Think Tank. Consulting. Facilitation.

Category: collaborative narrative

Active engagement in our local communities – an unachieved priority

Posted by on in Busyness, collaborative narrative, courage, Culture, trust

What if.. people want to be actively engaged in their community.. and yet are not achieving that?


A study in the US that looked at what people privately share as their top personal priorities* and also to what degree do they subjectively feel they achieve against these. Below you see the top 10 results – source Populace, Success Index:
Misunderstanding the American Dream:

.



Of the individuals reported top 10 priorities – active engagement in their community scores lowest in terms of their feeling if they are achieving it in their lives.

From my other research I know active engagement in our local communities is important for our wellbeing, for building peaceful connections across divides, and for engagement into looking after our local environment. It matters.

My personal experience with community engagement? My observation is for me getting involved in my local community requires space such as small regular chunks of time, free attention to look around myself, and consistency in being present. It’s about familiarity and micro-steps in building trust. It’s quiet, not loud. Sometimes it feels pointless and annoying. The rewards are not what mainstream culture rewards, they are connection, the satisfaction of living into your integrity and fulfilling that priority number 1 of having a positive impact on others in small, hardly noticeable ways.

And maybe it is simply knowing you matter because you feel part of a place. Your community. Where people know you and treat you as part of the community, irrespective of differences you may have.

A shoutout here. This makes me proud to be affiliated with the new initiative PIONIERQUARTIER – which is an amazing team of experts and initiative looking at how to create community spaces with a lower threshold for how to become and stay engaged. 💫

If anything these data are an invitation to question any judgement if people are not engaged because they do not care about their local community, and wonder what if rather there is something in the way of making it happen? What if..?

(*note: these top personal priorities are often not expressed publicly as we self-silence and follow what we believe are societal norms, there is more to this in this study – for example actively engaging in our community is ranked at nr26 for how important supposedly ‘others’ think it is)

Source: If you like reports and data and original sources as much as I do. This is all from the Populace research report on ‘Success index’ (2023) and the conversation by Todd Rose: Populace

Source: I also can highly recommend a listen to Todd Rose talk about his data and the findings in this episode of the Mel Robbins podcast. So much also on belonging, values, trust, and our personal agency.

Learnings on humanisation

Posted by on in collaborative narrative, courage, Enough

“Start small. Start local. Circulate with unusual friends. Propagate better conversations.” John Paul Lederach


Did you know internationally renowned peace practitioner John Paul Lederach shared his reflections freely in a Pocket Guide on his experience across over four decades mediating and transforming conflicts around the globe?

I believe it is so relevant for current times that you go read the full ca 100 pages, I’ll add the link to his website where you can find the pocket guide as a source below.

I believe it is so relevant for current times that I am also sharing my own selection of key extracts in the attached document because I know many won’t feel there is time to read the full document. The extracts require some thinking – as tempted as I was to add the ‘key take-aways’ for you, I have not condensed it further. His wise words are clear.


Nothing he observed regarding how to shift away from violence and dehumanization is rocket science. His stories are about ordinary people. An improbable few – the critical yeast. With a whole load of curiosity, courage, and the willingness to persevere. It’s worth giving it a try right? To be the critical yeast.

There is a discussion guide provided to dig into the concepts and what they may mean for you, your life, your local area.

I will keep sharing different views on ways to stay in our integrity with hope, with curiosity, with courage. If you want to know more, please do get in touch for a chat.

Extracts from John Paul Lederach’s Pocket Guide – AMDeansDownload

Source: https://www.johnpaullederach.com/2024/07/pocket-guide/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Investing in our aliveness matters

Posted by on in Abundance Mindset, Busyness, collaborative narrative, courage, Enough, Strategy, values

“The wheel is turning, the hamster is dead”

I have chosen a quote from 📚 Michael Bungay Stanier‘s fantastic and funny session on ‘how to work with (almost) everyone’, to sum up what I wish to share from my The_Dream business festival attendance: a quick win, a pay attention, a choice and a permission.

1) Less talking, more doing regarding our inner & outer ecology. It’s time to get the hamsters out of those wheels (alternatively we can use Philosopher Bayo Akomolafe’s reference to not be a Kafkan bug). Ie. how we want to work with each other, how we look after ourselves, how we build skills for wholehearted, courageous leadership. This can be a ‘quick win’ – it is known what can be done. Do it.

