Insatiable – the good, the bad, the ugly (a la Seth Godin)
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under training & development
- Creative Commons licensed on Flickr by: kevin dooley
Seth Godin wrote an interesting post called insatiable (see below). As his posts often do, it got me thinking. I think he got it wrong.
Yes, insatiability can lead to all things nasty if it means a never ending dissatisfaction &/or an unquenchable greed.
But what if we’re talking about qualities like curiousity & a thirst for learning.
I hope your curiousity & thirst for learning is never satisfied. If it is we’re doomed.
Insatiable (the following is a post of Seth Godin’s)
Long-lasting systems can’t survive if they remain insatiable.
An insatiable thirst for food, power, energy, reassurance, clicks, funding or other raw material will eventually lead to failure. That’s because there’s never enough to satisfy someone or something that’s insatiable. The organization amps up because its need is unmet. It gets out of balance, changing what had previously worked to get more of what it craves. Sooner or later, a crash.
More fame! More money! More investment! Push too hard and you lose what you came with and don’t get what you came for.
An insatiable appetite is a symptom: There’s a hole in the bucket. Something’s leaking out. When a system (or a person) continues to demand more and more but doesn’t produce in response, that’s because the resources aren’t being used properly, something is leaking.
If your organization demands ever more attention or effort or cash to produce the same output, it makes more sense to focus on the leak than it does to work ever harder to feed the beast.
~~TGIF- each Friday I rejig & re-post a blog entry from my www.life-lenses.com blog, which is about enhancing our perspective & worldview.~~
Tags: curiousity, learning, seth godin
Not A Happy Accident: How Google Deliberately Designs Workplace Satisfaction
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Business & organizational development
Recognize the colours of Google?
I love getting updates from Fast Company. Not heard of them? Their articles are chock-a-block full of creative, current content. Like this one. Check out my summary below &/or click on the link for the full articlie.
Not A Happy Accident: How Google Deliberately Designs Workplace Satisfaction
“What few in business know is that Google has devoted the same level of intellectual firepower it used to create self-driving cars to discovering, refining, and implementing leadership practices that optimize human performance in the workplace.
Upending traditional leadership theory, which directs organizations to squeeze as much out of people while paying them as little as possible, Google holds an authentic reverence for its employees and seeks to not just appeal to their uber-developed minds in motivating performance, but also to their very human hearts.”
1. Being a great place to work is in Google’s DNA. – from the very start they sought out “organizations that had proven histories of caring for people, driving extraordinary innovation, and building truly remarkable brands.” Google zeroed in on the SAS Institute & went knocking on their door.
Love this! You don’t have to invent from scratch – rather do your research, borrow & adapt.
2. Google ensures people have inspiring work. “The jobs we ask people to perform often lack sufficient variety and challenge. In other words, routine and repetitive work that affords little opportunity for growth and personal fulfillment dulls employee spirits.
But not at Google. For years, company leaders have given every employee–regardless of job title or pay level–the opportunity to devote up to 20% of their workweek to a project of their choice. Typically, Googlers choose to help out on some other company venture, but the pursuit is ultimately up to each employee.”
3. Employees have uncommon freedom and control of their time. Based on some pretty spiffy research (that shows employees who have greater control over their time have better health & performance) – Google gives its employees a great deal of control over their schedules. Matched with rigorous recruitment (slackers need not apply) it means they’re “harnessing energy rather than coaxing it out of people.”
4. Google is a democracy and employees are given a significant voice. – Google listens. Carefully. For example every Friday they have an employee forum & senior leaders respond to the top 20 most-asked questions.
Tags: google
Training & development learning well April blog post round up
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under communication, creativity & innovation, Diversity & culture
If you didn’t catch all the posts last month simply peruse & click what’s below.
Here’s the Rock.Paper.Scissors’ monthly training & development round up for the month of April.
Learn well in the training & development learning well. Dive deep into the learning well or take a small sip. Shower yourself in training & development or just get your big toe wet.
