The Obvious?

My 83 year old Dad driving me around Wiltshire earlier today.

This wonderful passage is from Jeff Arnold’s The Deepest Acceptance which I happened to finish reading today. While it refers to his own father, sitting eating breakfast, and doesn’t equate exactly to my own Dad belting around the countryside in his sports car, it was too poignant, and I think universally relevant, not to share.

“Beyond the roles; beyond the “father” story, the “son” story; beyond the concepts of how a father should behave, what he should and shouldn’t be able to give his son; beyond the conditioned ideas of what a son should expect from his father; beyond our history, we really met. Past and future were stripped away, and all we had together was now. This was the only moment. How precious it was – and how precious he was, how fragile, how mysterious. How fascinating he was too. I saw the wrinkles on his hands, the lines on his face, the little bit of saliva dribbling down his cheek. His hands trembled a little as he lifted the spoon to his mouth. His fine, white hair stood up a little in the back. His breathing was a little raspy.It was almost like being in love. He was a work of art.

Stripped of the story – the story of expectations, the story of what I needed him to be, the story of how he had or hadn’t been the father I needed, wanted, expected, or had been promised – how innocent he was. I had made him guilty by expecting so much from him, by seeking from him something he could never give. I had placed a burden on his shoulders – the burden of being “father,” the burden of being the one to complete “Son.” In my seeking, in my search for home, in my need to hold up an image of myself as “Son,” I had held him up as “father,” with all the expectations that word brought. We had never truly met each other.

But he could never live up to my image of “father,” the image that had been programmed into me. Nobody can live up to an image. In comparison with this “father” image, he would always be imperfect. He would be too this or too that – too emotionally withdrawn, too concerned with money, too closed minded, too unspiritual. Too involved in my life or not involved enough. Too father or not father enough.

But without the image, there was an undeniable perfection here. He wasn’t too this or too that. He was just as he was, in this moment. And nothing else was possible but this moment.

It was bittersweet, this meeting. It was intimate and beautiful, but it was also a kind of loss. A loss of the roles, of “father” and of “son.” A loss of the past and the future. A loss of time itself. And all that was left was a timeless love with no name, both radically impersonal and intimately personal at the same time. Words will never even begin to capture it, this mystery at the heart of the most ordinary of things – the mystery of a man eating cornflakes at the breakfast table. It’s enough to break your heart, over and over again for the rest of your life.”

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The Obvious?

While working in Riga and Corby last year, and walking round the large housing estates in both places, I found myself wondering what on earth we are going to do with the large numbers of people who used to be employed in industry and increasingly find themselves not only without jobs but without any real means of finding gainful employment. They can’t all blog, network, and become entrepreneurial!

In the long run I can easily see our current system dominated by large multinational corporations collapsing under the weight of its own disfunction and being replaced by smaller, more local, more networked ways of providing value and trading – but this transition is not going to happen in a hurry and is going to cause a lot of pain as it happens.

This post from Stowe Boyd points to some really interesting thinking on this issue. It also extends the problem from manual workers to “knowledge workers” as robots and automation replace many of the jobs that we currently educate our kids to fulfil.

Stowe includes this quote from Paul Krugman

So should workers simply be prepared to acquire new skills? The woolworkers of 18th-century Leeds addressed this issue back in 1786: “Who will maintain our families, whilst we undertake the arduous task” of learning a new trade? Also, they asked, what will happen if the new trade, in turn, gets devalued by further technological advance?

And the modern counterparts of those woolworkers might well ask further, what will happen to us if, like so many students, we go deep into debt to acquire the skills we’re told we need, only to learn that the economy no longer wants those skills?

Education, then, is no longer the answer to rising inequality, if it ever was (which I doubt).

So what is the answer? If the picture I’ve drawn is at all right, the only way we could have anything resembling a middle-class society — a society in which ordinary citizens have a reasonable assurance of maintaining a decent life as long as they work hard and play by the rules — would be by having a strong social safety net, one that guarantees not just health care but a minimum income, too. And with an ever-rising share of income going to capital rather than labor, that safety net would have to be paid for to an important extent via taxes on profits and/or investment income.

I can already hear conservatives shouting about the evils of “redistribution.” But what, exactly, would they propose instead?

Paul Krugman in Robots and Robber Barons

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The Obvious?

Slowing things down, even the bad things, allows us to truly experience them, to be truly alive to the moment – every moment. We only have so many of them available to us so we ought to do our best to really experience them.

