Has there ever been a greater need for ‘worldly leadership’?

Worldly leadership is needed more than ever. An increasingly more globalised world provides both opportunities and challenges. We would like to explore how ‘Worldly Leadership’ can be developed and practised more effectively. So what is Worldly Leadership?

Worldly leadership invites us to embrace leadership wisdoms from many different cultures. According to Professor Sharon (Turnbull), one of our Advisors, ‘Leadership wisdoms beyond Western-centric perspectives represent a highly dispersed body of knowledge’. Worldly leaders differ from global leaders in their cultural depth and understanding. They are sensitive, embracing and respectful of difference. They are curious to understand the many cultures in which they operate, and the many different worlds within worlds that make up our globe. To read Sharon's full paper, click here.

Join the conversation about Worldly Leadership! We are interested to hear what you have to say on this topic. We are hosting a webinar on Friday 13th March at 12:00 (UK time). We would be delighted to have as many people as possible participating. To book a place, please click here.

This week Denise (Mulligan) and Dan (Bishop) have been working with an INGO, All We Can, to develop their strategy 2020-2025. All We Can collaborates with partners in some of the world’s poorest communities to end the injustice of poverty. We are facilitating a highly inclusive and participative strategy development process which is including various advisors, including Peter (Moore) and Will (Odling). Members of the All We Can team are pictured below.

Sheryl Sandberg Quote: ‘the ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have’.

Have a great day!

Lorna, Ian and Rosie

What is the right number of people in a team?

What is the right number of people in a team? It depends!? Lots of people have researched a great deal about ideal team sizes. An anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, draws links from his research about meaningful relationships: e.g. he reasons that that humans tend to have five intimate friends, 15 or so good friends, around 50 social friends and 150 odd acquaintances. The implications of this for teams and organisations was recently explored in an article in the Economist. Click here to read more. 
 
Webinar: We are delighted to be able to share more information about our forthcoming webinar on Friday 13th March at 12pm (UK time). Follow the link here and, if you are interested to attend, please confirm to rosie@caplorhorizons.org.
 
The Commitment: in light of the election in the UK in late 2019, a lot of work has been going on to ensure the strategy is aligned to the new political reality. Click here to read a two page update, including about constituency trials; and here if you missed the findings of the quantitative research carried out. 
 
Collaboration with Ella’s: Ella’s provides long term aftercare for women who have experienced abuse through trafficking and sexual exploitation. Today Peter (Moore) is at their offices on the next phase of a strategy development process. A picture from the last team session on strategy is below.

Community Engagement Survey: Every year we aim to engage with a cross-section of Caplor Horizons stakeholders to collect feedback about how we are doing and how we could improve. This year our focus is with our partners and clients. If we have worked with you in the past, or are currently working with you, please click here to complete this 10 minute survey. We would really appreciate your feedback!

“The best part of life is not just surviving, but thriving with passion and commitment and humor and style and generosity and kindness.”

— Maya Angelou

Happy Tuesday!

Lorna, Ian and Rosie

Who's featuring in the new horizon?

We are delighted to welcome to Nicola (Baker) who has just joined the team as Director of Partnerships, (pictured here): Drawing on her 15 years experience of fundraising for enterprise and economic development agencies, Nicola has raised millions of pounds from major trusts and grant sources. Nicola will be supporting our partnership and fundraising activities and also providing this support to our clients when appropriate.

Launching Paper Boat: This week we would like to celebrate and profile one of our strategic partners – Paper Boat. This charity was formerly known as Joe Homan Charity and has recently undertaken a rebranding exercise. With the support of Simon (Oldroyd) our Founder Advisor, Paper Boat have been through a participative process with their own partners and members to achieve this. Please click here to read about their journey and here to receive their new updates.

Inspiring the next generation of women in international development! As part of a series of seminars entitled ‘Career Women’, Rosie (Bishop) was invited to give a talk at Newnham College in Cambridge about her experiences of international development and the voluntary sector. She was speaking alongside Sarah Wilson, former Deputy CEO at overseas development charity, VSO; and Sam Mardell, Strategic Partnership Manager with UCL, managing their relations with a South African health research institute. They can be seen pictured below with Alison Rose, Principal of Newnham College and former British Ambassador to Belgium.

Quote of the night from Charles Handy, mentioned in Rosie’s talk: ‘Do the best at what your best at for the benefit of others’.

Best wishes,

Rosie, Lorna and Ian

How do teams thrive?

How do teams thrive? How can a collaborative approach be sustained? We believe appreciation and building on strengths is very important. Six additional key elements for working together effectively have been suggested by Francesca Gino (click here to read her very recent article). They can be summarised as…

1. Better listening

2. Practising empathy

3. Being more comfortable with feedback

4. ‘Flexing’ leadership

5. Speaking with greater clarity

6. Fostering win-win interactions

In the past few days we’ve been in Dublin with three organisations. Firstly, exploring future opportunities with Dóchas, the representative organisation for international NGOs in Ireland. We have been very fortunate to have collaborated with this very important umbrella body for several years.
 
Next with Enclude, a very dynamic and innovative charity that enables other charities to achieve greater impact through digital transformation. Having recently facilitated the development of a new strategy, we ran a session focused on team development and delivering the strategy.
 
