Reflecting on a management career spanning fifty years, Dr Terry Cooke-Davies suggests that for would-be leaders, there is great value in cultivating a growth mindset, developing an attitude of humble inquiry, mastering the art of dialogue and conversation, and combining the tools of an anthropologist with the skillset of a facilitator.
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Two prominent leaders call for cooperation to confront the challenge of both the coronavirus pandemic and the climate emergency. But to work together in harmony, we have to face up to the brute facts of our need to belong, our tendency to create “them” over against “us”, and our habit of allowing disagreement to escalate into conflict.
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Science is creating new vaccines and better ways of treating Covid-19. But vaccine nationalism, distrust of the vaccine, and maverick political leaders in pandemic hotspots aren’t helping.
These are barriers that cannot be overcome by science. They are social problems originating and promulgated in the minds of human beings. And that is where they must be resolved if we are to prevail in the current global struggle between homo sapiens and the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
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Business studies have long emphasised the importance of ‘people management’ to business success. And EQ and so-called ‘soft skills’ are widely recognised as important attributes for managers and leaders.
But recent claims by evolutionary psychologists challenge the unspoken assumption that the human ability to reason is a superior capability of individuals, enabling them to think better on their own. If that were true, the argument goes, how strange it is flawed and keeps leading people astray through a long and growing list of inherent biases. Instead, they propose that reason is a social attribute that permits groups to arrive collectively at higher-quality decisions.
If this is true, then surely then the art and craft of thinking together is essential to effective performance whether led by a skilled external facilitator, or as a communally developed skill shared by a group, family, organization or community. The implications for management practice are extensive.
How six books on cosmology, human nature, consciousness, stories and thermodynamics challenge the faith of a progressive Christian.
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