BBS013 - Conversations, reading and BC World. Happy Diwali!

G'day and welcome to episode 13 - and the start of the third month of the show.Time to changes things up a little bit, especially this week and next.

I also want to wish you all Happy Diwali!

Diwali is an ancient Hindu festival, the biggest and brightest festival in India. It is also celebrated by Sikhs and Buddhists. Diwali celebrates the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance.

It is a celebration of enlightenment.

Enlightenment is a great theme for a lot of what we have been talking about here Beyond the Black Stump.

Encouraging reasoning, progressive thinking and a reduction in dogma have been common themes with a number of the guests.

From the outset I have tried to have this show offer a different perspective on the idea of Thought Leadership. The idea that thinking is a social process, that conversations are the real place in which thinking is developed. The hope is that people take and adapt ideas that have been formed in these conversations – and in that way the discipline continues to grow and evolve.

Some of you will know that I often reference the work of Rosabeth Moss Kanter, primarily because she has produced some good work over her career but also to encourage risk and BC folks to read outside the discipline. If we want to become relevant to Executives we need to be able to speak their language – and reference the people they read.

In a 2011 article, which I will reference in the show notes, Kanter talks about the power of convening – and in particular how Bill Clinton uses that power. She makes the point that anybody can convene – we can do it to start collaborating with other disciplines to build resilience, we can do it to network and learn. Here are Kanter’s three tips to make it effective;

• Think big – make the issues and the promise of action compelling. You want active engagement not passive compliance.
• Think beyond the usual suspects – need to cut across existing discipline and cultural silos. Go back and listen to the piece in last weeks show with Phil Wood about Groupthink in Communities of Practice.
• Get to action – this is where change happens.

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Next week I am heading to London for the BCI World Conference. There are some sessions I am keen to hear, but more importantly I am looking forward to meeting and discussing ideas with a range of people. If you are there let me know, I would love to hear what you are thinking and doing.

I had a quick chat with Deborah Higgins from the BCI about the main things she is looking forward to next week – and the ideas she hopes to hear discussed. She is hoping to have conversations around Resilience, the future of practice – how things are going to change and adapt going forward.

I might join in a few of those conversation myself.

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Have you heard that November is National Novel Writing Month? This is an annual event where people are encouraged to write a novel, from scratch, in a month. I will link the community site for this in case you are interested – it features tools to track your progress and get some peer support. The target is to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

That is a pretty big ask, and I am not suggesting that we all need to go out and write a book this month.
But there is something I think we can do – what is stopping you from reading a book this month?

Anybody up for the challenge of READING 50,000 words this month? Come over to the Black Stump LinkedIN Group and state your intent – and you can keep us updated on your progress.

We do not read enough in this discipline – and we certainly do not read enough beyond case studies and “how to” guides.

Reading, and reading on a wide range of subjects is a great way to open our thinking.
I have been influenced a lot by Robin Ryde’s book "Thought Leadership". In that book he tells a great story about limits on our thinking - using the analogy of raindrops running down a windscreen, how they seem to follow the track of the drop before. This is a quote from Ryde’s book

"We have a limited range of thinking styles that we are pulled towards with almost gravitational force, and we find ourselves stuck in the channels of thinking already created, either by others in the course of conversation to though our own habits."

One book you might want to read to expand your thinking options is "Addicted to Performance" by John Bircham and Heather Connolly. It is related to the BC and risk industry and it is based on a series of case studies so not too far removed from our staple fare.

Addicted to Performance is also the Black Stump book of the month and will be featured in the Book Club episode of the show on November 27th. If you want to know more about that book, or you just want the free extract from Phil’s book we discussed last week, sign up for the Book Club mailing list.

Next week the Black Stump podcast will come to you live from the floor of the BC World Conference and Expo in London – who knows the people who may feature or what they will be talking about.

As I said at the top of the show, a little difference this week.
Until then, remember that resilience is a journey. It starts with that first step.