A superb weekend at the first Solas festival this weekend. Solas ‘aims to celebrate, explore and develop connections between art, faith and justice within and beyond Scotland’

Excellent music, stimulating talks, great conversations, beautiful location, amazing weather.  Much food for thought too, and I will share more on this.

For today, here is a poem shared by one of the speakers.

The Place Where We Are Rightby Yehuda Amichai From the place where we are right Flowers will never grow In the spring. The place where we are right Is hard and trampled Like a yard. But doubts and loves Dig up the world Like a mole, a plow. And a whisper will be heard in the place Where the ruined House once stood.

Superb talk by Ken Robinson on TED – lots in it, but this quote towards the start stuck me as particularly relevant to todays ‘climate.’

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.  The occasion is piled high with difficulty.  And we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew.  And act anew.

We must disenthrall ourselves and then we will save our country.

Abraham Lincoln, Dec 1862

I love the way he framed the quote, saying that he knew nothing about the context, as ‘we don’t teach american history in the UK, we suppress it!’  Great use of humour, and also, of getting the audience to take responsibility for their own learning.  I don’t, for one minute believe him that he knew nothing of the (very important) context – but his provocative ‘not knowing’ and not seeming to care, yet at the same time flagging up that there must have been something about the context, immediately took me to research it.

Major lesson here for all of us who have an educational element to our work – DON’T DO ALL THE WORK FOR THE CLIENT!

As someone once said, give someone a fish, feed him for a day, teach him how to fish, she can feed herself and her family for a lifetime.  Teach someone how to teach others how to fish, and you can feed a whole village for a lifetime.

So, it’s not about being clever, or about being impressive, or about your clients/students needing you, nor about you working to cover every base.  On the contrary, you might be surprised what happens if you leave some gaps, and provoke others to do their own work.

How might you provoke others to learn today, and how might you make space for this?

You might have picked up from my blog that I’m a passionate advocate for the City of Dundee. As one of my voluntary roles, I’m part of the ‘Go Dundee’ core team which has a vision to connect people and make Dundee an even more positive place to be.

For the Go Dundee meeting in Nov 09, I took some time to make an animated slideshow of some of the amazing things happening in Dundee, with the help of my friend & colleague Steve Carter who pulled together a load of images. Also, I was able to get Lorraine Kelly (a friend of Go Dundee) to do the narration.

I noticed others had linked to this keynote presentation on their websites, but I hadn’t! I’ve remedied this – better late than never eh – and you can see the result on youtube below.

If you want an HD version, you can download it at this link here (it’s a 78 MB High Definition m4v movie)..

enjoy!

Was in glasgow on Thursday at Carol Craig’s (Chief Executive of the Centre for Confidence and Well Being) book launch – ‘The Tears that Made The Clyde.’ The book looks very interesting. This is a slightly longer blog post than normal, but thought it worth expanding a little on two excellent, succinct speeches.

An excellent evening, catching up with friends & hearing from the publisher, Carol herself, who spoke very briefly as she said ‘I’ve said enough already – 320 pages! We also heard, short but insightful speeches from Tom Devine (Professor of History at Edinburgh), who wrote the foreword, and Phil Hanlon (Professor of Public Health, Glasgow University), who wrote the afterword.

Tom spoke about the ‘urban conundrum’ that is Glasgow. How it is ‘schizophrenic’ and deeply divided, outlining differences in health, mortality rates, etc – only to mention that analysis was from the 1840′s! What’s changed since then? Not much, except the issue of obesity (with associated complications such as type two diabetes) has now been added to a long list of serious health issues. Carol explores this ‘lugubrious’ theme – which Devine said was vital for understanding the condition of Glasgow or the west of Scotland today.

Why has this issue been so ‘impregnable’ and ‘virtually immune?’ Even to the ‘massive state intervention’ that has taken place since the 1940′s, posed Devine.

Accepting that, in some areas, real progress has been made. The ‘transformation of Glasgow’s inner core.’ And, how ‘remarkably resilient Glasgow has been during deindustrialisation.

So, what’s been missing? For Tom, its clear – ‘there has been no convincing intellectual answer to the root of the problem. Not so much the techniques or the policies,’ but ‘the absence of a convincing intellectual answer as to why/how we got here.’

He challenges one aspect of conventional wisdom on this issue. It is not cased by deindustrialisation. This is ‘fallacious’

There is not one reason for this, nor is there one ‘answer’ to these ‘deeper and more profound problems.’

