Posts under ‘broken systems’

A panel of experts on NPR just warned us again that US organizations free fall daily, while developing countries advance emerging takeovers. All through squashing or boosting innovation and discovery. Have you seen it happen?
Invention will reignite broken bureaucracies,  only if novelty  parachutes back into profitable interventions.  Only if your organization reverses tumbling markets from [...]

When colleges cultivate entrepreneur brainpower they reinstate American leaders into competitive global markets.  Yet  university faculty who continue to deliver facts for past eras,  in lock-step lectures,  tend to engage fewer gifted entrepreneurs.  New horizons continue to pound home the message — Innovate or Die! Yet who would’t agree with Rocco Tarasi’s conclusion that:
No industry [...]

Canadian Alanna Mitchell, this year’s winner of the Atkinson Fellowship in public policy named brains as the secret to better schools. Not all agree.
Mitchell recalled a Minister of Education who asked a neuroscientist: “The brain? What does the brain have to do with education?” In my renewal work across many countries I heard similar [...]

Government Funds Promote Failing Secondary Schools
People say stimulus money simply creates new layers of bureaucracy that prolong broken secondary school programs. My question is: How will the White House Campaign to Promote Science and Math Education support teens to climb new mental  peaks?  Will successful schools proliferate through fast growing charters?
President [...]

Written By Ellen Weber, PhD and Robyn McMaster, PhD
Higher Education and Brain Based Benefits

Challenges of Change
Renewal is to the university community today what Renaissance was to the Middle Ages. Both encompass a resurgence of learning. Both tap into more potential from the human brain. To reconfigure university teaching for a rebirth [...]

Wall Street claims that without big bonuses they’ll not attract big talents, or generate big profits. Do you agree?
Wall Street broke banks by trading innovation for greed. The result? Wall Street leaders now fear loss of future talent with lower salaries, while gifted leaders optimize talent to open new revenue streams.
Talent for financial growth [...]

Two days ago, while in Jamaica to speak about MITA brain based renewal, I spotted revival alive and well from a car radio. In a vehicle that transported Dr. Robyn McMaster and I to the University of West Indies, radio guests discussed broken systems in general, and Jamaican policies that got  implemented without discussion [...]

Consider current higher education communities in crisis, where one dean said, We pretend to teach them, they pretend to learn. Have you seen the disconnect between learning and leading change for the 21st Century?
Yet normal brain activity is now observable to show how humans acquire and use knowledge. How will neuro discoveries impact higher [...]

Blogging the goods live from Radio City Hall turned out to be a sobering task if you take Jeffrey Sachs seriously. And I do. He speaks right into the urgent calls for rigorous renewal here at the MITA International Brain Center!
Wonder why so little of the money trickles down to any brilliant ideas you champion?  [...]

While some HR staff complain of too little respect at work, HR veteran, Bill Conaty  won the 2004 HR Executive of the Year for risks he took to promote talent and raise HR status at GM.  He reversed downturns into bubbles, more because of his vision for renewal possibilities, than any call for respect.
In fact [...]

What would it take to renew university learning and draw more brainpower from learners and leaders? We know adult intelligence improves – from MDs such as Dan Siegel, Director of  Mindsight Inst at UCLA School of Medicine, who draws on recent science to harness the brain’s circuitry. The results?
Research offers increased brainpower opportunities that [...]

When government tosses out money as renewal incentives, in hope that dollars buy benefits, bureaucracies respond with inferiority.  Rewards and pay-for-performance practices work against renewal, according to Alfie Kohn who draws from hundreds of studies. Do you agree?
Have leaders of educational institutes removed themselves from the heart of problems ordinary people face? Sadly,  many leaders [...]

When you rev up mental equipment daily to either sink or swim, you discover how creativity and curiosity will trump criticism and intimidation. How then can you experience mental power in settings where no brain is left behind?
One friend and fellow leader Dave Caiazza, put it this way:

Work against the dangerous twins of jealousy and [...]

To renew with the brain in mind is to approach teens and teaching with new vision, diverse tools, and higher expectations for all:

Teens bring unique knowledge to technology and renewal both recognizes and uses their technical skills. (Braden Husdal in Teaching starts from Brain Down)
Repetition is less effective for teens than teaching math [...]

Spot any gaps in your life, where  adventure leaks out like water trickles through a sieve?
Your brain’s working memory leads you to spot faulty traditions at work, or to see speed bumps that slow down progress in your day. But there’s more to change than finding flaws.
For instance,  two-footed questions can catapult you beyond [...]

You’ve likely seen it happen during this economic downturn. He brought her down without any awareness that he undermined her career. She dismissed his good ideas without realizing she excluded her colleague.
Have you seen people damage good relationships, or stomp out mind-bending opportunities, and then appear surprised?

Or have you heard people ask for help in [...]

Broken systems all around us, offer unprecedented opportunities to learn and lead transformational innovations for a new era. Science shows how even a small band of like minded birds can create a revolution and sway the direction of an entire flock. Why then do some people cling to tiny places on sinking ships?
If you find [...]

New York burns while Albany fiddles. News of political infighting, stalemates, accusations and posturing flood us daily, while opportunities for greatness fade for NY. A closer look, though, shows bureaucracy working against ethical brainpower. How so? 
Neuro discoveries uncover organizational problems and possibilities.
1. Secondary schools and universities in crisis continue to downsize rather than reconfigure [...]

Some insist that tenure’s the way expert faculty ensure free speech without fear of losing jobs. Others protest that tenure keeps ineffective people and blocks brainpower for new initiatives. With more campuses being sued, and relevancy questioned it may be time to take another look and what learners expect and what classes offer.
Today, for instance [...]

Imagine reinvigorated secondary schools or universities, designed with each learner’s brain in mind. It’s time for the death of education to become the dawn of learning. Time for learning renewal to reinvent your entire community! If you see past broken systems, or catch a glimpse of talented people ahead, you’ve already spotted the brain’s plasticity [...]