Tag: organizational growth
Transformational Processes
As a follow-up to my post on wild and crazy ideas, I’ve been thinking about the process for transformation, i.e. how do individuals and organizations implement ideas once they are generated. I know lots of people who are idea-generating engines, but their locomotive jumps the tracks or runs out of rails when it comes time to do the hard and laborious work of implementation. There are exceptions, of course, but turning ideas into reality is Read More
Erase and Replace
Being human means dealing with the reality of our own death. As mortal beings, we will all be erased from the earth one day and be replaced by a new generation. In less dramatic fashion, we all deal with the fear of being erased and replaced as a part of our day-to-day experience. Sometimes we don’t feel seen, heard, or respected. And we often feel angry, alienated, and alone in the face of not being noticed, Read More
Possibilists
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” —Helen Keller “Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.” —Golda Meir Optimists believe that desired results will occur no matter what the facts may portend. Pessimists believe that bad results will occur no what the facts may indicate. Possibilists believe that desired results can happen given the right conditions and the right amount of work. Read More
The Second Question
“God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions. Once we begin to ask them, there’s no turning back.” —Gloria Steinem “To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.” —Albert Einstein In the age of sound bites, skimming, and superficial answers, we need to dig deeper for substantive solutions. Our inclination is to find “quick fixes” Read More
Doing the Work
“Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.” —Gordon B. Hinckley I just finished reading five books that gave me a much deeper appreciation of the situation we are confronting. I recommend them highly: These Truths by Jill Lepore Fear by Bob Woodward Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis The World as It Is by Ben Rhodes I chose these books because all of the authors have done the heavy Read More
Grow Grow
“Every blade of grass has an angel that bends over it and whispers, ‘Grow! Grow!'” —Talmud
My grandkids were born prematurely at 26.5 weeks. Ezra weighed a whopping 2 pounds, and Annie weighed a fragile 1.5 pounds.
Caring Cultures
“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.” —Margaret Mead
I’ve been lucky in my life to be a member of many caring cultures. I felt loved and respected growing up. Strangely enough, my team of co-workers in a jail rehab program …
The Constitution as Culture Audit
One of my favorite tasks as an organizational psychologist is to design, administer, and evaluate culture audits. The design process is the most important part because it entails asking the people in an organization to create norms and values of their own choosing. In focus groups, I ask people to share what they believe are the desired and required norms for their organizations, i.e. what kind of work environment would they find most exciting and Read More
Inspiration and Aspiration
“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.” —Khalil Gibran, The Madman I once worked for a company that aspired to be a $10B corporation. I said to the executives at that time, “That may be a good goal but it surely isn’t a compelling vision, and it does nothing to inspire me.” I left the company after two years. Part Read More
Nouns and Norms
I have always loved new ideas and embraced them enthusiastically. I have read an enormous amount about a ton of concepts, and I have accumulated a large repertoire of nouns in my vocabulary. But nouns require action verbs to make them real.
As Bucky Fuller said, God is a verb.
Gauging Gurus
As Lao Tzu suggests, “when a person crowns himself as a guru, he is not.”
We should always be able to ask and answer: At what level are the people we entrust with power operating? In this post, I share my guide to evaluating leaders, gurus, and practitioners.
![[ C ] Chuck Close - Dalai Lama (2005) | Credit: cea+](https://rickbellingham.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/flickr_centralasian_dalailamabychuckclose_web.jpg)
Helping or Hurting
It’s Day One after the election of 2016. I feel sick and scared. Who better to suggest a remedy for our spiritual malaise and existential crisis than the Dalai Lama? In a recent article in the New York Times (November 4, 2016), the Dalai Lama and Arthur Brooks co-authored a column: “Behind our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded.” It seems like an odd couple to me, but their message is profound. They point out Read More