Archive for category: Disruption

This Changes Everything (Kathy Taberner)

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We live in a complex global world where demands of leaders are increasing everyday. With a focus on transparency, inclusion, equality, agility, possibility and collaboration, how can leaders leverage themselves to live, work and play in a way that is respectful, sustainable, and most important, fun?

The answer is simple. Curious conversations. Hiding behind texts, emails and social media, conversational skills are the most important skills leaders are failing to engage in. Research out of Stanford is showing that 9 out of 10 conversations miss the mark. Research is also showing organizations are focused on ‘soft’ skills that have hard impacts: communication skills, critical thinking, agility – all of which require curiosity. These are skills that are expected of leaders but are never taught. Curious conversations are the disruptor needed to thrive in our global, multigenerational workplace.

In our interactive workshop, participants will experience how curious conversations are at the forefront of innovation and collaboration in a time where demands are high and resources are low. Participants will experience and learn: -The value of different perspectives, there is never just one way to do anything – Communication skills to shift leaders from reacting to intentionally responding – Self-awareness, clarity around how they are showing up as a leader, their impact and turning barriers into bridges – The skills needed to collaborate, innovate, problem solve & manage emotions. Skills that are currently expected of leaders but have never been taught Canada’s success lies in our leaders’ ability to confidently disrupt the status quo, step out of comfort zones while also being inclusive and collaborative, as they reflect rather than react.

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What’s worth tracking? (Scott Tate)

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Bio and psycho-metrics are Easier to track and record in this digital age, but what’s worth tracking and recording, and what analog activities matter to change them? This foundational workshop will introduce some digital tools and apps in mental and physical health and connect them with actual practices that will make an impact on health and performance at work and at home… instead of just hoping from app to app hoping to find better health along the way!

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The Politics of Change (James McCalman)

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Political behaviour in organizations is an acceptable and pervasive dimension of organization life. There is a growing body of literature that views organisational politics as central to our understanding of the workings of the organization.

The main objectives of the workshop are:

  1. To examine sources of power and influence and how these interplay with change agendas and programmes
  2. Analyse conflict and experience different  techniques of dealing with difficult situations and the influence and political choices open to participants.

We provide a useful process of distinguishing between the purpose of the political act (outcomes), the behaviour itself (means deployed) and the relevant context (situational characteristics). This enables us to conclude that organisational politics occurs when goal attainment is sought by informal, rather than formal means of influence in the face of potential conflict. Therefore, participants will explore how they influence change utilising political strategies.

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Creating your future NOW, via a disruptive Story-Work approach. (Yannis Angelis)

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Can you imagine the future of your organization, department, product, yourself in a highly disruptive world? Who will be you at that time and what will be your role? How disruption will have transformed you and your work? Are you interested to explore that?

As most organizations strive for a sustainable growth in an era of constant disruption, they fall into a paradoxical mythology, the one that they are able of keeping control and remain safe as they grow towards the future, the same way they did in the past. It is inevitable that a different approach is needed to detach themselves from the paradox that this mythology provokes and move towards a new narrative which reflects the multi-directional forces of the environment that they operate. The hypothesis, which forms the basis of this highly interactive workshop, is that if one tries to create successful strategies for the future, this cannot happen today without experiencing, “playing,” and getting more familiar with the disruption itself and its consequences.

This workshop firstly aims to produce important strategic outcome on the future of whatever you would like to explore, by considering how disruptive the future may seem. Secondly, via the introduction of a serious game concept, a set of disruptive interventions are used as ignitions and catalysts for new future personal stories and organizational scenarios to emerge. The concept provides a safe space for participants to familiarize themselves with disruption and by that to experience their creative-self being liberated.

More in detail, participants will be invited to interact with each other, combine and work with what exists today in the field they are operating, and what could be the consequences of several disruptive interventions occurring in the environment (I am disrupted) or induced by them (I am the disruptor). Inspiring challenges, working with stories and scenarios, leveraging group collaboration and dynamics, storytelling, sophisticated feedback and a lot of fun is deployed during this workshop.

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Eroding the Power from within: Activist Communication (Esther Barfoot)

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Get a load of this: in the Netherlands a police officer isn’t allowed to choose the partner with whom he is teamed up in the police car. He has no say in the choice of partner who might or might not save his life in a life or death situation. Police people, nurses, teachers and many other professionals are often prevented from doing their work properly by all kinds of rules, regulations and interference by managers and other staff, based on an inherent distrust of the healthy judgement of professionals. Fortunately, in many organisations, professionals are standing up and forming movements to reclaim their own professionalism, judgement and space to do their work properly. These movements, of course, want to spread the word and communicate with the people inside and outside the movement. This calls for a different kind of communication than the classic, top down corporate communication. It is what Esther calls ‘activist communication’.

