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Leading Change in Complex Times
The crucial starting point
of my work comes from my first hand experience over the past almost 40 years on the mixed strengths that we get from our dominant
reliance on a rational and competitive rational problem-solving context. We have taken major steps forward with this approach,
but as the world becomes increasingly complex, we find that we have no appropriate skills and options to move on to Plan B.
Recent management theories support this position, but very few theorists understand this from an insider’s position
as one who has been working on fundamental change for over 25 years. Based on my work at the Graduate School of Business this
past decade where, at some stage I have taught on almost every major programme including the Executive MBA, I have divided
my curriculum into three separate stages with each subsequent section taking the work to a deeper stage. Stage One:
Change is Inevitable. This is the most urgent starting point for our coping
with our current crisis where our existing methods of trying to control the outside world are not working. In these complex
times where we need to develop skills and abilities to deal with change, our unconscious default position drawn from our long
years of induction into an individualist reward system sets us against our colleague in battles of control. In this first
stage of engagement with a group which forms the key introduction to my work, I argue (and demonstrate vividly through activity)
the way in which our over-reliance on a problem-solving rational approach has taught us to adopt some very unconscious self-defeating
habits. Reality today has much more in common with a complex paradigm where we cannot control outside events so have to become
much more flexible and adaptive in our approach and leadership styles. I do this work by using the sessions as a real time,
real life ‘laboratory’ where participants are able to get immediate feedback and awareness of some of these dysfunctional
default behaviours. In theoretical terms, participants are introduced to Margaret Wheatley’s
‘Green line’ distinction between Management and Leadership and then taken into the Open Mind and Open Heart phases
of Scharmer's Theory U. Our need for others forms the core of an exploration of the importance of Diversity in this stage.
The effects of this first exposure are dramatic and cannot be denied and kick-start participants into a greater awareness
of the damage their unconscious behaviours are doing both at work and in their private life. Unfortunately, this awareness
is not enough to bring about lasting change in behaviour and there is a great deal more work to be done. I have found that
the work undertaken in the next two stages provides a great leverage to unlock future possibilities for action. Stage Two: Becoming Aware of Rich Change Moments. Once participants have accepted that change is inevitable and that they need to become more conscious of their actions,
I move on to create an awareness of the ‘hinge moments’ in daily life that can be used as a lever to work at increasing
an individual’s possibility to lead change. The focus turns
to becoming more aware of one's actions in the moment through a growing awareness of hinge moments and one's body reactions.
This work is driven by the complexity-based enactivist perspective of "I act therefore I am" rather than Descartes'
"I think therefore I am" and uses Mason's Discipline of Noticing. Once again, the teaching style is highly interactive
in appropriate alignment with the topic. Stage Three: Personal Repertoires for Action. Once participants have become aware of these hinge moments they can then start work to move from a reactive mode when disturbed to a new approach where one sees the disturbance as a possibility
for change. This is challenging work as participants have to identify their own personal blind spots and trigger points that
set off their habitual unconscious downloaded reactions and work towards looking these early life ‘complexes’
firmly in the eye and, with this new awareness, explore possible ways of avoiding triggers to act differently in the moment.
It links to Varela's distinction between the truly wise person and the village honest person. Work at this stage comes from
personal choice of exploration based on an extended collection of critical incidents and draws on a rich tradition of embodied
consciousness traditions to assist the learning.
Second Chance Maths
As part of my mathematics education task of preparing
primary school teachers to teach mathematics, I realised that some of them had had very bad experiences of mathematics at
school. As a result I started work with adults who fear maths or who know they have more ability than they showed at school.
I developed a 10 - 12 hour programme called Second Chance Maths which I have run at various sites such as UCT Summer School,
Western Cape Education Departmment Teacher courses, industry and also through the GSB. The programme has been incorporated as
the central part of a Basic Numeracy course offered as part of the GSB's AIM programme with some exciting results. More details of this programme can be found at the following link:
Second Chance Maths
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