Protect ideas/Do you Kanban?/Workshops in Sydney... and New Zealand/The Great Room

Protect the airspace around ideas

Sharing ideas with coworkers or colleagues can be an exciting time. You’ve had an idea and you want to verbalize it or explain it, explore it a little more. 

But some people have that unfortunate wet blanket ability to cut down and dismiss ideas in three seconds flat! Their techniques might not be the old clichés of ‘we’ve tried that’ or ‘that won’t work’. 

No, today’s idea deflaters are a little more insidious and subtle than that. Because the first thing you’ll notice is the inspiration you had for the idea has rapidly deflated and the focus is now directed elsewhere. The vibe has gone. 

It’s like the time, space and idea has been hijacked. 

Idea hijackers love to: 

▫️contribute immediately with something they know or have done, ahhh, also known as ‘interrupting’. 

This behaviour:

▫️deflects from your idea, and

▫️distracts with new information about something, somewhere or someone else. 

They might keep hijacking when they:

▫️ elevate the something or someone else higher, greater and better than your idea

▫️ provide unsolicited comparisons

▫️ rush to premature solutions and conclusions, and

▫️ move the conversation on to other topics. 

Boom. Slash. Switch. Sleight of hand and verbal misdirection. All the while, they’ve ignored that which was in front of them: you the human, and the idea you shared or expressed. Tune in to it. Notice it. The status shift in the conversation or interaction is observable and palpable. 

Idea slashers get away with their frequent whipper-snipper action as if it’s just how things are these days. 

No wonder people don’t feel safe sharing their thoughts and ideas, contributing or participating. Whether it’s ego, discomfort, narcissism, a desire to show their knowledge and power … whatever it is…It’s a perfect reason why collaboration and conversation often needs to be moderated, facilitated and ‘air traffic controlled’ to keep a watch for these rogue craft infiltrating protected airspace!

Rather than rushing to fix, shame or remediate the hijacker/interrupter, stand by and refocus the time, energy and attention of the group back to the original contributor. Redirect to the OG and re-explore from there. 

Everyone can have their turn and have their say. But to handle these types of situations requires nuance and subtle diplomacy. Offence is everywhere. 

These situations are exactly why today’s leaders need some new ways of leading.

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Live Workshops in Sydney

I'd love to see you at these half-day public workshops; tickets are now on sale for October dates

These are high impact morning workshops - all thriller, no filler 😉

🌕 VISUAL SENSEMAKING : October 17

Use these clever visual skills every day to sketch, scribe, think, lead & manage - the perfect communication and collaboration skills

🌕 ADVANCED TECHNIQUES IN FACILITATION : October 18

Lift your capability to design processes, lead groups and achieve outcomes. Handle challenging situations, people, groups and projects.

🌕 CHANGE TOOLS : October 19

Leading change needs clever, creative, adaptive tools. Use these 10 change tools to better engage, lead & impact change & transformation.

Get tickets via Eventbrite here

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Great things in the great room

It couldn’t have been a better name for a conference room… the ‘Great Room’ at W Melbourne Hotel. 

It made me laugh with nervous expectation!

It was great because the room was full of glorious people from a great team at UniSuper. Great because they’d been learning, inspiring, advancing and working on their professional development. 

And then great for me because I had the pleasure of joining them for the closing keynote of the program. It was all primed for … greatness. 

We wanted to do more with that closing session than just the keynote speaker who … speaks. 

We went further with a facilitated experience to boost attention, engagement, connection and participation. 

And then we went further … with a co-creation, contribution and euphoric wrap-up experience that would seal the learning and carry it forward into workplace action. 

Conference delegates need more than passive listening or clichéd games. They have contributions to make, ideas to share and insights to inspire. 

This is what I call ‘The Co-Creation Experience’ and it’s available now for great teams in great rooms at great conferencing events. 

Yes … please go beyond the pale stale dot point slide shows that are too often the default. 

Great things can happen at a conference gathering … if you plan for a great co-creation experience. 

And now I need a little lie down … 💤😄

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Move this from 'Backlog' to 'To do'

Do you Kanban? 

Then join me for the Kanban Australia Conference in Melbourne October 9, 2023 - at the Jasper Hotel in Melbourne CBD.

It's a full day to connect, share and learn about the use of Kanban in Australia and neighbouring regions.

New tools, thinking and support to deepen our capability.

I'll be closing keynote speaker on 'The 3 Futures of Work'. And there'll be no photos of robots or AI, promise! 🤩

Get tickets for $275 - and it includes lunch. What's not to like? 

Pull it pronto into your To Do column, no ... straight into Doing, now!

Get tickets here

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And I'm returning to New Zealand November 2023

Yes it's all happening! So many in person events, conferences and workshops are filling up in calendars everywhere. 

After running workshops recently in August, a return visit is planned in November 2023. 

There are 3 x half-day workshops

➡️ Visual Sensemaking

➡️ Advanced Techniques in Facilitation

➡️ Change Tools

Learn more / Plan ahead / Get tickets!

