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The bottom line for a renewable organization - and a renewable life - is doing what matters. Taylor Mali, poet and teacher, challenges us to do what matters in this powerful and provocative reading of his poem "What Teachers Make."
Here's a suggestion: After you watch it spend some time answering the question "What do I make?"
Then invite the leaders in your organization to watch it and talk about what you make, together.
The Associated Press and CNBC reported this week that, in a continuation of the industry's trend, circulation numbers for 24 out of the 25 largest newspapers in the US dropped by as much as 22% over the past six months. Nobody in this industry thinks they can just keep doing what they've always done. They know the ground has shifted beneath them. They might not know what to do about it yet. But they know they'll either figure it out through experimentation and innovation or they'll die.
How innovative is the organization you care about? No, seriously. What was the last truly innovative thing you did together?
"Way too flippin' serious."
That's how one of our teammates described the group we were working with, at one point, this past weekend. It was probably partly our fault. (By "our," we mean our own Type A teammate, Kelly Fryer. If you know her, you won't be surprised to learn that her kindergarten teacher once said she has a "playing problem." We are doing our best to break her uber-serious approach to, well, almost everything.) Anyway, we'll own our share. But these folks came in with a pile of stuff on them that made "serious" come naturally.
