It’s hip to fail. Fail fast, fail smart, learn to fail…failure is all over the business and self-help literature these days. It’s as if we have developed a fetish for failure. I’ve been puzzling over why this is, and I think I have one answer: we are reacting to the fetish we have made of... Continue Reading →
When writing plans and proposals I am forever asking (and forever being asked), “what is the strategy?” “Can you send me the strategy document?” “Do you have a strong strategy?” What exactly does this mean, though? What the heck, really, is a “strategy?” A strategy can be a plan to achieve world peace – or... Continue Reading →
The skills-building workshop will be facilitated to enhance effective capacity strengthening and leverage existing resources to implement evidence-based initiatives. Have you read sentences like that before? Bet you have, and if you are anything like me you have probably written a few of them, too. This is awful writing, and not just because it is... Continue Reading →
The frustrating thing about insight is its unpredictability. We all have flashes of insight, of understanding our challenges and their solutions, but those flashes are just that: lightning strikes that illuminate the page just long enough to read a phrase, but not long enough to take notes in the margins. And you certainly can’t plan... Continue Reading →
Just the word “gossip” sets my teeth on edge. It brings back memories of middle school, where gossip was currency and weapon and social glue embodied in a language I didn’t understand, just as I didn’t understand which kind of Guess jeans or Swatch watch was the right kind. I always had the wrong kind.... Continue Reading →
Today’s blog post is in the trash. I wrote it earlier in the week, but it didn’t work. Then I edited it, and it still didn’t work. Finally I pulled it apart and put it back together, but it crumbled, probably from being snipped and cut and pasted so much, poor thing. So I trashed... Continue Reading →
Gotta think outside the box. Every time I hear that phrase I squirm, because who, really, is trying to think inside a box? To be boring, unoriginal, square? No, we want to be free-form, unbound, curvilinear. We want to think thoughts no one has thought before. The thing is, a box can be awfully useful... Continue Reading →
A couple of months ago I started to change my standard first-thing-in-the-morning question to my team from some variation of “how are you?” to “what are you working on today?” I do still ask how people are and see if they did anything fun over the weekend or whether their daughter is feeling better after... Continue Reading →
Bulldogs don’t always play nice. My bulldog is especially bad; he has been indulged, the behaviorist tells us, and believes he is king. My son is working particularly hard to make the dog a better citizen. Together they try to play ball, the baseball-crazy boy and the chew-toy-crazy dog. The problem is that when my... Continue Reading →
Last night I dreamed I was standing in my kitchen in bare feet surrounded by broken glass, calling rather pathetically for my husband to come help me. The dream also featured a swiftly rising river and an old man who lived in a hobbit house. It was a dream, okay? This morning, standing in my... Continue Reading →
Open Door Policy 