A different way of working
24 May 2010Here’s another cool RSA animation, this time by Dan Pink about his latest book, Drive. If you don’t have time to read the book you can at least watch this 10-minute video. It explores the paradox of rewards – that when we have enough money, more money is not a motivator. What does motivate us…
What makes a successful conference?
18 March 2010Regular readers will known that I’m involved in a national conference on evaluation of behaviour change called Show Me The Change. I’m excited about this conference for many reasons, but evaluation and behaviour change are not high up there. What? I’ve been known to dabble in evaluation. I’ve even been known to dabble in behaviour…
Crumbs!
8 March 2010With shared interests in facilitation and open space, and a passion for improv, conversation, and exploring ideas, it was really only a matter of time before Johnnie Moore and I developed a workshop that brings all of that together in some way. It’s called Crumbs! and you can read about it here on Matt Moore’s…
There is no manual
7 February 2010I once worked with a young woman who wanted to know, at every turn, what she should do, how she should do it. She was smart, passionate and able – yet she was gripped by fear. Gripped by the fear of not doing it ‘right’. The problem was, and is, that there is no manual…
What to do when you don’t know what to do?
16 December 2009I’m reminded, yet again, of the power of preparation over planning. During these last couple of weeks I’ve had to draw on all of my understanding of groups, capacity to analyse what’s happening and why, knowledge of process, ability to improvise and respond to what’s actually happening (compared with what I hoped might or should…
Gradients of agreement
20 August 2009Consensus is not my favourite word. I’m often asked to get a ‘consensus view’ in a workshop, which means I have to find out what’s meant by consensus. Here’s some of the meanings I’ve come up against recently. Consensus means everyone agrees. That’s essentially the same as unanimous agreement. Hmmm. Consensus means the majority agree.…
New thinking
15 April 2009For many years now I’ve had this Arthur Schopenhauer quote as part of my email signature: “Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.” This TED video captures exactly that! This gives me faith that…
Leaders rule – differently, though
6 January 2009Keith Sawyer has an interesting post about the role of leadership and lessons learned from the impact of internet ‘democratisation’ and the emergence of ‘open source communities’. Keith suggests that the internet has enabled ‘participatory democracy’ evidenced by Wikipaedia and Linux. The question remains however if there is a different form of leadership required in…