My main work in executive education
has grown in focus and conceptualisation over the years. It started as a seemingly disparate set of offerings which had
titles such as Complexity and Diversity, Becoming More Aware, and Personal Leadership. Most of these were based
on the taught module on complexity thinking and learning that I had offered as part of the taught Masters degree in Teaching
using a teaching style that I had been developing since I first truly accepted the challenge of preparing teachers for a future
South Africa in 1986.
It is only recently that I have been able to reformulate my work as being about
Leading Change.
The work takes place in three stages.
Stage One takes the approach
that change is inevitable and that, for a variety of reasons, we are ill-prepared for it. These sessions are designed to present
participants with real life and real time activities where they can witness and confront their own behaviour in the moment.
The sessions are usually quite shocking in that they force us to notice aspects of our behaviour that we have previously failed
to notice. In theoretical terms participants are 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.
Stage Two looks
at the change points that people can choose to use as a lever to work on increasing their possibility of leading 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 enactivist perspective of "I act therefore I am" rather than Descartes'
"I think therefore I am" and uses Mason's Discipline of Noticing.
Stage Three works on exploring
personal repertoires for action so that each person can move from a reactive mode to one of seeing disturbance as a possibility.
this is where the really difficult work takes place as participants have to look at their 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 involves explorations into areas such as Transactional
Analysis, Improvised Theatre; Mindfulness Practice; Constellation Body Work and Biodanza Walking activities.
