When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. – John Ruskin, as quoted by Nick Williams in The Work We Were Born to Do.

creativity · love · work

I love the Notes from the Universe that Mike Dooley sends out every weekday to his friends and network buddies.  For those not familiar with Mike’s work, his emails are personally customised and written to me as if  the Universe were my correspondent. From yesterday’s email, this is what Mike wrote, inspired by the Gulf [...]

community · leadership · learning · sustainability · values

On the H-P website, I found the following “11 Simple Rules” prepared by Dave Packard for the H-P annual management convention in 1958. Think first of the other fellow. Build up the other person’s sense of importance. Respect the other man’s personality rights. Give sincere appreciation. Eliminate the negative. Avoid openly trying to reform people. [...]

heart · Hewlett-Packard · leadership · love · others · people · service

Which are the world’s most interesting communities of leadership? I work from the perspective that we live in a world rich in challenge and opportunity for human evolution.  The moment is catalyzed and focused by rapid change, advances in technology and communication, globalization, a challenged ecology, and political and ideological conflict. I think that, in [...]

business · community · creativity · expression · leadership · service

Vijay Govindarajan, in a blog post on Harvard Business Review Friday, drew parallels between three elements of modern business strategy, and the “spheres of influence” of the three principle Hindu gods. His parallels are as follows: Vishnu – for preserving or managing the present Shiva – for destroying or selectively abandoning the past Brahma – [...]

culture · inspiration · leadership

I was saddened to hear about the death of C.K. Prahalad on Friday.   His ideas about creating economic growth by serving the needs of the world’s lowest income bands, and about trends in global innovation, seemed prescient.    It’s ironic that the Economist’s survey of innovation in emerging markets, published this week, gave such [...]

emerging markets · innovation · Prahalad

On Thursday I listened to Bob Johansen from the Institute for the Future. He and his colleagues describe the world today using the acronym VUCA: Volatile Uncertain Complex Ambiguous Who could disagree? The forecasters at IFTF predict that the VUCA world is here to stay; it  will only get worse in the future. The good [...]

agility · clarity · future · leadership · understanding · vision

I attended a great day-long seminar today, described as a Creative Dialogue, hosted by the Nowhere Group in association with Henley Business School.  The topic was Building and Leading Cultures of Innovation. The day featured two keynotes, both insightful and provocative,  by Bob Johansen, Distinguished Fellow and former CEO of the Institute for the Future, [...]

creativity · culture · heart · innovation · inspiration · leadership

Thanks to Arie Goldshlager (@ariegoldshlager on Twitter) who pointed me to Dev Patnaik’s book called Wire to Care.  Dev is founder and principal of Jump Associates, consulting on innovative practices to leading businesses.  He also teaches design concepts to students of both design and business at Stanford. I’ve ordered the book. While I’m waiting for [...]

business · community · culture · customers · empathy · heart · innovation · profit · service · value

I’ve been enjoying the writing of Umair Haque.  He runs Havas Media Lab, founded the advisory firm Bubblegeneration, and is regularly featured on Harvard Business Review blogs.   According to his Bubblegen blog, Haque’s  focus this year is on “reconceiving capitalism.” His HBR post yesterday is called “The Case for Being Disruptively Good.”   He [...]

business · culture · evidence · innovation · love · profit · service · sustainability · value