Articles - Best Practice Institute

Workism: 5 leadership strategies to keep it away

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Some social observers, as social observers are wont to do, find doom and gloom shadowing today’s workers. They see workers crippled by workism, an obsession with work as their driving purpose in life. This isn’t much different from the rat race and other metaphors from former years. Each g... Read More

Microsoft Front Lines

By Shannon Banks / Director, Be Leadership Ltd

At Microsoft, the top 4% of high potential leaders are selected to participate in Bench, a global leadership program that is designed to accelerate development. As part of Bench, senior executives participate in Front Lines, an award-winning action-learning experience linking learning directly to bu... Read More

SOAR: Building Strategic Capacity

By Jacqueline Stavros / Professor/Director of DBA Program, Lawrence Technological University

SOAR: Building Strategic Capacity CHAPTER EIGHTEEN by Jacqueline M. Stavros and Patricia Malone SOAR is “a profoundly positive approach that allows an organization to construct its future through collaboration, shared understanding, and a commitment to action” (Stavros and Hinrichs 2... Read More

Appreciative Inquiry: Organization Development and the Strengths Revolution

By Jacqueline Stavros / Professor/Director of DBA Program, Lawrence Technological University

Appreciative Inquiry: Organization Development and the Strengths Revolution CHAPTER SIX By Jacqueline M. Stavros, Lindsey N. Godwin, and David L. Cooperrider Leveraging the power of generative questions, AI changes the focus of what we typically study in organizational life, questioning the... Read More

Are We All Biased? Yes- Unconscious Bias in the Organization

By Neal Goodman / President of Global Dynamics, Inc. and Leader of Global/Cross-cultural/Diversity and Virtual Training, Coaching & Consulting, Global Dynamics, Inc

The implications of unconscious bias are clearly that the best and brightest talent is often made to feel unwelcome, invisible and not important for the success of the organization. This results in employees who are detached and likely to take their talents elsewhere. Organizations are slowly ... Read More

Ability to Perceive, Courage to Act

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Learn more about innovation, creativity and learning at Gap, Inc. with Michael Perman (Dean of Innovation at Gap, Inc.). Gap's strength in creating constantly evolving programs, such as MindSpark, that support one of its four cultural pillars, “inspiring creativity”, has led Gap Inc. to rec... Read More

Adult Learning and Development

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While there may be widespread acceptance that ‘learning’ is, and will continue to be, a key differentiation between short and long term business success, there are few definitive answers as to HOW this learning can occur. new generation of employees and manage The unique learning styles and pref... Read More

The Leader of the Future

By Sally Helgesen / Premier Expert on Women's Leadership | Best-Selling Author | International Speaker

When the first edition of The Leader of the Future was published, the stable and highly efficient hierarchies that had served the industrial era were rapidly becoming outdated. Top-down technologies of control were being supplanted by web-like technologies of opportunity, which had the effect of d... Read More

The Trendsetter

By Ryan Mathews / Futurist, author, philosopher, storyteller, scenario planner, strategist, artist and founder, Black Monk Consulting

This article, written by Ryan Mathews, looks at how branding – at least branding as we’ve become used to it – is obsolete, as out sync with the rhythms of commerce in the Third Millennium post-industrial world as a square dancer caller at a Hip Hop club. The projection of often-superficial cla... Read More

Innovation in the Chicago YMCA

By Robin Cook / "The Organizational Development Guy", Project work

With roughly 5,000 employees at 34 Ys (including 5 resident camps) serving roughly 1,000,000 people per year, the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago is the world’s largest YMCA. We serve a substantial portion of Northeastern Illinois, ranging from the Wisconsin border to Southern suburbs 30 miles from... Read More

Lessons from Archie Bunker

By R. Roosevelt Thomas / BPI Expert

Along with many other Americans, upon the recent death of actor Carroll O’Connor, I reflected on his most memorable role – Archie Bunker in the All in the Family television comedy series. In this piece, I share some of my thoughts with respect to Archie and race. My sen... Read More

The Tao of Dow

By Misha Goussev / BPI Expert

“East meets West” has become a popular slogan nowadays reflecting the reality that many aspects of the Eastern cultures, particularly from China, Japan and India, have occupied a permanent place in our vocabulary and lives. Chinese restaurants, acupuncture, karaoke, yoga, Tai Chi & meditatio... Read More

Restoring Hope During Times of Mistrust

By Mary Eggers / Senior Partner and co-developer of “Whole-Scale® Change.”, Dannemiller Tyson Associates (DTA)