April 27, 2023
What Does It Really Take to Learn Anything from Somebody Else?

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Since 1987, I have been providing consulting and training services to a wide variety of forward thinking organizations who have recognized their need to raise the bar for creative thinking, innovation, and teamwork. An optimist, by nature, I have always assumed that the people attending my sessions had an innate ability to benefit from whatever it was I was teaching, conveying, or imparting.

And while this optimistic point of view continues to be my default position, I have also understood that there are obstacles that often get in the way of people receiving the maximum value of what I (or any teacher, instructor, or facilitator) has to offer.

It is, shall we say, an occupational hazard.

Some of these learning obstacles are internal (i.e. participant mindset) and some are external (funky organizational culture). But no matter where these obstacles originate from, each of them can be decreased or eliminated with the right kind of effort.

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Ready? Here you go. Ten ways to increase your odds of getting the most possible value from whatever workshop, training, seminar, or class is coming up for you:

1. Find Your Intrinsic Motivation: If you want to learn something new, you will. If you don't want to learn something new, you won't. That's about as simple as it gets. Intrinsic motivation is all about your authentic, deeply felt, self-generated aspiration. Your mojo. Your willingness. The "inner reward" you experience for doing anything at all -- not because of carrots and sticks being dangled before you, but because of your inherent thirst to learn or experience something new.

If you are the person responsible for the success of your organization's Professional Development efforts, ask yourself one simple question: "How can I awaken the intrinsic motivation of our workforce?" If you are an "individual contributor" who has been invited, requested, or told to attend an upcoming Professional Development session, ask yourself this: "How can I find the motivation within myself to embrace this learning opportunity with as much passion as possible?"

2. Trust the Teacher Anyone who wants to learn something new will eventually need to trust the person who's doing the teaching. If not, it doesn't matter if it's Einstein, Jesus, or the Prophet Mohammed standing before you. Trust is essential to learning, as it is to any relationship. As an experiment, try assuming the best in your workshop leader, trainer, or meeting facilitator. Give them a chance to do their thing. And if you should find yourself in an untrusting state of mind, pause of a moment and ask yourself what you need to do (or say or ask) in order to trust the teacher enough to be their student for a while.

breakbricks2.jpg 3. Practice/Apply What You Learn: Most trainings, workshops, or classes, are a kind of introduction to the topic -- a way to get immersed, for a while, in that particular domain. You learn about the topic, but don't immediately develop mastery. For that to happen, you will need to practice and apply what you learn. If you've ever seen a karate master break a stack of bricks with his hand, there's a very good chance he didn't quite do it the first time he tried. Practice makes perfect.

4. Be Patient:
In an age, where a Google search can fetch you esoteric information in 1.4 seconds, all of us have become accustomed to instantaneous results. That might be fine for learning what the capital of Latvia is, but not so fine when it comes to mastering the art of giving feedback, facilitating successful meetings, or becoming an effective team leader. Learning takes time. Developing new skills takes time. Making positive changes takes time. Patience, my friend. Patience!

5. Ask Questions: "The important thing," said Albert Einstein, "is not to stop questioning." Bingo! If you have entered into some kind of Professional Development effort, one of the best ways to get the most value from it is to ask questions. And this process begins with you asking yourself questions so you can identify the value of what it is you want to learn. Then ask your teacher/instructor -- before class, during class, or after class. If you are not getting the value you came for, the ball's in your court. If you don't understand something, ask. If you're not getting the value of what you came for, ask the teacher to deliver the information, tools, or techniques in a way that works better for you. And if you choose not to ask, then ask yourself why you're not asking.

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6. Become Aware of Your Self-Interferences: As you begin to engage in a new learning effort, pause for a moment and see if you can identify the "stuff" that, historically, has gotten in your way of learning anything new -- your self-interferences or what Tim Gallwey, Founder of The Inner Game, refers to as "Self-One." HINT: If you are a human being, it's probably one of the following: self-talk, self-doubt, skepticism, arrogance, limiting assumptions, lack of follow through, fear of failure, laziness, or impatience. If it's none of those, it's always possible that you simply don't see the value (for you) of the class, workshop, or training you've been ask to attend.

7. Acknowledge Your Progress: The proverbial cup may look half empty to you at times, but it's equally true that it is also half-full. Acknowledging and appreciating the progress you are making in your learning adventure will go a long ways towards keeping you in a positive frame of mind and looking forward to what's coming next. NOTE: The word "success" comes from the same root as the word "succeeding" (taking one step after another.) "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," said Lao Tzu. Indeed! See if you can notice and appreciate each step along the way. You are making progress. You are! Here's a simple technique you can try towards that end. Works like a charm and takes less than five minutes.

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8. Remember the Stories (and share them with others): It is highly likely that the facilitators of future workshops, trainings, or classes you will attend are going to make their point, from time to time, by telling stories. And that's because stories are one of the best ways to transmit knowledge and wisdom. If you truly want to imbibe the teachings that will be shared with you, remember the stories. And, better yet, share those stories with others. The more you share them, the more the wisdom embedded in those stories will reveal itself to you.

9. Come to Class with an Uncluttered Mind: If you are a teacher, engineer, sales person, manager, software programmer, team leader, nurse, carpenter, or VP of something or other, there's a good chance you have a lot on your mind. Even your To Do list has To Do lists.
If you want to get maximum value from whatever Professional Development offering is on the horizon for you, it is your responsibility to come to the session with an uncluttered mind. Be empty. Be ready to receive. Be open to what's coming your way. Here's what the Zen tradition has to say about this phenomenon.

10. See #3.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: What can you do, in the next week, to ensure that you get the most value out of whatever Professional Development efforts are coming your way?

Photo #1: Michael Porro, Unsplash
Photo #2: Krzysztof Niewolny, Unsplash
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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:50 AM | Comments (1)

July 10, 2020
THE FIRST 20 HOURS: How to Learn Anything

Wanna learn something new? Good! Start here. This 19 minute TED Talk demystifies the process of learning anything new. No, you don't need 10,000 hours to master a new skill. Much less. HINT: The biggest obstacle to learning anything new isn't intellectual. It's emotional.

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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:42 AM | Comments (0)

June 17, 2020
The School I Want to Begin

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Now that I am officially an amateur in the field of education (six months working in an Islamic school, father of two, and a dropout from a poetry Masters program at Brown University), I am now extremely semi-clear about what kind of school I would start if I started a school in this lifetime or the next.

If what I describe below sounds interesting to you and you want to either teach, organize, fund raise or attend, let me know. But please do not send me your resume or CV. I don't care if you have a resume or a CV. I am not a big fan of paperwork and one of the cool things about the school I will be starting is there will be no paperwork. Also, there will be no boredom, no behavior problems, no grades, no tests, no tenured teachers, no angry parents, no unnecessary meetings, no bullying, and no overcooked spinach.

At least that's the plan. We will, I am guessing, have some plans, though I realize that "Man plans and God laughs." So... there will be a healthy dose of laughter after we recognize just how lame our so-called planning process is.

Here are my school's key principles -- and when I use the word "my", I am really referring to "our" though I don't yet know who the "our" is, but have every confidence in the world (and the next) that the "our" will manifest as I continue writing this series of blog posts over the next few weeks, months, or lifetimes.

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1. INTRINSIC MOTIVATION: Only students and teachers who want to learn will end up in our school. Our selection process will be a simple way to determine if our potential students and teachers are truly inspired to learn and teach. If they are not inspired to learn and teach, that's the end of the selection process. And we won't care, all that much, about what these fine folks want to learn or teach. Everything will be fair game.

That being said, we will accept a small number of students, each year, who have absolutely no interest in learning anything at all -- young people sadly lacking in any kind of apparent intrinsic motivation. Our "non-school within a school" will have only one purpose and that will be to discover why these kids have no desire to learn and how we can spark their unapparent non-desire to learn. Then, having learned more about this esoteric science, we will share what we learn with other schools, helping them learn how to awaken the joy of learning in the next generation of (apparent) unmovers and unshakers.

