Post Archive for Year: 2016

'The Cassandra Complex' reproduced by kind permission of Jen Allanson

Cassandra’s Curse

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy who, on refusing Apollo’s advances, was cursed for the rest of her life to accurately predict events but never be believed. When … Continue reading

Feedback, Meaning & Perspective

A colleague of mine once said; “There are only three reasons someone can have for giving you feedback. The first is that they are your boss and it’s their job. The second is that they are … Continue reading

Job Description

I have always found the question; “So what do you do?” very hard to answer accurately and briefly. Putting to one side the obvious jokes about me not knowing, the first problem is that there is no such thing as a typical … Continue reading

A Moment of Stillness

At work I sometimes use an exercise called ‘Marble Run’. It asks a group of about eight people to transfer a marble from a start line some fifty metres or so to a cup by letting it roll along eight short sections of … Continue reading

Stakes and Ladders

Described in his book ‘Overcoming Organisational Defences’, Chris Argyris’ model, the Ladder of Inference, attempts to articulate how people move from a fact to a decision or action. As humans cannot possibly process all the data … Continue reading