Category: Articles
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From Students to Citizens and Workers: An Interview with Deborah Meier
You and some colleagues are on a retreat, discussing long-term strategies for your organization. As the hour grows late, someone brings up the issue…
The Conversational Power of Mapping Our Mental Models
Suppose that I bought a $34 ticket to hear a concert and, on the way to the event, I lost the ticket. I…
Attention Not Energy
When you face something unpleasant, give it your attention but not your energy.” This is one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever…
A Business Is More than a Balance Sheet
Teachers sit on the bleachers at town meetings watching the townspeople resist raising their salaries. The Dartmouth faculty complains to the trustees about the governance…
Learning Organizations: From Invention to Innovation
“Forget your old, tired ideas about leadership. The most successful corporation of the 1990s will be something called a learning organization,” intoned a recent Fortune…
Drifting Goals: The “Boiled Frog” Syndrome
It’s becoming an old story in the systems thinking field: If you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, he will immediately hop…
Fixes That Fail: Oiling the Squeaky Wheel—Again and Again . . .
How many times have you heard the saying “the squeaky wheel gets the oil?” Most people agree that whoever or whatever makes the most “noise”…
Limits to Success: When the “Best of Times” Becomes the “Worst of Times”
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” wrote…
ithink®: The Visual Thinking Tool
We live in an age of spreadsheets. From tracking expenses to projecting future revenue streams, spreadsheet software packages have become an invaluable tool for many…