A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. Albert EinsteinOrganisations that have a habit of ‘shooting the messenger’ will discourage the process of seeking out failures. (Cannon and Edmondson, 2005) The final question we are picking up this week is a really good one and we think very much relates to those we…
We have already shared some thoughts about the power of imagining alternatives but looking at the questions people raised at the UK Theatre/SoLT seminars last week we thought that a deeper dive might be helpful. In this blog we have tried to offer some practical help in the context of working from home rather than…
This the second in our Q&A series and focuses more on planning, particularly for small organisations or where teams are smaller than they have been and are no longer co-located. As with yesterday we both offer our different insights. Dawn I want to start by being clear there is a big difference between imagining alternative…
Susan and I had the privilege of working with UK Theatre/SOLT last week to deliver two webinars, snappily entitle ‘How to plan when planning is hard: living with unpredictability.’ Mindful of video conferencing fatigue we decided to deliver them in two bitesize 30-minute slots, it meant we packed quite a lot in but hopefully it…
Thinking about how to get back to work A serious look at how to think about re-opening a business after lockdown. For most executives, the task at hand will be less like restarting a business than like starting a business. How to face an existential crisis Fascinating and insightful interview with Paul Stanway, co-founder of…
Human beings are designed to pulse between spending and renewing energy. (Tony Schwartz) The week before last I noticed a real slump in my energy, I felt constantly tired and knew my patience was running thin. I was intrigued about why that was happening then and what might be going on. When I’m coaching, I…
A while back I was packing up after a fairly complex and involved Board awayday. I had my usual overflowing kit of materials, flowers, pens etc that are all stuffed into a flight case, plus a mobile whiteboard and my rucksack. I collected all my belongings and we waited as a group by the lift…
Budgeting is always more art than science; all that precision to the nearest pound or often pence is a misleading if comforting fiction of control. The future is always unknowable and uncontrollable but we have to have budgets to work to so we create them and hope that others: staff, suppliers, partners and customers behave…
On reading and discussing Susan’s post about Ending Well last week I was reminded of the various insolvency cases I was involved in while working as part of Arts Council’s Recovery Programme (a lottery funded programme for arts organisations in danger of imminent insolvency). I can absolutely endorse her point about emergency insolvencies being something…
What’s missing from Zoom reminds us what it means to be human Enlightening piece from Steve Blank on why video conferencing is tiring, frustrating and a poor substitute for talking to people in the same room The world in a dandelion A beautiful and evocative post by artist, print maker and fine art photographer Katayoun…
You may have noticed a few core themes cropping up in our posts and letting go has definitely been one of them. When we posted ‘What might have been and letting go’ a couple of weeks ago it prompted some reflections from Susan about her experiences as an insolvency practitioner. We are all being faced…
I am in my second year of studying for a masters in innovation, creativity and leadership. I started the course to refresh my consultancy skills, to make sure that I remained relevant, useful (and worth paying for) and to give myself a structured opportunity to learn. It has been a much richer experience than I…
In the space between chaos and shape there was another chance. (Jeanette Winterson) One of the most common words I’m hearing at the moment, and possibly saying, is transition. That is probably a good thing, but I am beginning to worry it will lose its potency, a bit like resilience, agility and disruption have done.…