Even the discomfort I often feel when typing can be an example of this. I tend to bash on, trying to type faster than I actually can. I get frustrated at the many mistakes I make and spend a lot of unnecessary time and effort going back and correcting slips. But recently I have begun to slow down and notice my typing more, allowing myself that microsecond of awareness, giving myself the chance to notice which key I am about to press and then, most importantly, not getting frustrated or irritated when I miss a key. I notice it. I notice my fleeting irritation. I notice the tension. I notice that that irritation is briefly my focus rather than the typing and that this makes me more likely to make the next mistake. Staying calm keeps me in the moment. It helps me make less mistakes.

Maybe the same could be true of the rest of my life…

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Selbsverständlich! (german: obvious)

Research shows group members equate creativity with conformity.

Creativity is a much coveted asset for a very simple reason: an idea that transcends orthodoxy has the power to bring wealth, fame and status. Commercial, scientific, educational and artistic organisations, therefore, often talk about how they want to foster creativity.

Unfortunately groups only rarely foment great ideas because people in them are powerfully shaped by group norms: the unwritten rules which describe how individuals in a group ‘are’ and how they ‘ought’ to behave. Norms influence what people believe is right and wrong just as surely as real laws, but with none of the permanence or transparency of written regulations.

The enemy of creativity

These unwritten rules or ‘groups norms’ flow almost imperceptibly from one person to the next so that changes are difficult to spot unless they are carefully measured. A classic psychological study on group norms randomly allocated new university students to either conservative sororities or more liberal dormitories (Siegel & Siegel, 1957). Over time students assigned to the liberal dormitories became less conservative as the group’s norms seeped into their consciousness.

Not only do norms spread like wildfire, groups don’t even need to be that well-established, people will conform to others with only the slightest encouragement. In another classic social psychology study people thrown into a group of strangers denied their own senses to increase their conformity with others. When simply judging the length of a line, participants happily went along with the group despite clear evidence from their eyes that the group was wrong.

Thinking inside the box

The purpose of norms is to provide a stable and predictable social world, to regulate our behaviour with each other. In many respects norms have a beneficial effect, bolstering society’s foundations and keeping it from falling into chaos. On the other hand stability and predictability are enemies of the creative process.

When groups are asked to think creatively the reason they frequently fail is because implicit norms constrain them in the most explicit ways. This is clearly demonstrated in a recent study carried out by Adarves-Yorno et al. (2006). They asked two groups of participants to create posters and subtly gave each group a norm about either using more words on the poster or more images.

Afterwards when they judged each others’ work, participants equated creativity with following the group norm; the ‘words’ group rated posters with more words as more creative and the ‘images’ group rated posters with more images as more creative. The unwritten rules of the group, therefore, determined what its members considered creative. In effect groups had redefined creativity as conformity.

In another part of the same experiment these results were reversed when people’s individuality rather than their group membership was emphasised. Creativity became all about being different from others and being inconsistent with group norms. When freed from the almost invisible shackles of the group, then, people suddenly remembered the dictionary definition of creativity: to transcend the orthodox.

Camels are horses designed by committee

So of course schools kill creativity, of course politicians are fighting over the middle ground, of course most TV programmes are the same and of course all our high streets are identical. People are social animals who work in groups and, especially with the advance of globalisation, the number of groups that govern or control our world has shrunk. These groups naturally kill creativity, or at least redefine it as conformity.

Creativity within groups isn’t impossible, though, it’s just that it has to fight all the harder to get out. Coming up with something truly new often means having to steer a path away from the herd, towards new horizons.

So if you really covet creativity, then there’s one rule you’d be well advised to follow: go it alone.

via Why Group Norms Kill Creativity « PsyBlog.

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Want to impress your senior management?

Then you need to learn how to fight – and no this has nothing to do with white collar boxing or blue collar cagefights, – arguments happen and promotion lies ahead for those who can effectively ‘fight professionally’. Confrontation and conflict are the modern way of testing and challenging everything in the fast moving world we live in. For some it is the only avenue available to get things done or changed. Conflict and confrontation are here to stay. True conflict control is the use of influence and critical skills to gain control in a situation rather than manage the situation itself. Conflict – in most business contexts – entails a clash of emotions, expectations, hopes dreams and agendas, and is often hidden behind an elusive nominalization called “a situation” or “an issue”.

