The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity. Development, Decline and Demise ca. A.D. 270-430

The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity. Development, Decline and Demise ca. A.D. 270-430

Intellectual and Empire in Greco-Roman Antiquity

Intellectual and Empire in Greco-Roman Antiquity

How effective was the Roman pila?

How-effective-was-the-Roman-pila

Dimsum University

Dim sum Mandarin University

Dimsum Mandarin is the step-by-step structured system of Mandarin learning designed by the Language Domus bilingual team. We have designed the course with portability and practicality in mind to meet your lifestyle needs for effective contextual learning. This course is suitable in supporting beginner to intermediate Mandarin learners with a good grasp of the Hanyu Pinyin system. For new learners, we encourage you to first try out our Dimsum Hanyu Pinyin module.

In 20 minutes or less for each lesson, you will learn various ways to confidently construct and apply Mandarin sentences to a variety of practical situations – a great time investment while you grab a drink or snack. Grow with us, as we will continue to launch new Dimsum Mandarin lessons with a total of ten modules in a complete learning series, and with ten lessons in each module. Signup now to get your complete trial lesson!

Mandarin Open University

Mandarin Chinese speech sounds and tones. Learn how to pronounce Chinese vowels, consonants and the four tones.

Rome after Sulla

Rome after Sulla

Das Symposion in der griechischen Komödie

Das Symposion in der griechischen Komödie

Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes: Honor and Shame in Paul's Message and Mission

What does it mean to “read Romans with Eastern eyes”? Combining research from Asian scholars with his many years of experience living and working in East Asia, Jackson directs our attention to Paul's letter to the Romans. He argues that some traditional East Asian cultural values are closer to those of the first-century biblical world than common Western cultural values. In addition, he adds his voice to the scholarship engaging the values of honor and shame in particular and their influence on biblical interpretation.

As readers, we bring our own cultural fluencies and values to the text. Our biases and backgrounds influence what we observe—and what we overlook. This book helps us consider ways we sometimes miss valuable insights because of widespread cultural blind spots.

In Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes: Honor and Shame in Paul's Message and Mission (IVP Academic, 2019), Jackson demonstrates how paying attention to East Asian culture provides a helpful lens for interpreting Paul's most complex letter. When read this way, we see how honor and shame shape so much of Paul's message and mission.

Jackson Wu (pseudonym; PhD, Southeastern Baptist), has lived and worked in East Asia for almost two decades and serves on the Asian/Asian-American Theology steering committee of the Evangelical Theological Society. He is the author of Saving God's Face and The Gospel for All Nations: A Practical Approach to Biblical Contextualization. Although not Chinese, he teaches theology and missiology for Chinese pastors at a seminary in Asia. Twitter: @JacksonWu4China

Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a ThM from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and can be reached at jonrichwright@gmail.com, on Twitter @jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com.

Early Christian Public-Political Engagement

genealogical inquiry into early Christian forms of public-political engagement

The Greek of the Pentateuch: Grinfield Lectures on the Septuagint 2011-2012

The Greek of the Pentateuch: Grinfield Lectures on the Septuagint 2011-2012

Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage. Classical presences

Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage. Classical presences

Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology

Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology

Popular Religion and Ritual in Prehistoric and Ancient Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean

.), Popular Religion and Ritual in Prehistoric and Ancient Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean

Greek and Roman Myth and the Bible

Greek and Roman Myth and the Bible

Reconstruction, Racist Democratic Party, Eric Foner

Reconstruction

                                                By Eric Foner

 

Page 26:

“The rise of political antislavery in the 1840s and 1850s was accompanied by the emergence of white supremacy as a central tenant of the Northern Democratic party..

Page 29:

“Sanctified by the North’s triumph, the free labor ideology would emerge from the war further strengthened as a definition of the good society, an underpinning of Republican Party policy,...”

