Circle Up & Get REAL Podcast

I'm thinking today about an autographed book that's been on my shelf for years: "The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success" by North Dakota's own Rich Karlgaard, Forbes publisher, entrepreneur, investor, and board director. What is it that makes our skills "Soft" or "Hard"? What is most needed in our world today? How might we be able to BE the change we want to see in the rest of the world as we move toward the end of this Fourth Turning Crisis and into the next First Turning High? Masculine and Feminine energy aren't necessarily demonstrated only by men or by women. It's not a gender issue, it's an energetic one, and over time, businesses have been forged by a lot of masculine energy: control, certainty, pressure, decisiveness, winning, etc. When this energy is dominant, there is no room for feminine energy like intuition, connection, awareness, collaboration, etc. What if we could access those traits in a collaborative or integrative way instead of an either-or? What would happen for our organizations if we could move from proving to understanding? From fixing to listening first? From reacting to noticing? I briefly mention Neil Howe's book "The Fourth Turning is Here," as well as Rich Karlgaard's book "The Soft Edge."

One of my favorite coaching questions is this one: "What is missing the presence of which would make a positive difference?" Today I ask myself this question. Given all I'm observing - about myself and others - might it be something like Personal Accountability? In this episode I share some observations from politics and sports, including this clip from the Maryland women's basketball game in the NCAA tournament: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SJhqv_2lFhg I also refer to a new (to me) term: Collective Narcissism, and this white paper by Agnieszka Golec de Zavala and Dorottya Lantos: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721420917703 Here is more information about the Enlightened Leadership Lab, Mondays at 4 central: https://www.emergentculturelabs.com/leadershiplab

It's Episode 300! Today I reflect on some of the great interviews I've had over the six seasons of this podcast.