2) Speaking the truth – our planetary safety needs degrowth, our geopolitical safety needs growth. That means we have to really drill down into this paradox and align on a global scale to work on solutions. This is taken from Olivia Lazard‘s talk – the speaker who to me stood out most with her bravery, courage to look closely and her ability to grasp and look for solutions around energy transition and global situations. This is about paying attention – don’t look away from hard topics, chose where you want to invest your skill sets, your own behaviour.

3) Every time we invest in technology, we have to also invest in being human – our morality, our ethics, our communities. The messages were clear on how fast technology is moving, I took from it once more confirmation that we cannot expect to ‘teach’ technology ethics, morality if we are not investing similarly into these skills for ourselves and ensuring well grounded, alive human beings, relations and communities. To me this is a choice – let us link tech investment to human investments.

4) Do not mistake dreamers for not also being doers. I met the most amazing people – dreamers AND who have created businesses and institutes and art and graduate schools and new ideas. And who bring new ways of being to their leadership, teaching and interactions. Full of hope, curiosity, passion and desires to develop life-centered businesses. To me this is a permission – please dream, be full of aliveness, that is what our communities and work places need.

Back to that quote and stepping out from the busyness of a turning wheel – only with our aliveness can we tackle all these paradox questions around planetary wellbeing, shaping technological developments and doing so out of a deep care for ourselves and others.

Again, a thanks to the organisers and curators at House of Beautiful Business and all dreamers contributing.

Source: This post is reflecting my experience at The_Dream Business Festival, 2-5 June 2023, Sintra Portugal. Full details of the program is here: https://houseofbeautifulbusiness.com/thedream. I am happy to share more – get in touch.

Today’s strategic leaders require space more urgently than a neatly orchestrated strategy process

Posted by on in collaborative narrative, courage, Strategy

“There are leaders that always have time.
And then there are leaders that never have time.”

Does that ring true to you and your experience? This is what a senior leader recently observed to me and a group of their peers during a recent workshop. Since then, this comment has stuck in my mind. Because all around me I hear of the current busyness in organisations, and not in a ‘this is great there is so much happening’ way but rather in a ‘it’s too much we are all close to burnout’ way.

So what distinguishes those two groups of leaders mentioned above, if of course we all have the same hours in a day and a to-do list, which is never ending?

My hypothesis – we’re back to courage. Courage to make space, take time, be strategic and deliberate in our activities and interactions. Imagine the two groups:

  • A hustle and busyness culture: You stick with a command and control style of leadership, reactively fighting fires and resisting any change.
  • A strategic, deliberate culture: You make the space to invest in delegating power, allow for strategic thought and getting collaborative and curious in the face of change.

Does this mean if you lead with daring leadership everything will get real slow? I doubt it, even if I also believe it may not be the worst thing if there was more focus rather than worrying about speed. Anyway, if you look at it closely, removing the busyness may not be a contradiction to enabling speed. In the last years, McKinsey published work showing that speed can be a business advantage (McKinsey, The need for speed in the post-COVID-19 era—and how to achieve it), yet they also published that leaders report a lot of busyness with little effectiveness (McKinsey, If we’re all so busy why isn’t anything getting done? ).

I don’t have their underlying data, yet when McKinsey talks about an advantage for speed, if you dig into their report, you will find that the barriers reported as getting in the way of speed are silos, slow decision-making and lack of strategic clarity. So, this supports my hypothesis about being intentionally focused and calm with a clear strategy, and with a culture that enables employees to take bold business decisions at the right moment and right level, with the right amount of information and with an appropriate amount of risk. This enables the speed we are looking for – as the right activities and decisions get focused on and delivered upon – or as McKinsey says it themselves in an older 2018 article “Slowing down to speed up”.

What also backs this hypothesis up for me regarding busyness actually getting in the way of strategic work is the work by Business Professor Dorie Clark, who has written and spoken about the fact that busyness is often a mask to avoid facing uncertainty. You can go watch her TED Talk on the topic here.

So this busyness is asking us to have the courage to lean heavily into the discomfort of slowing down. That is making space. Space..

