Blog Posts

The different paths and places on the journey of transformation

19/4/2021

"Love is helping other people to complete themselves" Bill O'Brien

The work of ‘getting there’ that I am focussed on has a vision of a more conscious practice of leadership in our world. For us to become more of who we can be, to adapt and thrive, with self-leadership and organisational leadership that can scale, with the capacity to expand consciousness, work through complexity and the need for transformation. This is a worldview for those clients holding a reforming or transforming agenda, those working with complexity, and who are individually and organisationally in service of something more than themselves.

What I’ve noticed is that those who are most impacting in this area, are the ones who most authentically work from purpose and service, whilst simultaneously engaging in their own learning and growth through that very work.

I’ve come to see the territory of this work as following two paths and spanning three domains: the paths of: being more Conscious and greater Service; the domains of: Self, Others or team, System or something bigger.

The two paths are interdependent – formed like the sides of a mobius strip, each nurturing the other, the start of one being the end of the other. As we become more conscious, this inevitably leads to greater service; as we serve, then the more conscious we become.

The three domains are mutually catalytic – deepening in one creates pull towards or opening up the others.

Time and again I see the leaders I work with moving between these domains and weaving through the different paths. Sometimes there is value in, or a need to, look at one more discretely than the others, although it nearly always makes sense to check in with all eventually. When clients push themselves too far into one domain or along a singular path at the exclusion of the others, it leads to imbalance, frustration, and a sense of something missing.

If this resonates and matters to you then I’m interested in talking further. I work as a systemic leadership sherpa providing coaching and facilitation for leaders and teams. With me alongside, this journeying comes with both gentleness and uncomfortableness, weaving through spaces of knowing and not knowing, uncertainty and sure footedness, travelling together in support of you being more conscious and of greater service.

“'I think everyone is just trying to get home.' said The Mole.” Charlie Mackesy

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a more conscious practice of leadership

28/3/2021

As leaders we can be inspired to navigate a different, less familiar route to effective leadership, one where we become more conscious of the leadership we offer and show up in the world with a completely different stance.

This is the capacity of leadership we need now because predictability is falling away, and being tied to old norms and paradigms are hindering our ability to thrive.

I see this as a calling of our times, to become a leader that can scale and that can operate compassionately and creatively in a complex and interconnected world. I see it also a choice to commit oneself to a path of continual learning and growth, in service of something greater than ourselves.

This is a journey that is navigated within; it takes both courage and intentionality.

Most of us now find themselves immersed in multi-dimensional complexity. To discover a good path forward can be like navigating through fresh snow in the fog – no familiar markers and near impossible to get a bearing. And increasingly the basis for leadership is shifting from simple bottom-line profit, to motivation through purpose and service – now key aspects of employee attraction, brand and shareholder value.

Leadership in these conditions requires adaptation - including to a more conscious practice of leadership.

I’ve written this post primarily for prospective clients, those thinking about having me come alongside them for some form of leadership coaching journey. And it’s also an act of my own leadership: to say where I stand on what we need from leaders; to lay out my thinking on conscious leadership.

After reading the remainder of the post, ask yourself:

What you see when you notice yourself in action?
When do you get in your own way?
Where do you play safe?
What stories or patterns do you want to upgrade?
How often you give yourself more spaciousness, time to think and reflect?

The concepts that are important to me:

Intentionality: The secret sauce! This is the act of being deliberate or purposeful, which itself takes courage to enact every day. The mental game of being conscious of the experience of your leadership. Being intentional about your practice, your thinking and actions. Committing to practice and improvement. Examining and developing your structure of thinking and taking action from there. Intentionality therefore is the connecting force between inner and outer aspects of leadership, between your way of being, thinking and doing.

Courage: Firstly, hearing and then accepting the invitational call takes full hearted courage, and love and a desire to be of service. And it’s a particular kind of courage, the courage (as the poet David Whyte says) “to go just beyond yourself, to create a relationship with the unknown”. This is the start of the inner work, of being prepared to become aware of your own safety zones, and to confront your own edges.

