This is part of a series of harvests from the Thrivable World Quest, a learning adventure across multiple cities to explore how organizations must be if humanity is to survive – and thrive. On the first “island” of the Thrivable World Quest, we explored the need for Heroic Cause in organizations. And one of the things […]
This is part of a series of harvests from the Thrivable World Quest – a learning adventure across multiple cities to explore how organizations must be if humanity is to survive – and thrive. With the Thrivable World Quest, we’ve embarked on a huge group treasure hunt across multiple cities to explore the conditions needed […]
Every time I speak to an MBA class about thrivability (as I did recently), it’s only a matter of time before someone asks: how do you measure it? For some reason, it’s only MBAs who ask this. As it happens, we hosted a Thrivability Montreal conversation about this question last year, with guest speaker Kristian […]
Stepping out of the train station in the center of Amsterdam, I was immediately struck by the way the city flows. “It’s orderly… but organic,” was the thought that came to mind. There are three times as many bicycles on the road as cars (three times!), and even more pedestrians. Then there are the busses […]
I heard a beautiful story recently – a true story set at the height of World War II during the devastating Siege of Leningrad, when the Germans blockaded and bombed the city for over two years. The story centers on the famed Hermitage Museum. To protect the museum’s vast collection of paintings, the curators and […]
I spoke last week at Webcom, a Montreal-based conference about “smart cities” – meaning, those that are connected, informed and creative thanks to digital technology. The message I shared was that cities are “smartest” when they operate in alignment with Nature’s core operating pattern, and that creating the conditions for life to thrive needs to […]
It’s funny how life works – or I should say: it’s funny how death works. I had a conversation about organizational hospicing with a friend last week Thursday and then the next day I was presented with an opportunity to practice hospicing in my own life. My sense in both of these experiences is that […]
5 hosts. 6 teams. 35 other cities participating. 48 hours to “rock the public sector.” Those were the key stats of GovJam Montreal, a global event in which local teams applied the tools of “service design” to conceive and develop viable projects that transform some aspect of public service (meaning: anything that our tax dollars […]
I had a wonderfully stimulating lunch conversation with new acquaintance Lise Palmer of Spark Consulting recently. She had the delightful ability to challenge everything I’m passionate about in a light, playful way so that we could both happily learn through the discussion. Specifically, she was (and generally remains) skeptical about “the universal applicability of the living […]
“You can’t plant a forest,” a friend said to me recently. He was speaking in general terms, saying: it’s a physical impossibility. After mentally wrestling with the concept for a moment, the phrase struck me with its deep, practical wisdom – and its vital implications for organizational leaders. But wait, you might be saying. What […]