announces Black Friday closure at 143 stores as part of #OptOutside initiative. Credit: Suzi Pratt/Getty Images for REI. As any entrepreneur will tell you, success requires sacrifice. And this has never been truer for business leaders who have resolved to put purpose first. By sacrifice, we don’t mean getting up at the crack of dawn or having your social life squeezed, although these may be part and parcel of your purpose journey. We’re talking about the scary moments when staying true to your mission seems to risk the short-term health of your bottom line. The road to realising your purpose to its fullest can sometimes call for audacious, counterintuitive sacrif... posted on Jun 28 2017 (16,047 reads)

still others said they didn’t need anything then but may need food at a later date. “Why is it so hard to do a good thing?” she remembers thinking. “Where are all the people hungry when I have so much food?” It then hit her: what she needed was to innovate the old process to better match food waste with need. Copia was born in 2011. “We didn’t invent the concept of food recovery; we just put technology behind it,” she explains. Copia allows businesses, event organizers and others to request a pickup of their surplus food for a fee contingent upon the quantity of food being donated. An algorithm then matches the requests to non-profits... posted on Aug 10 2018 (7,927 reads)

Ethiopia — shows a jubilant white man wearing a colorful scarf and running across the field among the boys. Wubetu is in the picture, an equally jubilant sidekick. When it was time for the man to rejoin his group, Wubetu tagged along. He was eager to practice his English and ask questions. He figures the walk lasted about 30 minutes and ended with an offer from the man: “If you need help with your education, you can reach out to me.” Then the man handed him his business card and $30 for what he hoped would pay for a jacket. And then the man was gone, leaving Wubetu “feeling like the billionaire in Ethiopia.” Into one pants pocket went the $30 and... posted on Nov 13 2018 (19,854 reads)

as they come,” she says. Then her brother-in-law, the CEO of Monsanto at the time, gave her a gift that would transform her life: $5,000 to use as she pleased. She had always been interested in personal development and human consciousness, so when he made the suggestion that she use the money to learn from the best coaches he knew, psychologists Gay and Katie Hendricks, she jumped on the opportunity. After studying with the Hendrickses for a decade and taking their work into a business context, Chapman is now one of the world’s foremost experts on conscious leadership. In 2014, she co-authored the influential book “The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership,&rdq... posted on Feb 13 2019 (8,554 reads)

starting out when we did. Novogratz:Oh, my goodness. Tippett:So you’ve written this book, Manifesto for a Moral Revolution: And you talk about — you left Rwanda in 1989 for Palo Alto to go to Stanford Business School; the Berlin Wall falls that year; the Soviet Union disintegrates; it’s the end of history; you are a banker, and you’re remaking banking, and capitalism has won. And you made a statement in a speech — I believe it was at a forum for business leaders. And you said Steve Jobs spoke to your business class. And you said, we thought we needed a technological revolution, but we needed a moral revolution. And that’s what you&rsquo... posted on May 26 2020 (6,875 reads)

Here’s my conversation with someone I really respect, Lynne Twist.  I wanted to begin, Lynne, by sharing how it was a couple of years ago that I was at the Wisdom 2.0 event and you and I ran into each other. You said, very nonchalant, “What’s new, Tami? What are you working on?” I said, “Well, we’re partnering with Wisdom 2.0 and LinkedIn to produce a new program called the Inner MBA. It’s an online training on the wisdom skills needed in business today.” You just looked at me and you said, “Count me in. Whatever I can do to help, whatever I can do to support, I’m in.” I thought, first of all, what a gracious... posted on Mar 12 2022 (3,044 reads)

the secret is behind his legendary effectiveness in communication. Slick videos, minimalist slides and articulate delivery all play their part, but the most important factor? The message itself. There is something about aligning with our intrinsic values that unleashes a hailstorm of creativity and energy, be it in designing moving advertisements or amazing products. Rewind two decades. I am 14, sitting in a large hall in India, listening to an 84-year-old monk talk slowly and clearly about business. The monk said, "The definition of business is service. We serve others, and out of gratitude, we are compensated. As long as our focus is on the service, compensation is bound to come. ... posted on Aug 8 2011 (14,728 reads)

