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
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."
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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
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Blog / ChangeThis
A New Mirror
By Shlomo Benartzi
"In the 21st century, human nature has discovered a new mirror. Thanks to the rise of smartphones and wearables, such as the Apple Watch, we can now monitor our body and behavior in exquisite detail, tracking everything from the amount of sleep we get to the number of calories we swallow. We can count our steps and resting pulse, compare our social network and spending habits. (There's even a smartphone app that can tell you how often you check your smartphone.) Only a few years before, quantifying these aspects of life would have required a trained team of professionals. Now we can do it with the slim computer in our pocket. Unfortunately, it's not clear that this new feedback is helping us make better decisions. ... These new digital mirrors are certainly cool. I want to make them useful."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Five Fatal Mistakes of Startups
By Henry Kressel, Norman Winarsky
"It's natural to expect that many young companies fail, but what's remarkable is that in an overwhelming number of times, they fail from avoidable mistakes. Of course sometimes events occur that could never have been predicted—such as the loss of a key founder, or an unexpected government action that eliminates the need for the product—but these events are rare in our experience. This is a manifesto about the company killers that every CEO needs to avoid."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Success. Now What?
By Bob Buford
"Much has been written about the 'graying of America. ' According to a recent CNBC. com article, nearly a third of America's workers are now over 50, and employees over age 65 outnumber teenage workers for the first time since 1948. We are an aging population with all of the implications that brings for our society: Greater demand for health care workers, more senior housing, etc. But what does this development mean for our successful leaders, many of whom are also aging and, in many cases, reluctantly approaching retirement. Every day, men and women who have achieved great things both personally and professionally and reached the very top of the ladder are being put out to pasture to rarely, if ever again, use the significant gifts and talents that helped them for the first 50 or so years of their lives. I would suggest that it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, I would posit that the next part of their lives could cement their legacy and in many ways be their most important years with perhaps their greatest contribution.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Bringing HR to the C-Suite: How Human Resources Can Create Value and Drive Performance
By Porchlight
"HR has been trying to get the proverbial seat at the table for eons, and it doesn't seem that there has been much progress and... there's a credibility gap between HR and the 'C' suite that gets wider every day. The C-Suite still doesn't see or value the role HR can and should play, because we are still mired in the morass of compliance and administration. I have spent my career as one of those HR professionals who have to cajole arrogant operational leaders into doing 'HR work.' I've fought the resistance, and I've learned a lot along the way. I've learned that this can't be 'HR work'—it's leadership, plain and simple."
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.