Sources of Insight continues to grow. Sources of Insight saw 101,000 unique visitors over the last month. I’m a fan of 101, whether it’s a 101 list of things, or an introductory 101 class, so I thought I would share the snapshot of 101,000 unique visitors.

Spring is in the air and it was time for some Spring cleaning at Sources of Insight. You can check out the changes on the site just by clicking around, but I’ll also give you a quick rundown of some of the key things.

Sources of Insight is one year old. It’s hard to believe. Sometimes, it feels like I just launched yesterday. Other times, it feels like it’s always been there. Time is funny like that. My first post was Fear of Weaknesses, Fear of Failure, and Fear of Who You Are. This post is a walk through some of my highlights and lessons learned over the past year, and a look to the future.

How do you build a team that trusts each other to speak their mind and take risks?  How do you make it possible for the team to engage in passionate and sometimes emotional debate, knowing that they will not be punished for saying something that might otherwise be interpreted as destructive or critical?  It’s not about trusting that your team members will behave in a certain way.  It’s about building vulnerability-based trust, where it’s safe to take risks and face conflict on the team rather than fear it.  In The …

How do you create compelling arguments for change? How do you convince others to comply with your requests? How do you reduce the perceived costs of action or increase the perceived costs of inaction? In The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels, Michael Watkins writes about framing compelling arguments.
Key Take AwaysHere’s my key take aways:

Frame your arguments. One approach is to just ask for what you want and see what happens. If the stakes are high, you’ll want to frame a compelling argument.
Know whether …

How do Zen masters point students to awareness without using words? In Simple Zen: A Guide to Living Moment by Moment, C. Alexander Simpkins PH.D. and Annellen Simpkins PH.D. write how Zen masters point students to awareness through hits and shouts.
A Nonconceptual Experience
Alexander and Annellen write:
“Chinese Zen masters Ma-tsu and Lin-chi often resorted to shouting or hitting in response to students’ questions. This created tension in the students since they never knew when they might receive a smack from the master. The purpose, however, was not to terrorize the students …

Can setting a quota, help you accomplish more? It worked for Thomas Edison. In Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition), Michael Michalko writes about how Edison used quotas to improve his results.
Thomas Edison’s Personal Invention Quotas
Michalko writes:
“Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He was a great believer in exercising his mind and the minds of his workers and felt that without a quota he probably wouldn’t have achieved very much. His personal invention quote was a minor invention every ten days and a major invention every six months. To …