Conscious: By being present moment by moment we can move beyond the ‘what’ of our thinking, to explore the ‘why’ behind that thinking. This opens up new insights and the capacity for compassion and creativity. We can step outside of our old story, changing the very structure of our thinking, growing our consciousness and what is possible for us. From there, why and how we act, how we relate to others and the challenges of leading begin to shift.

Practice: This is how, amidst all that snow and fog, we begin to discover fresh markers and get new bearings. A more conscious practice of leadership is not a destination or a title; it’s not a certification; it’s not a procedure or a methodology. It is saying I have placed myself on this path; there is nothing to wait for; every possibility is here right now; there is more to come. It is saying I will surrender to the demands of the discipline and of my current level of proficiency in order to reach a higher or different level, letting go of limiting ideas about myself from the past. Practice starts with discipline; discipline (as the guide Laura Beckingham teaches) can move to dedication, sometimes dedication can morph into devotion – an inspiration at the level of the soul.

If this post has inspired or challenged you and you’re curious about pursureing these ideas for yourself, then please do get in touch.

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A Systemic Leadership Sherpa

12/10/2020

“a somewhat under the radar guide who’s lived in the mountains [of leadership] all his life”

That insight is the gift of recognition given to me by a dear friend and guide. She articulated what she saw in me in a form of words that went beyond their surface meaning. They touched deeply, within, and found a knowing there, a connection with the spirit of who I am in this world. I had a similar experience a couple of years earlier encountering a daymark beacon on the Northumberland coast, and these new words added greater resonance to what unfolded then.

It seems like I’ve been fascinated by both navigation and leadership for nearly all of my life. As a child on family car journeys, I’d get engrossed in the big foldout map to understand the roads to getting to our destination. Later in school I loved orienteering, and most of all setting out the routes, measuring straight line distances by wading chest high across streams, or crawling through undergrowth and over fallen trees. Later, studying physiology for me was about understanding the biological pathways in the human body. In a first career, building project plans and product roadmaps was another expression of the same energy. Now this is directed to understanding and sharing the routes of individual, team and leadership growth, as well as illuminating how systems function and can be navigated.

For over a quarter of a century or more I have worked in the pursuit of leadership. Initially stumbling about, copying what I thought was good and being rewarded for it, just to learn later how deficient an approach it was. Then getting hold of a new path, only to find myself out of my depth, and needing to find an entirely different way on. The stumbling’s and less than good paths came from looking for direction and markers on the outside. All the time the better, truer, path to take was inwards; the insight to both the blocks and the good next steps lay within.

Coming back to systemic leadership sherpa. I know that ‘sherpa' is used in other ways, for those who have traditionally carried the load for mountaineers in the Himalayas, as well as guiding them to the summit. I though use 'sherpa' to describe an archetypal energy and identity. It embodies qualities of explorer, hero and magician, as well as service, knowledge, humility, knowing and not-knowing.

The capacities of sherpa that resonate within me are:

The experience of proven routes which may be useful for others.
The ability to offer good guidance in un-navigated territory.
Having the humility to accompany others on their journey.
Wisdom and encouragement in dealing with difficult obstacles.
Taking others to an edge or traverse without letting them fall.
Sensitive to a larger perspective, opening the heart and soul to greater summits.
Courage, strength and tenderness

And one thing I discovered in all of this exploring, what I believe is so vitally important now, is that all of us who aspire to be effective leaders need to develop a more conscious practice of leadership.

That might seem like a catchy slogan, a destination even. Both are so far away from what I want to talk about. This is about a calling of our time; it takes courage and it’s an ongoing journey of both consciousness and of service. What I’ll describe next is a set of attitudes and fundamentals essential for this journey, if it’s for you and if you want to take it?

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Making Coaching Work

3/8/2020

A traditional way of starting a coaching programme is to define goals and outcomes. This often leads to jumping too early for something seductively tangible, or for the specific "destination" of the goal to dominate at the expense of a deeper and broader exploration and experience. Coaching is essentially exploratory, so it's useful to be able to adapt as the programme emerges, and to have that mind-set from the start.

Determining the direction of travel

“Remember how we used to dream as children of the delicious freedom and power of being grown-up?” ~ Ben Zander

Often when I ask clients "what do you think this coaching is about?", they readily move away from a goals discussion to something more fundamental and profound. For many what's important is a desire to explore, and to discover potential and shift as a result. They want to build self-awareness, self-acceptance, discover what's possible, what's emerging. For these people a different or additional way of scoping a coaching programme is useful. One which can reflect a sense of trajectory and journey. One which considers who you are “becoming”, and who and how you will "be", as well as what you will "do".

I suggest creating a Manifesto – to make manifest, a declaration of intent, motives, views - typically focussed on growing a (less tangible) capacity for "being", rather than "doing". A current (medium term) statement of shift, or direction of trajectory or travel. Most usefully written from the perspective of already being as you long to become.

Manifesto sits in the camp of inspiration and passion. Bringing it into reality will often take you to places of discomfort, to edges of experience and boundaries of comfort. The idea has some similarity with the yoga tradition of Sankalpa – setting an intention or resolve. One of the beautiful aspects of the Sankalpa practice is that it starts from the radical premise that you already are who you need to be to fulfil your intentions, you don’t need to change who you are. All you need to do is focus your mind, your thinking, your action, your being.

In ‘The Art of Possibility’ by Ben and Ros Zander, the authors present the idea of Giving an A. Ben Zander only takes A students, giving each an A grade at the start of term, on the condition they write him a letter dated eight to nine months later saying why they deserved that A - describing who they will have become, what will have shifted. Zander's approach is partly in reaction to the less than helpful practice of fitting performance ratings to a curve. Rather he quotes Michelangelo who apparently said that "inside every block of stone or marble dwells a beautiful statue; one need only remove the excess material to reveal the work of art within". Zander gives his students an A, to "transport … from the world of measurement into the universe of possibility", to reduce performance anxiety, to enliven, and, I think, to allow a little magic to happen.

So I suggest you first give yourself an A, then write your Manifesto for this coaching programme as a letter to yourself, dated at the end of the programme, or 9-12 months from the start. Questions to consider (neither an exhaustive nor prescriptive list): what has the coaching been about, who have you become, what has shifted, what capacities have you developed, what capabilities do you have, what are others noticing and saying, …? Write everything from the "future present" tense. There should be no hopes, or intend to's, or will's. Write it all from the tense of what you did, and most importantly who you became.

What got you here won't get you there

“The defining trait of leaders that successfully grow and navigate critical change is the practice of regularly reviewing their structure of thinking and form of leadership. Simply put, these great leaders understand that what got them to where they are today, is unlikely to get them to where they want to go next”.
~ Alastair Kidd and Tony McGuire

Great and really effective leadership has a depth of quality more than know-how and behaviour. Particularly when reaching for ambitions, and navigating development and growth, the inner nature of leadership becomes more critical than the outer action aspects alone. A natural reaction when finding yourself at a point of change or challenge may be to repeat what made you successful previously. This is at best a continuation of the difficulties that are already being experienced, at worst failure to move to the next phase of growth.

At this moment, you must examine your own belief systems, ways of thinking and doing and, of course, your own leadership. Such introspection and reflection does not come easily to many leaders and often requires intervention and support working with a coach.

Integral change; Project and curriculum

The reason so many change efforts fail is that the more invisible, insidious, emotionally wrenching quadrants of personal and cultural change are often left out of the equation.
~paraphrased from Bob Anderson

Coaching, certainly ultimately, is about change, and for any change effort to be successful it needs to address each of four quadrants from two intersecting dimensions: individual/collective and internal/external:

Individual-Internal: This is your inner reality of beliefs, values and assumptions, of cognition, psyche, spirit and identity. No substantive change is possible without attending to your inner world and consciousness.
Individual-External: This is the place of skills, techniques, frameworks, behaviours. Change can often quickly take place here, although with limited longer-term impact and growth on its own.
Collective-Internal: This can be thought of as culture or what makes the group the group. It is the often unspoken, world of shared beliefs and assumptions, of how things are done, of what matters and what is taboo, myths, symbols and invisible dynamics of forces that influence the group, the systemic conscience. This is not about what’s laminated but what’s lived!
Collective-External: This is the domain of processes, procedures and organisational design, of technology and workflows, of team structures and meeting.