Refresh & refreshing.
As you wish.
- Never, ever think outside the box (if you’re a cat)
- Another view of discovery – Columbus’ view reworked
- The HUMANitarians project; Juozas & Anita make me proud to be a Canadian
- Innovation: sometimes it sucks to think outside the box
Tags: columbus, creativity & innovation, innovation, juozas cernius, perspective
A social media training treasure hunt
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under communication
I’m teaching ‘Transforming Learning through Social Media‘ in Nairobi for this first time this week and I thought I’d let you in on some of the treasures to be found when you incorporate Social Media into your training and development work. Feel free to join us on this social media treasure hunt, which is designed to help you get to know how to use various social media tools.
New to Social Media? A little nervous about it? Haven’t a hot clue how to use it in training and development?
Have no fear, that’s where this treasure hunt comes in. Simply answer the questions below – and put your answers on this Google Doc I created. To do that, simply click on the link, add your name to the next column and type in your answers to the questions below. Here we go.
There are 10 questions that highlight 10 different Social Media tools. Have fun matey – as thar’s gold in the waves that Social Media is creating.
- LinkedIn – is a great way to share events, ask & answer questions & find likeminded folks. For example, click on my LinkedIn profile page and, look under my groups, find out which ones I belong to. Write the name of one of them on the Google doc.
- Facebook – isn’t just something that your teenage kid does to annoy you, it’s the source of all sorts of great things. Take a look at my Facebook page and write a comment below one of my posts. Then copy your comment to the Google doc page.
- Twitter – look at my Twitter profile and look at my lists. Lists are groups of people I follow, categorized into, well, lists. Find my Social Media Twitter list and click on one person from the list. Put their name in the Google doc and 1 interesting thing about them. Having trouble finding the list? You can access it directly here. OR if you are comfortable with Twitter, send me a tweet asking me a question (write your question in the Google doc as well). My Twitter handle (or name) is @LeeAnneRagan
- Blogs- are great for sharing vast amounts of resources and training material. Take a look at my Rock.Paper.Scissors Inc. blog, read one post (any post) and write down three words that the post makes you think of on the Google doc.
- Delicious – is a marvelous social bookmarking site. Once you have an account (which is free) you can ‘tag’ or put reminder words on websites and other resources that you come across on the web. It’s like having a full-time knowledge management person at your beck and call. Check out my Delicious account. Click on one link that I’ve bookmarked (any link) and write down which one you clicked on in the Google doc.
- Flickr – is a photo sharing site. Currently there are some 2 billion photos stored there. Check out my Flickr ‘stream’ (just a fancy word for my Flickr account) and look at some of the photos. Describe one of the photos in the Google doc (or if you know how, copy the photo into the Google doc).
- AStore – (or Amazon store) is a great way to list the books you recommend as a trainer. You can list books by categories to make it really easy for your training participants. See my AStore as an example. Look at the ‘Training Trainers: how to teach’ section. Browse the books. Which one is your favourite? List it on the Google doc.
- Newsletters – continue to be a good way of reaching groups that haven’t yet caught onto Social Media as much. My monthly newsletter are all listed here. Click on one of them and record your thoughts about it on the Google doc. (Make sure you include the name of the newsletter you’re commenting on.)
- Doodle - is a fun online tool that helps find out when is the best time for people to meet. I’ve created a mock Doodle which you can access here. Pretend that we are trying to find the best time to leave on a social media study tour in Paris. Simply click on the link above, enter your mock (remember this is mock!) results, then also enter your #1 date on the Google do. Merci!
- Video is a great way to use Social Media – either ones other people have filmed or ones you yourself have recorded. Below is an example video I shot to describe the Social Media course. Take a look and see if you can guess where it was filmed (any and all creative responses are welcome). Write your response in the Google doc.
- Confused about the various Social Media terms? Check out this crossword puzzle &, you guessed it, put your answers on the Google doc.
