This is our August update on what we’ve been up to in the realm of inclusion and belonging on the Zing Collaborative team.

Inspired by Cal Newport and a great deal of related research I’ve been doing recently, I have decided to run an experiment in Digital Minimalism.

The main thing I noticed this week - week two of my experiment - was that on several occasions, I simply forgot about my devices.

This summer, over here on the Zing Collaborative team, like many, we have decided to increase our focus on inclusion and belonging.

Yesterday, I walked into a not-to-be-named grocery store to pick up a few essentials.

To really, truly, deeply listen is to, as Stephen Covey has so famously said, “seek first to understand.”

If we want to get better information, we need to ask better questions. If we want to have better conversations, we need to ask better questions. And if we want to understand each other as human beings, we need to ask better questions.

We have been swinging on a trapeze for quite some time now. We’ve been holding on, swaying back and forth, possibly doing some tricks and flips and inversions along the way.

Poop in the Room is the idea that before we can create positive change from hard situations, we need to surface all of the ugliness that exists beneath, within, and out of view.

In our modern day world, it can be easy to conflate “posting our opinions on social media” with “taking meaningful action.”

“When we identify where our privilege intersects with somebody else’s oppression, we’ll find our opportunities to make real change.” - Ijeoma Oluo

Over the last two weeks, I became fascinated by (and mildly obsessed with) a bird nest on my window sill.

Today, I’d like to share a bit about how we are thinking about our business strategy and operations during these current times, and what this means for our work.

“Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

In my course on Innovation, Agility, and Leadership I talk a lot about the fact that being innovative is a whole lot more than coming up with great ideas.

It’s a confusing time. In some ways, the world feels more confusing now than it did a few weeks ago.

“Normal” has become an unusually loaded word lately. What is normal? How can we go back to it if we don’t know what it is?

“We are all weathering the same storm, but we’re all in different boats. Some of us are in a kayak, while some of us are in a cruise ship.” 

We have 1440 minutes in a 24 hour day. Each minute provides us with an opportunity to make a conscious choice - about how we show up and about how we spend our time. 

Our world is throwing curve balls right and left, and our everyday reality is changing rapidly before our eyes.