Agility: Management Principles For A Volatile World
Today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) global marketplace requires managers to think differently and become more agile. This required agility will help managers shift their position from one of planning, organizing, staffing, directing, or controlling to one of being a curator, architect, conductor, humanist, advocate, and pioneer. To help the reader increase their self-awareness Agility provides a list of principles, questions, and exercises for managers to ask themselves on a regular basis in order to assess their ability to navigate the chaos of the modern business world. Agility: Management Principles for a Volatile World is required reading for anyone managing individuals in small to medium-sized businesses, large corporations, non-profit organizations, and government offices.
Navigating the Chaos: 365 Questions To Ask Yourself On The Art Of Living, 2021 edition
This 2021 edition marks the fourth year for the Navigate the Chaos publication that contains one question for each day of the year to consider. Far too many publications tell you what to think. Navigate the Chaos provides a question each day for you to consider. The art of living is dependent upon your level of self-awareness. Since professional development is linked to personal growth, how we approach the art of living matters. How we treat others matters. How we treat ourselves matters. And how we practice the art of living matters. To share my notes with people who were interested in navigating the chaos of today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world the free web site navigatethechaos.com was created. Before you start your day, during lunch, or prior to going to bed, consider asking yourself the daily Navigate the Chaos question. See if you can find a few minutes to reflect upon a specific trait, habit, or idea.
The Relevance of Humanities to the 21st Century Workplace
Upon examining the state of humanities today, it becomes rather obvious that six disconnects exist. Colleges have done a poor job helping people understand the terms liberal arts, humanities, and liberal arts colleges (The Explanation Disconnect). Liberal arts and humanities faculty, as well as other stakeholders misunderstand the relevance of the humanities to the workplace (The Comprehension Disconnect). Higher education institutions need to improve how humanities majors translate their value to the marketplace (The Translation Disconnect). Administrators, faculty, and staff need to think differently and provide humanities majors with a modern perspective on career opportunities (The Perception Disconnect). In order for humanities majors to maintain relevance in the 21st century workplace, institutions need to teach students the dynamics involved with pursuing a vocation (The Vocation Disconnect). Finally, institutions need to help humanities majors increase their self-awareness in order for them to engage in self-determination and prepare for life after college accordingly (The Cultivation Disconnect).
Major in Happiness: Debunking the College Major Fallacies
All too often students are exposed to the myopic valuable v. useless paradigm of decision making process when it comes to declaring a major. According to this paradigm a ‘valuable’ major (ex: accounting) is useful, can teach a specific skill, and provides one with a lifetime of employment and riches. A ‘worthless’ major is more (ex: history) intellectual and therefore has little, or no, practical application for employment purposes. This dichotomy between the valuable v. useless majors is based on flawed mental models and ingrained assumptions about how the world works that lead to a series of fallacies surrounding the college major. This book examines a variety of assumptions prevalent in the mental models of undergraduates, parents, educators, higher education leaders, administrators, and policymakers that cause people to fall into a series of mental traps when selecting a major. Divided into three sections, this publication presents a situational analysis on choosing a college major, dissects the mental models and traps people rely on, and offers a variety of assessments that can help increase one’s self-awareness prior to declaring a major.
Success: Theory and Practice
To help individuals learn how to succeed in the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment, today’s technological revolution has helped individuals produce, access, and share thousands of resources focused on some aspect of achieving success.
When the four billion connected people around the globe are coupled with this hyper-production of information, an individual’s cognitive capacity to process ideas is stressed and reduces the quality of decision-making. To improve an individual’s capacity to process information, the self-help genre has a tremendous need for a publication that both summarizes the latest research and provides case studies.
This publication meets both needs and is valuable for any person interested in achieving personal or professional success. Divided into seven chapters, this publication provides a clear, concise, and compelling account on the theory and practice of success and includes research from history, psychology, sociology, cognitive neuroscience, animal behavior, and other areas. A list of readings, questions, and other resources are located at the end of each chapter.
Marketing Your Value: 9 Steps to Navigate Your Career
This publication explains how professionals can market their value to navigate their career and live a life of purpose. Divided into three sections, this publication offers you an opportunity to assess your personal and professional skills, challenges you to create a compelling personal brand, and helps you develop the communication materials necessary to navigate your career.
This Assess, Brand, Communicate (ABC) approach is relevant for undergraduates, recent college graduates, graduate students, entry level professionals, experienced managers, and senior leaders across the globe. Each of the nine steps included in this publication will challenge you to think deeply to increase your self-awareness.
With ubiquitous technology surrounding your eyes and ears 24/7, you have few moments of quiet to afford the time for self-reflection. Yet this is an absolute necessity if you are to successfully market your value and navigate your career.
Putting the Local in Global Education: Models for Transformative Learning Through Domestic Off-Campus Programs
Chapter Five: No Common Ground: The Spectrum of Policies Related to Domestic Off-Campus Programs is my contribution to this important assessment of a much overlooked aspect of the undergraduate experience: domestic off-campus programs.
"Putting the Local in Global Education reminds us of how important it is to focus more on what students are learning than where they are studying. By linking complex questions of local and global impact, identity, power, and justice, the authors contribute to critical conversations about how we might more broadly define global learning. As a result, this book will encourage curricular and pedagogical experimentation and, I hope, lead to new ways that faculty and students may come to recognize the global in their communities and deepen their appreciation for the complexities of their interconnected lives." (
Kevin Hovland, Senior Director, Academic Programs 2015-04-01)
Strategic Thinking and Writing
In today's hyper-connected, dynamic, and ever changing global marketplace, storytelling is the new strategic imperative for organizations that want to achieve and sustain growth. Perhaps nowhere is the evidence of storytelling more prevalent than Amazon. In his 2018 annual letter, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos repeated his rule that PowerPoint is banned in executive meetings.
Bezos replaced PowerPoint slides with a six page narrative that executives prepare. The start of each meeting involves attendees reading the six page narrative for 30 minutes followed by a discussion. Writing the six page memo requires research, time, and multiple revisions. The six page memo also requires one to think and write strategically.
That's where this publication can help. Part one consists of three chapters that focus on examining the various definitions associated with thinking and the process of strategic thinking. Part two shifts the attention towards strategic writing and provides the reader with a step-by-step guide on how to create a clear, concise, and compelling six page memo.