A friend started a conversation over on Google+ about standardized testing in education. What prompted her to do so was a Washington Post Local blog post about when an adult took the standardized tests and failed miserably. Her point is that nobody should be surprised at this – on several fronts. To me, the most important of the four points she delineated was that “Teaching methods have changed dramatically in the last decades, and it’s entirely possible he [the adult who took the test] was NEVER previously exposed to questions such as those on this test.”
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Education Accountability
A colleague mentioned that he was not able to meet with me over the weekend. He was attending a “Wisdom Weekend” course and would be tied up. Really? Wisdom in only one weekend? I chuckled and made some comment about how he’d be really scary if he had any more wisdom and wondered if he was teaching the course. But of course, this conversation started me down yet another rabbit hole of inquiry. What is wisdom?
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Leadership, Learning, Risk, Wisdom
It’s a problem. Perhaps you were “slow” to adopt to technology. Maybe you really don’t understand this stuff on the internet, e-mail, web sites, Blogs, Facebook and now Google +. Somehow though, because of business or your kids pushing you to join Facebook, you are “hooked.” It’s worse than you think. You now have an obligation to learn how to at least be safe without being paranoid.
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Leadership, Learning, M86 Labs, Malicious Programs, Malware, Scams, Spam, Technology
I’ll show you a DEAD Neanderthal. Our brains are evolving quickly and not quickly enough. We no longer have to worry about deciding quickly between saber-toothed tiger and hunger or choose between the “four F’s” (Flight, Fight, Food and, uh . . . Mate). But our brains are still more comfortable deciding quickly and with having certainty rather than uncertainty. And therein lies a challenge for all of us.
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Brain Bugs, Brain Evolution, Growing Edges
I’ve posted several times on the Fundamental Organizing Principles (FOPs), values and how we develop a personal and corporate culture around them. I also suggested that we need to try and discover where we are in relationship to the corporate culture and “mind the gap,” so to speak. Well, I got called out on this one!
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FOP, Growing Edges, Introspection, Personal
In a previous post, I laid out the basic model for understanding the deep underlying knowledge that drives our lives which I’ve called our “Fundamental Organizing Principles.” These FOPs form the foundation for not only what we hold to be true, but also how we see the world around us and interpret what we think we see. Recent work in the area of understanding the human brain and outlined in several books reviewed on this site (Brain Rules and The Believing Brain) give credence to the proposed model.
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fundamental organizing principles, Leadership, Management, Shaping the Corporate Culture
As long as we continue to only use or heavily weigh our past experience to interpret the present circumstance, we will condemn our organizations and ourselves to staying “inside the box.” As much as I am tired of that old cliche of “think outside the box,” the sentiment is not only true, but critical to implement if we are to survive and thrive at work and in our personal lives.
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Categorical Thinking, Critical Thinking, Leadership, Management
Women are achieving more college degrees than men. Very young girls are doing better than very young boys in school. Look under the hood and you will find that this most recent recession was significantly harder on men than on women. Men, apparently, do not “re-tool” themselves very well. In the so-called “backward” countries, the population’s desire for a first born son is going way down. So what does this do for diversity?
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Gender bias, Leadership, Management, Opinion
Regardless of how I try, I cannot avoid making those New Year “commitments” to myself; even if I don’t voice them out loud. I try to convince myself that I don’t really care about all this year end craziness and a New Year is no big deal. It seems like I’m not successful avoiding the whole thing after all.
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a state of being, Growing Edges, New Year, Personal, resolutions
I’ve been in the Nashville, TN area since the 29th and leaving for home tomorrow the 9th. The trip is centered around visiting with my father and attempting to square away some “elder-care issues” to help my sister who normally handles that work. While I’m the oldest of the four children, Debbi is the oldest daughter and when Mom died Dad moved from Florida to Tennessee to be closer to Debbi. That was a very smart move on his part and my sister is delighted (most of the time) to be able to help him. This trip has put some things in perspective and while I’m sure many of you have already been through this process, I’ll share anyway and perhaps it will be useful for some who have not yet gone through the elder-care process. And, as is my want, I will stretch things to find a few analogies about leadership from my observations. So here’s some “lessons learned” from this trip.
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Elder-care, Growing Edges, Opinion, Personal