Here's the LINK

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HR's New Ways/Asynchronous Work/Beyond Yes and... / NZ Workshops/Tedx Melbourne/See Workish

I'm coming for you, New Zealand 

It's exciting to be planning a return visit to Wellington, New Zealand (August 14 - 18, 2023) for some live in-person workshops! It's been a while, pre-pandemic, you know! 

There are 4 topics to choose from: 

🌕 VISUAL SENSEMAKING

Monday August 14: 9am - 12.30pm

This is one of the most popular workshop training programs I've been delivering over the past 10 years, and it's evolved to give you these highly clever visual skills to help you think, understand, decide, communicate and collaborate better in times of change and uncertainty. The Institute for the Future identified Sensemaking as a capability we'd need for these times, and this session will give you what you need. If you've heard about my workshops that have helped people sketch and draw, this is the session; we'll use visualisation as one of the key tools for making sense of what's happening, helping with your thinking, decision making, collaboration and innovation. 

🌕 ADVANCED TECHNIQUES IN FACILITATION

Tuesday August 15: 9am - 12.30pm

Lift your capability to design processes, lead groups and achieve outcomes ... and, handle challenging situations, people, groups and projects. If you've already had some experience facilitating or you've attended some initial training on facilitation skills, it's time to take things to the next level and move beyond the clichés that are too often part of the facilitator's vocabulary and toolkit. Time to step things up! Bring along queries, challenges, questions and curiosities as the whole learning session will be facilitated. 

🌕 CHANGE TOOLS

Thursday August 17: 9am - 12.30pm

This has been a popular workshop program for leaders and managers involved in change and transformation - whether by their job title, or as part of the work they're doing. It's not easy to navigate the change environment, communicate, influence and shift people's thinking when you're working with such diverse levels of engagement, interest and involvement. Leading change needs clever, creative, adaptive tools. Use the 10 change tools I'll share and demonstrate in the workshop to better engage, lead and impact in change and transformation. Bring along an example of anything you're working on in change and we'll apply the tools to it.

🌕 SPEAKING MASTERCLASS

Friday August 18: 9am - 12.30pm

Take your speaking and presenting to higher levels of performance: more creative, impactful, engaging and memorable. For all levels of expertise. If you've been invited to speak or present at a conference, or you'd like to develop this aspect of your consulting business or practice, or you're just curious to know how you might do better in the world of speaking, this session is going to be a winner. I'll be sharing insights from my journey from not speaking, to speaking a little, to speaking a lot, internationally, and the key things I've learned about the craft, the business and the audiences! Again, bring along queries, challenges and goals and we'll tackle them. 

All sessions use accelerated learning techniques so we cover a lot and achieve great outcomes in a half-day session. No waffle. No words wasted. No dull PowerPoints. Only actions, outcomes and acceleration in learning. 

Get tickets here

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See Workish 

This is the new 5-minute video wrap and curation of work and work-related topics I'm creating and sharing. It brings you up to date with work trends, ideas, information and developments related to work-ish things. 

Workish Episode 1 features:

Future AI jobs, Procrastiworking, Remote loneliness, Text to music, Human centric lives, Swipe useless meetings ... and some music from Theådore

Workish Episode 2 features:

The Business Case for Wellbeing, Designing Offices for the Future, Get Back into the office ... No... it's too expensive !, Async Secret Weapon, Jump on a Chopper

Workish Episode 3 features:

Return to office tensions, Integrating AI at work, Replacing managers with coaches, Neuropsychological safety at work, Attracting GenZ talent, New Zealand in person workshops

Improv. It’s more than ‘yes and …’

Ask someone about improvisation and they might say, ‘it’s all about saying ‘yes, and …’ or ‘hey isn’t that when comedians make things up’ or ‘oh my favourite show is ‘Whose line is it anyway’. 

Yet improvisation is so much more than this and has such wide application across different parts of our life. 

While there are many philosophies, principles, schools and practices for improv, know this... 

it is possibly one of the greatest capabilities to have in these times of uncetainty, change, challenge and pressure. 

I’m a fan of improv - learning about it from Impro Melbourne over many years, performing it at different events and shows and reading widely about it. 

But perhaps the greatest application and use of improv has been in my everyday life. 

Sometimes the sh*t hits the fan. At different times in life, things happen, and you’re confronted by the stuff of life that is painful, difficult, tough or challenging … to say the least. 

How do you cope, handle or deal? 

The learned principles and practices of improvisation when applied daily to life can help. 

Don’t dismiss. Don’t laugh it off. Don’t think there’s something wrong with you. 

With an improviser’s mindset you’ll be able to tackle, respond and cope. Well. This is possible by using improv tools, principles and practices that help us:

▫️adapt

▫️be creative

▫️trust ourselves, and 

▫️move ahead. 

These benefits make improvisation way more than a skill for the stage. 

Read more about it in this article from Psychology Today about Keith Johnstone.

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TEDx Melbourne - a night of AI

5 x AI speakers … at TEDxMelbourne. 

An insightful bot view into artificial intelligence in creativity, health, education, the future. 

Jon Yeo shared the comprehensive and detailed process of the last 6 months, coaching and curating the artificial bot speakers and their content, tone. 

