ChangeThis
ChangeThis is our weekly series of essays from today's thought leaders that are meant to evoke conversation by bringing forth new and unique ideas.
ChangeThis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Why We Must Evolve, or Die
By Porchlight
"Change means doing things that are new, and forgoing things that are familiar. It means discomfort and uncertainty, and the real likelihood of being wrong. All in all, it's scary. It really comes down to a decision. You either ride things out, fight for the status quo and hope the changes you're sensing are going to slow (they won't), or you think about where the world is headed and change to get yourself there. The journey is difficult, but the direction is clear. Evolve or die."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Forgotten Diversity Group: Ambitious Women Who Want to Lean "In-Between"
By Kathryn Sollmann
"Diversity and inclusion is a hot topic on corporate agendas these days, but despite the best efforts of employers, a large group of women are feeling left out. When it comes to leadership training, employers are still pressuring women to conform to one profile of an ambitious and successful woman. In the last decade, I've coached thousands of women who feel like they're letting down the power sisterhood if they don't do their part to break the glass ceiling. These women in the everyday sisterhood are smart, capable and ambitious—but they want alternate routes to 'grow in place' while family pressures are high. When I speak to women's groups, my message is that 'Up is Not the Only Way Forward.' To prevent women from taking costly caregiving breaks, and to retain great talent, employers need to make room for many brands of ambition and success."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Secret to an Engaged Workforce (That Shouldn't Be So Secret)
By Aron Ain
"Do you want your employees to absolutely love coming to work. Employees who love their work put in their best effort and perform better. They work better in teams. They feel more loyalty toward the company. They stay in their jobs longer. They help you recruit top talent. They come to you with new ideas. And, they make your company stronger. You know all this, which is why you're already working hard to pump up that all-important employee engagement metric. You're paying competitive salaries and benefits. You're offering attractive career paths. You're providing a whole array of attractive perks—social outings, free food, yoga classes, a swank office, flexible hours, the latest technology, maybe even a masseuse on premises. With all this, you think, why would talented employees possibly wish to go anywhere else. There is a reason, one that you might have overlooked. . . . You see, employees might join companies because of the money, the perks, or the company's brand, but they leave companies because of their managers.
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Blog / ChangeThis
Leadership On Day One
By Drew Dudley
"I've studied leadership my entire adult life, and I firmly believe there is no shortage of leadership on this planet. However, we are systematically ignoring a huge percentage of the leadership that surrounds us each day because we have chosen to define it too narrowly. To change that we need to teach a more accessible form of leadership: one that acknowledges that while not everyone can or should be a CEO or senior executive, there is a form of leadership to which we all can and should aspire. My goal is to make living that form of leadership more accessible and appealing (and as such, spread it throughout our organizations and communities) by providing a clear place to start: Day One."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Don't Stress: When Doing and Spending Less Can Help Your Business Get Ahead
By Stephen Wunker, Jennifer Luo Law
"As a result of our fascination with the latest and the greatest, the word 'innovation' is often used as a synonym for technological advancement, bringing with it imagination-capturing glory—as well as its less savory reputation for being expensive and fickle. But that's just one dimension of innovation. In our combined decades of experience working in this field, we've seen that there are many ways to innovate that don't take as much time, or require as much money and investment, as a moonshot initiative. And they're less overwhelming to get started with, to boot. Innovation doesn't always have to be more—more flavors, more horsepower, more memory space, more bells and whistles. In some cases, customers don't want more. They just want us to do the job they've hired us to do, and for us to do it very, very well. New solutions can excel in their simplicity, earning customer love and saving money along the way—and, yes, that is just as deserving of being called 'innovative' as a new blockchain game or genetic therapy.
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Blog / ChangeThis
Daring Conversations: How to Communicate with Candor, Clarity, Compassion, and Ease
By Alexia Vernon
"There is no shortage of theories about why there are not more women leading companies, boards, and local, state, and national governments. Explanations range from the persistence of the glass ceiling, inflexible work-life policies, male-dominated networks, and unconscious gender bias. As a result, solutions for correcting the lack of gender parity typically include remedying workplace policies and practices that privilege men and penalize women—or sponsoring women to attend women's leadership conferences, professional development training, and mentorship programs. And while all of these solutions have merit, what remains lacking is a complementary intervention that addresses a behavior most women struggle with—a behavior that leaders irrespective of gender need to possess. For the last decade, I've supported women to step into their moxie—what I define as possessing the mindset and skillset to be able to walk into any room, or onto any stage, and speak up for yourself and the ideas and issues that matter most to you (and to your company).
