If people are motivated towards the change in a change process, everything else becomes easier. All the time & effort we invest early in that change process, engaging people, listening & co-producing, pays off later in better, more sustainable change. Trying to short-cut engagement means doing change "to" or "for" people & that's usually a bad move. Graphic: @anafabrega11

Do you need to make your boss look good to get a promotion? Yes, but perhaps not for the reasons you think. My latest for @FastCompany. fastcompany.com/90921282/nee…

Emma this tweet and the article are wonderful Rorschach tests! The responses crack me up. The emerging evidence from @I_Am_NickBloom @tsedal and others is bit more nuanced than the black and white assertions.

There is still a lot of nonsense floating around about failure. For the record, not all failures are rich in learning and beneficial. Many are outright screwups, and many could have been avoided with more appropriate planning. (1/3)

The building blocks of personhood – Oliver Sacks on narrative as the pillar of identity themarginalian.org/2018/01/1…

Read on if you’re curious about writing for wellbeing. Midsummer workshops start next week. litsalon.co.uk/2023/06/20/wr…

Still the best thing ever written about the art of growing older brainpickings.org/2015/09/03…

So many leaders and managers I am speaking to at the moment feel that they are thriving rather than surviving. And we need to rethink our expectations of them and their expectations of themselves in terms of whats achievable within the systems and structures they operate.

In 2016, Pharrell Williams visited an N.Y.U. music production class to critique student songs. After he listened to a song called “Alaska” by a student named Maggie Rogers, Pharrell said, “Wow. I have zero, zero, zero notes for that.” “And I'll tell you why” he said. Because... “You're doing your own thing. It's singular. It's like when the Wu-Tang Clan came out—no one could really judge it. You either liked it or you didn't, but you couldn't compare it to anything else. And that is such a special quality, and all of us possess that ability.” Takeaway 1: The source of your power, Robert Greene says, is your uniqueness. We say of genius, as Pharrell said of Rogers' song: "They're 1 of a kind." "They're singular." So are you, Robert likes to point out: No one has ever had your DNA, your experiences, your perspective. Embrace your uniqueness. Express it in your work. Takeaway 2: The video with Pharrell went viral & Maggie Rogers, seemingly overnight, was a pop star. But… Rogers started playing music when she was 7. She started songwriting a few years later. In high school, she attended courses at the Berklee College of Music. During her senior year, she recorded her first album, which is what got her accepted to the N.Y.U. music school and the opportunity to play one of her songs in front of Pharrell. As Rogers later said of the viral video, “My many, many years of focus and hard work got kind of packaged into a Cinderella story.” Ryan Holiday's line is, "All success is a lagging indicator." All success is a function of the previous work put in. “When a day’s writing goes well,” Ryan writes, “it’s a lagging indicator of hours and hours spent researching and thinking…Hitting a personal record on the bench press is a lagging indicator of a lot of discipline and hard work. Receiving a promotion is a lagging indicator of a lot of quality work. Delivering a keynote with confidence is a lagging indicator of a lot of preparation.” Getting packaged as a Cinderalla story is a lagging indicator of many, many years of focus and hard work. - - - “It seems to me that each of us expressing our own originality is the essence of our art and professionalism.” — Jim Henson Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!

During a conversation with execs about scaling and friction, a wise leader reported that, when her team is deciding whether to make a change or start a new program, they ask: "Is the juice worth the squeeze?" That's my new favorite diagnostic question for many things in life

“If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all,” Michelangelo reportedly said My latest piece for @BBC_Worklife looks at “naturalness bias” bbc.com/worklife/article/202…

In this new @HarvardBiz we discuss our recent paper showing that passion can lead to burnout—and highlight strategies employees can adopt for themselves, and managers need to integrate to support their team's passion hbr.org/2023/05/dont-let-pas… w/ @kkrttr @JirsMeuris @JBredehorst

If you want employees to genuinely “get” their organisations' purpose, put them in direct contact with the people they serve is the advice of @LBS’ @DanCable1 whose book Alive at Work addresses how leaders can help their teams to feel purpose. ow.ly/VJtb50OofqH

This should be on the wall of every newsroom and every classroom and every living room: The Baloney Detection Kit – Carl Sagan's timeless tenets of bullshit-busting and critical thinking themarginalian.org/2014/01/0…