Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don’t want to take. Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet, your own way of starting the conversation. Start with your own question, give up on other people’s questions, […]
In the Executive Leadership Retreat I facilitated last week, we paused to celebrate. This great team has been running hard for the past 18 months. And still the work didn’t feel done. (Hint: It never is done.) Yet they recognized the importance of celebration and how this pause helped them feel renewed even in the […]
It is hard to find anything friendly about the word “destruction.” Yet the fall gives us colorful reminders of destruction in the natural world. Leaves fall off trees and they do so marvelously, as if they were celebrating! I notice in organizations that there is a tendency to “pile on” projects, ideas, committees, goals—all great […]
“True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.” ~Eckhart Tolle Along the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Washington this summer I have observed herons—these graceful, slightly awkward birds. They have such a talent for stillness, for waiting patiently, for listening, for detecting the tiniest stirs in their environment. […]
In Horse Sense, Martha Beck reports on the profound experience of working with horses as coaches to better understand how we show up in relationship with others in our world. (See Horse Sense in the August, 2013 issue of O Magazine.) Horses are innately gifted teachers for us. “They communicate what they feel, straight up, […]
Walking to the field of your dreams is made lighter by letting go. What can you let go of ? Remember you are made of the stuff of stars! Take a breath. Inhale and fill your being with light. Notice the space around you, above you, and beneath you. Notice the space within your cells. […]
A few weeks ago I experienced being coached on my leadership capacity with the powerful assistance of a horse. My coach and guide for the day, Amanda Madorno, invited me to her farm to experience her equine facilitated coaching. Amanda began by asking me to choose which horse to work with. I could have chosen […]
Trust is the bandwidth of communication. – Karl Erik Sveiby Change, restructuring, and “re-org” are common buzz words these days. The rapid rate of change in organizations requires a nimbleness to regroup into a variety of teams and work groups that often transcend established reporting structures. This demands of team members an ability to become […]
In a recent team building workshop I led with a senior management team, I spontaneously introduced an activity which I called, “conference room aikido.” Participants paired up, stood face to face, and reached across to lightly touch the tips of their partner’s index fingers with their own. Eyes closed, they experimented with leading and following […]
On a recent snowshoeing hike at Mt. Rainier National Park with my colleague, Jeff Carter, a Naturalist and Leadership Facilitator, I learned that the lines in a tree trunk form a spiral going around the tree. The lines at the bottom of the trunk, nearest the earth, are closer together in the spiral. As my […]