Papers
“Innovation: A Critical Necessity”
Originally posted in our November 2022 Top of Mind Newsletter. To wrap up this month’s Top of Mind, let’s turn our attention to groups and organizations. While individuals can clearly benefit from things like the flow state or learning to use effectual reasoning, how can an organization better embrace this energy too? The short answer is innovation. Now a buzzword used by all manner of marketers, salespeople, and large companies to imply forward-thinking, many companies and…
“Strong Winds Strong Roots: What Trees Teach Us About Life”
Originally posted in our October 2022 Top of Mind Newsletter. To conclude this month’s Top of Mind newsletter, we visit an ecological experiment set in a desert called the biodome. In it are, seemingly, the perfect conditions for growing fruits, vegetables, and trees, and it was a place where humans could live happily for months at a time. “When the trees grew to a certain height, they would topple over. It baffled scientists until they realized…
“Children’s Need to Know: Curiosity in Schools”
Originally posted in our August 2022 Top of Mind Newsletter. Closing out this month’s Top of Mind, we turn to a paper published in 2011 focused on the importance of curiosity in schools. While we have focused on many of the contemporary issues of education this month, it is also important to reflect on the overarching trend of modern learning. In this paper, “[Susan] Engel argues that interactions between teachers and students can foster or inhibit…
“Return to Purpose: Learning in an Age of Collapse”
Originally posted in our March 2022 Top of Mind Newsletter. In his fascinating paper from the Journal Intersections, Ahmed Afzaal writes about the dynamics of higher education leadership in the face of an unstable future. While obviously beneficial within his own academic sphere, the piece illuminates common errors within many human systems. These basic assumptions are, in essence, that we can return the world to a stable “normal” and that we do not need to question…
“The Cycle of Distrust”
Originally posted in our January 2022 Top of Mind Newsletter. In the Edelman 2022 Trust Barometer Report, we see how globally, trust has become “the ultimate currency in the relationship that all institutions…build with their stakeholders.” Businesses lie at the intersection of public and private interests, as they hold the potential to impact the world through creating jobs, but also in myriad other ways. From climate change to the Great Resignation, businesses worldwide need to act…