Programmes
What we run, and who it is for
We work with high- and mid-level managers in companies, NGOs and public institutions. Everything below is built with the group of participants in the room rather than delivered at it.
Programme one
The Structures We Have Outgrown
Most teams have a conversation they are not having. It is usually the one that would cost least to have now and most to have in a year. The half-day works on the conditions under which that conversation becomes possible: what a room needs before anyone in it will say the thing they are actually thinking.
The structures that brought you here were good structures. They may also be structures you have outgrown, and that is not a failure. So the day works on what is not visible: the dynamics nobody names, the thinking that sits at the edge of what gets said, and the arrangements everybody has stopped questioning.
Three moves
Play it out. Creative tasks rather than a discussion, because they reach what the group knows but has not yet put into words.
Change seats. Part of the day is spent arguing from a position that is not your own. Done properly this is uncomfortable, and it is where most of the insight comes from.
Name what changed. A short input from us on the old way and the new, then open discussion, then a close. You leave with the group’s own map, not our slides.
Who it is for
Managers, senior leaders and executives: anyone whose work is mostly other people.
How it runs
Module one. A preliminary survey, the workshop itself, and a written report we present and discuss with you some weeks later. It stands on its own, and that discussion is where you decide whether to go further.
Modules two and three. Two further sessions working towards structural change, then a return two months later to evaluate what has held. Taken as a pair.
After that. Consulting hours when you want them.
Programme two
Futures Literacy for senior teams
Every team is already making assumptions about what comes next. They sit inside the budget, the hiring plan, the thing nobody bothers to argue about any more. Futures literacy is the capacity to notice those assumptions, hold more than one possible future at once, and decide what to do differently now.
This is not forecasting. We are not going to tell you what will happen, and anyone who offers to is selling you something. The useful work is on the range of futures your team can still imagine, because that range is what determines the options you have when the plan stops working.
Three moves
Surface it. Get the assumptions out of people’s heads and onto the wall, where they can be looked at.
Take it apart. Ask what else could be true, and treat the uncomfortable answer as the interesting one.
Decide something. A future you have imagined and then done nothing about was entertainment.
Who it is for
Senior teams whose decisions commit the organisation years ahead: leadership groups, boards, and strategy and planning functions.
How it runs
The same shape as programme one: an inquiry before we meet, the sessions themselves, a written analysis, and a return to see what has held. It can also run as a module inside a collaboration already under way.
Not sure which of the two you need? That is usually a good sign.