Ison, R. (2008). Systems Thinking and Practice for Action Research. In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice (Second ed.). London: Sage Publications., Ltd. My masters work is in systems management, and Ison’s work struck a chord with me as well. His mind map of the […]
Tag: education
Fear of failure? Failure is the state of nature; success is what’s surprising
Why do we fear failure? Why do so many things fail? What can we learn about failure that protects us from the shock of actual failure? Why do we persist as a species knowing the odds are stacked against us so badly in just about anything we do? I have been reading some commentary and […]
Creativity is not enough
Do you enjoy the sudden rush from having a new idea? Do your toes curl with excitement when you see new possibilities? Does your heart pound at the emergence of a new insight? So what? What do you do with the energy? It has to go someplace or it will quickly dissipate. Don’t get left […]
World Class Training: the After Action Review
There are many reasons why the US Army has developed such an excellent reputation as a training organization over the years. Excellent equipment, superb training areas, master trainers in the form of non-commissioned officers who have perfected their expertise in task training under all conditions. Success also comes from the knowledge that Army training may […]
5 Essential Qualities For Effective Managers
What does it take to manage a diverse group of creative individuals? An extensive review of management literature produces the following list of management qualities that are essential if you want to build and leverage high performance teams. Without these skills you run the risk of losing your most valuable business asset: the knowledge and energy […]
Reflections on strategic thinking, critical thinking and critical reading
I just reviewed an excellent paper by MAJ David S. Johnston, Ph.D. entitled “Reading, Writing and Strategic Thinking: Service Schools Fail to Develop Critical Reading Skills of Rising Leaders”. (paper available upon request) Just as there are many forms of writing that our officers will perform in their career, so too are there forms […]
Blogs: Your expertise offered painlessly to the world
As a teacher and researcher, and a subject matter expert in some aspects of military logistics, small unit management and leadership, I am constantly answering questions from current or former students on areas where they know I have some skill. I have been frustrated with providing similar answers to the same questions which have been […]
Writing for the Web & Army Strategic Communication
re: strategic communication my belief is that Impact = Quality x exposure 300 great words in a comment section at the edge of the blogosphere has less effect than mediocre 300 words on a high traffic streetcorner. location, location, location writing for the web is different than academic writing. research shows book-like posts make people […]
Blogging in the classroom
Just attended an interesting presentation on the use of blogs by professors. Presenter was Jessica Lipnack from netage.com who described the history of blogging and new media and gave an example of Prof Andy McAfee from Harvard Business School who has fully engaged his students thru the planned use of blogs. Most of the dinosaurs […]
A Quicklook at Literature Reviews
Research reports relate the results of evaluation research. The exercise of reading evaluation research will be beneficial for two reasons: (1) It will demonstrate the value of doing literature reviews in evaluation and (2) You will begin to develop a foundation for reading research that can be built on in the future. I hope what […]