Ocuparse demasiado de uno mismo, produce una terrible fatiga y además uno se hace ciego y sordo a todo lo demás. Esta fatiga, impide ver las maravillas que te rodean. Sentirse importante, lo hace a uno ser torpe y banal. Hemos de ser livianos y fluidos. Una vez que uno ha [...]

Should every city have an event like this to catlyze the synergy of young professionals?

http://blog.trendctv.com/glamorous-life-blog/2009/04/10/one-week-until-the-big-ygl-event/

There are a lot of young people serving in very senior positions in the Obama administration. Here are three:

Joshua DuBois, 26, Head of White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1877501,00.html

Jon Favreau, 27, Director of Speechwriting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Favreau_(speechwriter)

Chris Hughes, 25, Coordinator for Online Organization of the Obama Campaign
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hughes_(Facebook)

Estou com visita do Brasil por aqui e veio uma revista Veja na mala - que pena saber que meus conterrâneos continuam tão mal servidos. Além das revistas legais que tem coisas interessantes - agora estou lendo essa aqui [resurgence.org] - gosto mesmo das toscas que mostram que tem muito trabalho ainda a ser feito.
Eu [...]

Estou com visita do Brasil por aqui e veio uma revista Veja na mala – que pena saber que meus conterrâneos continuam tão mal servidos. Além das revistas legais que tem coisas interessantes – agora estou lendo essa aqui [resurgence.org] – gosto mesmo das toscas que mostram que tem muito trabalho ainda a ser feito.
Eu [...]

Estou lendo um artigo do Maturana e Ximena (seguindo o avant dos meus colegas no Brasil que estão liderando a era post-post-moderna) que fala sobre gerência co-inspirativa no lugar da psiquis da liderança*.
Estou achando a abordagem do livro deles muito interessante, principalmente as coisas vistas do jeito diferente e com a linguagem componente-relações que me [...]

I am interested in the following questions: What is the role of organizations in creating individuals as products of the organization or system in which they work? Assuming organizations play a role, what are the implications for community and society? Are organizations the venue in which to affect societal and community change through the individuals that work there? Why would organizations care? Finally, how would it affect their bottom line, their work-culture, and their productivity?

To address this last question, Goleman in Primal Leadership offers that how people feel about working at a company can account for 20 to 30 percent of business performance. Getting the best out of people pay off in results and the leader plays a key role in managing that climate. Poor morale among front line service providers at a given point in time predicts higher turnover and a declining customer satisfaction of up to three years later. He adds that low customer satisfaction drives declining revenues. In addition, for every one percent improvement in service to clients, there is a two percent increase in revenue. This clearly implies that organizations should care about how their staff feels about the company in which they work.

As evident in the questions listed above, I am concerned about community and society. Canada is facing its tightest labour market in 35 years. In order for Canada to be competitive in the global market place employees will be called upon to be more productive with less human resources. This trend is more concerning in the increasingly rapid and constantly changing work environment that organizations face today. Bolman and Deal in Reframing Organizations state that organizations deal with complicated and uncertain environments by simplifying information and processes. They break complex issues into smaller more manageable pieces through specialization or division of responsibilities.

According to Senge in Presence, individuals “are out of relationship with all of nature because we’ve moved into a reductive kind of awareness that is based on alienation and separation.”

Perhaps we can find value in reuniting complex issues through new ways of leading and learning. Herein lies the opportunity to build capacity in the work-place and lead the way to building personal accountability in systems (complicated organizations) where accountability is typically diffused.

Without going into the implications or organizational systems on community and society, are organizations and the individuals that work for them, the venue in which to affect societal and community change? If individuals in those organizations were interested in positive outcomes for humanity, community or society were given the opportunity to impact these spheres through their work, perhaps this would contribute to a positive feeling about their company. The company is then creating a work environment to get the best out of people. In turn, business performance would improve. However, what is the leadership action if individuals in those organizations were not as interested in such positive outcomes for humanity, community and society?

- Written by Jennifer Cottes (From a larger paper on leadership learnings and self-reflection.)

References / Additional Reading:
Bolman, Lee G., and Terrence E. Deal. Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership. San Fransicso: Jossey-bass, 2008.

Bridges, Edwin M., and Philip Hallinger. Implementing Problem Based Learning in Leadership Development. Eugene: ERIC, 1995.

Goleman, Daniel, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.


Lynch, Kevin G. Fifteenth Annual Report of the Clerk to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada”. (Ottawa, Ontario March 31, 2008). http://www.pco-bcp.gc.ca/index.asp?lang=eng&Page=information&Sub=publications&Doc=ar-ra/15-2008/table_e.htm, accessed March 2009.

Quinn, Robert E. Building the Bridge as You Walk on It: A Guide for Leading Change. San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004.

Senge, Peter, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers. Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future. New York: Doubleday, 2004.

Gente, vou dançar sapateado aqui em Barcelona. Alguém quer visitar?
+info:

Estudi TAPEPLAS aixeca el Teló
Tapeplas

Dj 5 març. 21h
Dv 6 març. 21h
Ds 7 març. 21.30h
Dg 8 març. 18.30h

{Tap Dance, Música i Ritme}
Durada: 90′
18€

El projecte TAPEPLAS va estrenar BoomBach, el seu primer espectacle de gran format, al SAT! Sant Andreu Teatre. [...]