Tom pointed out it was not in his character to be overly positive, but he was fulsome in his praise of this work because it ‘comes closest to what we have at the moment to an intellectually satisfying response.’ Outlining three reasons why Carol’s book was important.

Firstly, she had struggled with the ‘queen of disciplines,’ history. And, secondly she had integrated oral history ‘that’s come down to us from memories of the past,’ with modern social scientific theory. Based on the revolution in scottish historiography in the last 30 to 40 years, she has grappled with this and ‘tried to implant it in the core of her analysis.’

Thirdly and finally, this has not just been an academic exercise, but she has ‘courageously suggested policy implications of her analysis.’ Building on her primary examination, trying to explain the problem, but then suggesting a solution.

The publisher, said that despite Phil’s comment – a ‘dagger in the heart of a publisher’ that ‘this would not be a popular book,’ he was delighted he wrote the afterword, and also agreed to speak at the launch.

Phil told a story, asked us to use our imagination, pulling a chair into middle of the room.

Phil asked us to imagine ourselves suffering from a serious symptom, one that might be a very serious illness. What do we do? We do what most people do for a time, we ignore it. But then, we speak to our new age friend who says all we need to do is to think positively and it will go away. We try hard to think positively, but it doesn’t go away.

Then we go and see a specialist who addresses the problem from the perspective of his specialism. And Phil quoted one of my favourite Mark Twain quotes, ‘To him with a hammer, everything is a nail.’ What you need is not to be seen as a problem/symptom, not to have a single technical solution foisted upon you.

After all this, denial, missed opportunities, fallacious optimistic thinking, you end up in the surgery of someone who is not a specialist, Phil said, now taking his seat on the chair. Someone who clearly sees you as a person. Who actually does not seem to concerned about your desires, as about you. And they enter into some real rapport and dialogue.

You find yourself saying, I can see it Doctor, and i’m going to have to do something about it.. And you leave the surgery with your heart strangely lightened.

Phil went on to say that is his sincere hope for this book. Of course there will be the new age optimists who will criticise the book as too negative, or the single issue people who see the problem from their own perspective as needing their particular ‘solution’ – and Glasgow has suffered from a surfeit of people peddling one answer.

Phil too was fulsome in his praise about how Carol had brought together and synthesised these ‘bodies of evidence’ in order to make her diagnosis – a picture of what we think the problem is as the start of the best way towards a solution.

Phil finished by coming back to his story, and his ‘genuine hope that glasgow, which has been in denial for too long about these things – indeed has almost lived off some of these problems. I genuinely hope that his book will be an opportunity for the City to feel loved and cared for as a person, but making it’s diagnosis with accuracy and fullness, and is able to stand and walk away with its heart strangely lightened.’

Thinking about this and writing this short summary on the way home on the train cased me to reflect on how Dundee is so like Glasgow, on a smaller scale. She has re-invented, or perhaps I should say re-discovered herself, with significant positive transformation taking place in the City over the past ten years. Yet Dundee remains a divided city. With some significant similarities to Glasgow’s problems Carol synthesises in her book.

I’m looking forward to reading it as I’m sure it will have some resonance for me, a citizen of Dundee, wondering what I can do to play some small part in helping address our problems.

Look closely at the photo, it’s not as chaotic as it seems!
(Image credit © Joe Lafferty: Kapoor’s superb kidney bean sculpture in Chicago)

OK, so you’re on Facebook, but I think that’s just for friends… but it’s grown arms and legs! And, of course you may have started out on LinkedIn, but haven’t been on line much and keep getting requests for people to connect with you… Then, you might be part of a few online learning communities – either independent or through LinkedIn or Ning – and you might be on Xing – not to mention RSS feeds you may subscribe to, keeping track of your bookmarks across multiple computers, or updating your photos on Flickr or YouTube…

And you have your own web site to keep up to date, and your blog, and of course the other web sites that you are part of the community and need your input…

And now you’ve discovered Twitter! Those alluring but obscure 140 character updates that seem to be in foreign language with @’s and #’s thrown in!

I remember being in a chat with a fellow social networking aficionado, Jozefa, at the ECLO conference in the Netherlands in 2009, and one of our colleagues said, ‘don’t you spend all your time updating and therefore not doing any work?’

A joke, but a serious challenge.

How to manage all these?

