One of the most interesting jobs I ever had was when I was paid to tell lies. I didn’t see it that way at the time. I was running comms for a cost-saving programme in government, and the numbers we were...
There’s something missing. The newly released UK apprenticeship standard for Systems Thinking locates systems practice “in arenas where complex problems exist that cannot be addressed by any one organisation...
Most of our consultancy work sits somewhere in the overlap between systems thinking and visual thinking, and in this article I want to share an example of how these two worlds could be interacting with each other. There...
The main job of a school isn’t to help pupils get high grades, it is to help provide meaning. This is the function of curriculum. I’ve just started reading Martin Robinson’s Trivium 21c, a book that draws...
If you happen to be near Parliament Square in London over the next few weeks, have a look at the rows of Brexit protestors standing opposite the gates. As you go past, notice how the dichotomy of the referendum question...
This time last year I posted an extract from Steven Pinker, in which he compared reading the word “stimulus” in an academic text to the phrase “tapping on the wrist”, which was what it actually...
I was talking to someone recently about government education policy and they said something like “what these people fail to realise is that a school is not a business“. I don’t want to get into...
Many thanks to all our wonderful clients and supporters for the many great experiences of 2018 – look forward to making more shared meaning with you in 2019. Click on the image for a higher resolution view and...
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that I firmly believe that businesses need better maps, for a whole host of reasons. Here’s another one: Maps help you tell better stories. ...
We were talking in the office last week about Growth Mindset – the idea popularised by Carol Dweck that attainment in classrooms is partly determined by whether pupils believe their ability is fixed or expandable...
