suffering or in pain took its toll on Laura, just as it has taken its toll on anyone who has worked in the social service field for an extended period of time. How do you keep from internalizing all the pain and suffering when you are exposed to it daily? Laura finally figured it out, which is why you should read her book. In the meantime, here are Laura's ten words of advice (organized into three short mantras) to keep in mind to carry your soul through the journey ahead:

1. Be Conscious - A lack of consciousness, awareness, and presence accounts for much of the pain, struggle, and hardship the world currently faces. By remaining conscious of our speech, manner, and conduct at all times (or as frequently as we can...), we create positive social and environmental change. At the very least, we do less harm to ourselves or others and, at most, we contribute to the health and well being of others, ourselves, and our planet.

2. Sustain Yourself - We have an ethical obligation to sustain ourselves before we work to sustain others or the planet. Only through caring for ourselves - mind, body, spirit - are we going to have the energy and clarity to keep doing our best, day in and day out - for the long haul. If you don't have your own A game, you won't have it for others.

3. Contribute Wise to the World's Needs - Think about what the world needs right now, and then consider how your daily intentions relate to that need and merge the two. Ask yourself, "what do I want to get better at?" and then think of how that passion can bring benefit to the world. We can agree that the world doesn't need more contempt, cynicism, gossiping, addictions, or scapegoating. But intentionality, mindfulness, proactive awareness...now we're talking! So when we're able to notice our actions, we can gently ask ourselves, "Is what I'm doing right now what I want to be getting better at?" and if you're feeling inspired, follow it up with, "To what benefit for the world, is this action I'm taking?"

As Howard Thurman reminds us, "...Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Any thoughts, feedback, or suggestions of your own? Chime in below.

Five Scientific Studies that Support the Idea of a Living Universe

2009-03-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

Duane Elgin knows that most people think of the idea of a living universe as a sort of a metaphysical concept or spiritual ideology. However, there are numerous pieces of research that lend scientific support to the idea that the universe is a living entity. Here are just five:

1. An international panel from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Max Planck institute in Germany, and the University of Sydney published an article in the New Journal of Physics in 2007 stating that computer simulations now show that electrically charged specks of interstellar dust organize into DNA-like double helixes and display properties normally attributed to living systems, such as evolving and reproducing.

2. The Urey-Miller experiment that simulated the theorized early pre-life conditions on Earth, and produced amino acids, suggests that the universe is essentially biological. The ammonia used was obtained by a process involving hydrogen of bio-origin, and the methane was also biological in origin. Non-biological catalysts would be poisoned almost instantaneously by sulfur gases under pre-life conditions. What this means is that most of the material in interstellar grains must be organic or life itself would have been impossible.

3. The universe has a memory. University of AZ scientists Gary Schwartz and Linda Russek have argued (and published papers and a book asserting) that all dynamic systems, including galaxies and star systems, have memory in the sense of adaptability based on previous events, and based on this memory, the universe evolves and grows in a particular manner -- with intention. Such intention is an indicator of intelligent life.

4. Every time a black hole collapses into a singularity and a new baby universe is formed with a new space-time, the laws of physics that are born with it are slightly different. The force of gravity, for example, may be a little stronger--or weaker--than in the parent, and the "offspring" star systems theoretically outlive their parent systems. The process resembles the way mutations provide the variability among organic life forms on which natural selection can operate. Inanimate and inorganic systems would not do this because there is no reason for them to do it. This research was published in 2005 by Lee Smolin, professor of physics at the Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry at Pennsylvania State University.

5. One of the biological definitions of life is autopoiesis, literally self-creation. Biologist Dr. Elizabet Sahtouris wrote that evolutionists recognize the universe as a giant self-organizing living cell. For example, the earth continually recycles itself through tectonic plate activity and weather patterns. Earth gains ever greater complexity by evolving tiny cells on its surface through the intelligent alliance of DNA and proteins. These cells evolve enormous variety and complexity by exchanging their genomes as DNA becomes the planetary language of life, permitting blueprints to be encoded and shared among all Earth's creatures from the tiniest singe-celled bacteria to the largest mammoths and redwoods. Other planets and whole systems and galaxies also behave similarly. Such acts of self-creation cannot logically be assumed to only exist on earth.