  • … for strategic, deliberate thinking, ideas and reflection, versus rushed firefighting and action bias.
  • … to take the time to align accountability and responsibilities for activities, versus blame and shaming over unclear responsibilities and deliverables.
  • … to allow for providing guidance on work that has been delegated with power to and power with models, versus a quicker ‘power over’ decision or solution,
  • … to respond with empathy to a situation going on with a colleague, versus brushing over it with a sympathetic gesture,
  • … to breath when you notice an emotional hook and get curious, versus letting our eager minds make up a false story.

And for many more examples of showing up with daring leadership behaviours.

As all of you reading this know, leaning into daring leadership is a tough choice, requiring persistence and practice. And yet we can build our courage skills to handle the vulnerability of making that space.

And this is where my activities tie to this work and you are welcome to get in touch with me about:

  1. Providing consulting and facilitation services to build those courage skills within your organisation that enable your leadership team to make and hold space
  2. As an open mindset facilitator certified by OMind support organisations in developing the mindset regarding collaboration
  3. Bringing the dialogue method to you and/or your organisation to create a wide space for strategic thinking and curiosity outside of structured processes and frameworks

I’d love to hear what you do to create and hold space as a leader so we can share and learn from each other around this.  

Image credit: Picture by Adam Thomas on Unsplash

Rethinking strategy or sometimes you have to look backward to move forward

Posted by on in collaborative narrative, Strategy

Wrapping up the year 2022, I want to end with a piece of work that is unfinished and at the same time only just beginning. The question whether it is time to rethink the principles underlying business strategy. Does strategy even need a new name?

There are three pillars at the center of my thought-leadership work: leadership, culture and strategy. For me these represent the symbol of integration, that 3-legged stool often used within different concepts – think (strategy), feel (culture), do (leadership). I see the future of these being grounded in daring leadership, an abundance mindset and collaborative narratives.

There is significant awareness how organisational culture is the engine driving success, there is awareness that the main lever shaping the culture is leadership behavior and also which behaviors foster a courageous culture enabling innovation, change and creativity. Yet, strategy – well I see yet little work digging back to the roots of strategy and questioning the engrained concept of strategy being grounded in competition, beating others and winning.

If you go back to the roots of the well-known strategy consultancy, where I had a great experience starting my path into corporate strategy work – the Boston Consulting Group – you will find the classic text by Bruce Henderson on “The origin of strategy”. He was fascinated by the work of Darwin regarding evolution, competitive advantage and survival of the fittest. Bruce Henderson developed a theory to compare natural selection with business, which was grounded in assumptions around having to compete for limited resources. And he saw businesses having the human advantage of adding strategy to the moves they make, “primates possess imagination and the ability to reason logically“. For him using strategy could be revolutionary and faster, versus the slower natural selection of evolution. So far quite interesting..

Yet, this is what I see as complications. Bruce Henderson grounded a lot of his theory into the similarities regarding limited resources. When looking at this for business he talks around the following resources: “The characteristic fundamental resource segments for business are sources of: money, either in capital or in ongoing revenue; suitable skills, abilities and individuals on an ongoing basis; materials, supplies, energy, components not contained within the organization; and knowledge and communication capability with respect to all external resources and factors affecting their availability.“

There is no consideration here for planetary limits that all businesses (and species) are bound to. Although he touches upon boundaries at other points in his writing, it is not further considered regarding the competition situation. Is that what may have led us to the situation we are in today?

Bruce Henderson himself adds the following about the observations of natural competition: “Except for the most elementary forms of life, the required resources are other forms of life or activity. This establishes a form of vertical equilibrium. The higher levels prey on the lower levels but cannot live without them. Excessive success is self-defeating.“

Excessive success is self-defeating. Yes – so potentially the excessive success of the business principles of the last 30 years have been exactly that: self-defeating, to the point that we are at risk of destroying the basic resources required for all species, including us humans.

Is there an alternative? Can we again look to nature? As clearly despite the ongoing natural competition our planet has been able to be regenerative over a long period of time before humans came along with their ability for strategy.

Yes, I believe we can. If you consider natural selection I can see two differences to think about:

  1. The species are geared towards survival, they are not geared towards ‘winning’ or ‘beating’ other species. That is about mindset, if you like.
  2. Nature often moves to a state of cooperation, which allows the most benefit outcome for the different species and organisations in an ecosystem. Elisabet Sahtouris has written extensively about this and I will be coming back to her work.

