Posts under ‘curiosity’

Did Tiger Woods refuse questions yesterday for the same reason others run from poisonous darts? Fact is, questions alter brainpower up or down.
Ask one question, and stir brain chemicals for innovation. Ask another and  short-circuit electrical wiring for mental blackouts. We rewire our collective brainpower through questions that stir curiosity or stomp out intelligence and [...]

Before you pony up $50,000 or more for an MBA degree, it makes sense to check out what you can expect back for your investment. Recession begs us to rethink business schools, and to consider if the value of degrees have plummeted along with home prices and salaries. As Joe Gerstandt reminds us we need [...]

Hello friends and colleagues!

Please join me over at wonderfully motivating community led by Huffington Post writer, Gail Goodwin, on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at InspireMeToday.com!
On Monday, the 18th I’ll share invited insights from my experiences in an exclusive 500-word article – Act Like a Genius – on the best things learned in life full [...]

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 [...]

The human brain comes with unique equipment to build and sustain innovative cultures, where design leads to profitability. How so?
1.  Kindle and design an idea. Just as the iPod started with an innovative  idea,  Steve Jobs and others continue to design Apple products that revolutionize communication. Fast Company celebrated the last decade’s 14 biggest such [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Whenever I teach Executive MBA Leadership or Organizational Management courses, the brightest students ask why so few leaders facilitate innovation for a new era. Failure to inspire innovative minds, or clinging to leadership ruts that sunk our yesteryears can only keep universities in crisis, and do little to boost business. It doesn’t have to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

The New Haven Fire Department destroyed test results of white firefighters who scored higher than African Americans to allow promotions among black firefighters. This troublesome case, and research proofs that high stakes tests don’t work,  raises the question How can tests garner more intelligence-fair results?

This serious case also opens an opportunity to identify the [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]