I'm writing this from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where the schools have been closed for at least three weeks and almost everyone is working from home. Only the most vital functions in society are still fully operational: people in healthcare, educators, law enforcement, fire brigades, government, etc. I'm sure most of you across the globe are experiencing something similar or will soon. We can still go outside on the streets here and when you do, you see a new kind of society. I see parents with their kids playing, educating, and shopping. The rat race has come to a full stop. Everyone nods at each other in mutual understanding. I wondered: can you imagine when society stays like this, what it would feel like? Of course, we have to beat that virus (it's horrible, no question about that), but can you imagine a society in which the truly important functions are really valued for what they do? Can you imagine a society in which the rest of us are just taking a step back and have come to terms with 'less'?
Read MoreThe past six months or so, I’ve been working with a client on the preparation for an immersive session with their global leadership team. They would like to change some behaviors of their team to become more adaptive to change. In their traditionally risk-averse environment, one of the key things they want to work on is dealing with failure. Up until now, failure is not an option in this organization. There is a fear of failure that is almost coded in their DNA. So the question arises: how do you change this attitude and create a culture that accepts failure as an opportunity to grow?
Read MoreA famous quote from Confucius reads: “the man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life.” I’ve always liked that quote, but I think there’s even more to a question than just getting smarter.
Read MoreThe other week I was asked to talk about collaboration at a company with a group of architects. They were trying to cross the boundaries of their silo’ed departments more often in an attempt to become more innovative. They’d tried many things but none of them really stuck.
Read MoreWhen I was in junior high one of my teachers taught me to ‘never say what you don’t want to do’, because subconsciously you can not deal with that. Apparently it will plant a seed in your head leading you to do exactly what you didn’t want to do. In Dutch (and I don’t know if it translates well into English) we use the metaphor of ‘pink elephants’ to illustrate this. When you say to someone: don’t think of a pink elephant, a pink elephant will immediately jump into your mind.
Read MoreAs a member of the Community For Change it has become a regular practice for me to reflect on my own experiences in the realm of change, to better understand what I’m doing and learn from it. So, a couple of weeks ago when I was witnessing a meeting of a company with their top managers, the COO opened his talk with the question: “who of you knows what our mission statement is?” Nobody was able to reproduce the words the organization had so delicately formulated. The atmosphere in the room changed immediately: everyone felt they had failed and that they were doing a terrible job in making the company even more successful.
Read More