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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
Kill Your Darlings: How High Performers Achieve Extraordinary Growth
By Porchlight
"Unfortunately, human beings are driven to maintain a favorable self-concept more than they are an accurate one. We have the tendency to see ourselves as exceedingly moral, attractive, smart, funny, athletic etc., and we don't want to disturb that vision. For many of us, ignorance is bliss. But not all of us. ... many of the world's top performers prioritize an accurate self-concept over a favorable one. They strive to treat beliefs that they don't like in the same way they treat beliefs that they do. They want to know when 'all is not well' because, then, they can do something about it. But these high performers are not only receptive to information that might threaten their favored beliefs, they go out of their way to seek it out themselves. In doing so, they kill their darlings."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
There is Nothing Wrong with You: The Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT) and the Future of Everything
By Porchlight
"From the very beginning of human society, a part of the population has consistently driven our positive evolution. They were the first to discover new territories. The first to explore tools and language. The first to form culture and government and technologies. The have made enormous contributions to the world, and yet today they are often the first to be medicated, jailed, or put in rehab. They are the Entrepreneurial Personality Type (EPT), and until now this subpopulation has been overlooked by society. In order for us to maximize their potential—and that of humanity—we have to better understand these unique individuals, learn how best to protect and support them, and even come to the realization that we may be looking at them in the mirror."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Consumer Engagement: Holy Grail or Fool's Gold?
By Bob Nease
"We all dream of the perfect customer: the fiercely loyal, energetic word-of-mouth advocate for the brand, who's willing to let our service mistakes roll off their back, and who comes back time after time to buy what our company offers. These consumers are willing to invest their time, energy and money in our products and services and do so with glee. Do such amazing customers actually exist? ... Moving the needle on consumer engagement is exceptionally difficult, and a bit of neuroscience explains why. The human brain processes about 10 million bits of information per second. That's roughly the throughput of the original Ethernet cable. Our conscious minds, however, use only 50 bits per second. This means that most of what we do happens automatically, under the radar, and beyond our conscious grasp. We point our attention at things that are either pressing or pleasurable, and the rest of the time we let things ride. In short, we are wired for inattention and inertia."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
It's Time To Drive "Customer Obsession" From The Top
By Joseph Michelli
"Companies know that their end result—a consistently great (actually, greater and greater) customer experience—needs to drive everything they do. Just as all roads lead to Rome, all strategies must lead to the delighted customer, and the fewer twists and turns along the way, the better. That's the directive handed down by the gods of globalization and cyberspace, who've decreed that customers can jump from one company to another on a whim (often armed with reams of research on your product). The problem is that most big corporations were forged in different fires, the fires of an era where competition was less intense and issues like product quality trumped service. Customers were more like to simply accept what you had to offer. As a result, many players (even market leaders) are fundamentally unsuited for the new marketplace. What's more, they're painfully aware of it."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Art of Supportive Confrontation: An Essential Element in Creative Conflict
By Flip Brown
"Wouldn't it be amazing if, in the initial interviews, your potential supervisor would say something like 'We're a little unusual here. We actively practice creative conflict, and in case you haven't come across that term I'll define how it works. We're willing to tolerate reasonable unease in having different thoughts, opinions, or feelings because we know that if we don't we're going to short-circuit the best solutions. We expect everyone—from the top down and the bottom up—to practice what we call 'appropriate professional vulnerability.' Because we are committed to work with a shared set of values, a clear mission, and a compelling vision, we don't make or take things personally. When we get stuck, we get coached, and when we succeed we know it is because everyone was able to move through the process without avoidance, collusion, or negativity.' Wow! Heck, I'd want to work there."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Bridge the Generational Divide and Build Sustainable Innovation
By Porchlight
"The U.S. business community is facing a war of intelligence attrition. Fortune 500s will see countless experienced knowledge workers walk out the door over the next two decades. The U.S. Armed Forces are losing millions of officers and key personnel to retirement. For even those companies that thrive on innovation, the numbers are daunting—and demand action. Some 900,000 white-collar workers from the Executive Branch of government, and another 5,400 federal executives, will be up for retirement over the next decade, according to a study from Tandberg. A McKinsey Quarterly survey found that the Baby Boomer generation is 'the best educated, most highly skilled aging workforce in U.S. history.' Though they're 'only' about 40 percent of the workforce, they comprise more than half of all managers and almost half of all professionals, such as doctors and lawyers. Many are preparing to leave—and American leadership isn't prepared to lose them."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
3 Strategies to Persuade Any Audience
By Kenny Nguyen, Gus Murillo, Robert Killeen
"While it takes skill and practice to be a great persuasive speaker, anyone can do it. It's all about understanding your role as a speaker, knowing the audience you're talking to, and appealing to your audience's hearts and minds. In order to best accomplish this, the world's best speakers use a variety of arguments and strategies, most of which can be summed up into the three rhetorical appeals: ethos, logos, and pathos. When used effectively, these three appeals can be powerful tools for achieving a speaker's persuasive goal."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Showing Up: 32 Ways
By Anese Cavanaugh
"You are contagious and you get to decide what that means. You have super powers galore. It does not matter if you are a student, a doctor, a CEO, a mom, a dad, a kid, a janitor, a florist, a designer, or a fighter pilot; you have super powers and they're yours for the taking to use and conquer the world with. You get this life, this company, this adventure, this family, this culture, to show up for. Show up well."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
This Is an Emotional Pitch
By Michael Parker
"Delivering a pitch, whether from a platform or across a boardroom table or over coffee at Starbucks, you are on stage. You need to tap into the actor in you. Connecting emotionally with a large group or a single interviewer in conversation, calls for a performance that reaches out, bringing emotional resonance to the words. Actors start off fully confident in their brilliant scripts written by a William Shakespeare or a Tennessee Williams. They are not worried about their content. All they are concerned with is how they can make their script come alive to their audience."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Into the Light of New Leadership: Family Business Leadership and Building a Path for Succession
By Andrew Keyt
"Change is the essence of succession. The challenge for the family business successor is answering two questions: What needs to change in order for our family and business to survive and grow, and what do we need to hold onto that is the foundation of our culture and our success. These questions are the source of the natural tension between the generations in the succession process. The reason that this is such a challenge for a family business successor is that when you are born into a family business, you are born into a story that is already being told. You are born into the shadow of your parents and grandparents. The challenge then becomes the expectation that you will live up to the successes of your forbearers, which can feel like a daunting task."
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.