How is neuroscience relevant to organisations?

Organisations are made up of human beings. Therefore, it is critical to be able to get underneath the surface and understand what makes people tick and how our intelligence systems are shaped and developed. Clive Hyland, our Neuroscience Advisor, has spent the past 30 years working in this area which has led to him publishing three books and being the founding partner of an organisation called Make Sense Ltd. 

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system which includes the brain. It is a fast-evolving subject and has led to many insightful breakthroughs over the past few decades. According to Clive, greater awareness of what happens in the brain and the wider body intelligence system alongside the concept of energetic connection is “essential to positively influence change, communicate more effectively, build high performing teams, make better decisions and create those thriving cultures that are often talked about but not always achieved”.

Clive and his colleague, Victoria Hall, have recently started a new podcast series titled “Neuroscience and Humans at work”. The first episode is out now and is called “Why is Neuroscience relevant to the Workplace?” To listen, click here, or find it on your usual podcast channel. Further episodes will cover a whole host of topics from communication styles to relationships and feeling shame. 

Our distinctive Caplor House model is built on the foundations of neuroscience. According to Clive it is possible to see the parallels between rooms in the Caplor House and the four main areas of the brain: 

• Activity in the Kitchen parallels the basal system, the region of instincts 

• Activity in the Family Room parallels the limbic system, the region of feelings 

• Activity in the Library parallels the cortex, the region of rational thinking 

• Activity in the Observatory parallels the prefrontal cortex, the region of conscious awareness, purpose and meaning

To find out more, read Chapter 7 on the “Human Organisation” in our book here. To take part in our online Caplor House exercise, click here. 

We are relaunching our webinar series starting with a webinar on “Shared Leadership”. During this webinar we will hear from a range of speakers about their experiences of shared leadership in different contexts: across different parts of the world, across different ages and experiences, across different cultures, and across differing gender dynamics. The webinar will be on 14th November at 12:00:13:30 GMT on Zoom. To find out more, click here for a flyer and click here to register. 

Why shared leadership? Caplor Horizons has been role modelling shared leadership since 2017. We currently have three Co-Directors (see below). We believe opportunity exists to challenge and change how power is typically held by leaders to accelerate progress towards creating a sustainable future. We believe this is particularly relevant to the next generation of leaders who can be put off by the traditional approaches that continue to prevail in so many organisations and wider society. For the dates of the rest of our webinars, click here.

Change Maker of the Week

Quote of the week: “Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another’s uniqueness.” – Ola Joseph

Best wishes
Ian, Rosie, Lorna, Kemal and Iain

It’s not just what we ‘do’, it’s who we ‘are’, and how we ‘be’ in the world!

Embracing change – a time for reflection: With so much going on in the world, climate change, wildfire, food shortages, people fleeing wars and persecution, losing their homes, and losing their lives trying to find better ones, we reflect on how we can challenge ourselves to be ‘thinking differently, acting differently, learning differently’ in order to bring about positive change. We have been exploring what we stand for in the world and how we can best use our resources, skills, knowledge, power and experience to do this. This update will focus on two areas that we have been focusing on. As this is an ongoing journey, there are other areas we are currently working to develop too. 

1. Anti-racism – embedding this at heart of our work: Since 2020, Caplor Horizons has been on a journey towards becoming an anti-racist organisation. This intensive commitment has required us to first understand the issues of racism in ourselves, our work practises and society, and then to take action to address and change accordingly. With consistent engagement from the Board and the team, we are currently at the stage of designing an anti-racism strategy, which will put this focus at the heart of how we work. We are deeply appreciative of Chandra (Ladwa) and Saf (Ghapson) for so skilfully leading us on this journey. Please see them pictured below with some of the Caplor Horizons team at a training day.

Here are some links for two informative papers on this subject from Bond the UK network for organisations working in international development.

• Racism, power and truth: experiences of people of colour in development

• Anti-racism and decolonising: a framework for organisations

2. Rolling out our Change Makers Programme: We have been consolidating our leadership, culture, team, and change programmes we have been undertaking with our partners for several years, and this has developed into our ‘Change Makers Programme’. We have in the last year been starting to deliver this with various partners, including:

• Redbrick – an inspirational organisation in Glastonbury, UK, most famous for its music and arts festival, for its connection with the spirit and soul, stretching back into the long distant past. Redbrick creates exciting experiences and opportunities for people from within the Glastonbury community and beyond, notably related to education, art and enterprise. You can read more about the Redbrick via its website here. Going through a period of significant growth, we are working through issues around different models of leadership and strategic alignment across all the facets of this highly inspirational and ambitious community led project, to enable community cohesion and development. To watch a short video of the development of this grassroots community led project, please click here.

• Riversimple – a small team, trying to solve an enormous problem. Riversimple is a sustainable car company working to eliminate, systematically, the environmental impact of personal transport. Riversimple’s first vehicle, the Rasa, is an electric car powered by hydrogen. With the world moving to replace petrol and diesel cars within 10-20 years, hydrogen fuel cell cars have an important role to play alongside battery electric vehicles. Fiona and Hugo Spowers, the Directors and Founders, commented: "we can see the positive effects of the change maker programme on the company culture – all the more remarkable in that it doesn’t feel like a programme at all. Everyone in the company looks forward to the sessions and they are undoubtedly strengthening the team’s sense of commitment to Riversimple".

• Refugee Action – We are also currently supporting Refugee Action, in the UK, along with seven other refugee organisations, in delivering an Emerging Leaders Programme (see our last update for more details). We have drawn on many of our Advisors' work, including, Lynne Sedgmore and Seamus O’Gorman, amongst others, in the design and delivery of modules.

We will be launching the full programme, later this year, please watch this space…

Change Maker of the Week

Rumi quote: “Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I am changing myself.”

Best wishes
Ian, Rosie, Lorna, Kemal and Iain

Shifting power to 'experts by experience'

According to the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees (UNHCR), an estimated 110 million people have been forcibly displaced due to conflict, persecution or natural disasters, and there are approximately 35 million refugees globally. By the end of 2022, Turkey continued to host the largest refugee population, with 3.6 million people. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Colombia and Germany were next, hosting over 2 million refugees. Countries like Pakistan, Uganda and Sudan closely followed, all hosting over 1 million refugees. The UK hosted 231,597 refugees (as of November 2022). 52% of all refugees and other people in need of international protection came from just three countries: Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan. To find out more click here for the UNHCR website, and here for the Amnesty International website. 

We are currently supporting Refugee Action, in the UK, along with other partner organisations, listed below, in delivering an Emerging Leaders Programme, funded by the National Lottery. This sits within the Explore, Adapt, Renew (EAR) programme.

This is a growing collaborative community of organisations across 7 local ecosystem and beyond with Experts by Experience (EBEs) driving change at all levels. Within this structure, the programme focusses on four interconnected elements: 1) shifting power, 2) adapting services, 3) early action, and 4) local ecosystems. 

The vision for the “shifting power” element of the programme is to transform the role of within the refugee and migrant sector by supporting organisations to take practical steps towards shifting power to people with lived experience. EAR aims to transform the role of EBE’s within the sector to centre and embed their knowledge, experience and voice, in all aspects of service design and delivery, advocacy, and community development. The programme co-ordinator said: ‘This is about creating spaces for everyone on this journey to share and learn together, not transfer power from one person or group to the other, but to share and learn from each other’.

The Emerging Leaders programme is an experiential learning programme designed by Caplor Horizons in collaboration with Refugee Action. It  has involved approx. 24 participants and has included both face to face and online sessions. Topics included:

• Developing your own leadership style

• Effective communication and influence

• Power and influence 

• Collaborating with others 

These topics have drawn on many of our Advisors' work, including, Lynne Sedgmore (Luminary Leadership models of power), Seamus O’Gorman (the craft of Collaboration, please click here to read one of his papers), amongst others.

Another organisation we are working with to shift power to "experts by experience" is Ella's. Ella’s is a London-based organisation working with women who have survived trafficking and sexual exploitation. Ella's have recently set up a Survivors Advisory Board which aims to bring together people with lived experience with a common goal of increasing the influence of survivor voices in designing and strengthening support services. 

Change maker of the week

Through her work, Ibtissam focuses on breaking down challenges that hinder individuals from accessing and harnessing their own power. She believes that true empowerment comes from removing these obstacles and fostering an environment where everyone has equal opportunities to thrive. By sharing her knowledge and working collaboratively with others, she aims to create a transformative impact on individuals' lives and society as a whole.

Quote of the week: “A refugee is someone who survived and who can create the future.” Amela Koluder

Best wishes
Ian, Rosie, Lorna, Kemal and Iain

Nurturing and Honouring Sensitive Leadership

“Leadership no longer derives from individualist, charismatic or heroic influence but manifests as caring, loving people leading together inter-connectedly, soulfully, simultaneously and peerfully to a common purpose in authentic service to the greater good”. Please click here for the full paper, written by our Advisor Dr Lynne Sedgmore.

This type of leadership, far from being a weakness, calls for heightened sensitivity – an enhanced capacity for empathy, intuition and care. Dr Elaine Aron, who pioneered research into high sensitivity, suggests four key characteristics of leaders who demonstrate these traits:

• Strong intuition. Wise and skilful leadership requires more than conscious reasoning and logic. Tuning into "our subtle inner voice" can be invaluable when grappling with complex challenges.

• The ability of leaders to ‘soak up’ everything around them – especially subtleties that others tend to miss. Words. Conversations. Non-verbal cues. Movement. Sound. Smells. Emotions. "Taking in environmental subtleties is an invaluable leadership ability" and can be enormously beneficial in problem solving.

• A preference to process information they have taken in versus taking action and speaking. Giving space to other team members to speak and contribute freely, rather than jumping to action or pushing our own ideas allows others to share, shine and feel valued.   

• Resonant leadership. "Resonant leaders seem to say and do the right thing at just the right time. This isn’t luck or magic, it’s their innate ability to feel deeply, process richly, and patiently consider the right words and actions for the moment".

For more details please see the following interview and find out more about Elaine's work here.

Recently our Director of Strategic Partnerships Kemal (Shaheen) has completed a High Sensory Coaching Course and is currently involved in a series of co-creative conversations, with others, exploring the power and potential of heightened sensitivity in relation to diverse themes and topics – including leadership, education, creativity, health and organisational development. 

At Caplor Horizons we greatly value co-creative conversations that help to deepen our understanding of issues that we care about. We see this as an essential part of being a learning organisation, and it is just one of the ways in which our talented Advisors contribute to the Caplor Community – helping us to learn, grow and pay forward their depth of experience and knowledge.

Coming soon…

Next week we are enormously excited to be having one of our regular conversations with our Thought Leadership Advisor – the renowned social philosopher Charles Handy. We will be talking to Charles about various topics – including how leaders and organisations might cultivate higher levels of sensitivity, and whether this could help them to navigate complex issues such as ‘localisation’ or ‘decolonisation’ and the importance of being sensitive to where power should properly belong. Click here and here to read two of our previous conversations with Charles. 

Change maker of the week

Quote of the week: “Whatever the times, suffering eventually touches every life. How we live with it, and help others to, is one of the great creative and ethical opportunities” Elaine Aron

Best wishes
Ian, Rosie, Lorna, Kemal and Iain

What is your story?

One of the most important ways in which Caplor Horizons works with our partners is by helping them to tell meaningful stories. Over the years we have supported many different types of organisations to renew their strategy: this involves telling powerful stories about who they are, why they exist (their mission and purpose), what they have learnt, what they believe in, where they are going, and how they are going to get there (their values, beliefs, culture, vision, goals). See our "Essentials of Strategy" here. This work often includes a focus on strengthening individual, team and organisational resilience. 

In a fascinating article, writer, therapist and story-teller Jude Treder-Wolff explains that stories can help us to be more resilient – defined in her article as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress”.

