Curiosity and Innovation

I often hear people claim they want an innovative culture in their organizations. But in order to be innovative, we must have a tendency to ask and learn about things by asking questions, investigating, or exploring – the very definition of curiosity! I had the good fortune to hear Charles Fishman speak recently about his … Read more

My goals for 2015 and beyond

Here are my thoughts for me, based as always on Garthson Leadership Centre’s: Vision: An amazing, sustainable, healthy world with social justice, creativity and abundance. Mission: To create better futures for communities and organizations through values-based leadership. What can I do to further the Vision and Mission over the next 10 years? Move organizations and … Read more

Giving Voice to Values: A Better Way to Look at Ethical Decision-Making

Thanks to the EthicsCentre CA, I had the opportunity to recently hear Mary Gentile speak, and participate in a workshop she led in Toronto. Like many other ethics practitioners, a focus area for me has been helping people, especially people in groups, make good ethical decisions. Naturally, the processes I recommended included consideration of how … Read more

Six Issues in Executive Transitions – Part 2

In Part One, I covered three of the common areas where transitions go wrong: Chaos, Undue Haste and High Emotional Stress. Now let’s continue to issues Four to Six. 4. Role Confusion. Everyone naturally worries who will cover what the Executive Director has been doing. So what might happen? Any or all of these: • … Read more

Six Issues in Executive Transitions – Part 1

In my governance work, I have found many board members are poorly prepared for executive transitions. And that means their organizations go through unnecessarily tough transitions, with set-backs in achieving their mission. Ideally, when a CEO or Executive Director is leaving, almost everyone wants the organization to keep functioning well until a new and perhaps … Read more