Posts under ‘change direction’

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 [...]

Over 30 years  in brain based renewal,  showed me several reasons why renewal cannot win in certain workplace conditions. I’ll admit that naivety in  younger years, prompted me to believe deteriorated settings could turn around in spite of barriers. Over time though, I observed some settings that simply cannot perk up  because organizational toxins contaminate [...]

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 [...]

Ever notice how Thanksgiving and Christmas tend to bring out blues in some and blessings in others? Or how lonely people see vast spaces between themselves and others – even at festive  holiday tables?
First glances  show people blessed with close family and  friends feel blessed over holidays while those alone feel abandoned. Not so. Loneliness [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

School prepared many of us for jobs that no longer exist, and now life prepares some of us for jobs we’ll invent.
Feel unqualified for work you hope to do in the coming year?  No reason to fret if you consider your choices. Why not factor in  the art of learning, for instance,  and transform your [...]

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 [...]

Have you every thought of practicing to be a genius at anything? Several gurus in intelligence, claim that endurance and hard work get higher grades than raw intelligence scores from IQ tests. Do you agree?  Einstein claimed he was no more intelligent than others – but he stayed with problems longer. You?
Ericsson calls this the [...]

What makes MITA renewal so different from other top leadership and learning improvement models?

Thanks to Dr. Robyn McMaster’s masterful handiwork with cameras and talented online solutions, we’re able to carry on the MITA renewal conversation I’d been looking forward to for some time. Hope you’ll jump in to share your renewal stories, so we can [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

It’s said that many people want change yet far fewer risk changing what they do.
That incongruity makes sense if you think about how it seems easier to change somebody else, than to face the fear or discomfort that holds you back from attempting new approaches.
Unfortunately, even personal reflections can act against adjusting for a finer [...]

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 [...]