Archives: Process
The Magnificent Seven: Books of 2018
When I looked back on the books I reviewed this year as a springboard to a conversation I found I’d covered unconsciously (or was it?) some core themes that represent a sort of mini-syllabus for how to transform your organisation. Or even your life. Although I’ve found myself increasingly turning to online videos and podcasts
Finding flow is hard, but possible
Why does our productivity rarely meet our own expectations? When planning our work, most of us make a reasonable effort to estimate how long we’ll need. While any given task seems perfectly doable on its own, when we string together a sequence of them we rarely achieve our target. If we were as productive as
The U Journey: Deliver
The ultimate prize promised by Theory U is the kind of transformational improvement that self-perpetuates. While even the most dynamic systems will eventually succumb to entropy, the Theory U approach is one possibility of creating an organisational shift that embeds a deep culture of learning and continuous improvement. Change demands a step into the unknown.
mediumThe U Journey: Crystallise Intent
Not long before I did my solo retreat in nature, I took part in a visioning exercise. The facilitator invited us to sit in our chairs, close our eyes and forget the rest of the group. He asked us to transport ourselves—alone in our chair—to a beautiful meadow, surrounded by mountains and forests, with a
The U Journey: Retreat and Reflect
It is paradoxical, but true, that even the most deeply systemic changes start because an individual wills such a change into being. This is not to say that the individual alone can make the change happen. Nor is it only the individual leader who has to go through a personal transformation. Everyone on the team
The U Journey: Wisdom from outside your domain
My previous article, The U Journey: Stepping into Design, introduced a key part of the Design phase—the Learning Journey. This includes developing and testing hypotheses, soliciting innovative ideas from wherever they might arise, exploring the psychological and cultural frontiers of your people and organisation, and trying on new ways of working. The principle purpose of
