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2012-06-27
Anna-Eva Lohe

Next Stop Istanbul – a visionary visit

After four days in Istanbul for work and pleasure I feel marinated with new impressions; colours, music, architecture, smells, sounds, and food – you name it! There is no way to hide from the attention that this city demands from you. Your senses are on the alert. At the same time, I notice a particular peace in the middle of it all. Interesting. A part of me feels at home. I really like it!

We had the privilege to stay at Manzara Istanbul, a tourist agency that offers cultural experiences and apartment living with a breath-taking view over the Bosporus. Manzara is run by a passionate German-Turkish couple; Erdogan and Gabi Altindis. In a long conversation with Erdogan and by experiencing how they have taken care of us here, I really got their dream and vision behind their company; to be a bridge between two cultures. They want to make me feel at home in this city of 16 million people including two continents. It is an ambitious intent and they deliver.

Why is that? How can that be?
Thinking of our workshop ”Leadership as an Act of Passion”, what appears to be clear to me is the connection between their business idea and their passion. There is a dream behind what we, the guests, see and experience, which is far broader than the actual services that they provide. I realise that the ambition behind everything they are doing is the drive to invest in the relationships all the way out to the fringes of the organisation. It includes everyone involved in the company; the cleaning and kitchen staff, receptionist, chauffeur. But also the local people around their block, the shop and restaurant owners, as well as the city guide Miriam. It is as everyone is a part of their family. You could call it the Manzara family.
I start to feel at home in the midst of this cosmopolitan stew of cultural spices. It becomes more personal and close. The unknown becomes a friend that feels more intriguing than frightening, more inviting and almost seductive rather than strange and fearful.

Thank you Erdogan and Gabi! Thank you Manzara Istanbul for having us as guest-friends! Thank you for the way you made us feel at home!

PS. By the way. Manzara is Turkish and means view, vision, and also insight. Take a look at their website www.manzara-istanbul.com and enjoy the visit. You will not be disappointed! DS

2012-06-27
Marie Kaufmann

Leadership as an Act of Passion!

Really amazing days! The group that gathered for the two-day workshop “Leadership as an Act of Passion” was fantastic. Very diverse,  very mature. Leaders from the fields of marketing, music, insurances, public health and health, psycho therapy, students, entrepreneurs and art, among others.

We explored what it means to lead from your passion. What is really important for you as a leader, the values that makes your heart tick and how you can speak and act from that place. When people shared their personal passion stories, the room was vibrating! Stories about fighting for justice, bringing people together for cross-pollination, passion for healing, for being a great parent, for moving great ideas into action and so on.

What came out from the days was really great conversations. Passion of course, and many strong processes were initiated for all of us. And really unexpected things happened during the days. It blows my mind what we can create together if we just give our listening and have the courage to open up really great questions. 

I think the workshop Leadership as an Act of Passion has come to stay.

Thank you guys!

2012-06-27
Marie Kaufmann

Conflicts: our libraries are solving theirs, but how about me?

We just ran a program for executives. Executives of libraries in Sweden. Did you know that libraries are in a big change process? Did you ever consider the democratic role of our libraries for society? And what happens to the physical books as society gets more and more digitalised? I never thought about that. Until now.

In times of change, like for the libraries, the ‘people dimension’ always gets intensified, which often results in many small and big conflicts. Therefore the library executives had asked us to work with them on group dynamics and conflict resolution. Hot topics!

In theory we all know that conflicts can help us to grow. But in practice, honestly, who likes conflicts? I don’t. I wish to live in peace with others, I have a childish longing that I want everyone to like me and everything I do. And that we all live in harmony with each other.

But. At some point in my life honesty and clarity just became more important for me than to keep things pleasant. Today I dislike like the feeling that there is something between me and others, to the extent that I do open my mouth and speak out.  I have a need to clear the air when I feel things are being unspoken. As I am getting more experienced to address what I see and what I don’t like, I have increased my ability to solve or handle the conflicts that I am part of. I trust my emotional capacity to work through them, instead of getting lost in the emotions that are always part of a conflict. And I know that I have become more capable to distinguish what is my part and what is the other person’s part.

It is still not easy. Sometimes it takes everything I have to address a conflict. But the feeling afterwards is unbeatable. Real. Clean. Open. Intimate. Energetic. Peaceful. Loving. Vulnerable. Exciting. The days with the library executives made me look. I see that how I relate to conflicts today is that they are less of a problem and more of a chance for something new.  Not bad.

2012-06-27
Anna-Eva Lohe

Stormöte för kunskapsregionen Stockholm-Mälardalen

Fler praktik- och traineeplatser, bostäder för studenter, offentlig upphandling som instrument för fler innovationer, elevernas resultat i grundskolan. Det var några av frågorna som diskuterades på Stormöte för kunskapsregionen.

Det var ett hundratal anmälda till arrangemanget som bl a ägde rum i form av ett Open Space-möte och som leddes av Next Stop You. Politiker, tjänstemän, intresseorganisationer och representanter från utbildning och arbetsliv fick själva sätta agendan och delta i diskussioner om de viktigaste målen för kunskapsregionens utveckling. Läs mer:

http://www.stjarnbildning.se/nyheter-4.aspx?cid=stormote-for-kunskapsregionen-lockade-manga

2012-06-27
Marie Kaufmann

Honestly, how responsible are you?

I have over the last year become aware of how influenced we are by systems theory thinking in our practice of change and leadership. We have forgotten that the idea behind systems thinking is to think of an organisation “as if” it would be a system. We forget the “as if” and tend to think that the organisation really is a system that generates goals and intentions of its own and carries the responsibility for the actions and results. And this has consequences for our way of relating to leadership and change, and also to how we deal with responsibility and ethics. This thinking, in my eyes so dominating today, tends to make us passive and we feel like victims of the “system”. Douglas Griffin, thinker and professor at the Complexity and Management Centre at University of Hertfordshire, formulates his critique of systems theory thinking like this:

”In automatically obscuring any paradox and forgetting the “as if” intention ascribed to the organisation as a “system”, we slip into thinking about the corporation as having a mind of its own, as setting its own purpose and acting with the freedom that only human beings in fact have. This way of thinking affirms an ethically passive stance in which most of us, as victims of the system, feel that the cause of unethical behaviour (…) has been found, guilt allocated and justice served. It is the “system” and a few powerful individuals who are to blame  (….) To emphasize the point, I am arguing that nowadays we locate ethical responsibility in both the “system”, simply taking for granted that a “system” can be ethically responsible, and in a few individuals. In doing this, we adopt a particular view of leadership in which it is individual leaders who are blamed and punished when things go wrong, or praised and rewarded when things go right. The rest of us are allocated to passive roles as victims of “the system”, and of manipulative leaders, and our salvation lies in the action of heroic leaders. “ (The Emergence of Leadership, pp 2-3)

I see this very often in our work with organisations and companies. People seem to have lost their sense of real influence and responsibility and there is a strong tendency to project expectations and blame onto their leaders. I believe we have to look beyond our automatic way of thinking about leadership and change, to find the root cause of the victimhood in organisations. What does it take to reclaim our sense of being alive, creative and fully responsible for the actions we take and participate in?

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