Page 30:,

“Generally, however, the Democratic Party, the preeminent Conservative institution of the era reaped the political harvest of opposition to the changes wrought by the war. Tainted with disloyalty in Republican eyes, unable to develop a coherent alternatives to the policies of the Lincoln administration (it remained throughout the period, as one historian puts it, a “Party of negations”)....

Page 31:

“The potent cry of white supremacy provided the final ideological glue in the Democratic coalition”

Page 32:

“The Emancipation Proclamation provoked lurid Democratic descriptions of an impending black inundation of the Midwest. In Indiana, one group of Democratic women paraded before an election with banners emblazoned: “Fathers save us from nigger husbands”. As Georges Clemenceau, reporting, on Reconstruction for a French newspaper, observed after war “Any Democrat who did not manage to hint that the Negro is a degenerate gorilla would be considered lacking in enthusiasm “

“Beginning with an attack on a , factories and docks (some, the scene of recent strikes), the opulent homes as the Colored conscription office, the riot quickly developed into a wholesale assault upon all the symbols of the new order being created by the Republican party and the Civil War. Its targets included government officials, factories and docks (Some, the scene of recent strikes), opulent homes of the city’s Republicans elite, and such symbols of reform spirit as the Colored Orphans Asylum, which was burned to the ground. Above all, the riot degenerated into a virtual racial pogrom, with unaccounted numbers of blacks murdered on the streets or driven to take refuge in Central Park or across the river in New Jersey. Mattie Griffith, a white abolitionist, watched from her window as the immigrant working class – or, in her way of putting it, “ the strange wretched, abandoned creatures that flocked out from their dens and lair’s – took tot eh streets to comity acts of unimaginable cruelty upon the city’s black population: “A child of 3 years of age was thrown from a 4^th story window and instantly killed. A woman one hour after her confinement was set upon and beaten with her tender babe in her arms…Children were torn from their mothers’ embrace and their brains blown out in the very face of the afflicted month. Men were burnt by slow fires”

Page 215:

“The “undisputed history” of these years, black Congressman Josiah Walls later observed, explained why Southern blacks refused to cast Democratic ballots and stood as a warning “as to what they will do if they should again obtain control of this Government.” Most of all, Presidential Reconstruction reinforced blacks’ identification with federal authority. Only outside intervention could assure freedmen s modicum of justice”

Page 217:

“Throughout the north, support for the President [Johnson] and opposition to enfranchising blacks became the Democrat’s rallying cries…..and party speakers described Republicans as “nigger adorers” ….”

Page 218:

“The Blair family had long been obsessed with the specter of racial “amalgamation,” and as with Johnson, prejudice led them down the path of illogic in which blacks and advocates of black suffrage were somehow equated with slavery and Slave Power”

Page 231:

“Equality in civil rights – equal treatment by the courts and civil and criminal laws – most Republicans now deemed nearly as essential, for an individual’s natural right could not be secured without it”

 

Page 291:

“And the Republican party – the party of emancipation and black voting rights – become an institution as central to the black community as the church and school”

Page 313:

“In Ohio, where a measure enfranchising blacks was on the fall ballot, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Allan G. Thurman pledged to save the state from “the thralldom of nigerrism” on the West coast , Democrats added anti -Chinese appeals, arguing that Republican doctrine of “universal equality for all races in all things “ would lead to an Asiatic influx and control of the state by an alliance of the “Mongolian and Indian and African”

Page 340:

From Frank Blair, Democrat VP candidate:

“In blatantly racist language, he excoriated Republicans for placing the South under the rule of “a semi-barbarous race of blacks who are worshippers of fetishes and polygamists” and longer to: subject the white women to their unbridled lust”….Reading Darwin’s The Origin of Species had reinforced Franks’ long-standing fear of racial intermixing, which, he now asserted, would reverse evolution, produce a less-advanced species incapable of reproducing itself, and destroy “the accumulated improvement of the centuries” These were the convictions of the Democratic candidate for the Vice Presidency of the United States.”

