When I was a classroom teacher, there was always a point in discussion where you could sense the students starting to dig in, to commit to a particular hill they were willing to die on. Out came the sophomore socialists to do battle with the freshman free-market capitalists, neither giving an inch of ideological ground or conceding the other side had anything approaching a valid point. It was class struggle versus laissez-faire competition in an ideological death match. There could be only one–one winner, one idea to rule them all.
Read moreThe First Steps in Connecting Our Inner and Outer Lives
I’ve been fielding variations on the question of how to connect my “inner self” with the reality of the “outer self” for going on thirty years now. Like with Ra, it started with friends pondering career choices or moral dilemmas. They came to me because they knew I could help them cut through their own internal noise to find their true voice. My listening to them helped them listen to themselves amidst the cacophony and complexity of modern life.
Read moreWhy Culture Matters in Organizations
If cash is king in financial matters, culture is king in relational matters. But compared to cold hard cash, culture—whatever it is—often feels fuzzy to practically minded folks. Culture doesn’t tend to respond to quarterly earnings deadlines, and yet it is far more important to short-term and long-term outcomes. It provides the underlying structure for what might be possible.
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