We are very excited that KIND is now available at over 7,000 Starbucks stores! KIND fits perfectly with Starbucks’ new focus on "Real Foods, Simply Delicious!"
The New York Times just ran a story about KIND and our efforts to break into Starbucks.
Kim, Erica and Natalie at KIND Snacks put together a really neat internal presentation at KIND’s Growing Together Retreat earlier this spring and I wanted to share it:
http://blog.peaceworks.net/wp-content/uploads/KIND/
It takes a little bit for it to upload but I think it’s worth it. Make sure volume is on.
One of entrepreneurs’ and CEOs’ greater challenges is learning the art of contraction.
CEOs and entrepreneurs may feel they can do a task better than their team members because they have more experience.
But then they will never will build the professional potential of their staff, and their organizations will not reach their full potential, limited as they are by the hours of one human being.
Similarly with children, if overbearing parents control the lives of their kids, these are more apt to become meek children living in the shadow of their parents.
Same with Professors and Coaches and Doctors and Lawyers who have apprentices.
Philosophers of religion, when trying to explain why G’d, though all-powerful and omni-present, does not dominate our lives or otherwise prevent all forms of evil, talk about the supreme power of contraction from G’d, to allow free will to reign. Were G’d not to contract its power, humans would never be able to have self-determination or otherwise do anything.
The power and the talent of contraction is thus vital to all pursuits where you want to build the strength of your team or eco-system.
Cathy Arnst wrote a compelling article in BusinessWeek here, about the Food Industry’s complicity in fostering obesity in society. While individuals ultimately have to be responsible for their actions, misleading advertising and claims definitely contribute to this epidemic, as I have written in the past (ie, Corn Refiners Assoc lying re HFCS, COKE lying about soft drinks – and claiming it is all natural, dilution of "natural" claims because of so much deception by big food cos, etc.).
Now Arnst brought forward many studies and sources – from Dr. David Kessler to a study in the health journal The Milbank Quarterly – that compare Big Tobacco’s dirty tricks to how large food companies are behaving….
From an article in the NYT by Ron Lieber, good financial advice from unusual sources – religious:
Those who structure their standard of living to allow a little surplus control their circumstances. Those who spend a little more than they earn are controlled by their circumstances. They are in bondage.
By N. Eldon Tanner, Church leader
We are honored that BusinessWeek chose PeaceWorks among 25 of "America’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs."
If you like what we do, we’d appreciate you voting here for us – PeaceWorks Holdings – as the top 5 will be featured in the magazine.
Here is a link to the Opening Plenary at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship where I participated:
http://www.socialedge.org/features/skoll-world-forum
Click on Opening Plenary video
Panel discussion starts around minute 36-ends around min 79. Entire plenary agenda below:
Musical Performance – Taiko Meantime, An enthralling show combining traditional Japanese rythms and techniques with eclectic, original compositions Opening Remarks – Stephan Chambers, Chairman, Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship Delegate Address – Jeff Skoll, Founder and Chairman, Skoll Foundation Framing Power – Roger L. Martin, Dean, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto Panel Discussion: Power to the people:Citizen Engagement and Social Transformation
- Ray Suarez (Moderator), Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour, PBS
- Kailash Satyarthi, President, Global Campaign for Education, Chairman, Global March Against Child Labour
- The Honorable Mary Robinson, President, Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative
- Daniel Lubetzky, Founder and President, PeaceWorks Group
Personal Power: A Call to Responsibility – Kenneth S. Brecher, Executive Director, Sundance Institute
I don’t think I’ve ever laughed harder at an interview about PeaceWorks. This is HILARIOUS – I don’t understand it, but I love the part when they start poking fun at all our mistakes. As well as when the guy shows up with the title "Non Style." What is that? Definitely lost in translation!
Change-Maker was the first episode on a Social Entrepreneurship Series by NHK Japan, which is like the BBC of Asia.
Roger Martin, Dean at the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto, gave an interesting presentation at the Opening Plenary at the Skoll World Forum today:
Whether or not Barack Obama is your President or, as is the case for me, another country’s leader, most of you, I suspect, watched the President’s inauguration speech and did so with rapt attention. It was certainly a lovely, inspiring and motivating speech. I cried a few times, even though guys aren’t supposed to do that. I suspect each listener took away something special and unique to you from the speech. For me, one sentence grabbed my attention; that riveted me:
“As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”
I study and write about leadership, which of course makes it a privilege for me to be among all the great leaders in this room. And in my study of highly successful leaders across a wide variety of organizations, I found the most common theme – the most universal characteristic – to be a form of thinking exemplified by President Obama’s quote.
That common theme was when highly successful leaders are faced with an apparent choice between two opposing and unsatisfying options, they show the inclination to refuse to choose and the capacity to instead engineer a course of action that is superior to each of the apparent options.
…
...In my work, I found that great leaders harness the inherent power in the tension between opposing ideas, options or models to forge a new better model. That is the Power of Paradox.