And...as a bonus, noted astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson states that "Humans are chemically connected with life on other star systems and atomically connected with all matter in the universe."

Convinced? Confused? Skeptical? Weigh in!

Five Ways to Recognize People Who Glow

2009-03-12T10:31:00.000-07:00

Lynda Gratton is considered to be one of the top fifty business thinkers in the world today. Her latest book focuses on how to identify and foster people in organizations who "glow." These people radiate enthusiasm and positivity, and are key to any organization's success.

Here are Lynda's five ways to recognize a glower:

1. You will feel their good natured cooperation and their capacity to give you their time and attention…they truly practice the habits of cooperation.

2. They will surprise you by their breadth of experiences and the wide range and engaging stories they tell…they have collected many ideas from the different people they know.

3. You remain engaged in meaningful conversation with them … they give you time and you enjoy their company.

4. You find yourself volunteering to work with them … they have a vision which really excites and intrigues you.

5. You find yourself drawn to them through the questions they ask … these resonate with you and you know them to be courageous and important

Do these sound like anyone you know? What are your thoughts?

Six Ways to Engage People in Tough Times

2009-03-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

It's difficult enough to engage and motivate people, but given our current economic climate, it seems almost impossible. Almost. Bestselling author Ken Thomas has six proven ways to engage, motivate, and help your talent glow:

1. Pay attention to the day-to-day rewards that sustain their attention and enthusiasm. We often think of motivation as wanting something. Instead, focus on what keeps people going — what are they getting right now that motivates them?

2. Focus on intrinsic rewards -— the satisfactions people get directly from their work. Money is a factor in choosing a job, but people remain and stay engaged largely because of these satisfactions.

3. Provide a meaningful purpose. Work activities are empty for people unless they contribute to an overall worthwhile purpose. “Do this,” doesn’t engage people. “Help make this happen,” does.

4. Recognize the importance of visible and measurable progress. It isn’t enough to just pursue an important purpose. To keep up enthusiasm for any project, people need credible evidence that their ongoing efforts are getting results towards that purpose.

5. Give individuals as much choice as they can handle. Making informed choices is a key way people can add value in their work, and a way for them to see their footprints in the progress being made.

6. Provide constructive interpretations of events. Remember how much it helped when friends or family helped you regain perspective when you were discouraged? Without ignoring negative events, help people appreciate the positives in their purposes, progress, and competence -- and remember to keep doing this on an ongoing basis.

Check out Ken's Work Engagement Profile for more details.

Are there any others that should have been included in this list? What do you think of the techniques listed above? Tell us.

The Five Conversations We Need to Have Right Now

2009-02-19T13:49:00.000-08:00

Margaret Wheatley is an internationally known bestselling author who has spent a lifetime studying the nature of human interactions and the impact they have. In an exclusive for the BK Communique, she contributed the list below for the five conversations she feels we must have with ourselves as well as with others for the sake of our future:

1. Who is my neighbor? Community is the greatest untapped wealth we have available to us at this time. Do we know who lives nearby? What do we need to do to get to know each other better?

2. How can I cultivate curiosity rather than judgment? It’s not our differences that divide us, but our judgments about each other. Are we willing to be curious to listen to the stories of those we’ve distanced ourselves from?

3. What is my role in creating change? We can no longer wait for leaders or laws to create the changes we need. It’s up to us, and it’s the only way the world ever changes--when a few friends start talking. Am I willing to assume the responsibility for creating the changes I want to see in the world?