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Blog / ChangeThis
What Makes a Change Maker a Change Maker?
By Porchlight
"Innovation has moved from a distant abstraction in the business world to a front-and-center deliverable that is expected to show evidence of impact. But there is no guaranteed formula for finding ideas and executing on them for sustained impact. Users and buyers set moving expectations, investors are demanding and unforgiving, and society expects companies to contribute beyond the bottom line. Change makers operate within the polarities of innovation—innovation is cool yet threatening, inevitable yet unpredictable, attractive yet avoided—and remain undeterred. They want to solve real problems by getting stuff done, even with the uncertainty, unpredictability, and ambiguity that defines their journey. They are guided by purpose, and are driven to create value benefiting investors and employees, users, buyers, partners, and the broader community in which they exist. They don't accept the status quo. They operate with urgency, and speed their progress by rolling up their sleeves and learning on the fly.
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Lessons From The Road: Bringing Musicianship and Performing Into The Office
By Porchlight
"We often look towards established business leaders when seeking out new ideas to inspire us. Their advice and stories re-energize us, bringing the hope of discovering a greater awareness of where our careers can evolve to, or how our businesses can operate with fresh approaches to drive growth. We dig to uncover nuggets of wisdom from these well-known leaders to embrace and adopt into our everyday lives. But perhaps there's an unexpected type of leader to draw inspiration from. Have you ever looked at the way bands and music artists operate—at various levels of success—and found parallels to the ways that businesses need to constantly innovate, grow and empower their teams to get the best out of them. Or how the power of listening can open up new and unexpected opportunities. As a former professional musician turned technology executive, I've seen and lived these parallels between the stage and office and put them into practice. There are more connections than you may think.
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Blog / ChangeThis
Business Must Make Life Better
By Richard Hardyment
"Big business today is under scrutiny like never before. Trust is flaky. Consumers are cynical. Many companies talk about playing a role in society—through philanthropic giving and environmentally sustainable practices. But few have defined their ambitions for life. Companies have a phenomenal impact on how people feel—our wellbeing. Yet there has been a deafening silence from the private sector about the central purpose of human existence. In our turbulent world of change, we desperately need a more human form of capitalism that places people at its heart—whether that's farmers supplying raw materials, factory workers creating goods, or shoppers buying and consuming products and services. We need business to embrace a wellbeing purpose with an audacious ambition: to make life feel better."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Prepare for Your Lucky Break
By Randy Komisar
"A long career in business has impressed upon me the unpredictability of success. As an entrepreneur and investor this lesson is particularly sobering. When I started, I felt that my hard work and a modicum of intelligence would propel me to certain success. Simply put one foot in front of the other. But living in the Silicon Valley casino has changed my view. Success is, after all, relative. There is much written about the short half-life of the joy experienced after receiving a significant windfall if others have received an even greater sum. It seems we can't even gauge our own success without comparison to others. And in Silicon Valley, the relative distribution of success appears largely random. That is not to say that many of the successful icons of innovation aren't impressive; it's to say that in comparison to so many of the also-rans they are virtually indistinguishable. And that realization alone is humbling."
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The original idea behind ChangeThis came from Seth Godin, and was built in the summer of 2004 by Amit Gupta, Catherine Hickey, Noah Weiss, Phoebe Espiritu, and Michelle Sriwongtong. In the summer of 2005, ChangeThis was turned over to 800-CEO-READ. In addition to selling and writing about books, they kept ChangeThis up and running as a standalone website for 14 years. In 2019, 800-CEO-READ became Porchlight, and we pulled ChangeThis together with the rest of our editorial content under the website you see now. We remain committed to the high-design quality and independent spirit of the original team that brought ChangeThis into the world.