Tags: social media
How you define things (including calories) affects your perspective (& your reality distortion field)
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under communication, Humor & comedy
My good friend Roman Rollnick sent this (even though he’s in the communications field he’s conspicuously not on the web, hence no hyperlink).
I laughed. Then I thought about the effects definitions have on us.
How we define things sets the parameters of our thinking. From whose fault it is that those extra pounds continue to cling to magical thinking to our reality distortion field (a term coined by Steve Jobs) we’re barraged by the effects of our worldview.
Language is powerful.
So is how we define the words we use to weave our world perspective.
~~TGIF- each Friday I rejig & re-post a blog entry from my www.life-lenses.com blog, which is about enhancing our perspective & worldview.~~
Tags: communication, language, perspective, steve jobs
The results are in! The good, the bad & the beautiful. Habits that is.
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under change management & wellness, communication
I had fun with this one (thanks to you). As part of my last newsletter, a review of Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit” book, I created an online survey, asking you dear readers, about your habits.
(The survey’s still open so feel free to head over there if you haven’t already. And see the original review & related resources here. Congratulations to Shmuel Gershon who won the draw for entering.)
Here’s what you had to say as of April 22, 2013.
1. Author Charles Duhigg says habits are ‘neurological cravings’ that we can cling to against all reason. What do you crave? 
2. ‘All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.’ William James, 1892. What’s your biggest, baddest habit? (Feel free to dish; remember this survey is anonymous)
3. What are 3 words to describe how you currently feel about this habit? (I made a word cloud from the responses)
4. What are 3 words to describe how you’d prefer to feel? (ditto the word cloud)
5. Do you believe you can change your habits?
6. Enough about bad habits, what’s your biggest BEST habit? Here are some of your responses:
- walking
- sense of humour
- writing every day
- giving my opinion
- cuddling my daughter
- asking the unasked question at what ever the cost.
- connecting with others
- lean to kindness and compassion
- I’m a maven & connector powerhouse
- Taking my time making decisions – also known as procrastination but it usually works out for the better
- seeing the glass has half full
- Prayer……I pray at every instant
- Volunteering
- imagining and learning
- My positive attitude
- Empathy
- spending quality time with myself and my loved ones including my close friends
- curiosity about learning new things
- Loyalty
- hot yoga – a new habit!
- smile
- being kind to others
- Daily meditation
- compassion – inquirying
- Waking up and walking my dog rain or shine!
- Empowering others to be their best.
- good at taking care of my body
- Feeling Happy and Laughing Often
- I try to recognize and affirm others efforts – I do this in various forms, email, fb messages, and not cards. I love to be an encourager.
- try to cook healthy meals from scratch; starting walking club (have to maintain it) started watch my weight and aim to lose weight
- To always see the good in things (bites me in the butt quite often though)
- Always deliver on expectations
- Good self-care
- Creative
- My commitment to learning; I’m a learning sponge
- How good I am at connecting people with resources.
Et voila! There you have them- the good, the bad & the beautiful. Habits that is.
Tags: charles duhigg, habits, power of habit
The magic of washing machines- put in dirty clothes & out comes books says Hans Rosling
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under creativity & innovation, Humor & comedy
- Creative Commons licensed on Flickr by: Ovi Gherman
“I was only four years old when I saw my mother load a washing machine for the very first time in her life. That was a great day for my mother. My mother and father had been saving money for years to be able to buy that machine, and the first day it was going to be used, even Grandma was invited to see the machine. And Grandma was even more excited. Throughout her life she had been heating water with firewood, and she had hand washed laundry for seven children. And now she was going to watch electricity do that work.”
This is how Hans Rosling opens his TED talk. As TED says “in Hans Rosling’s hands, data sings. Global trends in health and economics come to vivid life. And the big picture of global development—with some surprisingly good news—snaps into sharp focus.”
