Posts in the "culture" category - Chris Hardie

I'm reading with sadness the news coming out of Norway.  Apparently, 32-year old Anders Behring Breivik decided that his Christian beliefs were so threatened by cultural shifts, minorities, immigration and multiculturalism that he needed to bomb and shoot people in order to address that threat.  The killings were politically motivated: the bomb was detonated at the Primer Minister's office and Breivik then stalked and shot at close range people at a political retreat. Some will talk about the dangers...

In every organizational conversation, there's some process for setting the agenda of what the conversation will be about, and how it will be conducted.  Usually there's a subset of the organization's members who set that agenda - sometimes just a single person - shaping the issues and decisions that the organization takes on. In a non-profit organization board meeting, it might be the Executive Committee or the board chair. In a small business, it might be the business's owners or managers. In...

I'm fortunate to have had time to read some actual books cover-to-cover in the last few weeks.  Other than some novels that made for decent beach reading, a notable theme of business, communication and politics emerged.  A few reviews are below; I've linked to an online purchase option, but please consider buying from your local bookseller or visiting your local library first. Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin Published in 2010, Game Change recounts the stories of the 2008...

As a part of preparing to train and orient some new folks joining us at Summersault in the coming weeks, I've thought a lot about the different phases of engagement that I expect staff members to experience as a part of their integration into the life of the company.  The path looks something like this: Understand: learn about what we do and why we do it Observe: encounter what we do and how we do it in a hands on way Contribute: join in to what we do and become a part of the process Facilitate/Lead:...

Educators in Virginia are wondering what to do with the thousands of copies of an error-ridden history textbook that the school districts there have purchased: A panel of historians has found an "appalling" number of factual errors in a new fourth-grade history textbook used in many Virginia school districts, one of the experts said...The historical inaccuracies "are appalling in number,"...the book needs more than 140 corrections. I hope they don't throw them away.  This seems like a great...

Sometimes, it's important to question the unquestionable.  One area where I see that our culture has the most difficult time doing this is in talking about the funding of our military defense and public safety services.  At a national/international level, it's the U.S. Military and private security contractors.  At the state, county and city level, it's police officers along with firefighters and EMTs. Lawmakers and executive branch leaders across the political spectrum are acutely aware that...

Discouraged I installed compact fluorescent bulbs throughout my house, and the big box stores lit up their parking lots day and night. I decided to drive my car less, and the oil companies spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. I installed a rain barrel to water my organic garden, and the big agriculture companies shipped genetically engineered, highly processed food around the world for me to enjoy at a moment's notice. I made a living running a business that tried...

Let's see, how am I doing on my target of blogging three times per week in 2010?  FAIL.  Actually, January and February were pretty good, but March has been sorely lacking.  I will for now use the excuse of "I was busy" and throw in some specifics like "I was planning an open house" and "I was writing a new vacation policy for my staff," but I don't expect you to be any more forgiving as a result.  Let's see if I can start to get back on track. In the meantime, as a distraction, here are some...

For over a year now, I've lived less than a mile away from my company's office in downtown Richmond, Indiana.  And for the first time in my life, on most days I get to and from the office by walking instead of driving.  It's been a really enjoyable shift, and one that I hope I never take for granted, given how much of the rest of the country commutes to work every day. Some observations on walking to work: Since walking has become my usual mode of commuting, I've found myself noticing even...

I recently met with a local organization involved in environmental education efforts to talk about the status of sustainability education in Richmond and Wayne County.  In preparing for that conversation, I put together a list of what I see as some of the challenges our community faces when it comes to becoming more sustainable and self-reliant: Most high profile community leaders and organizations aren’t modeling awareness of sustainability issues, sometimes even at a basic level. Almost...