The ‘view from the balcony’ was recently offered as a perspective that could assist with the resolution of conflicted positions during negotiations. Further reflections on this theme are offered here. Types of Conflict Illustrating the diversity of matters we may find ourselves conflicted about, the partial typology below offers just five conflict types for each… Continue reading Combating Conflict: Negotiating Interests
Author: polgov1
Elevating perspectives
The view from a high (or higher) vantage point has long been linked with strategic thinking and action. While often used in a military context, there is also a long tradition of symbolically linking elevated positions with elevated thinking about much broader concerns. A selection of symbolic references to various ‘elevated perspectives’ is offered in… Continue reading Elevating perspectives
Fairness & Justice at Work & Beyond
My recent post on Good Change: Bad Change included a chart on organisational justice (reproduced below for convenience) which suggested only some of the aspects of justice that we need to consider as nonprofit leaders. This post picks up on that theme and uses another collection of charts to broaden our consideration of the many… Continue reading Fairness & Justice at Work & Beyond
Stacking and Chunking in Everything We Do
My previous post ‘Singing from the same song sheet‘, suggested that service blueprints and strategy execution plans could be likened to musical scores. In commenting on the structural similarities, the ‘stacking’ of singing parts in a choral arrangement was compared with the ‘stacking’ of strategic goals in a coordinated organisational strategy. In the broadest sense,… Continue reading Stacking and Chunking in Everything We Do
Singing from the same song sheet
The ‘organisation as orchestra‘ metaphor has long been used to evoke the concept of functionally arranged clusters of people harmonising in their delivery of a work program. In a recent presentation to a regional group of IML (Institute of Managers and Leaders) members, I used a choir metaphor for similar purposes. While singers in the… Continue reading Singing from the same song sheet
Agents, Proxies, & Servants – Agency Part 2
Agency Theory was highlighted in Part 1 of this two-part series, along with personal and organisational agency, but this offers only an economic perspective on how we use agency in governance and management. Across the fields of economics, psychology, sociology, law, and political science, five distinct agency theories can be identified – each with relevance… Continue reading Agents, Proxies, & Servants – Agency Part 2
Promoting Personal & Organisational Agency – Agency Part 1
In its simplest form, ‘agency‘ can be defined as the ability to take action. We refer to a person’s agency in terms of their capacity to influence the course of events that shape their lives. By extension, we describe organisational agency in terms of the collective capacity of its people and resources to effect changes… Continue reading Promoting Personal & Organisational Agency – Agency Part 1
Good Change: Bad Change
Selected change propositions Not all change is good.Whether a change is good or bad is both a moral and a practical judgment.Not all good change overcomes resistance.Successful change requires more than a good idea. Reflections related to these propositions are offered below as a catalyst for your own reflection on how change decisions are taken… Continue reading Good Change: Bad Change
Looking back or projecting forward
I was recently interviewed on Jeremy Irvine’s podcast ‘Dear 21 Year-old Me’, which employs the device of ‘Now and Then’ perspectives – and invites us to reflect on the question ‘What if I knew then what I know now?’ While I’m not comfortable with either self-aggrandizement or self-blaming, I have long been a staunch advocate… Continue reading Looking back or projecting forward
Tools and Their Users: plus parable
Various books and websites use a ‘toolkit’ metaphor to describe a collection of resources they offer to leaders and managers. This metaphor invites readers to think about the addition of new or more specialised tools helping expand one’s skills and abilities, and so being more productive and/or promotable. For some, the toolkit or toolbox metaphor… Continue reading Tools and Their Users: plus parable