I like his TED talk because it reminded me of a feisty pig that I came close to killing (more about that in a bit) and because it’s a great study in perspective.
He goes on to say…
“But when I lecture to environmentally-concerned students, they tell me, “No, everybody in the world cannot have cars and washing machines.” How can we tell this woman that she ain’t going to have a washing machine? And then I ask my students, I’ve asked them — over the last two years I’ve asked, “How many of you doesn’t use a car?” And some of them proudly raise their hand and say, “I don’t use a car.” And then I put the really tough question: “How many of you hand-wash your jeans and your bed sheets?” And no one raised their hand. Even the hardcore in the green movement use washing machines.”
My favourite part of his perspective changing talk is when he talks about what washing machines really give you, what magic they evoke.
“And what’s the magic with them? My mother explained the magic with this machine the very, very first day. She said, “Now Hans, we have loaded the laundry. The machine will make the work. And now we can go to the library.” Because this is the magic: you load the laundry, and what do you get out of the machine? You get books out of the machines, children’s books. And mother got time to read for me. She loved this. I got the “ABC’s” — this is where I started my career as a professor, when my mother had time to read for me. And she also got books for herself. She managed to study English and learn that as a foreign language. And she read so many novels, so many different novels here. And we really, we really loved this machine.
And what we said, my mother and me, “Thank you industrialization. Thank you steel mill. Thank you power station. And thank you chemical processing industry that gave us time to read books.”
And what does this have to do with killing a pig? I once lived in a tiny, rural, indigenous village in Mexico where I washed my family’s clothes by hand. This was made even more challenging because I had a feisty, active toddler at the time who I corralled with my hip on the ledge of the water reservoir while I hand washed the clothes.
After one particularly hot dusty afternoon, I noticed that the family’s pig had torn my newly washed clothes down from the clothesline & had dragged them through the mud.
We almost had pork for dinner that night.
And that’s my perspective. What’s yours?
~~TGIF- each Friday I rejig & re-post a blog entry from my www.life-lenses.com blog, which is about enhancing our perspective & worldview.~~
Tags: creativity, hans rosling, ted talk
Never, ever think outside the box (if you’re a cat)
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under creativity & innovation, Humor & comedy
As the owner of two cats who sometimes, err, ‘think’ outside the box, this made me laugh.
Creativity can be messy. Disorderly. Hard. Smelly even.
The rewards, though, are oh so sweet (smelling).
Enough said.
(Except thanks to dear friend Roman Rollnick for passing along this cartoon.)
Tags: creativity & innovation
Another view of discovery – Columbus’ view reworked
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under creativity & innovation, Diversity & culture
Perspective is powerful, potent thing. It can illuminate & enlighten. It can also dampen & darken.
Ownership, culture, discovery, holidays – they’re all imbued with perspective, with a particular worldview.
~~TGIF- each Friday I rejig & re-post a blog entry from my www.life-lenses.com blog, which is about enhancing our perspective & worldview.~~
Tags: columbus, perspective
The HUMANitarians project; Juozas & Anita make me proud to be a Canadian
Posted by Lee-Anne Ragan | Filed under Social Responsibility, Travel
Sometimes, if you’re lucky, your path merges with individuals who make you think, bring a smile to your face, a warmth to your heart & inspire you to action.
Juozas Cernius & Anita Vizsy are two such folks. They’re in East Africa to document Canadians doing good work. It’s part of a photographic documentary project called “The HUMANitarians: The Faces, The Places, The Challenges”, which focuses on individual humanitarians, and where their work is felt.
Juozas photographed me (you can see the photo shoot here at the UN, our impromptu setting), while Anita did the interviewing.
(Did I mention I was lucky?!)
Check out the resulting photo of myself, and my partner Doug Ragan, below.
Want to know more about their work? Do yourself a favour & check out cernius.com
Juozas’ keen eye …
And voila, the results….
For more information, please email: info@cernius.com
Tags: juozas cernius