ChangeThis
The original idea behind ChangeThis came from Seth Godin, and was built in the summer of 2004 by Amit Gupta, Catherine Hickey, Noah Weiss, Phoebe Espiritu, and Michelle Sriwongtong. In the summer of 2005, ChangeThis was turned over to 800-CEO-READ. In addition to selling and writing about books, they kept ChangeThis up and running as a standalone website for 14 years. In 2019, 800-CEO-READ became Porchlight, and we pulled ChangeThis together with the rest of our editorial content under the website you see now. We remain committed to the high-design quality and independent spirit of the original team that brought ChangeThis into the world.
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Blog / ChangeThis
We Are All Artists Now
By Seth Godin
"They told you to get your rsum in order, to punch your ticket, to fit in, and to follow instructions. They told you to swallow your pride, not to follow your dream. They promised trinkets and prizes and possibly riches if you would just suck it up and be part of the system, if you would merely do what you were told and conform. They sold you debt and self-storage and reality TV shows. They sold your daughters and sons, too. All in exchange for what would happen later, when it was your turn. It's your turn."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Rethinking Your Business from the Outside In
By Harley Manning, Kerry Bodine, Josh Bernoff
"If you read the pages of the Wall Street Journal you would come to believe that business is about big deals—about multi-billion dollar acquisitions, massive pay packages for executives, macroeconomic forces, stuff like that. In fact, the secret of success is in the little things. Billions of small decisions. [...] Spend a few moments with this essay, and we'll show you three things. First, customer experience is central. ... Second, customer experience is hard, because it's not just about your front-line customer-facing employees. ... Third, delivering a great customer experience requires discipline—or more accurately, six disciplines that cut across every element of how your company operates."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Uncommon Wisdom: Why Great Leaders Don't Reward Results
By Eric C. Sinoway
"In today's economic environment—where most of us, even those who are succeeding—face pressure and uncertainty in our business, there's an increasing emphasis on rewarding results. And why shouldn't there be? Why shouldn't we disproportionately direct praise, resources, and rewards to those who produce bottom line results? The answer is that—in the long run—doing so may empower lesser-valued employees, punish our future stars, and undermine the most valuable organizational asset, a company's culture. The framework of this manifesto will help managers and leaders identify the employees who represent the future of their business, and it will help them spot and eliminate the organizational vampires that may kill it."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Trust-and-Track: A New Approach to Small Business Success
By Nick Sarillo
"We all know bosses who adopt a rigid, rule-bound, Command-and-Control approach to management. But do we love them. Will we move heaven and earth to achieve superior performance for them and the company. Will we put our heart into our work even when these bosses don't happen to be standing over us. My two Nick's Pizza and Pub restaurants in suburban Chicago are among the top ten busiest independent pizza chains in the United States, as measured in per-unit sales. Our margins are often twice those of the average pizza joint, while employee turnover is less than 20% per year in an industry that averages 150%. My employees do love to come to work—and it shows, each and every day. I didn't get numbers like that or the love of my employees by dictating their every behavior, insisting things be done my way, and punishing them when they go astray. You won't find any surveillance cameras in my restaurants—although many people tried to sell me them when I first opened, and friends and associates told me I needed them.
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Blog / ChangeThis
Timeless Leadership for a New World
By Erika Andersen
"The moon has risen. You and your family and friends are gathered around the fire, deciding who will be your next chieftain. Your former leader has died in battle, and this is a solemn and important occasion. The adults speak quietly, the firelight flickering over their faces, while the children and adolescents listen to every word. [. . . ] This is the most important decision the tribe can make: choose badly, and they could all starve to death, or be overrun by an invading enemy. Choose well, and they can hope for safety, freedom, a measure of prosperity. The discussion continues far into the night. [. . . ] Our deeply-wired-in sense of what makes a good leader is still there. You can see it every day in how we respond to the leaders in our organizations. Some leaders are merely "appointed": they may have the title and the corner office, but people simply don't commit to them. They have employees, but they don't have followers. Then there are what I call "accepted" leaders. Sometimes they don't even have the external signs of leadership—they may not have the top job or the big paycheck, but people gravitate toward them.
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Laws of Subtraction: How to Innovate in the Age of Excess Everything
By Matthew E. May
"Our businesses are more complicated and difficult to manage than ever. Our economy is more uncertain than ever. Our resources are scarcer than ever. There is endless choice and feature overkill in all but the best experiences. Everybody knows everything about us. The simple life is a thing of the past. Everywhere, there's too much of the wrong stuff, and not enough of the right. The noise is deafening, the signal weak. Everything is too complicated and time-sucking. Welcome to the age of excess everything. Success in this new age looks different, and demands a new and singular skill: Subtraction. Subtraction is defined simply as the art of removing anything excessive, confusing, wasteful, unnatural, hazardous, hard to use, or ugly—and the discipline to refrain from adding it in the first place."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Connected Company: How Distributed Organism Businesses are Rising Against the Machine to Build a More Connected World
By Dave Gray
"Companies are not really machines, so much as complex, dynamic, growing systems. After all, companies are really just groups of people who have banded together to achieve some kind of purpose. [...] For many years the machine view has prevailed, and many companies are designed as information-processing and production machines. But information processing is not learning. Production is not learning. Learning is a creative process, not a mechanical one. Many critical factors in business cannot be easily counted, measured or controlled."
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Blog / ChangeThis
How "Helpful" Systems Extinguish Career Development (and What You Can Do to Reignite It)
By Beverly Kaye, Julie Winkle Giulioni
"Career development appears at the top of many lists. Unfortunately, the lists tend to be those focused on what employees desperately want but are not getting from their managers. As for managers, most appreciate the value of career development and really wish they could do it—more frequently and more effectively than they currently do. But let's face it: a manager's day-to-day reality is a kaleidoscopic blur of meetings, responsibilities, and shifting priorities. Helping employees to develop and grow is one of many activities perpetually pushed out in time to that elusive 'someday' that too rarely comes. How can managers get past this conundrum? How can they make career development happen within the pressure-cooker reality that is business today? The answer is definitely NOT new systems, checklists, processes, or forms. Those have actually contributed to the problem."
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Blog / ChangeThis
How to Tell a Story: 10 Simple Strategies
By Jonah Sachs
"We live in a world that has lost its connection to its traditional myths, and we are now trying to find new ones—we're people, and that's what people without myths do. These myths will shape our future, how we live, what we do, and what we buy. They will touch all of us But not all of us get to write them. Those who do have tremendous power. And where there is power, there is struggle for it. That's why, just below the surface, just beyond what the uninitiated can see, there are wars going on. The soldiers at are Tea Party demonstrators and champions of "the 99 percent," climate change activists, makers of computers and sneaker brands. They seem to be fighting over ideas and dollars, but they are really fighting for control of our stories."
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Blog / ChangeThis
8 Tips for Managing Your Personal Brand
By Rodger Dean Duncan
"Face it. For good or ill, you have a personal brand. In fact, in the eyes of others, you are your personal brand. Just like some retailers are known for great customer service and some airlines are known for lost luggage and surly gate agents, you are known for the your own combination of personality, behavior, and presence. It's your brand. If you come across as empathic and approachable, that's part of your brand. If you sometimes miss deadlines and let other commitments slide, that's part of your brand. Your reputation is your brand. Your brand is your reputation. And it makes a world of difference in every relationship you have."
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