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
Leadership Muscles For The New Multi-Polar World
By Porchlight
"Globalization until very recently meant Western companies exporting their products, leaders and ways of doing business around the world. That is now changing and today executives face a bewildering level of uncertainty in the multi-polar world that is fast emerging. If you are doing business in Africa, you are now likely to face significant competition from local players, as well as from Indian or Chinese companies that have emerged onto the global stage. The leadership teams of many multi-nationals were often literally a pale reflection of the international community, but slowly increasing diversity is evident in boardrooms and senior teams. But how do you deepen this diversity and make it work productively? ... A range of convergent evidence from neuroscience, behavioral genetics, values surveys, as well as our own research with thousands of leaders globally, identifies certain Cultural DNA themes for each of the world's main societies and their associated leadership implications."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
#notarule: winning at business and life by breaking rules that don't exist
By Jason Kotecki
"Blessed are the rule breakers. They shalt inherit the Future. We have always admired the great renegades of business, brave souls who dared to deny the status quo, defy the odds, and pioneer a new normal. Nicolas Tesla. Richard Branson. Tony Stark. One thing all great titans of industry have in common is this: they were able to identify rules that don't exist and had the courage to break them. Of course, there are plenty of rules that DO exist. If you commit fraud or neglect to pay taxes, I hope you look good in an orange jumpsuit. But the rules that DON'T exist greatly outnumber the ones that do. History is filled with examples of those who profited greatly by dispensing with so-called 'rules.'"
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Blog / ChangeThis
Acceptable Loss: A Formula For How to Fail Quickly and Cheaply, and Ultimately Succeed
By Porchlight
"If you looked at the way entrepreneurs act, you would be tempted to conclude there is not a lot to be learned from studying them. You would have to be Bill Gates to start Microsoft and Oprah Winfrey to begin Harpo. But if you look at the way they think, you will discover amazing similarities. When successful entrepreneurs head off into the unknown—and there is nothing more unknown than starting a new company—they ... reduce it to a formula. They: Act. Learn. Build (off that learning.) And Repeat. But notice what is going on, because the steps are small, and so is what it puts at risk. It's a way of keep potential failures from being devastating."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
10 Lessons on Art and Strategy
By Jessica Hagy
"War is just a metaphor for every problem you've ever had in your life. Without problems, you've got no plot, and without a plot, your character can't develop. So don't just choose your battles. Embrace them. Here's how... "
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The New Leadership Paradigm—Everyone, Every time, No Exception!
By Lior Arussy
"Organizations and leaders are facing today the convergence of three mega trends that are reshaping their value proposition, their customer relationships, and their talent engagement. Alone, each of these mega trends is a significant challenge to face. Together they present either an existential threat to the business or an evolutionary opportunity. And, by and large, most leaders are neither ready nor equipped to address these changes."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Earth Shakers: The Art and Craft of the Global Change Agent
By Dean Williams
"Earth shakers figuratively shake the ground on which we work and live. They stir people to action to address tough problems. They mobilize people to fix what is flawed or broken. They generate movements to tackle complex issues. They transform teams, organizations, communities, and nations. They help us to think differently about the world, and to take actions to make it a better place. The earth shaker is a global change agent. They may operate at the local level or on the international stage but they appreciate how global forces and dynamics affect local forces and dynamics, and vice-versa. Given the interdependent nature of complex problems, they know they must cross borders and boundaries to get anything significant accomplished, as problems cannot be resolved in isolation. We need earth shakers because globalization presents a whole new set of challenges for which traditional forms of leadership cannot resolve. Globalization generates forces and dynamics that produce unintended and unexpected consequences—surprises—some that are delightful and some that are threatening and outright scary.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
THE PENGUINS ATE YOUR CHEESE!
By BJ Gallagher
"The penguins were in trouble and they knew it. For many years they had ruled the Land of Penguins with unquestioned authority. They had built a great enterprise that grew and thrived in the Sea of Organizations. Penguins were seen as models of success, and for a long time their world was orderly, predictable, and safe. But there came a time when things began to change In the Land of Penguins..."
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Connect and Thrive: Create a Connection Culture to Win at Work (and Life)
By Michael Lee Stallard
"Human connection is a superpower. It helps individuals and organizations thrive. [...] Most people don't recognize connection as a superpower—yet—and therefore miss out on connection's benefits. In your defense, you may be living and working in cultures that have conditioned you so that you don't see, feel or experience connection as much as you ought to in order to live your most productive, enjoyable and life. If connection isn't obvious to you, this manifesto will be an eye-opening wake-up call."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Simplicity Cycle Manifesto
By Dan Ward
"We started with nothing. Now we have something. The receptacle is no longer empty. This makes all the difference. Through carelessness, inattention, or miscalculation, we may inadvertently overfill it to the detriment of the whole. Additions once led to improvement. Beyond a certain point, that is no longer the case. Additions begin to make things worse. When our additions get out of control, the plot becomes jumbled, the colors muddied, the flavors discordant or overpowering. The new pieces do not simply add less than the previous pieces—they actually diminish the value of the whole."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Membership Economy Manifesto
By Robbie Kellman Baxter
"We hear the stories. Cornered by a passionate friend, we are regaled with tales of binge-watching House of Cards on Netflix, or the virtues of the Paleo diet combined with Crossfit, or a new recipes and decorating tips found on Pinterst. Certain organizations are winning the hearts and voices of their customers, and building the kind of loyalty that traditionally was reserved for family, community, and church. The secret that these organizations know is that people are craving membership. Organizations that build their businesses around people's need to belong, to be connected, and to be admired, organizations that are focused on relationships over products, are winning in today's economy."
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.