There are many different ideas about what makes an individual or organisation resilient. These include: 

• The courage to accept what is (the reality that one is facing), 

• An ability to improvise and be creative in the face of adversity, 

• Responding to challenges by identifying strengths, assets and opportunities, rather than dwelling on problems, lack and threat,

• A sense of humour or ability to see light in dark times

As Diane Coutu writes in an article on resilience for Harvard Business Review – one of the most important is "a deep belief, often buttressed by strongly held values, that life is meaningful". 

Viktor Frankl’s writing on the human search for, and ability to find, meaning in the face of extreme adversity (the concentration camps of Nazi Germany) is a very poignant expression of this. His work shines a light on how finding meaning in adversity is central to resilience, as well as demonstrating the power of story to build connection, empathy and shared meaning through the sharing of experience. He writes:

“One evening, when we were already resting on the floor of our hut, dead tired, soup bowls in hand, a fellow prisoner rushed in and asked us to run out to the assembly grounds and see the wonderful sunset. Standing outside we saw sinister clouds of ever-changing shapes and colours, from steel blue to blood red. The desolate grey mud huts provided a sharp contrast, while the puddles on the muddy ground reflected the glowing sky. Then, after minutes of moving silence, one prisoner said to another, “How beautiful the world could be!’” 

Treder-wolff states that "the first building block of a person’s resilience is crafting a meaningful story". Recently, Caplor Horizons has been privileged to work on a strategy renewal process with the Irish Association of Social Inclusion Opportunities (IASIO). In partnership with a number of state agencies, IASIO provides a wide range of supports including access to housing, social welfare, training and education for people who have been marginalised because of their criminal convictions. 

Crucially, IASIO’s work is about much more than service provision. At the heart of their approach is a profound belief in the restorative power of ‘Hope’ – one of their core values. IASIO helps people in prisons or on probation rebuild their lives by telling more meaningful stories (to themselves and others) about who they are, what they have learned, where they are going and how they are going to get there. One client, serving a two-year sentence with limited employment history, no training and a long history of addiction explains what it means to find hope and meaning in their lives by ‘telling a different story’:

“I always wanted to work, but really felt I would never be able to achieve it, having made so many mistakes and bad choices. I thought that was it for me…I think I had resigned myself to being somebody that would keep ending up in prison. When I first started working with IASIO I thought “I want to change,” but deep down I didn’t think it was possible for me. I started the training and things seemed to snowball from there…I kept reminding myself of what the goal was…I got an interview, and I made sure I was ready. Before I knew where I was, I was working, I was getting up every morning going to work”.

Re-framing the narrative and telling powerful stories about how and where we find meaning (including our values, vision and purpose) – lies at the heart of individual and organisational resilience, and it is an essential ingredient of all the work that Caplor Horizons does with our partners, like IASIO. 

Kemal (Shaheen) with the Board and Leadership Team of IASIO during the strategy renewal process

Change maker of the week

Best wishes
Ian, Rosie, Lorna, Kemal and Iain

Celebrating achievements together!

We are delighted to announce that out of 73 organisations monitored this year, Caplor Horizons ranked 10th in the FAIR SHARE Monitor 2023. This means that we have what we considered to be an equitable proportion of women on staff and in leadership roles. The FAIR SHARE Monitor, makes transparent the gap between the proportion of women on staff and the proportion of women in leadership in the social impact sector and holds international organisations accountable to gender equity. For more information, including how to participate in this, please click on the link: FAIR SHARE Monitor 2023.

Sharing insights about our Co-leadership journey: We were recently invited to present at a webinar hosted by FAIRSHARE on co-leadership, along with other organisations in this network. It was energising to share learnings and hear experiences from others. Following this, Clive (Hyland), one of our Advisors, was inspired to make a short video on the neuroscience of feminist leadership. Huge appreciation to Clive! Please click here to watch and here for a paper to learn more about “Feminist Leadership”.

Developing a coaching mindset

Rosie (Bishop) and Lorna (Pearcey), have recently completed a Certificate in Leadership Coaching, accredited by EMCC Global, and led by Tom Battye. On completing this coaching programme, they said:

“This programme has really helped consolidate our learning, over many years, and has enabled us to recognise the significance and impact, coaching, a coaching mindset, and a coaching culture can have in our work”.

