TRY: Forgeting the Pecking Order at Work


IN CONVERSATION: Build Trust by Daring to Show That You’re Human

Q: You were C.E.O. at SuccessFactors, a cloud-based software company. What rules of the road did you set for culture there?

A: One of the rules was about email — no blind copying. And if someone emailed me complaining about a colleague, I would add the person they were complaining about to the email string and say something like, “Hi, Kim, it looks like Carl has something to talk to you about. I really look forward to you guys meeting and figuring this one out.” That sends a powerful message.

An Interview with Lars Dalgaard by Adam Bryant - New York Times

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HEAR: Charlie Kaufman Empty

Charlie Kaufman - BAFTA Screenwriting Lecture

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LEARN: Challenges of Growth

The single biggest mistake we made was growing too quickly, to multiple cities, before fully figuring out the challenges of building an entirely new food supply chain. We were motivated by enthusiasm for our mission and eagerness to bring Good Eggs to more people. But the best of intentions were not enough to overcome the complexity.

By Good Eggs - Good Eggs Blog

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DO: Overcoming Control

Leadership is, at its core, all about influence, which means inspiring others. To achieve this, leaders need to relinquish control at just the right times, trusting others to achieve the leaders' objectives and plans. This is not only inspiring to others; it also increases speed, agility, momentum, and synchronization of processes both individually and organizationally.

By Ron Roberts - Fast Company

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OBSERVE: The Living Company

There is accumulating evidence that corporations fail because the prevailing thinking and language of management are too narrowly based on the prevailing thinking and language of economics. To put it another way: Companies die because their managers focus on the economic activity of producing goods and services, and they forget that their organizations' true nature is that of a community of humans.

from Bloomberg Businessweek

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WATCH: Why Believe in Others

Watch archival video of a Viktor Frankl speech.

In this rare clip from 1972, legendary psychiatrist and Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl delivers a powerful message about the human search for meaning — and the most important gift we can give others. 


STEP BY STEP: The Soviet Coup

...Those who have spent the last 6 years tyring to bring demoncracy to the Soviet Union will now have to break the law to spread their ideas. 

Watch an archival news story on the 1991 Soviet Coup.


LISTEN: Don’t Believe Facebook

Gore did some counting, and realized that after putting about 150 people in the same building, things at GORE-TEX just did not run smoothly. People couldn't keep track of each other. Any sense of community was gone.

So Gore made the decision to cap his factories at 150 employees. "Whenever they needed to expand the company," Dunbar says, "he would just build a new factory. Sometimes right on the parking lot next door."

by NPR Staff

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READ: Should Corporations Be Do-Gooders?

"It is the indirect and unintended result of the actions of soulless multinationals and rapacious local entrepreneurs, whose only concern was to take advantage of the profit opportunities offered by cheap labor. It is not an edifying spectacle; but no matter how base the motives of those involved, the result has been to move hundreds of millions of people from abject poverty to something still awful but nonetheless significantly better."

by Adam Ozimek - The Atlantic

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