Nominating yourself to go on an epic journey

Systems thinkers look at the whole, not just the parts. They judge the worth of a system based on its end to end effectiveness, rather than on how efficiently individual parts operate. Ackoff, the organizational theorist, consultant and professor, was one of the pioneers it the field of systems thinking. One of his notable rants was about the fallacy of efficiency. He said the righter we do the wrong thing, the wronger we become. But when we make a mistake...

Nametags are my favorite accessory, but also my favorite analogy. If there is a particular idea, story or experience that needs to be conveyed in an interesting and persuasive way, my default linguistic tool is to refer to it as a nametag. If an idea is sticky and playful and human and disarming, that’s a nametag. If there is a person who makes a small, simple effort to connect with new people in an unexpected way, that’s a nametag. If...

Phenomenology is the study of consciousness. How things appear in our own subjective, direct experience. Husserl, the founding father of this discipline, said that the number one job of the phenomenologist is to describe. To denote any ordinary thing or object or event as it presents itself to our experience, rather than as it may or may not be in reality. What’s beautiful about this philosophy is, it’s wildly human. Because each and every one of us do exactly that....

Motivation doesn't happen to us, it happens in us. Which means the question we should ask ourselves is, what is the cost of inaction? After all, if the pain of staying the same doesn’t outweigh the pain of change, then we will never create a strong enough reason to motivate ourselves. It’s the simple calculus of human motivation. People rarely do anything about their pain until it gets to the point where they just can’t take it anymore. What we...

Not all business is good business. Firing clients is a healthy practice for any company that wants to grow. But it should be done for the right reasons. Like when there’s too big a gap between the client needs and the firm’s abilities. Then it makes sense to part ways amicably. Or when the client is no longer lucrative for your business. Time to move on. Or maybe the client is toxic and has no boundaries and makes the account people...