In his article, Silicon Valley Says Step Away From the Device, Matt Richtel says

"The concern, voiced in conferences and in recent interviews with many top executives of technology companies, is that the lure of constant stimulation — the pervasive demand of pings, rings and updates — is creating a profound physical craving that can hurt productivity and personal interactions..."

Richtel goes on about the responsibility of leadership when their medium of exchange is so extraordinarily powerful:

"At the Wisdom 2.0 conference in February, founders from Facebook, Twitter, eBay, Zynga and PayPal, and executives and managers from companies like Google, Microsoft, Cisco and others listened to or participated in conversations with experts in yoga and mindfulness. In at least one session, they debated whether technology firms had a responsibility to consider their collective power to lure consumers to games or activities that waste time or distract them."

Makes me wonder - what are my responsibilities - as a business coach, as a speaker, as a mother and a member of civil society - for making sure that a powerful reource like computing doesn't compromise anyone's quality of life?

These are extraordinary times - a moment in history where consciousness of self, one of the few distinguishing characteristics between humans and other species, now includes a consciousness of others and of that which is more than the sum of parts. Someone said there is a "fierce urgency of now" and that has never been more true in the sense of worldwide economic destructiveness and nuclear threat. We need courage to be co-creative because it is the first time in history we have the opportunity to consciously evolve as a species.

Gandhi said the most inalienable human right is the the right to make mistakes. The Googles, Zappos, Apples of the world capitalized on the gift of the mistake to such extraordinary extents, you would think we would already have a healthier relationship with the inevitable human experience of failure.

Innovation is critical now and you can't have innovation without lots of mistake making. If you're a leader and you aren't making mistakes, you aren't risking enough.

Paul Spiegelman wrote a great article for Inc. Magazine called "10 Elements of a Great Company Culture." He starts out saying he used to be cynical about core values and about the need to pay attention to culture. But he realized 10 years ago that values and the culture they create are fundamental to the success of his company, Beryl. The 10 elements he thinks are essential he calls the "10 Cs of Culture."

Core Values, Camaraderie, Celebrations, Community, Communication, Caring, Commitment to Learning, Consistency, Connect, Chronicles

Read more about how he uses parties, newsletters, town meetings, employee's kids t-shirt design contests, and an online "Ask Paul" column for employees to connect with him. He also encourages any and all talking between employees and a care-based approach. While many old paradigm leaders are still trying to squelch fun, chat, and genuine concern for individuals, leaders like Spiegelman are laughing all the way to the bank while other businesses are faultering under the weight of unconsciously dense cultures.

Like Zappos and many other break out successes, their leaders built what might be considered downright zany cultures on intuition. The data is in now - they work. Contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to talk about how to make your culture more fertile for profits, stakeholder loyalty, innovation and more.

Professional Coaching

Some new friends started calling me "Indiana Joni" after I shared about how I'd been in the Amazon with a tribe who recently stopped head hunting/shrinking, with a group of village chiefs in the remote African bush, at universities, Asian temples and monasteries, Seminary, and with countless thought leaders, and many leaders in their fields. They connected the dots between my travels and my insatiable curiosity about what it takes for everyone to do good and do well.

Traveling a path of many paths, and developing a consulting practice in values-driven leadership and cultural development, has taught me there are undeniably universal values and principles that support humanity's best interests. I'm 100% convinced that pretty much everybody wants to live and work by those values.

What's lacking is the infrastructure to do that because today's norms reflect a dangerously sick culture that does not value values adequately. Too many leaders and systems are still operating from the broken platform of a crumbling profit-at-any-cost paradigm. Although values-void concepts of success  have set new benchmarks on the universal scale of failure, many leaders have yet to incorporate the real deal: values-driven leadership increases profits, share prices, innovation, stakeholder loyalty, teamwork and more.

I've learned a lot from working with top leaders and from exploring the world: Want to do well and good? Start with curiosity. Buddhists have a concept called "beginner's mind." They teach that "expertise" has a front and a back, a yin and a yang.