‘Being audacious and working on big, risky things makes people inherently uncomfortable. You cannot yell at people and force them to fail fast. People resist. They worry, “What will happen to me if I fail? Will people laugh at me? Will I be fired?”‘ – Astro Teller in TED talk on how to build a […]
Dana
Are you ready for an economy that makes wealth a subset of health?
Ecological economist Tim Jackson wonders what our economy would look like if we made wealth a subset of health? This is fundamentally a question about what we choose to “value.” Wealth and health are both concepts that help us articulate value, but one of them helps us focus on how to protect, maintain and distribute […]
Are you willing to lead the herd toward a purpose worthy of pursuit?
There’s a lot of food for thought in the video at the bottom of this post. Still, the hackneyed call to NOT GIVE IN to “groupthink” or “the herd” doesn’t stand up to critical examination. It feels like an intellectual shortcut – maybe even a copout. Our capacity for peer emulation is not new. It […]
Does wellness have to be a luxury good?
“My working definition is wellness is ‘a luxury good.’ And it’s the packaging of our health and our beauty into a consumable for sale product.” – Amy Larocca author of “How to be Well” From Explain It to Me: What wellness costs us, Aug 10, 2025 — According to this feature, our modern conception of […]
Tests should induce “plus one thinking” by helping you see what you have already learned AND what you still have the opportunity to learn
The purpose of testing should be to boost learner agency and efficacy. Unfortunately, many tests actually have the opposite effect, increasing stress in ways that undermine both agency and efficacy. When administered in a thoughtful way, testing can serve as a feedback loop that enables learners to make (agential) decisions about how they want to […]
Who are your organization’s idea practitioners and how are you enabling them to contribute to the creation of your organization’s future?
Every organization needs a few idea practitioners to help them stay ahead of the curve. Unfortunately, most organizations struggle to recognize, leverage, reward or keep idea practitioners… When I read this article about 22 years ago, I felt the authors had identified the role organizational EXPLORERS play in keeping their workplaces, cultures and businesses vibrant. […]
Autonomy is illusory; what you really crave is evidence of your personal agency!
We can’t live meaningful lives without connections to others, but our inter-connecting webs of relationships can come to feel like a web of constraints on our ability to proactively initiate action. This may be why it has become commonplace to say that people thrive on autonomy. Upon further consideration, though, we may be conflating agency […]
The social and psychological underpinnings of the growth mindset
“Teenagers (AND HUMANS OF ALL AGES) are great at goal-directed behavior when it’s a goal that they care about.” – David Yeager, professor of psychology, University of Texas at Austin (added by yours truly;) In an interview on People I Mostly Admire, David Yeager says that his research shows that viewing difficult tasks as challenges […]
The most interesting ideas often come from unexpected places (and times:)
Sometimes if you don’t learn from history, you are doomed to LOSE THE OPPORTUNITY to repeat it;) The most interesting ideas often come from unexpected places (and times:) Around 2000 years ago, the Romans started adding a certain kind of volcanic ash that made concrete self-repairing. The ash contained calcium that would naturally fill gaps […]
You are both 個人 (kojin / a discreet entity) and 間人 (kanjin / a social construction)
Japanese cultural forms such as literature, manga and anime explore many social aspects of individual existence in a way that resonates for people around the world. What does it mean to be a socially-integrated individual? Technology has enabled the emergence of a world that seems in many ways to be much more inter-connected than anything […]