One of the many distinctions between the celebrity and the hero … is that one lives only for self while the other acts to redeem society Bill Moyer, paraphrasing Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth How does your life influence your environment? How does your life influence you? How we view and engage the world […]
Presence
Definitions of presence (noun) – according to Google The state or fact of existing, occurring, or being present in a place or thing. Synonym: existence. A person or thing that exists or is present in a place, but is not seen. Synonym: spirit, specter, ghost A group of people, especially soldiers or police, stationed in […]
Listening
Listening deeply to another is the best gift I can think to give this year. Being able to hold space for another. Listening with no agenda. Listening without aiming to respond, or be clever, or win the conversation. Many of us aren’t taught to do this. Our educational system seems to reinforce “listening to win.” […]
Where to Find Data Scientists
Name a discipline where people are trained to ask questions about cause and effect, make sense of a ridiculous amount of information to help answer those questions, and leverage that information to determine likely scenarios. History. Yes – that class that you took because you had to, or you wouldn’t get your degree. The American […]
How to Mitigate the Dance of Blind Reflex
Barry Oshry started running the Power Lab back in the 1970s. Using anthropological observation techniques, he identified the system that we find ourselves operating within – and how it becomes dysfunctional. Tops (End) – Burdened by overwhelming complexity and responsibility. They feel unsupported, isolated and out of touch. Conflicts in this area become personalized and […]
How to Use Video Games to See Patterns
Over the past few weeks, I started playing Stardew Valley –a farming life simulator (or what I would fondly call, an errand runner – where I do the tasks I SHOULD be doing in real life). Life simulators, like Stardew Valley and the SIMS, are agreat way to see patterns that you might miss while […]
A Reiteration of the Importance of Safe Spaces
For real learning to occur, you have to have a safe space to practice. To create a learning organization, the organization has to be a safe space to practice. If you want a coaching culture, coaching interactions need to be safe spaces. These safe spaces can’t be “separate and apart” from the day-to-day work. Google […]
The First Step to Strengthen Your Foundations
Sleep. The one thing that we can do to strengthen our foundations. When I sleep well: I make better food choices I am more inclined to exercise or, if I force myself, I’m less likely to dog my workouts I am better at practicing positive interpersonal skills I have more resilience when things don’t go […]
A Plea from Your Best Employees
Dear Senior Executive / CEO: We understand that you have tremendous pressures put on you. Too many meetings. High demand for face-time. Tremendous pressure for immediate results – often from very vocal stakeholders. And that’s just the stuff we know about. This is a plea from us to you – the executive. We have determined […]
Toxic Cultures
“Love it, change it or leave it.” It is, fundamentally, the situation many of us find ourselves in within our workplaces. I’ve talked about it before. And all you have to do is look up “employee engagement” in Google to see what is happening. As Karen Kollenz-Qutard points out in her TedTalk – you have a […]
