I started my Fourth of July festivities by running the 10 kilometer (6.2 mile) Kenwood Footrace. My finish time was a bit slower than usual, as I haven’t been running much; instead, I’ve been doing long, fully-laden hikes in preparation for a 240-mile backpacking trip. During a race, I get obsessed with those mile […]
Comments Off on How Long Is a Mile?
I’m in the process of planning this summer’s Sierra backpacking trip. Maps, guidebooks, and random bits of equipment are heaped all around my house. Along with testing gear, dehydrating food, and packing, I’m plotting out my itinerary. One crucial bit of information I am researching and marking on all my maps: potential bail-out points. If […]
Comments Off on Strategic Planning Lessons from the John Muir Trail
I’ve been graphically recording sessions at the California Society of Association Executives’ annual conference. Attendees rush up afterwards to take photos and shower me with compliments, then rush off to their next session. I rarely get a chance to answer two important questions: What happens to these pictures afterwards? How might this work be useful […]
Comments Off on So, What Do You Do With All Those Charts?
Life coaches, personal trainers, and business consultants advise us to set goals and create a strategic plan with actions and deadlines that will enable us to achieve them. When is it appropriate to modify or abandon a goal? I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Last year, I set the goal of running my first […]
Comments Off on Letting Go of the Goal
A quick visual exercise can utterly transform how a group understands itself. I recently worked with a Board that perceived themselves as very divided. One camp was supposedly dedicated solely to the organization’s Program H and placed an extremely low value on Program C; the other camp reversed these values. They told this story over […]
Comments Off on The Value of a Pie
One of my latest adventures has been joining the Sonoma County Search and Rescue Team (SAR). Many of our rules, tasks, and attitudes have applicability beyond the SAR environment. 1. Don’t create another victim. Our own personal safety always has to come first; if I get injured, my teammates now have to rescue ME instead […]
Comments Off on Lessons Learned from Search and Rescue
This weekend, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, I attended the incredibly moving film Selma. What most stood out for me, watching that line of people marching toward a line of angry, heavily armed policemen, was their courage. To march forward, knowing you are likely to be physically attacked. To do so with a […]
Comments Off on Courage
I’ve written before about my Year of New Things, and the transformative effect it has been having on my daily life. This summer, I went to Europe for the first time: six weeks of new countries, new cities, new food, new languages, new money, new transportation systems. I had a blast! When I got home […]
Comments Off on New Things: How Much Is Too Much?
Some interesting research indicates that our body posture and movement affects our behavior. For example, expansive body postures – like standing tall with with hands on your hips – increases confidence and assertiveness. One study showed that people who hunched over a smart phone or tablet exhibited less assertive behavior immediately afterward than those who […]
Comments Off on Body Posture, or How Your iPhone is Turning You into a Wimp
In a recent post I wrote about the role of discomfort in group dynamics. Trying something new is generally not comfortable. Trying to communicate in a different way is not comfortable. Finally digging in and dealing with hard stuff that you’ve been avoiding is not comfortable. A certain level of discomfort can be necessary for […]
Comments Off on Comfort Versus Safety