2. SELF ORGANIZING:
Students will go to the "classes" they are most inspired to go to on any given day. Their schedule will be self-organizing. "Follow your bliss" will be one of our mottos (t-shirts available online at our to-be-created virtual store, the profits of which will be given to charities our students will select or create on their own).

Our extraordinary teachers (heartfelt, wise, collaborative, and highly dedicated) will be standing by -- completely relaxed and way beyond the metrics of which kids (and how many) sign up for their class. (We'll figure out what this really means after one of our non-meetings).

In other words, my still-to-be created school will be an educational banquet. Students will fill their plates with whatever food for thought is nourishing to them, no matter what the well-meaning bureaucrats in our nearest state or federally funded "office of education" have concluded, years ago, that somebody else's children need to learn.

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If we run out of teachers in any particular field of learning our students want to explore, we'll find more teachers with passion and wisdom in that particular field. "Supply and demand education", you might call it. If no students wants to learn algebra, we won't teach algebra. And no student will be coerced into learning about boron, bauxite, or the square root of 197.

3. STUDENTS WILL CO-CREATE THEIR OWN CURRICULUM: On the first day of "school", our "students" will "sit down" with our "teachers" and co-create the curriculum for that particular term or semester -- a curriculum, like life, that will organically unfold, based on student interest, time, space, and the ability of our highly awakened crew of educators to adapt and adjust to the inner-directed mojo of students on fire with fascination.

"We teach what you want to learn" our motto will be, not "you learn what we want to teach."

4. STUDENTS WILL TEACH, TEACHERS WILL LEARN: As part of our pedagogy, students will have plenty of chances to learn cool things on their own and become the teachers of others, including our so-called teachers (whose salaries will be way higher than the salaries of teachers anywhere else). Everybody will learn from each other.

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If a student turns out to develop expertise in a particular field of knowledge, but is not a good "imparter" of that knowledge, one of our teachers will ask that student if he/she/it/they/us/them would be interested in learning more about the art of communicating knowledge and wisdom. If they do, one of our teachers will meet with that student one-on-one or in small groups and explore the art and science of teaching/learning/imparting/transmitting/evoking. Whoo hoo!

Get the picture? Real-time, real-life learning.

5. HOMEWORK: Sorry, there will be no homework. We don't like that word. Though we understand the purpose of homework and the origins of its existence, homework -- like governments, corporations, tax forms, elevator music, shopping malls, algebra, political conventions, and most commercially available ketchup -- has become a mere shadow of what it was intended to be back in the day. No homework. Ever. None.

Will our students continue learning after they leave the grounds on which our buildings stand? Of course they will! Not because they have been told to do their homework, but because they want to do their homework, or better yet, because they have given themselves the homework they are inspired to do.

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6. TRUST: All of the above will work out because we will trust our students and they will trust us. We will assume the best in them and they will assume the best in us, because our staff's default condition will be infused with a massive commitment to seeing the goodness and potential in every student, no matter how much of that potential has been crusted over with fear, doubt, stress, impatience, funky parenting, or a lack of self-esteem.

7. CLASSROOMS will be designed by our students in alliance with their teachers. We'll have a bunch of raw materials, on campus, for them to select from. Students will create their own learning spaces which will probably look nothing at all like a modern-day classroom and that is fine with us.

Actually, we have no idea what our student's concept of a classroom will be. If our students have a need for materials or furniture that is not already available onsite, we will brainstorm, with them, creative ways of getting those materials and, in the process, students will learn what brainstorming is and how to open up their minds and how to listen to others with different points of view and what the creative process is really all about,

Maybe our students will learn more about what it takes to manifest a couch, rug, bookcase, or pinball machine than what they will eventually learn in the room they have invented to learn in.

TOPICS TO BE COVERED IN FUTURE BLOG POSTS

- No grades, no tests
- Storytelling from the heart
- Parents as educational partners
- How to unlearn
- Diversity of thinking
- The gamification of education
- Food for the body, food for thought
- Physical education
- Metaphysical education
- Community service
- Emotional intelligence
- Learning to learn
- Free play
- The inner life
- Real alumni relations
- The great wisdom traditions
- The art of manifestation
- Becoming stewards of the planet
- Values and standards of excellence
- Gardening
- Field trips
- Vision quests
- Learning from experience
- Awakening the muse
- What's Finland got to do with it?
- Community building
- Finding peace within
- Human beings, not human doings
- Rilke, Hafiz, Rumi, and Kabir
- Pausing and reflecting
- Less is more
- Optimal use of iPads and technology
- The power of positive feedback
- The subconscious mind
- Rudolf Steiner and Maria Montesouri
- Sudbury School
- Summerhill
- Unschooling
- John Holt
- Tolstoy and Einstein on education
- Free Schools
- John Taylor Gatto
- Other educational savants I know nothing about
- Improv theater
- Who was Soupy Sales?
- The relationship between AHA and HAHA
- Creative expression for everyone
- The art (and science) of listening
- Music!
- The Peace Education Program (PEP)
- Parent teacher conferences reinvented
- Presence
- Being in the moment
- Gratitude
- Silence

PS: After working with Al Siraat over the past two and a half years, I am under no illusions about how difficult it is to start and sustain a school. It is very difficult. Very. My hat and head is off to the Founders of Al Siraat, their Senior Leadership Team, teachers, staff, team leaders, students, and parents. My hat and head are also off to all the teachers on the planet, Principals, school administrators, curriculum creators, thought leaders, and anyone doing their best to raise the bar for education on this third rock from the sun. Teachers, by the way, almost everywhere, are supremely underpaid and under-valued. Theirs is not an easy job. Yes, they get summer vacations off, but what they need to do every day to plan, teach, guide, adapt, respond, flow, recover, intervene, manage, focus, referee, collaborate, listen, learn, and attempt to captivate the attention of way too many kids going through way too many changes is mind-blowing.

"Where is the book in which the teacher can read about what teaching is? The children themselves are this book. We should not learn to teach out of any book other than the one lying open before us and consisting of the children themselves." - Rudolf Steiner

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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:56 AM | Comments (2)

April 28, 2020
SPEED TO KNOWLEDGE: The Curious Roots of Micro-Learning

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Being the first to come up with a good idea does not always make the path to success easy. In fact, often, it's quite the opposite.

For example, the idea of micro-learning may be all the rage these days, but it wasn't always that way. In fact, the company that created the first micro learning programs, AthenaOnline, was kicked out of quite a few offices for even proposing the idea.

The idea of micro-learning -- bite-sized bits of knowledge that are easy to digest and understand -- has been around for ages. It encompasses everything from viewing a short video to reading an article to taking a short quiz. Micro-learning, however, was never a form of enterprise learning until the visionaries at AthenaOnline released its MyQuickCoach application in 1999.

Prior to that, in 1994, Athena had released a number of award-winning, computer-based training programs called The New Leader Series -- an idea inspired by popular game Myst, that created a "learning village" allowing users to explore what they wanted to learn at their own pace. Players would meet experts in various areas of the village and, depending on what they accomplished in the game, new areas to explore would open up. It was one of the first examples of gamification to hit the field of organizational learning.

profilepic.jpg As loved as these programs were, however, Jon Peters, AthenaOnline's Founder, soon noticed a surprising phenomenon. "As we began to repurpose the programs for the internet," said Jon, "we saw a huge number of people dropping out. Upon interviewing our customers, we discovered that people much preferred to approach learning in small chunks -- trying to fit what they could into their busy day."

Seeing a trend forming, Jon and his team made the move to create the QuickCoach concept -- short, video-based modules that people could absorb in 5 minutes or less.

Launching their first programs, in 1999, was no easy task. Remember, this was years before YouTube. Most companies were just beginning to think about moving their internal classes to computer-based learning. Indeed, Athena was told by a number of self-claimed OD savants that "video would never take off on the internet" and that "nobody could possibly learn anything in only five minutes."

It took years for Athena's ideas to take hold, but they kept at it.

As a new generation of managers entered the workplace -- a generation used to YouTube and bite-sized interactions of all kinds -- Athena's ideas began to take hold. (And Idea Champions, for one, is glad they did.)

