When COVID hit Melbourne in March 2020, things really turned upside down. There were many calls to do what one normally does, but do it online!!!! Well not that easy. But I am pleased to say that one aspect of what I do has turned out OK. Over the last couple of years I have been co facilitating Complexity Tools and Methods and providing coaching to particpants both as part of the learning course experience and partly after the course. COVID was and still is messy so it is fitting to be involved in working in complexity. The tools and methods courses challeged peoples’ thinking and way of doing. You really can’t have an ego if you use this methodology as it turns the notion of expert on its head. Your role in using the methods is to facilitate the process and recognise that the knowledge and expertise lies within the system and with others not you as the guru facilitator. Very challenging for some so a lot of the coaching work was helping people struggle with this concept and to do things differently. The coaching post courses was often about how to apply this and get results in a specific work reated project or issue. Other times it was about leadership in a complex space. In some ways this notion works within the idea of adaptive leadership, crucial to today.
The coaching tools I used were various. sometimes it was about peer coaching, other times I facilitated the process to enable the coachee to try their own things, make mistakes and learn from the experience. Other times I used the concept of entangled trios ( a Cynefin Comapny initiative) which brought about innovative results. Largely the particpants directed what they needed consistent with complexity principles. As a result it was fantastic to see people grow professionally.
