How to Put Your Strengths to Work
When was the last time you were doing something at work that was so engaging and thought provoking that you totally lost track of time?
How to Stay on Your Sustainability Diet During the Holidays
Many of us use the holidays or vacations as an excuse to disregard what we would normally do in everyday life. We eat and drink too much, indulge in the excesses of the season and then spend our New Year’s resolutions trying to make up for it. We give ourselves permission to let go of the rules that we live by most of the year.
Eight Ways to Practice Pragmatic Consensus-Based Decision Making
Whether you’re discussing the foundations of governance or how to take our an enemy sniper in Call of Duty, you’re probably talking about consensus-based decision making, which informs everything from family trips to important business decisions. Consensus-based decision making has been widely used, in everything from early democracy to organizational theory. But what exactly is consensus-based decision making, and how best can it be practiced?
Adapting to a New Food Order
Food. Everyone can relate to food in some way, whether you eat to live, or live to eat. Through our choices around food, we can have significant impact on our environment. Since there are so many ways that food impacts sustainability, there are many ways people can make change.
Assessing the Impact of a Policy or Program on the Mental Health of a Population
There are many definitions of mental health promotion that have been put forward by organizations, governments, and individuals from around the world. While all similar, there are some important differences that impact how mental health promotion is understood and practiced. One of my favourite definitions is this one: the “actions taken to maximize the mental health and wellbeing of populations by improving social, physical and economic environments; and strengthening the understanding and skills of individuals in ways that support their efforts to achieve and maintain mental health” (Victorian Government Department of Health, 2010).
How Outcome Based Decision Making Can Get You Through a Crisis
One of the unfortunate facts of life is that, more often than not, we’re forced to make some of our most important decisions under pressure. Whether that pressure comes from time constraints, high emotion or some kind of crisis, it’s just not a good time to successfully arrive at good decisions. But whether you like it or not, there’s a good chance that at some point in either your personal or professional life, you will be confronted with tough choices under less than ideal circumstances.
Solve Problems by Crossing the Streams
We work in silos. The boundaries might be fuzzy like a Turner landscape, but community, collaboration, and innovation can suffer as a result. We can improve our ability to work together to surface and solve problems by learning from how we socialize with the help of technology.
How to Bridge the Gap between Research and Action
Go to any academic journal and pull up a random scientific article. Can you understand it? Chances are you will probably not understand all of it. Even if you do understand all of it (yes, even including the statistical analysis section), do you understand how this relates to the dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of other articles done on the same subject? And equally as important, do you have the time to sift through stacks of articles to make an informed decision on a program, policy or service you are considering implementing in either your private or professional life? Herein lies the value of knowledge translation.
Laneway Learning: crowdsourcing education
Ever wondered who invented the roller coaster, or more importantly, why on earth they thought it would be a good idea? Or maybe you’re living with a secret longing to learn the ukulele, but you’ve never had the time to learn how to play anything but a slightly Hawaiian version of Smoke on the Water. Or perhaps, like me, you really love to learn stuff, but the thought of attending (and paying for) a 10 week course in meditation is a little too high on the commitment scale.
The Lost Art of Conversation
When was the last time you had a proper conversation? I’m talking a real-life, animated conversation with eye-contact and gestures and the occasional accidental hurling of spit at your fellow conversationalist? And don’t even try to say it was in…