The following talk was given at Peace House in Oxford on the 21st November, 2013, during a workshop on Gentleness, Trust, and Activism, as part of the Northumbria University project, “Effectiveness in Action: Exploring the role of the Durkheimian ‘sacred’ in motivating community action, using reflexive and gently disruptive co-research methodologies.” The talk covers a…
Operating as if the elimination of uncertainty is possible, plausible, and desirable is what drives the cancer of “enclosure” at the heart of organisational or institutional practice. Enclosure is the accelerative and intensifying process in play when good situations go bad and when bad situations get worse. When left unchallenged, enclosure spreads, it deepens, and it corrodes the core cultural supports of your organisation,…
Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla Uí Dhónaill (Ó Dónaill’s Irish-English Dictionary) garaíocht, f. (gs. ~a). Coll: Turns, favours, services. ~ a dhéanamh do dhuine, to do good turns for, be of service to, s.o. Bheith in áit na ~a, to be in a position to help. Ó tharla in áit na ~a thú, since you are in a…
From The Week – reward, value and rule-based approaches to organisational culture change … http://theweek.com/article/index/266863/how-to-improve-your-workplace-culture
http://www.ktvu.com/news/news/local/san-jose-state-looks-change-campus-cultural-climat/nfJRp/?__federated=1 “SAN JOSE, Calif. — The state assembly is now looking at the issues of tolerance, diversity and student safety, following a racially charged incident at San Jose State University last fall. …” (More)
David Abrams. 1996. The Spell of the Sensuous. New York: Vintage Books. Les Back. 2007. The Art of Listening. Oxford: Berg. Marc Ian Barasch. 2005. Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness. New York: Rodale. Bernard M. Bass. 1995. “Theory of Transformational Leadership Redux.” Leadership Quarterly 6(4), 463-478. Gregory Bateson. 1973. Steps to an Ecology…
Remember one of your healthiest and most helpful moments of relationship where you felt most comfortable, most welcome, most supported, and most generous within yourself. It may have been with other people. It may have been in the company of a favourite animal, or even in the company of a favourite object. You may even…
http://tribune.com.pk/story/769264/changing-village-culture/ “Cultures are one of the most powerful sources through which we get our values, develop social attitudes and embrace a world outlook. In many ways, our cultures define us, and mark our individuality and identity as a social group. Culture with a set of beliefs underpinning it may facilitate progress or keep a society backward.…
Cultural climate matters. There are lots of buzzwords in the consultancy wordpool at the moment – among them, employee engagement, employee cynicism, intrinsic motivation – but what it comes down to is that how a workplace feels, generally, makes a difference to how a person will feel, specifically, while working there. That sounds like a rather banal…
The most significant unhelpful changes in any environment aren’t usually heralded by drumrolls or the sound of trumpet fanfares. Although it would be terribly helpful if they were. Frog soup. It is widely reported that if you take a frog and drop it into a pot of boiling water it will immediately jump out of…