One theme that has stayed with me from Minal Bopaiah’s book Equity is the pervasive, unhelpful and fundamentally untrue narrative of rugged individualism that implies that people who succeed did so courtesy of their own hard work and resourcefulness. It’s where the expression “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” comes from, and it denies the powerful role of systems, privilege, interpersonal relationships (and even luck) in how our lives unfold.
Continue reading “Group Bootstrapping”How are Groups Faring?
This past week, I was asked how Boards and other groups are faring without having met very often in person over the past several years. It’s an important question when it comes to making wiser decisions faster. Here are the highlights of my answer:
Continue reading “How are Groups Faring?”Unhurried
I used to spend a lot of time in eastern Africa. When they arrived late for a meeting, friends there would tell me, with a twinkle in their eyes, that time is like an elastic band — it stretches to fit.
Continue reading “Unhurried”Invent or Improve?
When a process or product or idea isn’t working, do you want to tweak the design slightly or throw it out and start over?
This is a distinction I’m learning about through my work with the Adaptability Quotient tool. It’s an assessment that measures individual and team adaptability, and one of the results is an aggregate measure that reflects if a team prefers to approach adaptability through a lens of “utilize and improve” and/or “explore and transform.” The former will lead you to approach change systematically and build on existing solutions, whereas the latter would have you trying different ways of working and experimenting with newly invented solutions.
Continue reading “Invent or Improve?”The Alchemy of Us
I am taking a course on non-directive coaching. Beyond providing an opportunity to learn and practice a method, this experience is inviting me to interrogate what I believe about working with individuals and groups. So, in the spirit of “learning out loud” (a key skill when we’re collaborating in dispersed teams these days), and at the risk of caricaturing for the purposes of explanation, here’s what I’m noticing so far:
Continue reading “The Alchemy of Us”