How I do it is to make some time at certain times of the day to overview and capture key ideas / thoughts from these various streams. Not every day, as sometimes I need to be fully focused and present, either directly with client work, or preparing/thinking for client work or my own research/learning. I use socialite – a superb bit of software from the Realmac guys in Brighton that lets you see Twitter, Google Reader, or RSS feeds, Digg, Facebook, and Flickr all in one app. It allows for multiple accounts, and is a dream to use.

I then save relevant items in a plain vanilla text file (text edit in the mac) for use later. If it’s a link to a single idea that I think others might find useful – I usually tweet it, or post it on twitter. A tip, if you add the Twitter app to LinkedIn, then when you add the characters #in to your ‘tweet’ it automatically updates your LinkedIn status.

If it links to something I’m thinking about, or working on, then its more likely to become a blog article – so I then begin an outline in MacJournal – a superb bit of software (for Mac) that allows you to Journal, capture images etc, and then directly upload to a WordPress blog. I have a few articles ‘pending’ in my MacJournal.

These tools can help you communicate, research, inform customers and clients, but they don’t have to take over your life!

One thing I often hear managers and leaders tell me is that they have been told they need to ‘be more strategic!’ that this is an important development area for them. Often this comes on the back of failing to be selected for a job, or at review with their boss.

Image credit unknown – from web site: http://www.math.hmc.edu/~tucker/math104/resources2.html

Most folks just accept this and don’t inquire on this question. I encourage them to ask their Boss: ‘OK, I understand that you think I need to be more strategic. Could you help me understand that that is and what it looks like from your perspective?’

I do wonder sometimes if this feedback is a way of avoiding telling someone that they aren’t ready (never will be?) for the ‘next level’ of management. Framed as a positive, but lacking the courage to be direct, open and honest.

But perhaps it is a genuine offer of feedback – and if it is, it’s pretty poor feedback is it not! Quality feedback is specific and clear – both in terms of articulating the area for improvement and what success would look like when the issue has been addressed, or the opportunity embraced.

So what do people mean when they say be more strategic? It could be to think more long term. To take in consideration greater degrees of complexity. Often it’s paired with the statement that you need to be ‘less operational’ – in other words, less in the detail, and more on the big picture.

In my coaching work, when an executive tells me they want to be more strategic, they often mean that they want to be more in charge of their priorities and goals. Not time management, but able to step back and focus on their own priorities. To take control of their own job, career and life.

I came across a book recently called ‘Being Strategic‘ and the author, Erika Andersen shares her definition of what being strategic is:

‘consistently focusing on those core directional choices that will best move you toward your hoped-for future.’

So, why don’t you start being more strategic tomorrow?

At a recent event on a leadership programme we’re facilitating, I had a flash of insight – in the form of a metaphor. In my enthusiasm, I jumped right in and shared the story – to many blank faces all round. When I asked my friend and co-facilitator, Alan about it afterwards he said he couldn’t follow what I was trying to say.

Lesson No 1 – just because you’ve joined the dots in your own mind, and what you are thinking makes perfect sense, don’t assume it will makes sense to others!

OK, my metaphor was around dependency and the Wizard of Oz (by the way, the movie was released in 1939, over 70 years ago), in particular referring to the idealisation of the Wizard as the one who had the answer.

We all know the story, Dorothy, the main character finds herself in this strange land, and comes across the rag-tag band, a Scarecrow looking for a brain, a Tin Man looking for a heart, and a Lion looking for courage. She finds herself in the unlikely role of leader – but not in the conventional sense. She accompanies them on their journey, on the yellow brick road, to see the Wizard – ‘the wonderful Wizard of Oz’ – as he is the one who has all the answers.

What struck me in the group I was part of was how often we can lapse into a dependancy mindset. And an important aspect of that is idealisation of the (great) leader – ‘the wonderful wizard’.

Of course, we find in the story, that the Wizard is a charlatan, a con man. He (literally) projects a much larger than life persona for two reasons. Firstly in a desire to meet the needs of the group who crave such an idealised all powerful leader, and secondly to maintain his own identity as the all powerful one.

There is a key part of the movie when Dorothy’s dog Toto runs round the back of the curtain, followed by Dorothy, who pulls back the curtain to expose the all powerful wizard.

What struck me was when I get caught up in the double bind of idealisation and dependency, then I’m left in a position of powerlessness. I can’t do anything. I may feel helpless, or disorientated, ore even despair; or I may get frustrated, angry and blame others. But all of these feelings are passive – it’s outside me, I can’t change it. Of course this denies my own power and my own ability to choose – my free will to act as a human agent.

