Clare Consultation, LLCBring Your Best or Forfeit Your Country
In the January/February 1996 Harvard Business Review, 21 years ago, economist Paul Krugman ran out the ways countries are not businesses. The ways successful business people cannot automatically apply their skill sets to steering a nation and its economy. At the same time, he admitted that economists could not, without considerable extra expertise, run successful businesses. Krugman writes, “Let me begin with two examples of economic issues that I have found business executives… Read More
On Robots and Listening
As ever, change is afoot. Autumn is heading for winter, for example. Starbucks is well into shifting its holiday paperware (the plain red paper cups a significant and publicized offense to a few “Christmas-only” types). Oceans are heating up, children are growing taller and Artificial Intelligence is animating robots to replace workers around the globe. There’s much more – and too much of it troubling. But you know that. So, this… Read More
Stories and Specialty
I just spent four days in the company of poets and writers. Well-published storytellers like Naomi Shihab Nye, Luis Urrea, Kim Stafford, Teresa Jordan, Gary Ferguson — and hundreds more, published and not. No matter the notoriety, each one wove images into stories — tales to entertain, to instruct, to push beyond whatever bounds any of us imagines. All week these stories echoed across the wide meadow in the northeastern corner of Oregon… Read More
“He knows everyone in business.”
Every word was about kindness, about humility, or generosity of the most precious kind: of time and attention, of friendship and guidance, of wisdom. Last Thursday night, a man well into his 80’s retired … again. This time from a talent and career management firm called Right Management. I still don’t know enough about this man, Jack Stowell. My friend, Terry OConnor said, “Come as my guest. Jack wants to meet you.” … Read More
What are the Barriers to Social Justice?
On Friday I had the opportunity to speak briefly with a small group of friends and colleagues about social justice. It was a time that qualifies for sure as a moment in the story of my life. And the particular narrative of that time is transition – big transition – so big that I’m not yet prepared to write about it here. Odd, since this is the place I write and… Read More
Paying Attention to What’s Working
The other day, I was at the Quest Integrative Health Center in Portland. I was co-facilitating a discussion on the neurobiology of happiness based on the work of researcher and clinician, Rick Hanson. I’ve written about Quest Center before in this blog (EX:C blogs November 26, 2012; December 10, 2012) and have to say it’s great to be volunteering my time as part of this monthly neuroscience series. The group gathered… Read More
Earth Day – a Week after Boston
Earth Day. Two days after 4/20. A week since the Boston Marathon Explosion. Ten days since the Senate voted against background checks for gun purchases. Pedantic as it may sound, if it weren’t for the Earth, none of these other things would have a place to happen. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter how it sounds – it’s simply so. Without Earth, marijuana would not grow, humans would not… Read More