The solution is to control it effectively – one insider secret relies on a concept borrowed from boxing and other martial arts – namely sparring. In a ring the aim of sparring is for both parties to improve their skill without the express need to determine a winner. I am glad to see that even the grand master of networking Keith Ferazzi advocates this as a technique.

First, please bear with me while I set the scene.

The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald made his famous observation in his 1936 essay “The Crack-Up”, about the test of a first-rate mind – he stated that “an intelligent person should be capable of holding two opposing ideas in his head and still function.”

Although the precise form or sparring varies, it is essentially relatively ‘free-form’ fighting (so is workplace sparring), with enough rules, customs, or agreements to make injury unlikely. By extension, argumentative debate is sometimes called “verbal sparring”. As in all disciplines the physical nature of sparring naturally varies with the nature of the skills it is intended to develop; the organization of sparring matches also varies, if the participants know each other well and are friendly, it may be sufficient for them to simply play, without rules, referee, or timer. If the sparring is between strangers, there is some emotional tension, or the sparring is being evaluated, it may be appropriate to introduce formal rules and have an experienced supervisor or referee in attendance. Sparring is normally distinct from competition, the goal of sparring normally being the education of the participants, while a competition seeks to determine a winner.

Workplace sparring focuses around a central premise or set of principles: non-violence (anything else would be bullying) and frankness. Clear impersonal honest, frank observations delivered whether you want to hear it, or whether you don’t.

“A good listener tries to understand what the other person is saying. In the end he may disagree sharply, but because he disagrees, he wants to know exactly what it is he is disagreeing with.“ – Kenneth A. Wells

People who are objectively frank and able to spar without bringing emotional baggage to the issue get promoted faster period!

Here’s why:

• Frankness inspires integrative thinking – namely the ability to constructively face the stress of opposing scenarios and, instead of simply choosing one path at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new model which contains elements of the opposing models but is superior to each.
• Creativity and Innovation – tough frank exchanges between people will trigger an integrative reaction – these people generate entirely new insights, new ideas, and new approaches.
• Being frank demonstrates to your superiors are that you are in turn superior on four key points: you take a broader view of what’s relevant to the decision – you explore what and how elements relate to each other – you observe the problem in all of its complexity rather than chunking and breaking it into parts – and you never allow unpleasant compromises or trade-offs to provide solutions. The beauty is that you always seek out a creative outcome – a new model that contains elements of the individual opposing models but is superior to each. This alone provides a platform for creative contribution, by not allowing a compromise (or backing-off completely) to masquerade as a resolution. Just knowing this critical skill, will make you disproportionately able to come up with breakthrough ways of doing things and you will get noticed.
• Silence when issues are at hand is seen by most management as a cowardly form of denial.
• Better risk assessment. Most people who back away and avoid “saying it like it is”, as a misguided exercise in ‘career protection’ are not held aside for promotion because they are seen to be not risk averse but risk avoidant they not promoted because they are non-participants! Being frank demonstrates the capacity to asses risks, preparing you to solve problems collaboratively and demonstrates a high level of emotional stability (EQ).
• Getting things done: Workplace sparring denotes a sense of commitment where frankness and candour combine and drive your efforts to manage change through growth, creativity and constant improvement.
• Frankness when done properly shows up as a more considerate and joined-up work environment – candour and frankness by definition blows the chances of success for the mediocrity-driven approach which thrives on and through “jobsworth” office politics, working to rule, backstabbing, sniping and email flames.

Things to know about the workplace ‘ring’

Fighting is dangerous, and sparring can be dangerous. Frankness, irrespective of how its is delivered, and no matter how much care and respect is applied or taken into account, can and certainly will push people’s buttons. That’s a fact – so you need to get used to it and you need some basic checks.

There is one overriding check that must apply at all times – safety – before you speak and before you answer: Are you being truly frank objective and candid in your observations, expectations or requirements, and is it safe to proceed? First – check your own emotional state and ensure that the environment is safe. Insensitive candour and frankness without due consideration and care for the other party is insensitive and stupid – tantamount to bullying and coercion.

Understand its only information you are dealing with and make it clear by saying something along the lines of “Before I jump to conclusions . . . . This is the information I have. . . . . . that leads me to this observation . . . .” State that you expect them to be the owner of the input, the solution, and the outcome(s). State clearly that your comment is only data or information – they have full right to decide how to respond and when.

