Circle The Wagons…

...a new idea was raised. Organizations are wonderful at building up their insularity, at raising a wall surrounded by a moat to keep disruptive ideas from getting in.  They develop their own conventional wisdom, their own collection of things that everyone knows. Since everyone knows these things, no one ever...

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Communication…or Not

Forty years ago The Economist wrote the following while describing something said by Harold Wilson: "Like many of Mr Wilson's speeches it contained difficult passages in which it is impossible to disentangle what the words really meant to him from what they were intended to mean to others and what they...

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Judgment

I received some wonderful emails in response to last week's post, You Are The Culture. One in particular was a long and thoughtful note which included these words. "Perhaps the second best quality (after creating the right culture I assume) for a leader is NEVER react under pressure. Situations are...

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You Are The Culture

Watching the antics of so many in positions of leadership it's clear that they don't understand everyone is watching...and takes their lead from what they see. What they see is what they do, believing it to be an example of the company culture. After all, if the leaders act...

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Design Thinking

For the last several months I've been involved in a worldwide innovation project for a global corporation. Innovation as in thinking about how to come up with new ideas and ways for improving the variety of things a global company does from coming up with new products or services to...

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Are You Thinking Negatively Enough?

We are bombarded by those claiming that positive thinking is the path to success. Those with the alternative view, that negative thinking or at least thinking about worst case scenarios as realistic outcomes tend to be much less visible. And yet, there is much research showing that spending more...

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Overwhelmed

I sat down this morning to write today's post and found my mind in chaos. Not blank as I found my mind some months ago when I realized I had nothing to say so wrote the brief post Nothing To Say, but chaos as in filled with things bouncing around and crashing off each...

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MEGO

Too many people are carriers of a dread disease. MEGO. They carry this disease completely unknowingly and yet often shower it's symptoms on others. MEGO leads to misunderstandings that often have horrific consequences and yet rarely will anyone tell the carrier they suffer from it. MEGO: My Eyes Glaze Over The carriers are unable...

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