Sometimes a group needs a fictional situation to catalyse its thinking, focus its conversations, or use as a training exercise. Here are some examples and tips for constructing great fictions.
Who gives us permission?
In a recent coaching session, my client was exploring whether they had permission to do something. And, in an uncertain and fluid situation, how they would know whether they had permission or not. What if they misread the signs?
We developed a two-by-two matrix, to sort out the possibilities.
Now the ash has settled: eleven questions to get insights from the shutdown
Was the shut down of air travel a right pain for you and your organisation? Now that the ash has settled, there's a great opportunity for you to use the recent disruption to discuss sustainable development with your colleagues. [And as if to prove the point that it's a good idea to be prepared, it's back - as of 08.52 @BST 4th May 2010.]
Whichever way you look at it, a low-carbon economy (whether forced on us by peak oil or chosen as a planned way of mitigating climate change) will mean a drastic reduction in cheap air travel. Your colleagues may feel this is too far off, or too fanciful, to plan for. But the shut down actually happened. So it's a great way in to discussions you might not have been able to have before April 2010.
Here are 11 questions to structure a discussion about your organisation's dependence on air transport - and how you can reduce it over the long term.
- What was disrupted?
- What was enhanced?
- What did we do differently, that worked really well?
- What did we do differently, that was a right pain?
- What contingencies did we have in place, or put in place, in case the shut-down had lasted for twice as long?
- Or ten times as long?
- What would we have done if we'd had a week's notice?
- What would we have done if we'd had a month's notice?
- What would we have done if we'd had five year's notice?
- What will we keep doing differently anyway, because it worked better?
- What will we build into our medium and long term planning, to help us be ahead of the game when air travel again becomes more expensive and less available?