Change myths This HBR post attempts to evaluate Obama's record on change management, based on a four step model. I'm instinctively wary of models and this one strikes me as typically trite and questionable. The first step is to "make the case...

Liminality Viv McWaters writes about liminality. When you’re asking me to change a particular behaviour (even if it’s for my own good, or for the well-being of others, or even the planet) you’re asking me to let go of something familiar...

Enough reinventing leadership, already The title of Bob Sutton's latest post makes lots of sense to me:Most claims of originality are testimony to ignorance and most claims of magic are testimony to hubris.I share his weariness of efforts to radically "reinvent leadership". ...

Management by being interested Euan Semple "Changing Innovation" (lift09 France EN) from Lift Conference on Vimeo. Euan has posted his talk from LIFT last year. Good stuff, including his mini-rant against the costs of pomposity. I wanted to highlight the last chunk, starting around...

Innovation and control Roland at NESTA writes about the problems faced by people in organisations responsible for open innovation.My colleague David Simoes-Brown likes to say that open innovation professionals are on the 'fringe of the fringe' of their organisations. By this he means...

Tangential creativity Quite a few people have pointed to John Naughton's article: Lasers would never have shone if Mandelson had been in charge. Naughton challenges the government's plans to restrict science funding to applicants that can show "demonstrable benefits to the economy,...

Order from chaos I've just read Matthew May's book, In Pursuit of Elegance. It's an easy, succinct read and contains some engaging ideas. There's a fascinating section looking at the work of Jackson Pollock. It's an intricate story which I'm shortening a little...

Wave Rider I've just been reading Harrison Owen's Wave Rider. He explores the notion that human systems are fundamentally self-organising, with some interesting implications for how we view formal organisations. He refers to the work of Stuart Kauffman, a biologist interested in...

Rules and control Quite a few people have been linking to Michael Pollan's Food Rules. I thought this idea from Laura Usher had relevance beyond food:Dont' create arbitrary rules for eating if their only purpose is to make you feel more in control...

Stress, creativity and confabulation Ok, here's another insight gleaned from Keith Sawyer's Group Genius. I've blogged before about Keith's ideas about the impact of time pressure on creativity, and I was intrigued by the research he himself did inside an organisation. He watched people...

Emerging from complexity I was indulging myself in reading some old posts here and found a couple relating to muddle and emergence. I reread my review of Patricia Shaw's Changing Conversations in Organisations.* Shaw does a great job of challenging the tidyness of...

The organisation? This image on the Delta7 blog made me laugh in recognition (as do many of the pictures there). ...

The big event and its pitfalls Chris Corrigan has a good post reflecting on the Copenhagen climate conference, and Big Event meetings in general.I have been thinking about this for a while, and the missed opportunity in Copenhagen combined with some other observations about over the...

Change and diversity Jack Ricchiuto has some thoughts on how change happens in networks....the possibility space for change opens up when we connect different people who can begin resonating together around shared stories, opportunities, and dreams. It’s a process of liberating people from...

Open Offers Nice post by Roland Harwood reflecting on Rob Poynton's Everything's An Offer. Rob relates that in improv you can see offers in three groups: Vague - I need help Open - I need help with my car, it won't start...