The Blogworld of Poppyfish People Development

Technical excellence. You strive for it, you study for it. Ever since that first day at school when they opened the top of your head and started pouring in all those facts, algorithms, rules, dates, ratios, laws and equations you have been building the extreme specimen of technical genius that you are today. Technical knowledge is essential, it is the bedrock of our physical world, and for year upon year you have strived to improve your mastery of it. Technical excellence is important for all sorts of reasons, but at the most basic level it is important because it gives us power. It gives us power to speak with authority on our chosen area of excellence. It gives us power to get our foot in the door of that job we are seeking, it gives us power to earn reward and recognition, and it gives us power over other people. Neuroscientists are technical experts. They have power over me. The power I assign to them means that I believe them when they talk to me about the way the brain ...

A  few weeks ago I had to renew an insurance policy using a new online form. One of the questions the website wanted me to answer was " What is your job ?". Next to the question was a drop down list on which there were, quite literally, hundreds of options. The list included some familiar occupations: Accountant, Actuary, Receptionist, Welder, Priest, Car Mechanic and Quantity Surveyor, etc were all listed. Scattered among them were a host of other more unusual ways to earn a crust including: Axeman, Astronaut, Chicken Chaser and Chicken Sexer.  I was so absorbed by some of these the amazing sounding jobs that I must have I scrolled up and down the list over a dozen times. I was amazed at its thoroughness. It seemed that just about every profession, or in some cases, bizarre fetish, that you could imagine, was listed.   But Organisational Development Consultant wasn't on the list.   T he suggestion that there are more astronauts tha...

In 1969 the American astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon. Yesterday, he died. Few things epitomise the power of human aspiration more symbolically than our attempts to explore our galaxy. Driven by a quest for knowledge and to further the development of the human race, achievements such as those that enabled Armstrong to achieve the dream of millions know few parallels. His famous phase " One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind " reflected the age in which he lived. When asked about the purpose of the Apollo 11 mission ahead of the launch from Florida and the subsequent touchdown in the Sea of Tranquility Armstrong said " I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges...it's in the nature of his deep inner soul ". His passing provokes me to pause for thought amidst a hectic weekend, and reflect on the value of lived experience and personal narrativ...

I was lucky enough to be part of a conversation recently in which people from different organisations were sharing their personal views about their various workplaces. This is one of the real upsides to my job. This was a multinational group working across different sectors and the threads of the conversation were many and varied, yet what stood out for me against all the statements and opinions about how different our organisations were was one thing upon which everyone in the room seemed to be agreed - namely that it's a 'bad thing' to exhibit vulnerability in the workplace. A bad thing. No one appeared to be too bothered by this and the conversation soon moved on. But for me the apparent confirmation that we can simply accept that organisations create, allow or somehow foster these predatory moments hung heavily in the pit of my stomach with a nauseous pang. The frown and bad feeling that I was left wi...