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The ultimate Stretch Goal was to put a man on the moon, yet despite project success, 35 years on, the payoff is not so clear. We often think: "When this is done, all will be well.", but is this what we usually find? Goals must align as well as stretch if they are to generate sustainable development.


Lead Like NASA? Accomplish the Ultimate Stretch Goal - Forbes
www.forbes.com
In the history of humankind, no one has ever tackled a more daunting goal than NASA, when it went from the dream of a man on the moon to the reality in a little more than 8 years. Couldn't your organization learn a thing or two from the folks who went to the moon?

"The reasons brainstorming fails are instructive for other forms of group work, too. People in groups tend to sit back and let others do the work; they instinctively mimic others’ opinions and lose sight of their own; and, often succumb to peer pressure. The Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns found that when we take a stance different from the group’s, we activate the amygdala, a small organ in the brain associated with the fear of rejection. Professor Berns calls this 'the pain of independence.' ”
~~ Susan Cain
Overcoming this points to the benefits brought by third party facilitation to releasing synergy.

spectacularly creative people are often introverted...extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but independent and individualistic, not joiners.



The Rise of the New Groupthink
www.nytimes.com
Collaboration is in. But it may not be conducive to creativity. William Wordsworth described Sir Isaac Newton as: “A mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.”

Is innovation the result of the prophetic reflections of lone creative geniuses, or instead the fruit of the collaboration of a group of talented contributors working together?


Creativity is inherently inclusive.
www.fastcodesign.com
Successful creative thinkers see opposites and apparently contradicting goals not just as a potential for dissonance, but as an opportunity for dynamic harmony.

Started in 1976 with no business plan, money or resources. Aravind now sees 2.7 million patients every year, and even more impressively, treats the majority of them for free.



Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, India: In Service for Sight - Harvard Business Review
hbr.org
Starting as a modest 20-bed hospital, Aravind had grown into a 1,400-bed hospital complex by 1992. It had by then screened 3.65 million patients and performed 335,000 cataract surgeries, nearly 70% of them free of cost for the poorest of India's blind population. Aravind's founder, Dr. Venkataswamy,...

Test your powers of reasoning and deduction. How logical are you? An old puzzle but maybe not so simple as it seems.


So you think you're logical?
Suppose you're on a game show to win a car.  All you have to do is pick which one of three doors its hidden behind. ...

Forbes: "Why is Diversity Vital for innovation?"



Diversity Trumps Ability?
www.forbes.com
The recent Stoos gathering identified diversity as one of the pillars of the organization of the future. Why? It’s an appropriate question to ask on the holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr"

The 4 traps to avoid in gaining people's commitment to enterprise.


How leaders kill meaning at work
www.mckinseyquarterly.com
Teresa Amabile, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and Steven Kramer's research into demotivation and the routine undermining of creativity, productivity, and commitment. || McKinsey Quarterly

"...opportunities raise fresh questions: can business and government leaders, not to mention consumers, move with the speed and scale needed to avoid a period of dramatically higher resource prices, along with their destabilizing impact on economic growth, welfare, and political stability? Or do we need a crisis, with its associated problems, to accelerate technological innovation and investment? The questions are big, and the stakes are high."


Is the world entering an era of sustained high resource prices, leading to increased economic, socia
www.mckinseyquarterly.com
within the next two decades, the rise of three billion more middle-class consumers will strain natural resources. The race is on to boost resource supplies, overhaul their management, and change the game with new technologies. A McKinsey Quarterly Energy, Resources, Materials article.

Addressing a problem is often best begun by analysis of the terms in which it is presented and the way it is experienced.
"...the biggest problem of all ... lay in the question itself
It presumes there is one overarching ill in the complex quest to educate every American child that can be vanquished by one silver bullet.
It feeds into our pugilistic need to identify one idea, decide whether it’s conservative or liberal, form camps on either side, and begin to duke it out.
We all love a good battle; especially journalists. No wonder we seem to tread water year after year with our education progress."


The Real Problem With Our Education System Is The Way We Talk About It
articles.businessinsider.com
I trawled around rather wistfully in my wishing well of ideas for this editorial on the biggest problem and the best solution for America’s ailing public schools. What would it be? Creating a...