It’s my first week of ‘social confinement’. As I look over my laptop screen towards the end of my garden, I am reminded that Eric Berne (1966) once wrote that “Most people become uneasy when they are faced with periods of unstructured time”. How many of us are now find our lives unstructured, or even…
As COVID-19 continues to spread uncertainty across the world, the health and safety of our clients, participants, employees and suppliers is our number one priority. We wanted to share some of the steps Roffey Park Institute is taking to support you over the coming few weeks. We’re going virtual and online for now We are…
In my last blog post, the second in this series of four, I began to look at the different types of learning that are involved in ultimately being able to ‘do’ Organisation Design well. I used what Maureen O’Hara and Graham Leicester offer as a frame for learning in 21st Century organisations and leadership, beginning with the first…
What leadership words come to mind when thinking about leadership? With the International Women’s Day just around the corner and voting underway in the Labour Party’s leadership contest, I couldn’t help but think again that although debated a lot, women and leadership is a relationship that we continue not to be able to square up.…
Leaders don’t always need to learn about leadership, sometimes they need to learn about themselves Transformational learning isn’t just the latest fad (it’s actually been around for over two decades), it is vital for leaders who have perhaps done several leadership development programmes, and actually know a lot about how to lead in complexity and…
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it…
Margaret Wheatley and Myron Rogers (1996)* once wrote that ‘organisation is always an expression of identity’. I happen to agree with this insight. The act of organising is an act of identity formation whether the particular form is that of a corporation, a social movement, or a sports club. And I think this holds true…
Collaboration with other people is one of the everyday activities in all organisations but not all collaborations are successful. We have all experienced or heard stories about groups of highly skilled people coming together to work on a project and failed. So, what’s required to make a collaboration a successful one? In search of an…
Not Altogether Foolish Leading, managing, designing and generally being part of organisations is, as we all know, a serious business. Organisations have duties of care, deliver peoples’ livelihoods, drive revenues, maintain health and safety, serve stakeholders, and much else besides. All serious stuff. But is there room in all this for a bit of foolishness?…
He keeps me awake all night worrying about the future, chiding me for my mistakes. Planning for my inevitable downfall. Noticing how bright and attractive everyone is and how I become insignificant in their presence. He pounces on any evidence that backs up his negative opinions of me and ignores any suggestion that he might be…
In my last blog post, I considered what actually learning about Organisation Design entails, and where to focus. I began by suggesting a number of principles that might usefully underpin your approach to learning about and how to ‘do’ Organisation Design, and in this post I am going to unpack what learning really means in…
Mental Health and well-being in UK organisations: managers are feeling the strain, and it’s getting tougher – Roffey Park Institute | We develop people who develop organisations Founded in 1946, Roffey Park Institute’s origins lie in improving the health and wellbeing of people at work. Since then health and wellbeing at work has grown in…
