Since my promotion into a global Organisation and HR Development role c 13 years’ ago, I’m continually inspired by conversations. Talking with a good friend whilst watching the sunset over a few beers, I realised that I’d written for others to design content and copy for work, articles for community newsletters, use cases for participants, journals for development programmes and so on. However, apart from the odd diary entry now and then, there wasn't much about me in there. It was about time to write for myself and what I offer as a person, as well as a Development professional.
This started a whole new journey, beyond subjects, themes and topics, into the right to write at all. Having had the good fortune to study Organisation Development under the (usually) approving eye of the profession’s greats at the NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science, I was introduced to one of the core tenets: Use of Self as Instrument. Roughly summarised as; a continuous journey to understand who we are, including our ego and unconscious self, how we see the world around us and what we do about it to create (preferably) positive change. So no excuses for not knowing what I should be doing then….
With so much content online, what to write was not the issue and ideas have abounded. None-the-less, I felt awed by the sense of responsibility and searched for a place to start. Reading blogs, articles, comments etc on social media written with such seemingly effortless fluency by peers and colleagues, I wondered if I was right to write; (paraphrasing the famous work by Julia Cameron written in 1999). I searched for a place to start and struggled to follow a creative process that yielded more than a few words re-typed over and over. Somewhat ironic, in the age of instant online communication via ever-present digital devices, that a good chat in real life, together with old-fashioned paperback published nearly 20 years ago, helped me to find where to begin and continue along the way.
#Inspired #OrganisationDevelopment #NTLInstitute #AppliedBehavioralScience #SelfasInstrument #Ego #Change #Blog #Creative
With homage to:
Cameron 1999; Cheung-Judge 2001; Seashore et al, 2004
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