It’s simple: I’m sorry for” This is wrong because” In the future, I will” Will you forgive me? But it’s so important. When you are engaged in work with teams of people and you are doing things none of you have done before, there are going to be mistakes made and people are going to be offended. Learning how to apologize is important for a couple of reasons. A sincere apology builds trust and strengthens a group. There is nothing better than a group of people in which people take on responsibility for their actions. True leadership arises when …
My friend Peter Rawsthorne begins a series of blog posts today reflecting on what is required to keep a community of practice together online and across organizational boundaries. What do you need to consider when building a Community of Practice CoP that spans organizational boundaries where client confidentiality needs to be honored. There are a plethora of things to be considered when building an online virtual community of practice, these include; the team and the contexts’ relationship with openness, the memberships ability to be self-determined, how online communication will be broadened and followed, and how the internet is the platform. …
Tim Merry‘s work on collaborative advantage: My friend and colleague Tim Merry is sharing some of his most recent thinking on project design and development here in Columbus at the Art of Hosting Beyond the Basics retreat we are doing. This is a really useful and interesting introduction to his approach:
Etienne Wenger provides a useful set of principles for cultivating communities of practice as living, breathing things: Design for evolution. Open a dialogue between inside and outside perspectives. Invite different levels of participation. Develop both public and private community spaces. Focus on value. Combine familiarity and excitement. Create a rhythm for the community. Read more at the link below. via Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge – Seven Principles for Cultivating Communities of Practice – HBS Working Knowledge.
Innovation does not come without discarding ideas, trying and failing. In complex systems with complex challenges, failure is inevitable and desired. If we need to prototype to sense our way forward we have to have a mindset that can handle failure. On Saturday at the Art of Participatory Leadership in Petaluma my new friend Shawn Berry convened a session on failure and through listening to stories ranging from small prototoyping failures to business breakdowns and even deaths, I noted a few patterns that are helpful for groups and people to address failure positively nd resourcefully Frame it up. In North …