4. Am I willing to reclaim time to think? As the world speeds up, we’re forfeiting our most precious human capacities -- reflection, awareness, dreaming, relationship. The only way to restore these capabilities is to slow things down, to reengage in reflection, to pause and truly notice what’s going on.

5. Can I be fearless? Fearlessness is not being free of fear. It means that we do not allow our fears to silence or stop us. What issues and people summon me to be fearless?

Do you agree? Are there other conversations that are equally crucial? Chime in!

Five Tips That Can Improve Your Speed and Performance

2009-02-05T17:04:00.000-08:00

As contributed by various members of Berrett-Koehler's staff:

1. Turn off your email, IM messenger, and telephone to concentrate. Whatever time saved by responding to those "quick question" emails and calls while working on a project is illusory. True, it takes only a few minutes to deal with a "quick question" email or phone call, but the time taken to refocus on a project after being distracted outweighs the time saved by dealing with the distractions immediately. You will deal with both your projects and your communications much faster if you handle them separately at separate times.

2. End meetings at a set time -- no matter what. Meetings run long because we allow them to. Get into the habit of adjourning at the scheduled time. Shelve any topics not discussed for the next meeting or, if time sensitive, another time. People will soon tire of having their topics shelved or attending extra meetings and will move meeting discussion topics along faster to meet the scheduled end time.

3. Take breaks. It seems counterintuitive, but taking time off to grab some coffee or go for a short walk actually helps you work faster in the long run because people have more energy when they take time to rest. Many places even encourage catnaps as they have shown to be highly effective in boosting energy during the afternoon stretch.

4. Mix it up. Don't work on one project from beginning to end, especially if it's a longer project. You may find that you tire after a while and work at a slower pace. Switch between two or three projects on an hourly or even half-hourly basis. Though it may feel strange at first, you'll quickly fall into the routine.

5. Eat that frog! If you have one hairy project and two or three smaller projects to finish, it's appealing to complete those smaller projects first and leave that hairy one for later. Of course, each day brings additional smaller projects that cause you to repeatedly set aside that one big project for later. Follow this routine, and that one hairy project remains not only incomplete, but delayed as well. The stress and anxiety around that project increases with time, which in turn slows down progress on the project even further. As Brian Tracy says, "When you have something nasty that you have to do, like eating a frog, do it first!"

Do you have any tips for us or for other readers on how to work better faster? Add them below.

Five Things President Obama Needs to Do Immediately to Help America

2009-01-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

MIT Sloan Professor of Management, bestselling author, and considered to be one of the world's top thinkers in organizational matters, Edgar Schein knows group dynamics and motivation. The overarching principle of effective help is that the helper wants to help and is aware of where help is not only needed, but will be accepted if offered. Given those conditions, here is what Obama should do right away:

1) Stimulate the economy by providing a jobs program.

Nothing is more demoralizing to the citizenry than being out of work or having meaningless work. The country needs a jobs program to be implemented immediately.

2) Begin work with government and private healthcare providers, practitioners, and industries to work toward comprehensive health care programs for all.

Nothing is more frightening than having health problems without the means or access to address them. Nothing drives families into debt quicker than medical bills. Not only must costs be curtailed reasonably, but the country needs to a more positive approach that stresses health maintenance over just treatment.

3) Start doing the footwork and research to broker a peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The conflict has always been there but lately has become expecially bloody and needing of resolution as soon as possible. Locate where the core pain is for both parties and provide positive leadership to create a program that is motivated by the need to resolve that pain. This will lead to a mutually beneficial, two-state solution.

4) Work with economists to establish quantifiable ways to measure overall progress.

A jobs program will stimulate the economy, but we also need to re-engineer or revamp the controls and systems of checks and balances to insure that the people know where the money is going and so that the money will go where it is needed.

5) Begin rebuilding our international reputation as reliable partners in the global fight against terrorism and environmental and atmospheric deterioration.

