Change Reflections  Al Watts It’s been a challenging year, mainly in good ways. Beyond 2017’s general challenges that we’ve likely all encountered, my wife and I have been managing the move from our home of 25 years. I couldn’t help capturing some parallels and

Does anyone remember the 1980’s ad: “Is it real, or is it Memorex?” The ad challenged TV viewers to distinguish between the announcer and a videotape of the announcer using 3M’s Memorex brand of videotape. (Perhaps I should have first asked if you remember “videotape”!) The ad has bee

Did you ever suspect that your “true north” isn’t actually true? If so, it could be on account of “variation” or “deviation;” let me explain. Especially before the wonders of GPS and electronic navigation, to sail a true course it was important to know about variation and deviation, t

(This month’s guest author is the founder of MaxPerformance, dedicated to maximizing personal performance, productivity and wellbeing. Nancy and I share the conviction that our “3 Ps:” Purpose, Principles and Priorities are foundational to personal as well as professional wellbeing an

I’ve become even more convinced that change, including positive change, is personal. I’ve been fortunate these last few months to be engaged leading the strategic planning process for an out-of-town higher education institution, coupled with additional teaching loads as adjunct facult

“What if all we had tomorrow is what we were grateful for today?” One of our students in the Master of Organizational Leadership program at St. Mary’s University recently posed this powerful question, prompting me to fortify my efforts cultivating an “attitude of gratitude.” There are

So, “Selfie” is Oxford Dictionaries’ “word of the year!” “Selfies,” of course, are those snapshots that we see practically everyone taking of themselves with smart phones and posting on social media. Oxford explains how “selfie” earned its distinction because of its impact on society

I’ve been thinking about persistence a lot lately. It started in the middle of gathering firewood in the BWCA, sawing a downed log that was a tad large for my folding saw. I kept at it, and was eventually rewarded with enough wood to grill our freshly caught bass. Over dinner, convers

In older days, “Clear the deck!” was a common command to prepare for doing battle at sea. The command focused attention, cleared visibility to gain a better perspective on the action, eliminated distractions and quickly channeled resources where they were needed most. Literally or fig

“Design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all.” (Douglas Martin) I recently had the opportunity to participate in an excellent webinar about “Service Design” by John Wooden and J Hruby of Fredrickson Communications. Many of the principles th