So when you are next looking for input on your strategy, looking at the websites of leading business schools on their strategy principles and executive education – pay attention to the language used. Ask yourself is the goal truly to win and beat other companies, organisations and markets? Or is it time to shift up a maturity level also with our strategy principles and re-consider what real success on a people, planetary and profit basis can look like.

Taking one more quote from Bruce Henderson – maybe it is time to go back to his starting point on what makes strategy possible and pay attention the effects of alternative actions.

“For strategy to be possible, it is necessary to be able to imagine and evaluate the possible consequences of alternate courses of action. But imagination and reasoning power are not sufficient. There also must be knowledge of competition and the characteristic higher order effects of alternative actions.“

Let us be courageous, start changing our mindset, allow for different language in our strategy workshops and consider new definitions of successful outcomes.

Look out for more on this topic in the new year. Share your thoughts with me. And look after yourself – also on an individual level it may be time to let go of having to be more extra-ordinary than the next person. Be you. You are enough. And thanks for your time to read this.

Sources for all quotes in italics are taken from Bruce Henderson and the following two publications:

Bruce Henderson, The Origin of Strategy, Harvard Business Review, 1981

Bruce Henderson, The Concept of Strategy, BCG Publications, 1981

What a Red Queen and a White Queen might tell us about about business

Posted by on in Busyness, collaborative narrative, competition, courage, Daring Leadership, Strategy

Are you creating the space in your organisation for creativity and anticipation of the future – imagining as many possible scenarios as you can to build a bold new future? Listening to those idealists, visionaries, dreamers, thinkers who share how trends are developing?

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

Red Queen, Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll 1871

I remember in my molecular genetics in biotechnology degree many years ago learning about the “Red Queen Hypothesis”. This is used in evolutionary biology to describe how organisms interact in a continuous “arms race” of defence and counter-defence mechanisms. It was called “Red Queen” based on the above quote from the red queen in Lewis Carroll’s book. Now that I have spent 15+ years in business after leaving academic science both on the management consulting side and in the industry – it is very much how business likes to behave. Constant competition both within the organisation (employees, projects, business units, etc) and also outside against other companies (competitors, substitutes, supplier, customers, etc). A lot of running fast to get more efficient and performing in what they already do well, that is known ways of doing business.

Here is the thing though. Today more than ever, we have a good understanding that all this competition against each other is not really going to solve the problems we jointly share – around inequality, climate change, human and planetary wellbeing. Those Dennis Meadows named “Difficult, global problems”. Similarly it leads to a very narrow perspective – the busyness of running to keep still is distracting from real disruptive change. So is it time to shift away from running fast only to keep in the same place?

“Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”

White Queen, Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll 1871

Inspired by the proposition from Eric Muraille in his paper “Diversity Generator Mechanisms Are Essential Components of Biological Systems: The Two Queen Hypothesis” (2018) I would like to extend his thinking around the other queen, the White Queen, towards businesses as a concept.

My reasons for this?

  1. We have difficult, global problems to solve – it requires bold (impossible) thinking
  2. It is time to anticipate how our future can look – have the courage to imagine outside of what we already do
  3. The White Queen is described as child-like – it will require playfulness, curiosity, the right brain

We jointly have one planet. Let us anticipate (at least) six impossible futures that involve courageous, compassionate and collaborative ways of doing business and living.

How to start? Stop running like a Red Queen – make space for long-term thinking, playing, curiosity and reimagining. It might be a little scary to stop running – as there are multiple factors why we tend to stay on that treadmill as I wrote about here – yet there are skills you can learn so you land softly when you bounce of that treadmill and into being.

Sources:

  1. Muraille E (2018) Diversity Generator Mechanisms Are Essential Components of Biological Systems: The Two Queen Hypothesis. Front. Microbiol. 9:223. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2018.00223
  2. Escaping the Red Queen Effect in Competitive Strategy: Sense-testing Business Models. European Management Journal Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 37–49, February 2005

Reflections on 50 years ‘The limits of growth’ – let’s invest in the skill sets and mindset to be ‘Courageous. Enough. Together’

Posted by on in Abundance Mindset, collaborative narrative, courage, Daring Leadership, Enough, Uncategorized, values

I am convinced we require courage and caring; we require the ability to recognise what we have versus being driven by external wants; and we have to seek true collaboration based on our common vulnerability and a common goal to build “The Mature Society” – a term coined by Dennis Meadows.

Professor Dennis Meadows is not a name I was familiar with up until very recently. Also his work was not something I was aware of. That is the “Limits of Growth” research and work published now 50 years ago.

That is although I worked in management consulting advising business leaders on structuring their businesses. The job was not to be concerned with a full view and long-term thinking on people, planet, profit. It was a view on competitive advantage, profit and total shareholder return – that is excluding the occasional non-profit engagements. Dominant topics requested by industry to management consultancies were to cut FTE, benchmark and optimise sales numbers, find reasons to raise prices, perfect patient funnels or customer journeys, and outsource to somewhere (still) cheaper (globalised) where possible. More sales at higher prices, cheaper costs of resources, and consistent growth of the financials was the goal.

So back to Dennis Meadows and the original work in 1972. At the time an international team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began a study looking at the implications of continued worldwide growth. The findings: The earth’s interlocking resources – the global system of nature in which we all live – probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology. A strong message – that got completely belittled and ignored.

It was the work published by anthropologist James Suzman that brought my attention to this report, as well as how it was received back then. So as my attention on the topic was raised, I grabbed the opportunity on the 7th June 2022, to watch a live transmission of Dennis Meadows presenting to The New Institute Hamburg titled “Reflections on The Limits to Growth at 50 & 80”. ’50’ being the years since his original presentation of The Limits of Growth in 1972 at the Smithsonian Institution and ’80’ being his age in 2022.

I took away three key messages and learnings shared by Dennis Meadows to reflect on:

  1. Ignore your doubts and be persistent with your contributions
  2. The findings of the model were accurate, yet were not addressed as they are “difficult, global problems”
  3. Create a positive alternative and a goal to drive hope

1. Ignore your doubts and be persistent with your contributions. Dennis Meadows shared one of his main thoughts before going on stage back then in 1972. And it was this: “This is completely obvious“. His research and finding seemed to him to be obvious, and that it was not worth him telling the collected group of scientists and journalists. And yet it was not obvious. It was ignored. Did that make him give up on the work? No, he continued and 50 years later is still hopeful for our ability to take action.

2. The findings of the model were accurate, yet were not addressed. Dennis Meadows shared how simple the model was focusing on just five aspects: population increase, agricultural production, nonrenewable resource depletion, industrial output, and pollution generation. Yet from the scenarios the ‘standard run’ represents real-life happenings leading to where we are today 50 years later. He reflects openly on failure “We completely failed to achieve our purpose“. He then linked this failure to our (politics, business, societies) lack of ability to tackle “difficult, global problems” – that is problems, which generate returns in the long-term (vs. short-term) (that is ‘difficult’) and which require global solutions, so cannot be solved with local actions (that is ‘global’).

3. Create a positive alternative and a goal to drive hope. Finally, he talked about what is required for us to work together and find solutions, rather than moving in the direction of “less liberty, in exchange for less chaos” – based on the basic social law. In his perspective it links to first what is required for hope: “It requires a sense of humanity (collective ethics and values) plus tools to give hope“. And second Dennis Meadow explained what he would change “If I were to go back.. we need to offer a positive alternative“. His finish is a proposal for that alternative scenario to stimulate discussion and activity around this: “The mature society”.

I attended a further event on the “50 Years of The Limits of Growth” hosted by the Club of Rome on the 14th June 2022. Prof. Dennis Meadows shared the above learnings once more in his keynote and a panel discussion took place moderated by Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Co-President of the Club of Rome. I noted in particular following thoughts to pursue (I attempt to attribute these to the panel speakers, wording may not be accurate):

  • People are currently affected by the 3 Cs – Covid. Climate. Conflict. (Sandrine Dixson-Declève)
  • GDP is not measuring what is worthwhile measuring. (Tim Jackson)
  • A new business school is required. (Tim Jackson / Sandrine Dixson-Declève)
  • Care for place. Care for community. (Kate Raworth)
  • Have courage of our convictions. (Sandrine Dixson-Declève)
  • Look at positions of power: those who it suits well and do well in it will not change it. (?)

With Sandrine Dixson-Declève wrapping the overall discussion up well – saying let’s make Jane Goodall proud and use our intellect wisely.

Jane Goodall in a book written with Douglas Abrams lays out her reasons for hope: the amazing human intellect, the resilience of nature, the power of young people, the indomitable human spirit. “Let us use the gift of our lives to make this a better world.”

