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 Adherence
By Julie Davis-Colan
"In business and in life, the game is usually won by those who can consistently execute a well-thought-out strategy. In other words, winners stick with it—they practice adherence. Adherence is the ability to consistently execute. Not coincidentally, the word 'adherence' appears to have originated in the 1500s from the French word 'adherer,' which means 'to stick to.' Adherence is the critical link between strategy (knowing) and results (doing). Therefore, it is the solution to the knowing-doing gap. Winning requires adherence because successful execution of your plan is not a one-time event but rather steady progress over an extended period of time. [...] Achieving adherence is simple but not necessarily easy. It takes skill and creativity to continually nurture focus, competence, and passion with your team. This is why we call it the art of adherence."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Time Ain't Money: Stop Punching the Industrial Age Clock, and Start Embracing the Digital Now
By Douglas Rushkoff
"Living in the digital media environment changes a whole lot more than the technologies through which we do business. It has changed our relationship to time—and this is having profound effects on our businesses, our economy, and our customers."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Customer Service is Not a Department
By Lee Cockerell
"Customer Service is Not a Department It's also not a complaint desk, or a website, or a phone number, or an option on a phone menu. Nor is it a task or a chore. It's the responsibility of everyone in the organization, from the CEO to the lowest-ranking front line employee. In effect, everyone in the company is a customer service rep, because each of them has some impact on the customer's experience. As an executive, you may never see or speak to a customer, but you model how they should be treated with every interaction you have, with vendors, creditors, suppliers, and especially your employees. Treat everyone with sincerity and respect and it will trickle down to your customers."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
It's Smart to Suck (Sometimes)
By Jake Breeden
"Think about work that made you proud. Remember something you produced—a product, a pitch, a proposal—that represents you at your very best? Pride feels good. We want to feel it more, and we'll work hard to get that good feeling. Now think about work you did that made you ashamed. Remember something sent off incomplete because you didn't have time to do it justice? Remember early work you completed before you climbed up the learning curve? How'd that feel? We're driven to do more of the work that makes us proud and less of the work that makes us ashamed. Usually, that's smart. Pride pulls us to do things well, and shame pushes us away from doing things poorly. But in certain critical times—especially when it's time to do something new—these emotions push and pull us in unwise directions. Sometimes doing your very best is the very worst decision. In fact, sometimes it's smart to suck."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Fitting in and Standing Out: Shifting Mindsets from Taking to Giving
By Adam Grant
"When people think like takers, they focus on getting as much as possible from others. When they operate like givers, on the other hand, their overarching emphasis is on contributing their knowledge and skills to benefit others."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
How to Boost Your Bottom Line... And Save the Planet, Too
By Mark R. Tercek
"The old, knee-jerk opposition between business and the environment is yesterday's way of thinking. Increasingly, top business leaders view nature as a foundational asset base and essential ally to their companies' productivity. If you want your company to thrive, you will need to be bold, think big, and be aggressive about pursuing business opportunities that work with the environment, not against it."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
How Self-Doubt Makes Leaders Better
By Steven Snyder
"Self-doubt can be especially paralyzing for leaders who buy into the cultural myth of the perfect leader. Knowing full well that perfection is unattainable, they nonetheless feel compelled to project the image of a calm, confident leader who always knows what to do and how to do it. Societal taboos that paint indecision in leaders as a sign of weakness only intensify the sense of isolation and uncertainty that breed self-doubt. Change is the crucible in which ordinary men and women develop into leaders. Indeed, whether change flows from a leader's own vision and actions, or results from shifting circumstances within an organization or society at large, change almost always carries with it exciting opportunities for learning, growth and transformation."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Being "Good" Pays Off Big: 21st Century Values are a Winning Strategy in Business and Personal Life
By Peter Georgescu
"We used to think that being a good person in business would be nice. Those who went to churches or synagogues would hear preachers extol the virtues of being good on a weekly basis and trumpet them aloud on the big holidays. It felt good to hear the value of being a good person, but Mondays came along and nothing ever changed in behavior. After all, business is hard. And the first dozen years in the 21st Century demonstrated just how much harder business has become. Chances are that business will get even tougher and more competitive in the years ahead. So we've all got to man up for the brutally competitive world out there. Don't we? Well, no. To find a winning strategy for the 21st Century business world you'll need to grasp why the world of commerce has changed so dramatically in recent decades."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone: Taking Risks, Trusting your Gut and Becoming a Game Changer!
By John Wood
"Wikipedia defines the term comfort zone as "a behavioral state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition, using a limited set of behaviors to deliver a steady level of performance, usually without a sense of risk." This does not sound like a recipe for success, especially in a rapidly changing and uber-competitive world. There was a time when the only types of people who took risks and voluntarily stepped out of their comfort zone were the high rollers who could afford to take a chance. Now, none of us can afford to NOT take risks. In business, you are asked to get out of your comfort zone time and time again. In today's rapidly changing, tech-inundated world, getting out of your comfort zone has become a mandate for success."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
We Are All Creators Now—And We Are Creating a New Indie Capitalism
By Bruce Nussbaum
"We are building a new kind of capitalism from the ground up. The construction site is located far below the radar of the mainstream press. Our policymakers in Washington don't have a clue that a new foundation is being laid down, brick by brick. And our competitors have grown so familiar with navigating their way through the crumbling edifice of crony capitalism that they can't see what's emerging from the rubble. Yet. But look to the edges of our economy, look to the new models and practices being developed by our young, look to energy of our entrepreneurs and look to the subtle shifts of our most progressive corporations and you can see something emerging. You can see the rise of Indie Capitalism. This is a Manifesto for all those creators who are making Indie Capitalism a reality."
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.