But if I can follow Toto behind the curtain, I can see that there’s nothing there but a man pulling some (meaningless) levers, I can see that he does not have the answers. Then I can begin to take responsibility for my own choices, exercise my own power to use my free will – and engage in acts of leadership.

Had a very interesting day yesterday (3rd Dec 09) – in the afternoon facilitating the launch of ‘Dundee Wave of Change‘ – part of the ‘Scottish Wave of Change‘ then, in the evening attending a book launch for ‘Dundee: Renaissance to Enlightenment.

IStock photo

‘Dundee Wave of Change‘

Almost forty folks from various backgrounds in the city gathered in the Central Library to engage in a conversation about how we might engage the various communities and groupings across the City of Dundee in a conversation. A ‘big bleather’ – enabling folks of all ages, backgrounds, genders to creatively re-imagine their city in 2020.
I’m working with Gerry Hassan and the Go Dundee team on this two year project. Check out the website if you want to get involved.

Giving Dundee her memory back

I had a very enjoyable time at the launch of Dundee University Press new book ‘Dundee: renaissance to enlightenment’ edited by Charles McKean, Bob Harris and Chris Whatley. I got the chance to connect with some friends I hadn’t seen for a while, and also hear an inspirational short speach by Charles about the Book.
Charles started his talk saying that Dundee was a hidden city – that almost no history exists for the city pre the age of Jute. And that this was astonishing, given that at that time Dundee was Scotland’s second city!

His purpose in writing this book was ‘…to give Dundee her memory back.’ I was very struck with this, and how it linked to what I was part of just an hour earlier. Facilitating the start of some conversations on how we engage people in a process of mass imagination. The purpose? To let people tell their own stories – finding creative ways to link these stories to re-imagine Dundee in 2020.

Charles went on to share how he was part of the group that developed the DCA in 1995, and he kept the notes of the early consultations. The narrative was all around how ‘Dundee was a dump’ and how ‘I can’t wait to get out of here.’ Of course the DCA has just celebrated it’s 10 yr anniversary, and has been an outstanding success. He clearly linked this pessimism and negativity abut the present to the disconnect of Dundee’s magnificent history!

Other highlights for me was how Dundee had no prisons – it didn’t need any!! When, in the 1800′s, there were three public executions a week in Bristol, there was one in 50 weeks in Dundee!

He said Dundee was like Hamburg in the 1800s. An international city, a city that welcomed incomers.

His hope for the book? ‘That this would play a part in giving Dundee it’s confidence back.’

You can get your copy of the book here.

I was in conversation with a leading CEO in Scotland recently who’s business is all about innovation.  We began to speak about innovation and he asked me if I knew what WD-40 was & where it came from.

Of course, I knew, as an ex-engineer, that is is a water dispersant, hence the term WD.  And, as a proud owner of old bangers, it was a vital part of my ‘toolbox.’ As I had to constantly spray it on my wet spark plugs and HT lead (remember them?) when my car refused to start…

“Yes, you got that right, it is a water dispersant, but where did it come from?”

I had to confess I didn’t know.  He then told me that it was developd by NASA. They were trying to find ways of getting rid of moisture before takeoff in rockets – moisture in the wrong place could be disasterous!  Ok, i got that.

“But what does the 40 mean in the name” he asked.

I was stumped.

“It was the fortieth attempt at creating an effective solution – hence WD-40!”

Made me think of some innovation workshops I’ve been running with my colleague Niall recently, where the Chief Executive of the Company has challenged the organisation to get rid of the ‘treacle’ that slows down or stifles innovation.  We need the opposite of treacle – and someone came up with WD-40!

This story reinforces both the challenge that stimulates innovation – a real problem to be solved.  Also, innovation requires hard work and resilience. Not giving up. Being willing to fail.

What if they had stopped at WD-39?  I’d never have got my old bangers to start…

Came across this quote on the dangers of extending facebook style connections in social networking in business – i.e. just adding someone who has added you as a ‘friend’ or contact.

Can these LinkedIn megalomaniacs really know hundreds upon hundreds of people so well that they’d be willing to put their reputations on the line and vouch for their entire network’s professional competency?
–Jon Picoult, founder and principal of Watermark Consulting, writing for The New York Times

sobering eh?

(photo credit – LinkedIn MerlinWizard by 4_EveR_YounG)