In her book Technology and the Virtues, Shannon Vallor draws on classical Greek, ancient Chinese, and Buddhist principles to lay out a framework for ethical action in the rapidly changing 21st century technological environment. A key principle is “expanding your circle of concern”. As humans we [...]
I like to do simple informal mindfulness practice--to cultivate stable attention in the present moment--in the woods not far from my house. For me, the environment of trees, rushing water and birds is an excellent complement for focusing in on an object (like a tree branch or a clump of moss) with [...]
Empathy and innovation: they seem like an odd pairing: the first sounds squishy and touchy-feely, while the second seems cool and hip and sleek. But the two concepts have a lot to do with each other. If you’re in the business of designing products for other people to use (and no matter how [...]
The term “emotional intelligence,” popularized by Daniel Goleman in his 1996 book of the same name, has come into common use in organizational life. It is a good thing that emotions are being more widely recognized as part of human experience—even at work. But, as often happens with popular [...]
Mistakes on collaborative teams are bad. “Post-mortem” meetings indicate just how catastrophic the consequences of bad decisions can be. Build-checking tools like the Siren of Shame and LightBuild, designed to give instant feedback when something goes wrong, rightly emphasize the need for [...]
It’s wonderful when people initiate spontaneous connections with others. There’s nothing quite like the moment when you realize, in the middle of a stressful situation, that the people you are working with are actually human beings, with all sorts of dimensions and contours you never expected. [...]
Since we all live in the present moment, it’s a little surprising that we don’t really like to talk about it very much. When people gather around the office water cooler (or the contemporary social-media versions of the water cooler), what do they talk about? What they did last night, plans for [...]
When you’re confronted with a challenging workplace problem and need to get out of habitual patterns of thought, draw a map. As John Medina points out in Brain Rules, human brains developed in an ancestral environment that required constant motion—up to 12 miles a day of walking. His point is [...]
Even if you make your living with your head, you can’t afford to disregard your body. My dad was the first person in his family to go to college. His father and brother spent much of their lives working in lumber mills, roofing, and doing other manual labor, but my dad realized that he’d much [...]
One of my oldest and dearest friends, Bob Boiko, is a ferocious question-asker. I can count on hearing one phrase from him any time I’m running a business or philosophical idea by him: “OK Joe, let’s tease that apart.” It’s Bob’s gentle way of saying, “I think there are some [...]