Human Rights
Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?
In small places, close to home…
Managing Meetings
Solid, basic advice on better business meetings from a business psychologist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business is here in a column Reid Hastie wrote for the New York Times. Key pointers:
- Set Explicit Objectives
- Consider Opportunity Costs
- Grade the Convener
I would add:
- Use a Professional Facilitator (If the stakes are high enough).
Good advice for any son or daughter
This above all:
to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow,
as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be
false to any man.
–Lord Polonius’s advice to his son,
Laertes, who is departing for France
from Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Act 1. Scene III.
Another reason you need an executive coach
A skilled executive coach always brings the client two things. First, help for the client to see him or her self as others do. 360 interviews are great for this. Second, an awareness of and facility with the “lenses” we all use to perceive and interpret the world. Studies from a top business school demonstrate the vital importance of both.
Much of everyday behavior is directed toward understanding, responding to, or attempting to change how we are seen by the people around us. We can be easily led astray, however, by common errors in these perceptions. New research shows us that when we want to better understand how others see us, we should start by changing (more…)
Twitter Log IV
I use Twitter to share brief daily messages. You can have them delivered to your cell phone by text message (SMS) or view them when you visit your free Twitter web page. Create a Twitter account and “follow” TonyMayo.
Here are my recent tweets (messages):
Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices. — Benjamin Franklin
Men, said the Devil, are good to their brothers: they don’t want to mend their own ways, but each others’. — Piet Hein
Tackle big tasks in small bits: an elephant CAN pass (more…)
The Holotropic Mind
I recommend The Holotropic Mind to two audiences: the scientifically minded willing to follow solid research wherever it goes and the New Age enthusiast willing to explore a radical theory which seeks to explain a wide range of occult phenomenon, from pre-birth memories to ESP to life-after-death.
Dr. Grof is a skilled psychiatrist and researcher with solid academic credentials in the US and Europe. He was one of the first to experiment with (more…)
Creating the Organization’s Values & Vision
I tell my CEO executive coaching clients, prior to the executive offsite, that the CEO can dictate the values statement, perhaps with some team input on word choice. If the organization’s stated values are not entirely consistent with the CEO’s personal values you are in for a rough ride. The CEO must embody and have an emotional commitment to the vision, so it largely comes directly out of him or her, too. I like to start the offsite at a dinner where the CEO clearly and emotionally states the values and vision. Then, with those guideposts, the team can get to work on strategy, tactics, milestones, etc.
A question naturally emerges when I suggest this sequence: what about the executives who do not share the CEO’s values or vision? This helps smoke them out early and by “out,” I mean resigning from the company. Any compromise on values is a step into the abyss, what Bion called “non-work.”
Goal Setting Works
There have been more than 110 goal setting experiments conducted in the laboratory and in organizations in just the last twelve years. Ninety percent of these studies obtained positive results for goal setting. This makes goal setting one of the most dependable and robust techniques in all the motivational literature. … A recent study of high and low productivity … found that goal setting and deadlines were the single most frequently mentioned causes of … high productivity. [page 6]
Goal Setting: A Motivational Technique That Works!
by Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham
See also Managing Yourself with Specific Measurable Results, on this blog.
The Way of Transformation
The man who, being really on the Way, falls upon hard times in the world will not, as a consequence, turn to that friend who offers him refuge and comfort and encourages his old self to survive.
Rather, he will seek out someone [Editor’s Note: perhaps an executive coach] who will faithfully and inexorably help him to risk himself, so that he may endure the suffering and pass courageously through it, thus making of it a raft that leads to the far shore.
Only to the extent that man exposes himself over and over again to (more…)
Gratitude – The Secret to Getting Back Up
Gratitude changes your life for the better.
Gratitude – The Secret to Getting Back Up©
By David J. Pollay
Greater Good Magazine, founded by Dacher Keltner, a California-Berkeley psychologist and highly regarded researcher, recently dedicated an entire issue to gratitude. The Summer 2007 issue is entitled, Building Gratitude.
Increasing your gratitude is good for you and for the people around you. Gratitude changes your life for the better.
Gratitude Researcher, Robert Emmons, author of Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier, made the case by (more…)
Brain Rules: Use your head
“Tiny proteins called BDNF are created when you exercise and act like Miracle Grow for your brain”
–Dr. John J. Medina
University of Washington School of Medicine
Our next President agrees, “Physical fitness yielded mental fitness, Obama decided, and the two concepts have been married in his mind ever since.” Washington Post 2008 12 25
See also, my post Take a Hike!
005 Managing Yourself with Specific Measurable Results • PODCAST
Free Subscription: RSS
For more than twenty years, I have led groups and individuals through a powerful goal-setting process with astonishing results: marriages, career changes, doubled incomes, published books, and more.
The two downloads linked from this post include all you need. Use the Specific Measurable Results (SMR) Kit workbook and podcast to follow the same planning method my executive coaching clients have long employed. Like them, you can create a (more…)
A Special Gift
We know it’s just another day
that comes around each year.
But something special happens then
that makes this time so dear.
We smile at others as they pass
a child’s eyes wide with wonder
The wreaths and holly hanging everywhere
might e’en take time to ponder.
The time does come but once a year
bringing happiness and joy.
The season is for (more…)
Dawn of a New Era
We are at that very point in time when a 400-year-old age is dying and another is struggling to be born–a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of individuality, liberty, community, and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed.
…
Through the years, I have greatly feared and sought to keep at bay the four beasts that (more…)
Your Brain on Music
Singing and dancing have been shown to modulate brain chemistry, specifically levels of dopamine, the “feel good” neurotransmitter. Our species uses music and dance to express various feelings: love, joy, comfort, ceremony, knowledge and friendship. And each one is distinct and widely recognized within cultures. Love songs cause us to move slowly and fluidly, for example, while songs of joy inspire us to dance in a full-body aerobic way.
–Daniel J. Levitin
Professor of psychology and music
McGill University
The Science of a Human Obsession.
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