Leadership

Recently on TV, I was attracted to a Cascade dishwasher detergent commercial featuring child actress Sierra Richards, who seeing her “mother” rinse off the dishes before putting them in the open dishwasher asks, “just what does the dishwasher do?” This question is an example of thinking critically about what the “mother” in the commercial was doing. […]

… they surround us   No matter where you look, you will find both unwritten and written rules – rules at work, rules that are personal to you, rules for your family, rules about your social interactions, rules at home, rules everywhere. Some are “written” by others including your organization, and many, likely the majority, by […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Monika R. Dressler. Director of Academic Technologies, in the LSA Technology Services group at the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. She is an alumnus of the MOR Leaders Program. Her essay first appeared as a program reflection earlier this year. [Monika may be reached at […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is a response by Dr. Nick Dedeke, Executive Professor of Supply Chain and Information Management at Northeastern University in Boston, MA to the recent Tuesday Readings on “luck.” [Nick may be reached at [email protected].] Recent Tuesday Readings have prompted me to reflect on the subject of good luck. Good luck is a phenomenon […]

…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 […]

… Let it go. “Holding a grudge is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to be hurt by it.”                                                              —— Mark Goulston, M.D. author […]

Most, dare I say all, of us, don’t do and haven’t done, much thinking about thinking. In fact, we may have never stopped to think about our thinking.   So, what is thinking anyway?   The Oxford English Dictionary defines thinking as the “process of considering or reasoning about something.” Merriam-Webster, defines it as the “action of one’s mind […]

Ever have the fear that someone is always watching you, just waiting for you to foul-up?   Michael Gervais, psychologist and co-founder of Compete to Create, a high performance mindset training course, wrote in a recent Harvard Business Review essay “How to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You,”1 that our “fear of other people’s […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Amanda Winegarden, a Security Risk Analyst in the University Information Security Group at the University of Minnesota. She is a new alumna from the recently graduated MOR Lead From Where You Are Program at the University of Minnesota. Her essay first appeared as a program reflection earlier this year. [Amanda […]

As I wrote in last week’s Tuesday Reading, “Procrastinators Anonymous: Yes, both I and you are most likely members of this club,”1 procrastination is “willingly deferring something though you expect the delay to make you worse off.”2 I like this definition as it explicitly calls to our minds the fact that procrastination requires a decision […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Mark Katsouros, Director of Voice & Video at the Pennsylvania State University. Mark is an early alumnus of the MOR Leaders Program. His essay first appeared in his blog Mark My Words on September 13, 2018. [Mark may be reached at <[email protected]>.]  Ever have one of those mornings where you realize you’re […]

At MOR Associates, we provide a platform upon which leaders take their leadership abilities to the next level, to up their game.  We provide a design and a set of experiences that support people in making sustainable improvements in their behavior as leaders. Of the several thousand participants in MOR Leadership related programs, although we […]

Kids ask questions in order to learn about the world in which they live. And, sometimes they will answer their own question to show-off what they know – for example, my great-granddaughter holding out a stuffed rabbit and saying “rabbit” – and sometimes they want you to tell them. As they grow older, their questions […]

At one time or another, we have each tried and failed at something, sometimes miserably. And, as a result we all have some fear that if we try to do the same thing, or something similar, again, we will again fail.   Not always. But, sometimes. It might be that when you have a new […]

When participants come back from MOR workshops they are brimming with energy and excitement, raring to put new skills and ideas into action, but they come back to the same places they left, where often little has changed—except maybe their to-do lists, which have grown. While it is ultimately each participant’s responsibility to claim ownership […]

…  the right of every person to be valued and respected Last December’s first Tuesday Reading was Let’s Choose to Be Civil.1 There I used Georgetown University professor Christine Porath’s definition of “incivility” – disrespect or rudeness including mocking or belittling someone, teasing in ways that hurt, offensive jokes, arriving late to meetings, focusing on your smart device […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading is an essay by Theresa Bamrick, CIO at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory operated by Stanford University. Her essay first appeared as a leaders program reflection last fall. [Theresa may be reached at <[email protected]>.]    I come from a cranberry and fishing town near Cape Cod, MA. My parents were born in the Greatest […]

New Practices for the New Year Here we are, a week after New Year’s Day. Now, if you are a typical American, there’s a 40% chance that you have made one or more New Year’s Resolutions. Babylonians made resolutions 4000 years ago, and since then, a lot of us have followed. I think this is […]

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 […]