Creative Leadership Coaching

Great article from Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer overturning some common myths about the beneficial affect of layoffs for organizations. Instead of increasing productivity and stock prices they often backfire. 
http://www.newsweek.com/id/233131

Happy new year!  Time flys when … you are busy :-) 
I am longing to write about Partnership dynamics.  However, I recently came an article on psychopathy and power hierarchies and am reminded of another topic — the pathology of dominator dynamics.  Reviewing the various pathologies of psychopathy, sociopathy, narcisism and codependence, one can (I suggest) readily see [...]

Hi Carman,
A beautiful Sunday morning to you! I agree that Partnership does not need to answer to Paul, Plato or Shakespeare, although I do enjoy dialoging with them from time to time.
Thank you for sharing your deeply thought through and fresh thoughts on Paul. One observation I would add is that whatever was or was not [...]

Hi Lisa,
Why am I not surprised that serving a greater good is [your] greatest form of satisfaction? Thank you too for your invigorating treatment of the holistic paradigm.
I would like to address and integrate some of your comments, beginning with, “I disagree with Paul’s dichotomization of flesh and spirit, but that view is very consistent [...]

Good morning, Carman. Welcome back We are hoping for some rain today, as well — just 40% chance of thundershowers - would be great writing weather!
Your post seems to describe several dimensions of thralldom, with freedom from one form of thralldom found at the cost of subjection to another, presumably better form of thralldom. [...]

Hi Carman,
My apologies for my delay in responding! I appreciate your willingness to remain in dialogue with me during this period where I’m not able to respond as quickly as I would like. 
 Your post raises such insightful and powerful questions about organizations. First, you notice the parallel between Patterson’s description of the thrall or slave, [...]

“It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party”–Nineteen Eighty-Four”
Ideological Inversion and Ideological Self-Deception
Lisa, thank you for ‘making the darkness conscious’ by examining the root system of slavery. I especially love your powerful and prescient comment, “In considering how perspective - especially the perspectives of the powerful - shape [...]

Carman,
Thank you for this contribution. It’s so relevant to our whole discussion, I’m also posting it up here in the main blog.
Best regards,
Lisa
Hello Denis and Lisa,
I’m not sure about the question but I believe you are asking about the odd language academics use to describe organizational culture. It’s so easy to feel overpowered by academic [...]

Hi Lisa,
I love Sundays! Thank you for the references to Solzhenitsyn. It’s interesting that thralldom figures prominently in his text: “The whole raison d’etre of serfdom and the Archipelago is one and the same: these are the social structures for the ruthless enforced utilization of the free-of-cost work of millions of slaves” (Chapter 5). I’ve [...]

Carman, Thank you for your note! I appreciation this whole process of deconstruction and reconstruction of ideas. It takes courage to relinquish our certainty enough to open our minds to new connections and possibilities. There is a period of chaos before new structures coalesce, which can be uncomfortable, to the say the least, but [...]