There are eight people in the team that I lead. Last summer it was feeling like we were flying around and hardly ever having time to reflect, time to work together and to plan our future. We were so busy in delivery mode that we had little time to see the bigger picture. Tentatively I … Read more
The team I work with had a fantastic workshop a couple of weeks ago with Margaret Wheatley. She was visiting the UK and whilst here she spent a day with us looking at how we build meaningful community. It was an inspiring day. One phrase has lingered with me long after the workshop: Edge Walkers … Read more
This is the first of a series on the people who have inspired me which I will be writing over the next few months. I hope you find it useful and look forward to your reactions. I can’t remember where I first came across the work of Michael Bungay Stanier. I suspect it was through … Read more
Throughout March the team has been involved in another outing for the Creative Learning work which I have mentioned before in this blog (go ahead, search for Creative Learning and you’ll find the other posts). We have had two days of workshops – four different techniques in total. These were delivered by a team of … Read more
Most weeks on Twitter, when it gets to Friday afternoon or early evening I post a string of tweets with the hash-tag #3bestthings. It’s the three best things that have happened that week. This idea developed as I was looking at ways to appreciate what is happening in my life. It’s too easy to become … Read more
The picture with this post is a fragment of a huge canvas produced by the team I work with from a project we did with the Manchester Camerata earlier this year. If you key in “Creative Learning” into the search box on this blog you will find a series of posts written over the last 18 months … Read more
Doing a PhD is a massive challenge regardless, but when it is carried out part-time the challenge is magnified as we try to fit the research and writing of the thesis in alongside a job, family and broader life. I did my PhD part-time between 1997 and 2004. Unlike full-time students there is little opportunity … Read more
One of the key principles of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) is that we can learn a lot by looking at how other people who are highly effective function and extracting from that study ideas which we can implement ourselves. This is a really helpful practise. But it can be difficult to do when we are … Read more
If you have been reading things I have been writing about here for the last few months, you will know that I have been leading a piece of work called the Creative Leadership Academy (CLA). We have been experimenting with the creative arts, looking at ways in which they can enhance the work we do … Read more
I wrote in earlier posts about the work we did last year as a team to develop a Creative Learning Academy approach. This included reading a book a month, a set of workshops and other activities. This helped to inform the developments in the Releasing Potential Programme which we are now running for R&D Managers … Read more