Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the fifty-fourth issue of CEE News!
Like many of you, I’ve been dreading the angst that comes every four years with the election of a new president of the United States. This year’s election season is embedded in an age when voters are feeling chronically untethered, anxious about an uncertain future, and further than ever from being able to talk about even once-safe topics like the weather.
Part of me wants to engage in dialogue on social media with people whose opinions differ than mine. Part of me wants to keep my opinions to myself so that I don’t lose whatever tenuous connection – and possible influence – I have over people with differing opinions. It’s felt like a no-win situation, because it is. The rules of engagement from just a handful of presidential election cycles ago are different than they are this time.
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Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the fifty-third issue of CEE News!
Chances are, the turn of the decade has you thinking about how to be your best self this year. Doing so likely means taking stock of the rote habits in your life that are causing a drag on your energy. Simple enough in theory. Yet, simple is rarely simplistic.
The 19th century philosopher William James opined that all of our lives are but a mass of habits. Research published in a 2006 study found that about 40% of our daily action is habitual, which is still a good chunk of time spent in mindless behavior. And that was nearly 15 years ago. How much more distracted, distant and drained are we today by our digital lives and full-frontal political polarization? We can binge watch Netflix, try to beat the next level of Candy Crush, or take back our emotional and psychic space.
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Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the fiftieth issue of CEE News!
For the past several years, I have been practicing a ritual each workday morning. Before I open my inbox or look at my To-Do list, I feed my need to learn and teach. I do this by scouring online for what’s been written in the last 24 hours on the topics of leadership, culture, and purpose. I look for trends, case studies, breakthroughs, breakdowns – anything that keeps me updated on noteworthy progress in the field. First, I check Google Alerts, which curates a grab bag of articles from both popular and obscure media. Next, I look at the latest posts on Harvard Business Review followed by The Atlantic, The Economist, Stanford Social Innovation Review and Chief Learning Officer. If I haven’t found anything that piques my interest, I move to Forbes, Inc. and Entrepreneur. When I find the most interesting article, I share a link to it LinkedIn. With practice, this ritual takes about 15-20 minutes.
I shared this weekday ritual with someone who interviewed me for a leadership podcast recently. The interviewer asked me why I made this a priority, and I gave him these three reasons:
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Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the fifty-second issue of CEE News!
Can you relate to this story? Four monkeys are sitting in a cage staring at a bunch of bananas accessible only by steps hanging from the roof. Whenever the monkeys try to climb the steps to reach the bananas, a blast of cold water blocks them. After a few days, realizing there’s no point in trying to get the fruit, they naturally give up. Some humans then remove the water hose and replace one of the original monkeys with a new one.
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Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the fifty-first issue of CEE News!
“The single biggest challenge that any organization will ever face is its own success.” – Simon Sinek
In the third most popular TED Talk of all time, Simon Sinek inspired leaders to reconnect with their organizational why. In just 18 minutes and with a rough sketch of concentric circles on a flip chart, Sinek shared what he said was “probably the world’s simplest idea.” Most organizations focus on what they do and how they do it. But only the most inspired organizations have leaders who start with why they do it first.
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Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the forty-ninth issue of CEE News!
I love this time of year. I was born in September and I’ve always felt a special radar for when the Earth is at the autumnal equinox. The sun warms my back instead of my head. I pair a jacket with shorts. It’s a time marked by change and the contradictions that inevitably come with change. In organizations, September often marks the beginning of the annual business forecasting process. Sales teams are pressured to predict top line revenue for next year. Executive teams sequester themselves to make strategic decisions about product life cycles and market share, work through SWOTT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and trends) analyses, then buckle their organizations up to achieve long-term initiatives and grand strategies over the next 12 months. Managers are left to perform against 12-month financial forecasts in the form of OPEX (operating expenses) and CAPEX (capital expenditures) that reflect the strategies set by executive teams, with little room for feedback and adjustment. This is a 20th century process that needs to change to meet 21st century reality.
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