It’s been said by (maybe) Peter Drucker and (definitely) the Internet that culture eats strategy for breakfast. This quote’s truth is solid even if its pedigree is questionable. Our culture shapes us in ways that are profound and often invisible. When I look at how I talk, what I say, and how I express things …
Policies are meant to guide human behaviour and introduce constraints at a collective level and that means understanding how humans behave. On March 21st the Canadian province of Ontario (where I live) will no longer require people to wear masks while indoors. This is part of a growing trend toward the easing of COVID-related pandemic …
Staying safe is about understanding systems that affect our choices, not just individuals. We need to design systems better if we want real change to take place.
Our data collection efforts during a time of VUCA are impaired by not only our methods, but our sense of what is actually happening.
Evaluation is the longest four-letter word in the English language. Kidding aside, what is evaluation? Why should we all care? Evaluators are an existential bunch, which might surprise you. Evaluation is not a popular word with people. Too often it’s associated with things that are done to us not with us or for us or …
Our mental health and well-being affect our work above everything. Taking care of ourselves is not an option; it’s essential. Today is World Mental Health Day. Mental health and well-being is as important to innovation work as anything else. Our state of mind and that of our co-workers, colleagues, partners, and community affects our social …
Our ability to affect change in organizations and systems is based heavily on our assumptions about similarities and differences between people. Unpacking and testing these assumptions require methods and tools that can identify and distinguish these patterns in a manner that allows us to take advantage of diversity and commonalities, not be limited by them. …
In the first month of 2019 the United States saw more measles cases than it did in all of 2010. This disease of the past was once on its way to extinction (or deep hibernation) is now a current public health threat, which prompts us to think: how can our futuring better consider what we …
Change-making is the process of transformation and not to be confused with the transformed outcome that results from such a process. We confuse the two at our peril. “We are changing the world” is a rallying cry from many individuals and organizations working in social innovation and entrepreneurship which is both a truth and untruth at the …
Developmental evaluation is focused on real-time decision making for programs operating in complex, changing conditions, which can tax the attentional capacity of program staff and evaluators. Organizational mindfulness is a means of paying attention to what matters and building the capacity across the organization to better filter signals from noise. Mindfulness is a means of …