Vou participar de um encontro começando amanhã que vai acontecer em vários continentes ao mesmo tempo: Oceania, Europa, América.
Achei muito interessante a idéia de um amigo para registro do evento.
Além da notas básicas, vídeos de depoimentos e tal , o evento também será registrado online. Tudo bem, o último encontro europeu do World Café tinha [...]

Disseram que eu voltei europeizado
Com o burro do dinheiro que estou muito rico
Que não suporto mais o breque do pandeiro
Que não aguento mais ouvir uma cuíca.
E eu posso lá ficar europeizado
Eu que nasci com o samba.
Eu sou do camarão ensopadinho com xuxu.
Reclamaram de mim, falaram que eu só escrevo em inglês agora. Revoltante!
Digo, auto-revoltante, eu [...]

Eu acredito que estamos fazendo duas coisas de forma altamente distorcida: a primeira é o antropo-centrismo do existir e a segunda é o antropo-periferismo do agir.
Como seres dominados por nossa forma de ver, individual e coletiva, estamos presos na em uma visão antropocêntrica da realidade. Nesse caso, por sermos determinantes das distinções que fazemos o [...]

Depois de um tempo longe de um trabalho direto com processos, e também porque aqui na Espanha me parece que dá pra fazer bastante coisa, o anfitrião de aprendizagem sai da segunda linha e estou me juntando com uma turma por aqui para montar algumas intervenções em castellano.
Como o trabalho ficou super pop nos últimos [...]

Sure, I'm aware that this "advice" might be published somewhere.

Sure, I'm aware that this "advice" could be used for the Obama-Biden administration staff selection process, which I'm interested in, so I'll go with a first person narrative.

In 2000 I co-founded the Global Youth Action Network, with a dream, much like Obama's platform, of empowering greater youth participation in politics. I believe that when young people are given a voice, a place to stand, or a voice, and are inspired and unencumbered, they are capable of great things. Many have called young people the "world's greatest untapped resource."

My advice to the administration is to set in motion a series of structural and political "opportunities" that open the door for citizens, and especially young people, to "participate" in greater and greater ways.

I helped Brazil develop its national youth policies. One piece of legislation requests that all high schools in the country create environmental councils. Picture students organizing to be stewards of their school, working together to map its carbon footprint and reduce waste. It's inspiring a new generation of environmentalists. Another policy, created by earlier creative legislators, requests that all schools have student unions and elections. They encourage democratic participation early on. Another "innovative" idea, in the laboratory of social technologies, which is Brazil, is the "Participatory Budget." Picture a city setting aside 1% of its annual budget, each year, to projects determined by consensus-inspired, citizen-led decision-making processes. Imagine dozens of young people getting together to determine whether their town should invest in a job training center or a music recording studio. They learn from each other in the process, and realize that "job training" serves a greater community. I saw it happen and that kind of deliberative process created more trust, ensuring that the Job Training Center was very successful, with lots of participation, doing much more than your traditional center could ever do.

Brazil is just one of many countries in the world with innovative social technologies that bring people (especially young) together in new ways. 45 of the 46 countries in the Council of Europe have "National Youth Councils." They provide a platform for young people to engage in the democratic process and deliver their political recommendations to national legislatures. Dozens of countries around the world have "National Youth Service" programs where "conscription" doesn't mean serving the army, but serving communities instead. Malaysia has National Youth Awards which recognize the extraordinary contributions of young people to their communities each year. The honor inspires many to choose community participation over materialism. My friend in Viet Nam runs a radio show where young people talk about their solutions for the country's problems. Another friend manages a Latin American network of young people who read newspapers, identify mis-representations of youth, and youth issues, and then respond by writing editorials and educating journalists. Another friend in the Gambia brings truck loads of city youth into the countryside. They connect with the land, the produce, the origins of their food, and commit themselves to an organic, independent future. The global food security alarms that went off earlier this year were silent in his backyard.

The world has a lot of wisdom and ideas to offer us, here in the USA. Many of these programs don’t cost a penny. All we need is the idea, or the visibility, or the convener, or the wave of the legislative wand. Maybe it's coming?

The Bush administration looked out into the big unknown world with fear and suspicion. This new administration doesn't. I think we should create a Presidential Commission on Youth and Intergenerational Partnership. I'd be happy to share my vision of what it could be… but who's ear do I have? Yours? Email me: jonah@youthlink.org (www.bridgingnetwork.org)

I haven't posted to my own blog for years.

I'm now living in the USA, near Washington, DC. I'm a dad. My son is almost four. I helped build the Leverage Alliance (a network of young philanthropists) and then the Bridging Network (www.bridgingnetwork.org) to consult on young philanthropy.

In July of 2007 I launched www.ezintouch.com to help people with contact management and email marketing and in September of 2007 I became the chief system geek at Distributive Networks (www.distributivenetworks.com) to be part of the team that developed the technology for Obama's text messaging platform.

Oh, I also just helped my Dad launch a bed and breakfast / vacation rental on his farm in Union, WV. Check out www.pynemountainfarm.com

Este cerco, esta puerta, hacia lo ilimitado, y por qué?
Heredamos los cercos, los candados, los muros, las prisiones.
Heredamos los límites. Y por qué?
Por qué no rechazamos a la hora de nacer cuanto nos concedían y cuanto nos abarcábamos? Es que teníamos que estar de acuerdo antes de ser. Después de ser y saber se aprende [...]