If you are reading this today, there is every possibility you are alive because of the research of Dr Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis. Dr Semmelweis was an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures and a tragic example of what it may cost to play the role of the change agent. In the mid-1800s mothers giving birth had [...]
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) Is your culture on target? Getting teams to take on new behaviours is sometimes tough. Do you find people sticking to old, ineffective behaviours even you have presented a better way? Do key people in your organisation sometimes seem to miss the point? Is there an undercurrent of negativity in your team? [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfsDPz2uof4 Local consultants tell this breathless story about how the lion must run to catch prey. The antelope must run to survive. Therefore when the sun rises on Africa, you had better be running. I have watched game in the bush. They don't spend the day running. But when they run – they run [...]
The real truth behind values-based change My friend Jane runs a business in which she has a handyman visiting client houses. Time and cost management are critical. One day while I was visiting, the handyman came in from a job. He had to return to the same house with equipment he had forgotten the first [...]
Use lead measures to realise your strategy For a start you need a rudder large enough. And then you need to be able to move the rudder from one side to the other. I am not a marine engineer but I am told that there are no hydraulic or mechanical devices powerful [...]
You stand on a platform 15 stories above an icy ocean, filled with floating debris, twisted steel and patches of burning oil. It is chaos down there. And yet you jump! Whatever would make you do this? Well, the deck on which you are standing is ablaze and your boots are melting. There is urgency. [...]
One of the most common rules for workshops is “Candour”. “Speak your mind!” But this is often the most difficult to practice. To understand this reticence let’s consider our growth process and development from dependence. We grow in cycles. On entry into the world we see ourselves as part of our mother, “me and mom [...]
Fear of change can take us by surprise 'Callanish' is the story written by William Horwood about eagles in a zoo, tended by a keeper who had survived Sobibor. The old eagle Minch talks about freedom… “Here we are very safe,' said Minch, and we cannot be hurt. Our food is brought to us, and [...]
Here is an application of Solutions Focussed Coaching for teams, developed by Daniel Meier. The approach has been elaborated and adapted by various authors to create a range and interesting and effective team workshop exercises. I have used this in various forms with teams and have found it to be really powerful. The big idea [...]
“Seeing is believing” has been well used since it was first recorded in 1639. However, what we see will probably be different from what someone else sees and the ‘facts’ are not easily interpreted. Wikipedia, where I found the above nugget, refers to this as a ‘sophistry’. In fact, just the opposite is true. Believing [...]
