Articles

I have a friend from the U.S. who was recently touring Tokyo on foot. He had an expensive camera that he was carrying around his neck, but as he entered a museum, he was told he couldn’t take it in. He looked around for a locker or some guarded place to put it, but the man taking tickets motioned for him to put it on a shelf across the room ...

Most of us like to win, yet our beliefs about winning are posing a huge risk to our organizations. We believe that winning requires that we make someone else lose. This means that in order to win, we actively harm the other players or at least ensure that we don’t help them, even when helping them would benefit a greater cause. We teach this mode of winning to ...

It was Friday evening and we were gathering for a class on systems thinking at a local university. As we took our seats in the U-shaped desk formation, we peered over our desks to view an odd array of paraphernalia in the center of the room. There were two plastic matts, side-by-side, each about 2 feet wide by 20 feet long, that looked like racetracks. Both matts had about two ...

We’ve all heard the adage that you can’t solve problems with the same consciousness that created them. However, we don’t hear enough about how to move to a consciousness that would solve the problems currently plaguing our businesses and societies. The movement has to start with examining our beliefs,
as everything else flows from beliefs.

Belief as the Foundation of Our Experience

By way of definition, a belief system is an ...

In all the years the U.S. society has tried to enact legislation to control conduct, we’ve never gotten it right. Instead, we’ve put in laws that are often overbearing and choking us, and at the same time, they haven’t protected people from harm. I invite you to look at the situation in a novel way, which will point to a more simple and elegant solution.

The Problem

Let’s take the ...

We’re smarter and more creative when we’re in a positive mood, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore negative emotions. In fact, learning to skillfully experience fear and negative emotions is crucial to keeping our mood positive. In contrast, resistance to negative emotions literally backfires and makes them more prevalent.

Choose Your Focus

You may have heard the phrase “what you resist persists”. When you resist an emotion, ...

I want all people to have adequate health care, but I never say “people have a right to health care”. I know that stating it this way will make it less likely to happen. Instead I say “I have a responsibility to help ensure that people have adequate health care”. Stating it this way makes it much more likely to come about. The former statement makes people feel weak and ...

I take part in lots of discussion groups where we banter about how to fix the economic issues that most nations are facing. We all feel the need to become passionate and rally around some cause, but the problem is we can’t find a valid cause to rally around. The Occupy Wall Street movement is a great example. We say the greedy 1% are the problem, but we’re unable to specify what we want these greedy people to do differently. ...

It’s widely known that employees are increasingly less engaged in their work. This is especially a problem in more developed societies. It’s frustrating to me that these statistics keep getting worse yet we’re not taking action to correct the situation. I think disengagement is at the heart of the economic crisis, because disengaged workers are content to stand by as corporations falter. Capitalism cannot be strong when employees are uninspired, so let’s take the steps necessary to excite them.

Looking for Meaning

Our ...

As leaders, we need to know what’s going on with our teams and employees. Are they facing major obstacles? Is their rational thinking overridden with fear? They’re not always willing to say they need help, as they may perceive it as a sign of weakness or they may believe there will be negative repercussions. Now science is showing us how to read the emotions of other people, so we can proactively offer help.

Taking Empathy to the Next Level

Empathy is the ...