Evolutionary Provocateur

We talk a lot about agility: Leadership agility, organizational agility, and innovation. Yet unless there is an understanding of how to detect the underlying beliefs of the cultural 'immune' system, progressive successes can fail to be integrated. This month, Dawna speaks with Fred Simon, former project manager with the 1995 Ford Lincoln Continental project as they take a high level and in the trenches look at how this shows up in corporate life. Fred worked for the Ford Motor Company for thirty years, and was a founding member of the Society for Organizational Learning. He has collaborated with Dr. Peter Senge and the late W.Edwards Deming. Fred’s work in organizational learning is about developing more effective leadership, organizational alignment, empowerment and interdependency.

With increased stress in working environments combined with outside pressures to speed up performance, organizations have to reflect on this question in order to see where they are unintentionally blocking contribution. Anne Murray Allen is currently the Director for the Executive Development Center at Willamette University’s Atkinson Graduate School of Management. In this role Anne is responsible for developing non-degree certificate programs in business and public management essentials, sustainability, and industry-specific training. Her personal areas of interest and research are in understanding how healthy, performance-based organizations are built and sustained. These ‘social networks of collaboration’ are a key ingredient for organizations and communities to move into the future taking effective action in building a sustainable future. Anne retired from Hewlett-Packard Company in 2005, having served in a variety of management and executive positions over a 16 year period. These included leading com

Sometimes metaphors offer a wonderful way to see ourselves and how teams function from a new perspective. Developing the ability to contribute to the sound of performance is further strengthened when it is connected to your personal ability to shift quickly from one point of view to another or to use conflict as a source of creative expansion. Dawna talks to Dr. Brian Fraser, lead provocateur of JazzThink, a company which uses the workings and wisdom of jazz to provoke people to brilliant leadership and teamwork. Prior to his 2002 launch as a speaker, facilitator, leadership coach, and seminar leader, he was the dean of the Presbyterian college at the University of British Columbia and taught leadership and organizational development at Vancouver School of Theology.

The rational mind sees itself as our safety referee. Stray too far away from known familiarity and it cries foul and reins us back in so we can stay within the comfort zone. However, as the complexity of global and organizational problems increases so must our comfort with a different kind of safety: the kind where you can explore possibilities, experiment with radically different approaches and work with others as part of a collaborative and diverse team. That takes innovative learning. Jack Barnard, author, musician, speaking coach, performer, radio show broadcaster and founder of SourceWorks, which merges improvisation and theater techniques with personal growth and development speaks to us about how innovative learning can help us change our thinking so that we can get out of the perplexing conundrums that limit performance. After all, the thinking that got us into the situation we are in is definitely not the kind of thinking that will get us out.

Have you ever walked into an office and instantly felt comfortable – or completely the opposite? That "vibe" is all about energy – or rather, your sensitivity to that energy. The ways that energetic sensitivity affects corporate culture is the starting point for Dawna Jones' two-part discussion with Dr. Rollin McCraty from the the HeartMath Institute, whose research explores this intangible phenomenon. All working relationships with customers and colleagues start with you and your energy. And sales staff, teams, managers, executives are unknowingly creating a measurable electro-magnetic field that can be registered not only around you but also with a collective ‘energetic blueprint’ that characterizes company culture. In this first interview, Dawna explores how the mechanism works and how to make it work for you.

With companies cutting their creative talent to ‘survive’, the capacity and moment to shift to a higher level of leadership is being missed. Companies who live by living asset stewardship and the principles of nature have cultures that understand and see themselves as part of a living system. In this last of a series of interviews with Jay Bragdon, we look at South West Airlines culture as an example of an eco-risk company who has successfully organized themselves to be in alignment with stewardship in good times and in bad. While their example can be seen as an effective strategy none of the adaptations required can be done superficially. Join Dawna Jones and Jay Bragdon as they discuss what it takes to forge collectively a future with hope.

There is nothing like a crisis with money to bring out the capacity of the individual or the company to adapt. So how well positioned are companies who organize themselves and manage themselves around a core value for Life to finance themselves in tough economic times? In this third part of a four part interview with Jay Bragdon, author of Profit for Life, we explore this question along with why companies who manage by Living Asset Stewardship aren’t the ones running for bailouts; the benefits of seeing holistically when it comes to adapting to massive change and the signals that separate out a company ready to implode from one ready to grow through the crisis of the times. What sector is catatonic right now and what is the global impact of their behavior? Join Dawna Jones and Jay Bragdon to find out.

In the second part of their discussion about Living Asset Stewardship, Dawna Jones and Jay Bragdon examine some examples of companies that do things differently and whose goals encompass more than a narrow focus on the bottom line. As Jay explains, organisations that embrace the model of Living Asset Stewardship enjoy cultures that encourage learning and innovation – to the great benefit of all concerned.