"Sometimes," explains Jon Peters, "you just have to believe in yourself and your vision, even when nobody else does. What I learned, and am still learning, is that while seeking input from others is always good thing, it's not the only compass of success. Sometimes you just need to believe yourself and persevere."

PS: If you want to know the impact that AthenaOnline's micro-learning has had in organizations, click here to download an article about the University of Iowa where elearning usage increased by a whopping 800%.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: What "ahead of its time" project of yours, going more slowly than you imagined, do you need to double down on? And what is your next step

Free weekly micro-lessons from AthenaOnline
Yours truly on MyQuickCoach
Illustration: www.gapingvoid.com

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 08:12 AM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2020
If Corona Doesn't Kill US, Distance Learning Will

Here's your comic relief for the day, especially if you are a teacher (or parent) faced with the challenge of transitioning from traditional classroom learning to online, distance learning. I tip my hat to the thousands of dedicated teachers around the world who are making a heroic effort, in a very short amount of time, to make the changes necessary to adapt to these challenging times. Here's to resiliency and adaptability! Here's to creativity and collaboration. And here's to keeping our sense of humor and good cheer all along the way!

A special shout out to the teachers and staff of Al Siraat College, in Epping, Australia, for the extraordinary effort they are making to rise to the occasion!

And big thanks to Mr. Vis for showing this video at Day #1 of Al Siraat's three-day teaching training.

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:07 AM | Comments (0)

September 13, 2019
What I Learned from Being Heckled at a Corporate Keynote Presentation

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Every person who has ever had a job has experienced at least one "moment of truth" in their life -- a time when all the chips were on the table and the decision of whether to go "all in" or not had to be made.

One such moment happened to me a few years ago when I was facilitating a creative thinking session for 110 of Lucent Technology's "best and brightest" -- a room full of brilliant computer scientists with more PhDs than most politicians have excuses.

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There I was, on stage, introducing the day with a slide show of quotes from legendary innovators, when a man in the 10th row stands up and screams, "You are totally wrong! I used to work with that guy and he never would have said anything like that! If you can't get your quotes right, why should I believe anything you're about to tell us?"

If this was the Wild West, I had just been challenged to a duel at High Noon, armed only with a remote and a blueberry muffin.

Standing as I was in the epicenter of the optic fiber universe, I had only a nanosecond to assess the situation. There was no time for a strategic plan, no time for deliberation, no time to call my coach. This was Defcon 1, me face-to-face with one very angry man.

"Well..." I began (stalling for as much time as a single word would allow), "it is possible that you're right. The slides I'm showing today were just finalized yesterday and my assistant may have made an incorrect attribution. I will check with her when I get back to the office. That being said, I invite you to focus on the good stuff that's here for you today, not the possible flaws."

Logical? Yes. Effective? No. My comments only made him angrier, his face growing redder by the moment.

I now had a choice to make -- whether to further engage my corporate heckler in a heroic attempt to win him over or continue with the reason why I'd been hired in the first place -- to help seriously left-brained scientists tap into their lesser-used right brain.

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Choosing the latter, I proceeded to teach a powerful mind-opening technique based on the thinking styles of Albert Einstein and Garry Kasparov (a former Soviet Union Grand Chess Master).

Technique taught, I walked to the side of the stage and observed.

For the next five minutes, everything went smoothly. Everyone in the audience was focused and doing the work.

Then, without warning, Mr. You-Got-Your-Slides-All-Wrong stood up and, with great velocity, began approaching the stage. On a scale of 1-10, with "1" being walking and "10" being storming, he was a 9.8.

The faster he walked, the quieter the room got as I took my stance and readied myself for whatever was next.

Two feet from me, my fast approaching inquisitor stopped dead in his tracks, looked at me fiercely, eyes on fire, and exclaimed, "This is amazing!"

"What is amazing?" I replied.

"The technique you taught," he said. "I just had an incredible breakthrough about a problem I've been struggling with for years."

Happy for him and greatly relieved, I asked if he'd like to share his breakthrough with the group -- a task that would require the two of us to change roles for a few minutes, him taking center stage as teacher, me taking his seat, as student.

Which is exactly what we did.

The man was on a roll, inspired, lucid, and highly expressive. I couldn't have asked for a better spokesperson to convey the message I was trying to communicate that day -- a message about the innate ability all people have to go beyond their limiting assumptions and tap into a realm where breakthrough insights abide.

The dramatic and very visible shift my "heckler" had made from left-brained naysayer to right-brained savant was the embodiment of a teaching I couldn't have scripted in a hundred years. This had never been about me putting this man in his place or him putting me in mine. It was about changing places and seeing the world and ourselves through new eyes.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

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None of us know when the moment of truth will come. None of us know what it will look like and how we will respond.

But we do know this: If we are awake and engaged in our work, it will come. There is no escape. The more we are already "all in", the easier it will be for us to respond to whatever comes our way. The more we are able to flex to the moment and make wise choices that serve the greater good, the more powerful the outcomes will be.

My moment of confrontation, at Lucent, did not allow me the luxury of deep deliberation. I had to trust myself, be in the moment, and go with the flow. But even more than that, I had to be willing to reframe what seemed to be a problem into an opportunity. I had to make lemonade out of lemons, on the spot, and not squirt anything in the eyes of the people I was there to serve.

My task was not to find fault with the fault finder (an easy thing to do), but to transform the moment into deeper understanding.

On the front lines of business, it is extremely easy to find fault in others. Even on a good day, most of us are woefully imperfect -- filled with a lifetime's worth of quirks, projections, fears, habits, and routines -- the kind of stuff that bugs even our closest friends. Throw in the X factor of stress, heavy workloads, and constantly changing priorities and you have a formula for... well... major heckling.

Your mission, should you choose to accept this assignment, is not to take it personally.

The person who is heckling you (at work, on the street, or in your home) is most likely having a bad day, week, month, quarter, year, or life. If Jesus, himself, was to make a sudden appearance, your heckler would probably find fault with his hair, clothes, or accent.

If you react with the same negativity that is coming your way, all you'll end up doing is throwing fuel on the fire. If you hate being judged, but then judge the judgers for judging, you will only end up in a fun house hall of mirrors with no exit.

Make sense?

PS: At lunch, after the high drama Lucent session, my client informed me of three things: 1) The man who heckled me does the same thing to every outside speaker no matter how much coaching he's received; 2) The exchange between the heckler and me was the perfect embodiment of one of Lucent's core values at the time -- allowing creative dissonance -- a value they had been trying, unsuccessfully, to embed it their culture for years and; 3) As a result of the positive impact my session had, Lucent was going to license my company's creative thinking training. Lemons hadn't just turned into lemonade, they turned into some major cash flow, too.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: Think of a moment of truth you've had in the past year -- a surprise encounter that demanded an intuitive, in-the-moment response from you. What was that like for you? What did you do? What did you learn from the experience? And if, perchance, you did not respond in a way that worked, what might you do differently next time?

The story above is excerpted this book

It is NOT excerpted from this book

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)

December 21, 2018
The Martial Arts of the Mind

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Ten years ago I was invited to teach a course on "Innovation and Business Growth" at GE's Crotonville Management Development Center for 75 high potential, business superstars of the future.

The GE executive who hired me was a very savvy guy with the unenviable task of orienting new adjunct faculty members to GE's high standards and often harsher reality.

My client's intelligence was exceeded only by his candor as he proceeded to tell me, in no uncertain terms, that GE gave "new instructors" two shots at making the grade -- explaining, with a wry smile, that most outside consultants were intimidated the first time they taught at GE and weren't necessarily at the top of their game.

I'm not sure how you say it in Esperanto, but in English what he said translates as "The heat is on, big time."

I knew I would have to raise my game if I expected to be invited back after my two-session audition was over.

And so I went about my business of getting ready, keeping in mind that I was going to be leading a 6-hour session for 75 of GE's "best and brightest" flown half way around the world -- high flying Type A personalities with a high regard for themselves and a very low threshold for anything they judged to be unworthy of their time.

