ChangeThis: Issue 54

The 54th issue of ChangeThis has been published for your reading pleasure. Excerpts and links below. ::::: The Other Climate Crisis by Ken Robinson Ph.D. "One climate crisis is probably enough for you right now. I think there is another one. This one is just as urgent as and has implications just as far-reaching as the crisis we're seeing in the natural world. This isn't a crisis of natural resources. It is a crisis of human resources. I think of this as the other climate crisis. [...] The fact is, though, that human organizations are not at all like mechanisms. They're much more like organisms. They are made up of people driven by feelings and motives and relationships. Most people who work in organizations know that its their relationships with the other people in it that influence their contributions and loyalty or otherwise. Organizational charts show you the hierarchy, but they don't capture how the organization really works or what it feels like to be in it. Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. This is Your Buyology by Martin Lindstrom "I have spent years talking with brand fans; from obsessed Harley Davidson riders to young Japanese Hello Kitty admirers (one of whom, incidentally, owns more than 12,000 pieces of Hello Kitty merchandise), to devoted Irish Guinness beer drinkers. I've, time after time, been struck by the apparent parallels between the power of religion and of brands over followers. But, in reality, would such a claim possibly hold up? Is it possible that some brands have managed to create their own religion by, coincidently or deliberately, adopting triggers and tactics from the world of religion? The question became an obsession for me." Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. Leading with Agility by Kevin Cashman "Learning Agility, which has four dimensions--Mental Agility, People Agility, Results Agility and Change Agility--is a key to unlocking our change proficiency. In fact, research studies by CCL, Mike Lombardo of Lominger, Robert Sternberg and his colleagues at Yale University, and Daniel Goleman point to Learning Agility as more predictive of long-term potential than raw IQ. Learning Agility is a complex set of skills that allows us to learn something in one situation and apply it in a completely different situation. It is about gathering patterns from one context and using those patterns in a completely new context so that we can make sense and success out of something we have never seen or done before. In short, Learning Agility is Change Mastery--the ability to learn, adapt, and apply ourselves in constantly changing conditions." Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF. The Aesthetics of Management by Marty Neumeier "Okay. Everyone knows you can apply aesthetics to the curve of a fender, or the typography of a web page, or the textures in a clothing line. But it can be even more effective when you apply it to decision-making, upstream strategy, or organizational change. When you use the principles of aesthetics to address wicked problems, you can more easily navigate through the fog of complexity. Aesthetics confers a kind of visibility.

Let's look at a few of the principles that artists have used successfully, and see how they might apply to management." Click here to visit the site. Cick here to download the PDF. Don't Script, Improvise! by Mike Bonifer "Businesses built to operate in the Networked World are as different from the Industrial Age models as a computer is from a multi-plane camera. Networked organizations are more biological than industrial. They resemble their employees more than their employees resemble them. They are highly adaptive, mobile, open, sensitive to their environment, and ultra-responsive. They continuously evolve, nurtured by a steady stream of intelligent input from inside and outside the organization.

In a networked organization, where good ideas originate is not half as important as how--and how frequently--those good ideas become reality. Good managers don't try to control their brand's narrative but, rather, to foster an environment in which it can be liberated, expanded and unleashed across networks. The emphasis is not on following a script, but on improvisation." Click here to visit the site. Click here to download the PDF.