Articles & Blogs

I was at www.flourishconference.org – and if you weren’t there, you missed the beginning of a powerful conference series about OD, for OD practitioners, with a South African flavour. Bill Zybach did a brilliant job of conference design and hosting, Keith McCandless (www.liberatingstructures.org) was generous with his time in preparing the presenters, the South African OD Network (SAODN) were visionary in their commitment ot the concept – and the 50 people who showed up at this “unknown” conference were inspirational.

There's much to celebrate at the Academy this week...

The problems we face in society will ultimately be solved by citizens and their capacity to join together for the common good. The essential task of leadership is not to be a role model or visionary, it is to engage citizens in creating this future for the commons.

Leadership is indeed a critical and catalytic thing, but we may be missing the point in the way we talk about and work with leadership in our organisations.

None of us yet know what will be written in the next chapter in Donna's life. I do know that I hope she remains close enough to influence us, yet far enough away to smell new scents, think new thoughts, experience new wonders and (most of all) to breathe slowly and steadily for a while.

My agenda for the year was to merge WorldsView Consulting with the Academy for Organisational Change, as I believe that customers need a blend of classroom and field support that must be both taught and applied for full learning to take place. The merger was concluded within the first few months, creating WorldsView Academy. We immediately started the work of marrying the WorldsView Consulting process of programme development with the higher education aspirations of the Academy for Organisational Change.

Craig Yeatman is an Organisation Development practitioner, leading the way in the field of OD and Change in South Africa. His Establishment & Adaptation framework has received international attention and been well received by the OD community.