ChangeThis: Issue 51

The November issue of ChangeThis has been published for your reading pleasure. Titles and excerpts, links and cover image thumbnails below. ::::: Finding Your Howl by Jonathon Flaum "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." Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. Let's Get Persion by Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui "Herodotus, the Greek historian, reported that the ancient Persians always made important decisions twice--first when they were drunk, and then again when they were sober. Only if the Persians reached the same decision, drunk and sober, would they act on that decision.

In addition to using what might be called a second-chance meeting to review important decisions in an unbiased light, businesses should also take advantage of other means of introducing constructive contention into their decision-making... Our research found nine additional ways to introduce disagreement and to manage that disagreement so it keeps everyone on their toes without harming the camaraderie of a management team: 1) Informal devil's advocacy 2) Escalation systems 3) Bets 4) Staring into the abyss 5) Finding history that fits 6) Deciding (ahead of time) how to decide 7) Smoothing out management ruts 8) Constructing alarm systems 9) A formal devil's advocate review We'll look at those nine methods, one by one, starting with the relatively simple and concluding with a formal process that, we believe, should be used by every company before any major decision is made." Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. Today's Trojan Horse by Diana McLain Smith "At least as far back as Agamemnon and Achilles on the beaches of Troy, relationships have had the power to create or to destroy enormous amounts of capital--human, social, intellectual, and economic. Yet few among us can say anything even remotely systematic about how relationships work, develop, or change. [...] If relationships can have such a decisive impact on the success, even survival, of leaders and their firms, why do so many of us give them such short shrift? The answer lies in the outdated belief system that governs how we conduct business. Among the many beliefs that make up this system, four are killers. This manifesto is a call for us to shift to a new set." Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. I Am The Walrus: Lessons In Personal Branding from The Beatles: With A Little Help from Alan Parr & Karen Ansbaugh

"Side One 1. I Me Mine (Harrison) 2. I Am The Walrus (Lennon-McCartney) 3. Don't Let Me Down (Lennon-McCartney) 4. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill (Lennon-McCartney) 5. Your Mother Should Know (Lennon-McCartney) Side Two 6. She Came In Through the Bathroom Window (Lennon-McCartney) 7. The Long and Winding Road (Lennon-McCartney) 8. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Lennon-McCartney) 9. Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me and My Monkey (Lennon-McCartney) 10. Hello Goodbye (Lennon-McCartney) On Parrlophone 33 1/3 RPM" Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. The Attitude Problem In Education by Don Berg "We are losing the potential for entrepreneurial, vocational, and artistic genius in children and teachers around the world because the majority of schools navigate by academics alone. Academic schooling facilitates only a partial liberation of the human spirit. We have liberated some people, in some places, in some ways by making due with the limited academic tools available. [...] Parents today have already chosen to launch their children into a world of challenging conditions. The question is whether their suppliers--schools--are providing the right stuff to get the job done." Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. Being a Gifted Speaker Isn't a Gift by Frances Cole Jones "Despite a pervasive idea that some people are born with a 'gift' for public speaking--and that this gift is the reason they excel when presenting themselves--my experience has proven this isn't so. I believe that everyone can be a great speaker, and this includes you. So what's the disconnect? Why do so many people feel they don't have what it takes to present their ideas with confidence and flair? Thomas Edison said, 'Opportunity is missed by most because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.' I find the same is true for public speaking. If you're willing to put in the time, there's a science to presenting that's concrete and available." Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF.