General thoughts if you didn’t vote for the people who are now in charge of the professional political power structures that govern you, when it is also pretty clear they don’t care about how many people get harmed or killed in their pursuit of the economic- or power-grabbing interests of the privileged few: 1.…
It’s a really important time in Northern Ireland. It is now that we can refocus on the possibilities of politics as a hard-edged commitment to nurturing, inclusiveness, and openness. At a shallow level, Northern Irish politics has recently been driven into cul-de-sacs by certain members of an increasingly well-remunerated political class, who often seem to…
Here’s a link to a PDF of the presentation I gave at the Compassionate Care conference at Teeside University in April. The presentation develops on some of the points I made in earlier talks I gave in Toronto and Tasmania with regards to our attempts to practice kindness, compassion, and healing care in culturally unsustainable…
Self-care isn’t impossible in culturally unsustainable environments of enclosure (difficult, even toxic working environments), but it does tend to be rendered unlikely, unless you make ready, strengthen your sense of presence and resolve, and clarify what’s important to you before entering the arena. When all around you is swirling, it’s important that you don’t start swirling…
Draft, please only cite the published version in the May 2015 edition of the International Practice Development Journal (www.fons.org) when it comes out. Last September I presented a keynote on healthcare and culture change at a Practice Development conference in Toronto. On the day before I left I spent an entire day auditing a marathon six-hour session…
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,…
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…
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-2771317/Culture-change-Tesco-new-boss-Dave-Lewis-tells-staff.html “Tesco’s new chief executive Dave Lewis has written to staff telling them the culture needs to change after the firm admitted inflating its accounts by £250million. Lewis, who took the helm at Britain’s biggest grocer at the beginning of the month, sent an email, seen by the Mail, saying he wants ‘to work in…
http://www.business2community.com/leadership/can-keep-culture-strong-face-change-01023065 “How can you maintain your organization’s cultural norms in the face of new demands, like the pressure of market forces or your own internally generated growth? What if you need to be more nimble, flexible, or responsive to meet the nature and volume of market demand? And what if you can no longer rely…
The He(art) of Care: Changing the Cultural Climate Equation (full text)
This is the text of a keynote address for the Enhancing Practice 14 conference for Practice Development in Toronto in 2014. The audio recording of the talk is available here: http://soundcloud.com/dr-anthony-mccann/the-heart-of-care-changing-the-culture-change-equation. *** I’d like to thank Nadine and the organisers for the invitation to speak here today. If keynotes are anything…
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