At the end of a 4-day immersive leadership program for senior managers, energy in the room was high. Everybody was excited about heading back to work with new approaches, tools and commitments to being the best leaders possible. Only a few hours later at the airport, I spotted John, one of the participants, at the check-in counter. He was in the midst of a heated argument with a member of the airline staff. His flight had been canceled while he needed to urgently get home to

Excited to have stumbled across this amazing article from my alma mater UC Berkeley. It suggests that we can nurture the growth of empathy throughout our lives—and we can use it as a radical force for social transformation. Research in sociology, psychology, history—and Roman's own studies of empathic personalities over the past 10 years—reveals how we can make empathy an attitude and a part of our daily lives, and thus improve the lives of everyone around us. Here are the Si

Your memories of the good old days are rarely accurate. We often cherry pick the details that fit a positive story of the past. We recall the camaraderie of our first great job out of college, but not the stressful deadlines that forged those close bonds. Nostalgia is one of fantasy’s many traps. And yet, applied wisely, nostalgia is a powerful tool of self-leadership. In the face of hard times, looking back with nostalgic thinking is sometimes exactly what you need to locate

Culture is like the wind. It is invisible, yet its effect can be seen and felt. When it is blowing in your direction, it makes for smooth sailing. When it is blowing against you, everything is more difficult. But culture change can’t be achieved through top-down mandate. Someone with authority can demand compliance, but they can’t dictate optimism, trust, conviction, or creativity. Culture Change requires a Movement, but how exactly do you create one? Read more...

It’s a natural human reaction to shy away from disagreeing with a superior. “Our bodies specialize in survival, so we have a natural bias to avoid situations that might harm us,” says Joseph Grenny. What do you say when you disagree with someone who has more power than you do? How do you decide whether it’s worth speaking up? And if you do, what exactly should you say? Find out about the DOs and DONTs here. Read more...

Although productive conflict is a hallmark of high-performing teams, many teams struggle to communicate dissenting opinions without triggering resistance and defensiveness. They fall into unproductive conflict by invalidating one another as they argue. When you’re in the middle of conflict, how you can validate the person you’re trying to discredit is probably the last thing you’re thinking about. You’re not modeling openness and curiosity; you’re retrenching and focused on p

The new Behavioral Economics Guide is out and it is FANTASTIC! The articles present the latest research results and many real world case examples. 175 pages of good stuff, that can be broken down into bite size chunks of 3-4 page articles. Read about how decision making in groups actually defects outcome and how decisions are improved despite groupthink bias. Explore how behavioral economics shapes our everyday lives. Understand how behavioral economics can explain brand loya

The latest issue of the Mobius Strip features articles from a variety of faculty at this year's Next Practice Institute. These succinctly present topics like "Using the Winning From Within Methodology" for transformational change with groups and individuals (by Erica A. Fox), insight into Integrated Family Systems Therapy (by Dick Schwartz) or an introduction to Mystical Principles (by Thomas Huebl). Find it here...

Amy just put this beautiful map together. It summarizes the fields of research that we investigated at the 2017 NPI to understand Next Practice of personal and organizational development. Never before seen it layed out so nicely.

Neuroscience showed: With cognitive empathy, we can understand the perspective of another person and the forces that informed that perspective. With emotional empathy, we pick up on the feelings of another person through verbal and nonverbal cues, and experience what they are feeling. But does having these types of empathy truly improve a leaders's performance? Read more...