I had five weeks to prepare, five weeks to get my act together, five weeks to dig in and front load my agenda with everything I needed to wow my audience: case studies, statistics, quotes, factoids, and more best practices than you could shake an iPhone at.

I was ready. Really ready. Like a rookie center fielder on designer steroids, I was ready.

Or so I thought.

The more I spoke, the less they listened. The less they listened, the more I spoke, trotting out "compelling" facts and truckloads of information to make my case as they blankly stared and checked their email under the table.

Psychologists, I believe, would characterize my approach as "compensatory behavior."

I talked faster. I talked louder. I worked harder -- attempting in various pitiful ways to pull imaginary rabbits out of imaginary hats.

Needless to say, GE's best and brightest -- for the entire 45 minutes of my opening act -- were not impressed.

Clearly, I was playing a losing game.

My attempt to out-GE the GE people was a no-win proposition. I didn't need new facts, new statistics, or new quotes. I needed a new approach -- a way to secure the attention of my audience and help them make the shift from left-brained skepticism to right-brained receptivity.

And I needed to do it five minutes, not 45.

The next few days were very uncomfortable for me, replaying in my head -- again and again -- my lame choice of an opening gambit and wondering what, in the world, I could do to get better results in much less time.

And then, like an unexpected IPO from Mars, it hit me. The martial arts!

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As a student of Aikido, I knew how amazing the martial arts were and what a great metaphor they were for life.

Fast forward a few weeks...

My second session, at Crotonville, began exactly like the first -- with the Program Director reading my bio to the group in an heroic attempt to impress everyone. They weren't.

Taking my cue, I walked to center stage, scanned the audience and uttered nine words.

"Raise your hand if you're a bold risk taker."

Not a single hand went up. Not one.

I stood my ground and surveyed the room.

"Really?" I said. "You are GE's best and brightest and not one of you is a bold risk taker? I find that hard to believe."

Ten rows back, a hand went up. Slowly. Halfway. Like a kid in a high school math class, not wanting to offend the teacher.

"Great!" I bellowed, pointing to the semi-bold risk taker. "Stand up and join me in the front of the room!"

You could cut the air with a knife.

I welcomed my assistant to the stage and asked him if had any insurance -- explaining that I had called him forth to attack me from behind and was going to demonstrate a martial arts move shown to me by my first aikido instructor, a 110-pound woman who I once saw throw a 220-pound man through a wall.

Pin drop silence.

I asked our bold risk taker to stand behind me and grab both of my wrists and instructed him to hold on tight as I attempted to get away -- an effort that yielded no results.

I casually mentioned how the scenario being played out on stage is what a typical work day has become for most of us -- lots of tension, resistance, and struggle.

With the audience completely focused on the moment, I noted a few simple principles of Aikido -- and how anyone, with the right application of energy and the right amount of practice, could change the game.

As I demonstrated the move, my "attacker" was quickly neutralized and I was no longer victim, but in total control.

In three minutes, things had shifted. Not only for me and my attacker, but for everyone in the room.

That's when I mentioned that force was not the same thing as power -- and that martial artists know how to get maximum results with a minimum of effort -- and that, indeed, INNOVATION was all about the "martial arts of the mind" -- a way to get extraordinary results in an elegant way.

PS: I was invited back 26 times to deliver the course.

THE COMMENTARY

Every day, no matter what our profession, education, or astrological sign, we are all faced with the same challenge -- how to effectively communicate our message to others.

This challenge is particularly difficult these days, given the glut of information we all must contend with. The amount of information available to us is doubling every ten years! Yearly, more than one million books are published. Daily, we are bombarded with more 6,000 advertising messages and 150 emails. As a result, most of us find ourselves in a defensive posture, protecting ourselves from the onslaught of input.

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What I've discovered in the past 25 years of working with some of the world's most powerful organizations is that if I really want to have get my message across, I've got to deliver it in a what that gets past the "guardians at the gate" -- the default condition of doubt, disengagement, and derision that comes with the territory of life in the 21st century business world.

My rite of passage at GE was a microcosm of this phenomenon.

Indeed, my presumptive effort to "win over my audience" by impressing them with data, case studies, and best practices was a losing game. Not only was I barking up the wrong tree, I was in the wrong forest.

The key to my breaking through the collective skepticism of GE's best and brightest wasn't a matter of information. It was a matter transformation.

They didn't need to analyze, they needed to engage -- and it was my job to make that easy to do. Or, as Mahatma Gandhi so deftly put it, I had to "be the change I wanted to see in the world."

I had to do something that invoked the curious, playful, and associative right brain, not the logical, linear, analytical left brain -- tricky business, indeed, especially when you consider that most business people, these days, have a very low threshold for anything they judge to be impractical

Which is why I chose the martial arts as the operational metaphor at GE, my attempt to move them from the Dow to the Tao.

Impractical? Not at all.

Bottom line, whether we know it or not, we have all entered the "experience economy" -- a time when being involved is at least as important as being informed.

Information is no longer sufficient to spark change. Data is no longer king. Thinking only takes us part of the way home. It's feeling that completes the journey -- the kind of feeling that leads to full on curiosity and the kind of engagement that opens the door to exciting new possibilities.

Which is exactly what happened at GE when I made the shift from marshaling my facts, to marshaling my energy -- and by extension, the energy of 75 of GE's best and brightest.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: What message have you been trying to deliver (with too little impact) that might be communicated in a totally different way -- a way that more successfully engages people and leads to measurable results?

Excerpted from Storytelling at Work
Idea Champions
Applied Innovation
My Keynotes
It All Began With Balls
Big Blues from the Viagra People

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:58 PM | Comments (3)

November 16, 2018
Bring on the Learning Revolution

100 inspiring educational innovations
Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)

Transforming K-12 Education

A 4-minute overview of the leading edge work being done by the George Lucas' Educational Foundation. Much needed. Lots to explore.

Their educational philosophy.
Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 04:55 PM | Comments (0)

October 30, 2018
MICRO-LEARNING DONE RIGHT

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Here's all you need to know: The attention span of a goldfish is 9 seconds. The attention span of a human being is 8 seconds. Got that? Now, think about why most "Professional Development" programs in corporations under-perform. OK. time's up. Here's why:

quick coach.jpg The delivery platforms that most organizations use to "educate people" exceed most people's ability to concentrate. The content may be good, but participants' ability to stay engaged usually flames out in a few minutes.

Which is just one of the reasons why I love MyQuickCoach, the invention of Jon Peters -- one of the first multi-media savants into the Micro-Learning space.

Jon and his team have produced more than 2,700 quick hitting videos (usually 5 minutes or less), featuring thought leaders from a wide range of disciplines.

Here's one of yours truly on the power of appreciation and acknowledgment. I don't know if Jon has any goldfish for clients, but I'm sure he's thought about it.

Jon's email address: jpeters@athenastudios.com

MyQuickCoach
Innovation Starts with the Individual (1:38)
Idea Champions (that's us)

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)

September 06, 2018
A Big Shout Out to All of the Teachers on the Planet

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In the past 12 months I have spent 90 days working very closely with Al Siraat College, an Australian school in the Islamic tradition, located in the suburbs of Melbourne. Working at the school for a month at a time, I've had an extraordinary opportunity, to see, first hand, up close and personal, both the glory and the challenge of what it takes be a teacher in 2018 and also what's required to establish the kind of school culture that is conducive to real learning.

On the glory side of the equation, there is a lot to acknowledge -- countless opportunities for teachers to make a difference in the lives of the next generation of movers and shakers... never-ending chances to open eyes, open minds, and open hearts... chances to listen, connect, nurture, empower, encourage, inspire, awaken, educate, and be a catalyst for positive change. The audience? Kids! Children! Teenagers! Multi-cultural keepers of a very special flame -- the hope for our world. The ones Thomas Edison referred to when he said that "the greatest invention in the world is the mind of a child."

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On the flip side of the equation?