Building our coaching offer with our partners, and developing our distinctive approach to coaching, has been an area we have been focusing on, over the last year, led by Iain (Patton), Director of fundraising and Ann (Alder), one of our Advisors. Click here to explore some of our Ripple Papers on coaching. This approach is being adopted more widely by those in the International Development sector in order to ‘do international development differently’.

Building coaching skills across the sector could fundamentally shift power dynamics and create relationships based on equality between international and local team members. The shift in language, from a focus on ‘international experts’ towards ‘locally led solutions’, is a step toward a more balanced understanding of the public policy and social challenges that must be confronted to enable development. 

We believe that moving from an 'expert mindset' to a 'coaching mindset', could make a big difference. The coaching mindset is a process of facilitating reflection for individuals and groups to enable them to do their best quality thinking and come to the right solutions for themselves in their context. 

It’s about holding others in unconditional positive regard, creating space for thinking, challenging our assumptions, and choosing to be curious instead. It’s about people sharing problems and co-creating solutions. It’s also about observing what we are witnessing and offering feedback with generosity and respect. To read more about how this could impact positively on International Development, click here for an article from Bond.

We are committed to embedding this approach more widely in our work. Watch this space for the launch of our new programme offer!

Changemakers of the week

We would like to celebrate with members of our Caplor community, Sian (Basker) and Madeline (Spinks), Co-CEOs of Data Orchard. They have been listed in NatWest's WISE 100 list of Women in Social Enterprise this year. This carefully selected list brings together the UK's 100 leading women in social enterprise, impact investment and mission-driven business.

Data Orchard combines specialist skills in research, statistics and data with a passion for making the world a better place socially, economically and environmentally. Click here to find out more about their work and programmes.

On winning this award, Sian commented: “I’m honoured and proud that my Co CEO Madeleine Spinks at Data Orchard and I have been named in NatWest’s WISE 100 list of Women in Social Enterprise, and congratulations to all the other inspiring & influential women leading values-driven and mission-driven businesses!” She added: “We’d like to offer a 20% discount to any leaders in Caplor Horizons’ community interested in our data for non-profit leaders course. Just put in CAPLOR20 at the checkout”.  For further details of this 5 week programme, starting on 21st June until 19th July, click here. 

Quote of the week: “I think realizing that you’re not alone, that you are standing with millions of your sisters around the world is vital.” Malala Yousafzai

Best wishes
Ian, Rosie, Lorna, Kemal and Iain

How can we be more soulful leaders?

Dr Lynne Sedgmore provides powerful insights about soulful leadership in one of our Ripple Papers. This is called “The Leaderful Way” which you can read here. Focusing on individuals, it offers an integrated approach with three pathways of leading: Soul, Service and Synchronous. Lynne, one of our Advisors, explains that: “these pathways are distinctive in themselves; yet when all three are developed, integrated and practiced simultaneously by everyone who chooses to step into leadership within a community or organisation they can bring huge liberation, performance outcomes and satisfaction.”

In a different paper, called “Soul of Organisations” another of our Advisors, Professor Sharon Turnbull, provides a more organisational context. Drawing on the work of Deepak Chopra, the acronym LEADER is include. She explains:  “Chopra’s roadmap for understanding our soul as leaders and the soul of our organisations is far from formulaic and requires deep reflection and in our view an immersion in nature in order to find it. His acronym of LEADER depicts important facets of a form of leadership that is often overlooked or misunderstood. Each of the letters in the acronym hints at how leaders can find their soul." Intrigued to find out what the acronym says? Click here to read the paper. 
 
We have commenced working with an inspirational organisation in Glastonbury called Red Brick. Glastonbury is famous within the UK for its connection with the spirit and soul in different ways, stretching back into the long distant past. Red Brick creates exciting experiences and opportunities for people from within the Glastonbury community and beyond, notably related to education, art and enterprise. You can read more about the Red Brick via its website here. We are facilitating a programme to further strengthen organisational effectiveness at a time of considerable growth. With great appreciation to Lynne, who is co-facilitating, for her introduction.
 