Page 342:

“Founded in 1866 as a Tennessee social club, the Ku Klux Klan now spread in nearly every southern state, launching a “reign of terror” against Republicans leaders black and white” …..

Blacks had no doubt who was behind the violence. “We don’t call them democrats,” a local leader commented of the assailants, “we call them southern murderers”

Page 422:

“Tennessee Democrats repealed the Republican law penalizing railroads for discriminating against blacks and drafted a new constitution requiring racial separation in the public schools”

…in 1873 made payment of a poll tax a requirement for voting, effectively disentrancing the bulk of the black population and ensuring over twenty years of uninterrupted Democratic ascendency in the state.

Page 425:

“In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class and all those who desired the restoration of white supremacy”

Page 426:

“Jack Dupree, the victim of a particularly brutal murder in Monroe county, Mississippi—assailants cut his throat and disemboweled him, all within sight of his wife, who had just given birth to twins- was “president of a republican club” and know as a man who would speak his mind”

 

Page 427:

“In October 1870, a group of armed whites broke up a Republican campaign rally at Eutaw, the county seat of Greene county, Alabama, killing four blacks and wounding fifty-four. In the same month, on the day after Republicans carried Laurens county, in South Carolina’s Piedmont cotton belt, a racial altercation at Laurensville degenerated into a “negro chase” which bands of whites scoured the countryside, driving 150 freedmen from their homes and committing 13 murders”

Page 431:

Possibly the most massive Klan action anywhere in the South was the January 1871 assault on the Union county jail by 500 masked men, which resulted in the lynching of eight black prisoners. Hundreds of Republicans were whipped and saw their farm property destroyed in Spartanburg, a largely white county with a Democratic majority”

Page 560:

“…. Democrats assaulted a republican barbecue in Clinton, only 15 miles from the state capital. A few individuals on each side were killed, and armed whites went onto to scour the countryside, shooting down blacks “just the same as birds: They claimed perhaps thirty victims, among them schoolteachers, church leaders, and local Republican organizers.”

The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art

The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Art

The Greek and Roman Trophy: From Battlefield Marker to Icon of Power

The Greek and Roman Trophy: From Battlefield Marker to Icon of Power

Thucydides. How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy

Thucydides. How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy

Harvard Business Review, Decency is Just as Important as Intelligence, Bill Boulding

for-leaders-decency-is-just-as-important-as-intelligence

Empire and Political Cultures in the Roman World

Key Themes in Ancient History

British Walls: Antonine Wall, 142 AD, Hadrian's Wall, 122 AD

Queer Classics Survey of LGBTQ+ Classicists Reveals Community and Continuity

queer-classics

A Companion to Sparta (2 vols). Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World: Ancient History

A Companion to Sparta (2 vols). Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World: Ancient History

10 LinkedIn Profile Summaries That We Love (And How to Boost Your Own)

linkedin-best-practices

The Cambridge Companion to Hippocrates

The Cambridge Companion to Hippocrates

Richard Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995)

Richard Lim, Public Disputation, Power, and Social Order in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995)

Lucius Verus and the Roman Defence of the East

Lucius Verus and the Roman Defence of the East

Hellenistic Philosophy

http://www.bmcreview.org/2019/07/20190719.html

Hellenistic Philosophy

The World-Class Photography of Ebony and Jet Is Priceless History. It’s Still Up for Sale.

It’s impossible to overstate the significance of the Johnson Publishing Company, founded in Chicago in 1942. John and Eunice Johnson began with Negro Digest, a Readers Digest for an African American audience, which quickly reached thousands of households. Ebony, the company’s flagship monthly, launched in 1945, followed by the weekly Jet in ’51. Soon Johnson Publishing emerged as a beacon of African American enterprise, in no small part because Johnson himself poached some of the top journalistic, editorial, and design talent from around the country. One catch was the Atlanta Daily World’s Lerone Bennett Jr., who eventually became Ebony’s influential executive editor and a historian whose work resonated deeply with Americans who didn’t see themselves in the history taught in schools. Celebrities—the likes of Dorothy Dandridge, Ray Charles, and Aretha Franklin—were featured in the magazines as their careers were taking off: they were superstars in African American living rooms but nearly unknown to the readership of photo magazines targeting a mainstream readership, like LIFE.

