Long distance runners worldwide know Bruce Fordyce. He's famous for winning the 89 kilometre (55 mile) Comrades Ultramarathon 8 times in a row, and nine times in total. He is quite simply a legendary athlete on the global stage. Yet he is creating a bigger legacy as a systems-inspired leader in South Africa, via the parkrun movement. Free parkruns are getting South Africans out into [...]
Last week it was brought home to me just how important constellations are as the language of humans in relationship. A group of relatively new South African systems coaching practitioners was meeting on Skype, coming from a variety of dimensions of our world – working in the cities and the townships, in companies and the public sector. What struck me was the way our [...]
We grew up in an era dominated by individualism and competition. These human traits have driven the accumulation of wealth, power and technological advancement and taken the world to a place where we stare into an abyss of global inequality and conflict. Many decisions are still being made on the assumption that it is human nature to be narrowly selfish. Yet a bigger picture, going [...]
My Dad was an optimist about business. When I was young and hotheaded, I remember explaining to him how wrong he was. And I still think business is not all sweetness and light. And yet, maybe thanks to Dad, I prick up my ears every time I hear a story about business that is generative and life-affirming. Here’s one: a business leader who identifies generosity [...]
I heard an investment ad this week saying "you only get 480 paycheques in the average lifetime - followed by 300 paydays with no paycheque." As if life is divided between a monolithic earning phase followed by an equally uninterrupted spending phase. What a crazy idea! This model is OVER and it is time to align our thinking and life planning for 21st century [...]
Reading Marc Simon Kahn's brilliant new book, Coaching on the Axis, I am struck by the crucial role of a systemic approach in business coaching. It is necessary to ensure that business coaching results in "the promotion of success at all levels of the organization by affecting the actions of those being coached." Backed by a strong theoretical foundation and his wide and deep professional [...]
This is a case study of team coaching in a 'virtual team' environment - where the coach and the team members are scattered around the globe and all calling in to a teleconference line. Some new skills are needed to work effectively in 'virtual teams.' We need to learn to work with people we never get to meet in the same room, build good relationships [...]
This is a combined text/audio posting based on a fascinating live interview with Faith Fuller, President and co-founder of CRR Global, Inc on the topic of Relationship Systems and South African Business. In keeping with our recent focus on global virtual teams, we held the interview via teleconference from Johannesburg to San Francisco, with interested colleagues and potential clients joining the conversation from around South Africa and France. [...]
It's 2012 and the era of the global virtual team is upon us. Whether we like it or not, more and more work teams are going to be global and virtual – i.e. made up of geographically separated members who still want to work together – because money and ecology say so (just look at what has happened to the oil price!), and the social [...]
Saying "No" can be hard. Yet without a good solid daily dose of "No", it becomes pretty meaningless to say "Yes." Too many yes's leave a person overloaded with so many promises that eventually they can't all be kept. Most people know this intellectually, but not all of us are as clear as we might be about when we say "no" and how we say it. [...]
