The Space Between

I received great news this last week.  I hear from the organizers of the last Ben and Roz Zander tour, Symphonia, that these two authors of The Art of Possibility will be back in South Africa in early December. 

Don't miss this opportunity to participate in something significant.

The attached invitation contains all the details.

Dave Snowden writes a (very) regular blog, and today's caught my attention.  Next week there will be an interesting conversation taking place between some HR directors from various industries in Johannesburg.  The topic will be how to balance the demands of employees who require a flexible working environment with the demands of employers that workers are present and visible and high performing.  Can’t high performance and flexibility be harmonized?

The Conductor never makes a sound . . . right?

Well, in listening now to several of the videos, DVDs and CDs of both Ben Zanders' presentations and also the BPO performing Beethoven's 5th and 7th, I have begun to hear that the conductor does make a sound.

Something has been bothering me.

I have been listening for many years to politicians and public affairs representatives in the media. I have noticed an interesting trend in the way that they respond to questions.

In a Financial Times article on the 15th of April, an interesting, albeit illegal, trust network was explained.

In short, what people in Iran have to do to move large sums of money in and out of the country in the face of an increasing economic clamp down from the US, is to make use of a centuries-old method known as hawalah.

I heard today of a large South African corporate that underwent a transformation. At a certain point in its history a new top-dog was appointed, and he decided, as the top-dogs are wont to do, to bark and bite most of the existing senior leaders out. This "old guard", also being well known in the organization as great tellers of stories (and in some cases, tall ones, but not the matter), duly left, tails between their legs.

I'm not sure precisely what make this organizational phenomenon work, but I have a fairly good guess.

I am talking about the Smoker's Balcony. Notice how I have even capitalized the phrase - this is not simply part of the building designated for those who use nicotine products. It is far more than that.

Recently on Chris Gibbons' program on Talk Radio 702, Jonathan Foster-Pedley of the UCT GSB, presented the results of a piece of research that was done at this university.

Further exploration led me to this article, which makes tremendous sense in the current leadership landscape.

I recently ran a workshop where I combined two techniques from Peter Senge's 5th Disciple Fieldbook, namely Undiscussable topics, and the Fishbowl. I modified them both slightly to create a really revelatory experience for the participants.

The context was a leadership development workshop, but my main intention was to present a diagnostic case for improving communication, and the way of working.