I’ve had anxiety about this for four years,” says Brenna W. Greer, an associate professor of history at Wellesley College who writes about race, business, and visual culture. Greer’s new book, Represented: The Black Imagemakers Who Reimagined African American Citizenship, makes the case that a key part of African Americans’ struggle for full citizenship after World War II centered on creating and managing commercial images of themselves. That made what the Johnson Publishing Company was doing crucial, she says.

But perhaps the most alarming question around licensing revolves around the possibility of charging a usage fee for sensitive items in the collection. Historians who have knowledge of what Ebony and Jet published will point, immediately, to David Jackson’s photographs of Emmett Till lying in repose at his funeral, which first ran in the September 15, 1955, issue of Jet. Till was a 14-year-old boy from Chicago who was tortured and murdered while visiting relatives in Mississippi, for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

Cf. https://books.google.com/books?id=57EDAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=september+15+1955+jet&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZquzw8pjjAhUYCs0KHVkxDkcQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=september%2015%201955%20jet&f=false

The publication of Jackson’s photographs of Till’s carefully dressed but badly decomposed body echoed like a thunderclap among African Americans, particularly young people who became activists in the 1960s—the “Emmett Till generation,” they would call themselves.

Cf.  https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/summer-2019/the-world-class-photography-of-emebony/em-and-emjet/em-is-priceless-history-its-still-up-for-sale

Zenobia: Shooting Star of Palmyra. Women in Antiquity

Zenobia: Shooting Star of Palmyra. Women in Antiquity

Africa: China Colony

Roman Water Supply: Aqueduct

The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, A Political and Military History

The Roman Empire in Late Antiquity, A Political and Military History

Ptolemy's Philosophy: Mathematics as a Way of Life

Ptolemy's Philosophy: Mathematics as a Way of Life

The Birth of the Athenian Community: From Solon to Cleisthenes

The Birth of the Athenian Community: From Solon to Cleisthenes

Voices In The Margins: Classics’ Suppression of Ancient Roman Writers of Color

voices-in-the-margins

Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations

Brill's Companion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity. Brill's companions to classical reception

Brill's Companion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity. Brill's companions to classical reception

Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World

Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World

Transformations of Romanness

Transformations of Romanness

Colonization and Subalternity in Classical Greece: Experience of the Nonelite Population

Colonization and Subalternity in Classical Greece: Experience of the Nonelite Population

Hillsdale Article II Constitution

article-ii-constitution

Ancient Greece on British Television

Ancient Greece on British Television.

Imperial Identities in the Roman World

Imperial Identities in the Roman World

Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity: Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppe

http://www.bmcreview.org/2019/05/20190540.html

Afterlives of Augustus, AD 14-2014

Afterlives of Augustus, AD 14-2014

Greece Under the Roman Empire

What-was-Greece-like-when-it-was-ruled-by-the-Roman-Empire

Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age

www.bmcreview.org

Hillsdale Imprimis Sacred Duty Soldier's Tour Arlington National Cemetery

sacred-duty-soldiers-tour-arlington-national-cemetery

Managing Up Best Practices

leading-and-managing/managing

Author and Audience in Vitruvius' 'De architectura'. Greek culture in the Roman world

Author and Audience in Vitruvius' 'De architectura'. Greek culture in the Roman world

Virtar AR Pharoah

AR Pharoah

Ancient Greece and American Conservatism: Classical Influence on the Modern Right

Ancient Greece and American Conservatism: Classical Influence on the Modern Right

