Volcanos, Ash and Thinking Differently!

Looking out of my window this morning I noticed an apparently clear sky. Yes, I know that actually there are a whole load of tiny volcanic ash particles with the potential to cause havoc, but I can’t see them. Nor can I see the vapour trails from aircraft that I usually don’t notice – but I notice their absence.

So how long will it be before we’re all back to normal? I’m sure we’re able to suspend this way of life for 24 hours, but 48 hours? 72 hours? How long would it be before, rather than simply closing everything down and waiting, we all decided that we needed to do something completely different? We do what we do because we’ve always done things that way. Or at least, our “doing things that way” has crept up on us over time so we didn’t notice getting into the habit.

However, the really creative thinking arrives when something happens suddenly. Whether it’s a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, a driving ban or a dreadful trauma that leaves us without the physical capabilities we had yesterday, these are the times where our creativity and ingenuity have no bounds.

There’s an interesting exercise for any organisation facing a challenge!

“So we are faced with a 10% reduction in revenues. What would we do if we had to manage a 50% reduction?” (and giving up and going home were not an option!)

“Our prisons are bursting at the seams. How could we respond if the another 50,000 people were given a custodial sentence next week?”

“Fuel prices are rising past £1.20 a litre, what if they were not £1.20 but £12.00, or £120.00”

We have that growing realisation that the way we run our lives and our society has got to change, but we can still pretend that the moment’s not yet here. If we couldn’t keep up the pretence maybe we’d come up with something really exciting – or perhaps the obvious solution that’s been staring us in the face for ages. Well, there’s a whole load of thinkers sitting in airports and hotel rooms just now going nowhere and with nothing much to do. Which of them will be brave enough and creative enough to find a different way?

The Fear Factory

Two decades of politicians playing the law and order ‘arms race’ have brought a criminal justice crisis to the UK.

Especially when it comes to our young - where we're ultimately creating more of the very thing we fear... criminals.

Despite an all-time high for re-offending rates, despite prisons at bursting point - we plan to keep on building and continue to incarcerate more young people than any other country in Western Europe.

The public's fear of youth crime bears little relation to reality and the young are more demonised, more alienated and more easily caught in a self-fulfilling prophesy of our own making...

….The Fear Factory

With funding from The Nationwide Foundation, three Third Sector agencies came together to commission this film, Safer Wales Ltd, Construction Youth Trust and Addaction. We all work intensively with young people who are either offenders or at risk of offending, to break the cycles of vulnerabilities, and prevent re-offending.

As Chair of Trustees of Safer Wales Ltd. I am really proud of this film which is uniting a range of otherwise very diverse agencies and becoming a catalyst for long-overdue action.

Please take a look at The Fear Factory Website and Blog

http://www.thefearfactory.co.uk/

- and add your weight to the campaign either by simply following the blog or, if you represent an interested organisation, by joining the Coalition.

We are currently discussing the broadcast of The Fear Factory with UK National Broadcasters.

Thoughts on Leadership - Martin Luther King Day

Last Sunday evening I was driving from my home in South Wales to the North in preparation for delivering a learning programme on Monday.

Amongst the many programmes I heard on the radio (it's a long drive!) was the BBC's Americana http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kpjpm. In the final segment, a group of Chicago primary school children imagined that Martin Luther King was still alive. What would they ask him if they had had the opportunity?

I'm not sure why this segment made such an impact on me, - but it did so, to the extent that I have transposed the audio from BBC i-player and reproduce it here. (Sorry BBC for reproducing without permission - but it's all good marketing!)

"How did you feel when you could not play with your white friends anymore?"
"How did it feel when people were mean to you?"
"When you were marching, did you think you might get killed or arrested?"
"Was it hard for you to protest against all the unfair laws?"
"Out of all the unfair things, if you could pick one, which one did you dislike the most?"
"When you were a child, did you know you were going to change the world?"
"Do you think that some laws should still be changed?"
"Why did you tell people not to ride the bus?"
"Do you think fighting with words is better than fighting with fists?"
"How did you get so many people to follow your example?"
"What was your very first speech & how old were you?"
"What was your favourite speech you wrote?"
"How did you get to make your speech in Washington DC?"
"When you marched in Washington, what did it feel like to be in front of millions of people?"
"How did you feel..."
"Were you afraid..."
"Were you nervous when you were out there?"
"What went through your head when you gave your 'I Have a Dream' speech?"
"What part of your 'I Have a Dream' speech do you think got people to listen the most?"
"After the speech, where did you go and what did you feel like?"

"What else are you going to change?"

Americana, BBC Radio 4 Sunday 17th Jan 2010

The Necessary Conditions for Innovation

There is little doubt that public service, whether statutory or voluntary has entered those ‘interesting times’!

