Month: January 2016

Literally, one of history’s coolest ideas

January 31, 2016

In Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation published by Riverhead Books/Penguin (2010), Steven Johnson examines the origin and development of what is quite literally one of history’s coolest ideas: the air conditioner. Based in Brooklyn, the…

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Why Ken Robinson is so important

January 31, 2016

Why don’t we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it’s because we’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies — far from being cultivated for their…

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Lincoln and leadership

January 30, 2016

A recent Schumpeter column published in The Economist, “Lincoln and leadership,” explains how and why outsiders can make the best leaders — and also the worst. To read the complete article, please click here. * * * IN MAY 1860…

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Stop Second-Guessing Your Decisions

January 30, 2016

Here is another valuable Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review. To sign up for a free subscription to any/all HBR newsletters, please click here. * * * Do you find yourself revisiting every decision you make, agonizing…

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The huge impact of the “small liberal arts college”

January 29, 2016

The quality of education at Beloit College helps to explain why I was awarded a full scholarship for graduate study in the comparative literature department at Yale University. On numerous occasions thereafter, when asked where I had attended “school,” I…

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How and Why Diversity x CQ = Innovation

January 29, 2016

In Driven by Difference: How Great Companies Fuel Innovation Through Diversity, David Livermore addresses two separate but interdependent questions: How can you utilize perspectives to come up with better solutions? And what part of the innovation process needs to be…

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People Artists: Drawing Out the Best in Others at Work

January 28, 2016

Here is a portion of a Q&A created by David Zinger for the Halogen TalentSpace blog, a source for “the latest thinking on how to build a world class workforce.” He is the founder and host of the Employee Engagement…

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Persuadable: A book review by Bob Morris

January 28, 2016

Persuadable: How Great Leaders Change Their Minds to Change the World Al Pittampalli HarperBusiness/Imprint of Harper Collins (January 2016) Why leaders should demand to know whatever they need to know, especially if it is not what they think they know…but…

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George E.L. Barbee: Part 1 of an interview by Bob Morris

January 27, 2016

George E. L. Barbee is one of the original Batten Fellow faculty members (along with Jim Collins, Malcolm Gladwell and Jim Gilmore) at top-ranked University of Virginia Darden School of Business, and has been teaching innovation for the past 15…

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Mini-Profiles of Four Great “Persuadables”

January 26, 2016

Those who are persuadable have a mindset that is both willing and able – indeed eager — to consider diverse perspectives, especially those that challenge their cherished assumptions and premises. The healthiest organizations are those in which principled dissent is…

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