Blog
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Blog / Staff Picks
Time for Design
Book Review by Sally Haldorson
I've had a copy of Lee Devin and Robert D. Austin's book, The Soul of Design: Harnessing the Power of Plot to Create Extraordinary Products, on my desk since September. On it was a little sticky note that read, "blog," as a reminder to myself that I wanted to take a longer look when time allowed.
Categories: staff-picks, narrative-biography
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Blog / Staff Picks
True Story: How to Combine Story and Action to Transform Your Business
Book Review by Sally Haldorson
"Metastory is a story that is told through action. It is not a story that you say, it's a story that you do. Every individual has one.
Categories: staff-picks
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Blog / Staff Picks
Brick by Brick, or How LEGO Was Awesome, Failed, and Then Became Awesome Again
Book Review by Porchlight
We have reached a point in time when those of us who missed out on playing with LEGOs as kids have by now had the opportunity to buy the iconic toys for our own children. I am fortunate enough to have experienced the joy of LEGO both as a child and an adult, so my interest in David C. Robertson’s Brick by Brick is all but automatic.
Categories: staff-picks
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks
By Porchlight
Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO’s Quest for Meaning and Authenticity by August Turak, Columbia University Press, 200 pages, $29. 95, Hardcover, July 2013, ISBN 9780231160629 At first glance, Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks might seem antithetical. In fact, consider this from the book’s first chapter, “The Economic Miracle of Mepkin Abbey:” The reason for Mepkin’s success is that the monks are not actually in business at all.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid
By Porchlight
Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid: How Contrarian Entrepreneurs Create and Capture Extraordinary Value by Daniel Isenberg, Harvard Business Review Press, 304 pages, $27. 00, Hardcover, July 2013, ISBN 9781422186985 It is always refreshing to be told that the things you are feeling are the very right things you should be feeling. And that's the underlying value of the message that author Daniel Isenberg shares in Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / Jack Covert Selects
Jack Covert Selects - The Ethical Economy
By Porchlight
The Ethical Economy: Rebuilding Value After the Crisis by Adam Arvidsson & Nicolai Peitersen, Columbia University Press, 208 pages, $32. 50, Hardcover, July 2013, ISBN 9780231152648 We chose Robert Schiller’s Finance and the Good Society as the best Finance & Economics book in 2012. That book explained the role of individuals within finance, the role of finance within society, and how we can democratize financial capitalism to create and best serve a “good society.
Categories: jack-covert-selects
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Blog / News & Opinion
ChangeThis: Issue 107
By Porchlight
Qualities of a High Value Player (or, How to Rise Above the Suffering in Your Work Life) by Cy Wakeman “People have come to believe that suffering is a part of working life. But it is still possible to find people who are performing well and are happy. This article will provide you with some tips for how you too can be a happy, high performer—a high value player.
Categories: news-opinion
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Blog / ChangeThis
The 8 Blind Spots Between Men and Women at Work
By Barbara Annis
"When driving a car, our side and rear view mirrors don't often reveal everything we need to see. We find we have blind spots and have to turn our head so as not hit something. We don't resist the fact that we have blind spots or deny that they exist; we accept their presence and make every effort to improve our vision. We do it to be less of a hazard to others and to ourselves. Quite similar are the obstructions that prevent men and women from seeing the other gender in the clearest possible light—misperceptions we call Gender Blind Spots. [. . . ] Considering the implications in our personal lives, at our workplace, and for society as a whole, it's time for a shift in our thinking. We need to step up to a new level of conversation and begin to include each other and participate with each other more successfully. We need a better understanding of why men and women think and act as they do. We need to see the strength in the complement of those differences. We need to be more gender-intelligent.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
If It's Good Enough for Cars... How Lean Manufacturing Principles Can Help Heal What Ails Us In the Healthcare Business
By Porchlight
"In healthcare, understanding value to the patient customer is too often limited to reviewing patient satisfaction survey scores. . . . Not that we think such scores have no value. However, patient satisfaction surveys are only one tool for defining customer value. Another tool we'd like to see doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators use on a regular basis is following a typical patient's journey end to end. " [. . . ] What we are talking about here is an end to end focus on healthcare delivery processes, which we call value streams, from the patient arrival at an Emergency Department (ED) to discharge or admission to the hospital, from the doctor's decision to schedule a patient for surgery to hospital discharge of the patient to a rehabilitation facility, from application of a patient for admission to a skilled nursing facility to discharge home, from receipt of an appointment reminder to completion of a routine physician office visit. It can also include a focus on the processes supporting delivery of care such as purchasing, replenishment of medication and supplies, and hiring staff.
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
Qualities of a High Value Player(or, How to Rise Above the Suffering in Your Work Life)
By Cy Wakeman
"People have come to believe that suffering is now part of working life, and are suffering more than ever. Tough economic times have left fewer people to do the same amount of work. Jobs people used to love have become overwhelming; jobs they never loved have become intolerable. Success seems like an impossible dream as people strive to do more with less. They've seen good people get laid off and good jobs outsourced to cheaper workers. This is madness. It is not an imagination. But there is hope. In some of the worst circumstances, it is still possible to find people who are performing well and are happy. This article will provide you with some tips for how you too can be a happy, high performer—a high value player."
Categories: changethis
