Tag Archives: Certified Radical Collaboration Trainer

Lockdown life, Sharing My World

2020: Lockdown life September in review

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This is part of my year in review. Writing one post will make it too long, so I’m breaking each month into a separate post. This is the latest instalment of lockdown life.

I’m plodding along and not getting discouraged with the fact that it’s the 7th day of January 2021 and I’m still reviewing 2020. I’m seeing it as characteristic of 2020 – a plodding kind of year. What I mean by plodding is that it was slow and we needed to get through it, and the best way was to plod. Come to think of it … 2021 will be a plodding kind of year too, especially given that the earliest we’ll see a vaccine in South Africa is April which will cover only 10% of the population. We have a bottleneck – the government, which I hope will resolve itself soon in the hopes that they will realise that they can’t do this on their own and need help from the private sector, businesses and other interested South Africans.

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Spring is here! It wasn’t exactly warm on September 1st, but it got warmer during the course of the month. It was another low key month characterised by loads of work – I’m working longer hours from home than before Covid: is anyone else experiencing this as well?

I started the UCT Copy-editing course this month, something I’ve been looking forward to! I’ve done editing of school books but I want to expand my knowledge, and this short course had my name on it 🙂

I did a webinar on the Five Essential Skills for Successful Collaborative Relationships. It’s a longish video but my webinar was 30 minutes; the rest of the time was responding to attendees’ questions. I wore make-up and work clothes :). I can’t remember if I wore shoes.

I took a vacation day on the 4th and Chè and I went out to pay the vehicle licenses that we weren’t able to do during level 5 lockdown (which is when they expired). And why is this significant? Because I wore shoes (and jeans for the first time in months).

My Mom’s orchids are flowering but not mine …

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Check out August.

 

Chaos Theory, Complexity Science, Human Systems Dynamics, Learnings, Radical Collaboration®, Strategic Consultant

Nothing Is Intractable When You Learn To Collaborate

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As I sit here, in the growing dusk listening to a Buddhist Evening Chant, I’m reflecting at the length of time since I last posted. I spent the better part of this year engaging in 2 learning opportunities and I prioritised these over blogging. The time I dedicated to study and praxis were rewarding and I am honoured to say that I’m a  Human Systems Dynamics Professional  and a Certified Radical Collaboration®  Trainer. I’m so excited about both of these – my training and consulting are becoming more strategic, and these are 2 potent disciplines to have. Let me tell you a bit about them.

Nothing is intractable! This is the tagline of Human Systems Dynamics, a simple yet powerful discipline based on complexity science and chaos theory that allows you to see patterns in chaos and complexity to help you better understand your wicked problems and determine your next wise move. The world we move in is increasingly complex and the methods, ways of working and solutions of the last century are no longer relevant, or even enough, to successfully navigate today. This applies in any sphere – education, healthcare, business, peace processes, building networks and coalitions, and much more. Many of my cohort peers were medical professionals now engaged in educating other medical professionals.

Knowing how to build collaborative relationships is an essential skill to have in complex environments when you don’t know what you don’t know until you know it. This is where Radical Collaboration® comes in.  I did the 3-day course in January in Ghent, Belgium, and decided that I wanted to teach and coach people to build collaborative skills, and decided the certify as a trainer myself.

Jim Tamm, one of the creators, explains that the key to building collaboration is by reducing defensiveness – this is the fundamental difference of this program. He talks about this in his TEDx Talk and what we can learn from groups of chickens…

So I hope you’ll forgive me for the radio silence. I aim to make up for it – I have loads to tell about Belgium and Thailand. Stay tuned.

If you want to know more about Human Systems Dynamics and Radical Collaboration® please pop me a message.

Feature pic is of yours truly, during one of the rest periods of the intense Radical Collaboration® trainer certification course.