No leading questions, only ask clean questions and distill or contest ideas by asking questions. This allows flaws and missing data to arise for discussion without anyone getting defensive. Stepping through the thought processes that lead up to or represents the flaws is key to integrative reasoning. The beauty is that you always seek out a creative outcome – a new model that contains elements of the individual opposing models but is superior to each – expect new insights while you get to avoid ego-trips or victim mode.

Frankness and sparring can get heated, even aggressive, and sometimes you will need to express yourself more bluntly than usual if you wish to overcome that bugbear human condition called ‘denial’ – sparring by definition is about not pulling any punches – someone will be required to defend against a sparring move and it may hurt the recipient a bit, because sometimes you need to make sure your point is genuinely heard. Should you get frustrated make it very clear you are getting annoyed not because of a difference in opinion but because an important point is being deliberately ignored.

Forget all that crap about Active Listening. Paraphrasing may work on some people but anyone with an iota of an analytical mind will soon become very irritated at being paraphrased, simply (sic) to confirm what they already know they have just said – but with someone else’s spin on it! Anybody who has argued with a polarity responder knows that unless you play their ‘exact words’ back to confirm what they are saying a you will end up at cross purposes. Folks – it’s ALL about engaged listening.

First, be human, give the person a genuine smile. A smile says, “I’m approachable”. Maintain a reasonable balance of eye contact. Unless you are Tim Roth in a ‘lie to me’ episode – know this:- If you maintain an unblinking stare 100 percent of the time, that qualifies as leering – and it’s just plain scary in my experience! If you display eye contact less than 65-75 percent of the time, you’ll seem disinterested and rude. Somewhere in between is the balance you’re looking for – I always look for signs of compassion, happiness or sadness in other people’s eyes. Laughter lines and wrinkles are especially interesting things to admire in the other person. Find something to admire in another persons eyes and they will feel like they are the most important person in your world!

Unfold your arms and relax. Crossing your arms can make you appear defensive or closed. It also signals tension. Relax! – people will pick up on your body energy and react accordingly. Nod your head and lean inward, but without invading the other person’s space. You just want to show that you’re engaged and interested. The engaged listening method helps to diffuse any volatility and keeps things process focused.

If you are not confident in your ability to be frank and open and if you are unsure as to how you will respond to candid feedback or observations then PRACTICE!!!! Practice on that difficult shopkeeper, ticket inspector maybe some of your friends. Get used to the idea of frank, no holds barred candid conversation – and to help you to get over defensiveness when people give you feedback – say to yourself – “this is information – I’ll determine the threat level later”. Once you can do this with ‘friends and family’, then move on, take on your colleagues managers and reports.

When issues arise, in some really unpleasant companies people will withdraw into a cowardly form of denial called silence. Most companies will pay lip service to the problems, at least to the authorities, but the underlying situation still exists. However, enlightened companies encourage everyone to assess the value and address the confrontation, up-front and up-to-the-moment. And they will resolve the problem. Doing this consistently, takes skills and maturity.

Point them to this link.

Be sensible and be sensitive – otherwise you might really get thumped! Do this right and your arguments will almost certainly take to up to the next level.

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Everyone talks about being ‘sustainable’ but what exactly does that mean when it comes to team engagement?

Simple – treat your staff and people like valuable human beings – your social capital is important as society adjusts to a new generation of younger thinkers. These younger thinkers are in a position where they will soon work out that they don’t really need stability formerly know as “a real job”, they already know that they can provide value, that means they can live off the land . . . . er . . . world that the baby-boomer built.

To be truly sustainable people will in some casesneed to wait for the dinosaurs of an archaic pre-baby-boomer industrial age to retire or die out. The platform for sustainability is already around us – the baby boomers built it – the new generation knows exactly how to make sustainability work – they are building for tomorrow and doing right to others.

The secret rests in applying the “Golden Rule”.

Adding Value is starting to become another phrase that’s been hijacked by the bandwagon brigade. How should a business avoid being labeled as ‘oh another one’ when it starts to talk about its own adding value?

Value is possibly on of the most worn-out terms in the corporate buzz word book: Today much of which is accorded value is an fantasy (think financial markets – value is not solid – it’s all about leverage – it’s made up – the King dollar and Queen pound are naked so to speak).

