This quote from Richard Rohr, is one of the core principles of the Center for Action and Contemplation. Humans tend to live themselves into new ways of thinking more than think themselves into new ways of living. It is also good complexity praxis, good leadership practice and good pedagogy. I was on a coaching call this morning where this came up too, listening to a team I am working with describe the trap we often find ourselves in as consultants, tempted to provide the new things a group should be doing, often in the form of recommendations or lists of …
You might not know that one of the things I have developed a deep passion for over the past 20 years or so is football. Soccer. Association football. Fütbol. It started when I lived in the UK as a kid and supported our local team Tottenham Hotspur. It waned a bit during the 1980s and 1990s when it was hard to watch games and no one in Canada really cared about the sport. But one of the great gifts of the internet was rekindling familiarity with the sport that I love. I love it for so many reasons, not the …
It’s an old post by Henry Mintzberg from 2015 but he tweeted it out today and the message is as current as ever. If Mintzberg is retweeting seven year old essays, it’s probably worth paying attention to them. Here’s the essence: Someone I know once asked a most senior British civil servant why his department had to do so much measuring. His reply: “What else can we do when we don’t know what’s going on?” Did he ever try getting on the ground to find out what’s going on? And then using judgment to assess that? (Remember judgment? It’s still …
I have a little more than a passing interest in the politics and history of Ireland and Northern Ireland in particular, from whence my father’s family of 17th century Scottish transplants emerged. One of the blogs I follow on this subject is the Unionist blog Slugger O’Toole which offers very thoughtful commentary on Irish and British politics from a Unionist – but not sectarian – perspective. It is very hard not to conflate the two when discussing Northern Ireland, Glasgow or Liverpool-based football, or Canadian history (yes they all have a Protestant v Catholic underlying animosity). This is especially true …
I want to invite you into a story about TSS Rovers FC, a little soccer club I am involved in that is doing amazing things. We are about to become the first semi-pro soccer club in Canada to have a significant amount of supporter ownership. Our initial share offering closes on March 9, and you buy into to this club now here: https://www.frontfundr.com/tssrovers. But read on to find out why i think this matters. On the morning of August 6th, 2021 I sat glued to my TV screen absolutely riveted by the possibility of Canada winning a gold medal in …