Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: values

  • Thought Leaders Unpacked -> The Answer to How is Yes #6: Enduring the Depth of Philosophy

    thought-leadersWe have lost both the interest and the ability to go deep.

    We simply do not know how to reflect deeply about what is most important to us. In addition, we aren’t even sure that doing so would make any difference.

    So Peter Block asserts, and I concur.

    Instead of exploring the value of and means toward becoming people of depth, though, Block focuses on one of the enemies of depth… speed.

    Maybe these chapter titles are throwing me off. The titles point to a positive attribute, but the content elaborates on the negative forces that work against the titled attribute.

    I find myself anticipating an exposition of the positive attribute (e.g. “depth” in this chapter, “intimacy” in the previous), and come away disappointed when the emphasis is on all that works against intimacy and depth.

    With that off my chest, let me think about the problem of speed in my life.

    The first insight that caught my attention was how legitimate needs for quick action, immediate decisions and demanding schedules can expand without my (more…)

  • Thought Leaders Unpacked -> The Answer to How is Yes #4: Recapturing the Idealism of Youth

    thought-leadersWhere did the assumption come from? The one that asserts to be idealistic is to be unrealistic and impractical?

    Reform, for example, is an extremely grounded and practical outworking of idealism.

    The point, of course, is the one that Block makes in chapter four… that our culture casts accusatory aspersions on idealism that both trap people in the fallacious perspective that nothing is possible except what already exists and chip away at the confidence of those dreamers with the eyes to imagine and create all that might still be emerging.

    An unrepentant dreamer myself, the challenge of this chapter came in recognizing how many of the lies about dreamers I believe (whether I like to admit it or not.)

    I am often torn between what I want and what “I deserve.” Self-interest, as Block describes it, puts me in a fallacious battle over my worth with people and forces I haven’t met yet. The battle becomes a distraction making it difficult for me to recognize opportunities and directions that are deeply attractive and fitting.

    I can’t help wondering if I am one of those people who “abandon their desires (more…)

  • Loving Monday: Who’s It For?

    loving_mondayNothing like a brief vacation with the family to raise deeper questions.

    Life on the blog has been quiet this past week because I am enjoying my family on a California road trip.

    Away from schedules and deadlines and expectations and demands, my heart and mind free up in refreshing ways.

    Present with the people who are most important to me, I am reminded that one of the reasons I work has to do with their well-being. One of the reasons I take a job that is a crazy mix of positives and negatives is their provision.

    Vacations are good for perspective resets.

    Do you need a perspective reset? Are you caught up in a whirlwind of activity and feel like you’re losing sight of what it’s all for?

    Try taking a break.

    Get away for a weekend. Go away for a week! Whether brief or extended, step away. Spend some focused time with the people who are most important to you.

    It will recharge and refocus your work. I’m certainly benefiting from mine!

    Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

  • Quote to Consider: The Chief Requirement of Life

    quote-to-consider“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”

    Charles Kingsley

  • Quote to Consider: Who’s Crazy Here?

    quote-to-consider“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.”

    Kahlil Gibran

  • Quote to Consider: What Money Can’t Buy

    quote-to-consider“It is good to have things that money can buy, but it is also good to check up once in awhile and be sure we have the things money can’t buy.”

    George Horace Lorimer

  • Can Leadership Be Moral?

    insightful-linkThe economic crisis in this country is not simply a result of financial assumptions gone awry.

    Decisions were made that had no connection to the benefit of anything or anyone other than the achievement of short term financial results. No connection whatsoever.

    DangerCompanies were purchased for their intangible brand value, their assets sold, loaded up with debt, long term employees fired, and resold at a premium re-presented as restructured for success. In reality they were stripped bare and abandoned before the operational implications of high debt and high turnover set in.

    All that to say you should read Mike King‘s recent article entitled, “Do You Demonstrate Moral Leadership?” It’s both insightful and practical.

    Is your team in conversation about your standards?

    If we’re going to reap the benefits of democratic capitalism, then we need to get more voices in the conversation than just the greediest, most driven and most ruthless of us.

    What do you think?