Innovation

…Helpful thoughts for the next steps in your life’s journey   Every year, beginning near the end of May and continuing into early June, there is a flurry of ritual activity at this country’s educational institutions. In the U.S., there are over 4,200 degree granting colleges and universities and over 20,500 high schools who each […]

Several times over the past few years, the Tuesday Reading has focused on biases: Biased? We all are. Bias — If you have a brain, you’re biased. Mitigating Bias — When hiring staff. Train Your Brain — To help you avoid your biases. Today, we continue with this general theme focusing on the unconscious nature of many […]

… “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”       –  Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher from the 6th century B.C.E. All journeys, whether they are physical journeys by foot, by car, train, or plane, or journeys of the mind where you work small step by small step to solve a problem, resolve an issue, or […]

… That could be a good thing.   “I’m bored.” Now, that’s a sentence everyone has heard, or spoken, or thought many times in his or her life. And, in spite of what you may have been taught, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. What might be bad is how you respond.   Wikipedia1 reports that […]

Harry Davis is the first individual to connect leadership and performance art that I ever encountered. He is the Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Distinguished Service Professor of Creative Management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. We met at the 2008 MOR Leaders Conference1 where Professor Davis was the featured speaker. His […]

… Discover the Value of Idleness Being born in the middle of the Great Depression means that the words “lazy” and “idle” take on special meaning. In the southeast Texas town of Shepherd where I first lived, regular jobs were few. My maternal grandfather had one of those jobs, railroad section foreman responsible for maintaining […]

… a technique that allows people to iterate on ideas without using harsh or judgmental language. While used typically in teams and on the ideas of others, plussing works equally well on one’s own ideas – when one’s self critic can be particularly vocal. You may never have previously encountered the word “plussing.” Neither had […]

Today, most organizations, including a university’s IT organization, structure their work through a set of teams. Other examples include professional sports teams with their structure, their practice day-after-day of plays they may execute in the game, and a surgical team that performs the same procedure, for example, hip replacement, under tightly controlled conditions, perhaps multiple […]

… it’s really not an option  Reflection is about “careful thought.”  Jennifer Porter, leadership and team development coach, says that “the kind of reflection that is really valuable to leaders is more nuanced than just ‘careful thought’.”  The most useful reflection involves the conscious considerations and analysis of beliefs and actions for the purpose of learning.”  […]

Today, in the United States some four out of every five individuals age 5 and older have some type of cell phone.  And, most of these have sufficient functionality to be called smartphones.  This is in stark contrast to the time when I was growing up in a small rural southeast Texas town.  Then and […]

Steven Westlund is the author of today’s Tuesday Reading.  He is the Director of Enterprise Applications Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis.  His essay first appeared as a leadership program reflection earlier this year.  [Steve may be reached at [email protected].]   A few weekends ago, my wife and I watched Alexandra Dean’s documentary, Bombshell: the Hedy Lamarr […]

…  You May Want To Give IT a Try Kristin Wong, a Los Angeles journalist and writer, who contributes to the New York Times and other publications, found herself approached by a stranger at a grocery store asking if she needed help.  He had heard her talking to herself out loud, in public.  She had […]

… Hunting, Fishing, Trawling Every organization has hidden leaders.  They’re everywhere.  They consistently step up to deal with client problems, with intractable issues, with extra effort to meet an unusual request from a key client, etc.  We often don’t think of such individuals as leaders, after all they don’t have a positional title that would […]

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, […]

How to Get Up to Speed in Your New Leadership Role  Today’s Tuesday Reading is the Harvard Business Review Whiteboard Session (video) “How to Get Up to Speed in Your New Leadership Role” featuring Michael Watkins.  Watkins is President of Genesis Advisors, a leadership consultancy that supports companies and leaders coping with transition.  He is […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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:  […]