Last week, our team was preparing for our September Delta Dialogues meeting. As part of our standard preparation, we went over the room layout and discussed how we wanted to configure it. We had arranged in advance for a room that was configurable (movable chairs and tables) and that had a projector and screen. The room was rectangular in nature, with the screen on the shorter wall of the room and it was protect by the soundproof walls in response […]
Gail Taylor
Finding the Simplicity Embedded in Complexity
My friend, the amazing designer and facilitator, Gail Taylor, often exhorts people to find the simplicity embedded in complexity. I’ve been puzzling over this advice over the past few weeks, as I’ve been reflecting on our own practices for working with groups on complex problems. I recently came across two resources that I’d like to share. The first is from my friend, Jeff Conklin, who first introduced me to the notion of Wicked Problems a dozen years ago. This past […]
The Lifecycle of Groups
Groups, like people, go through different stages in their development. It’s important to understand where a group is in that lifecycle before trying to shift that group’s behavior. There’s been a lot of work trying to articulate the different stages of group development. I want to discuss four models here: iScale Network Lifecycle and Assessment Drexler / Sibbet Team Performance Model MG Taylor Stages of an Enterprise Bruce Tuckman’s Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing (my model of choice) Different models have […]