My 8 year old son is learning guitar. After a few months of rote-learning standard riffs and chords, he is beginning to experiment with his own tunes and chords. “Daddy,” he says as he fingers an improbable combination of notes. “Is this a real chord? It sounds kind of cool.” On balance, he spends as much time creating his own sounds as he does practicing the songs and scales his guitar teacher provides him. Both types of practice are important and both help to wire his developing his brain differently. In this TED Talk by brain surgeon Charles Limb, he …

What’s Tiger Woods’ win at the 2008 US Open got to with high performance under stress? Allow me to share a quick story first … Recently I facilitated a workshop when in the onset phase of ‘Gastro’. As participants arrived I suffered from weakness, nausea and waves of stomach cramps. If I was at home, I would have curled into bed, shut the door and placed a bucket by my side. I disclosed my discomfort to my client and we decided to press on … 50 people had given up their evening to contribute critical thinking. The stakes were high. …

I am reading Robert Poynton‘s book Everything’s An Offer (How to do more with less) and some things happened on the weekend that I have to write about. By the way, even though this post refers to Improvisational Theatre … people working in the traditional domains of leadership, teamwork, strategy and business can learn a lot from Rob’s book (and this post). Part 2 of Rob’s book is titled ‘Let go, Notice More, Use Everything’ – which is also the heart of Improvisational Practice. I have some video of myself and 2 other musicians literally ‘improvising’ at the Aireys Inlet …

When I heard that Dave Pollard (Authour of the “Sweet Spot”) was chatting with Dave Snowden (Mr Complexity) … a metaphor jumped to mind that brings the 2 together. Forgive the simplicity of this metaphor. Some background and context … In the real world of ‘behaviour change’ projects, project coordinators are often funded by government agencies. These agencies are usually hierarchical and therefor demand a degree of certainty … a plan thought out in advance that delivers on milestones and performance targets. It’s tax payer’s money, so you need to show (ahead of time) how you ‘think’ you might achieve …