Dave Snowden:

Motivation and personal change is only a small part of creating a sustainable solution. Changing the interactions between people is both more effective in achieving change and more ethical; telling people what sort of people you think they should be is a paternalistic form of neo-colonialism. Without system changes, and continuous feedback loops nowt will change.

Spot on.

Much has been written about the future. Yet, for the most part, books about the world to come sound a harsh metallic note. These pages, by contrast, concern themselves with the ‘soft’ or human side of tomorrow. Moreover, they concern themselves with the steps by which we are likely to reach tomorrow.

Toffler had a huge influence on the work I do and continues to inspire my passion for building a better future.

Paul Stoller:

…The characteristics of communitas show it to be almost beyond strict definition, with almost endless variations. Communitas often appears unexpectedly. It has to do with a sense felt by a group of people when their life together takes on full meaning…Communitas can only be conveyed through stories…

Here Edie tapped into something extraordinarily significant: the power of narrative to connect writers to readers, the power of narrative, in the words of the psychologist Jerome Bruner, to construct realities — a narrative construction of a reality that is irreducible to formulae to or a set of abstract theoretical principles.

Via Karen Dietz.

Bruce Boyes shares some recent research into groups.

One piece that caught my eye was the research which suggests that “… it is better to focus on the communications process rather than group decisions.” In other words, it’s more important to concentrate on the way the team works, rather than what it is working on.

This aligns with my own view that process consultation is particularly suited to 21st century needs and conditions, and that the role of a consultant is often to help the group (or team) to help itself.

Whenever technology misbehaves, restarting it usually solves the problem. So, that’s what I’m doing with my site—I’m giving it a reboot! It’s been a long time since I blogged regularly. I’ve had a couple of goes at starting over, but didn’t get back into a routine. I’m hoping that a shiny new site and a writing workflow that involves less friction, makes it easier to keep going this time around. At the beginnin…  
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