What I learnt from Charlie

Be here now.  Be.  Here.  Now.  That’s really all there is. A good teacher doesn’t actually have to do much.  A good student will be paying enough attention to learn the next thing they are ready for. Be patient with others.  They’ll get it eventually. Let others know clearly and simply if you don’t want…

Courage in the first instance

A wise teacher once suggested that it requires the same amount of courage to do something difficult, whether you do it instantly or leave it until later.  “Courage in the first instance, not the tenth.”. In a working world that is increasingly relational, where what we do depends on dealing with others, negotiating with others,…

What we need to learn

Bring to mind one of your best working moments.  One of those times when you felt on top of the world, when you were just ‘flowing’ or when you felt the warm glow of success.  It could have been when that new client signed up with you…..when you finally worked through a long-standing conflict with…

What the world needs now…

…is love sweet love.  As Burt Bacharach and Hal David said, that’s the only thing that there’s just too little of. I shall resist reminding you of the many horrible and ugly things happening in the world.  I shall refrain from listing the many many incidents of casual interpersonal violence that occur all too often…

The insight illusion

Confucius is quoted as saying, “When you meet someone better than yourself, turn your thoughts to becoming his equal. When you meet someone not as good as you are, look within and examine yourself.” …and yet we reinforce our “us vs them” in response to real human tragedies in Syria, Paris, San Bernardino.  It’s hard…

Soft skills are not soft.

I once had someone suggest to me that I would not be capable of working amongst the “brutality” of business life.  I listened with great interest as there might have been some truth in what they were saying.  Upon extensive reflection, I considered what might be behind their comment, as it intrigued me enormously.  It intrigued…

Your Work is Your Work

Charles Darwin is apocryphally quoted as saying, “It’s not the biggest, the brightest, or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.”  While he may not have actually said it, the sentiment stands. It is therefore vital that we develop ways and practices that assist us to learn about ourselves.  Much has…

A “working out loud” credo

I love the “working out loud” approach.  It’s highly social, which now, after years of personal work, runs through me like a stick of rock.  In that (ongoing) personal journey, I have learnt not only the benefits and indescribable joys (and sometimes, the excruciating pain) of joining the rest of the human race, but also…

I am the Walrus

Know how you have an experience and some song lyrics pop into your head that seem to have been written especially for it?  “Expert textpert, choking smoker, don’t you think the joker laughs at you?”  Parallel process.  Happens to me all the time when I’m working.  I suddenly notice that what the client is doing,…

How do we get to WE?

There is something in the air.  Call it my natural human tendency to find patterns in things, but two recent conversations with two different clients in two different cities have reminded me of two other completely different clients in two completely different countries.  The parallels are striking.  It could be my bias towards systems thinking,…