Change Maker of the Week

Especially relevant to the theme of soul, Lynne wrote a chapter dedicated to this in our book which you can read here. Lorna and Ian were fortunate to attend a “Soul of Leadership” programme she co-facilitated a few years ago. 

Maya Angelou Quote: “There is something more, the soul: I think that this encourages our courtesy and care and our minds; and mercy and identity" 

Best wishes
Ian, Rosie, Lorna and Kemal

Celebrating 3 years as Chair of Caplor Horizons!

I’m thrilled to be writing April’s newsletter, as I celebrate three years as Chair of Caplor Horizons.

I remember leading my first board meeting very clearly. We met in person in Hereford (UK). I brought along my daughter Asta, who was almost three months old (see left below). She very much enjoyed being passed around the room and making new friends! Only weeks later, we experienced the first national Covid lockdown, which makes this memory of connection and celebration all the more poignant. The picture below on the right shows how much Asta (middle) has grown since then.

Keeping with the theme of three, I’d like to share three things I’ve learned as Chair over recent years: 

Firstly, I used to think that ‘creativity’ was the domain of certain industries, such as marketing or advertising. But Caplor Horizons has taught me that creativity is possible anywhere and necessary everywhere! It is a key tool in effecting positive change. What is crucial is to embed creativity in an organisation's culture. Caplor Horizons does this by deliberately creating safe and encouraging spaces for aspirational conversations, granting permission for ‘throwing out the rule book’ and celebrating diversity and stories from lived experience. The creation and work of the Strategic Change and Development Group is testament to this.  

Secondly, I now understand that compassion is a sign of strength and a key foundation for effecting lasting systemic change. Since the emergence of the Black Lives Matters movement in 2020, Caplor Horizons has been undertaking a programme internally to help its people embody and lead an anti-racist organisation. This intensive commitment has required individuals to face confronting truths about their own unconscious bias, commit to unlearning things they thought they knew, and focus on what the author Glennon Doyle describes as ‘transforming’ rather than ‘performing’. By which she means truly becoming an anti-racist rather than learning to say the right things. 

(Rosie Bishop, Laura Adams, Kemal Shaheen, Peter Moore, Lorna Pearcey, Saf Ghapson, Ian Williams, Chandra Ladwa).

Thirdly, I appreciate that courage can show up in different ways in people. It can be easily visible through heroic acts of self-sacrifice, especially at obvious points of crisis or emergency. But it can also show up quietly, through sustained commitment to make a positive impact over time, despite set-backs and challenge. And it is through this ‘quiet courage’ lens, driven by passion and belief, that I want to pay tribute to the extraordinary efforts from everyone who has had a hand in creating and delivering The Commitment. 2023 will be a pivotal year for setting the future trajectory of this operation, first established four years ago, which has served to amplify the voices of over 11,000 people in the UK concerned about climate change and biodiversity loss, through the tenacity of its team.

Finally, I want to thank our wonderful Trustees, staff members, Advisors, partners and wider Caplor Community for your dedication, resilience and support during my time as Chair. I feel honoured to get to work with you and wish you every success in delivering a sustainable future for all.

Changemakers of the week

Quote of the week: “I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong” Jacinda Ardern

Best wishes

Laura Adams, Chair of the Board

How can we ask the right question at the right time?

Our Caplor House Coaching Tool

Thanks to everyone in our Caplor Community that came together in recent days to learn about the latest developments to our “Coaching Way”. Around 60 people from 10 countries participated in the webinar. To watch a recording, click here. If you are unfamiliar with the “Caplor House” you can do the online exercise here and you can learn more by watching a short video clip from the webinar here.

The Caplor House Coaching tool is a versatile way to help people, teams and organisations have new conversations, explore new possibilities and reach new horizons. This is underpinned by a simple but profound belief… people already have the answers that they are looking for. What the Caplor House coaching tool does is help to liberate intelligence and unlock potential through powerful questions.

