newsletter

When talking to managers a new challenge increasingly enters the conversation: standard business and role accountability becomes a minefield where it intersects with diversity and race dynamics. Increased incidents of being held accountable, as well as the sensitizing effect of other opportunities for reflection, has the effect that managers are becoming steadily more aware of the reality …

THE COMPLEX INTERSECTION OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND DIVERSITY DYNAMICS AT WORK Read More »

Fear is an insidious phenomenon; it often starts out with a real and valid threat to the individual, group or organisation in events such as a major change in production requirements, a prolonged period of restructuring, or more currently, the country’s sovereign debt downgrade by Fitch and S&P to junk status. What is perplexing is …

CHECKING FOR THE PULSE OF ORGANISATIONAL FEAR Read More »

Following the Presencing Institute’s excellent Theory U course last week, I had some time to become a tourist in Berlin. Germany seems to be dealing with her past by holding it firmly in mind: a sign above a pub door proclaims ‘The Past is Over’. And indeed, one notices on both national and individual level …

LESSONS FROM BERLIN: WHAT IS BUSY ENDING FOR SOUTH AFRICA, AND WHAT IS WAITING TO BE BORN? Read More »

Business as we know it in South Africa is modelled on best business principles derived from Western culture and Western thinking.  An in important question is what kind of business solutions we will discover if we embrace principles from the East and Africa as well? The case study below offers one such example: Coaching was …

WHEN CULTURES COME TOGETHER; WHAT CAN LEADERS LEARN FROM EACH OTHER IN SA? Read More »

A manager in a large manufacturing company tells me that some people in his team does not respond well to acknowledgement. It is a case of give them the finger and they will take the whole hand. Thus, he feels he hardly dare acknowledge achievements for fear of the rewarded behaviour coming to an abrupt end. This is …

ENHANCED PRODUCTIVITY: THE CARROT OR THE STICK? OR IS THERE ANOTHER WAY TO UPSET THE APPLE CART? Read More »

To name 2015 a roller coaster year would not be amiss. Most of us witnessed or experienced disruptive occurrences on the international, national and personal front which rendered us feeling a little more vulnerable and a little less assertively confident than before. Beginning with SONA in February 2015, ending with the diplomatic tensions surrounding AGOA …

CELEBRATE THE BENEFITS OF UNCERTAINTY Read More »

In the last twenty years many individuals and companies have embarked on brave attempts at addressing diversity issues in the workplace and communities. More recently, unless there was a compelling diversity crisis demanding attention, many organizations have become reluctant to continue attending to diversity. Diversity has lost its flavour of the month status, and many …

THINKING ABOUT DIVERSITY: BELOW THE DIVERSITY EPIDERMIS WE FIND HEGEMONY Read More »