The extensive prompts, iterations, output, experiments and lessons were outlined. There were many questions and comments from the room of 100% human attendees! 

Some quotable quotes: 

- This was a complete experiment. We didn’t know what we’d get out of it. 

- If it’s boring, blame the source material. 

- Does art require a soul?

- It’s not human. Do we want it to be human? Are we ok with that if it is? 

- It’s more binary than granular. 

- The law of averages exist in large amounts of data. 

- Who gets to choose the deployment of AI?

- It’s an intelligence … but it’s not artificial. What kind of intelligence is it then? 

… and thank you to the sponsors and volunteers who helped make the event happen. 

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On Asynchronous Work

Watch this session I presented for the Remote Agility Framework community on my book Sync Async: Making progress easier in the changing world of work

Over the past 18 months I've been working with several Human Resources teams, helping them boost their capabilities for the new world of work. 

That means, newer ways of working, working in different ways, trying new things, evolving their processes and ways of thinking. 

Join this complimentary session if you're an HR professional and would like to learn about new ways in HR. 

It's on July 20, 2023 from 2 - 3pm AEST. A recording will be made available. 

The session outline : 

As the world of work keeps evolving, there's so much that's changing in every workplace. 

And Human Resources practitioners are so often involved with that change: initating, guiding, advising, championing, advocating and innovating. 

So committed to the support of people in the organisation, the HR function can often be left behind in capability development and innovation ... while the rest of the organisation forges ahead with the new and wonderful!

Newer ways of working are sweeping the world and bringing changes to workplaces across every sector, field and industry. 

🌕Is your HR team evolving and adapting to be able to respond to the changing world of work? 

🌕Or are you using the same tools, methods, practices and process of the past?

🌕What is the cost when the HR team aren't leading -- or at least up with -- the evolution of new ways of working? 

⭐️Case studies and insights⭐️

I'll present case studies from working directly with HR teams, what capabilities they've developed ... and why.

Join this complimentary masterclass and I'll share the new ways of working that HR teams are adopting to ensure they're able to handle the changing world of work. 

Registrations are free; sign up here

Are you making things easier

Today I’m working with a group of leaders on building their facilitation skills. 

Facilitation at its heart means ‘ease’, to make progress with ease. 

And ease is a great perspective to take. 

Ask yourself 
- are we making this harder than it needs to be? 
- what could we do that would make it easier? 
- how can I make it easier for them? 
- what does the team think would make it easier?

Easy doesn’t mean it’s not good or not valuable. 

It’s about being able to manage and juggle a mix of things happening in teams :
🌕 Engagement - that we are connected to this work
🌕 Involvement - that we are doing something with the work
🌕 Contribution - that we bring our ideas and efforts to the work. 
🌕 Productivity - that we are getting the work that needs to be done, done. 

The skills of getting people aligned, engaged, inspired and participating doesn’t happen automatically. 

You’ll have to do something. Many things. Many micro things that together make great progress. 

Does your team need these faciliation skills, to help make the day-to-day work easier? 

Facilitation skills apply in-person, online and in the new world of hybrid work. 

Let’s talk. I’ll tailor a session, a series of sessions or a longer term program for the team. 

Acknowledging the anxiety

Many people are feeling it; the anxiety of returning to workplaces, crowds, elevators and common areas. 

Do you ignore it? 
Do you say something? 

If you say something, might you make it worse or bring into focus something that’s better left as it is? 

In tough times particularly, we must spend time interacting, engaging, asking and listening. 

It’s a facilitation technique to acknowledge what is there - not ignore it. 

I recall I was facilitating a corporate workshop on the day of the 9/11 attacks. I may have been in Australia, half a world away, but it was a global event. 

Our workshop started later, slower, a revised agenda, more breaks ... and less expectations. We talked a lot about the events of the day. 

We worked with what was there, not pushing forward with previous priorities. 

In these times of increased anxiety, you’ve got to say something. 

Go slower. 
Ask. 
Listen. 
Wait. 
Pause. 
Reflect. 
Wait. 

That means the rush and push of people needs to slow a little while we adapt.

This article about the ‘spectrum of feelings’ people have in the return to offices from Digiday outlines what’s making people feel anxious and some tips on how to respond. 

Hello Hybrid - ebook

As many workplaces experience more hybrid ways of working - some people are here, some there, some on site, some working from home - the challenges of engaging and leading in this environment can be tricky. 

We don’t want the worst of online and face-to-face combining to create an awkward, disengaging and excluding hybrid world. 

No, let’s bring the best of both face-to-face and online together to create this new world of hybrid. 

Sadly, it’s easy for us - thanks to our biases - to forget or exclude people. And even more so in a hybrid world. 

Our Proximity Bias draws us to those who are nearer and more visible. 

And the complexities of building psychological safety are many. 

It’s a bit of a juggle to lead multiple people in multiple places. And it’s not static: it changes day by day, week by week!

How do you better lead a team to collaborate, plan, meet and work well together? 


‘HELLO HYBRID’ is a 40-page ebook - based on my keynote presentation and workshop of the same name - and includes 12 practical techniques to consider and apply. 

Get it here