Those at the higher end of the food chain now know their budget settlements for next year, those that are not, have or certainly should have, a pretty good understanding of where things are heading.

Whilst many settlements are not quite as scary as many had anticipated, there is little doubt that 2010/11 will be a year of preparing for unprecedented cuts to come.

So, how should organisations respond?

David Snowden, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge offers a useful perspective.

I find David’s argument about ‘The Necessary Conditions for Innovation’ is particularly interesting right now - because it seems to me that those conditions are arising in abundance in public services, in Wales, in the UK, in Europe and across much of the World.

Take a look at this You-Tube clip and decide for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlmesbbPqtU

In summary, the argument is that there are three necessary conditions which promote an innovative approach amongst individuals and groups:

Starvation, - a substantial reduction of resources,

Pressure of Time, - the realisation that we really can’t carry on like this much longer,

Perspective Shift, - the realisation that what was critical yesterday is incidental today, - and there’s a whole new order of Critical we’ve just discovered!

“Necessary, but not sufficient…..”

Just one thing, David’s word of warning:

These three conditions do not guarantee innovation – they just make it possible. If organisations are to benefit from a new appetite to innovate, just reminding people that “we’re broke, it’s going to get worse and the stuff we went on about last year has no bearing anymore,” is possibly not quite enough!

Where has September gone?

Well what an incredibly busy September it's been!

- I'm not complaining, I need to earn a living and in the current economic conditions 'making hay whilst the sun shines' has got to be a good thing.

What I've been reminded of however, is how easy it is to get so into hay making that you forget all the lessons you taught yourself when things were a little quieter along with all the life priorities that you know make absoluterly sense!

I've been lucky enough to have been working with a number for fantastic clients in September, - and that's been very affirming and rewarding. I've also been doing a whole load of desk-work culminating last week in three nights in a row working until 2.30am.

The result of this was that I did the absolute minimum necessary to keep home & family ticking over (the most important life priority for me, yet I did the minimum!); I stopped my 'me time' completely (usually allow myself a half hour morning and evening for relaxation/recovery & re-focussing), and I survived on coffee to keep me awake and red wine to get me to sleep!

Is it any wonder that my body took took over the self management for me, - I stooped to get my son's pizza out of the oven & my back gave out. - couldn't move and had no choice but to have a complete 'system shutdown'.

Why do I, and so many other people, refuse to notice the signs and carry on as if we're some kind of super hero? Of course there are some disasters that are genuinely unpredictable, but how many times has a major catastrophe in your work or life been followed by some bright spark saying, "well, you could have seen thast coming a mile off"?!

What is 'Corporate Instinct'? - Part 2

We're kind of familiar with the concept of 'flow', that wonderful state when we become so deeply and wholly engaged in what we're doing that our subconscious seems to take over and the most challenging task starts to feel effortless. We seem to do things twice as efficiently, the quality of our actions and their consequences seem outstanding and we find ourselves using skills, talents or instincts we didn’t know we had.

That feeling of ‘flow’ has been with me, albeit fleetingly, several times in my working life. It seems to happen to me quite a bit when I’m deeply engrossed in coaching or facilitating action learning, sometimes too when I’m delivering training activities. Professionally, one’s reaction might well be to ‘snap out of it’. We are taught that switching to autopilot can be dangerous; how do we know we’re noticing all the signs? Can we be sure we’re 100% engaged? But somehow you know the difference between the ‘flow’ state and the ‘not quite there’ state, and you know that this is the former.

Now, I can think of a few occasions where I found myself ‘flowing’ with a group of colleagues. It happens at those times of extreme creativity or problem solving. You find your group acting and apparently thinking as one being rather than as separate individuals. I emphasise the word ‘creativity’ as I don’t want to confuse this state with the strict adherence to a drilled routine, - maybe I’m wrong, but synchronised swimming feels to me to be about strict compliance rather than about ‘flow’ – and it only works in highly controlled environments, - not so good if there are unpredictable tides, currents or waves which impact variably on each team member.

It’s just a wonderful feeling when a group of Humans create this collective flow together, - fabulous too of we could use the ability to avoid conflict amongst us.

As Daisaku Ikeda, President of Soka Gakkai International expresses it:

“Birds fly about high in the sky. Yet it does not happen that two birds collide with one another. Again, many fish live in the sea. Yet it is unheard of for two fish to bump into each other. In the immense breadth of the sky and the sea, birds and fish live and move about freely because of their instinctive knowledge of the routes of the sky and the sea as well as the principles that govern the processes of flight and swimming.

In the same way, when living in accordance with the Law [he refers here to the fundamental laws of humanity and nature]….human beings will not uselessly collide with one another. They will not come into conflict with each other on account of minor negative feelings such as jealousy, hatred and arrogance, thus creating unhappiness and misfortune for themselves”