Every year the Aspen Ideas Festival gathers leading thinkers from around the globe to discuss the latest ideas of what makes a good society. This year, Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam along with his team, presented new data about a starkly widening opportunity gap, as well as some unexpected education and lifestyle trends associated with it.
Most people are broadly aware of the wealth divide between families who live in poverty and those who come from a …

In a recent article written in the Wall Street Journal, author Heidi Grant Halvorson tries to dispel the “Success Myth.”
So what is this myth about? According to her research, it is about how people attribute success and high accomplishments to innate ability or inborn talent. In other words, because most of us believe that there are things we are naturally better at than others, we tend to invest our time in those …

Leadership takes creativity sometimes. It can be scary, difficult, and distracting–but that’s also what makes it a great challenge.
In order to be creative, we’d be wise to turn to Tham Khai Meng, Worldwide Creative Director of Ogilvy. In the video below he doesn’t talk about leadership. Or management. Or organizational behavior. He talks about the unnerving process of coming up with fresh ideas.
Next time you’re face-to-face with a challenge try Mr. Meng’s approach. Take a …

The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Werner Herzog’s latest meandering film-poem, reminds us of the primacy of the visual image over any other form of human expression of thoughts, beliefs, and yearnings.
Horses, bisons, woolly mammoths, cave lions, and bears roam, gallop, and fight on the cave’s ancient walls. The paintings may be telling the story of a successful hunt, or they may be an object of worship, part of a ritual aimed to guarantee success in …

Creativity; it’s what people are constantly clamoring for. Over the past couple of decades we have incessantly urged to “think outside the box” and “stretch the paradigm”.  Organizations are demanding new fresh ideas at every level,  so it would only seem natural that to be elevated to the exulted level of leadership you need a strong streak of creativity running through your every thought and decision.  Here’s a bit of a shock, it’s not really …

According to a recent survey of 1,500 chief executives conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value, CEOs identify “creativity,” the ability to generate novel and useful solutions, as the most important leadership competency for the successful organization of the future.   Creative leadership allows leaders to move organizations in profitable new directions, a view supported by management research showing that leaders with creative ability are more effective at promoting positive change and inspiring their followers than …