Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation)
there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas
and splendid plans:The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise never
have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising
in one’s favor all manners of unforeseen incidents and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.– William Murray (Member of Scottish expedition to Mount Everest)
Category: Leadership
Leadership is an insanely important discipline. Here you’ll find the thought, tools and tricks of the trade of great leaders.
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Appreciative Inquiry resource
I just stumbled on an article describing Appreciative Inquiry. It’s an excellent intro from the author of “The thin book of appreciative inquiry”.
There isn’t much information on how to get started using AI, but the governing principles and values of AI are described. And most importantly, there’s an actual case story on how AI was used in a community project in the South Bronx.
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Book review: Birth of the Chaordic Age
This is one of Dee Hock’s favourite tricks to play on an audience. “How many of you recognize this?” he asks, holding out his own Visa card. Every hand in the room goes up. “Now,” Hock says, “how many of you can tell me who owns it, where it’s headquartered, how it’s governed, or where to buy shares?” Confused silence. No one has the slightest idea, because no one has ever thought about it.
Dee Hock is the mastermind behind Visa and this book is part autobiography, part introduction to Dee’s thoughts on complexity theory and part social manifesto.
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All you need is… Love?
I’m currently reading Tor N?rretranders’ latest book “det gener?se menneske” (The generous human). It’s all about how generosity and altruism can exist, in a cruel, Darwinistic, dog-eat-dog world. The answer seems to be that the the two basic mechanisms of Darwinism, natural selection and sexual selection, actually favour generous individuals.
This reminded me of an excellent article in Fast Company about sharing your business resources and network. In other words, expressing generosity and, yes, love through business.
And while researching the subject (actually while checking the spelling of generosity), I stumbled on generosity.org where you can find a fun way to practice generosity in daily life.
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Movie review: Startup.com
The makers of this brilliant documentary got permission to follow the rise and decline of internet startup govworks.com VERY closely. We’re there as the idea slowly takes form. As the first rounds of financing are secured. We cheer as the company grows, and the future looks rosy. And we’re very much there as the whole thing goes wrong, and ends up costing the founders their friendship.
This is my favourite epitaph of the dotcom years. See it!
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Book review: An unused intelligence
There are many different theories about learning, but not a single one of them states, that the best way to learn, is to sit passively on a chair, while a teacher talks about the subject in question. No theory ever in the history of the world has claimed it, and yet this is how schools, colleges, universities, business training and countless other learning concepts operate.
This book subtitled “Physical thinking for 21st century leadership” marks a departure from that school of thought and describes a way to ground learning in the body.
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I hear people everywhere saying that the trouble with our time is that we have no great leaders any more. If we look back, we always had them. But to me it seems that there is a very profound reason why there are no great leaders anymore. It is because they are no longer needed. The message is clear. We no longer want to be lead from the outside. Each of us must be our own leader. We know enough to follow the light that’s within ourselves, and through this light we will create a new community.
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Book review: The power of spirit
Harrison Owen is the inventor of Open Space Technology, the most exciting and productive way of meeting with other people that I know of. In The power of spirit, how organizations transfrom he describes what an organization might look like, if it lived by the open space principles. And let me say this right away: If they’re hiring, I want to work there!
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Book review: The soul at work
Complexity science is appearing more and more often in business literature (and just about everywhere else). This book with the subtitle “unleashing the power of complexity science for business success” shows a better way to manage organizations than the old command-and-control way, and describes some of the tools needed to get there. It helped put me on to the “joy at work” project.
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