Fareed Zakaria recently did a special on CNN about the state of the American Economy. Various pundits and experts were engaged in the question ‘If the economy is growing why aren’t we seeing more jobs for the middle class’? It’s a good question and reveals a startling but obvious revelation: Business isn’t interested in creating jobs — in fact, business would like to eliminate as many jobs as possible! The idea that what is good for business is good for the economy because it
Jim Selman and Rinaldo Brutoco of the World Business Academy discuss The Clean Energy Moonshot Project.
There is a lot of talk in the Public Service about leadership.
We say we need it. The question we don’t ask, however, is
“who is responsible for leadership?” Moreover, if we
stop and reflect, we recognize that leaders don’t lead without
the commitment of those who follow and that uncommitted followers
can destroy any leader no matter how talented or sincere. Leadership
can be a solution to many problems, but it is a solution ONLY IF
we are
By Jim Selman | Bio
Peter Drucker, who many consider the father of modern management, once said, “We know almost nothing about management, that is why we write so many books on the subject.” The same might be said for leadership. There are more than fifty thousand titles available and hundreds more being published almost every month. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually on countless workshops and courses to train leaders. The question is, with all of these writings,
Like most of us I have been following the tempest succeeding the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris, the wave of anti-terrorist rhetoric, the rendering of Mohammed as a kind of ‘we’ll-show-you’ counter-punch, the counter-counter punch of Muslims being offended by the rendering, and on it goes. Everyone seems offended by something.
I spend a lot of time thinking about and trying to observe the phenomena that are being referred to in ordinary conversation — when we are speaking and listening.
By Jim Selman | Bio
I love the metaphor of being ‘between Trapezes’. In one image it connotes the comfort and familiar arc of my current life, the emerging possibility of moving from where I am onto an entirely new trajectory, and most compelling — the excitement and terror of letting go and confronting that existential moment where annihilation seems to be a genuine possibility.
Charles Dubois once said that the most important thing in life is the willingness to let go of
It’s a bit more than a week into the new year and I am already behind on all the things I was going to get done during the post-holiday lull. I am procrastinating. As with many of my less agreeable habits, I decided to do a workshop on the subject for a European client late last year. The overarching question of why we procrastinate was framed a bit more specifically as “Why don’t we do the things we KNOW we need to do to accomplish what we SAY we want to accomplish?” The correlation
For some reason I have been feeling acutely connected to people I am encountering these days. In addition to my friends, family and others I know, I am observing all sorts of people – on the street, providing services, working in stores. It is as though I am more ‘present’ to them individually, and more conscious of who people are and the uniqueness of each one’s lives. We all are in pretty much the same soup — working, raising families, dealing with problems, dreaming, and dealing
Another year. This year’s resolutions looked pretty much the same as last year and the year before that so I’ve resolved to stop making New Year’s resolutions. Nonetheless the year-end (or beginning) is a time that calls for taking stock and reflecting on the past and the future. This year the big questions for me have to do with the next 10 years.
I have laughed a lot about how easily I can fall into making just about anything significant. I even made
By Jim Selman | Bio
Love is, I think, the most universal and central aspect to our experience as human beings. In much of our music, literature, popular culture and day-to-day life there is no other topic that even comes close. Yet, love for most of us remains a mystery — something that we all about without any consensus as to what love really is.
Not long ago, I was facilitating a meeting of top executives in a food company in the Ukraine. They were working on the question of ‘why’