How do you get people to connect to each other quickly? There are lots of ‘icebreakers’ and warmups, but something I come back to time and time again is this that is stolen — with encouragement — from Peter Block. The instructions are: Form groups of three. Sit facing in together, with your knees a maximum of nine inches apart. … Continue reading The Peter Block Community Exercise — connection, gifts, community: better than ‘a warmup’ →

Do you know systems conveners? Are you one? The new book from Bev and Etienne Wenger-Trayner starts: “You may not have heard about them; what they do is rarely in their job description. You may not even be aware of what they do; they tend to act as enablers rather than taking credit or seeking … Continue reading Something new has been named: #systemsconvening →

Is your team or organisation a ‘robust system’? Do you have the right balance of dynamics to engage with the world with love and power, to be fully yourselves and fully the whole? A robust system is able to meet something new, different, surprising, odd — something ‘a bit off’ — and study, welcome, value and utilise it. The alternative, … Continue reading Is your team or organisation a ‘robust system’? →

It’s often *after* the stress that the problems kick in. Phoenicean Juniper (Juniperus phoenicea) at El Sabinar, El Hierro, Canary Islands (Spain). Eckhard Pecher   CC BY 2.5 licence https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_Hierro_Sabinar.JPG#/media/File:El_Hierro_Sabinar.JPG How do we exit from stress gracefully? If you’ve ever been to a busy restaurant at 11pm on a Saturday and marvelled at the fluid teamwork … Continue reading Exiting from stress →

It’s a deeply cybernetic concept – and it’s incredibly useful to realise this. Gangs of men on relief work during the depression, 1930s, by Sam Hood Work is: >> ‘effort, to a purpose, using judgement and discretion, within boundaries, over time’. << (This is based on two definitions by Elliott Jacques, given with citations below). … Continue reading What is work? What’s your definition? →

What does this remind you of? (It’s not kinky or weird — I promise) I love these images from wikihow for it- brilliant and hilarious This is a neat little exercise to get people thinking — in pre- or hopefully post-pandemic times… All you need to do is to get people into groups of at least six to eight (more … Continue reading The Human Knot. →

'Clarity is kindness' says Brene Brown. So here's an easy way to generate #clarity - what's your favourite way to do it? And I've seen lack of clarity create organisational problems more often than perhaps anything else. Don't get me wrong - this isn't imposing clarity on complexity, attempts to define and control, limits, fake certainty. This … Continue reading CPORT task definition →

I learned from doing a podcast interview that: I have cultivated a massive tendency to 'openness' to information and perspectives - because I know I can get set in my ways (and now I'm set in my ways of being open)that I use a set of externalised commitment devices to keep myself consistent and persistent, … Continue reading What pattern are you stuck in? Are you happy with it? →