partners in Sid Caesar’s laugh factory could confirm, sometimes super-creative groups like jazz ensembles, theater troupes, or comedy writing teams get into flow together. Carl Reiner (left) and Mel Brooks worked together onYour Show of Shows. Indeed, group flow is important for all of us, because so many of our personal and professional activities are spent in groups, and we all want these groups to be more effective and more fun—whether they’re a sports team, a business meeting, a non-profit board, a PTA, or a boy scout troop. Decades of scientific research have revealed that great creativity almost always springs from collaboration, conversation, and social... posted on Feb 1 2012 (41,857 reads)

and thinker -- has a unique perspective on many things. His physical domain ranges from California (where he lived as a child) and England (where he studied) to Cuba, North Korea and Ethiopia (which he visited) and Japan (where he resides). His mental domain knows no limiting boundaries. In this interview with Wharton associate dean and chief information officer Deirdre Woods and Knowledge@Wharton, Iyer spoke on an unusual topic -- the value of silence and stillness amid the rush of business. If we spend too much time in the MTV rhythm, says Iyer, we won't be able to cultivate the parts of us that need more slowness. Iyer has written several books, including The Ope... posted on Jun 19 2012 (20,357 reads)

20% of our time working on whatever we want. I figured, I might as well try to solve the toughest problem I know, which is bringing about world peace. I started thinking about the necessary and sufficient conditions for world peace and one thought led to another. I came to the conclusion that a very important condition for world peace is to create conditions for inner peace, inner happiness and compassion on a global scale. The way I want to do that is to make those qualities profitable for businesses and to help people succeed. If we have a program that helps people and companies become successful and the side-effect of that is world peace, then we will have world peace. Eventually, tha... posted on Jul 11 2012 (21,834 reads)

walking alongside many courageous and compassionate leaders -— leaders walking different, yet similar, paths! Their profile: women, men—50-50; from every region— Africa, North and South America, Arab States, Asia, Europe; two below 30, half in their 30s, a third in their 40s, and six above 50 years of age. They are from different professions—clinician, activist, actor, manager, CEO, economist, religious leader; and from different sectors—citizen, media, academia, business, government, civil society, non-government organisations, UN agencies and faith-based organisations. The skills, competencies and inner capacities articulated hereafter apply to all. I have n... posted on Jul 20 2012 (17,707 reads)

to see him like thatI had faith that someday he would recover but man oh man it was lonely I wished every single day that I could just walk around with a sign like this... because on the outside I looked like I had EVERYTHING GOING FOR ME I looked like I might just have a perfect life but I was hiding a very painful secret… Well, a lot of other things happened too. You can imagine what might happen over the years while we have a 7 acre farm, a pretty big international business that we own with lots of employees, a life that  HE managed before his accident, while he just let me do the fun and creative stuff. Now we had lots of medical bills, lots of sorrow and ... posted on Mar 19 2013 (75,032 reads)

world. Photo by Tom Wang / Shutterstock. In the last 100 years, we got very confused about happiness. This is no small thing. The way we define happiness drives what we do, what we’re willing to sacrifice, and how we spend our money and our time. This confusion didn’t just happen. Advertisers spend billions spreading the illusion that more stuff will bring us happiness. And policy wonks of all political stripes—but especially those connected to business interests—spread the message that economic growth leads to well-being. Both are false promises that have instead been undermining the very conditions that could lead to sustainable happ... posted on Mar 13 2015 (34,505 reads)

