Change

Your Most Precious Resource Each of us has 24 hours each day and 168 hours each week for work and everything else – commuting, eating lunch, taking breaks during our work, organized activities including time with family and friends, exercise, religious activities, team sports, play, rest, and sleep, etc.  And, no matter how hard we […]

Who me?  Never! Most of us would disavow being a micromanager.  Yet, I’m sure that most of us (dare I say, all of us?) have micromanaged to some extent at some points in our lives.  I know that I have.  And, most of us at some point have had a micromanager as our manager.  David Allen, […]

Are you listening? Hearing and listening.  We hear when sound waves reach our ears and are converted into neural signals by the inner ear.  We choose to listen when we intentionally let those neural signals impact us.  This is why we can sit in a busy place totally immersed in our reading or in a […]

… Not you?  Research says that 95% of us do procrastinate. We all procrastinate!  Research by Piers Steel found that about 95% of us do and several other researchers suspect that the remaining 5% of us are, shall we say, stretching the truth. So, two questions:  Why do we procrastinate?  And, what can we do […]

From time to time in the Tuesday Readings, we have talked about practices, small habits, that we can use regularly in our day-to-day activities to improve our outcomes.  For example, past Tuesday Readings have focused on practices (“The Meeting Is Over …” – January 31, 2017, “Resilience” – February 10, 2017, “Questions” – February 27, 2017, […]

Requires that you continue learning Last spring I spoke at my undergraduate college, Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, at their 2017 Undergraduate Research EXPO.  As I reflected on the Tuesday Reading to begin the 2017-2018 Academic Year, it occurred to me that a version of my remarks there, which ultimately focused on continuing to learn, […]

Ingredients:  A challenging topic, participants, rules and processes for conducting the conversation, (if the number of participants is large), and a “container.” Today, we live in an age where the “art” and “practice” of having a conversation, a discourse, on a challenging, perhaps very complicated and controversial, subject has become dim.  We don’t take the time for face-to-face interactions on either […]

A different kind of morning ritual Google “morning ritual” and you’ll find hundreds of suggested rituals.  Some are focused on the time before you begin your workday, others have elements for how you structure your day, still others for dealing with particular types of events in your day, etc.  One I found that particularly caught […]

The need for peace and quiet Last week’s Tuesday Reading, Our Busy, Busy, Busy Brains!, focused on how our brains are daily assaulted by sounds from our smart devices, from the arrival of email, tweets, and Facebook posts, from music we might be playing, from sounds within our workspace, from traffic outside our buildings, etc.  Even at night, when […]

My two grandfathers lived in a very small East Texas town, perhaps several hundred houses in town and the neighboring countryside.  One grandfather was a railroad section foreman, the other a subsistence farmer.  Both worked hard with their hands.  While they certainly used their brains in their work, the demand they placed on their brains […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, It Began with Curiosity, is an essay by Jill Purdy, Director of Finance at the University of Nebraska-Kearney.  [She may be reached at [email protected].]Her essay first appeared as a program reflection earlier this year. When my father had a heart attack five years ago, he was flown to Sanford Heart Institute in Sioux […]

Six months ago, at the beginning of the New Year, the first Tuesday Reading, I Resolve To …, focused on New Year’s Resolutions.  This has been my custom.  In that essay, I referenced research reporting that though 57% of the individuals surveyed were confident that they would be successful in achieving their goals, only 12% actually […]

Conference Recap The theme for the 2017 MOR Associates Leaders Conference was “Reimagining IT, the Journey Continues.” As the conference unfolded, it became clear that the journey is continuing through a thicket of financial and business-model challenges faced by higher education, and equally compelling challenges that face information technology departments in higher education. Those challenges […]

Sue Workman, Vice President of University Technology, at Case Western Reserve University, keynote video at the 2017 MOR Leaders Conference.  Video of 2017 MOR Leaders Conference keynote, Sue Workman, Case Western Reserve University 2017 MOR Leaders Conference keynote, Sue Workman, Case Western Reserve University

Anne Margulies, Vice President and University CIO, at Harvard University, keynote video at the 2017 MOR Leaders Conference.  Video of 2017 MOR Leaders Conference keynote, Anne Margulies, Harvard University 2017 MOR Leaders Conference keynote, Anne Margulies, Harvard University

Mark Askren, Vice President for IT and CIO, at the University of Nebraska, keynote video at the 2017 MOR Leaders Conference.  Video of 2017 MOR Leaders Conference keynote, Mark Askren, University of Nebraska Mark Askren 2017 MOR Leaders Conference

Almost every time I travel from Cambridge to Boston, I cross the Longfellow Bridge.  The central piers of the bridge feature four carved, ornamental stone towers, which give rise to another name for the bridge, the “Salt and Pepper Bridge,” which many of us still use.  Originally opening in 1906, the bridge replaced previous bridges and […]

We are born problem solvers!  From the moment you wake in the morning until you are fast asleep at night, you are at the ready, just waiting for the next problem to arise. Now, some of the problems are simple and repetitive, like, for example, what do I do when the alarm goes off signaling […]

A few years ago, Charles Duhigg, who you likely know through his earlier book The Power of Habit, was interviewing people at exceptionally productive companies for his 2016 book Smarter Faster Better:  The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business.”  As he did this, he often asked for help in solving a family problem:  […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, Slow Down, is an essay by Jason Murray, Network Architect at the Washington University in St. Louis.  [He may be reached at [email protected].]His essay first appeared as a program reflection earlier this year.“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”         — […]