Here are a few terms I’d never heard before today. Enjoy the laugh. Bozone (n): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly. H/T to Ralph (via Henrietta)
Bozone and the Dopeler Effect Read More »
Last Saturday some friends and I sat around discussing our various techniques for creating change within large organizations. During a portion of the conversation we were debating whether or not to create change in a large organization you need to… A. Change policies from the top of the organization across the whole organization or B.
Groupthink: A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.” – Irving Janis When you don’t share your opinion with your team because you fear that they will not like you
Have you ever heard of the word “voluntold”? It’s a combination of volunteer and told. It typically means your boss ordered you to serve on a committee that you never would have chosen to serve with if you were given the choice. Unwords.com lists the definition as: 1. (v.) When one has been volunteered for
Gathering commitment from the “voluntold” Read More »
Daniel Pink has some resolutions for us for 2011, including a new term I love: Vuja de. We’ve all experienced déjà vu—looking at an unfamiliar situation and feeling like you’ve seen it before. Vuja dé is the flip side of that—looking at a familiar situation (an industry you’ve worked in for decades, problems you’ve worked
Sometimes I learn interesting things because I’m married to a lawyer. One of the interesting things I’ve learned is that in some criminal cases a lawyer must prove the defendant did the crime and had a guilty mind (in Latin, their mens rea). Hence, a defendant can plead not guilty by reason of insanity not
Administrators derive status from their organization and tend to identify themselves with it so that criticism of the organization is felt by them to be criticism of the administrator himself. Productive people owe whatever distinction they may have to their own competence and are usually more open-minded about improving their performance.” – H. G. Rickover,
Seeking productive people Read More »
Just last week I learned that the ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos (the unfeeling time that flies by before us) and kairos (the human time of creating an opportunity for something important). Often each week I’m asked how I get so much done. I used to reply with a shrug of my
I’m not trying to make this a Seth Godin tribute blog; really I’m not. But then Rogue Polymath tweeted about Amber Naslund’s Indispensable vs Irreplaceable post. She mixes two of my favorites–new terms and Godin’s Linchpin–so I can’t resist sharing her post with you. Amber writes: Being indispensable is about delivering massive impact no matter
Try being indispensable Read More »
If you don’t know what the term Stockdale Paradox means, you must. When you can “maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be,” you are
