I’m just now including under the section labeled “Magic”, my recent basic list of 133 topics, ideas, games, Executive Vignettes, video clips, etc. [click here]. For years I used this as starting point when generating the initial architecture of a Leadership Learning Forum. It’s not been updated in some years, but I will eventually make it so. I will start now to include a brief explanation of use, or potential place in a Forum Process of each. Like the numerous “posters” available on this site, these can be adapted or expanded to customize for a particular set of Forum participants, and actually reformatted into a different delivery media, i.e., from a list, to a game, to a breakout discussion, to an assigned presentation, etc.
Jun 14
This poster reflects a major focus of the 7th phase of my career…..a basic part of my current long range plan which covers the next 15 years of my expected life. As such it manifests the ongoing evolution of this website, which is now c. 17 years old. It started, and mostly has been archival, or historical, but lately has been shifted more to sharing & anticipating future uses, or needs, of the Leadership Learning Forum Process, including perspectives and wisdom from others, who’ve also been deeply positively impacted, by their experience in that process.
Likely, similar to much of the basic LLF process, this will be a divergent focus for me… i.e., a part of all the remaining years of my like.
Jun 08
The StrengthFinder profiling process is superb, one of the top two, in my opinion, of a dozen or so in wide use in corporate America. It focuses on 34 themes or talents, that are present, in various degrees in all of us, especially on your top set, usually five. We tend to use those, are most comfortable there…and are likely most personally successful, doing so. My top 6 are the same, both times I’ve done their full assessment. I’ve spent some time examining the remaining 28, picking 11 that I want engaged in my leadership process…..some listed lower, i.e., lessening my tendency to use them, and also raising some others’ ranking, in my perception, i.e., to more often be exhibited in my actions! Thus having settled on 17, one half of their set, I’ve now gone back to more fully understand my top 6, how they interact, and can be connected to the other 11 traits I’ve chosen to use to guide my thoughts/words/actions, and hopefully, results!
I’d be happy to share a learning dialogue with anyone else using Strengthfinder for their own growth and development
May 28
The daily SingularityHub is very worthwhile to peruse. Yes, even daily. On 5/26 there’s coverage of the progress/impact of 3D printing in the $10 trillion manufacturing business……currently can print in c. 300 different materials…full color….in mixed media…complexity and personalization come “for free”. Amazing, especially given that only a few years ago, for most of us 3D printing was altogether just a future idea. Look it up and ponder.
Disruptive in Big Health Care, Higher Education, and Finance too, I believe…..
May 16
As Spring on Cap Cod gains momentum – a delight after the winter we had – my focus on improving, expanding, & enriching my website continues its major new focus points . Maybe perhaps 6 months old. Maybe perhaps, I’ll be doing this as long as I’m able [ planning on 15 years more – that’s in my long range plan, current version]. Four major thrusts -1] providing a fast improving search function -2]arranging for your option of adding comments where you’d like – 3]making the whole site more anticipatory or future oriented, rather than just archival or historical and adding 4] photos with explanatory comments by me, for new LLF facilitators to ponder
I’m thinking this will be 6 more months of intense web building and additions. Then normal creativity for the rest of my years!!
May 02
A set of WSJ columnists shared their perceptions on this topic in the WSJ Weekend Edition 5-20 & 21-2015 in the WSJ Magazine, page 38. Their ideas/views are important for any facilitator attempting to bring about more than just what’s on the agenda.
Rayne Baron -“…all of a sudden you can’t control it anymore. You have to stand back and let it take on a life of its own”….
Reggie Watts – “…..is definitely about listening, literally listening to everything around you… to the ineffable, the intangible. Everything has its own vibrations”
Theresa Caputo – “…Negative vibes prevent us from seeing things. So I always say to everybody. ‘quiet your mind’ ”
All three points are very relevant to allowing the “Magic” to build in a Leadership Learning Forum, which is, in my opinion, the lead facilitator’s main responsibility. Get the full article to ponder and focus on the “Vibes” in your sessions. Or, that aren’t there, if not & perhaps how to engender them?!?