Performance Review

the-best-questions-to-ask-at-your-performance-review

Daily Life in Late Antiquity

Daily Life in Late Antiquity

Western Classical Education: Defenders of the Faith?

defenders-of-the-faith

Is Christianity Violent in Late Antiquity?

response to the radicalism of the authors asserting the violent rise of Christianity

Drone Laws in California

4.6 miles 1701 Airport Blvd. San Jose, CA 95110

As a general rule of thumb, and in accordance with the law from the FAA, you may not fly within a 5 mile radius of any airport. In 2012 the FAA enacted the Modernization and Reauthorization Act which requires hobbyist drone operators, meaning residential, to contact air traffic control and/or airport management if they are operating within a 5 mile radius of a local airport.
This is enacted nationwide, not only in California, under Part 101 of the Act, being Special Rule for Model Aircraft, to ensure that drone operations under unsafe conditions are disapproved before the drone can be launched.

Civil Code 1708.8.

(a) An individual is fully liable for any physical invasion of privacy if/when they knowingly enter owned land or airspace that is above another individual without permission or permit and has committed a trespass for the purpose of capturing any type of sound recording, physical impression, or visual image of another engaging in family, personal, or private activity and deemed offensive to the plaintiff.

(b) An individual is fully liable in the case of constructive invasion of privacy when an individual attempts to offensively capture, to a reasonable degree, any type of sound recording, physical impression, or visual image of another individual even if no physical trespass has occurred, regardless whether or not the information taken was unable to be done without the device

(c) False imprisonment or an assault has been committed with the clear intent to capture a sound recording, physical impression or visual image take of the plaintiff is subject to the subdivisions of (d), (e), and (h).

Requires FAA registration if the drone weight over half a pound. 

california-drone-laws

drone-laws-california

The Politics of Using and Abusing a Scandal: Hillsdale

politics-means-use-abuse-scanda

You’re a Leader, Now What?

You’re a Leader, Now What?

Takeaways

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you’re a leader.” Jack Welch

Leadership in Action

What it Means

Why are these modules called “Leadership in Action”?

Because leadership is defined by action. Leaders get pulled in a thousand directions a day. Leaders can, and must, energize, motivate, reward, appraise, differentiate, strategize, celebrate, and deliver results. And above all, they need to do everything it takes to build great teams and pour confidence into their people.

Great leaders lead by example. They practice what they preach. They show their team the ways to the top by what they do, the decisions they make, and the action they inspire.

Why it Matters

Because if you can’t take action and if you can’t motivate your team to take action, you will never win.

Action Plan

Looking Back and Looking Forward

“Before you become a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” Jack Welch

When you started these modules, you were invited to consider a few opening questions. These questions are presented again here:

1.      What are your greatest leadership challenges right now?

2.      As a leader, what do you want to be able to do better after completing these modules?

3.      What stands in your way? What are the top barriers that are keeping you from winning? Think both about your own behaviors and about conditions at work that limit success.

4.      If you could change one thing about the way your team or your organization runs today, what would it be?

Take some time to review your answers at the beginning and reflect on where you have gotten to. These modules can’t turn you into a great leader. No one can. But it can give you the tools to start making changes. What you can do with those tools is up to you.

Looking Back and Looking Ahead

What steps can you take to get the most out of these modules and retain what you’ve learned?

1.      Go back and review. Take a look at your notes. Refresh your memory on key points and get a jolt of energy when you need it.

2.      Stay connected to Jack Welch insights and communities on LinkedIn.

·         Share your successes

·         Share your challenge

·         Gather insights from others

·         Ask questions

·         Support others

3.      Get moving. Every module has “Quick Wins” ideas to get started. Most are low-cost or no-coast and many require very little planning. Use them, try a few out, then try a few more. You don’t have to do everything all at once. In fact, you shouldn’t try to do everything all at once. But as you see the impact that even a few simple actions can make, you’ll be anxious to push on and try more.