The Right Question at the Right Time

Ann Alder, one of our long-standing Advisors and one of the main architects of the Caplor House, says in her book: “…as any good coach knows, the right question at the right time can unlock extensive dialogue and change an individual’s view of the world”.

During the webinar Ann explained how the Caplor House coaching tool helps people ask “the right question at the right time” by linking this to the four rooms of the Caplor House (“Library”, “Kitchen”, “Observatory”, “Family Room”). For an example watch a short video clip of Ann explaining the tool during the webinar here, to access a resource, click here. 

To give more insight into the process there was a roleplay of a coaching scenario during the webinar, between Ann and Iain Patton. You can see a short clip of this here.  

Living the Questions Together

In an article “On the importance of asking questions”, Daniel Christian Wahl refers to “a spirit of continuous inquiry”. Powerful questions enable us to “try on other worldviews and perspectives”, and at the same time, learn to value diverse – and sometimes conflicting – perspectives as a vital source of creativity and innovation:

“Avoiding monocultures of the mind, valuing and nurturing diversity and cooperatively integrating this diversity by living the questions together will enable humanity to act wisely in the face of unpredictable change. We need to encourage life-long learning and personal development through supportive community processes and ongoing dialogue, guided by questions much more than seeking permanent answers and solutions.”

The Caplor House coaching tool can be used in coaching situations and beyond to help enable people to act wisely in the face of change whilst helping to avoid “monocultures of the mind”.  

What are the 5Cs of Trust?

“Questions much more than answers, are the pathway to collective wisdom” (Daniel Wahl).  Thoughtful questions, coupled with deep listening and an open mind are essential for building trust in teams and organisations. In a short article by Ali Grouve and Mike Watson talk about the 5Cs of building trust. There are...

• Care

• Communication

• Character

• Consistency

• Competency

Echoing Wahl, the authors comment: “It is one thing to care. It is quite another to communicate with care. Telling is not communicating. Communication requires active listening and understanding”. 

At the heart of communicating with care is knowing the right question to ask and the right time to ask it. And then listening carefully to the answer. At Caplor Horizons – we firmly believe that great questions can inspire people, teams and organisations to transform creatively, to connect compassionately, and to act courageously. 

Change Makers of the Week

Quote of the week: “Questions, more than answers, are the pathway to collective wisdom. Questions can spark culturally creative conversations that transform how we see ourselves and our relationship to the world” Daniel Christian Wahl

Best wishes
Lorna, Rosie, Ian, Iain and Kemal

What do we need to learn to collaborate better?

Just over one week to go to our next Caplor Community event. It will include a focus on new resources a group has been developing for coaching. This includes how we can all be better leaders through strengthening our approach to asking great questions. The webinar is on March 2nd at 12:30-14:30 (GMT). You can register here to receive the Zoom link, and see a flyer here. Please join us!

Collaboration can be vitally important in different ways - e.g., better collaboration can help accelerate progress on challenges facing the world. One of our goals focuses on collaboration and how we can increase it (our strategy is here).
 
Something new! We’re sharing here something ‘hot off the press’ created by Séamus (O’Gorman), one of our Advisors. Séamus draws on his considerable experience and reflection; also the results of an action learning initiative that he led. Huge thanks to Séamus and the outstanding group that took part. 

Click HERE to read "Developing the Craft of Collaboration – Part 1: In search of actions that cultivate and recreate the possibilities of better collaboration"
 
What’s in it? Developing the Craft of Collaboration – Part 1 offers a ‘9-R Framework’ for immersion into the experience of collaboration, grounded in the Action Learning Group’s reflective search. See a graph of the 9Rs below."Part 2" will be released shortly and offers a four-part action framework to design and deliver the craft of collaboration. The framework is aligned with the Caplor House model. 

What is ‘action learning’?  This typically a small group wanting to learn and develop creative ways forward to an issue - in this instance about how to increase collaboration. There’s more in the paper about the methodology. 

Change maker of the week

Quote of the week: "No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it." – H.E. Luccock

Best wishes
Lorna, Rosie, Ian, Iain and Kemal