Category Systems Thinking at Work
The Spice of Life
Originally posted on Squire to the Giants:
Variety is the spice of life. If everything were the same it would be rather boring. Happily, there is natural variety in everything. Let me use an example to explain: I was thinking about this as I was walking the dog the other day. I use the same…
Conversations with Nancy White around the implementation of CIAT’s internal communications strategy
Conversations with Nancy White around the implementation of CIAT’s internal communications strategy. Love this frank conversation around learning within the organization. So important to recognize that organizations are people and so everything we do is mediated by those people.
monitoring performance to death
In economics opting for the middle ground is usually best. But in this case, the extremes seem to be a better choice: monitor hard, or do not monitor at all. A little bit of monitoring only annoys the good workers, causing them to slacken off. And sometimes the wisest thing is just to let people […]
The 3-minute purpose test
Brava Systemsthinkingforgirls! She is so funny. And yet so wise!
The 10-minute clarity test
Great reflections from Systemsthinkingforgirls
Sisyphus rocks
In my last post, I was thinking about what we do when we do what we do when we do performance management. And I concluded that the way we manage performance at the moment takes loads of time and does nothing to improve performance. (If you want some reflections on what ‘manage’ means anyway – […]
Sisyphean tasks at work
King Sisyphus was punished in Greek mythology for chronic deceitfulness by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever (thanks Wikipedia). And this is what our performance tools at work feel like. No sooner have we completed one set of […]
How are you managing?
Many years ago, when I joined the management team at my previous workplace, I was sent on a Management Development course (Years later, once I changed career, I would follow a Development Management course too, but that’s a different story). I remember how it felt like the antithesis to the way I work. Manager as […]
Leadership – a property of individuals or organizations?
Most leadership programmes focus on building the capacity of the leaders to lead, a deficit approach, if you like. It seems to make sense – if there is weak leadership, help the leaders to get better. And yet, leadership is the result of the processes, structures and relationships in an organization. The individual leader’s qualities […]
an empathy revolution
Achieving social change is like riding an elephant. Reason is the rider, feelings are the elephant and the change leader (management or whoever) are responsible both for making sure that the path is where the elephant is, and that it is a clear path without scary obstacles. This is the view of this blog post […]
Becoming Better 