4.      Keep notes. Revisit the material in the modules for ideas and to make notes on your progress as you implement new strategies.

5.      And last, but not least . . . always. . . always…know your team is watching you.

You lead by your actions. Don’t ever be a phony or say things you don’t mean, or expect your team to behave in a certain way while you behave the opposite. You have to live the values you want your team to live. They are looking to you to lead them. Don’t let them down.

Game Pages

“Leaders aren’t just born. They’re made.” Jack Welch

What Leaders Do

·         Make sure employees and colleagues not only see a company’s vision, but live and breathe it.

·         Reward the behaviors they value.

·         Build trust, cutting through BS, politics, and bureaucracy.

·         Deliver candid feedback at all times, and especially, in performance appraisals

·         Unleash the transformative power of differentiation in their organizations.

·         Energize and empower the people who work with and for them.

·         Use every opportunity to infuse confidence into their people.

·         Exude boundless positive energy and generate excitement.

·         Paint a picture of a greater purpose that the work is driving to.

·         Execute and over-deliver.

·         Have the courage to make tough calls.

·         Display authentic passion for their work and the work of others.

·         Recruit, hire, and motivate the best people regardless of the resources available.

·         Build teams that are creative, productive, and can find a basis for cooperation, even in contentious circumstances.

·         Rejoice in victories and rally teams with the power of celebration.

What’s in it for Me?

What’s in it for Me?

Takeaways

“Change is a lot more difficult when a business is doing well.” Jack Welch

What’s in it for Me?

What it Means

From small reorganizations to massive paradigm shifts, internalizing the impact of a change is what every individual does if the change matters to them. Since making a change mean leaving a comfort zone unless you, as the change leader, can effectively communicate a compelling argument for the change, then you will be constantly struggling with people who “just don’t get it” and your change initiative either won’t happen or it won’t last.

Why it Matters

·         Many initiatives fail because there isn’t a shared belief that the change is necessary.

·         Generating passion for a cause spreads the ownership for driving forward.

·         Since change is happening in the world anyway because of customers, competitors, technology, and a variety of other forces, it should go without saying that some of today’s practices and solutions simply won’t be the right ones to survive the future.

“To get ahead of the competition, a change leader must create urgency and a need that isn’t obvious to the general population.” Jack Welch

Action Plan

What’s in it for Me?

In this module, I’ll cover how to develop and communicate a shared need for change. We’ll also delve into where to get the date to create that compelling story. The activities that follow will focus on helping you to:

·         Articulate a shared need to create a “burning platform” (even if the crisis isn’t evident)

·         Conduct an analysis to determine what really needs to change. This includes:

1.       Internal Benchmarking

2.       Industry Benchmarking

3.       Innovation and Best-in-Class Benchmarking

4.       Data, Demonstration, and Demand

Your Starting Point

1.       What are your customers saying about your “current state” of the things you are considering changing? Are they happy or unhappy with what you’re delivering now?

2.       What are your competitors doing in this space to change the game?

3.       What is the likely outcome if the change is abandoned?

4.       Is anyone demanding this change? If so, who are they?

5.       Is there feedback from the organization’s associates that the change is needed?

6.       If all the previous answers indicate that the change isn’t necessary, what is the compelling reason to do it (i.e., economic forecast, environmental, regulatory)?

Quick Wins for Managing Change

The following three simple actions are a great first step that can help define a need for change.

1.       Conduct a focus group with a small number of employees from areas in the organization who will be impacted. Ask for their opinions and ideas about your reasons for change. Be open to their suggestions and have at least three options or scenarios for them to consider.

2.       List three positives that will result after making the change and three negatives if the change is not made.

3.       Run industry-specific internet searches on what your competitors are doing in the area of your change initiative. There is a lot of information that is publically available, and if you’re not keeping up with what your competition is doing on a regular basis anyway, this is a perfect opportunity to get your team up-to-speed.

