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
Here We Go Again: Leading in Tough Times
By Porchlight
"Have you been wishing for the good old days lately? Or at least to rewind the economic clock 12 months? Leading a company during a slowing economy has plenty of challenges: What should you change, stop or continue doing?"
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Blog / ChangeThis
Passion Manifesto
By Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian
"Words belie the force of emotions. A dictionary defines 'passion' as 'any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling' and 'a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything.' But anyone who has felt passion knows it is more. Much more."
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Blog / ChangeThis
To Criticize Is To Publicize
By Porchlight
"From Penny Arcade to high academia, numerous theories have been posited as to why being relatively anonymous is a breeding ground for 'flame wars' and 'trolls.' To combat the crap, tools like disemvowelers and community rating systems (as featured on Reddit and Digg)can help sift the 'good stuff' to the top. 'Good stuff' includes critiques which are worthwhile. And they are comparatively few and far between, as we'll see. Nevertheless, if you're the target of vicious attacks, you're going to feel it. Contrary to a popular, mistaken approach, I'm not going to tritely admonish you by saying 'don't take it personally.' Instead, here's a fresh path I'd like to take you on, and by the end of our journey, you'll have a revitalized outlook on how to make the best of bad words."
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
30 Days-Notice: Or, Death of a Saleswoman
By Porchlight
30 Days-Notice is a countdown to Aly Hensler's final day as a traveling saleswoman, with each chapter chronicling a day in that month. In a foray into creative nonfiction, we at ChangeThis have the honor to share two of those days with you. "No one expected me to leave. In a world of shifting loyalties and job hopping, Widgets Inc. is the kind of rare place that people retire at, where a sales representative can pull in a comfortable base salary, company car, and expense account."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Brand Bubble: How Business Speculation in the Consumer Marketplace Threatens Our Economy
By John Gerzema
Today's housing bubble and the tech stock bubble from the last decade reveal a widening gap between market speculation and how typical Americans value things. If you thought those bubbles were bad, get ready for another, even bigger one on the horizon that represents over $4 trillion dollars in S&P market capitalization. That alone makes it twice the size of the sub-prime mortgage market. But, unlike other bubbles, the assets that are at risk cannot be traded away or hedged against uncertainty. Rather, they are the fundamental drivers of competitive advantage for most companies—their brands.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Positive Business Manifesto
By Jon Gordon
You would have to live on another planet not to notice the plethora of business books and articles discussing the importance of developing a positive organizational culture at work. The research is clear. Positive leaders, positive work environments, and positive engaged employees produce positive results. However, if building a positive business is so important and beneficial, then we are left to wonder, "Why aren't more companies, more positive?" Why are there not more people skipping through the halls, smiling at their co-workers and loving their job? Why do more people die Monday morning at 9am than any other time? Why does negativity cost companies 300 billion dollars and sabotage teamwork, careers, morale and performance?
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Redeeming Sisyphus: Get Out of Control! Get More Done!
By Porchlight
Walk into any company large or small and you will see employees who are suffering. These talented people hired for their breadth, imagination and initiative are not producing to their full potential. When they leave (and they do leave), their exit interviews most often cite an over controlling boss as the main reason for their departure. Task-oriented bosses under constant pressure to achieve increasing productivity goals rely too often on the "I think—You do" managerial style. Most of us know leaders like this. More of us than want to admit it (or even know it) ARE leaders like this.
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Blog / ChangeThis
Workplace 2.0: Motivating and Managing Millennials
By Porchlight
Welcome to the 21st century. What motivates young people isn't the promise of a distant retirement check thirty or forty years after they've given all they have to a company that doesn't let them have a piece of the pie. The first thing you need to keep in mind is the fundamental idea of ownership. You don't have to give up stock in your company, to give a young worker a feeling that s(he) is contributing to themselves, as well as the firm's bottom line. But you do need to invest in their sense of desire to contribute in meaningful ways to institutions that matter. To them, coming to work is an exercise in mutual benefit.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Open Innovation: Your On-Ramp to Creating a Better Product
By Dwayne Spradlin
For most companies the process of creating new, innovative products and getting them out the door starts with tapping the most talented members of the R&D team. Once they have arrived at an idea and decided it is feasible, R&D moves to determining the most effective way to develop it and bring it to market. It sounds logical; but what if there was a way to reinvent the process and bring better products to market faster and at a lower cost?
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Finding Your Howl
By Porchlight
"To find our howl we have to pay a price... This process may feel like a death and may at its most intense terrify us and at its least unsettle us. This is the price of finding our howl, our own one of a kind authentic voice, and there is no way around it... The only way out of our self-erected prison is to go through it completely. There is no quick escape, every square inch of our imprisonment must be touched and lived through before it can be abandoned."
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.