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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
Righteous Anger: "Mad as Hell" at "Greed is Good"
By Porchlight
"It is easy to wallow in the magnitude of the current catastrophe. But to prevent the next catastrophe, we must examine how and why the fall occurred. After all, the best solution is not to pad the ground, but to prevent the slip—more accurately, to prevent the many slips that culminate in the final slip before the fall. Corporate leaders have slipped, repeatedly. And finally—inevitably—they fell, hard. On us. After so many slips and slides, they should have seen the fall was coming, and done something about it. But they didn't, and so here we are. So, what's next. How do leaders prevent the next slip. That is, what can leaders do to defuse the current anger and lessen its likelihood in the future. The answer is to treat people fairly, and when that fails, rebuild the trust. Sounds too simple. It's not, but it is basic. This is why when the cynics and critics say that that is warmed-over recommendations from the past, we reply: Go back to basics; we know what works. In fact, what got us in this mess were leaders ignoring those tried-and-true basics.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Built To Fade: The Advent of the Biodegradable Brand
By Porchlight
"I might feel good about myself as I sip on a mouthful of 'green' this or that, but this sanctimoniousness should be seen as more than an innocuous behavioral tic. The diversion of attention into a me-brand-good pseudo experience, the holy grail of brand building, is actually part of the problem. When green brands manage to nurture egocentric self-cherishing among its users through packaging and advertising, a fundamental, environmental disjoin has taken place."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Recognition Microscope: Fuel for Human Acceleration
By Adrian Gostick, Chester Elton
"Can recognition be analyzed under a microscope. Categorized here as a business manifesto, you might assume that recognition ROI—what we call the return on 'Carrots'—would be the first order of conversation. In other words, how purpose-based recognition can boost your bottom line, motivate employees to achieve, and create high-performance teams. And, because most readers here are searching for quick, easy to execute applications, you may even assume that a prescriptive "how-to" focus should warrant an initial discussion. Or, maybe even more to the point, scientific research should be presented to qualify the case for the most effective human performance accelerant in existence—recognition. The ROI is astounding. The application is easily trainable. And, now there's global research proving that recognition accelerates human performance to a level beyond comparison in every culture studied—the impact has no boundaries, and the way humans respond to recognition reveals an outstanding driver of performance.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Corporate Guy and His Quest for Success
By Porchlight
For the first time in history, the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world are tethered securely to one big honkin' global economic engine. But, do we really want a life strapped to a high octane go-fast engine? Or is it something else entirely that we're after? "The Corporate Guy" takes an honest look at his life in the corporate world and finds 7 Secrets to Success and Happiness. "There was this young Corporate Guy, And all of him was neatly pressed. All except his Walking Hat, Which was very old, soft and wrinkled. He loved his Walking Hat, But he didn't wear this hat very often anymore. These days, he wears mighty fine, high gloss, spit shine, On his black wing-tip shoes, like Executives wear."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Beware the Gender Trap: Marketing to the Twenty-First Century Gender Neutral Consumer
By Porchlight
"If marketers continue to create campaigns based on thinking that 'men always do this' or 'women always do that,' they are going to fall into a gender trap. In this era of the much more diligent shopper, we just can't make assumptions about how gender influences consumer behavior. Those marketers that do risk irrelevance in a very demanding marketplace. Those marketers who avoid the gender trap and instead serve the highest consumer standard represented by 'women's ways' but serving everyone, will reap immeasurable and lasting brand love."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Do you Market like Led Zeppelin or The Grateful Dead?
By David Meerman Scott
"...Measuring success by focusing only on the number of times the mainstream media write or broadcast about you misses the point. If a blogger is spreading your ideas, that's great. If ten people email a link to your information to their networks or post about you on their Facebook page, that's amazing. You're reaching people, which was the point of seeking media attention in the first place. But most PR people only measure traditional media like magazines, newspapers, radio, and TV, and this practice doesn't capture the value of sharing. To create a World Wide Rave, forget about sales leads and ignore mainstream media. Instead, focus on spreading your ideas. Make your information totally free, with no registration required."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Is Progress Possible?
By Porchlight
"I believe in progress. I believe that our contribution to the progress of civilization is a good measure of how well we have used our lives. Humankind has had writing for about 13,000 years. Books got pretty cheap around 600 years ago when Gutenberg created movable type. The Internet has made access to good ideas almost free for billions of people. So why aren't the vast majority of us happy and healthy by now? Where is progress?"
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Creating Widespread Empathy
By Dev Patnaik
"This manifesto is dedicated to what ought be a mind-scorchingly obvious idea. An idea that every successful company ought to know and understand in their bones. An idea that the vast majority of companies nonetheless fail to get. That idea? That empathy equals growth."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Catching Zebras: Tranforming Your Sales Force by Shifting Your Focus
By Porchlight
"The Zebra concept itself is simple. Create the profile of your perfect prospect and measure all other prospects against perfection. Zebra score every prospect, decide your tipping point and don't go over it. This is the hard part. Saying no for sales people is very hard. Yes is in their vernacular. No isn't even in their DNA. So when we tell you that part of the success of this process is to say 'no,' you'll understand this process will take some inspection to ensure it succeeds. Someone once said you can't expect what you don't inspect. Inspection is necessary for the Zebra way to succeed. You can drag a Zebra to water... you get the idea."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
On the Road from Dreams to Destiny: There's a Monster in There!
By Porchlight
"The lessons I present call attention to all the ways we can take control of our destiny, with special emphasis on becoming aware of our actions in situations that we commonly confront in our everyday lives. We face constant choices. Our decisions can move us forward towards our goals or shift us into reverse. So many of our negative choices and behaviors start in a mindless and almost automatic fashion. Each of the stories I tell gives you a strategy for taking positive action and eliminating the harmful patterns we commonly fall into that are preventable if we're tuned in."
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.