Mike Jones

“I’ve always had an interest in the role of leadership and in understanding how leadership and followership (and change) occur. A great question that was asked within one leadership workshop was, “What are you doing when you’re not leading?”. If not leading, are you choosing to actively follow? We lead and influence in all sorts of ways and in a whole variety of diverse situations, quite often without the nominated role or title of ‘Leader’. Each conversation and interaction is an opportunity to provide leadership and take responsibility. It strikes me that leadership is more often than not about subtleties, about asking questions as much as giving direction, about planting seeds, about being opportunistic, and about acting in the moment rather than having a rigid plan.

On the occasions when I have seen positive change occur, particularly within large organisations, it is impossible to point to just one thing that has created the shift. It is far more complex and dynamic. My view is that it is all about creating the conditions which give the best opportunity for change to occur. And, that this is predominantly about the quality of relationships, the climate of trust and cooperation - about the collective wisdom being evoked. It perhaps comes down to freedom and responsibility, spontaneity and a complex interplay of events, people and circumstances. It is never linear, timetabled and predictable - more like childbirth than clockwork!

How I see my own role (in terms of supporting organisational performance) also continues to evolve. At times I feel I want to be quite directive, that I have some ideas that I want to see implemented, that I want to challenge and provoke. At other times I’m more inclined to listen, to support and encourage, to go with the flow. Am I a consultant, or a facilitator, even an educator? Is my role to evoke, to help draw out, rather than teach? I guess it moves between all these and more. The role I want to play is that of a catalyst, of helping create new possibilities and for us all to exercise leadership in relation to those things we consider important.”

‘We need a mobilisation of individual imaginations and creative conversations..... A real conversation of equals'
David Whyte, Poet and Business Consultant

Paul Pivcevic

“I remember having a conversation with the head of the political division of an international NGO I was working with. “From my experience of this organisation”, I said, “I would have thought a division devoted to internal politics would be just as useful here as the one you have directed at politics outside. In fact it could make you far more effective”. I was really commenting about leadership, the way in which leadership in this NGO was being continually undermined. Looking back at that conversation now, I realise it was one of the prompts that set me on a ten year journey of learning and discovery. I wanted to explain more of myself to myself, and to understand why do organisations work the way they do?

Where I am now is in a place of trust. I trust that if I work at my own level of self-awareness, so I will also be able to facilitate this in my Clients. I am continually challenged by difference, always astonished by difference and diversity, and often find myself holding in groups the space for different perspectives to result in surprising insight and collective breakthrough.

At a fundamental level, my work is about supporting meaningful and productive purpose to emerge for groups, for teams and for organisations. I believe that it is through such purpose that people feel genuinely motivated to perform, to work on their professional relationships and to care about the impact our organisations have on our environment in its broadest sense. I once believed that arriving at such a purpose was simple. The key people in the organisation would need to agree the common values, mission and goals and away we go. Now, after many offsite events, after the laminating of many values statements to be sited on the walls of corporate reception I think differently.

In our interconnected and marvellously diverse world I believe the insights offered by complexity science provide a key. The mantra of connectivity (building open and creative relationships); diversity (genuinely being open to listen, to hear and to learn before making judgements); and turbulence (to be up for having one’s comfort zones rattled, as an individual or a whole organisation) I believe is as creative a path as exists to a meaningful and successful professional life.”

‘If you do not rest upon the good foundation of nature, you will labor with little honour and less profit. Those who take for their standard anyone but nature - the mistress of all masters - weary themselves in vain.’
Leonardo da Vinci

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