Ideas & Culture - Dr Robert N. Winter (Page 4)

Are Hierarchies Healthy for Organisations?

Hierarchy itself doesn’t harm performance; knowledge hoarding does. Teams can thrive with deep hierarchies if information flows openly. When managers hide knowledge or deflect with “above your pay grade,” performance and culture quickly erode.

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 8 Oct 2023

Image of a pile of rocks on a beach. Emblematic of a hierarchy.

Leading Psychological Safety in Teams

The challenges in creating psychological safety are in some ways more complex for managers because they not only need to lead the process, but also lead themselves in the initiation of the process.

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 16 Sep 2023

A Psychological Safety Primer

Going against the grain may make people feel unsafe, yet it is through this process that true psychological safety is ultimately achieved—because people feel safe to feel unsafe and to challenge the status quo.

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 20 Aug 2023

Epochs Within Epochs

While our own short lives may lack the eternality of the Holy Spirit we can transcend events by our choices. Choices which, religious or not, have deep and long lasting moral implications.

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 8 Apr 2023

Our Mind is a Blurry Image of Life

The hope is much, for having gotten this far is to be forewarned and thus forearmed. In that we do well to employ scepticism when listening to a human interlocutor. Because even the best of us are filling in the blanks in our memory.

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 18 Feb 2023

Ghost Writers: Rise of the Machines

Ultimately, I do not think the problem is that we are building machines so ‘smart’ that their output is indistinguishable from human compositions. The problem is that we are educating humans whose output is so illiterate, and devoid of experience, it is indistinguishable from computer generated text

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 4 Feb 2023

An Opportunity Afforded

This is why some people will look at a library and see a wealth of opportunity, while others will see the same space and same books and apprehend only barriers to entry or exclusion from a world in which they think they have no part to play.

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 4 Jan 2023

As 'An' Historian

Modernists may disagree, but if challenged by these dangerous revolutionaries, refer them to the below and the glorious roots of our language.

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 16 Dec 2022

Opinion

Autodeleting the Public Record

Rage if you will and burn screen time if you like—I simply accept if I want my thoughts to be personal and private then I ought not post them online.

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 9 Dec 2022

Image of the facade of the National Archives of Finland depicting letters of alphabets and various symbols which are archived

Review: Doom, The Politics of Catastrophe

So long as we keep our heads while all around are loosing theirs, never dwelling too long on exaggerated threats, we are in a position to muddle through.

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 22 Nov 2022

Image of the Hindenburg airship catching on fire during its attempt to dock

Twas Gunpowder Treason Day

As late as 2015 in Great Britain, Royals who married Catholics were removed from the line of succession, and Prime Ministers avoided disclosing their Catholicism in office.

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 5 Nov 2022

A contemporary engraving of eight of the thirteen conspirators, by Crispijn van de Passe.

Reading More Efficiently And Effectively

I can well picture 'Hitch', cigarette languidly hanging from the corner of his mouth, hand clasped around a whisky glass, tossing the book toward the wastepaper bin, and then leaning back in his chair. Content in the knowledge he had repaid the reading in the only way fit.

By Dr Robert N. Winter

/ 18 Oct 2022