In my coaching, facilitation, and engagement practice I host community and organizational conversations. When we listen to people’s experiences deeply with an open mind, open heart, we hear insights for our team and life. When we lean in, often with uncertainty, we can strengthen relationships, build trust, break down silos, and pull together towards a more complete, inclusive understanding of each other's experience in work, friendship, love, community connection and belonging.  

Leading in a VUCA world, what is old is new again…

This trendy managerial acronym has increasingly been referenced since the emergence of COVID 19 in relation to the challenges of leadership. The most effective leaders have always drawn on Vision, Understanding, Clarity, and Agility to address four distinct types of challenges: volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity in their operational environment

Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window. – Peter Drucker

From what is to what if...from the tyranny of the urgent to the possibility of effective strategic conversations. Do you have the essential elements and enablers to accelerate team effectiveness?

Adaptive leaders use strategic conversations to get their teams focused on the opportunities to adapt, by focusing on the strategically important above the tactically urgent.

Efficiency is doing the thing right, but effectiveness is doing the right thing

Indigenous people and civil society all play critical roles in developing policy and processes to facilitate responsible land, water, minerals and energy resource development and use. Yet often people are consulted after decisions are made, or it is not clear what influence, if any, they have over decisions, which can contribute to frustration, apathy, and anger. 

Recently I have been reflecting on the words of David Whyte and his musings about work. "Our relationship to time has become corrupted exactly because we allow ourselves very little experience of the timeless. We speak continually about saving time, but time in its richness is most often lost when we are busy without relief."

In my work I have been reflecting on the stubbornness or uncontrollable aspects of systems and how shifts or changes occur over time whether within organizations or individuals.

The world is full of diversity and thus the implication is that there are different ways to approach problems.  To build understanding about different ways of seeing we need to create more positive, respectful social connections.  This fall I have been working with student leaders in school districts to develop their skills and experience to become facilitative leaders. To be comfortable and have confidence in face-to-face situations engaging members of their community in dialogue about the issues that matter. 

Getting pigs to fly, while herding camels and cats is all in a days work for a facilitator. 

A key component of any engagement effort is the sharing of information. Yet, balanced, objective information is no replacement for relationships. When we have a shared connection, shared meaning and respect for our differences, information is heard through the filter of trust. When trust is eroded, information is filtered by emotion.  

By themselves polarities can have immense creative potential. Yet, it is easy to consistently polarize a community or organization into a state of chronic ineffectiveness, oscillation, or submission, making it difficult to follow a deeper meaningful, creative, sustainable process. 

Martin Luther King did not say I have a problem. He engaged people in the dream of a different future. Yet, with so many different perspectives processes often focus on the problem. It is increasingly difficult to find common ground on complex issues. How do we find a way forward together?

On Wednesday March 12th IAP2 BC hosted a community of practice discussion on “getting past the usual suspects” or conversly “engaging the unusual suspects”. I have continued to reflect on what I heard in terms of a national dialogue on a path forward.