I’m in Toronto this week doing a bit of training. With the Anima Leadership Institute, I’m offering a two-day training on Deep Democracy II: From Conflict and Collaboration. And on Monday, I’ll be speaking at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering’s Summer Leadership Institute on Tools and Techniques for High performance, Cross-Disciplinary Teams.

The case for collaboration doesn’t need to be made. It’s obvious that everything that needs to get done in an organization gets done through people working together. And to solve the pressing problems of today, we need cross-discipline collaboration. Complex problems stem from multiple causes, involve numerous stakeholders, and concern knowledge from across several disciplines. (more…)

On Friday we shipped off the binders – must have been at least 10 – to the Distance Education  and Training Council offices with our application for accreditation for the Process Work Institute. It’s been a grueling couple of months. Those close to me know the gory details, as does anyone who has worked on an immense project with inhuman workloads and impossible deadlines.   It’s madness, and it brings out the best and worst of people.

So this morning, for the first time in months, I have a clear desk (sort of) and time to look ahead at my next projects, and pick up some things that have been neglected in the process (eg, my blog!). In a few weeks I’ll be in Toronto again, invited by my friends Annahid and Shakil at the Anima Leadership Institute to offer a workshop, “From Conflict to Collaboration.” And following that, I’m lucky to be the guest presenter at the Summer Leadership Institute at the University of Toronto school of Applied Science and Engineering. I’ll be presenting a workshop called “Tools and Techniques for High Performance, Cross-Disciplinary Teams.” (more…)

I just got back from the Bay Area, where I coached a team from a major outdoor apparel and equipment company. This small, dynamic team is under a lot of pressure perform: they are tasked with introducing a new line of products and enter into a new market. And they don’t just want to hit their targets but exceed them. By and large they’re doing great, but they know they’re keeping an unsustainable pace: answering emails at midnight, staying in the office past 7 pm or getting in before 7 am to have uninterrupted time, and for everyone, precious time with friends, partners, kids, working out falling by the wayside.

For many high achievers, the personal cost of such a workload is more easily tolerated than its cost to teamwork. The overwhelming amount of email, the constant interruptions, integrating new team members, the rush to deadlines, rapidly changing directives, uncertainty about roles and responsibilities, create massive amounts of rework and really affect team work.

This is the place where people start to talk about Work Life Balance. The term often launches a narrative of macro-solutions: flexible work hours, onsite daycare, more staff, time off, etc. But the pressures of the job are only partly to blame for work overload. How we do work is often a co-culprit to problem of work overload.

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A friend posted this great video clip of Viktor Frankl on Facebook. What an extraordinary man he was, and what a treat to see him in action.

Frankl’s analogy of learning to fly and how he learned to aim ‘north’ to arrive at his destination, reminded me of my high school yearbook quote. In the 70s, it was fashionable to put a quote underneath your photo. Most classmates had rock lyrics, like, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” but I was captivated by a line from a Robert Browning poem, “Ah, but a man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” (more…)

I spent the first week of January in Victoria, B.C., at a conference that brought together leaders from two very different sectors: social change agents and leaders in the personal development field. Our goal was to develop a framework for a personal development program to support social change agents and activists in their work. On that first evening there was a lot of goodwill, but just as much skepticism. I had my doubts that the personal development facilitators who represented very diverse models, could develop a common framework. Likewise, the social change agents had different social agendas and diverse political analyses. And between the two approaches to change, the personal and the political, was a lengthy, thorny relationship and strikingly different perspectives and worldviews.

And yet, in spite of these gaps in frameworks, language, and perspective, the conference was a great success. There was an astounding capacity to listen, learn, share ideas, and grapple with and find meaning in the differences that arose. Over the course of the four days, an appreciation of each othersâ?? knowledge and experience began to grow, and a sense of trust and teamwork organically emerged.

On the plane ride home, exhausted by happy, I began to wonder why it came together so well. And it dawned on me that this was not the first interdisciplinary and cross-modality project I’ve consulted on. In fact, the last four major projects I’ve worked on all involved extensive, interdisciplinary engagement. Was that a coincidence, I wondered, or is there something about interdisciplinary teamwork that appeals to me? This got me thinking more about interdisciplinary teamwork, and working with stakeholders across disciplines and industries. What kind of teamwork is needed? Is a different kind of teamwork required? What are the particular challenges and unique approaches needed to make interdisciplinary teamwork successful? (more…)

While it’s been quiet on the blog front, it’s been a storm of ideas, activities and projects in the back office, so to speak. I just arrived down in Yachats for my much anticipated and much needed end of year retreat, and I’ve got several projects I’m looking forward to spending time with. Here’s a little overview:

• I’m fascinated by Scott Miller’s work, His research into what works in psychotherapy raises a lot of questions about change and growth, specifically why and how do people change? It seems that rather than any one modality, there are a few ‘meta-therapeutic’ factors that account for efficacy in psychotherapy. Part of what prompts me to look at this more closely is my interest in the future of psychotherapy. Will psychotherapy endure as a profession, or will its ideas and methods become absorbed into the larger discourse of change and learning?
• Kids and leadership! For my work with the Dreamers, the 4th graders I’m sponsoring as part of the I Have a Dream Foundation, I’m starting a “Kids City Club.” Field trips to city hall, the police, local TV station are all part of a project on helping kids understand how the government works, and how the city runs. Part of this will also include learning about the local city council’s proposal to revitalize their neighborhood, and then making a presentation to the city council on what changes they’d like to see.
• Happy to see one of my favorite authors, Doris Kearns Goodwin, get such great publicity of late. Also happy to see how much history is referred to in current events. Just before the election, while traveling overseas, I read her book on FDR, Eleanor and the home front during the war: No Ordinary Time. Tremendous book, and like Team of Rivals, eerily relevant for the current economic crisis.
• Just one thing more on Team of Rivals. When reporters asked Obama how he would avoid having a “clash of rivals” rather than a “team of rivals,” he said he wanted “vigorous debate” as he was “a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions.” He cited the dangers of groupthink, where all data confirm the theories and ideas already agreed upon. I’m happy to see such a discussion on the front page about the value of and necessity for conflict.