Category: Politics
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Is your organization flourishing or withering?
Organizations are organic things — they are born, they die, they suffer and they thrive. But very few organizations flourish. Organizations that flourish are rare creatures. We find them where business goals are tied to larger purpose, where larger purpose is linked to community needs, and where individuals’ authentic selves are nourished by and engaged…
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Fronting for “the Man”: Can BP disarm our anger by using a Black “Teddy-Bear” Spokesperson?
[Trigger alert: This post is about racism.] There is no more incendiary question than the implicit and unspoken question that often follows the promotion of non-white and/or non-male employees: Did s/he get the job because s/he’s qualified, or did s/he get the job because s/he’s (fill in the diversity criterion here)? Corporate American is seldom…
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Employee Branding at BP: Do snazzy uniforms protect the response teams?
Somebody at BP has been reading The Onion. BP has figured out that dressing their employees in groovy outfits can help build esprit, camaraderie and a even a sense of importance. Okay, I’m being snarky here… but I am wondering about the positive (and possibly negative) effects of the outfits these BP control center personnel…
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Misleading Image for Army: New York Times, PowerPoint and Complexity Fail
Was anyone else annoyed by the use of this image, below, on the front page of today’s New York Times? The image is being used to illustrate an article on “death by Powerpoint“, or the overuse of linear, bullet-pointed presentation methods in today’s information-drenched warfare. I have no quarrel with the reporting in the article…
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Corporations as Persons: Steven Colbert explains this bad idea
[Jan 21: In light of yesterday’s Supreme Court Decision, I’m re-posting this serious & pop-culture critique of the anti-democratic argument that Corporations Are People. Scott Klinger writing over at Alternet, sets out what it would/should mean for corporations really to be treated as “persons” and thus have the same responsibilities as people too. Me, I’d…
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When Brandividuals Violate Organizational Reputation: Ethics, NPR and Fox News
Media Watchdog Eric Boehlert blasts out of the gate this morning with an incisive critique of a longstanding, problematic relationship between NPR and Fox News. Please go to Eric’s post “According to its ethics code, NPR still has a problem” at MediaMattersForAmerica to read the entire story, which he has been covering for several years.…
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The 10 Day Boycott: A S.M.A.R.T. response to Whole Foods’ CEO Mackey
Boycotts don’t work. Boycotts rarely, if ever, achieve the goal(s) set out for them, in large part because boycott organizers lack clear goals for what response the boycott is supposed to trigger and especially for what the boycotting action has to demonstrate in order to be seen as “successful”. So I’ve got a proposal, for…
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Reason #238 that we should have another woman on the Supreme Court
From Feministing. com Really, Ann Friedman nails it. No sense in trying to recap this… just head to the full article. (captioned photo from Feministing) Supreme Court: Pregnancy discrimination A-OK! “Today our nation’s highest court ruled in AT&T v. Hulteen that women who took maternity leave and were discriminated against by AT&T are shit out…