The extremely hard work required of teachers to deliver real value to class after class of kids who sometimes would rather be playing, texting, sleeping, googling, eating, watching TV, daydreaming, or any number of other pursuits far more interesting to them than algebra or sitting quietly at their desks. Toss in a few dozen X factors like one-parent families, stress, English as a second language, a multiplicity of learning styles, social media, distractability, bullying, and the rites of passage most kids go through daily and you have a formula for a very challenging profession.

I want to take this moment in time to deeply THANK all of the teachers in the world for taking on the challenge of educating our children -- and for staying with it even when it seems like nothing they do is noticed, working, or appreciated.

I also want to take this moment to thank all of the hard working teachers of Al Siraat for giving it their best day after day after day after day. I know it's not easy. I know it's not always fun. I know the path forward isn't always clear. But the efforts you are making ARE bearing fruit and will CONTINUE to bear fruit in ways you have not yet imagined. Stay with it! Hang in there! Trust the process! As they say, "Rome wasn't built in a day."

And to the Staff, Administrators, Directors, and Founders of Al Siraat, allow me to take this unofficial cyberspatial moment to acknowledge YOU for all your vision, commitment, perseverance, resilience, flexibility, collaboration, courage, and willingness to learn. The world needs more people like you! Stay with it! You are being called and you are responding, with nobility, love, and respect to the source of that call.

Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for the opportunity to be a part of what you are creating -- what one day may very well become a model for Islamic education in the West.

Heads of Learning
School Coordinators
Heads of Year
Middle Years Homegroup Teachers
Senior Years Homegroup Teachers
Junior Years Homegroup Teachers
Subject teachers
Specialist teachers
Counseling Services and Learning Support
Religion and Islamic Studies
Customer support
IT Support
Site Team
College Management
Executive Team

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:52 AM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2018
How to Spark Innovation in Your Company in 10 Minutes Per Week

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Do you work in an organization that is trying to raise the bar for innovation, teamwork, storytelling, and leadership, but doesn't have the budget to pay for trainings, keynotes, and workshops? Here's an alternative -- Idea Champions' Micro-Learning for Innovators service. It all happens online. At your own pace.

The price? YOU decide on the value of our service and make us an offer. 95% of the time we go with what our prospective clients suggest. 5% of the time we decline. Interested? mitch@ideachampions.com

Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)

March 23, 2018
DO SCHOOLS KILL CREATIVITY?

Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:29 AM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2017
Understand What Lean Six Sigma Is Without Getting a Huge Headache

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Ten years ago, my company was a vendor to a Fortune 100 company devoted to SixSigma. So devoted, in fact, that they required all of their vendors to take a two-day day Six Sigma training. While I never liked thinking of myself as a "vendor", I took the course. My experience of it? Like taking a geometry test while doing my taxes in a DMV office.

Yes, during those two days, I realized there were lots of useful tools to learn to make my business more effective. But I didn't learn them. Nor did I ever apply a single one of those tools on the job. The lunch buffet was memorable, but that was about it.

Fast forward to a few months ago. That's when I discovered a company who changed the way I thought about all this stuff. With a light touch, a deep understanding of how people learn, and a large dose of humanity, they have found a way to make the essence of SixSigma accessible, relatable, and enjoyable to learn. While they totally get that process is king, they also get that it is people who use processes and unless those people are actually learning process improvement methods in a memorable way, nothing much will change.

GoLeanSixSigma's online trainings draw on 25 years of success helping the world's leading organizations create happier customers and save millions of dollars. Click here if you are curious and want to kick their proverbial tires. For free. As in nada, zero, zippo, zilch.

Just for fun, here's the lyrics to a funny blues song I wrote about Six Sigma in an attempt to gain back my humanity after my first exposure to the SixSigma world.

The difference between Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 08:07 AM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2017
Move the Hole!

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I like what Edward deBono once said about the phenomenon of creative people trying to get results, but coming up empty (and I paraphrase). "If you are digging for oil and don't find any, move the hole!"

Pretty simple, eh? Sometimes, it seems as if aspiring innovators get fixated on a particular approach and, no matter what happens (or doesn't), they just keep doing the same old thing over and over again even when experience reveals that their approach is not working.

Of course, it's always possible that other factors are at play:

1. Perhaps the hole you've dug is too shallow and success is only a few shovelfuls away. Digger deeper, then, makes sense. Always possible.

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2. Maybe you're digging in the right place, but the tools you're digging with are not the right tools for the job.

3. And, of course, it's always possible that in your effort to discover oil, you don't see the unexpected diamonds and gold coins you stumble upon because everything that is "not oil" is invisible to you.

So, let's make this real for a moment. Think of a project you are working on -- one you have passion for whose results have been slower to materialize than you hoped. Got it? Good. Now answer the following before doing any more digging:

CAN YOU DIG THIS?

1. What are your instincts telling you about how to proceed? Have you dug the hole deep enough? Might it be time for you to move the hole? And if it is the time to move the hole, where might you move it? What are some new approaches to try? Other places to look?

2. If you sense that you haven't dug deep enough -- that you've been a dilettante, slacker, or half-hearted digger for oil -- what can you do to martial your forces and commit to a more rigorous digging effort? And what support, if any, might you need?

3. If, in your digging adventures, you have stumbled upon some unexpected "finds", but dismissed them because you were only focused on oil, how might you extract the value from your accidental discoveries?

By the way, 75% of all product breakthroughs are NOT the result of strategic plans or "intentional effort", but the result of serendipity and "happy accidents" -- what happens when the open-minded innovator stumbles on something intriguing, pauses, and makes the right kind of effort to see if this discovery has value and is worth pursuing.

Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:07 PM | Comments (0)

February 20, 2017
Unresolved Conflict at the Top Produces Chaos in the Middle and the Bottom

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A guest post by Idea Champions' newest leadership development consultant, Dr. Barry Gruenberg.

When those in senior leadership positions avoid conflict among themselves, the unresolved conflict ripples throughout the organization and paralyzes action at every level. Key issues go unresolved and the tension at the top pervades the organization. Followers of each of the powerful protagonists must constantly demonstrate their loyalty to their sponsors in their words and deeds; they must scrutinize all that they do to ensure that they are not seen as violating the party line.

Lower level employees are often enlisted to participate in task forces or committees to deal with the various by-products of the unresolved issues.

These efforts are virtually guaranteed to fail since any recommendations for resolution will compromise at least one of the contending senior managers who will usually use their power to veto the idea, leaving the task force frustrated and progress hindered.

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This is ironic because the members of the task force will have attempted to remain loyal to their constituency throughout the proceedings and will usually feel that they have salvaged the most important interests of their group in the negotiation process. But the senior managers, who have delegated their conflict, will generally take an all or nothing posture on the outcome.

The only true resolution to this phenomenon requires the direct participation of the protagonists -- their committed effort to resolve their differences before the symptoms of their misalignment irrevocably muddies the organizational waters.

Idea Champions
Becoming an Adaptive Leader
Listening With Impact

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:07 AM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2016
STORYTELLING AT WORK goes to college (and never took an SAT)!

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Good news! My award-winning book, Storytelling at Work, is going to be used, in the Spring, as a textbook for a very innovative Business Communications course at The Sage Colleges in upstate New York.

The idea for this was the brainstorm of Dr. Haidy Brown, who was looking for a different way to introduce her students to the power of personal storytelling. I think Dr. Brown is a genius! The two of us will be meeting, in December, to explore various ways she can use my book as a catalyst for breakthrough in the lives of college students.

If YOU are affiliated with a college and want to explore the possibilities with us, contact me: mitch@ideachampions.com. I have a dream -- that Storytelling at Work will be the "go to" textbook for business communication courses all over the world within the next two years.

My story-centric podcasts, interviews, and articles

My storytelling blog

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2016
I Am Not a Handyman

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Are you a man -- or know a man who is, shall we say, "handyman challenged"? If so, then this newly published Huffington Post article of mine, is for you. Three minutes worth of comic relief. If you like it, please LIKE it and forward the link to your friends. Let's go viral!