Hope itself is not an emotion – it is a way of thinking and is based on having three things: realistic goals, pathways to get there (not one but multiple) and agency – we believe in ourselves. “Hope is a function of struggle – we develop hope not during the easy or comfortable times, but through adversity and discomfort”.

How can the work on reimaging systems and culture towards the concepts of Daring Leadership, Abundance Mindset and Collaborative Narratives play a part in creating this “The Mature Society”?

These are the opportunities and contributions I see and will continue to work on:

Daring Leadership: Courageous leaders can handle their vulnerability, can lead from the head and heart. They can stay curious and generous, stick with the messy middle of problem identification and solving, and listen with the same passion with which we want to be heard. These are skills to be teaching at school, in business schools and the further development of current leaders.

Abundance Mindset: To slow down our consumption and increase our well-being, we have to move from scarcity-fuelled fears and externally-created wants to recognising what we have (and yes this may not be material wealth and rather go back to the roots of our mental, spiritual, physical wellbeing) as well as understand that we have enough to make a change, that is to give us that sense of agency.

Collaborative Narratives: It is imperative to move from competitive to collaborative thinking to address current challenges and particularly to address the ‘global problems’ described by Dennis Meadow. No one can ‘win’ alone, as then we all lose. An aspect of this is the ability to address paradox challenges and recognise the vulnerability we all have in common with each other and the planet.

In short it is about being Courageous. Enough. Together.

  • Sources:
  • Professor Dennis Meadows, Online Presentation, hosted by: The New Institute, date: Hamburg 7th June 2022.
  • Professor Dennis Meadows, Online Presentation, hosted by: The Club of Rome, date: 14th June 2022.
  • Book: The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams, with Gail Hudson
  • Book: Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown, 2022
  • Book: Dare to Lead, Brené Brown, 2019.

What if we might have been wrong? … then let’s have the courage to do better now

Posted by on in Abundance Mindset, collaborative narrative, Culture, Daring Leadership, Enough, Uncategorized

The Great Attrition triggered surely by our collective recognition of our vulnerability and the finity of our lives has gained significant traction in the US and now in Europe. McKinsey ran a big study and recently shared these numbers, which caught my attention in the blog here.

“More than half of employees who left their job in the past six months did not feel valued by their organization (54 percent) or manager (52 percent), or they lacked a sense of belonging (51 percent). Additionally, 46 percent cited the desire to work with people who trust and care for each other as another reason to quit. Employees want stronger relationships, a sense of connection, and to be seen.”

It’s not about the office, it’s about belonging. McKinsey.com, 13th January 2022. Accessed 19th Jan 2022.

It is good to see our human need for belonging and it’s role in the Great Re-Evaluation, as Arianna Huffington calls it, get the deserved attention.

Small fixes as suggested in this post by McK are a good immediate step.

Yet if we mean the change seriously, I believe this calls for a real re-think of our societal and organisational cultures. Including slowing down, lots of self-awareness work to be able to show up as a courageous and vulnerable leader, and reframing our mindset towards one of abundance and collaboration.

That would include in organisations having to question our productivity and performance measures, including which behaviors and deliverables those measures really create and measure. Or questioning being so occupied with competition, profit, busyness and creating more wealth for the few beneficiaries right at the top of the current structures?

It’s a bumpy path and vulnerability is uncomfortable, we might have to admit some management choices we were part of for example to drive up productivity and consumerism weren’t so great. We have to look at our individual choices – how do we show up towards ourselves and others, what and from whom do we make purchases, what do we have to let go off.

It can also be pretty lonely if you are ready to start down this track, with various shareholders resisting any change and pulling you back when they can.

I am convinced those leading the way with courage will create spaces for people sharing their values in purpose, authenticity and belonging to join them and at some point that magic tipping point for others to follow will happen. In the same way I prefer to believe people are doing their best, I prefer to be part of reimaging a great place that our world is developing towards.

What are the choices you make?

Collaborative narrative – it all starts with a story, and we need stories where we succeed by working with each other not against each other

Posted by on in collaborative narrative, competition, Uncategorized

There are three important elements required to reimagine our systems and business models:

  1. Daring Leadership
  2. Abundance Mindset
  3. Collaborative Narrative

In this post I dig in to the term ‘Collaborative Narrative’ and why I believe it is important at the individual leader level, and also at a cultural level for our societies and organisations.