Our ways of dealing with terrorism and environmental pollution have limited effect and do not inspire other nations to partner with us. Multiple helping relationships must be built with our European, Asian and South American allies to contend with these issues on a global scale because they are global problems and not just national problems. It is imperative that especially in this arena help should only be offered where it is needed. Unsolicited help quickly leads to imperialism.

Are there any that should have been on this list that weren't? Do you have a list of top five things the president should start focusing on now? Please add your feedback and comments below.

Five To Turn Walls into Bridges

2009-01-13T16:00:00.000-08:00

Five Reasons Why Layoffs Are A Bad Idea

2008-12-22T13:38:00.000-08:00

Dr. Wayne Cascio is a professor of management at The University of Colorado at Denver. He is the past chair of the Human Resource Division of the Academy of Management and was the past president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. In 1999, he received the Career Achievement Award given by the Human Resource division of the Academy of Management.

Here are his five reasons why downsizing is simply wrong:

a. Reason #1: Downsizing does not automatically make a company more profitable nor perform better.

Research done over the last eighteen years, along with surveys done by the American Management Society and Society for Human Resources Management, show that only one-third of companies that downsize end up being more profitable. A remaining one-third report no change from before the downsizing, and the final one-third actually fall even further after downsizing. Meanwhile, stable companies (meaning companies with less than 5% staff fluctuation in any given year) outperformed companies that downsized in almost all cases."

b. Reason #2: Layoffs are a quick-fix solution to a long-term problem.

Layoffs represent a “band-aid” approach. Any benefits are purely temporary and do not address the long-term issues. Long-term problems need long-term solutions. These long-term solutions include figuring out how to attract new customers, what new products and services to offer to consumers, and what potentially profitable new markets should be expanded into. Long-term solutions require long-term thinking, not focusing on what can fix the problem for right now.

c. Reason #3: Layoffs do not capitalize on the "share-the-pain" philosophy that bonds employees as friends.

Employees have often worked for many years with each other and see each other more than they even see their families and relatives, so it is inevitable that they will also be friends. Survey after survey shows that employees would make individual sacrifices (such as reduced hours, job-sharing, pay cuts) to avoid their co-workers being laid off.

d. Reason #4: Firms often find that they wind up hiring back at least some of their laid-off employees as consultants -- at higher salaries

The companies wind up hiring back laid-off employees at much higher consultant fees than they were making previously as employees. This "re-hiring" happens because management realizes too late that they lost institutional memory and valuable skills in laying off people.

e. Reason #5: Too many decision-makers don't ask the all-important question first: "How will downsizing allow us to serve our customers better"?

If decision-makers cannot answer this question definitively, they have not thought the matter through carefully. Customers are income, and if downsizing does not allow for better service that will result in higher income, it's best not to go there in the first place.

The Top Five Communique Articles of 2008

2008-12-08T15:21:00.000-08:00

As reflected by the sheer number of people who clicked on the links and wrote in about the features:

1. Publisher Judith Regan fired over the OJ If I Did It book amidst accusations of pandering to tabloid controversy. Apparently no one had a problem with the Scott Peterson book though.

2. Apple's CEO Steve Jobs disses Amazon's Kindle as a flawed concept. Apparently God was wrong.

3. Bestselling author Ishmael Beah defends himself against allegations that parts of his memoir were fabricated. Beah remains utterly credible when compared to the fake memoir of Black ghetto life by a White woman who never ventured out of suburbia, and the false autobiography of a holocaust survivor's marathon journey to freedom across 3,000 miles of Nazi-occupied Europe (turns out she isn't even Jewish).

4. Entertainment Weekly releases its list of The One Hundred New Classics: The Best Reads from 1983 - 2008. Despite not being included in the list, ex-Beverly Hills 90210 star Tori Spelling's autobiography still hits #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

5. The Berrett-Koehler Author Bill of Rights, emphasizing greater responsibility on both the author's and BK's part is released to the public under a Creative Commons license for all publishers to (hopefully) adopt. Various industry blogs pick up the document as a new model for collaboration.

