Alex has a great post today on his Top 5 reasons to celebrate mistakes at work. I’ve been hearing lately from many clients about the need for us to loosen up and accept more failure in our work. The pressure that comes from perfection and maintaining a failsafe environment is a killer, and while we all demand high levels of accountability and performance, working in a climate where we can fail-safe provides more opportunity to find creative ways forward that are hitherto unknown. So to compliment Alex’s post, here are a few ways to create a safe-fail environment: 1. Be …
Here are three resources which have recently crossed my path that involve using fun and games for social change. Some of these work with groups and some work across social spaces – demographics, communities or organizations. What I like about these games is that they provide a built in set of measureables that can be used to gauge progress and evaluate behaviour change. Sesms like combining fun, visible change and simple yet powerful standards for noticing shift is the holy grail in this kind of work. Games for Change: Games for Change (G4C) is a non-profit which seeks to harness …
Hosting an Open Space gathering in Kamloops today with about 40 people who work hard around issues of child and youth health. We are exploring ways to connect differently and do our work at the next level. The conversations have started and the topics are rich. I thought I would put the list here and see if any of you readers in blog land have resources to offer that we can forward to the folks meeting here today. And if you are in Kamloops and do this work, come on up to Thompson Rivers University and join the conversation. Session …
Meg Wheatley on great questions to ask as we think about measurement, especially in complex living systems (like human communities): Who gets to create the measures? Measures are meaningful and important only when generated by those doing the work. Any group can benefit from others’ experience and from experts, but the final measures need to be their creation. People only support what they create, and those closest to the work know a great deal about what is significant to measure. How will we measure our measures? How can we keep measures useful and current? What will indicate that they are …
From a recent Art of Hosting in Sweden comes a learning from some young leaders thinking about how to lead in networks: 1. Open and transparency of decision making process and “organizational” structure, even if it’s dynamic. No Taboos or un-written rule. The aim should be to make the system as visible as possible. 2. Empowers loads of action (systemically): What is the minimum structure needed to enable self-organizing and action? 3. Good communication culture (this is the real challenge I guess) 4. Clear process of creation and updating the leading thoughts 5. Low entrance step, it’s easy to join, …