that we do. The opposite of work is idleness. But very few of us know what to do with idleness. When you look at the way that we distribute our lives in general, you realize that in the periods in which we have a lot of money, we have very little time. And then when we finally have time, we have neither the money nor the health. So we started thinking about that as a company for the last 30 years. This is a complicated company with thousands of employees, hundreds of millions of dollars of business that makes rocket fuel propellent systems, runs 4,000 ATMs in Brazil, does income tax preparation for dozens of thousands. So this is not a simple business. We looked at it and we said, le... posted on Apr 15 2015 (31,210 reads)

all have things that we want to achieve in our lives — getting into the better shape, building a successful business, raising a wonderful family, writing a best-selling book, winning a championship, and so on. And for most of us, the path to those things starts by setting a specific and actionable goal. At least, this is how I approached my life until recently. I would set goals for classes I took, for weights that I wanted to lift in the gym, and for clients I wanted in my business. What I’m starting to realize, however, is that when it comes to actually getting things done and making progress in the areas that are important to you, there is a much better way to do thin... posted on Jun 22 2015 (38,164 reads)

about 100 times less than five centuries ago all over the world. “Look at NGOs; the rise of the NGO is the true revolution of the 20th century. There are millions of NGOs and people who spend their time trying to do something for others, so why do we not give more attention to that?” This vision means, Ricard believes, that we are perfectly placed to start tapping into what is already a part of us, to create something better: happier societies, a more compas- sionate business environment, and a less damaging approach to the environment. Environment While he had not initially planned to include the environment in his work, Ricard tells me that the book took a... posted on Feb 20 2016 (26,939 reads)

famous studies, she found that it was possible to lower obesity and diabetes in chambermaids, who spent their entire days in motion, by essentially helping them name their everyday activity not as work but as “exercise.” And her book, Counterclockwise, tells the story of her experiment to demonstrably turn the clock back on age with a group of men in their 70s and 80s. [music: "Sunrise" by Hauschka] MS. TIPPETT: You do, I think, quite often work with organizations, businesses... DR. LANGER: Yes. MS. TIPPETT: ...and you sometimes give very practical, kind of, exercises, thought experiments to people, to put them into this mode. DR. LANGER: Right, and one... posted on Mar 28 2016 (26,281 reads)

here -- I was working in an investment bank in London and I approached this guy who’d failed to comply with what I’d told him to do. He wasn't my direct subordinate, but he ran the computer systems and in order for my program to be implemented, his team had to perform. I started telling him what he didn't do and why he should do it. Those were days when smoking was allowed. He started slowly blowing smoke in my face, till I was literally suffocating. I had just finished business school, and was employing all these traditional negotiation tactics, but they weren’t working. So all of a sudden, as I was choking, I got to the end of my unraveled rope. And in a v... posted on Apr 11 2017 (15,776 reads)

Move the Chains: Daniel Pink on the Science of Staying Motivated “The question you should be asking is, ‘Can I do one small thing tomorrow to make things a little bit better?’ And the answer is almost always yes.” May 25, 2017 One of the world’s foremost thinkers on business and social science, Daniel Pink is the author of several bestselling books on business, work, and behavior. He joined Ryan Hawk, the creator and host of The Learning Leader Show, to talk about the critical components of sustaining excellence, what it was like writing speeches for Al Gore, and how Dan left his comfort zone to bring his side hustle front and center. This conve... posted on Dec 19 2017 (10,924 reads)

of her most famous studies, she found that it was possible to lower obesity and diabetes in chambermaids who spent their entire days in motion, by essentially helping them name their everyday activity not as work, but as exercise. And her book, Counterclockwise, tells the story of her experiment to demonstrably turn the clock back on age with a group of men in their 70s and 80s. [music: “Sunrise” by Hauschka] Ms. Tippett: You do, I think, quite often work with organizations, businesses, and you sometimes give very practical exercises, thought experiments to people, to put them into this mode. Ms. Langer: Right, and one of the things that I’ve recently spent some ... posted on Apr 2 2018 (17,677 reads)