Inspiration und Geschichten
KS News, events & blog

How foundations, trusts and NGOs can deepen their learning to create greater impact together ...

Last summer I took part in a Sacred Passage programme with John P. Milton . Milton...

In their book ‘Presence’, learning professionals Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski and Betty Flowers...

To be a true learning company, it is a risk to hold the perspective of being an organisation. Because an organisation might be seen as static – a single unmoving way of being. To perceive yourself as an organisation suggests you may perceive fixed boundaries and rules. From here it becomes easier to build or hold barriers within and around you, restricting what you are and how you operate and how you move with the world. This is risky in a world that calls for creative, nimble and adaptive ways of working. We suggest that to be a true learning organisation, capable of swifter adaptation and movement, it is helpful to explore the perspective of being an organising. Organising is a term we are framing to provoke this way of being – always fluid, moving, learning, adapting. It illustrates the distinction between perspectives of static states and fluidity. And it is a verb: showing that it is work in progress.

In March 2011, I had the pleasure of being invited by Nancy Dixon in Washington DC - joining two other Knowledge Management stars Nick Milton and Karl Wiig – on a ‘Deep Dive’ to support international health organisations in Knowledge Management. It was a fantastic workshop with great learning and connections made. Here I sum up some of the ideas I shared (you can also download the pdf file here). On the importance of story, play, imagination and visioning.

Over the past few months we’ve had lots of fun sharing the K&S story through the MIX competition partnered by the Human Capital Institute. As we know, we got through to the semi-finals – here is what happened next!

We are truly delighted: our Kessels & Smit story has been chosen as one of the ten most ‘inspiring, challenging and surprising’ examples of innovation in management from around the globe. This was announced as we were selected into the semi-finals of the HCI prize - a prestigious competition with judges such as Gary Hamel, Marcus Buckingham and other pioneering minds in organisational and management development.

How do you prepare Azeri teachers to provide lessons on Democracy for their pupils? Since we believe you can only learn about democracy - how it works, what it asks of you as a citizen - by experiencing it, we made a Game for Caucasus youth. We blogged about this experiences before (LINK). Now, the next step is to support teachers in working with that Game. We chose a similar approach: instead of 'lecturing' and 'explaining' we engaged the teachers in an experience, through which they could learn about how to facilitate learning about democracy. An exciting visit!

It’s official - Kessels & Smit UK is open for business! I am delighted to have joined the company and to be extending the K&S network into the UK. As we make the big announcement, two questions rise to the fore. ‘How did we get here?’ and ‘Where are we going?’