Individual & team coaching and organisational development. My work helps you do yours better.
A few months ago, I discussed the basis of Gestalt theory and its practical applications in the workplace. A fundamental principle that underlies Gestalt is the holistic nature of humans, every part having an influence on and being influenced by another part. This means that each person needs to be viewed as a whole, and […]
I have discussed a number of different approaches to change management over the past few weeks. Today, I want to talk about an approach that to a certain extent turns traditional change management on its head. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is nothing complicated. In fact, it is as much a mindset as a management strategy. The […]
Over recent weeks, I have spent some time talking about gestalt psychology and its role in change management. One of the key lessons from the discussion was that humans have an instinctive and psychological aversion to anything that is perceived as “not right” or out of kilter. When changing times impact daily routine, some teams can […]
Last week, I discussed the concept of gestalt psychology and how it relates to change management from something of a theoretical perspective. With the theory in place, what I would like to do in this post is get down to some Gestalt techniques that can help you facilitate change in the corporate environment. Framing This […]
If you are involved in any kind of change management within your organisation, gestalt change management may be an approach you have stumbled across at one time or another. Gestalt theory suggests that as humans, we are constantly trying to create order and restore balance when something seems off-kilter. At its root, this stems from […]
Last time, I concluded with a couple of questions posed by leadership expert John O’Leary: “Are leadership and management fundamentally different roles in practice? Or do they simply require us to focus on different things?” O’Leary, drawing on 34 years of experience in multinational organisations, has begun to question whether there really are substantive differences […]
There are clear distinctions between Leadership and Management, aren’t there? We often hear statements like “managers do things right, but leaders do the right thing.” As a Gestalt practitioner, I’m interested in complicating the distinctions between categories like this, especially when they have become deadened by overused assumptions. In Gestalt psychology, the distinctions between what […]
Writing in the Harvard Business Review recently, chart designer Scott Berinato proffered a vivid example of the profoundly misleading influence that clever chart visuals can exert. In emails, engineers from the leading Japanese airbag manufacturer Takata allegedly changed the colours or lines in a graphic to “divert attention” from the actual details of test results […]
We live in an era of digitally produced charts laden with eye-catching, attention-drawing visualisations. Charts seem to speak louder and more persuasively than words, and there is little doubt that visual representations seem to appeal to a human desire for tidy simplicity in a sea of chaotic complexity. Charts can undoubtedly help us to understand […]
There is widespread agreement that the art of building effective teams involves being clear about collective and individual objectives. What happens to sustaining and building effective teams in times of anxiety-inducing change when mergers, new roles, new processes and redundancies are in the air? According to Roffey Park leadership consultant Catherine Shepherd, one thing emerges […]