In July 2012, Paul Omerod spoke at the RSA on network effects. He described this as positive linking – but not because the effects of networks are all positive. His contention is that – especially in economics – we tend to be subject to (but over look) network effects. Better attention to this trend could lead to a revolution in our…
Some describe working with partners as being like ‘dancing with a gorilla’ – and many / most would say that they are in partnership to change others to be more like themselves (rather than the idealised, both change to be differently different to one another, if you will). It could ironically also be the case that those that are active…
In ‘Working Below the Surface’ (Karnac Publishers), Clare Huffington, discusses what women leaders can tell us. She suggests that: ‘Traditional ideas of role, primary task of the leadership, authority and power derived from these seem less useful when ‘organisation’ appears to be a provisional concept. Many organisations, especially public sector organisations, seem to be in a state of deconstruction and…
In some ways, partnerships are ‘bridging’ institutions, providing different ways of being in relation to different people. Ben Okri (in his Astonishing the Gods) describes a traveller on a journey who meets a guide. This guide speaks of change as a bridge, visualises it as something constructed by the traveller; seeing change as a bridge that is visible in front…
Adam Phillips in ‘Equals’ discusses the connection between superiority and conflict and the necessity of requisite conflict in maintaining democracy: “When we envisage democratic politics from … an anti-essentialist perspective,” Chantal Mouffe writes In the Democratic Paradox, “we can begin to understand that for democracy to exist, no social agent should be able to claim any mastery of the foundation…
Slingshot