Bringing Mindfulness Ashore
Pride of Baltimore II
A traditional sailing ship is a sensual place, and that sensuality is what keeps us awake to what we’re doing, and happy in doing it. It’s the smell and feel of things that make work a pleasure, I say. To spend a day outdoors with rope and leather, pine tar, linseed oil, wax, wood and bear grease, to get it all over my clothes, on my face, bits of it in my pockets, that’s a day well spent.
To do that 75 feet above the water, working aloft on the rig of a sailing ship, standing on ropes and hanging from lines in a world of space and wind and movement, weaving the intricacies of pull and give that make a ship go, there’s nothing richer. Sailing ships have always been known for seduction, of course. Read more…
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Let the Flowers Take Charge – Part I
Alice worked in a company where her team had weekly all-team meetings. They were hellish occasions, thick with territoriality and blame, a regular weekly gut-shot to morale, creativity and effectiveness. They were also male-dominated and hierarchical, with an entrenched and fearful leadership. Alice, in a new position at the bottom of the ladder, hardly said anything, and what she did say was dismissed.
Alice really didn’t want to get sucked into this culture, which everyone else seemed resigned to as the norm, but she felt powerless to address it. To introduce some softness into this inhospitable environment, she began bringing small flower arrangements to put on her desk. Finally one week, she took her flowers and put them on the side table against the wall in the meeting room before people came in. Read more…
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Waking Up With Rocks
Magic Rocks
Prof. Eduard Franz Sekler, an old-world Austrian gentleman who is one of the patriarchs of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, had a magic rock. We didn’t know it was magic at first, but it turned out to be our Honourary Professor of Wakeful Perception.
Professor Sekler taught a seminar I took, which met in a small room, six of us around a table. At the start of class he would set his papers and notes on the table and put the rock on top of them. We could tell by the way he placed it each day that he was very fond of his rock. Though we didn’t pay much attention to it.
One day Prof. Sekler asked us to consider how design can influence the way we perceive the world. He picked up the rock and handed it around to us. We all held it, felt it, admired it. For the first time we really paid attention to it. Read more…
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Networking is a generosity practice
Order of Generosity
The best networking communities have a sense of wealth and generosity. By offering something of value to our colleagues we foster a culture of giving that makes our whole business environment richer and richer.
At a recent networking gathering at Fred’s in Halifax, hosted by Mingle magazine (“Bringing businesses together”), I was offered an invitation to speak about leadership to a local business group. I hadn’t asked for it, someone just offered. I went to Fred’s with a colleague, the sport psychologist and executive coach Colin Guthrie, and he was offered an invitation to be introduced at a prestigious private club. He hadn’t asked for it either. Someone just said, “That’s where you’ll find the people you should be talking to.” Read more…
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