90 other HuffPost articles of mine

My day job
Storytelling at Work

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2016
The Crowdsourced Birth of a New Book Beyond Business Innovation

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Greetings! It's me, Mitch Ditkoff, author of this blog, President of Idea Champions, writer, speaker, husband, father, and dust particle. If you've been enjoying this blog, there is a good chance you will enjoy my forthcoming book. Towards that end, I have just launched a GoFundMe campaign and am inviting you to participate. We're talking crowd-sourced funding -- a way for me to buy the time and resources I need to write, produce, publish, and promote the book before hell freezes over. Hope you can be part of it! It takes a village... and a few village idiots!

Click here to find out more
Click here if you don't want to find out more

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2016
WOOF! Go Beyond Your Pet Ideas!

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If your company runs brainstorming sessions, know this: too many of them have become veiled opportunities for people to trot out their pet ideas.

Because everyone is so ridiculously busy these days and real listening is at a premium, people use brainstorming sessions as a way to foist their pre-existing ideas on others.

And while this sometimes leads to results, it doesn't make best use of the opportunity a brainstorm session provides. The way around this phenomenon?

Give people a chance to express their pre-existing ideas at the beginning of a session. Clear the decks. Then use the rest of the time to explore the unknown. Woof! Woof!

High Velocity Brainstorming
Conducting Genius
Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:48 AM | Comments (2)

February 28, 2015
How to Deliver a Meaningful, Memorable Message Quickly

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HINT: It has nothing to do with pep talks, powerpoint shows, case studies, statistics, data, performance reviews, carrots, or sticks. Give up?

Stories. That's right. Stories. Storytelling, done well, is the most effective way to deliver a meaningful, memorable message. It's been going on since the Stone Age. Why? Because it works.

Here's my 5-minute talking head video on the topic.

25 quotes on storytelling
As it applies to teenage girls
One of my stories
Our storytelling workshop

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:36 PM | Comments (1)

September 15, 2014
Is Peace the Innovation We Need the Most?

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"Innovation" continues to be a hot topic in corporate circles these days -- a "competitive edge" organizations are increasingly attempting to hone so they can not only differentiate themselves from the competition, but survive in today's topsy turvy economy.

That being said, there are some forward thinking organizations out there who are going beyond the status quo and seriously asking themselves what they can do differently to not only be "socially responsible", but use their corporate clout to help various peace-themed global causes truly impact positive change.

If that describes your organization, please contact us. Idea Champions, in 2015, will be launching a new innovation-sparking service to help corporations, world wide, figure out HOW they can leverage their resources, bandwidth, and brainpower to foster peace and well-being in the world -- and still make a profit.

International Day of Peace in the Huffington Post
Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:35 PM | Comments (0)

August 02, 2014
Unleashing Business Brilliance

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That's what we do. And below are five ways we do it.

Conducting Genius

Engaging Innovation
Ingenious Leadership
What's the Problem?
Team Innovation
What our clients say

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

July 07, 2014
Rene Descartes Had It Backwards

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Rene Descartes, the famous French philosopher, mathematician, and writer is remembered by many as the author of the famous phrase, "I think therefore I am."

With all due respect to the probably-way-smarter-than-me Mr.Descartes, I don't buy it.

Based on my non-Aristotelian, late night sojourns into the flip side of thinking, it's become very clear to me that a more accurate statement would be "I am therefore I think."

Then again, since we all know Werner Heisenberg irrefutably proved that the experimenter affects the experiment, it is likely that the truest philosophical statement of being would probably take on the shape of the person who said it.

And so, in a highly non-caffeinated fit of blogospheric bravado, I present to you 15 alternate statements of epistemological coolitude that give Descartes' tired phrase (and mine) a run for their money.

1. "I wink, therefore I am." - Sarah Palin
2. "I blink, therefore I am." - Malcolm Gladwell
3. "I link, therefore I am." - Larry Page and Sergey Brin
4. "I sink therefore I am." - Davey Jones and his Locker
5. "I stink therefore I am." - Pepe LePew

6. "I drink, therefore I am." - WC Fields
7. "I ink, therefore I am." - Kinkos
8. "I slink, therefore I am." - Marilyn Monroe
9. "I rink, therefore I am." - Wayne Gretzky
10. "I kink, therefore I am." - Ray Davies

11. "I clink, therefore I am." - Moet Chandon
12. "I fink, therefore I am." - Vinny "The Rat" Scalucci
13. "I pink, therefore I am." - Mary Kay
14. "I tink, therefore I am." - Bob Marley
15. "I plink, therefore I am." - Ernest Kaai

Got others? Lay them on me.

A big thank you to Cary Bayer and Barney Stacher for a bunch of the aforementioned pearls of wisdom

Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 06:39 PM | Comments (5)

March 16, 2014
How to Spark Wisdom in the Workplace

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Dear Heart of Innovation Readers:

If you have received any value from this blog and would be interested in supporting my next, big project -- now launched as a GoFundMe campaign -- click here for a 3-minute video of me describing it and a written description of what the whole thing is all about -- a venture which includes the writing, publication, and promotion of a new book, Wisdom at Work, along with the launching of WISDOM CIRCLES in organizations around the world.

Whatever support you can provide is very much appreciated, Plus, you will be sent a copy of the book when it's published, if you want.

Mitch Ditkoff's GoFundMe campaign

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)

March 07, 2014
Your Money or Your Life

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For the life of me, I cannot remember the name of the financial services company that left me an urgent voice mail message asking that I call them back immediately about my availability to lead their annual leadership retreat on a island off the coast of Florida.

All I can recall was how generic sounding their name was -- something like National Investment Services... or Consolidated Financial Brokers.... or The American Banking Alliance -- kind of like the corporate equivalent of John Doe.

Somehow, they had heard of me and, with their big company pow wow coming up, were looking for someone, with a track record, to help them "become more innovative."

Never having heard of them before, I googled their name and, 1.73 seconds later, found myself on their website, slickly designed, I imagined, by someone with a special fondness for iStock photos of earnest looking models impersonating business people -- models who must have just moved to L.A. to pursue acting careers, but found themselves, at 24 or 35, working part-time as waiters and jumping at the chance to pick up some easy money wearing a suit and a smile for a day.

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Easy for me to say -- me being the proverbial pot calling the proverbial kettle black with my big ass mortgage, family to feed and young entrepreneur's dream of making it big so I'd actually have enough moolah, one day, to invest with a financial services firm. Not to mention all the time in the world to write my best-selling book.

My first meeting with the client was pleasant enough. They talked. I listened, choosing not to interrupt them every time they made their point with an acronym I probably should have known if I only I hadn't spent my formative years living as a hippie, poet and monk.

OK, so they weren't a solar energy company. So they weren't asking me to help them end AIDS. I got it. This was business. The money business. The big money business -- and I was in it, no matter how much Rilke and Rumi I read on the side. Money. This was about money. Money and the VP of something or other inviting me to meet with him and his team the following week on the 57th floor of a building on Wall Street. There would be a badge waiting for me at the security desk, he explained. All I needed to do was show my ID.

Thrilled? Was I thrilled? Not exactly. But this was a possible gig and I needed the bread, so I went.

The VP and his team on the 57th floor looked nothing like the iStock photos on their company's homepage, though they did have a real nice view of Manhattan and a large mahogany conference table.

Our conversation went well enough. I asked all the right questions. They gave all the right answers. They sprinkled the conversation with football metaphors. I nodded. They gave me their business cards. I gave them mine. But on the way home, I began to feel a creeping sense of dislocation and dread -- like I was auditioning for a movie I wasn't quite sure I wanted to be in -- a movie being produced by a very fat man, sitting poolside, cell phone and martini in hand.

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So when they called me back for a third meeting, I was betwixt and between. Do I simply trust my instincts and tell them I'm not their man? Or do I let go of my all-too-obvious self-righteous judgments and focus on the possibility that I might actually be able to help them get to higher ground?

Eternally the optimist, I chose the latter and decided to meet with them a third time -- a meeting, sad to say, which only confirmed the fact that I didn't like them very much and didn't like myself for sitting in a room with them and enabling their collective hallucination of themselves as a service organization when all they really wanted to do was make more money. Lots more money.

More chit chat. More coffee. More "run it up the flagpole" platitudes that littered our conversation like hidden charges on a credit card bill.

