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A collection of life’s lessons

April 14, 2008 By Learning 4 Comments

Learning from our teachers

My friend Roq and my son Finn, learning from one another

Over my entire life, I have been incredibly blessed to work with amazing people. Being a curious person by nature, I have come to appreciate that there are teachers everywhere, if only we have the ears and the open heart to listen and experience another’s life as a teaching.

One of the reasons for starting this blog in 2002 was to capture what I was learning as I travelled through the world. I’m thinking a little about slipping some of this stuff between the covers of a book at some point and in reflecting on what has seemed important about my work and life, I started compiling a collection of things I’ve learned. You can read them on this page, and by following the link up there in the upper left hand part of your screen. I’ll update these as we go, and I’m still digging through the archives looking for stuff, but there it is so far.

Harnessing The Power of One

April 10, 2008 By Being, Invitation 2 Comments

Robert Paterson is musing about The Power of One. Seems his website will record 1,000,000 hits this summer. When he started blogging he had no idea that within five years, a million people would have hit the site.

So I posted a question in his comments, and I extend it to you. If you knew that in five years 1 million people would read what you have written, what would you do with that opportunity?

It might come as a surprise to some, but greatness is not predetermined. Great ideas do not emerge fully hatched, marketable and readily consumed by the ,ultitudes. They start as small thoughts, little experiements, testing the waters.   Who knows whether the blog post you write today will lead to millions of readers checking in with you.   You have an unprecedented historical opportunity to send a message to all those minds and hearts.

What would you want to say?

Two artists talk about leadership

April 9, 2008 By Flow, Leadership

From Nancy White, a brilliant video of Tom Sparough juggling cigar boxes and talking about courage.   And from Jon Husband, with whom I had a lovely conversation today related to my 30 day learning journey, an mp3 from Ben Zander about possibility.

From our friends in Zimbabwe

April 8, 2008 By Being

The situation in Zimbabwe being what it is, it’s often hard to see beyond the headlines and the punditry that tells how how we should feel. But of course, in this connected world, we live in a field of relationships that descends deep into every story on our planet.

I have friends in Zimbabwe, and from that network of hosts and courageous leaders comes this email:

Standing in Silence under a New Moon
Sunday 6th April 2008

7 days ago we voted for change in our country.
Against the legal imperative to call an election foul within 48 hours of final polling
and to publish the numbers within 6 days,
and in the face of SADAC and international observers approval of our voting process,
ZanuPF is now demanding a recount.

What possible reason can there be for this delay
other than a refusal to accept the deafening call
for the old man to leave.

The threats violence have once again begun
Yesterday white farms were attacked by ZanuPF youths in Masvingo
Journalists have been arrested at the airport

We are weary and battle scarred
fearful and courageous
carrying the shadows of pain and intimidation on our souls
we have spoken,
done all we can by peaceful means
still held in the dark unknowing.

We live with the politics of fear
Learning to hold the ground

I’m learning to hold ground too, with them from afar.

Rapid product innovation using Open Space Technology

April 7, 2008 By Emergence, Open Space One Comment

Jack Martin Leith on how to do rapid innovation using Open Space Technology:

We hear a lot of talk these days about Open Innovation (American academic Henry Chesbrough wrote the book), but not very much about Open Space Innovation. I’m not talking about new developments in the field of Open Space Technology – I’ll leave that for another day – but rather using Open Space Technology to accelerate the process of new product development and other forms of innovation.Jeffrey Hyman and I did just that for a global food manufacturer a few years ago, and it worked so well that we seriously considered forming a company to commercialise the process. Fate had other plans for us, and Jeffrey became the founder and chairman of the Food & Drink Innovation Network. Now that the statute of limitations is no longer in force, I am able to show you the mirrors, hidden levers and trapdoor so that you can work the magic for yourself.

What follows from there is a very cool post detailing the whole process.   A must read.