The killer chickens that lay a lot of eggs
Breeding chickens for their individual egg-laying ability led to vicious attacks and mortality rates of 50% or more. If you want more eggs, you need chickens with other skills beside being good egg-layers. You need chickens who are able to get along with other chickens.
Nine use cases for social learning
The best learning experiences aren’t passive. They’re social. Here are nine of the best ways to use social learning to address specific challenges in your company.
The development gap for frontline workers: “We forgot about them.”
Employees in operational roles have access to just a tiny fraction of the development opportunities available to office workers.
The result is poorer performance, health, and retention—as well as fewer opportunities for the very people who need them most.
It’s not fair and it’s not right. The chance for making more of your job—and more of yourself—shouldn’t be limited to employees in offices or who work from home.
Here’s a practical innovation we’re working on to close the development gap.
Self-determination at work
It is a moral and business imperative to close the gap between what science knows and what business does. Here are two ways to do it.
“What profound treasures are hidden”
Inspired by two companies where employees actively seek out, connect, and grow the positive potential of their work and each other. “Give employees space and time for development, and thus give them wings.”
New Work New Culture
Frithjof Bergmann’s vision for “New Work” was bold and ambitious, a fundamental rethinking of jobs, pay, and markets. All of it, he proposes, needs to be reimagined and fashioned from scratch.
Today’s New Work initiatives may fall short of his vision, but they can fulfill his promise of enabling people to “be more alive” at work.
WOL at Vodafone
How a grassroots effort, full of passion and persistence, led Vodafone to be the first company to use three different WOL Methods: WOL Circles, WOL Mindfulness, and WOL for Teams.
The Lindau Illusion
Same town, two fundamentally different experiences. Just based on what I happened to see or not see. I stop and think: If I can be so wrong about an entire town, what about people?
Everybody Matters
When it comes to how their employees relate to each other and to the work they do, Everybody Matters serves as an inspiring example of the way things could be.
Whatever you’re looking for, you’ll probably find it
We have a tendency to label people and file them into categories and boxes. It makes life simpler in some ways, but also poorer.
What if, instead, we were open to the possibility that each person has something precious inside them?
The life and death of Quality Circles
In the US, at least, “quality circles are almost universally consigned to the dustbin of management techniques.”
Why? What can we do to make a good idea even better?
“How did the TEDx talk go?”
“How did the talk go?” I was terrified and worse. Here’s the process I went through and what I learned in case it might help you prepare for something similar.
The HR Director I wish I knew
How a single click can lead to something surprising and wonderful.
The Empathy Test
Every interaction is a chance to take the Empathy Test, to pause and ask yourself: “How might this look from their perspective?”
“You can be a delicious, ripe peach and there will still be people in the world that hate peaches.”
What if some people don’t want your contributions? What if they ignore you or don’t like what you have to offer?
Here are three things you should do.
When you smile at the universe, the universe smiles back
I used to think of the universe as a rational, uncaring machine. If this, then that. And given that our world, never mind our universe, is so large, I couldn’t see how we could make much of a practical difference.
But as I grow older, I’m not so sure. And that’s changed how I act throughout the day.
Touching the treadmill
Want to develop a new skill or habit? Touch the treadmill. Change your life.