Carl Nordgren took time to share an interesting post with us yesterday. The article, posted by Chris Horton in Social Media Today, chronicles a new IBM study called Leading through Connections. Read the complete post here.

IBM had face-to-face conversations with 1700 CEOs from 64 countries. The company wanted to gain insight into how CEOs are responding to the complexity of increasingly interconnected organizations, markets, societies and governments.

The key finding: CEOs must encourage their employees to act like children.

Carl, Friend of AvoLead, Duke Professor, Creative Populist and author of the book, Welcome to the Creative Populist Revolution, reminded us that one of the 4 behaviors creative populism urges us to practice is being playful. The recent IBM study validates that well. The study also revealed that today’s CEOs are thinking more like entrepreneurs. Learn more about Carl and Creative Populism here.

What are your thoughts? We’d like to hear from you.

We are pleased to introduce five new members of the AvoLead LLC team. Each brings deep experience, incomparable credentials and a highly sought-after skill set to the growing AvoLead consultant roster.

Joseph D. Carella is a senior consultant with AvoLead. His focus is to improve the performance of organizations, teams and individual leaders. Meet Joe here.

Senior consultant, Anne E. Doster serves AvoLead clients as an organizational effectiveness consultant, facilitator and executive coach. Learn more about Anne here.

A senior consultant with AvoLead, Anna Pool shares her passion for individual and organizational effectiveness through a powerful range of coaching skills and expertise. Read more about Anna here.

Experienced in working with leaders of all levels, Frank H. (Josh) Stroup serves AvoLead clients as a consultant and leadership coach. Learn more about Josh here.

Suzanne Tofalo serves AvoLead clients as an instructional designer and consultant. She has spent more than 20 years in the design, development and delivery of leadership training and development courses in a wide variety of curricula. Meet Suzanne here.

AvoLead is proud to welcome each of these outstanding professionals. We look forward to utilizing their talents to the fullest as AvoLead continues to help leaders and their organizations navigate the waters of transition and change.

The Simple Truths website has lots of great inspirational content, but when I saw the title of the short (3-1/2 minute) video below, I laughed out loud, because it reminded me of the game my brothers used to try to play, “Let’s see who can hit the softest…you go first!” Of course you know how that went. I touched them just as softly as I possibly could, and they hit me hard and shouted, “You win!” It was a game I only played one time.

On the serious side, however, the message of this movie cuts to the heart of one of our basic fears…Change. Intellectually, we know that lots of change is good, but emotionally, there is always some angst, some discomfort, some worry. Yes, even some fear! This movie was made for organization teams, so it addresses many of the situations AvoLead clients face. Its powerful and inspiring messages, however,  can be applied not only to organizational change, but also to life change of any kind.

Is there change going on in your life or work that you find unsettling? How are you dealing with it?

Do any of this movie’s messages help you see change from a different perspective?

Do you have any words of wisdom for others who are going through change in their organizations that is causing them fear or anxiety…or even functional paralysis?

The movie content is also available in book form, and these books make great gifts or tools for a team-building event at your company, church, or nonprofit. Each book includes a free DVD of the movie.

Enjoy!

Guest post by Elizabeth H. Cottrell, RiverwoodWriter and Heartspoken.com. It was adapted from a post which originally appeared on her blog.

What a mind-bending thought this was when I read a book review by Rohit Bhargava of Dr. Jane McGonigal’s book Reality is Broken: How Games Make Us Happy and How They Can Save the World. Bhargava writes, “The basic premise of this book is that game mechanics are an intrinsic motivator for behaviour change simply because of how humans are wired. All people love games.” I wasn’t convinced, but I was intrigued and kept reading…here’s some of what I learned:

McGonigal directs games R&D at the Institute for the Future and is devoting her life’s work to harnessing the enormous time,  energy and skills now devoted to gaming (which at its core is problem-solving) and applying them to solving real-world problems. As I clicked one link after another to learn more about this, I found her website, Gameful, and her definition of the word gameful: “It means to have the spirit, or mindset, of a gamer: someone who is optimistic, curious, motivated, and always up for a tough challenge. It’s like the word “playful” — but gamier! Gameful games are games that have a positive impact on our real lives, or on the real world.”

Then I was astounded to find the following video of her compelling presentation to the prestigious TED audience (an organization devoted to spreading good ideas). We’ve included it below because it’s so thought provoking. Here is McGonigal’s goal in her own words: “Instead of providing gamers with better and more immersive alternatives to reality, I want all of us to be become responsible for providing the world with a better and more immersive reality.”

AvoLead professionals are trained to bring transformational change to organizations of all sizes, domestic and global. Call us to discuss ways that we might bring the power principles of gaming into your organization, so the world can be made better by what you offer.

Do you think this is crazy…fascinating…pie in the sky? We’d love to know.