Competencies and Inner Capacities
What are the core qualities and skills that transformational leaders share? Over the past 20 years, global health leader and changemaker Dr. Monica Sharma has encountered dozens of individuals from around the world who are leading their communities with courage and compassion. A few of the essential traits that they share are: knowing the power of their wisdom for action, embracing all with respec... posted on Jul 20 2012, 17,800 reads

Awakening Our Collaborative Spirit
"The notion that open and honest collaboration allows thinking to grow as a collective phenomenon can be traced back to Socrates and other thinkers in ancient Greece. Socrates and his friends so revered the concept of group dialogue that they bound themselves by principles of discussion that they established to maintain a sense of collegiality. These principles were known as 'Koinonia' which means... posted on Jul 17 2012, 22,992 reads

Google's Jolly Good Fellow on Inner Peace
Chade-Meng Tan (widely known as Meng) was among the earliest engineers to be hired at Google. When Google allowed engineers to spend 20% of their time pursuing their passion, Meng decided to spend his time on a cause dear to his heart: Launching a conspiracy to bring about world peace. Meng believes that world peace can be achieved -- but only if people cultivate the conditions for inner peace wit... posted on Jul 11 2012, 21,907 reads

5 Principles for Inner Transformation at Work
"People go to work to sustain themselves and produce value in the world. Yet work environments can also be stressful, filled with challenging responsibilities and personalities, and feel misaligned with our most deeply cherished values. Instead of sustaining us, the workplace can sometimes feel simply draining, and at worst, unwholesome for both ourselves and the world...is there a path for heart ... posted on Jul 05 2012, 13,694 reads

On Missions and Metrics
"There is an old Zen story about a man riding a horse, galloping frantically down a path. His friend, who is sitting by the side of the road, calls out 'Where are you going?' The man replies: 'I don't know. Ask the horse!' When we build our tools, we often depend on metrics to guide our development. We keep graphs of unique visitors and pageviews and watch them closely. This keeps us honest. It's ... posted on Jun 12 2012, 13,902 reads

Meet The New Boss: You
"What do coffee growers in Ethiopia, hardware store owners in America, and Basque entrepreneurs have in common? For one thing, many of them belong to cooperatives. By pooling their money and resources, and voting democratically on how those resources will be used, they can compete in business and reinvest the benefits in their communities. The United Nations has named 2012 as the International Yea... posted on May 30 2012, 9,708 reads

Is Our Hunger For Scale Starving Real Growth?
"For years, I've wrestled with living the 'less-is-more' life in a world that seems to be busting at its seams -- in every way -- financially, physically, psychologically. There's a need, it seems, to acquire and expand. And it's not just in our personal and material lives. Startups want to scale -- that's the most critical stage for them. Nonprofits need to collect data for 'impact' reports, illu... posted on May 22 2012, 15,750 reads

Can Better Data End Global Poverty?
"Do free bed nets in some countries lead to more cases of malaria? Could anti-parasite pills raise school attendance in one country and have no effect in another? How cheap does preventative care have to be for low-income families to see the doctor? There might not be a perfect way to answer these thorny questions on a country-by-country basis. But some leading scientists think the most rigorous a... posted on May 19 2012, 9,368 reads

The Art of Motivating Employees
"Could a simple five-minute interaction with another person dramatically increase your weekly productivity? In some employment environments, the answer is yes, according to Wharton management professor Adam Grant. Grant has devoted significant chunks of his professional career to examining what motivates workers in settings that range from call centers and mail-order pharmacies to swimming pool li... posted on May 15 2012, 33,940 reads

Why Leaders Must Feel Pain
On a plane flying cross-country, a CEO and management consultant tunes into a fellow passenger's sharp-edged interaction with her five-year old daughter, and finds himself unexpectedly in tears. The incident unleashes a series of insights on the importance of acknowledging the pain we encounter in ourselves and the world. "This act of diving deeply into the feelings we avoid, the feelings we don't... posted on May 07 2012, 21,144 reads