Change

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Avoid Change in the Extreme

The only thing constant in life is change—Heraclitus. With change being constant in life, change is not avoidable through life.

 

With this in mind, denying (the need for) change, is denying life. Refusing to deal with it in the present is refusing to be life affirming in the present. This way of being doesn’t stop change from arising—given its constancy—it only ensures having to deal with it in its extreme later. Continue reading →

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Presence of Fear Requires Courage

Fear is an emotion, a type of energy we all have available to us to help protect us against threats and danger. Thus the emotion of fear can be quite useful, unless of course it is the only or predominate energy that animates us. A fearful person—one largely motivated by it—will likely see danger and threats to him/her self everywhere and in most every other person. Moreover, when every other person is a potential threat to ones’ success toward fulfilling one’s goal in life, then fear of others—especially those not like oneself—inevitably emerges. Continue reading →

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Globalization Delivers

Globalization has delivered, as it was intended, for the 1%. Globalization is not so much a paradigm, as some frame it, as it is a strategy of corporatist. It has preserved the gains of capitalism’s elite upper class by affording worldwide exploitation and extraction. Continue reading →

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A Drowning Class and the Invisible Hand

Whether as a symptom of or as a commentary about the state of affairs of the U.S. economy we hear many (pundits especially) say the middle class is declining… if not disappearing. A growing number of people the state of affairs is quite stormy as they are finding it harder and harder to stay above water, yet for a select few who are smoothly sailing along it has never been better. Continue reading →

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There’s No Substitute for Understanding

In a December 3rd Harvard Business Review article (Rescuing Capitalism from Itself) Henry Mintzberg noted “since 1989, the United States has experienced some alarming changes, for example the massive infiltration of corporate money into public elections, disquieting levels of corruption in business, rising income disparities, and the decline, of all things in this country, of social mobility.”

 

How have these alarming changes come about? Are these the result of outside forces or are they the result of the economic system itself? Continue reading →

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If We Cared About Our Development

A recent HBR article (Why companies are so bad at treating employees like people) by Herminia Ibarra speaks to the need to re-invent the workplace if there is to be human development at work. As Ibarra characterizes it, this re-invention requires “reimagining complex organizations so that they are more human and agile.” The implication seems to be that making organizations more human and agile involves solving the “thorny problem of developing people.” Continue reading →

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Leadership Untainted

When most people talk of leadership what they are really speaking to is the highest levels in the management hierarchy. They are talking about the legitimate authority positions in an organization. They speak of leadership as if it was a noun, a name we attribute to a person or position. Continue reading →

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Our Fires Consume Us

How often, in either your workplace or community or on corporate television news, have you heard questions asked such as who allowed this to happen or what caused that individual do this after the occurrence of an undesired outcome or terrible incident? I suspect quite often. Continue reading →

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Roll The Dice or Cause a Game Change

The worldview underlying the capitalist system requires a way-of-being-in-the-world that has us believing that we each are independent competing entities each destined to pursue as much material gain as one can in our individual lifetime—the measure of life is the material gains accumulated. Accordingly we are led to think of our self and each other as separate independent entities, each seeking his/her own gain—there is no ‘We’ just a bunch of ‘Me’s’ consumed by getting and spending. Accordingly we seek dominance and control over everything out there in order to exploit them in service to the satisfaction of our immediate wants. It is all in the name and game of material self-interest gain and wealth accumulation. According to this worldview the only significant value is material value. Consequently, when value means material value, it is no wonder the reality we’ve created is one of strife, chaos and suffering. Continue reading →