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Set Yourself up for Success
In today's video I talk about how to set yourself up for success as a leader. https://youtu.be/OkQiBcf8R6E Expectations or Assumptions? The first advice I want to give you is to move from expectations to assumptions. Success is when we meet expectations, failure is...
Christopher Avery Responsibility
Olaf Lewitz: Welcome, it's an amazing morning in Austin, Texas and afternoon in Berlin, Germany. And I'm here with my friend, Christopher Avery. A friend and mentor and a guide into leadership and responsibility. I want to continue the thing that I've started a while...
2020 – what a Year!
2020 is a year about change. So many amazing things are happening and many things that are not at all amazing. I want to talk about what's going on and what I think about it. https://youtu.be/PL_tiaNUZzo 2020 - what a Year! New video log starting... I want to invite...
Leading Relationships in times of Social Distancing
Cross-posted on Medium Relationships. We see them everywhere. These are interesting times. A lot of what’s normal isn’t anymore. Many of us are overwhelmed. Many structures we are used to are not there anymore. How we spend our time and whom we spend it with has...
What do you want from your leadership work?
As my colleagues and I prepare to launch the fourth generation of the TrustTemenos Leadership Academy, I’ve been asking myself, “What do I want from my own leadership work?” In TrustTemenos, one way we think of leadership is as making a difference with intention....
The recovering conventional manager learns from Agile: two final lessons
This is the last in a series detailing six leadership lessons drawn from Agile by a recovering conventional manager - me! Being a learner - inspecting and adapting The Agile founders built into all their processes a regular pattern of retrospectives - a disciplined...
The recovering conventional manager learns from Agile: set a sustainable pace
This is the fourth of six posts detailing leadership lessons drawn from Agile by a recovering conventional manager - me! In conventional management, all too often there is huge temptation for senior leaders to drive their organisation very hard, putting everyone under...
The recovering conventional manager learns from Agile: set your course, but commit incrementally
This is the third of six posts detailing leadership lessons drawn from Agile by a recovering conventional manager - me! In conventional planning, leaders are called on to set major goals far in advance and then stake their reputations on achieving those goals. In...
The recovering conventional manager learns from Agile: make and “ship” vs plan and perfect
Second in a series of leadership lessons this recovering conventional manager has learned from his inspiring Agilist colleagues. The Agile pioneers discovered that it was far better to create a small amount of working software and release it fast than to wait for a...
The recovering conventional manager learns from Agile: value and liberate people
Last week's post gave an overview of a recovering conventional manager's (me!) six learnings from Agile. This post expands on the first of the six: creating contexts that value and liberate people. In the course of their learning about software development, the...
The recovering conventional manager learns from Agile: six leadership lessons
As a perspective and a frame of reference for approaching creative work, Agile has its origins in software development … and … leaders around the world are now finding that Agile resonates in a much wider range of contexts, from entrepreneurship to personal and...
It’s all in the container
Again and again, in our work with leaders at all levels, we see the crucial importance of what we call “containers” - groups of people, maybe only two, but reaching up to perhaps ten or twelve, who hold and support each other: circles where each member is seen and...
Letter to a tormented Achiever
Dear Jo It was great to meet you at the conference last week. Our conversation then and your email a few minutes ago strike deep chords with me. I understand how tough and painful it is for you right now. Like you, I was raised in an Achieverist culture. We grew up...
The simple power of checking in
Our workshop participants tell us that one of our most impactful practices is the simple one of checking in. For those not familiar, it consists of inviting everyone in a group, often sitting or standing in a circle, to check in, saying how they are as they come into...
What is special about this work?
It's been my privilege to be involved in TrustTemenos leadership work for more than two years now. The work has touched me deeply; I am ever more certain that I want to be ever more actively engaged with it and to help share it with ever more people in the world. I...
You are Welcome
"You are Welcome" as an expression of invitation has been part of our deliberate practice for a while, and we've been thinking a lot about the difference it makes. What's special about it? "Thank you!" When we hear a passionate expression of gratitude, we...
CAL1 Learning Objectives: Engagement
This is the first post in a series of about 30, each with a video conversation about a leadership topic. This time we talk about - Engagement - and add some context and links for your further information. All these videos are part of the learning material of our...
CAL1 Learnings
We delivered our first CAL1 (Certified Agile Leadership by the Scrum Alliance) this week in Kiev. We went in with an open mind and the clear intent to uncover what makes our approach special and unique. This is what we learned. Building on what we had learned after...