There is a distinction between what we're up to in the world (Project) and the self-work that is required of us (Curriculum.) Development is accelerated through the interconnectivity of these two tracks. Project and Curriculum require and support each other, unfolding over time.
Paying attention to either to the exclusion of the other creates problems.
~ paraphrased from Doug Silsbee

Many clients come to coaching initially with a focus solely on Projects or the External. My encouragement is that you shift your focus and also include (perhaps prioritising at the beginning) the inner work: the Internal and the Curriculum.

Taking the mastery path

“We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives”
~ George Leonard

Mastery is a useful attitude to adopt for the kind of learning, growth, and development associated with a coaching programme. In his wonderful book ‘Mastery’, Leonard defines the five keys as:

Instruction - get the best instruction you can in whatever you attempt to master.
Practices - rather than a destination, it's the experience of being "on the mat" that counts.
Surrender - to the demands of your discipline and your current level of proficiency in order to reach a higher or different level; let go of limiting ideas about yourself from the past.
Intentionality - the mental game; engage in your experience of yourself; be intentional about your practice, your actions and thinking.
The Edge - be prepared to go beyond your comfort zone and self-imposed limits; be prepared to step over, across, beyond.

Practices for success

“Without changing your thinking, methodology is just technique, and practice is simply imitation.”
~ Peter Block

The great thinker Margaret Wheatley advises us to “let go of the comfort of a quick response and instead, in the spaciousness of your mind, welcome in everything: thoughts, feelings, sensations”. Many breakthroughs came as the result of “relaxing the mind, allowing things to dwell without the need for resolution”, then seemingly from nowhere “ideas and feelings self-organise into insights”.

The benefits and experience of coaching are increased and intensified through intentional preparation and reflection. Committing to steps or actions between sessions maintains your focus and promotes active inquiry and forming of new habits and capacities.

Regularly write or visualise what you commit to practice, explore or do. Make this as specific as possible. Think about the hurdles or edges and resistances that might hold you back. Consider what help or resources you might need. And get clear about how you’ll hold yourself to account?

Actions is important, after all “being” is not much use unaccompanied by “doing”. Let the direction of your coaching though be determined by your Manifesto (the possibility you dreamt of), and let the path followed be from the Internal and the External, the Curriculum and the Project.

Getting going

Take some time to reflect on your Manifesto and to develop your thinking about this coaching programme. If you’re facing something that seems to hold a lot of complexity or confusion, then starting small, with modest ambition, is likely to offer less resistance and allow you to find some footholds to explore from. In these cases maybe first consider one small very clearly defined change: ‘if only one thing was improved as a result of our work together, what would it be?’.

I look forward to beginning with you

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Leadership and cloud transformation: It’s not complicated, it’s complex!

18/7/2019

Want to lead your organisation from a caterpillar to a big, beautiful butterfly?

Delighted to have been invited to share in Cloudreach's Cloudbusting podcast with Jeremy Ward, and my old friend and client Dave Chapman. In this episode (#21) we discuss how changing your leadership approach can help you navigate the pain points of transformation. Topics covered include the difference between complicated and complex, the Cynefin Framework, the benefits of sense-and-respond, and humbly audacious leadership.

You can listen here, or go to one of usual podcast apps or sites.

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The different paths and places on the journey of transformation

a more conscious practice of leadership

A Systemic Leadership Sherpa

Making Coaching Work

Determining the direction of travel

What got you here won't get you there

Integral change; Project and curriculum

Taking the mastery path

Practices for success

Getting going

Leadership and cloud transformation: It’s not complicated, it’s complex!

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