2 December 2014

‘Facilitating Reflective Practice’ with Greg Jenkins | Monday December 8, 2014 | 5.30pm [Followed by an end of year social]



Reflection is hard to do. Individually, it requires a connection with our inner self that, for many, due to work and the sheer intensity of daily life, makes any sort of retrospection hard to achieve.
Group reflection is especially seen as being too hard. Whilst some are successful, the majority, either do it poorly or not at all. It’s easier look ahead than to look back. Moving on without proper reflection means that lessons don’t get learnt. The same old mistakes keep happening and neither do we get to the root cause of any problem nor are we able to replicate the good things that we do.
What would it take to do meaningful, effective and collaborative reflection with any group? What would be the benefits? What works and what doesn’t?
Greg will share a suite of proven reflective practices including a four-part ‘lessons learnt’ group process that can be used in almost any situation.
Bring your own reflective practice ideas and experiences to share.

About Greg Jenkins
Greg is has been coordinator of Facilitators Network for a decade. Greg’s practice is systems based making facilitation accessible to everyone at all levels of experience.

Xmas Social:
Please join us for networking, conversation and laughter afterwards at the nearby, very economical Pho Mumum Vietnamese Restaurant, No 16 Broadway, Chippendale (opposite the Big UTS Tower). Average meal cost only$10. See review on Trip Advisor

=======================================================
Venue:  [Our usual venue]
University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Jones Street, Ultimo corner Thomas Street. Room 5.580 Level 5, Building 10, Take the lift to level 5, cross the atrium footbridge, walk straight ahead to room 580.
Time:
From 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up
Enquiries | Greg Jenkins greg@changeagent.com.au | 0418 486 501

22 October 2014

‘It's All True - The Gifts of Light and Shade in the Power of Paradox’ with Ralph Kerle | Monday November 10, 2014


Decision making is full of contradictions and mystery, yet underlying every decision making process we enter lies the need for certainty and control. We want to know who we are, where we stand and what we stand for. The definition of true genius is often described as the ability to hold two opposing views simultaneously without going crazy. This conceptual state is called a paradox and it is where our creativity is born and lives; where stillness meets movement, where truth meets mystery, where masculine meets feminine. Ultimately if we can become aware of the power and influence of paradox in our decision making, we can begin to develop an increased capacity for uncertainty, and ambiguity in ourselves, others and the world around us. By developing this capacity for paradox, we can learn to hold opposing thoughts simultaneously that might otherwise be suppressed enabling deeper insights - the essence of creativity itself..
In this session, using a simple dialogue technique designed around a series of fundamental paradoxical questions, we will focus on recognising the paradoxes in our thinking, we will experience how to hold and live with them and observe the way they merge to provide meaningful insight and a way forward.

About Ralph Kerle
Dr. Ralph Kerle, MCI, DADA, h.c. is an internationally respected thought leader, creative facilitator and writer on organizational innovation, creative leadership and behaviours. He has a specific interest in designing creative leadership and creativity workshops framed around arts based processes as a way of recognising and developing creative practices at work. His belief is organizational innovation is the outcomes of creative behaviours that occur in practice in a work context. If we can understand how we behave creatively in a work context then we can begin to improve, develop and be creative around our work practices regardless of our profession or position.

2 October 2014

Working in the Here and Now: Case-in-Point teaching methodology and its relevance for leading in a changing world | with Nick Ellem | Monday October 13, 5.30 PM

Ron Heifetz & Marty Linsky's work on Adaptive Leadership at Harvard has gained attention across the globe by promoting a "here and now" approach towards building leadership capacity.
Sharon Daloz Parks writes about the processes and practice of Heifetz in his classroom teaching leadership to mid-career and senior leaders. Called ""case-in-point" (CIP) teaching, this pedagogical method focuses on implementing concepts of Heifetz' theory within the class itself, turning the classroom into a live laboratory where learners can analyse the immediate, relevant leadership dynamics occurring before them.
CIP works on several assumptions about leadership:
1)     leadership is an art not a science
2)     leadership is about adaptation and change, therefore
3)     requires engaging in an iterative process of experimentation & learning that is difficult, and often elicits uneven distribution of loss
4)     people represent the possibility and constraint within the system (organisation or community) they are trying to mobilise
5)     therefore the ability to be able to step out of the system and onto the balcony in real-time will open up more diagnostic and action options for exercising leadership and maximising chances of success.
The benefits of Heifetz' CIP model help individuals realise the current disparity between learning, teaching, and applying leadership whereby educators may discuss leadership "live" cases or examples within the classroom itself, but often relegate the analysis of impact of personal leadership capacity to individual reflection.
In the short time we have together will look at key ideas within in the theory and practice of teaching adaptive leadership and explore implications for facilitating leadership development.
Guest Facilitator: Nick Ellem, Harvard trained senior leadership development consultant and coach specialised in working with organisations, teams and individuals to identify their adaptive leadership challenges, facilitate problem solving and build capacity to exercise leadership. The Adaptive Leadership Framework used in our programs grew out of the work of its co-founders Dr Ronald Heifetz and Martin Linsky at Harvard University, who have spent the last 30 years developing leadership art and practice.
=======================================================
Venue:  [Our usual venue]
University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Jones Street, Ultimo corner Thomas Street. Room 5.580 Level 5, Building 10, Take the lift to level 5, cross the atrium footbridge, walk straight ahead to room 580.
Time:
From 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up
Enquiries | Greg Jenkins greg@tincanlearning.com | 0418 486 501 

19 August 2014

‘The Hermeneutic Circle’ with Steven Segal | Monday September 8, 2014 | 5.30pm


In our world, technology has broken down barriers to trade and communication and at the same time there are few guidelines for dealing with difference, in a global context.
How are we creating the space for working across difference? And what is the mindset that is required to respond to difference without insulating ourselves in our "own."
A conversation on this theme will be conducted using a particular methodology called a Hermeneutic Circle. This is an opportunity to engage with a topic where there are no rights and wrongs; no rules; no facilitation. The intention of a hermeneutic practice is 'to create the conditions for understanding to occur'. We'll offer a short historical and philosophical background to this work - and mostly we'll all be involved in the dialogue towards understanding/making sense of the topic.
Guest Facilitator:
Steven Segal - of Macquarie Graduate School of Management has been running hermeneutic circles for PhD candidates for the past 6 years
Venue:  [Our usual venue]
University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Jones Street, Ultimo corner Thomas Street. Room 5.580 Level 5, Building 10, Take the lift to level 5, cross the atrium footbridge, walk straight ahead to room 580.
Time:
From 5:30pm to 7:30pm sharp | No RSVP - Just turn up