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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
Corporate America's Big Problem: And How to Fix It for Good
By Porchlight
"Big business has a serious problem to solve: most people don't trust it. They haven't for over a decade, as evidenced by compelling research from firms including Roper, Forrester, Edelman and The Reputation Institute—not to mention the rise of a multi-billion dollar watchdog industry comprised of websites, books, magazines and feature films dedicated to depicting the modern corporation as today's most powerful and evil force."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Change Your Thinking > To Change Your Results!
By Tony Jeary
"If you think you can keep doing the things you've been doing and sustain past success, you are mistaken. America voted for change and it is going to get change. Much of it will radically transform the way American businesses function and compete. For example, it has suddenly become frowned upon (politically) for companies to have motivational meetings for employees and appreciation events for customers. New solutions to meet these needs are necessary. Business as usual is unrealistic in our current economic climate. Leaders must accept the fact that success is likely to become a moving target and their organizations must become faster, leaner and better equipped to compete and change quickly. To embrace speed as a strategic asset requires higher levels of clarity about the real needs and goals of the organization. Clarity means that the value and purpose of every effort must be evaluated and put to the test."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Creative Elegance: The Power of Incomplete Ideas
By Matthew E. May
"It is nearly impossible to make it through a typical day without exchanging ideas. Whether deciding on something as simple as a restaurant for a long overdue night out, or as complicated as the design of an entirely new product, we are forever involved in sculpting and selling our creative thought. Conventional wisdom says that to be successful, an idea must be concrete, complete, and certain. But what if that's wrong? What if the most elegant, most imaginative, most engaging ideas are none of those things?"
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Small Revolution
By Linda Kaplan Thaler, Robin Koval
"When tackling problems, we are often told to think big. We filter out life's seemingly insignificant details in order to concentrate on the greater issues. After all, big ideas yield big results, or so the assumption goes. Certainly, no one wants to be thought of as the person who 'can't see the forest for the trees. ' But many times, these very same little details are the ones that can serve as the real catalysts for change in our own lives and in the lives of others—if we only start to recognize their potential. The SMALL revolution asks people to forget about the old ways. To tackle today's issues and achieve our greatest goals, we need to shift our thinking away from the big picture and focus instead on the small pixels. These new times call for a new outlook, and therefore, we must change our perspective from the grandiose and difficult to the humble and doable. By rediscovering the magic within our smallest actions and celebrating the tiny victories that each of us accomplish daily, we can overcome the big obstacles and effect real change.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Ending the Illusion of Control: Let's Kick This Bad Forecasting Habit
By Porchlight
"Many reputable institutions issue regular economic forecasts that are widely cited in the international press. And yet, how accurate are these forecasts? Should we really trust them? [...] In this manifesto, we note the dismal historical track record of much if not most economic forecasting. Despite this reality, however, people still have an insatiable need to issue and consume forecasts. We therefore make three proposals that can make forecasts both more relevant and useful."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Who's Got Your Back: Why You Need the "Lifeline Relationships" that Create Success and Won't Let You Fail
By Keith Ferrazzi
"Behind every great leader, at the base of every great tale of success, you will find an indispensable circle of trusted advisors, mentors, and colleagues. These groups come in all forms and sizes and can be found at every level and in nearly all spheres of both professional and personal life, but what they all have in common is a unique kind of connection with each other that I've come to call lifeline relationships. These relationships are, quite literally, why some people succeed far more than others. There's a good chance that you've already experienced the power and potential of lifeline relationships at some point in your life. Imagine some of the attributes of the best bosses you've ever had—the kind of boss who encourages you, who gives you space to grow, who appreciates your efforts, who doesn't micromanage but guides your development with wisdom, and who handles your slip-ups with firmness, understanding, and candor. Or think back to that good friend or family member who dropped everything to be there for you at a critical juncture in your life and didn't let you fail.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Destination: Work - Thriving in a Tough Economy by Tapping Into the Discretionary Effort of Your Employees
By Harry Paul
"Has your company's bottom line taken a serious hit because of today's lousy economic climate? Has your company tried to fix the situation by undergoing a round or two of layoffs only to see your productivity plummet because of reduced morale and your better performing employees jumping ship to other companies or surfing the internet for job postings on your time? If so, would you like to turn your situation around instantly—as in overnight? If you think something like this is impossible, think again. The secret for turning things around is to tap into the discretionary effort of your employees—get them excited about coming to work and applying every bit of energy, creativity and passion they have toward performing their jobs instead of doing only what they have to do to in order to stay employed."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Before You Open Your Mouth: The Keys to Great Public Speaking
By Nick Morgan
"Why is most public speaking so awful? Why do we subject our fellow human beings to this form of torture when there are so many better things we could all be doing, like cutting our toenails, baking snickerdoodles, or watching re-runs of The Prisoner? You're in a ballroom with no windows in some random airport hotel. The lighting is dim. The whir of the heating system fills your ears with white noise. The colors around you are shades of grey and beige with puce trimmings. You're only awake because you've had 1300 cups of coffee from the urn in the hallway. Let the speaking games begin. It's a diabolical sensory deprivation experiment. Why is most public speaking so awful? Beyond soulless venues and Death by Power Point, speakers make the same four mistakes over and over again, continuing the sorry state of the art."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Hit the Ground Running
By Jason Jennings
"Taking charge has never been easy. New leaders are expected to diagnose correctly, land on a brilliant strategy, pull together a powerful team, and inspire everyone to execute. Unfortunately, long lead times are gone. The months that leaders used to get for pondering, debating, or hiring outside consultants has shrunk to days. New leaders are expected stop the bleeding, decide who's in and who's out, make the strategic choices, and start racking up their wins right away. Shareholders, employees, customers, and communities believe that if you're tapped to lead you'd better be able to hit the ground running from day one. I started looking for a database of dos and don'ts for new leaders learned the hard way through years of trial and error and discovered there's virtually no reliable data available. Ninety-three percent of executives admit that their organization has never kept any records of the steps that led to their best or worst management decisions. So I started from scratch.
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Blog / ChangeThis
Calling All Corporate Couch Potatoes: Put Down the Doritos and Get Moving! Or, How Managers Can Succeed in Uncertain Times
By Jeanne Liedtka
"I am convinced that a good many of the 'survival strategies' that organizations are adopting are just wrong. Tragically wrong. For more than three years, my colleagues and I have been studying a set of managers who successfully grew their businesses in the face of uncertainty and scarcity. And they taught us an alternative path—a road less traveled—that suggests that growth needn't come with a high price tag and lots of risk. Their approach is custom made for today's climate of risk-aversion and limited capital. It may sound counterintuitive at first—and you've got to be willing to entertain a different view of reality to understand it. But once you've wrapped your head around this different worldview—this 'alternative reality'—you'll wonder why you didn't see it sooner. [. . . ] Your biggest challenge is not to find a way to trim another 10% off your work force; it is to make dealing with instability your sweet spot; to hone your ability to leverage surprise and uncertainty rather than just react.
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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.