I’ve decided to take a break from blogging for Inside Internal Controls following this post. What follows here is an eclectic bit of sharing which I hope you will find of value.
First up,
Change. Blogger Susan Alexander offers a new take (based on an old take) on taking charge of change. (Thanks Susan, and congrats on the launch of your new site app4Mind.)
We have to work at ordering consciousness, engaging in autotelic activities [things we do for the sake of doing them], and setting ourselves up for flow. Why should we work at all of this? Because the quality of our lives grows exponentially when we do. These are the precise skills that enable us to take disruption and make something really good out of it. Accomplished psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi sums it up beautifully:
Unless a person knows how to give order to his or her thoughts, attention will be attracted to whatever is most problematic at the moment: it will focus on some real or imaginary pain, on recent grudges or long-term frustrations. [Disorder] is the normal state of consciousness—a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable.
By creating a temporary world where one can act with total commitment, flow provides an escape from the chaos of the quotidian …. [I]t is an escape forward into higher complexity, where one hones one’s potential by confronting new challenges.
Read more here.
Second:
Exponential power. Executive coach Bjorn Martinoff has just released a book on value-based leadership. (Thanks Bjorn for sending me a copy it’s synergistic with parts of my thoughts and writing on inherent quality.) Exponential power comes from combining individual powerful ways of being in one’s actions. For instance, authenticity, commitment, courage, empathy, flexibility, focus, gratitude, humility, integrity and others. Individually, these are powerful ways of being, but according to Martinoff, in concert, they increase their power exponentially.
More information can be found at Fortune100coach.com, and f1c-international.com.
Third:
Enterprise architecture. Enterprise Architect Matthew Kern recently polled a number of stakeholders with respect to enterprise architecture. You can find the preliminary survey results on Matthew’s blog.
And fourth:
Governance. The IT Governance Institute has launched a new website that aims to take governance forward.
One of the key hurdles organizations approaching change, developing exponential power, and improving enterprise architecture and governance, will have to overcome is employee disengagement. Engagement coach Sheila Kelly says that,
Employee disengagement is the equivalent of an epidemic with up to 80 percent of employees reporting lost time at work worrying about rude and uncivil behavior in the workplace.* The bottom-line costs are staggering. The best antidote for managers and leaders is to sharpen their listening skills so that they hear not only others but themselves. *Christine Porath and Christine Pearson, Harvard Business Review
As always, I welcome comments.
In closing, it has been a pleasure sharing and discussing internal controls issues with you, reading comments, and collaborating with contributors and the folks at First Reference.
Feel free to look me up to touch base, ask a question or discuss an opportunity.
Best regards,
Ron Richard, I,S.P., ITCP/IP3P
Personal website and LinkedIn
- Change, exponential power, enterprise architecture, governance and stakeholder engagement - March 4, 2013
- Take testing activities up a level - February 4, 2013
- Your service-oriented architecture expert opinion - February 4, 2013
