Dan Duggan
Your Inner Mother
Remember the old litmus test: “would you do it if your mother was watching?” Well, she is. You have an inner mother. It’s the voice inside that reminds you of your values and values you. It is caring, compassionate and wise. You can count on it for support, for strength. It’s your moral compass and always knows what is best for you. Leaders in business often ignore this side of themselves judging it as soft or too emotional. “Never let them see you sweat” is the mantra. Being vulnerable is being weak. In fact, the opposite is true; being vulnerable is being strong and authentic. Showing compassion attracts followers. Acting with compassion heals relationships. Strong, trusting, authentic relationships are the …continue reading…
Honor Thy Mother
Today is Mother’s Day. The day we all honor our mothers living and dead who brought us into the world. I lost my mom on tax day 27 years ago. My most enduring memory of her was her fierce protection of the family. Everything else came second in her life including her own comfort and aspirations. Her decisions were not always popular, but always came from a commitment to what was best for us individually and the family as a whole. Her five children inherited that sense of loyalty and commitment. I am extremely grateful for the lessons that strong woman taught me. In every healthy organization there is at least one “Mom”. It’s the person who everyone turns to …continue reading…
Our Best Hope
Writing about hope lately in the face of all the catastrophes and disturbances at home and abroad has awakened something inside me. I realize we have a choice to make. Now. We can wring our hands, shake our heads, and run away from all this or we can choose to look for, engage with, and emulate the best in the human species. If we inquire about the best and the highest possible in all our seeking for a glimmer of light to follow, we will find it. If we allow ourselves to believe there is only darkness followed by more darkness, we will find that instead. Both are out there. One leads to life and freedom. The other to despair. …continue reading…
Hope in Action
I became aware of a movement in business launched in June 2004 called The Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit. Director David Cooperrider from Case Western University, Cleveland, Ohio, is renowned for his breakthrough work in progressive business practices. The Center’s stated mission: Through research, education, and advanced projects with industry leaders and policy makers, the Center was created to advance extraordinary business and society innovation, helping to revolutionize the ways business will eradicate poverty, replenish and restore nature, and build foundations for peace through commerce. Wow! Now that’s a mission I can definitely get behind. In the years since its launch, BAWB, as it’s known, convenes an annual forum of global business leaders dedicated to sharing …continue reading…
More Hope
In my last post on 3/28, I promised to share stories of positive actions people and companies are taking that foster hope. I expect some interesting feedback on this one. How about WalMart… Yes, I mean that WalMart. They are in the news this week with the story of the class action suit for sex discrimination that has been wandering through the judicial system for the last decade or so. WalMart is a company I have loved to point to as an example of all that is wrong in corporate America for the complaint above and the way they come in to small communities and attract the customers away from the small retailers in those areas. But I have to …continue reading…
Hopeful
I don’t know about where you live, but up here in the Northwest, it’s been a long, dark, cold, wet winter and I am ready for a change. On the calendar, Spring started 5 days ago, so I am hopeful. On a grander scale, change is in the air. In his last post on this blog, Paul Werder wrote about the spiritual principles that underlie the natural flow of life and how our personal relationship with that flow determines our effectiveness. I want to build on that idea. I can feel a restlessness, an agitation. Huge change is happening all over the globe. It feels like a giant collision between the progressive movement on one side and a desperate clutching …continue reading…
The Customer Isn’t Always Right, but Always Has the Right
Do you ever get the feeling that your supplier somehow forgot who the customer is? A couple of weeks ago I was preparing for a trip out of town and went on line to print out my boarding pass the evening before the flight. All I wanted was the boarding pass. What I got was my boarding pass and 3 pages of ads in full color graphics. They didn’t need to sell me at that point. I had already made the purchase! I fumed a little, but had no choice but to print out all 3 pages to get the quarter of a page I needed. In the process, my printer interrupted the job because it ran out of expensive …continue reading…
Got Heart?
You know that person in your office or work group who always seems to be walking around with a dark cloud over their head? Not the angry person; I’m talking about the one who has his or her head down, slogging through the day, uninspired. This is a clear sign of someone who has “lost heart”. What happened? They used to be great.
What’s Your BHAG?
Huh?, you say. BHAG? Yeah, Big Hairy Audacious Goal! One of my favorite business books is Good to Great by Jim Collins and his research team. In it, Collins defines what makes one company great compared to its peers in a given business segment. A key differentiator is having one central reason for being that drives the whole organization – their unique contribution that contains their passion and sustainability.
Gratitude
Remember Nietzsche’s book, God Is Dead? He wasn’t, but I was. Dead on the inside for much of my early and middle adult life. I was caught in a whirlwind of self-seeking thinking and behavior, bent on climbing the ladder of success. For a while, self-medication helped soothe the pain of believing I wasn’t really going to ever measure up to what I thought all of you wanted of me. It also deadened my emotions for a couple of decades. I couldn’t “feel” anything fully – anger, sadness, love - except paralyzing fear.