This was the moment of truth.

My client-to-be, apparently satisfied with what was about to become his decision to engage my services, cut to the chase and asked me to quote him a fee.

The honorable thing to have done, at the time, would have sounded like "John, I wish you the best of luck at your offsite, but after deep consideration, I don't think I'm the best possible fit for your company's needs."

But since I hadn't yet mastered the art of speaking my truth I took the easy way out and doubled my fees, thinking that they would now be so ridiculously high it would be the client's decision to end the relationship, not mine.

"That sounds about right," the client exclaimed, extending his right hand to seal the deal.

Fast forward six weeks later.

It's 8:30 a.m. and I'm on stage, in the Oakwood Room, on a beautiful island off the coast of Florida. Looking out at the audience, I notice that four of the gathered troops are sleeping, heads on the table. Someone in the front row explains to me that last night had been a "late one" and they'd all stayed up, drinking, until 4:00 a.m.

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I tap the mic and begin speaking, trusting that the sound of my amplified voice would be enough to wake the dead.

Two of them snap to attention. The other two don't, still lightly snoring.

I signal the people sitting next to their sleep-deprived peers to poke them, which they do, shooting glances at me as if I am a substitute algebra teacher.

This is, as far I could tell, not a leadership offsite at all, but a college fraternity weekend -- big men on campus with stock options, golf shirts and a very high opinion of themselves. The collective attention span in the room is somewhere between a tse tse fly and a lizard. Nothing I say lands. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Only one thing is clear -- I am the highly paid warm up act before another night of drinking -- a small typographic box they can check off next quarter to prove they have done "the innovation thing."

I may have missed the moment of truth back at my client's office six weeks ago, but I wasn't going to miss it today.

"Gentlemen and ladies," I announce. "It's obvious that some of you don't want to be here. It seems you'd rather be golfing, napping or checking your email. I have no problem with that. So... we're going to take a 20-minute break. Only return if you really want to be here. Otherwise, you'll just be dead weight, screwing it up for the rest of us. Kapish?"

Twenty minutes pass. Everyone returns. Every single one of them.

And while the rest of the day didn't exactly qualify as one of the great moments in the history of innovative leadership off sites, at least it wasn't a total loss. Some good stuff actually happened. People woke up. People shaped up. People stepped up. And I learned a valuable lesson that would serve me for the rest of my life: Follow my feeling, not the money trail.


This story excerpted from my forthcoming book: WISDOM AT WORK: How Moments of Truth on the Job Reveal the Real Business of Life.

This story also in the Huffington Post
What's the Problem?
How to help these guys change
We all have a story to tell
Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

March 01, 2014
Follow Your Feeling, Not the Money Trail

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Sometimes, you just gotta follow your feeling, not the money trail. A new article of ours just published in the Huffington Post.

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)

December 31, 2012
Mayan Calendar Prophecy Demystified

If you've been
wondering
why the world
didn't end in 2012
as many interpreters
of the Mayan calendar
thought it would,
here's why --
the full scoop
revealed
in my most recent
Huffington Post article --
an especially
timely piece
if you like Italian food.


Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)

December 28, 2012
The 10 Most Popular Postings on the Heart of Innovation Blog in 2012

Voila! For your reading pleasure, here are the 10 most popular postings on this blog for 2012.

Curiously, the most popular one had nothing to do with innovation -- it was about the death of my father.

The other most popular topics? Email, Appreciation, Regrets of the Dying, Motherhood, Humor, Technology, Public Speaking, Asking Why, and Being a Manager.

Here's to a happy, healthy, and hugely creative year to you and yours in 2013! With gratitude from the entire Idea Champions team!

THE 10 MOST POPULAR POSTINGS ON THIS BLOG IN 2012:

1. Out of the Box, In the Box
2. 14 Ways to Go Beyond the Email Blues
3. The Power of Appreciation
4. The Five Regrets of the Dying
5. Because I'm the Mom
6. 20 Awesome Quotes on Humor, Play, and Creativity
7. The Cool But Creepy Futuristic World of Ray Kurzweil
8. The Arc of a Good Presentation
9. Why You Need to Ask Why
10. Rethinking the Role of a Manager

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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:37 PM | Comments (0)

October 25, 2012
The Kindness-At-Work Manifesto

This just in! We're here for just a little while. No one gets out of here alive. Not even Donald Trump. So while you're here, remember to be kind and go beyond judgment, blame, and impatience -- especially when things start getting stressed out. Like on-the-job.

Here's my inspired rant on the subject, just published in The Huffington Post.

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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2012
Web Workshops from Idea Champions

Here's a 3minute video overview of Idea Champions newest service -- Web Workshops -- highly engaging 60-minute tutorials to help your workforce raise the bar for innovation, collaboration, and communication.

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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 04:11 PM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2012
The Rock and a Hard Place Exercise

Here's a fun 5-minute exercise -- a good icebreaker or brainstorm session starter.

Make a list of every bad thing that will happen to you and your business if you don't figure out how to free yourself from being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Then take another five minutes and make a second list of everything you can do to prevent the stuff you just wrote down on your first list from happening. Go!

Idea Champions

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:32 AM | Comments (0)

January 02, 2012
Top Innovation Bloggers of 2011

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Well, I've got good news and great news to share with you.

First the good news: I was just voted the #1 innovation blogger in the world in a contest sponsored by Innovation Excellence, the #1 innovation blog in the world.

Now the great news: 2012 is going to be an awesome year for you -- full of happiness, abundance, creativity, collaboration, community, fun, gratitude and, yes, innovation. That is, if you want it to be.

I'd like to take this moment to thank all of you who voted for me. (And by the way, for those of you who think that all I do is write about innovation, please know that this is just a sideline).

My real work is in the trenches...

I'd also like to acknowledge some amazing people who have inspired and encouraged me throughout the years.

These include Evelyne Pouget, Tim Gallwey, Prentiss Uchida, Seth Godin, Gary Hamel, Ben Zander, Roger van Oech, Guy Kawasaki, Erika Andersen, Rumi, Hafiz, Kabir, Morihei Ueshiba, the entire Idea Champions team, Joe and Eddie, Ron Brent, Phyllis Rosen, Joan Apter and, most of all, Prem Rawat (aka Maharaji).

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I first heard about Prem Rawat when he was 13 (and I was 24). At that very young age, he came to America (from India) to bring a very powerful message of peace -- a message he doesn't just talk about, but helps people experience for themselves.

He is not the first to talk about this message. Nor will he be the last. But he is here and now -- helping thousands of people, from all walks of life, go beyond ideas to find their way to the source of peace within themselves.

His dedication, brilliance, love, and endless commitment to innovating is a great source of inspiration to me.

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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 02:11 PM | Comments (2)

December 14, 2011
The Best Practice of Love

A few weeks ago, my wife and I had a huge fight. A doozy. The Superbowl of all fights. If you're married -- or ever were -- I'm sure you've had at least one of these. Probably more.

You think you're right. They think they're right. You attack, they deflect. They attack, you deflect. You get hopeless and weird. They get hopeless and weird.

And both of you -- self-appointed judges in a supreme court of your own creation -- feel diminished, abused, blamed, hurt, ignored, dissed, damaged, and demonized.

The love? Out the window. And the window? Stuck in a half-closed position.

Whenever I'm embroiled in this kind of dynamic and (hallelujah!) manage to make it out the other side, I get majorly humbled -- all concepts of myself as a conscious, loving, evolved human being completely blown to smithereens.

And yet... no matter how painful the experience, something good always comes out of it. A phoenix rises from the ashes. Like the list below, for example -- my wishes for my dear wife, Evelyne, (the day after) and, by extension, you, me, and all the other 8 billion people on planet Earth.