Before the iPhone every phone handset maker spent over 15 years claiming to “add value” to their phones (no-one really noticed) – yet all they really ended up doing was creating a market for “upgrading” – value in this context simply defined a process of profiting from obsolescence dressed up as wanna-have-a-new-one “inspired upgrades”. Joseph Schumpeter had a great term for innovation – he called it “creative destruction”. Innovation in the mobile handset industry was a delusion and it added very little true value – in contrast the Telco’s have created a Thick ‘n Deep world of value – they got the whole world communicating – even in some of the remotest places in Africa and South America – they made the world a friendlier and more accessible place that’s what I call “Thick ‘n Deep” Value. In contrast many Financial Advisors, Food producers and pharmaceutical companies claim they’re “adding value,” but mostly they’re just hyper-marketing – government and regulators tell us they are adding value – yet we fail to notice. If one fails to notice or one needs to analyse whether something is of true value – then the following assertion remains – it’s thin value.

The vast majority of companies today deliver superficial thin value. Thick ‘n Deep value is real, meaningful, and sustainable. It happens by making people authentically better off — not merely by adding more bells and whistles that your boss might like, but that cause customers to roll their eyes.

How to avoid the “oh another one” labeling, frankly that’s obviously easier said than done – I believe successful business needs to create not just thick value (a term coined byUmair Haque of Harvard Business School) but deep value as well.

“Thick ‘n Deep” Value is the key and can be tested by asking these questions.

Does it enrich the business?
Does it leave the people it serves sustainably and deeply enriched?
Does your customer trust you?
Does it make the world a better place.
Thin value is all about assertion. Now with “Thick ‘n Deep” Value you just know – deep down – you know that it’s good.

What about, those who think it’s just semantics? What about those who believe there is a thin line separating the two types of value? What about those who don’t know the difference? There is an answer ‘out there’ to those questions as well . . . . fire up your favourite browser – navigate to Wikipedia and search for the following word “extinction”.

We appear to be moving into the age of individuals wanting to make a difference. Why is this happening and is it something businesses should embrace or fear?

Why is this happening – those who equated human beings with industrial machines, those who applied depraved Cartesian reasoning to human capital and poisoned the very space they live in are why thing are changing! Those who misguidedly cite progress as the high road to some holy grail are soon to be buried and gone. The baby-boomers and their wonderful progeny Generation X and M, will embrace true capitalism one that embraces people, profit and planet.

Making a difference is the essence of “Thick ‘n Deep” Value – today wise people take the triple bottom line (3BL) and embrace it. If I may quote my friend Vinay Gupta the inventor of the Hexayurt – he sums it all up beautifully in the following statement:

“Triple Bottom Line asks that businesses justify themselves in three ways: natural capital, social capital and financial capital, [these] are the terms [of reference] for the three “bottom lines. These three are often shorthanded as planet, people and profit.”
Consider this – Africa is home to 70% of the ‘bottom billion’. It would be truly stupid to ignore 700million people, who amongst them are the potential producers of your food, and who become the affluent consumer countries and even venture capitalists of the future. It is possible that in our lifetime that Asia and Africa will be providing the some of metaphoric First World with handouts.

Fear is probably not an issue – the relics; the greedy ‘old school thinkers’ of the pre-baby-boomer industrial age are almost extinct – they are old now – they will soon die off.

Many motivational speakers keep telling us Its all about attitude, or positive mental thinking, whilst the politicians say we need to keep spending to get ourselves out of the recession. is this enough /right?

Motivational speakers want you to succeed (which is a good thing) it’s in their DNA and they are right in my opinion – it is truly about attitude, without high self esteem and positive mental attitude society would be listening to politicians (whom I might add are pretty short on leadership and good ideas right now) who are reacting to spin and rhetoric dressed up as public opinion. Politicians today act only on short term events. Politics is about power – and power is all about what you can control.

That’s about to change – society is far more open today. Young people think and act – some may think it’s because they are precocious – perhaps? They do know what is good and they know what is special and they care about people – and they know what freedom looks and feels like because the upcoming world, demands freedom, as it demands air to breathe; and you know what freedom is all about don’t you? Freedom is about what you can unleash – freedom is about “Thick ‘n Deep” value for humanity!

The politician telling to spend your way out of the recession is acting out a party ideology in a bid to stay in control – which ultimately means they are not civil servants and guardians anymore are they?

My money is on the motivational speaker.

Many companies are pulling in their belts and cutting costs in order to survive. Others are thriving and growing even if they are in the same industry. In your opinion What could be the main reasons for this difference?

