In a world of volatility and uncertainty, traditional planning falls short. This article explores how pilots, probes, and experiments help leaders navigate complexity, build resilience, and foster curiosity. Learn practical ways to turn uncertainty into a learning advantage through small, safe-to-fail actions that reveal what truly works.
Most teams build charters to align around purpose and values, yet the document often fades after the workshop. These eight practical shifts show how to create a living team charter that strengthens trust, clarity, and collaboration.
John Scherer’s Five Questions That Change Everything is a guide to authentic leadership and self-discovery. By asking five simple but profound questions: What confronts me? What am I bringing? What runs me? What calls me? What will unleash me? He shows how everyday challenges become opportunities for growth and purpose.
Like the woodcutter who paused to sharpen his axe, effective leaders know progress requires renewal. The SHARP EDGE framework helps teams reflect, refocus, and stay sharp over time.
Leadership maturity begins where control ends. The Circle of Control reminds us that what defines us is not what happens, but how we meet what happens. This piece explores the mindset that turns reaction into responsibility.
Discover how great leaders use the E + R = O formula: Event plus Response equals Outcome, to stay composed, intentional, and effective under pressure. Learn practical ways to lead with awareness, shape outcomes through choice, and build a culture of conscious leadership grounded in self-awareness and reflection.
Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team is one of the most popular leadership models today. Its simplicity and storytelling make it appealing, yet it misses how real teams grow. This article explores why the model falls short and introduces a more human, sustainable alternative: the Living Cycle of Team Effectiveness, built around Safety, Dialogue, Clarity, Accountability, and Learning to create lasting team performance.
Discover how Nancy Kline’s Ten Components of a Thinking Environment help leaders practise stewardship, build trust, and create shared responsibility.
Every tough situation we face has hope, if we are capable of standing back and seeing the possibility. A short piece on finding and creating hope.
The book in three sentences Peter Block’s Stewardship redefines leadership as a choice to serve rather than control. It challenges traditional models of power, accountability, and ownership, arguing for organisations built on partnership, transparency, and shared purpose. The book is a call to abandon patriarchal governance and become stewards, that is, people who are deeply accountable without needing to dominate. Who [...]
The book in 3 sentences The core idea is that without a shift in trust, social capital, belonging, and relatedness...our capacity to solve problems, organize work effectively, or end the suffering around us is greatly diminished. Genuine transformation arises when everyone connected to the situation shows up, trusts each other and decides how to make things better...the possibilities we have. Through [...]
The book in 3 sentences The Empowered Manager is a practical guide for managers who want to lead with integrity, not control. It shows how managers can choose partnership over hierarchy, service over self-interest, and accountability over compliance. By making these personal shifts, managers can foster trust, ownership, and meaningful change, regardless of the system they work in. Who should read [...]
Link to Medium post: https://benzweibelson.medium.com/the-semiotic-square-and-systemic-logic-a-technique-for-multiple-futures-206b996cf30f
This is a hub of resources around mentoring. Within it you will find a range of links and recommendations that may help you on your journey to become a mentor or being an even better one. If you have any additional resources you think I should share, please let me know. A short selection of books that are worth [...]
The authors have uncovered ways to build high psychological safety and trust cultures in workplace teams. The rewards? Higher purpose and performance. — Read on www.talent-quarterly.com/in-team-we-trust/
Research around whole brain thinking and a simple coaching tool to support right brain thinking.
LINK to an article on "How to Assess Uncertainty in an Unpredictable World"
link to article on boundary management
» The IPK Design Kit — Read on www.i-p-k.co.za/ipk-design-kit/
Book summary of Stewardship
Maturity Mapping overview and its connection to cynefin and Wardley mapping
Link to a stakeholder mapping process
A series of blogs developed as tools for leaders from the Wharton Business School: https://whartonleadership.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/nano-tools-for-leaders/#more-64 Visual by Mara C one of the Drawify Team.
Link to an interesting article on productivity.
Link to some nice visual templates on storytelling
Link to the issue on Sustainable Leadership from Developing Leaders Quarterly
Link to a MITSloan article on collaboration failure
Link to the free self assessment to support reflection on career
Article link that explores "Connection before content"
Saving for later...... On Monday, I had the honour to talk to Sue Borchardt. Do not let her twitter bio "mereologist in training" fool you, Sue is a true polymath despite the fact she did not permit herself to use that name. In the video, Sue covers lots of important aspects of using Wardley Mapping for personal development, such as searchin [...]
Read once and saving for a deeper read ' reflection: Flexuosity untangled – Cognitive Edge — Read on www.cognitive-edge.com/flexuosity-untangled/
How to deal with Polarizing Topics in difficult conversations
Saving article for future reading https://engineering.atspotify.com/2014/09/16/squad-health-check-model/
Saving for reading https://www.epicpeople.org/sensemaking-in-organizations/ Follow on article: https://www.epicpeople.org/sensemaking-methodology/
Held to read the complete series later,,, This is the fourth in my series of Playing to Win Practitioner Insights (PTW/PI). The first was The Role of Management Systems in Strategy, the second was Is the Opposite of Your Choice Stupid on its… — Read on roger-78069.medium.com/strategy-is-what-you-do-not-what-you-say-a6e483840557
Saving for later. The ideas don't seem radical, but certainly not common practice https://medium.com/@drsaraschung/radical-listening-to-improve-understanding-of-system-dynamics-f1bacee8c875
Saving this for future reading.. https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/what-is-psychological-safety-at-work/?utm_campaign=1-LeadersAtAllLevels%2C2-LE_Article%2C3-Custom&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&s=09
Article on Adaptive Leadership from HBR
Slide deck showing what is covered each week in B329
Plotting Strategy in a Dynamic World — Read on sloanreview.mit.edu/article/plotting-strategy-in-a-dynamic-world/
Interesting research on change design, support and evaluation
A pretty long read, so Savin for later..The pandemic is an unprecedented opportunity – seeing human society as a complex system opens a better future for us all — Read on aeon.co/essays/complex-systems-science-allows-us-to-see-new-paths-forward
Interesting tips on virtual facilitation
Link to Julian's new 100 days process on curiosity
A good article that outlines the Treacy value disciplines strategy model
Article on engagement in Covid-19 times
Article on future planning - futurist come model
Link to article: Leadership and the small group
Link to a feedback process from Dr Gervase Bushe
Link to PDF: designwithdialogue.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/peterblock.pdf The following also supports the ideas here: http://www.chaosmanagement.com/images/stories/pdfs/Notes%20on%20Peter%20Block%27s%20book%20on%20Community.pdf As does http://kr.mnsu.edu/~jp5985fj/courses/230/Block.doc