THE BEST PRACTICE OF LOVE: My Wishes for You

1. Gratitude every day
2. Deep inner peace, especially during tough times
3. Kindness
4. Patience
5. Forgiveness

6. The courage to be yourself
7. Rest and renewal
8. The vision to see God in everyone
9. Letting go of self-righteousness
10. Simplicity and ease

11. The willingess to let go of worry and doubt
12. Allowing yourself to be nurtured
13. More fun
14. Plenty of time to do nothing
15. Spaciousness

16. Heartfelt self-expression
17. Health and vitality
18. Moving through the tasks of your life as if you were a dancer
19. Relating to each person you talk to as if they were the only person on earth at that moment

20. Laughter from your core
21. Appreciation of your family
22. A "live and let live" mindset
23. Waking up each day with gladness
24. Humility
25. The experience of community

26. Full responsibility for your own projections
27. Trust
28. Honoring all of the teachers in your life, past and present
29. Slowing down, going deeper
30. The ability to order a very rich dessert in your favorite restaurant without enrolling someone to share it with you

31. A wi-fi connection whenever you want
32. The end of lower back pain
33. Living the St. Francis Prayer without making a big deal of it
34. Knowing you are loved
35. Good sushi within a five-mile radius

36. Appreciation of other people's "spiritual path" -- with absolutely no judgment
37. Foot massages
38. Fresh air
39. Understanding what Krishna meant when he said: "The world is an illusion, but you have to act as if it's real."
40. Random acts of kindness

41. Nights on the town
42. The ability to be alone, but not lonely
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43. Accepting the aging process with dignity and delight
44. Fabulous dinners with friends

45. Nights in front of the fire
46. Having no regrets
47. Cranking up the music
48. Not judging your kids for texting or being on Facebook
49. Seeing the blessing in every challenge that comes your way
50. Loving yourself when you look in the mirror

51. Not having to look in the mirror to love yourself
52. New adventures
53. Endless learning
54. Giving up complaint
55. A dependable plumber

56. Snow angels!
57. Working smarter, not harder
58. Looking up at the stars
59. Never going to bed angry
60. Being happy for other people's successes

61. Realizing you are everything and nothing both at the same time
62. Unconditional love

63. Reframing aging as "becoming an elder" instead of "getting old"
64. Weekends in exotic places
65. Someone else to wash the dishes

66. Enjoying the poetry of Rumi, Kabir, and Hafiz
67. Did I mention foot massages?
68. The commitment to immerse in the projects that most fascinate you
69. Deep listening
70. Longer vacations

71. Reaching out to those less fortunate than you
72. Holding hands with someone you love
73. Taking on an impossible project -- and making it happen
74. Really good chocolate
75. Unforgettable celebrations

76. Going beyond your limiting assumptions
77. The discipline that comes from love, not duty
78. Spontaneous generosity
79. One remote for all your electronics
80. A hot bath on a cold night

81. Wonderful surprises

82. The laughter of children
83. Realizing you have enough
84. Timelessness
85. Understanding this quote: "When you're on the path it's a mile wide, when you're off it, it's razor thin."
86. Giving flowers to absolute strangers

87. A wardrobe you love
88. Resilience
88. Making a clear distinction between longing and desire
89. No fear of death
90. Dancing around the living room for no particular reason
91. Howling at the moon
92. Knowing how to say "no" without being negative

93. Completing what you came here to do
94. Experiencing life as a beautiful play
95. Freshly baked chocolate chip cookies
96. Forgiving everyone who has ever wronged you
97. Passion

98. Compassion
99. The peace that passes all understanding
100. Sweet watermelon on a summer day
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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)

November 12, 2011
Jesse Rocks!

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Idea Champions
My keynotes

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 12:25 AM | Comments (4)

April 16, 2011
How the Ivy League is Killing Innovation

Here's a wonderful article, just published in Bloomberg Business Week that raises a very curious paradox -- why academics are teaching innovation.

Authors G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Louis Viton state their case clearly, cleanly, and with just enough of an edge to draw blood.

"Process-driven cultures love process-driven experts. Organizations, just like people, do what makes them feel strong, and nothing makes mature, process-driven companies feel stronger than having a template for doing anything (even if having a completely buttoned-down-ain't-no-exceptions-allowed template for innovation seems oxymoronic on its face).

Need innovation? Simply call in a PhD with a bow tie and trademarked process and watch your innovation portfolio grow. Right? Nope."

If you are a professor and find Maddock and Viton's article objectionable, speak up! Let them know what you think -- and why. Maybe you're the one who's found a way to teach innovation in a novel, cut-to-the-chase, non-academic way. I know there are some of you out there. Yes?

If you are a high roller in a corporation looking for the "secret innovation sauce," I invite you to read their article before reaching out to academia for your next keynote speaker.

Here's an alternative

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Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 07:11 PM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2010
iPhone, Therefore I Am

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Got iPhone? Want something more interesting than just the weather and the location of your nearest Starbucks? If so, download Cards of Destiny -- especially if you want some fascinating insights into who you are in the grand scheme of things.

Being from New York, I was skeptical at first that an online deck of 52 "playing cards" could offer me any useful insights. (Aaargh! Tarot cards gone digital!) But I was wrong.

My birth card (September 8th), I learned, was the "Three of Diamonds," AKA "The Colorful Character." And what it had to say about me was totally accurate -- and gave me much food for thought.

Still skeptical, I thumb-scrolled the cool birthday calendar that comes with the app to read the description of my wife, son, and daughter. Again, spot on, each one. The best $2.99 I've spent this year.

For more about Sharon Jeffers, the wizard behind the deck, click here.

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2009
The Top Ten Learning Tools on the Web

Click here for the Top Ten Learning Tools on the web as compiled by the fabulous Jane Hart, Social Media and Learning Consultant.

If you've never seen Jane's E-Learning Pick of the Day site, check it out immediately (or at least by 3:30pm) and discover an extraordinary web resource -- especially if you just can't seem to catch up with all the latest and greatest apps, websites, tools, blogs, and digital goodies.

Last year Jane featured one of our online creative thinking tools. And I'm not talking hammer, chisel, or screwdriver.

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at 01:30 AM | Comments (0)

Who Are We?

Idea Champions is a consulting and training company dedicated to awakening and nurturing the spirit of innovation. We help individuals, teams and entire organizations tap into their innate ability to create, develop and implement ideas that make a difference.

MitchDitkoff.com
Click here for the simplest, most direct way, to learn more about Idea Champions' semi-fearless leader, Mitch Ditkoff. Info on his keynotes, workshops, conferences, and more.
Storytelling for the Revolution
Storytelling for the Revolution is Mitch Ditkoff's newly published book about the power of personal storytelling to elevate the conversation on planet Earth. Provocative. Evocative. And fun. YOU have stories to tell. This book will help you tell them.
Storytelling at Work
"The world is not made of atoms," wrote the poet, Muriel Rukeyser. "It's made of stories." Learn how to discover, honor, and unpack the stories of yours that show up "on the job" in Mitch Ditkoff's award-winning 2015 book, Storytelling at Work.
Top 5 Speaker
Mitch Ditkoff, the Co-Founder and President of Idea Champions, has recently been voted a top 5 speaker in the field of innovation and creativity by Speakers Platform, a leading speaker's bureau.
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Workshops & Trainings
Highly engaging learning experiences that increase each participant's ability to become a creative force for positive change
Brainstorm Facilitation
High impact certification training that teaches committed change agents how to lead groundbreaking ideation sessions
Cultivating Innovation
Your "best and brightest" are the future leaders of your company, but unless they know how to foster a culture of innovation, their impact will be limited. A one-day workshop with us is all they need to begin this journey.
Our Blog Cabin
Our Heart of Innovation blog is a daily destination for movers and shakers everywhere — gleefully produced by our President, Mitch Ditkoff, voted "best innovation blogger in the world" two years running.
Team Innovation
Innovation is a team sport. Brilliant ideas go nowhere unless your people are aligned, collaborative, and team-oriented. That doesn't happen automatically, however. It takes intention, clarity, selflessness, and a new way of operating.
Awake at the Wheel, Book about big ideas If you're looking for a powerful way to jump start innovation and get your creative juices flowing, Awake at the Wheel is for you. Written by Mitch Ditkoff, Co-Founder and President of Idea Champions.
Face the Music Blues Band The world's first interactive business blues band. A great way to help your workforce go beyond complaint.

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