Emilio J. Castilla’s recent book, The Meritocracy Paradox: Where Talent Management Strategies Go Wrong and How to Fix Them (2025) will likely fall victim to the anti-woke book-ban with the current administration's exclusive focus on “merit.” What’s wrong with merit hard work and talent? Nothing. Why is this book a chopping block? Because it focuses [...]
One of my greatest professional honors since 2014 has been serving as an Adjunct Faculty member in the KEY Executive Leadership Program at American University—a program dedicated to developing senior-level public sector leaders. I deeply admire these leaders for the depth and breadth of their mission-driven dedication to people in general, and to our country [...]
Like an electric shock -- that line grabbed me even more than other great ones. After I shared the “Light in My Darkness” Cliff’sNOTE, with my sister Lori, she sent me a note saying it reminded her of Maria Papova’s 20 Ways to Matter. To me, this is another wonderful example of a piece that [...]
by Cliff Kayser, IDG Ambassador, Aconcagua Cohort NOTE: ChatGPT often uses the INCORRECT versions shown below. TIP #1: Use “And” Instead of “VS” It’s easy to fall into the habit of using “VS” between the two poles of a polarity—but this creates confusion because a polarity requires both poles. Using “VS” implies opposition and that [...]
After my friend, Joe Shymanski’s memorial service this past September, I found a bit of comfort one morning writing about one of his favorite poems, Desiderata. A handful of weeks later, I’m seeking comfort in the same way after my Father's passing on November 20th, 2023. It's been a rough fall grieving both of these [...]
“Desiderata” means “things wanted or needed.” Max Ehrmann, the poem’s author was a lawyer and poet from Terre Haute, Indiana, which happens to be my father’s home town. (NOTE: See component to this post -- a Cliff'sNOTE on The True Gentleman.) The first time I heard Desiderata (pronounced, [DI] + [ZID] + [UH] + [RAA] + [...]
Kierkegaard succeed in “turning a somersault” over his “melancholy” (what they called “depression” in his day). The “cure” was purpose, in his case -- writing -- that made the day-to-day grind of life more tolerable and livable for others. Paradoxically, that made his own life more tolerable and livable. The bottom line: Help for others [...]
From: American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress,” by Wesley Lowery Lowery, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist implicitly discusses polarities (“conundrums” or “tensions”) underlying our common conceptions of racism by probing recent surges in white-supremacist violence. The central premise of “Whitelash” is “a pull back on the rope”: “Each step toward a more [...]
On June 5, 1944, more than 5,000 ships waited to transport more than 150,000 soldiers to France before daybreak the following morning. General Dwight D. Eisenhower hoped these troops would push the German troops back across Europe. Eisenhower knew the fight to take Normandy would be brutal. The beaches these troops would assault were tangled [...]
Created as a nonprofit social change think tank in 2017, the Institute for the Polarities of Democracy joins the tools and processes of decades of polarity approach development with the basic principles of democracy drawn from centuries of literature about freedom and governance under one unifying Polarities of Democracy theory, which the Institute uses to [...]