Akie …unwittingly provided the lyrics to Striking Distance as a Facebook post. It was a sort of free form poem about (perhaps) a less than satisfying band rehearsal. I read the post while in my studio, and got hit with the idea—seemingly out of nowhere—to do a sort of speaking recitation to music.
Read MoreI was reading Bob Dylan’s book, Chronicles, and he starts in on “change”: “Sometimes you know things have to change, are going to change, but you can only feel it—like in that song of Sam Cooke’s, Change is Gonna Come— but you don’t know it in a purposeful way.
Read MoreWhat we do is our song – our actions, emotions, the way we walk down the street, and the way we create our desired results – or not, how we speak, move, breathe, solve problems, celebrate success, deal with disappointment – you get it.
Read MoreThe art of experiential learning facilitation is in how the debrief/review is utilized to cull learning from experience, and having a process that reveals the system and using the insights to create useful actions that transfer the learning back to the operational system—and still having some fun with it.
Read MoreThe transformation process I work with is a holistic, systemic model, where the characteristics of the system (organization, team, or individual) cannot only be determined by the properties of its parts. The structure and relationships of the parts determine how the system expresses itself, and sometimes small, leveraged changes can make large impacts on the dynamics and results. Here are a few modalities practitioners experiment with that can support the transformational process.
Read MoreHearing those women share gave me a personal, heartfelt connection with people in the business world and gave me a human perspective on the struggles we all share, no matter what our beliefs, history, or means may be.
Read MoreWell, we've talked about the truth in the blues, but what about the music itself? Is it merely a vehicle for the fact, like a new app? The question's a setup, and my answer is, of course, "no." The connection through music brings a whole new gestalt and dimension of its own to the proceedings.
Read MoreLanguage is always at the center of change. Like jazz, words are the notes, conversations the improvisations that invent the future. Words ask the questions and the moment we ask a question, we create a change.
Read MorePurpose is a key ingredient for a strong, sustainable, scalable organizational culture. It’s an unseen-yet-ever-present element that drives an organization. It can be a strategic starting point, a product differentiator, and an organic attractor of users and customers.
Read MoreWhat well-meaning "keep hope alive" brainstorming lovers really mean is this: Even bad ideas can lead to good ideas if the idea originators are committed enough to extract the meaning from the "bad".
Read MoreWhat does Ed Wood and your new list of business challenges have in common?
For this weeks video blog: “How to write a blues lyric”, FTM created a quick 30 second video in the style of a quirky grade B movie genre.
Read MoreA few weeks ago Face The Music posted an article on a leadership activity—CPR (Context, Purpose & Results). The feedback was positive and grateful. A consultant asked if we had a sample CPR so we’re providing this example from an event planner for a music team building she was putting on.
Read MoreExcerpt: It’s the old E-Myth principle where businesses are started by technicians or specialists who haven’t acquired the basic business skills or knowledge, or still assume that business acumen is a minor part of the new business equation. If you’re a yoga instructor, do you really want to start a studio? As an engineer, is starting a company to develop, produce, and market your tech invention the way to go to serve your purpose?
Read MoreSee how Face The Music used their music team building process to facilitate 1700 people to meet, network and write and perform their own songs in an hour and a half. The event was for the NAIS People of Color Conference and took place in New Orleans.
CPR is a powerful tool to focus clearly on what you would like to attain from an event, a project, a meeting, or an action. By clearly stating all the results you would like to obtain, stating the purpose of the activity, and developing a context from which to operate, you focus your intent powerfully and take a direct path to where you wish to go.
Read MoreLeaders determine what happens. Everything we see, know, and experience is (or was) made up. There are extant environmental conditions and facts, and someone gives meaning to them based on their beliefs, values, and personal history, and they envision what’s next and make decisions on how to go about manifesting that—leading the action that will make it happen. They make it up…
Read MoreTelling a story well creates a personal connection (often very strongly) between your audience and your message. Effective stories can change opinions; inspire us to achieve goals that we didn't think were possible; and they can show people how we can change things for the better.
Read MoreThis tool or system is called: LCS (Likes, Concerns, & Suggestions). It has been successfully practiced by many different kinds of organizations as a way of assessing ideas without killing them, and as a debriefing process for organizational learning.
Read MorePremise: Organizations as living systems must continually adapt and change in response to their environment in order to thrive, survive, and be relevant.
Addressing the meeting from a systemic and holographic perspective makes it an exceptional leveraging opportunity for learning your system’s characteristics.
Read MoreI want to share a little vignette on an innovative experience of my own that helped me to complete my work. The fact that the need for the innovation was due to my own poor planning will not be the point I am emphasizing, but I was able to find a way to get my work done and keep my clients served.
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