You’ve likely heard the old chestnut “There is no ‘I’ in TEAM.” Whether said in jest, or in dead seriousness, it is simply not true. If you want to have a team which can navigate complexity and uncertainty, you need to recognise that it is filled with ‘I’s. Why?...
How do you go about when you’re looking to break the mold? When you are searching for new ideas as your team faces new challenges? Adam Grant makes the case for turning to the disruptors on your team and busts a bunch of myths that inform our thinking around the non-conformists who…
In many companies innovation and agility are more than core values. They are the life blood of the business in a competitive environment. Yet while many people who work in these companies espouse those values, they suffer in toxic teams. They fear making mistakes...
What’s the secret sauce of innovation? Lots has been written to answer that question. Our take is: There is no secret sauce. That is, there’s no “one size fits all” kind of sauce out there. There’s only your own secret sauce. And its particular flavour depends on
“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...
What to expect from the resource. We all admire companies which can innovate again and again. And you might wonder how they’re doing it. How are they so successfully leading for innovation? That's what Linda Hill and her colleagues set out to understand. To that end,...
Take a moment and notice: What does it feel like to be right? I bet you can’t really tell. Because it just feels … normal. I’m sure that you can answer much more easily what being wrong feels like. I’m guessing: Embarrassing, shameful, wanting to hide it from others …...
In times of complexity, many leaders wait for more information as they don’t see themselves able to make a decision when they have to consider too many entangled and unpredictably moving parts. Their inability to make decisions puts teams and whole organisations under...
What I have experienced during many hands-on experiences of the innovation space is that most of the focus is on creating the right diversity make-up of teams, and on making the physical space conducive to creativity and play. Sometimes this leads to innovation - and...
In 1968, George Land and Beth Jarman set out to discover how creative people are, and so they started at the beginning, by testing and tracking 1,600 children over 15 years. They assessed their divergent creative thinking, which they defined as the ability to look at...
“We will never transform the prevailing system of management without transforming our prevailing system of education.” W. Edwards Deming. You might not be familiar with the name of W. Edwards Deming. You might, however, have experienced the fruit of his work:...
Very often we experience resistance in others and then lazily make assumptions about why they are behaving they way they are. But why are they resisting? But what if the problem wasn’t them, but you? And what if you could do something about that?
The role of leaders has shifted, though many leaders have not yet taken the leap: Leaders must first tend to their ecosystem. Then they need to make sure to stay connected to it. In increasingly fast and ambiguous contexts, leaders who rely on the knowledge of only a few, are doomed to lead everyone into failure. Here’s how you can leverage the perspectives of many in a simple way so as to navigate uncertainty and solve complex problems in real time.
Creating engaged, interactive, and fruitful online meetings is notoriously difficult. Many believe that it is impossible. But online meetings are the future. And we have beautiful news for you: It just needs a little training and good planning to create an online event which has every participant fully present and contributing to a shared goal whilst enjoying the many networking opportunities throughout the meeting.
To reshape an icecube, you first have to melt it. Only then can you pour it into a different shape to then refreeze it. What’s true for ice, is true for any organisation. It seems simple. However, as you likely have experienced first hand, most change initiatives fail. that’s because the unfreezing of “how things are done here” never happens. That’s why now is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape your organisation into a better place.
We have experienced self-doubt and procrastination as constant companions on our journey to following our true passion. Our work had brought us certainty and stability, and that meant safety. To give that up took passion and clarity about what we were going to...
Creativity does not peak in your twenties to then drop continuously. On the contrary, it peaks again in your fifties, never to drop thereafter.
This week we are asking for your help: We need everyone to contribute to society and environment.
So if you are in your fifties and beyond, we invite you to a 30 minute conversation about how you are, or would love to be, contributing to society and the environment in a positive way.
Do you seek to make your meetings more engaged? Are you dreading the cynical reaction to your upcoming strategy announcement? Are you looking to increase participation and responsibility in your team and organisation? Then Liberating Structures might just be the thing for you.
In the past two weeks, we’ve shared …
Fail early and often to succeed sooner is a Design Thinking principle. The rationale behind it is that we cannot create something really new, if we don’t allow ourselves to fail. Instead, we have to stick to what’s already been tried and tested elsewhere.
Of course, we can…
Structure is what allows creativity to flow. It makes space for it. Because here’s the thing:
You might have a genius idea out of the blue some day.
It’s just very unlikely.
Your killer idea …
Structure and creativity are often seen as enemies. And most people love either one or the other.
Creativity might scream chaos at you. Structure might look like a straight jacket. But what we can all learn from successful writers, humorists and any other creators is this:
There is no lack of urgency. But we are not moving.
About 4.8 million people live in Ireland, roughly a quarter of them in the greater Dublin area. Ireland is known as the Green Island. Rolling hills and uncounted sheep and cows along the country roads illustrate this romantic notion.
Here’s some less romantic news…
This Friday, people all around the world will come together for Climathon, to generate ideas for how cities can tackle the climate crisis. The challenges for Dublin’s Climathon are:
Transport and Air Quality, and
Water Mangement and Extreme Weather events.
While designing the day, we are working with the challenge of guiding groups through the process of solving wicked problems.
In an increasingly complex world, appointed leaders simply don’t know enough to decide what is new and better. Leadership is a group sport, not an individual heroic activity.
Ed Schein
Faced with complex problems in uncertain and ambiguous situations, the best of leaders find themselves stuck in analysis paralysis.
Does that happen to you?
Perhaps you’re even struggling to come to terms with…
Last week, U.Lab started again, and after a few years of our first U.Lab experience, we are participating again to refresh our knowledge and experience in order to further progress on our own leadership journeys. The u.lab: Leading From the Emerging Future is the most powerful online course I have yet experienced, and I have participated in a good number of courses.
The rich programme brings together …
Organisations use a plethora of team performance tools, all of which promise to help them crack the code of building the perfect team. The tools usually focus on skills and abilities on the one hand, and personality types and preferences on the other.
In my Design Thinking journey, I’ve been trained in how to put together promising innovation teams. Diversity enables a team to explode with creativity and shape breakthrough products and services in a short time: mix …
According to a large survey of multinationals by Gartner 69% of employees don’t believe in their leaders’ cultural goals. 87% don’t understand them. And 90% don’t behave in alignment with them.
Whoops!
Those same multinationals invest an average of 2200 US$ per employee a year into culture change initiatives.
What’s the first thought …
What if your people brought their full creative self to work?
What if they brought a CAN-DO attitude to challenges and setbacks?
What if everyone was open to notice and share opportunities for the benefit of the whole organisation?
What if customer service people, product developers and controllers co-created with ease?
Peter Drucker, the well-known pioneer of management education, once said:
Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Let’s leave aside whether that is true or not, and focus on the meaning of culture.
People don’t even think about those habits, but unconsciously perform them. When questioned, they are “the way things are done here”.
Many companies seek to be more agile, customer centred, and innovative these days. Yet agile and innovation are still buzz words rather than actual practice within many organisations.
A coaching client has recently pinned down the one big hurdle for companies in their endeavour to respond to the need of being more agile and innovative: The “no mistakes” culture with its zero tolerance for failure is still predominant in European organisations. It’s frustrating.
More importantly, zero tolerance for failure is…