Goals
New Year – New You? Or True You?
I admit it. There have been many years in which I vowed to be someone different, starting January 1st. Some
I admit it. There have been many years in which I vowed to be someone different, starting January 1st. Some
Money. Cold hard cash. Moolah. We strive for it, obsess about it, and work hard for it.
We generally make money the primary measuring stick for so many things – value, importance, effort, ease. In my work as a director of Indiana Voice of Women, we’ve begun exploring how to expand beyond using money as a measuring stick. Based on the work of Ethan Roland and Gregory Landau, we are framing our resource discussions around eight forms of currency.
So, I’m curious. What might happen if you measured worth based on these eight forms of currency instead of just one?
Folks get tripped up in the dream/do cycle. There are two types of traps:
Doers who believe that dreaming is a waste of time. Far better to do something, anything. And oh, by the way, they are far too busy with all they are doing to take some time to pause, reflect, or allow themselves to imagine anything other than their current state of affairs.
Dreamers who believe that what they think up will magically manifest itself once they articulate the dream in some manner. They create the vision board, sit back, and wait for good things to happen.
Both are dead wrong.
In my final post in this series exploring the question of sustainability – of our organizations and the larger world in which those organizations exist – I’ll examine the notion of “constructive capitalism”, a way in which companies can create enduring, meaningful and sustainable advantage that also benefits society.
Yesterday my granddaughter and I planted bulbs. Lots of them. 229 to be exact. Tulips and daffodils and hardy little purple crocuses. Today it strikes me that planting bulbs in the fall is perhaps one of the greatest acts of faith that a gardener takes. It causes me to wonder how often, when things appear to be in decline, do we continue to plant in what seems like hard ground?
In my next few posts I am going to explore the question of sustainability – of our organizations and the larger world in which those organizations exist. The topic is big – and this will only be a brush. But I hope that these posts might give you pause to ponder – what should we be doing to create vibrant organizations that are sustainable over time – not via brute force or domination but through the synergy of being in tune with their external environment, honoring that environment (both social and environmental) and existing in a harmonious ecosystem of give and take, change and adaptation, growth, decline, and rebirth.
Today’s post is about a way to measure sustainability using a framework called the Triple Bottom Line. Subsequent posts will examine the internal factors that enable an organization to be sustainable over time, and then the notion of “constructive capitalism”, a way in which companies can create enduring, meaningful and sustainable advantage that also benefits society.
So… about that Triple Bottom Line…
This week I was reminded of the power in asking for something you need or want. On Monday, Abby, a summer intern, started to work with me. And it’s a great example of taking a risk to ask.
To hear Abby’s story and to explore why we hesitate to ask bold questions, read on.
I had to chuckle when I heard the news story about the legislators who, with good intentions, prohibited the sale of kegs of beer in their college town and, as a result, made the problem they were trying to solve even worse. This is a story of unintended consequences, a peril each of us faces as we implement changes in the organizations we lead.
How do you determine if you should spend more energy, time and effort to salvage something? And when is it time to shed it, to move on, to eliminate it from your life?
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