Persistent, dramatic changes are taking place that influence our work, communities, and personal lives and understanding what it means to learn, respond, and succeed will take changes in how we evaluate it all. A key feature of change in a complex system is that once its shifted, it never goes back; there’s no ‘undoing’ what’s …
No matter what tools, methods, or approaches you take to create a change, time, care, and attention ultimately affect the outcome as much as anything else. When people ask about what is the one thing that most influence change efforts I offer not one, but three: time, care, and attention. Many things affect intentional change, …
The Three Variables Underlying Every Significant Change Project Read More »
It’s easy to say a lesson was learned and far more difficult to show it to be true. What can we do to best to learn from what’s happened to us and not allow often difficult, painful, hard-fought lessons to go unlearned? When the student is ready, the teacher will appear Unknown A lesson is …
A year-end, a new calendar, or a change of seasons bring fresh starts and times of renewal and reflection. It’s also a time for us to frame the usefulness of our past, our present, and future thinking for making positive change. In this post, we look at our relationship with time, planning, and strategy. New …
Time moves at the speed we perceive it and that affects how we design for how we experience it. If you’ve ever lost yourself in a project, wondered where the time went, or found yourself looking over at the clock and asking how it can possibly be only 15 minutes later, you know how time …
Design sprints are created for technical systems, not human ones. We need better research and attention to human-centred principles if we are to achieve the aims of rapid innovation in a responsible manner.
Thinking in ‘seasons’ allows us to see systems at play that are disguised in the every day. To every thing there is a season.- Ecclesiastes 3:1 When I first recalled this biblical quote, I remembered it as everything, not every thing. It’s a subtle, but profound difference and is noted in the song with the …
Seasons and the Sun: Seeing and Experiencing Change Read More »
In changing times its important to recognize both the words change and time if we want to understand systems. On a social and economic level we’ve never seen more transformation of everyday life come or affect systems as we have with the global COVID-19 pandemic. What it provides us is an opportunity to learn, contemplate, …
Thoughts of changing our world won’t yield much without examining our mental models. That means designing for how we think, not just what we think. When looking to generate some kind of major systems change — whether that’s your own life, that of your organizations’ , or social change — understanding the layers of activity …
Organizational transformation efforts from culture change to developmental evaluation all depend on one ingredient that is rarely discussed: time. How do we sit with this and avoid the trap of aspiring for greatness while failing to give it the time necessary to make change a reality? Toolkits are a big hit with those looking to create …
