Category Social Smarts

Peer Powered Board Meetings

February 29, 2016 Affective Leadership, Association Insights, Emotional Intelligence, Peer Powered Performance, Social Smarts, Spirit at Work, Topics, Training  No comments

The biggest threat to nonprofits is not declining membership, meeting attendance or sponsorship.
It is not limitations in volunteers, time or money, but a shortage of “Creative Democracy”.

There are few things more daunting than trying to run a CREATIVE board meeting.  Partisan politics, positioning, personal priorities and the occasional ego often bring progress to a standstill.  It is easy to get caught up in the illusion that these are people problems.

These are not problems of ill int...

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Managing Malignancies

May 26, 2015 Affective Leadership, Customer Service, Emotional Intelligence, Peer Powered Performance, Positive Deviance, Social Smarts, Spirit at Work, Topics, Training  No comments

The story is true, the setting is healthcare but the emotional intelligence, communication expertise and service delivery systems can (and should) be lessons for anyone.  

I appreciate the kind concerns that have been expressed by so many but the purpose of this article is to provide a platform for evaluating your own service delivery systems.  Real Lessons, Real Science, Real Solutions.  It is easy to talk in the abstract...

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Illusory Superiority: The Lake Wobegon Effect

January 23, 2015 Association Insights, Emotional Intelligence, Peer Powered Performance, Social Smarts  No comments

Prompted by the article from NonProfit Times When Board Members Just Don’t Get It my wife shared (she is the brains) I was inspired to add my own thoughts for the purpose of understanding the power of humor in revealing our illusions.  Who better to fill our hearts with laughter while challenging our minds to wonder than Garrison Keillor.

Most of us can imagine his melodic voice as he lovingly describes his mythical hometown as a place “where all the women are strong, all the men are good look...

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Historic Wonder & Organizational Blunder

November 11, 2014 Affective Leadership, Association Insights, Peer Powered Performance, Positive Deviance, Social Smarts, Spirit at Work  No comments

If I were a physician I would prescribe a sedative for the hierarchically inclined before reading Gary Hamel’s prelude to Reinventing Management at the Mashup: Architecture & Ideology starting a week from now in NY.

Gary’s insightful article attacks the spurious half-steps of incremental improvement characterizing current bureaucracies as breeding grounds for “sycophants” perpetuating the past while discouraging innovation and experimentation...

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Are You Poisoned by the Past or Powered by the Present?

October 20, 2014 Affective Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Peer Powered Performance, Social Smarts, Spirit at Work  No comments

I am listening to the Small B!G.  I like to listen while I run and this book is so packed with simple ideas I often have to turn it off half way through my workout so as not to get to overloaded and forget what I have learned.  The best part for me is they are all based on science, not opinion, common practice, folklore or mysticism.  Each idea is supported by research and the results are astounding.  In the same style as Dan Pink or Dan Ariely the authors use academic research to create app...

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