If they are pulling in belts and cutting costs (that’s what people are, aren’t they costs) then there is probably a cesspool of thin value festering. If you have to pull in your belt for more than 12 months remember you aren’t a slave – you should really go somewhere more exciting – maybe join those who are thriving. Anyone?

Imagine this cutting costs parable. A restaurant that that cuts it’s costs on a 12.95 chicken meal worries me – because instead of “Thick ‘n Deep” chicken value you are getting the thin and cheap version for the same price as the “Thick ‘n Deep”.

Those that are thriving – oh – that’s easy they are delivering value, “Thick ‘n Deep” Value – you know . . . . the stuff that humanity needs.

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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
Economist Ernst Friedrich Schumacher

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The Obvious?

I had an interesting conversation with Francine Hardaway yesterday about radical transparency in the context of Google Glass. What are we willing to share, when, why, and with whom? I agreed with her that being more open about as much as we can as individuals and organisations is a good thing for all concerned. Whether it is the benefits of “writing ourselves into existence” or making ourselves and our organisations more accountable it is attractive as an ideal.

BUT

All of this is only OK if everyone is as open as everyone else! Yesterday’s fuss about the NSA collecting data opened many people’s eyes to the darker aspects of our new found technological ability to share. (Worth reading Mike Arrington’s take on this). The fact that they can be collecting data about me and extrapolating meaning from it without my awareness or ability to react is the problem. Asymmetric openness just doesn’t work.

We have to do whatever we can to ensure that our systems default to open rather than closed at every opportunity. From the looks of it neither business nor governments can be trusted to do this. This is why things like Doc Searls’s personal cloud, Dave Winer’s focus on open standards, the work of the EFF and so many other attempts to keep things as open and free from commercial or ideological influence matter.

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The Obvious?

The combination of the following have got me thinking hard:

• Conversations with Dave Snowden over the weekend about the spectrum between Fascism and Anarchism and the need for some sort of supportive patterns in between to help people make sense of their world without resorting to ideologies.
• Reading Post Democracy by Colin Crouch a brilliant look at the current state of democracy and its likely future.
• Harold Jarche’s recent post Social Business Needs Social Management

I keep reflecting back to the chapter in my book “The Ultimate In Democracy” in which I suggest that if global firms are testing nation states’ ability to control them, and if much of the population is giving up on conventional politics, why not allow more people inside the firm to exercise more influence. Now I am not naive, your average company is not going to tolerate management by committee on a huge scale, or some sort of workers cooperative, but equally people are eventually going to wake up and realise that they have had their ability to influence the world around them eroded.

If we don’t have the counterbalance to the rich and powerful that the working class used to represent when there was mass production, we do still need some way of keeping excess in check and finding mechanisms to achieve more equal distribution of influence than we have now.

Just having the Internet isn’t enough. Everyone having a voice isn’t enough. We need new and better collective stories to help us make sense of things and better able to sort the big problems that we all face.

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The Obvious?

This nice little blog post from Jamie Notter caught my eye the other day – It’s Good To Be Unsettled. In it he talks about working with a senior group on various strategy choices and one of the participans came up afterwards to say that he felt unsettled by the conversaiton. Notter then talks about life’s natural ups and downs and how having too much of the opposite of feeling unsettled is bad for us. We get complacent and stuck.

Over the years I have learned to appreciate feeling unsettled. It can be deeply unpleasant at the time – you feel dislocated, at sea, at risk and often alone. You could argue that as a freelancer life is always unsettled and it is true, compared to the apparent stability of a job, constantly needing to know where your next work is coming from can be challenging. But I wouldn’t go back. I love the opportunity that the odd period of feeling deeply unsettled, and I am in the middle of such a period now, gives me. It is when I think harder and work harder. It is when I get the chance to dig deep and discover things about myself – or remember what matters and make sure I am focussed on that.

I am aware that a lot of the people I work with feel unsettled about what is happening around them. Whether it is the web and the impact of social tools, or the volatility of organisational life, more of us face more turmoil and change than we might like. But this feeling isn’t likely to go away. We are not going to prevent life from forcing change on us. We need to learn ways to cope.

Feeling unsettled can be a good thing. Feeling settled isn’t always good for us. Life is less about having all of one or the other and more about keeping them in balance, making the most of each of them while they are happening, and getting better at managing the transitions.

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