21Oct
25Sep
Want to know what we’re up to right now? Take a look…
We like to deliver more than you'd expect - here's where we're headed at the moment. The Pollinator Project - a study of Opportunity Makers like me. I'm talking to those with a natural instinct for providing that vital impulse - an introduction that leads to so much more; experience that saves time and effort; knowledge that changes possibilities; wisdom that settles differences; and curiosity that inspires creativity. Can you support this project? We're looking for funding to analyse the behaviour of these unsung heroes of progress so we can and publish their brilliant insights. Write to us if you can. UK Coworking Assembly - Chair of the company, co-founder and facilitator. I'm helping gather, strengthen and guide the board and a Wisdom Council to work out strategic priorities and find the resources to deliver them. Building this site - after 10 years 'away' from consulting, it was time time to re-assess and...
03Sep
Search our blogs
View this post to search the full list of published blogs. The most frequent tags are: future, economy, wellbeing, strategy, tips, society, leadership.
03Sep
15 years ago I made nature my boss: Here’s what she taught me about running companies
The way a company is run depends mainly on the goal. There’s lots of guidance like ‘9 types of organisational structure every company should consider’, but most company designs start out ad hoc. It’s not until something significant changes that people start to focus on what they’ve created, as this excellent article from MindTools explains. Since people tend to feel safer with the clarity of command and control, it’s by far the most common strategy, but it has its pitfalls. Elevating responsibility concentrates risk, and those who shoulder that burden are likely to demand more, and to spend more as they seek to justify, protect or force their positions. The irony is that the feeling of control is often far greater than the reality. Nature does things differently. In 2005, I played a key role in creating The Association of Sustainability Practitioners. Since the goal was to promote sustainable behaviour, I had a hunch the organisation...
02Sep
Appreciative Inquiry workshops for board members
This post outlines workshop content for helping board members develop a strengths-based positive approach to leadership development and organisational change.
06Jul
More Energy, Less Stress — An Easy Guide to Better Quality Time
Don’t watch the clock, watch whatever you’re doing(First published in The Innovation on Medium here)Last time I baked, I burned the bread. Such a stupid mistake to make, and yet it’s so common. Watch the clock instead of the thing you’re doing, and things will often go wrong. I was paying attention to the wrong kind of time… If only I’d stuck to the principles of Open Space, it would all have worked out fine. Open Space started out as a “simple way to run productive meetings, for five to 2000+ people” which we quickly learned also turns out to be a “powerful approach to leadership”. I fell in love with the method 15 years ago, finding it so useful that besides using it to facilitate work, I regularly call on it’s wisdom in everyday life. There are just 4 principles and one ‘law’ in Open Space, and you don’t need to learn anything new or have...
21Feb
Simon Sinek on Leadership
Liz arrived back from the World Government Summit in Dubai this month armed with a wealth of fascinating new knowledge, connections and ideas. She spent time with John Helliwell, Jeffrey Sachs, Don Norman, Tim Kobe, Daniel Kahneman, Charles Montgomery and Martin Seligman among others. This simple expression from Simon Sinek though, strikes a real chord. More on his presentation about Leadership in an infinite world anon. "Leadership is not about being in charge, leadership is about taking care of those in your charge"
30Nov
Why Collaborative Advantage matters
This post was first published on my old 'Pollin8or's Blog' site (30/Nov/2018). Collaborative Advantage, a phrase coined by Siv Vangen and Chris Huxham in 1989, is the compelling argument for investing time and effort into partnership work. The Ubiquity University slide below cites a UNESCO study ranking collaborative skills as the most important for effectively addressing problems in the context of complex systems. At the time of writing, I haven’t found an website dedicated to the promotion of generic partnership skills and the art of collaboration. There’s plenty of organisational guidance for stakeholders on the subject, and good resources scattered among the pages of excellent things like the Participatory Learning and Action Guide but the only knowledge base for learning, exchange and improvement of the collaborative working/ partnership practices I’ve found so far is this one for charities by the NCVO. In the meantime – here’s a set of notes based mainly on insights from Elizabeth Lank’s excellent book ‘Collaborative Advantage’ from...
30Oct
Collaborative Advantage
Earlier this year I felt very pleased with myself for having come up with the phrase' Collaborative Advantage'. The phrase came to me in the context of conversations about competitive advantage, which I argued was only part of the story, and the weaker part at that. My theme was (and is) that the most successfully competitive people are not the egoists, but the magnanimous. I mentioned the idea to several people over the course of about 10 days, developing the idea as I warmed to my theme, thinking myself really rather clever. Deciding I should write something about Collaborative Advantage, I sat at this machine and googled the phrase, just in case somebody had thought of it before. Of course they had! Twelve years ago, Elizabeth Lank wrote 'Collaborative Advantage - how organisations win together by working together' which is pretty good but doesn't acknowledge Jeffrey Dyer's 'Collaborative Advantage - winning through extended supplier networks' published in 2000. ...
24Jun