Posts under ‘build talented communities’

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 [...]

For years I attended toxic meetings where one guy yammered on and one  fellow worker turned off his hearing aids. It’s the only time I can remember wishing for Gordon’s hearing disability.
That’s how bad these meetings were. People moved back and forth  from bored to bitching, while Gordon slept with his eyes open and [...]

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 [...]

Brain based skills transform online communities in much the same way an afternoon sun shores up  outdoor adventures.
What wonderful strengths enrich any circle with communication and a sense of well being at its center. While many people admit that it’s electric to belong to such an online  group, far fewer spot the brain’s ability to [...]

Great news from GE leaders today,  according to WSJ’s Paul Glader.  Any organization willing to change and grow, after a fall,  also holds potential to create a prototype for global change and growth.  Both qualities urgently needed in the broader business community. Bravo!
Let’s get behind GE’s  initiative and begin to move in new directions as [...]

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 [...]

Daily you see snippets of courage from leaders you admire – through questions asked and stories shared. Courage to embrace mental confidence, and face danger bravely,  remains the last virtue on center stage after you sacrifice who you are now, to embrace who you can become. Have you seen it?
Special thanks for this [...]

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 [...]

Few disagree on an urgent need to increase America’s science and math proficiency in order to compete in our fast paced world. But less art?
Sadly, the arts become an easy target when budgets get slashed. Yet both multi-dimensional advances of art along with empirical rigor of science both challenge and transform high performing minds. Like [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Have you experienced mental power that bubbles over in circles where no brain is left behind? Interactive sessions where creativity trumps criticism, and diversity’s the handmaiden of dignity and innovative virtue?
If so, would you agree that brilliant solutions tend to flow from pools just outside of the prevailing thought – where:

1. No Brain Left [...]

The mark of a successful secondary school is motivated teens achieving at the peaks. Does it happen in your community?
This summer launches Rochester’s first MITA Brain Institute – custom designed for secondary faculty, and poised to reconfigure learning – with the brain in mind.
Participants will create curriculum together to jumpstart teen brains for higher motivation [...]