Activist communication does the following:

  • It stands between and is co-created with the innovators and change agents
  • It harvests stories from the undercurrent
  • It gives words to new concepts
  • It spreads valuable ideas
  • It keeps the dialogue alive
  • It kisses the future awake

It does this in many, often creative forms. Activist communication searches for ways to appeal to the right brain, the intuition. In this workshop Esther will talk to the participants about activist communication and her experience at – among others – the Dutch National Police (illustrated with many photos and examples). Then the participants will do the activist poster workshop she has done many times at the police and, for instance, in health care organisations. The participants develop an interesting quote or motto about something that really frustrates them in their work, makes them an feel rebellious, or alternatively something that really inspires them. Through (street) art they turn this into an appealing poster. The workshop is designed to empower participants, as well as search for ways to make progress, break down faulty systems and move from distrust to trust, while staying in conversation with the main order of things.

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Conversation Catalyst (Nathan Bragg)

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People often avoid talking about thorny issues together. This workshop provides an avenue into nonviolent discussion.

Treating a given space like a giant piece of graph paper, participants position themselves in specific places to silently declare their opinion of a concept. Individuals are then offered the opportunity to create a sculpture to help illuminate why they have chosen their position; this image is further defined in words by viewers outside the given sculpture. This is important because when viewers “read” a sculpture, they short-circuit any judgement which might arise from a Sculptor who would otherwise use spoken words. In addition, when those at the opposite pole help describe offered images in words it effectively humanizes all individuals who might otherwise appear to be in bitter opposition.

The participants will:

  • learn the power of making interactive non-verbal polls
  • practice creating images to illustrate a deep truth
  • be encouraged to practice deep, empathetic listening
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Curiosity & Disruptive Change (Nik Beeson)

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Real disruption is a deep wound to the integrity of organisational identity, so real disruption requires radical adaptation, structural transformation… a transformation in identity. The question that disruption is asking is not ‘what is the problem?’ or ‘how do I survive?’ or ‘how do I make it go away’, the question that disruption is asking is ‘Who are you?’. How you navigate that question determines the path of your evolution. Will you react or respond? Or will you deflect, dismiss, resist, deny or hide? Will you be willing to wrestle with it and, more importantly, with yourself? Will you seek to understand it and, more importantly, seek to understand yourself?

‘Curiosity & Disruptive Change’ focuses on curiosity as the strongest motivation and most useful aptitude for navigating and instigating disruptive change. We will explore what it means to be disrupted, how we react to disruption, what curiosity is, and how to cultivate a curiosity towards disruption that enables us to discern the possibilities and realise the potentials in any challenge. Myth, fairy tales, problem solving, perceptual challenges, crafts & play, current affairs… any or all are possible approaches we might take. Prepare for a little disruption… We’ll create situations which will instigate your curiosity, and we’ll analyze and reflect on our experiences and how they apply to your current situation.

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The Act of Creation – Working with Dilemmas in Organizations (Jacques Chlopczyk)

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Seemingly incompatible alternatives and either/or problem definitions are common in consulting and managing organizations. Starting with Arthur Koestler’s theory of humour and creativity we will explore concepts and tools to understand how these dilemmas offer a great starting point for the development of creative and novel approaches. This workshop will introduce a powerful framework to address and harness these dilemmas as an opportunity for development on a personal, team and organizational level. The approach is based on three distinct models from

a) the field of intercultural consulting,

b) personal development and

c) systems thinking.

The workshop provides a great setting to experience how the approach can be facilitated with groups before we will discuss its conceptual background and the application of the framework in organizational, personal and team development – and in telling jokes.

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Stimulating Conversation: How to Get People Talking (Jeffer London)

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Changes happen better when people can talk about them. Stimulating Conversation is easy. But it takes practice. This session helps you examine your own conversations, test out ways to converse, and get feedback to enhance your style. You may very well become a better conversationalist, but our real goal is for you to help other people to enter into conversation – conversations about change, about working together and about your shared future. By getting other people talking, you will find the secret to Stimulating Conversation.

Get ready to:

  • Rethink the questions you ask. – Be more present for those around you.
  • Find more meaning in your exchanges.
  • Jump into this conversation and find insights, stories and tips from others who see the value in getting people talking.
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Developing Collaborative Competence. A needed skill for successful change. (Douglas Gilbert)

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Organisational change does not take place in a vacuum. The social systems surrounding an organisation seeking to change interact in ways that form a reality of social interaction which can help, hinder, or even stop change. Developing awareness and ability to explicitly manage social systems intertwined with a change effort requires a shift in paradigm from a rational to an interpretative perspective. A shift to an interpretive perspective paradigm rests on three key principles:

  • life world that persons and real world are inextricably intertwined through lived experiences;
  • social construction that knowledge of reality is results from communication and interaction with others;
  • and understanding drives behavior and people act according to their understanding of the world.

The workshop will explore what is involved in such a paradigm shift and how change management efforts must be adapted to develop organisational ability or “collaborative competence”. The concept of collaborative competence represents a collection of knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to manage the shared understanding of an organisation or the organization’s reality. A key to both change management and collaboration is that very ability to manage shared understanding or reality of an organization.

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