🪵 Thinking has growth rings!

 Trees tell us their age, but they also tell the story of their development.

🌧️ Years of plentiful rain and nutrients produce wider growth rings.

☀️ Years of drought leave narrower ones.

🔥 Storms, fires and changing conditions leave a mark.

 🌏 I've just completed my accreditation as a MyWorldView (MWV)® Practitioner with Global Leadership Associates in the UK.  It’s based on Adult Development (or Vertical Development), and decades of research by Robert Kegan, Bill Torbert and many others. It’s an approach to discovering, understanding and developing "rings". 

🌳 As trees grow, they don't lose their earlier growth rings – they add new ones around them. 

We are the same! As we experience life and expand our ways of thinking, we don't replace earlier ways of making sense of the world - we build on them.

The more "growth rings" we develop, the broader our range of thinking becomes. 

This is handy! Sometimes we need to solve an immediate problem quickly. At other times we need to be more strategic, systemic, embrace uncertainty or think in entirely new ways. There is value in having broader ways of thinking to draw on in complex situations.

 🌳 🌳 🌳 The concept of growth rings applies to teams too. Just as a forest creates its own microclimate, a team's collective way of thinking isn't the sum of its individual trees... sorry, members. It's something unique, created by the interaction between team members and the relationship with their environment.

The good news is that both individual and team "rings" can be intentionally expanded - and that's where coaching and team coaching come in.

Get in touch if you or your team want to understand your "rings". I'm excited to add another evidence-based approach to my toolkit, helping leaders and teams develop not just what they do, but how they think.

🌳 This tree has something to teach us about teams!

It's easy to notice individual trees.

What's harder to see is the complex network that connects them.

A forest isn't a collection of individuals. It's a living system where everything is connected. Each tree influences - and is influenced by - everything around it. Beneath the surface are roots, fungi and nutrients. Above the ground, birds, insects, sunlight, wind and rain all play their part. It's a complex ecosystem.

Teams are the same!

🪐 That's why I use constellation techniques in team coaching. By physically mapping people, relationships, roles or ideas, teams can literally step into their system and see the hidden dynamics influencing how they work together.

Conversations shift from "Who's the problem?" to "What's happening in our system?"

I'm working with a team at the moment where I've heard, "Everything would be fixed if X just left."

I suspect that's not the case.

One tree doesn't tell you everything about the forest. Sometimes the tree we notice first isn't the problem - it's the part of the system making the problem visible.

That's where my role as a team coach kicks in: helping teams see systems they're creating together - and the possibilities for changing them.

🌳 🌳 🌳 🫚 🍄 🪳 If you're ready to see the forest and the trees (and roots, fungi and insects), let’s chat.

🖼️ Art class is making me a better coach!

I know... I didn't expect that either.

And no, this isn't the start of another career change.

For the last 18 months, I've been heading off to art class with a bag of brushes, paints, paper and absolutely no expectation of producing a masterpiece.

That's exactly what I love about it.

For a couple of hours, I'm encouraged to slow down.

To really observe.

To notice light and shadow.

To experiment.

To combine colours and materials just to see what happens.

To have no plan and let ideas emerge.

As adults, we spend much of our time searching for the right answer—or at least an answer. We value efficiency, productivity and outcomes.

What if, every now and then, we intentionally did the opposite?

Making art invites us to be curious.

To observe before judging.

To trust the process instead of trying to control it.

💪 I leave each class feeling like I've been to brain gym - my coaching muscles get a tough workout.

So no... you won't be seeing my artwork here anytime soon.

But you might see the thinking it inspires!

If you're curious about trying a different way of thinking - whether for yourself or your team - I'd love to have a chat about coaching or team coaching. Get on touch.