Note:

In this and in many other change initiative activities that you will be undertaking, you will need to rely on the support of others, and that can mean asking people to take time out of their busy schedules to lend a hand. Be sure to thank anyone and everyone who helps with their effort. Simple things like a hand-written note, buying lunch for the team, or (depending on the hierarchy) sending a note to the person’s boss (with a copy to the associate) praising the support you have received can go a long way.

Building a Compelling Need for Change

Helping others understand the underlying need for change generates support for new behaviors, but truly effective change leaders create “passion” around the ultimate objective and energize the organization to want to reach beyond the status quo.

A shared need for change should:

·         Be understandable by everyone affected

·         Explain the rationale for change

·         Address the “what’s in it for me?” question

·         Clearly communicate the danger if change isn’t made

·         Be based on facts, or a strong case to back it up

When explaining the need for change, everyone in the organization should be able to relate to it. Be sure to include what could happen—both good and bad—if the change doesn’t occur. This is necessary to help associates voluntarily step out of their comfort zone.

What is a “Burning Platform” and why does it matter?

To make the point resonate, a “burning platform” can be used to instill passion and a shared need for change. If the urgency is apparent, such as major government spending cuts or technology leapfrogging, then the burning platform is easy to build. If the urgency isn’t obvious, then the change leader must paint the picture of the storm coming and show what the future will hold if change is not embraced.

Note:

Remember, that rationale for change can’t just be opinion; the more objective and irrefutable the data that all associates can relate to, the stronger your case, and the easier it is to win support.

Benchmarking

The wheel only had to be invented once. Finding an emulating practices proven to get the best results is much easier than constant innovation.

There are three types of benchmarking that are used to collect data to show the potential of what change can bring as well as to show what competitors are doing to change the playing field.

1.      Internal Benchmarking

Internal benchmarking occurs with your entire organization and it’s an important place to start since the information and data are credible and should be easy to access. For internal benchmarking, there are three questions to consider:

·         What are the best practices related to the change that can be replicated by other parts of the organization?

·         What lessons learned from past projects can lead to better decision-making in the future?

·         Are there any parts of the organization already embracing the change, and what are the early results?

2.      Industry Benchmarking

Industry benchmarking is focused on the competition and like institutions. Using competitive intelligence find out:

·         What are your competitors doing well?

·         What do competitors do better than you?

·         Do your competitors have “best-in-class” approaches you can adopt?

3.      Best-in-Class Benchmarking

Innovation and Best-in-class Benchmarking look at best practices wherever they are found. This can be easier to get than industry intelligence because there is no competition, so information is often shared from the source. Seek out:

·         Who is known for best-in-class in the area of your intended change?

·         What is different about their approach, look and feel, or process than other organizations?

·         What do they do differently than your organization does?

·         What do they measure to evaluate (and maintain) their level of excellence?

Data, Demonstration and Demand

Too much information can be as challenging as not having enough. It’s sometimes necessary to categorize the evidence for change to determine in where to focus first or to identify what’s missing.

The 3-D’s, allows you to summarize the information you may already have or need to get:

·         Data can be collected from both internal and external sources. In short, data can be tracked, calculated, or measure. Data highlights trends, measurable performance and benchmarks to support the need for change. In creating a shared need, you can be pretty sure that the majority of people you need to win over will need hard data to be swayed.

·         Demonstrations are examples of best practices or evidence of new behaviors in your organization. If one field office is already demonstrating a certain behavior and their results are superior to the other filed offices, it provides proof of concept and demonstrates the real value of the change.

·         Demand is about the expectations senior leaders will communicate regarding the change. An organization striving to be more customer-focused benefits when leadership demands new metrics and behaviors that are based on the viewpoint of the customer.

Game Pages

What’s in it for Me?

Your Starting Point

The 3 D’s

	Summary of Evidence
Data
Demonstration
Demand