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
Put Your Mindset to Work: The Secret Weapon in Winning, Keeping, and Flourishing in the Best Jobs
By Paul Stoltz, James Reed
"What does it really take to win, keep, and flourish in the best jobs? Let's begin by shattering a sacred assumption. If you want a good job, it's all about qualifications. Put another way, the best way to increase your chances of getting a great job is by upgrading your skills. Right? Wrong! That is, at least according to the thousands of the world's top employers we formally surveyed. Their answers to these four questions can and should have profound implications on your entire career. [...] Mindset utterly trumps Skillset. Not by a little, but by a landslide. That's why trying to win the best jobs by doing yet-more skills training is like training for a marathon by doing sprints and hurdles. It may help, but it's not going to win the race."
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CLEARED HOT!
By Vernice Armour, Vernice Armour
"You HAVE permission to Engage! Notice, the emphasis is on the word 'have.' That's because you already possess your own permission to engage. I'm not giving it to you. In fact, I can't. You've always had it; you just have to release it. It's up to YOU to make the decision to engage. Once you have given yourself permission, you are Cleared Hot to create realities from possibilities beyond your expectations. What does Cleared Hot mean? Well, in military terms, it means you have permission to fire your weapons on your target. During training that means you're shooting at wooden tanks or old worn out tires. In real combat, you're firing on the enemy. An enemy that in my case was trying to shoot my attack helicopter out of the sky. In civilian life, Cleared Hot the process of acting on a Breakthrough Mentality (BTM)."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Why a Corrupted Service Covenant Has Made Customers Wired and Dangerous
By Chip R. Bell, John R. Patterson
"Progress requires change. And, change provokes resistance. However, customers do not necessarily resist change itself. They accept change when they get a vote; they embrace change when they can participate. They resist the perception or prediction of being controlled or coerced without their involvement. Migrating customers toward self-service, for example, can bring an array of time-saving benefits to everyone—service provider and service receiver. But the manner in which that migration typically occurs—without influence from customers—can be viewed as devaluing the co-creator, thus adding another spark to the flame of their opposition. Today's customers are already picky (all about value), fickle (reluctant to show loyalty), vocal (quick to comment on poor or indifferent service) and vain (only interested in tailor-made offerings). Armed with a computer and a network, the new normal customer becomes wired and dangerous if frustrated."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Third Screen: Why Mobile Is a Game Changer
By Chuck Martin
"We're in the midst of a revolution bigger than the TV or PC and businesses of all types and sizes will be faced with how to deal with it. Not only are many businesses not ready, others are totally unaware. The new market is mobile and it's about to change everything. Mobile is a game changer."
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Reputation Rules: Don't Neglect Your Company's Most Precious Asset
By Daniel Diermeier
"CEOs and board members routinely list reputation as one the company's most valuable assets. Yet, every month a new reputational disaster makes the headlines destroying shareholder value and trust with customers and other stakeholders. During the last year leading companies ranging from Toyota, Goldman Sachs, BP to HP and Johnson & Johnson battled severe reputational crises. In recent weeks we have witnessed not only the devastating earthquake and Tsunami in Japan, but also the so far futile response of Tepco, the nuclear operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. [. . . ] Trust is now an essential part of business success. Yet trust in U. S. business has substantially dropped over the last decade. While trust in business is still higher in developing countries, Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are on a par with businesses in emerging markets and more trusted in developed markets including the United States. These data suggest that business can no longer rely on a trust reservoir. Rather trust needs to be earned.
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Change In a Leader Can Change the World
By Jeremie Kubicek
"Our world is in trouble. We need leaders who lead for the benefit of others. I believe we need to systematically transform the leadership culture from a dominating system to a liberating system. I believe it starts one leader at a time. Each leader must play a part in this transformation by thinking differently about the way they lead if we are to ever see true 'Change in the World.'"
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The Four Strands: Creating Companies Aligned With Human DNA
By Porchlight
"There are universal developmental issues and milestones in the construction of all people, which like gravity, must be obeyed. They are like the laws of physics, non-negotiable. Break these laws and dysfunction occurs. But, obey these laws and people thrive. They will be what we call "healthy." So, when a company is designed and operates in ways that are aligned with how people are constructed, it will be like an airplane aligned with the laws of physics that govern force or torque. It will reach the altitude, speed and course that its horsepower allows. But if its design is not aligned, it will fly in circles, stall out, crash, or break apart."
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Make It Happen: Turning Good Ideas Into Great Results
By Peter Sheahan
"The world is not short of ideas. It's not. It is short of people who can execute on them. It is short of people who know how to take their aspirations and make a real impact on the world with them. What differentiates the great ideas that end up on the cutting room floor from those that wind up changing the world? There are five steps, or rather five competencies you can build that separate the haves from the have-nots, the doers from the talkers ... They are not a mantra for meditation, they are not positive affirmations that you chant to yourself in the mirror, they are actions."
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Little Bets: Think Differently
By Peter Sims
"Our education system places great emphasis on teaching us about facts that are already known, such as historical information or scientific tables, and then testing us in order to measure how much we've retained about that body of knowledge. Those skills work perfectly well for many situations, but not when doing something new. Or creative. Or original. They certainly won't help us invent the future. As education and creativity researcher and author Sir Ken Robinson puts it, 'We are educating people out of their creativity.' But it's still there. And unleashing our creativity, however deeply it's hidden, begins with little bets."
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How to Sharpen Your Sales Strengths
By Tony Rutigliano, Brian Brim
"There is no single right way to sell. In fact, we believe there are as many ways to sell as there are salespeople. Does that feel liberating? We hope so. If you enjoy sales, if you're good at it, and if you're finding some of the success you want, you possess a rare ability—and you should celebrate it. You're someone who can do this job. And if you're trying to follow a method or emulating a sales hero and it's not working, it might not be your fault. Who you are is who you should be. You'll be most successful at sales if you make the most of who you are. And by that, we mean using your natural talents—the ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that come naturally to you. "
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.