I just finished reading the book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. During this time I’ve also been paying attention to discussions and exchanges on the topic of innateness. And being in the work preference assessment business this topic often comes up. Our position on preference assessments has been made clear in a variety of posts; we lean toward … Read More
Balancing the Psychological and the Social
This post was originally published in the TMS Learning Exchange – December 2012. We seem to live in quite a ‘psychological’ world. A world where everyone understands the words ‘ego’, ‘personality’, ‘psyche’, ‘identity’, ‘self’ and so many other words and phrases that, in some way or other, have a sense of individual creation and then ownership attached to them. The … Read More
The Burden of Expectations on Experience
‘Don’t burden my experience with your expectations!’ I don’t really know where this phrase came from but I like it! Often uttered with a bit of a smile or an air of lightness, it is intended to bring to attention that someone is expecting you to be, or do something different. You happen to be quite fine currently being or … Read More
The Scariest Halloween Costumes Your Boss Can Wear!
As Halloween approaches just imagine the scariest costume your boss could show up in if she or he came to your workspace asking for treats. Perhaps they might be totally scary showing up with no costume at all but here are a few that we think instill shivers of terror into most of us who inhabit the land of the … Read More
Passion – Choice or Destination?
There’s a lot of talk in the OD world about passion and doing what you have a passion for. So just imagine what it might be like if everyone in the world took this sage advice and went looking to find the work they had this wonderful passion for. You’re probably now wondering where your next meal is going to … Read More
Uncertainty and Shrinking Conversations
In March 2012 we wrote the post Motivation in an Environment of Uncertainty . We looked at the nature of organizational conversations during uncertain times and how those conversations could sustain the choices people make to be motivated. Unfortunately quite often the opposite happens in organizations. During uncertain times conversations begin to shrink, both in quantity and quality. We are … Read More
Content Addiction
This post is about what seems to be a very common addiction in organizational learning. That addiction is to content. The scenario can be described like this: There is a set period of time put aside where some kind of developmental learning is supposed to happen. It might be about leadership, maybe change, perhaps communication; something deemed important. Then whoever … Read More
More Interaction, More Change
Most current perspectives on the future of organizations will begin with comments on the accelerating pace of change. The consequential generation of ideas for dealing with these phenomena focuses on leadership, management, technology, character, relationship and just about any other topic of interest. I think it is very important to make sure we scratch hard at the surface of these ideas and … Read More
Conversations in a Climate of Fear
What are the types of conversations that are the most valuable in organizations when a thread of fear seems to be wrapping itself around us and makes us feel like we don’t want to talk to anyone? It feels like many of us are in this position right now, a climate of fear permeates so many organizational settings, either hiding … Read More
Organizational Lessons – Midnight in Paris and the Tree of Life
Sometimes you don’t need to pay a brilliant OD person a bunch of money to get some really good insights into organizational life. Once in a while you can just go to the movies. For me, watching Midnight in Paris and The Tree of Life in the last month were great lessons in organizational development. As Gil (Owen Wilson) slips … Read More