ChangeThis
ChangeThis is our weekly series of essays from today's thought leaders that are meant to evoke conversation by bringing forth new and unique ideas.
ChangeThis
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Why Grit is The New Black
By Linda Kaplan Thaler, Robin Koval
"Emerging research proves, beyond a doubt, that grit is the most accurate predictor of success in achieving life goals. Yet grit is often seen as a rather antiquated, 19th century ideal, equated more with methodical stick-to-itiveness and survival than the secret sauce to success. But the truth is, grit is about sweat, not swagger, character, not charisma. Grit is the result of a hard-fought struggle, a willingness to take risks, a passionate pursuit of one's goals, and the perseverance to continue against all odds. And the best part of grit is that anyone can develop and nurture it, whether you're eight or eighty-eight. Even Pablo Casals, one of the world's most acclaimed cellists, when asked why at age 93 he still practiced several hours a day, thoughtfully replied, 'I'm beginning to notice some improvement.'"
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Solving The Wrong Problems: Why Behaviors Don't Change In Organizations
By Porchlight
"To change behaviors in organizations, reorient to a different set of problems. Discussions of behavioral change fall prey to viewing things on a distinctly individualistic level, or through the traditional lenses of systems, structures and processes. Yet this isn't how people really work. Continually, leaders fail to recognize that organizations are dynamic social systems with webs of expectations occurring on a very local level. As a result of this failure, corporations are condemned to a merry-go-round of ineffective change initiatives. While policies, systems and processes change, people's expectations of one another don't. These day-to-day, unwritten expectations tend to be much stronger drivers of what actually gets done in organizations. This web of implicit expectations and ways of working conspires against organizational evolution."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Self-Disruptor's Manifesto
By Porchlight
"All disruption starts with introspection. Self-disruption is akin to undergoing major surgery, but you are the one holding the scalpel. Most people avoid this painful process because they are not willing to risk what they have built for the opportunity to have something better. When I travel the world speaking at conferences, I ask people one key question: Are you really living life or just paying bills until you die. To thrive in this era of endless innovation, we all need a better understanding of our own internal value chains—how we view ourselves and how we interpret our personal strengths—is at the core of all external success. I have applied these insights to raising over $800 million for startup companies as well as launching new businesses in billion-dollar industries as diverse as telecommunications, music, and ecommerce. I didn't go to the right schools or know the right people, but I did learn how to disrupt my own belief systems to be able to reposition myself to take advantage of new opportunities and achieve success.
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Blog / ChangeThis
Thinking Our Way Out of the Darkness
By Angie McArthur
"The most significant gift our species brings to the world is our capacity to think. The most significant danger our species brings to the world is our inability to think with those who think differently. It is clear that to stay competitive in our global economy, we must learn how to think collaboratively and innovatively. But if you have ever sat through a mind-numbing meeting or tried to influence a colleague's view on a project or had a recurring argument with a family member or struggled to participate in a community project, you have recognized that most of us actually don't know how to think well together. We take for granted that intelligence occurs within our own minds. We don't realize that it also occurs between us. What keeps us from tapping into that intelligence and communicating effectively is that most of us don't know how to think with people who think differently than we do. We habitually misread people and therefore miscommunicate with them."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Social Drive: How You Can Create Positive Change, Right Now
By Paul Shoemaker
"I don't want to do anything to deter anyone from believing there is power in the group, in the network. But it also seems like there is a lot of rhetoric the last few years against the power of one person, against 'hero worship.' Don't get me wrong—I'm not a fan of false, egotistical, self-centered 'heroes' either. But I do believe that the positive social impact one person can create has never been clearer, stronger, and more urgent. Let me explain... "
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Do Something YOU Love: Design Your Ideal Life
By Porchlight
"70% of people in the workplace in the United States are either not engaged, or are actively disengaged. This results in $450-$550 billion dollars annually in lost profitability, growth, productivity, customer satisfaction, and employee retention. [...] In spite of the millions of dollars now being spent by companies on improving engagement, and the hoards of consultants who have 'the answer,' whether that is better employee selection or better managers, the reality is that none of those are really making a dent in the problem. There has to be a better way. I believe there is a better way."
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How To Be More Valuable Than Machines: Developing Our Most Essential Human Abilities to Survive the Rise of Computers
By Geoff Colvin
"What I urgently want you to understand is that we're entering an era in which the skills that make you valuable are not only changing—they comprise a fundamentally different kind of skills from those that have made people economically valuable up to now. As the economy is transformed, some people will do great, and plenty of others will suffer. The winners will be those who conceive of skills and value in a fundamentally new way, different from what we're used to."
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We Are All a Bit Delusional
By Kieran Flanagan
"Unfortunately, most of us can't be above average—the math just doesn't work. Now clearly, some people are aware that we're below average in some areas of our lives, some may even believe that we're below average on the whole, but overwhelmingly, human beings are a little delusional when it comes to their conception of their own competence. [...] This translates to the expectations we place on other people too. In our experience, every CEO or leader we work with extols the virtues of their team. 'We've got the best team in the industry,' they'll often say. Of course, this is pretty unlikely. What they might have is the best team they could afford given the time and budget they've invested in finding them and developing them. So our delusion is wide spread and for most of us, invisible and unconscious. So what drives this delusion? What does it cost us? And how can we avoid it?"
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A Manifesto for Planet and Progeny
By Henry Mintzberg
"Marx and Engels wrote in their Communist Manifesto of 1848 that 'A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism,' which 'the Powers of old Europe' were determined to 'exorcise.' This dogma was exorcised in Eastern Europe in 1989, only to be replaced by another one. Today the world is haunted by the spectre of an 'economic man' and his form of capitalism, seen as the be all and end all of human existence. We shall have to stop the be all before it becomes the end all—of our planet and our progeny."
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Jars of Clay: Solving the Water Crisis in Guatemala
By Porchlight
"In the high country of Guatemala, you'll find a self-proclaimed 'Social-preneur' CEO with degrees from Notre Dame and Wharton Business School who is on a mission to solve perhaps the biggest problem Guatemalans face in their everyday lives: unsafe drinking water. And, to accomplish that goal, this modern thinking business leader is using technology used by the ancient Romans, Egyptians, and Mayans, who laboriously used large clay water receptacles that were used to store fresh drinking water. These early versions of the modern filter took a terribly long time to manufacture and it was virtually impossible (and certainly impractical) to replicate on a large enough scale to solve a countrywide water filtration problem. But, after a Guatemalan professor discovered how to efficiently build a modern version of those receptacles and turn them into effective and culturally accepted water filters in a fraction of the time, opportunity came knocking for Ecofiltro CEO Philip Wilson and his company.
Categories: changethis
The original idea behind ChangeThis came from Seth Godin, and was built in the summer of 2004 by Amit Gupta, Catherine Hickey, Noah Weiss, Phoebe Espiritu, and Michelle Sriwongtong. In the summer of 2005, ChangeThis was turned over to 800-CEO-READ. In addition to selling and writing about books, they kept ChangeThis up and running as a standalone website for 14 years. In 2019, 800-CEO-READ became Porchlight, and we pulled ChangeThis together with the rest of our editorial content under the website you see now. We remain committed to the high-design quality and independent spirit of the original team that brought ChangeThis into the world.