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
Wake Up, Heretics! We Need You
By Porchlight
"Today's corporate culture is leadership-starved. Our leadership vacuum is somewhat ironic, given that sometimes it seems like all we talk about is leaders—what makes them strong or weak, successes or failures. Skim your favorite business publications, and you'll find think piece after advice column after scientific study outlining how to lead and why it matters. Many of the pointers are good: servant leadership is indeed worthwhile, and empowering your employees is a key to peak performance. But those strategies alone are not the path to the kind of groundbreaking leadership we not only want, but desperately need. The climb to taking charge of changing the world is only scalable via bareknuckle, boldfaced heresy. To put another way: we need more than just leaders in the workforce. We need heroes––and the greatest heroes have always begun their journeys as heretics."
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Blog / ChangeThis
In Defense of the Gray Area
By Phillip Barlag
"For countless cultural reasons, Americans have long associated the phrase with defeat. Yet, 'I don't know' is not an end, but a beginning. It is not a failure but an opportunity. 'I don't know' is a launch pad for deeper investigation. [...] Yes or no not only creates a false interpretation of historical or contemporary issues, it can also be dangerous. Isaac Asimov said violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. That refuge is frequently guarded by unyielding monolithic absolutes."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Failure Drives Success
By Porchlight
"There is no success without failure. Success is what you do after you fail. The people in my life who have become great successes have also suffered through quite a few failures. Those who avoid failure or try to help others avoid failure are really just impeding their progress. [...] Failure itself is not a bad thing, but repeating the same mistake over and over is a tragedy. There is rarely a time in life when one cannot recover from failure. However, having consecutive failures can be unrecoverable. One of the reasons people have consecutive failures is that they are unable to see the value of or learn from the lesson of the first failed attempt."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Five Keys to Being Fiercely You
By Jackie Huba
"When was the last time you did something that astounded those around you, that amazed yourself, that was outside of your comfort zone? Has it been a while? Was it in your childhood, or at college? If it was recent, did you need the help of a drink or two to muster up that courage? That's pretty common. But when was the last time you felt intimidated, insecure, afraid to do something because it might be wrong? Or when was the last time you watched someone else do something bold and you thought, 'That's amazing! But I could never do that?' Unfortunately, that's pretty common too. Why? Fear. We often hold ourselves back from our true potential because of all kinds of fears—fear of failing, fear of rejection, fear of being laughed at, and even the fear of being our most glorious self."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Disrupt Yourself! Create the World You Want with Liminal Thinking.
By Dave Gray
"People talk a lot about disruption these days. Leaders in large organizations fear that rapidly-emerging competitors will disrupt them and make them irrelevant. Netflix has disrupted Blockbuster. Uber has disrupted the taxi industry. AirBnB has disrupted hospitality. Brexit disrupted an entire system of government—in one day, with one vote. Who's next? In an era where change has become the norm, we spend a lot of time worrying about how to avoid being disrupted by others. We'd be more successful if we learned how to disrupt ourselves. What if I told you the number one reason companies go out of business is that their senior leaders don't know how to listen? That they are not paying attention? That they are completely blind to disruptive new businesses that are staring them right in the face?"
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
How To Build A Strong Mind
By Terence Mauri
"What is it that enables leaders to persevere through seemingly insurmountable challenges that at first seem to exceed our limits? Make a list of leaders you admire and who have made a difference in the world. They could be living or dead. The chances are they all have one outstanding quality in common: they are bold. A strong mind excels at speed, creativity, and decisive action. They are risk takers. It's not the only factor that drives success, but perhaps it is one of the most important in the age of overload. We all face the twin problems of deciding what to do and what to tune out. Creativity enables leaders to imagine different solutions to a problem and can help you "cut through the noise and focus on the signal," as high profile entrepreneur Elon Musk describes it. If you want to make an impact, you need to act boldly, especially when the going gets tough."
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Blog / ChangeThis
How Leaders Can Master the Art of Accountability
By Jonathan Raymond
"Every business leader agrees that accountability is an essential ingredient in a healthy organizational culture. Which makes it all the more striking how little training there is out for leaders and managers on how to do it well. Employees are left carrying the bag—working for managers who don't have the relationship skills or emotional confidence to give them direct, early feedback with supportive guidance on how to make the changes the manager wants (but isn't saying). The cost to teams and organizations is high and widespread."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Design IS Business (Why the World Needs Leaders with the Skills of Designers)
By Lisa Kay Solomon, Patrick van der Pijl, Justin Lokitz
"Many people believe that design is a profession for artists and creative types. In actuality, design is all around us—not just the beautiful things—and it's done by all of us, and it affects all of us. It's not just the things that you own or interact with—like your new favorite shirt or smartphone—that are designed. The process by which they came to be exist was also designed. How the original ideas were conceived, the way those ideas were tested, the mechanics of how they were produced, distributed, sold and delivered—influenced by design. All of it. Design is a disciplined approach to discovering, identifying and capturing value. The good news? Design is a teachable discipline—it has its own process, its own tools and its own way of working. It just hasn't been taught to most of us."
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Blog / ChangeThis
"Bankers Are 'Only' Motivated By Money" (And Other Ways Organizations Domesticate Us)
By Porchlight
"How do you shift the behaviour of bankers. This was the subject of a conversation. All of the people involved had considerably more experience in financial services than me, so their perspectives were particularly striking. The low point of the conversation happened when one of them said this: 'Bankers are only motivated by money. It is the only way we know how to get people in banking to do things. ' Now, I know some bankers, and count a number of them as friends. Watching them at soccer games and birthday parties, I'm struck by the fact that they're not "only" motivated by money (unless that child with the dirty nappy was slipping them some cash on the side). But this conversation reveals a more vexing problem: Organizations domesticate people. Like Pavlov and his dogs, we are trained to discrete patterns of responses in organizations. It is not flattering, but I would propose it is a reality we don't understand, nor take advantage of: organizations domesticate people to certain ways of working.
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Blog / ChangeThis
Analytical Marketing Will Deliver for Your Customers
By Porchlight
"While moving the revenue needle is still a critical benchmark for many modern marketers, our positions are no longer solely about supporting a sales team with the basics. Naturally, marketing tactics have become more sophisticated, but our roles have really been redefined by the value of one word: data. By collecting and analyzing data, marketers can know if what we're doing makes an impact. We can point directly to why specific offers, emails, or thought leadership works (or doesn't work) for our customers. If your marketing organization is still just sales support, you're getting left behind. Not only are modern, data-driven marketers driving sales, we're monitoring or shaping a customer's experience with our brand."
Categories: changethis
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.