If you are looking for a deep dive into complexity theory, then this book is not for you. If you want a fuller understanding of its impact in the world, it is well worth the read. Different practitioners share how they have made use of and experienced the framework, and David Snowden, if truth be told.
There is a wicked question all leaders must eventually confront: How can we best address the needs of the organisation while addressing the needs of the individual? Jennifer Garvey Berger and Carolyn Coughlin’s “Unleash Your Complexity Genius” points a way forward to both better engage with and apprehend the world around you and inside you.
What to expect from the resource. Power: A User’s Guide (PAUG), authored by Julie Diamond, delivers exactly what it promises on the tin: a guide to how to connect to, and draw on, your positional and personal power. It is much more “How to Win Friends and Influence...
Patrick Lencioni’s 5 Dysfunctions of a Team (2002) is a classic framework to better understand why a team may not be delivering hoped for results. It is a means of diagnosing what might be wrong, and it offers remedial steps which allow a team to move forward more...
It’s that time of the year again. No Mo May is over and the grass can be cut. The bees are flourishing. And the year is almost halfway over! Man alive, where is the time going? Indeed, where is the year going? June is the perfect time to step back as a team and share...
The first co-leaders I worked with, my Mom, was known to say “Two heads are better than one.” She would say this when we would be working on a particularly thorny arithmetic problem, looking for an article of clothing or book that I had invariably misplaced, or trying...
“Well, we busted out of class, had to get away from those fools…” And so it began in Dublin: three hours of pulsing songs from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The next day, while nursing sore feet over a coffee, there was one image of the evening that I...
Our commitment to not mowing our lawn until the end of May has thrown us into a curious leadership conflict: we want to provide dandelions for wild bees whilst also trying to fit into our neighbourhood. We’ve found that our inner process and our actions in this...
One of my favourite ways to work with clients who are navigating complex contexts is through “balance” coaching. Co-active balance coaching is about finding and standing in perspectives which serve the client – perspectives which create possibilities, rather than...
The conversation got up this week in Choose Leadership HQ about complexity and leadership. Dave Snowden defines complex systems as ones with some constraints, but where everything is connected, except we don’t know what the connections are. We can assess probability...
How do you distinguish between a team and group? And is that distinction even meaningful? Yes, and it matters, because “team based working” is so prevalent AND not every group labelled a team is actually a team. According to Katzenbach and Smith, a team is a...
Do you feel like the heron or the hippo? Have you ever wondered why your leadership team’s change initiatives keep getting blocked? “Darn it, why won’t they change?” “ACME Consultants promised this would work.” “We followed best practice!” What if it wasn’t their...
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” We live most of our lives on automatic pilot. That is as true of individuals as it is of teams. Our teams tend to operate without being aware of the water they are swimming...
Last week, while working with front line managers, I stumbled across something important. It happened when I asked participants to describe a manager / leader / boss that they had worked for and for whom they had had respect and admiration. They used words like...
The first Toastmasters meeting of the new calendar year is always a fun one, and predictable in the way that Linkedin often is. It is filled with inspirational exhortations to imagine your future, create new possibilities, and most importantly, to set goals for the...
What is your favourite question to support your clients or those you lead to connect to their agency? Over the last six months, more and more participants in our management development programmes arrive standing in a place of concern and anxiety. When I ask “What’s...
What’s a conversation you’ve been avoiding? A conversation at work, at home, with a colleague, with your partner? Most likely, you are avoiding the conversation not just because of what you think will happen but rather because you don’t know how to achieve the outcome...
A man wants to hang a painting. He has the nail, but not the hammer. It occurs to him to go over to the neighbour and borrow his hammer.But then a little voice whispers in the back of your head: “What if he doesn’t want to lend me the hammer? Yesterday, he barely...
On Friday, 7 October I had the privilege, with Regina Vogel and 10 other members of my Leadership Tribe, to spend a day interacting with horses, under the watchful eye of Jude Jennison. Regina gives a great account of her expereince here. One of the first things I...
“Five years ago, Alex Honnold scaled the sheer face of the 3,000-foot El Capitan escarpment alone and without ropes—the only person to have ever done so. Honnold has great skill and discipline, but he is also blessed with a special brain: an MRI scan has shown that...
By French choreographer Lola Rudrauf, Ballerinas, Hava and Océane Delbrel. Thank you @culturainquieta Late August always makes me think about the imminent return to school. Whether I was 13, 33 or 53, it's always carried that energy. I remember always thinking ahead:...
Fostering a culture of adult development is something many innovative companies are exploring – so why are most of them still struggling to create an environment that fosters potential? Check out this podcast.
What if summer allowed you to chill out, check out, AND deepen your relationship with those most important to you? It can. Check out this REBOOT.io course on listening,
Regenerative Leadership Retreat: Finding Purpose in Leadership through Connection, runs from 21 – 25 August 2022 in Switzerland. The application deadline is on 19 July. While connecting with like-minded peers, you’ll explore and realise regenerative leadership in your role.
We often frame reactive behaviour in an individual context, but what does it look like in the context of a team, division or organization? As Bill Anderson puts it, reactive tendencies emphasise “caution over creating results, self-protection over productive...
When working with new managers, we make the distinction between management and leadership. Why? Well, organisations need leadership as well as skillful management to be successful. But the two things are often conflated, with disastrous effects. The essence of...
The Co-Active Training Institute (CTI) frames leadership as taking responsibility for your world.Jerry Colonna speaks of leadership as the art of growing up.Kevin Cashman takes a stand for leadership as starting from the inside out. Ultimately leadership is about...
Imagine this: You are on your hands and knees in a labyrinth. Except that you don’t know that you are on your hands and knees, nor that you are in a labyrinth. And no matter what you do, you can’t find your way out of this confusing tunnel of rights and lefts. You are...
The Inner Development Goals (IDG) initiative arose from an awareness that a blind spot existed in the work to create a more sustainable, global society. This blind spot consisted of a lack of appreciation of the qualities, skills and abilities to bring about the...
Last week, Regina explored the idea that community is the source of productivity. Let’s explore further why this relationship between community and productivity matters. Your sense of community arises from your experience that you are in relationship with others, your...