Have we reached a point at which the total cost of industrial capitalism is outweighing its benefits? As the cost of bailing out the World's financial system reaches trillions of dollars, it is easy to argue that we have. Even if you don't accept this, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the world needs a new way of doing business, one that redefines the basic purposes and responsibilities of corporations and looks at far more than just the bottom line as a measure of success or failure. In the first in a series of podcasts, Dawna Jones talks to Jay Bragdon, an investment advisor for high net worth families, author of Profit for Life and an evangelist for a very different way of doing business.

Gen Y appears to mystify companies who are used to interpreting the world through a different way of thinking. This two-part series of interviews explores the creative and intuitive world of the co-founders of Opportunitas Aequa (www.oaprojects.org) who aren’t waiting until they retire to do what they love to do. In this interview, Gavin Hollet talks about what inspires him and how he finds working with senior executives. Gain insight into the value of seeing the world through different lenses and how we, as individuals and companies, play a role in the world and are a part of it at the same time – a more holistic perspective than the one inherited from industrial times.

Disengagement, stress-related illness, absenteeism indicate the repression of expression or where employees are leaving a piece of themselves at home. More and more are leaving corporate to create their own spaces for expressing their passion. Meet Mark Romero, a reformed corporaholic, who left a successful business career to pursue his passion for music. Through quantum physics he discovered his unique musical talent creates frequencies that reduces stress, aligns and harmonizes lives and living spaces. As we stand at the crossroads where science and spirit inform each other, stories like Mark’s help us see where and how many corporate ills come from unintentionally blocking creative talent. The answers to what seem like overly complex situations, can be phenomenally simple as long as there are open-minds, receptivity to learning and a willingness to co-create the future rather than feel victimized. Here is his story and how it can help you and your business

When we talk about organizations as living systems it has more of an esoteric ring than the capacity to deepen understanding of how to create workplaces where workers can bring their full potential. Dr. Bruce Lipton, cellular biologist, describes in delightful terms the parallels between innately intelligent cells and innately intelligent communities of employees who defer their unlimited potentiality to the mission of the corporation.

All the talk about heart-centered leadership is confronted by heavy reliance on rational and logical thought dismissing intuition and the heart’s intelligence as something in the ‘flaky’ department or as a fickle and undependable guide. Yet everyone has had an experience that they could not explain, a bit of serendipity, a hunch, a sense, a gut-feel. Successful entrepreneurs rely on it. If your intuition has not served you well, it is likely to be because you simply aren’t tuned in. In our interview with Dr. Rollin McCraty, research scientist with the Heart Math Institute, he reveals the results of a study that illuminates the role the heart plays in processing intuitive information and demystifies exactly how that information is conveyed. At a time when decision-making is increasingly complex, rapid, with either not enough or way too much information, his findings provide a framework for understanding how the gift of highly energy sensitive people and the occurrence of random flashes of ‘knowing’ creat

Everything is energy and people are no different. Talk about that in the workplace and most people think you have gone woo~woo on them. In reality, understanding the power of the human spirit helps understand how health is maintained, how balance is sustained and how innovation is supported. Personal spirit is measurable as the people at www.onesmartworld.com demonstrate through their inclusion of personal spirit as a primary determinant for personal, professional and organizational performance. Where once upon a time, the fuel source for performance was achieved through motivation, now it comes from empowered, inspired employees of all ages, gender and culture, who value meaningful work and who seek to have some sense of control over the quality of their lives and their sense of the future. This show explores the three basic components of personal spirit and how they show up in your working life.

Organizational cultures are like people, they have a masculine and feminine essence that reveals who there are and what habits they are attached to. This isn't about being male or female; it is about action and receptivity as a dynamic dance of awareness that applies equally to you personally. Tune in to gain insights into how awareness of that balance, or lack of it, impacts customer and employee retention and how, by developing personal skills, the culture can become more effective at accessing the tacit knowledge and know-how that sets them apart. Dawna loves to provoke the evolution and transformation of company cultures to become more 'fit', adaptable, flexible and innovative. Since the thinking that got us here is not the thinking that will get us out, she presents a different way of seeing and thinking about the everyday challenge of creating cultures and workplaces where employees can contribute their creative talent in unprecedented ways.

CEO’s and executives run at a phenomenal pace to make performance happen but what happens when you stop and listen to those who, through their social relationships and knowledge, create the results that executive performance is measured by? Dennis Sandow is a social biologist who has been conducting social action research for the last thirty years. After Dennis was introduced to Chilean biologist Dr Humberto Maturana in the mid-80s, began to apply biological principles to his research. His company, Reflexus, applies social action research to help companies improve social collaboration in widely dispersed social networks and understand how companies create social, biological and financial well-being. His research is focused on understanding the whole system and how well-being is generated. Where there is well-being; there is performance. Dennis is a brilliant listener who has the presence to shift awareness through his presence. As simple as this skill sounds, there is more to it than meets the eye. At t

The Evolutionary Provocateur bi-monthly show is for executives, managers, and supervisors (OR for leaders at all levels) who have noticed that it is not what you know but who you are that has the biggest impact. Dawna Jones, the show's host, believes that by raising awareness and understanding we can make a quantum leap to a new level of innovation in business - but it has to be done collectively. What better way to do it than by provoking the evolution of how you see yourself and your role!