I had the pleasure to participate in a Story DoJo session hosted by Mary Alice Arthur, in which she explored the topic of story and power with the author Annette Simmons. Annette Simmons has a new book coming out this October, which is on my ‘to-read’ list and I am looking forward to. In the Story DoJo session Annette Simmons shared her theory around ‘competitive narrative’ and a ‘collaborative narrative’.

In our societies and businesses we have been operating in an environment with armored leadership, scarcity-fuelled anxieties and predominantly competitive narratives. Competitive narratives mean the messages and stories we are sent are “you always have to be better than others”, “it’s all about winning”, “perfectionism, exhaustion are signs your are committed”. For example one of the latest McKinsey Email Newsletters in my inbox headlined “Can your company stay competitive if it focuses only on what it’s good at today?” – Source McKinsey Daily Read Newsletter 24 July 2021.

If we are looking to shift to new systems and business models with daring leadership and a mindset of abundance, than we require new stories of success. And new stories of success have to support new ways to measure success, it cannot be about profit alone and it cannot be with a singular view on the organisation. It has to be a wholistic view with benefit to the organisation and within the external environment. This would mean the organisation is successful if it is contributing to better wellbeing and a healthier planet for us all. We need system thinkers and ecologists to work with the economists on building these narratives.

With the current ongoing focus on ‘Purpose’ – I am convinced that what people are looking for is how their organisation belongs within the ecosystem of our society and planet. It is our right-brains inherent understanding of the interconnectedness of everything and an increasing demand for this belonging to be made very explicit. This is a key part of a Collaborative Narrative – what is our organisation’s (and thus our employee’s) role within our system to create wellbeing for all?

Some questions to ponder on:

  • The famous ‘Hero’s Journey’ – how do we make one that is collaborative?
  • What stories do you read and see in your go to sites for information? Are they competitive or collaborative in nature?
  • How do we change and agree upon what we measure as success?
  • Here I talk about a ‘Collaborative Narrative’ – it is about collaboration and cooperation, right?

Source: You can find more information on the work about the power of stories by Annette Simmons here.

Daring leadership, abundance and reimagining our systems & business models

Posted by on in Abundance Mindset, collaborative narrative, Culture, Daring Leadership, Uncategorized

“Their economic life was organized around the presumption of abundance rather than a preoccupation with scarcity”

Work: A deep history, from the stone age to the age of robots. James Suzman, 2020.

A sentence that in one moment brought different elements of what I have been studying and observing over the last years together. For me it was a major moment to “ReThink” – the term nicely coined by Adam Grant.

What do I mean?

First of all let’s start where we are today. It is obvious that our existing economic and societal models are not working as they should. If we look at the wellbeing of our societies and planet that becomes crystal clear – growing wealth inequalities, crazy levels of illness and burnout, loneliness becoming a leading cause of death, a climate crisis looming and the financial system we operate by being close to it’s end just pumping money into the system. I believe our systems have most recently been scarcity-driven to manage and control behavior, foster consumerism and hence drive the required economic growth.

Second, let’s talk about the work by Brené Brown, which I have now been studying for many years. Her evidence-based findings is targeted at individuals and relationships between individuals – it all started looking at the importance of connection and belonging. The research has identified that our current armored leadership style is linked with scarcity and a fear of not being good enough, not belonging and deep-rooted shame. She also identifies the skill sets for daring leadership – so a methodology for how we can move to a place of courage, vulnerability and curiosity.

Finally, the book by James Suzman allows us to take a different perspective on the system we operate in today. He leads us through history and shares how we have in the past lived by a concept of abundance. His hypothesis links this to a much better state of wellbeing.

So what?

Let’s reimagine our world to build new values, societal systems and business models around the following concepts:

1) daring leadership – so a truly human way of operating with each other, caring for and connecting with ourselves, each other and the planet stands above short-term financial returns.

2) abundance mindset – we have to move from trying to drive human behavior by instilling scarcity-driven fears to a notion of building trust that together we have enough.

3) collaborative narrative – as a last piece of this puzzle I believe we need to generate new stories around power and how we will measure success.

I will diving more into all these elements and additional research plus resources that supports how we can do this in following posts.