Sometimes it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a change leader to take on the full responsibility of change . . . A couple weeks ago I completed an Accelerated Change Readiness workshop with a project team for a Fortune 500 company. They were preparing for a technology … More Through the Eye of a Needle
Ethan Zuckerman is the senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and he studies how the world uses new media to share information and moods across cultures, languages and platforms. In this talk he identifies a troubling challenge: While the internet connects the globe, most of us only listen … More Listening to Global Voices
The fastest way to learn is to discover a person or group which reaches totally different conclusions to your own when looking at the same reality. Robert Theobald All too often, we suffer from an acceptance of ignorance. Whether we are talking about organizations, nations, political parties, religions, communities or individuals, the tension and conflict … More Say What You Need to Say
Throw out all your change management books and methodologies and theories. Burn every PowerPoint presentation filled with diagrams and flow charts and tools and templates. Delete your change project plans. Forget agonizing over deliverables that your change work team must produce. Fire every project manager or internal auditor or procurement specialist who minimizes your change … More Reality Check for Change “Managers”
Derek Sivers, the founder and former president of CD Baby, shows in this funny and revealing video that while a leader gets things started, it’s the courageous follower that transforms the “lone nut” into a leader. It’s the follower’s choice to follow and encourage others to follow that makes the difference between an isolated incident … More The Courage of Followers
Sometimes the best solutions are the most obvious, and unfortunately, the ones least considered. Organization change is hard because leaders and project teams forget to do the simple, but important things, while spending extraordinary amounts of effort in the glitzy and complex. Technology projects focus on the technology. Outsourcing focuses on cost analysis. Mergers focus … More Mastering the Obvious
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and … More A Revolutionary Case for Change
Context is everything. It affects how we see. As demonstrated by Beau Lotto, founder of the hybrid art studio and science lab, Lottolab, color lets us see the similarities and differences between surfaces. But when you vary the parameters, when you change the context around which you see, you change the color that falls to … More The Optical Illusions of Change
How to love. How to live. How to fix anything. How to lose weight. How to stop worrying. How to find your passion. How to train your dog, bird, cat or dragon. How to make money. How to get into college. How to stay in college. How to interview. How to get a job. How … More Beyond How To’s
In my personal life, I am an optimist. I believe fully in the power of positive thinking and the value of spreading good cheer wherever I go, if only because it makes life more fun and enjoyable. But when it comes to managing change, I believe in realism. A key component of the Architecture of … More Despots, Group Think and the Ugly Side of Institutional Optimism
Erik Van Slyke 