This is Johanna Rothman’s October 2025 Create an Adaptable Life Newsletter. The unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email. In How Can You Solve Problems When the Real Problems Are Cultural Changes? (Part 1), I suggested our various cultures affect how we recognize and solve our real problems. I suggested we watch for […]
How to Change the Culture to Solve More of Our Real Problems (Part 2) Read More »
Most of my communities feel as if the world is in disarray. The agile community wants to “go back” to when Scrum ruled the world. Too many politicians want to “go back” to a supposedly simpler time. When I hear, “go back,” I am pretty sure we are in a time of cultural change. While
How Can You Solve Problems When the Real Problems Are Cultural Changes? (Part 1) Read More »
We all live through various hype cycles, personally and professionally. (Hype cycles look a lot like the Satir Change model, the image in this post.) Right now, in 2024, “generative” AI is having its moment. But AI is not generating anything, certainly not new insights. Instead, the engines have ingested (without paying creators) lots of
How Can We Avoid Confusing the Hard Parts (People) with the Easy Parts (Tools)? Read More »
When my younger daughter was in high school, her principal continually invited us to events. He thought we would “build community” with “meaningful connections” that way. But I already went to high school. And the last thing I wanted—maybe not the very last, but close to it—was to return to high school. My daughter could
When and How Should We Build Community to Connect With Each Other? Read More »
Long ago, in a company that no longer exists, my managers asked me to “stretch the truth” to a customer. I refused. One of them threatened me with the loss of my job. They didn’t fire me that day, and I left soon thereafter. I didn’t have trouble doing the right thing because I’d already
How Can We Make it Easy to do the Right Thing? Read More »
The rapper formerly known as Kanye West conducted an anti-Semitic tirade a couple of weeks ago. (You can find it if you want to see it.) In his tirade, he bullied Jews. He thought he was untouchable. His licensing deals, his promoters, all of his business people—he thought his business collaborators would leave him alone
How Do You Know It’s Time for You to Confront a Bully? Read More »
In the 1960s, the US passed a bunch of policies that created a time of much more opportunity for many kinds of people—including me. Because of the Civil Rights Act, and later, Title IX, I had more opportunities and freedom to take my place in the world. I could apply for a job that traditionally
What Opportunities Do You Have Now That You Did Not Back Then? Read More »
Some people used to think that culture at work was the snacks or the foosball tables. That’s only a tiny part of a culture. We’ve seen over the pandemic that real culture is what we can discuss, how we treat each other, and what we reward. (That’s my interpretation of Edgar Schein’s work.) That means
What Kind of a Culture Do You Want to Create and Reinforce? Read More »
We often talk about a few “bad apples” in teams, groups, or even society as a whole. We use the term “bad apples” because that metaphor helps us see that one bad apple can poison an entire container. Should we tolerate one bad apple? Are there other options to help us create a culture that
How Do We Create Culture? Read More »
I’ve been following the issues and the punishments in the college admissions scandal. If you’re not based in the US, you might have missed this. The idea is that wealthy parents bribed and cheated their children’s way into elite schools. I’m not going to discuss the scandal itself. This post is about understanding the culture
What Do We Choose to Reward and Punish? Read More »