Ian Blei
Blog Post List
September 3, 2010
This is so powerful that this one single shift will catapult your efforts to improve everything from cost containment to business processes to personnel relations and teambuilding. From a Bang-for-the-Buck perspective, this change alone will give your life a healthy booster shot. Aside from shame and blame having a causal relationship to one another, they have several things in common. For one, blame is as pervasively (and fundamentally) woven into our culture as shame. For another, neither add any positive impact on or value to any problem solving process. What’s worse, they are actually...
MomsRising
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September 2, 2010
Unfortunately we have some very unhealthy fibers woven into the fabric of our culture—unhealthy from the perspective of untold damage with no rewards. Dating back through pre-colonial Puritan days, shame has been a large part of our culture. In a simplistic, black-and-white, childlike view, shame can be instrumental as part of the “good vs. evil” dynamic. If you are good, you will feel the glow of righteousness, if not, shame will be yours. If shame has any value whatsoever, it is only within the narrow framework of an internal “Evil Indicator.” That is to say, when you actually do harm/hurt...
MomsRising
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September 1, 2010
Recommended reading for really getting the most out of this exercise is Hanna Arendt’s essays on definitions of Power, Strength, Force, Authority, and the huge differences between them. You’ll be surprised at just how different they are. Building on the last exercise concerning conflicting/contradicting directives from management, and losing your “best and brightest,” I’d like to address a prime motivator behind much of this confusion: the pursuit of “power.” This isn’t innately an evil pursuit. Depending on your understanding of power, it is both necessary and nourishing to everyone...
MomsRising
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August 31, 2010
How many times have you heard the advice, “keep your eye on the ball,” or “don’t look where you don’t want to go?” In every sport that uses a ball, it’s common knowledge that a singular point of concentration— the ball—is imperative to successfully hitting that mark. What happens when two different balls fly over the net or the plate at the same time? Which do you aim for, or do you hit back and forth between the two, praying to hit one of them? What’s the most likely result? You guessed it: missing both. In every organization where I have witnessed unrest, staff turnover, bad morale, lack of...
MomsRising
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