Article: Is Greenbay a model for public-private-nonprofit collaborations?
Lambeau Field by YF12s [CC-BY-2.0]. For Super Bowl Sunday, check out this article on CNN by John D. Donahue and Richard J. Zeckhauser who present the unusual ownership of the Packers as an example of the private-public-nonprofit collaboration needed to solve the challenges of now and the near future. I couldn't agree more, but would agrue we must master the three values of openness -...
Article: For the Long Journey, Learn from Terns
Artic Tern, Sterna paradisaea. Photo: Carsten Egevang/ARC-PIC.COM
Article: Manage By Elevating Strengths or Solving Weaknesses?
I'm writing an asset inventory resource and have come across a lot of interesting research. Here's an example: Ignoring strengths in favor of weaknesses has a profound effect on individual performance, according to a 2002 Corporate Leadership Council survey of nearly 20,000 employees in 29 countries. Emphasis on performance strengths was linked to a 36 percent improvement in performance while emphasis on performance weaknesses was linked to a 27 percent decline in performance. (from "The Power of Positive Thinking in the Workplace" HR News. 2008 Society for Human Resource Management.
Article: Starbuck's CEO Says People Driving Comeback
Article: Participatory Learning: The Adaptive Challenge of Education
Yesterday, I had the privileged to sit in on a professional development workshop for Assistant Principals provided by CARPE-DIEM, a partnership between the NYCDOE and with the Office of Collaborative Programs of New York City College of Technology CUNY. The workshop was taught by Mathematic Professor Estela Rojas who has been piloting "learning communities" as a key strategy to improving student retention and outcomes. The early results of her work with City Tech freshman has been promising, improving continuance by 11% in the first two cohorts. {sa 0262513595} One the train to the workshop, I read...
Article: Steve Rae's Four Gravitational Forces
I've been doing a bit of research about informal learning for the Story Clarification resource I've been working on. (I used a story about Toyota in the original version that -- in light of the company's current PR storm -- must be replaced.) I came across the following quote that I thought described well the criteria by which informal learning is judged (think learning webs, wikis, social networks, and communities of practice):{sa 0787981699} IBM's Steve Rae posits three gravitational forces for informal learning. The first force is access. The learner has to know the opportunity exists, the costs are reasonable, and it fits her...
Article: Davenport on Knowledge Workers
{sa 1591394236}According to Tom Davenport, at least 28% (36 million people) of the workforce are knowledge workers: Knowledge workers have high degrees of expertise, education or experience, and the primary purpose of their jobs involves the creation, distribution or application of knowledge. Davenport offers this insight about how knowledge workers want to work: They generally "don't like to be told what to do, . . . work best when working with other people in social networks, and are better led by example than by explicit management" (Thinking for a Living, How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers, 2005 Harvard Business School Press, p. 14). Sure pegged me.
Article: More Than Pruning
You can't keep an orchard if your only skill is pruning. If all you know is how to snip off what you don't like, you will soon have deformed and stunted trees. If you can't help but snip, you'll soon have nothing but stumps. Growing a healthy orchard takes skill and hard work. The wise person knows to nurture the whole tree: bud, leaf, and branch. And she pays special attention to nourishing the root. A tree well nourished needs little pruning. It grows full and round and produces just as much fruit as it's branches could possibly hold. Of course, I'm not really speaking of trees at all. Rather, I'm taking...
Article: Mission or Ambition?
Does your organization’s purpose light people up? In the course of a presentation recently, I examined the mission statements of several companies. The presentation itself was, generally, about doing business from a relational standpoint instead of from a transactional standpoint. More specifically, it was about “missionalizing” one’s business/organization. The idea is this: organizations that establish a high-level purpose and integrate that purpose into every aspect of operations have the opportunity to connect with people – inside and outside...
Article: I’m In
The fast lane to starting something new often feels much more like the slow lane. What would you do if you recently moved into a new area only to find, to your surprise and disappointment, no youth hockey league for your children? Here’s what you probably wouldn’t do: start a youth hockey league. Not yet anyway…doing so would be exhausting, frustrating, and expensive. Hockey – particularly ice hockey – is a sport that requires a lot of commitment, both in terms of money and time. The equipment can be expensive, and so is the ice...