Apr 20
Very interesting having this trip right next to Costa Rica [ scroll down two entries to that trip]. New Orleans is much smaller than I knew…c. 35oK…maybe 125 k people, they say, didn’t come back after Katrina. There have been multiple hurricanes after Katrina. Their damage is still visible from various locations. Music, by seemingly random volunteer players, gathered for tips, here and there, were quite good. Very old buildings everywhere , but also lots of construction, and many ads selling the growth potential and current positive ranking of the city, A huge port. Famous restaurants. The food was excellent everywhere. You can drink on the street and in your car, if you’re not diving. People go to NOLA in large part, to drink and eat, it seems. It’s the city’s mantra. Many homeless. Many smokers. Many panhandlers with a direct approach to help you @ first. Excellent museums. Public transportation worked. Old fashioned “street cars” easy and quick to get around. A huge number of tourists, with families, lots of younger children up to, perhaps High School. Traffic looked impossible in the city. Very diverse and mixed cultural population. People friendly. Not in any hurry. Water [ Lake, Ocean,Miss. River] everywhere so fish/sea food is big. Many churches and of course cemeteries with all the vaults above ground. We went on several tours – a huge Steam Paddle Boat on the Miss. – a swamp/bayou air boat. History and tradition is as old as New England, or more so. It was the 4th largest city in the U.S., in 1900. Gave birth soon thereafter, to new energy and a long lived jazz age, which was everywhere. I always loved “Louie Armstrong style” music. A giant, spectacular WWII Museum, which is still growing, is there because of supplies delivered during that war effort. These last two aspects of NOLA were huge for me.
A very different trip for us. Especially juxtaposed to Costa Rica. Glad of that perspective.
Apr 01
Mar 03
Back. Tired. Happy to be home. Wonderful trip, for both of us. I knew so little about the place, other than it’s Rain and Cloud Forests….they abolished their Army in 1948, have something like 0.04% of the earth’s land mass, and something like 30.0% of the world’s total species of birds flowers, animals. plants! A multiple of 750x ???!!! The people are largely middle-class. 97 % literacy. Also very, very diverse heritage, and so is the terrain and climate. Rated 2nd happiest people in the world?? After Bhutan. Saw no homeless. Lots of Americans retire there, and get on their Health System which is very good and get a green card to work a little. Seventeen on the Smithsonian tour, all interesting ,very well travelled, highly accomplished people. Lots to ponder about why not else where!?!? Leadership history that unusual or successful??? Will study it more now!
Feb 02
I just returned from 2 weeks travel, helping two retainer clients bring their Leadership Learning Forums [LLF]to “commencement” – that word is used to imply both an ending and a beginning, again of the Forum Process. They will both continue the cycle. This trip, especially returning here to more snow than I’ve ever seen on the Cape [window sill high, on our deck from the kitchen sink outlook], prompts me to keep focusing on the LLF “Magic” sections [ password protected] on this website…a life long effort of mine now, in this my 7th career phase!!
Jan 10
This is a basic LLF process document [Post 237I-3] , recently reviewed & updated for several clients who are beginning to lead their own adaptation/customization, of my evolving LLF Process. Sixteen key decisions and 22 issues to shape or set in place.
Usually takes a lot of discussion, planning and counsel.
And it’s a continual process in order to maintain the “magic”
You’re welcome to connect to explore that ongoing effort.
Jan 01
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next years words await another voice”
T. S. Eliot American poet 1888-1965
So, yes, traditionally we set new resolutions, plans, and hopes….a clean slate so to speak…..one of up-looking, and within our grasp, most likely. The key part to me of T.S. Eliot’s quote is he use of the word “await”…connoting choice, i.e., action we can take….Thus the hope!!. I feel a surge of it for 2015 and send some along to you, if you’d like!
