It’s hard to innovate when you have a good thing going. Today’s fast-moving market requires that you create new value for your customers before anyone else does. When looking for sore spots, ask yourself “what It would be like to be the next best that you could be.” Disrupt yourself. Don’t stop doing what Is …
It got cold fast here in DC. This morning it was below freezing. That’s me and my faithful companion, Sita, in the park around 06:45 today. I am always amazed by how she likes the cold. It’s her German blood, I am sure. Her breed is bred to work outdoors in the hills of Germany. …
Learning is a core competency in organizations today. In the podcast mentioned above, I talk with learning expert, Celisa Steele, on new competencies for leadership, the difference between sustaining innovation and disruptive innovation and what it takes to lead for collective impact. When I majored in mathematics during college, I always felt like what I …
I had the pleasure of co-hosting a salon and dinner with Stefano Bertuzzi, CEO of the American Society for Microbiology. We gathered ten association CEOs and a few consultants to discuss the hard work required to move large initiatives forward. The learning environment was like a graduate level class in association leadership. One of the …
I attended a vigil last Thursday, the day before Matthew Shepard’s ashes were interred at the National Cathedral. Matthew was murdered in a hate crime 20 years ago because he was gay. Here in the USA, we suffered several tragedies in the last week, and so I am inspired to write of the importance of …
I had the pleasure of attending the Center for Financial Planning (CFP) Diversity Summit. During the summit, we discussed the lack of diversity in the financial planning workforce. Diversity is a financial imperative. Organizations that do not reflect America will have a hard time attracting a younger, more diverse audience. In this video, I share …
I have long used a Venn Diagram of three circles to explore my purpose in life. You see it in the image above. I recall being told by a therapist once that people primarily focus on just one of these: taking care of themselves, being engaged with their families or their work. And that they …
In the past weeks, I’ve shared videos discussing the conditions of a Collective Impact model. The first four include common agenda, shared measurement, mutually reinforcing activities, and continuous communication. Today I want to talk to you about backbone support, the fifth and final condition of collective impact. Backbone support refers to the organization that is …
Last Tuesday I visited JB Colson, my father’s best friend. My father passed away last November. The last time I saw JB I was less than 4’ tall! JB is a master photographer and helped to create the first program ever dedicated to the history of photography in the 60s, at the University of Texas …
Today I want to talk to you about continuous communication as it relates to the collective impact model. Last week I talked about mutually reinforcing activities as a precondition for Collective Impact. Remember collective impact is an excellent tool for large impact initiatives and should be employed any time you need to unite different players working under different masters for …