Was your favorite story from 2008 one of the articles listed above? Was there one that should have been up there? Write it in below - it's what blogs are for!

Five Ways to Handle Your Fear of the Economy

2008-11-21T14:57:00.000-08:00

Bill Treasurer knows how to handle fear, he's been doing it all his life. Here are Bill's five tips for handling your fear of the current economic crisis:

1. Refocus on your work. Fear is the enemy of productivity. Get clear on what needs to be done - right here, right now - and go about the business of doing it. If you're not contributing, you may be in danger. Stop being in denial. Know your job, and then do it.

2. Stop playing it safe. Ditch the herd. While everyone else is hiding, you can stand up and stand out, getting noticed for your talent and contributions. It's easy to follow the herd. It takes effort to lead.

3. Form a posse. Create an inner circle - a small group of co-workers who you can trust and turn to when the going gets really tough. Take turns being "the positive one" and injecting a daily shot of courage.

4. Find a productive distraction. What makes you feel better - a little stronger or braver? U2 on your iPod? A can-do mantra? A long run at lunch? Identify that one little thing - your own personal "fear buster" - and use it early and often.

5. Just say "no" to the pity party. It's tempting to commiserate with co-workers. Don't do it. It will stoke your fears and shake your confidence even more.

What are your suggestions for handling the fear? Write them in below (no login/security clearance required).

Better Ways to Spend a Trillion Dollars

2008-11-02T17:53:00.000-08:00

Author Rob Simpson gives you five creative ways to spend a trillion dollars (and five ways to be outraged at the way it was spent on the war). Many more suggestions can be found in his book:

1. Send every high schooler in America to a four-year college. We'd have the most educated workforce in the world.

2. Create a retirement account for every child born in America -- shortly after the child's birth. That child will be a multimillionaire come retirement age. If they don't touch the account, they will never have to save up for retirement for the rest of their lives.

3. End ALL homelessness in America.

4. Rebuild New Orleans -- completely. This means bring back all displaced families, build new housing for everyone who needs it, repair all damage, reinstate businesses, create new incentive programs for businesses, restore wetlands and counter environmental damages, and pay for an ongoing, aggressive tourism plan.

5. Buy everyone in the world an ipod. It may not be the latest, cutting-edge model, but it still means we'll be rocking the Casbah, not blowing it up.

Five Reasons Why the Bailout Was A Bad Idea

2008-10-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

Larry Mitchell is a leading scholar in the field of finance and corporate law and a professor at George Washington University Law School. He gives us five reasons the bailout was a bad idea for us all:

1. The bailout was structured by a Wall Street investment banker for Wall Street investment bankers to be run by Wall Street investment bankers. First they make a mess, then they give Congress a plan that saves themselves above all others. What is the logic here?

2. Trickle-down economics doesn't work and we know that now, so why are we attempting a trickle-down bailout? The claim was that by saving Wall Street they’d save Main Street because they are loosening up credit to help the innocent victims of high finance. If they really wanted to help the victims, the bailout would have been a targeted economic stimulus plan for the real economy as well as targeted individual aid. Seven hundred billion dollars could provide a lot of relief.

3. The bailout is based on free market principles. Nothing wrong with that, unless you consider that one of the main reasons for the economic collapse was thirty years of deregulation based on free market as religion. It didn’t work then. Why would it work now? One of the clinical definitions of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly hoping to get a different result.

4. How do you put a value on mortgage-backed securities ? One significant reason for the panic that led to the collapse was that Wall Street couldn’t value them. There is probably a way to figure out how much they’re worth, but Congress should have made some effort to do this before deciding to allow $700 billion to be spent on them.

5. There’s no administrative infrastructure to handle the bailout because overseeing this takes an entire government department to make sure it's done right. Right now, the U.S. Government is the investment banker to the world. Hiring a few guys from Goldman Sachs doesn’t help to administrate the world's biggest social welfare program.