Finally, we have just started with An Cosán, a remarkable not for profit, that tackles poverty through education, creating pathways for people of all ages to learning, leadership and enterprise. Heydi Foster is the new CEO (pictured below). We previously had the opportunity to contribute alongside Heydi during her time as CEO of Misean Cara. Around 120 An Cosán staff came together to strengthen leadership and teamworking with a focus on organisational culture and managing priorities.

Alice Walker quote: ‘Thank you is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that a lot. Thank you expresses gratitude, humility and understanding.’

Happy Monday!

Lorna, Ian and Rosie

Why is less oftentimes more?!

Why is less sometimes more?! In a new Harvard Business Review article, Dorie Clark reasons that most people realise that having too many goals is counter-productive. However, they nevertheless find it very difficult to prioritise. She provides four tips, such as ensuring goals are linked to overall vision. Click here to read more.
 
We believe, when facilitating strategic development and change processes with organisations, that it is important to help distil the essence of strategy to one page. We call this a ‘SOAP’ (Strategy On A Page). Please contact us if you’d like to see examples. Often keeping in mind the power of three, for communication purposes is helpful. For instance, having three overarching and compelling strategic goals is often more memorable and likely to be achieved than having too many. We would usually recommend avoiding having more than five.  
 
This year we are announcing an exciting initiative! We will be making available, to our wider Caplor Community – including all those that receive these updates – a series of webinars in 2020. You are all very welcome. There will be four this year.
 
The Community Webinars will be focused on:

1. Cross cultural communication (13/03)

2. Inspiration from our forthcoming book, including how to gain most learning from it (‘The Change Maker’s Guide to New Horizons: Organising Differently for Sustainable Futures’) (09/06)

3. Gender balance and feminist principles (23/09)

4. Strategy development (08/12).

Each webinar will be for 1.5 hours. We will use zoom (and explain how to use it for those who have never tried it before). We will provide more details, and promote the particular webinars, nearer the time. Hopefully lots of you will be interested to join.
 
We’re delighted to share that Sharon (Turnbull), a very long standing Advisor, will lead on these. Sharon is a professor of leadership and has been practically engaged with a very wide variety of Caplor Horizons activities since the outset. Each webinar will include a short presentation which will involve other people as well as Sharon. There will be lots of opportunity for participants to learn and reflect from each other. Contact Lorna, Rosie or Ian if you have any queries of suggestions. Thank you
 
The Gambia: here are some pictures from recent days. Many thanks to Denise (Mulligan) and David (Coates) who were with Rosie. This was the latest phase of our ongoing programme with United Purpose with marketing groups from across the country led by women.

Helen Keller quote: ‘when one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us’

Have a great weekend, 

Lorna, Rosie and Ian

Why ‘do the best at what you are best at for the benefit of others’?!

Charles Handy is a social philosopher. He has been proactively supporting Caplor Horizons since the outset. In recent days, we met with him. He has very generously agreed to be interviewed for our book. This is very exciting news. Charles has a global reputation for being one of the leading thinkers of our time.
 
Over 15 people involved with Caplor Horizons have been co-creating a book. This is called: ‘The Change Maker’s Guide to New Horizons: Organising Differently for Sustainable Futures’. A full draft has now been created. Watch this space for more developments. We aim to finalise it in the next three to six months.
 
Here is something that Charles translated from Ancient Greek! ‘Do the best at what you are best at for the benefit of others.’  It is something Aristotle said. Charles reasons that the inclusion of ‘for the benefit of others’ is very important for humanity. This is because we can all, in small or big ways, contribute to something beyond ourselves, to a bigger purpose. The organisations we work with, and our Advisors', demonstrate in practical ways this contribution to a bigger purpose. Our Advisors' often devote time way beyond the call of duty, working voluntarily or at reduced costs.
 
A tremendous thank you to Simon! Many within the Caplor Community know Simon. He has contributed in a transformative and very positive way since the first dreams about Caplor Horizons were being conjured up over six years ago. As ‘Marketing Advisor’ he has led on a myriad of creative and very substantial undertakings, putting heart and soul - and incredible energy and voluntary time - into everything he has done. This has included bringing in the prodigious creative talents of his son Ben along the way. Amidst all else he has tirelessly asked questions, sometimes difficult ones, to ensure things move forward in a well-founded way. Quite simply, Simon’s contribution has been at the very essence of making Caplor Horizons what it is today. Please read Simon’s letter to you all here.
 
In recognition of his outstanding contribution - very much within the spirit of ‘doing the best at what you are best at for the benefit of others’ - Simon has been invited to become our first ‘Founder Advisor’. Simon’s story and his smiling face will continue to beam out to the world via our website. Simon has explained that he has always contributed in 5 to 7 year cycles and that he is now ready to move on from involvement with practical activities. However, he will remain part of the family and will be keeping in touch, including joining us at gatherings occasionally. Below is a picture of Simon with Dan when they were together in Nairobi, contributing to the TechnoServe team there and visiting their project activities. Ben will be continuing as an Advisor, from now on focusing his input on ‘in house’ Caplor Horizons related activities (e.g. our annual impact infographic).

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quote: ‘If you don’t understand, ask questions. If your uncomfortable about asking questions, say you are uncomfortable about asking questions, and then ask anyway.’

Have a great weekend, 

Lorna, Rosie and Ian

What is so important about Cross-Cultural Communication?!

What is cross-cultural communication? This includes speech, body language, text and pictures by a range of media across differences in ‘culture’, described as a set of shared assumptions about what is important and how to behave. These differences are relative and deep-rooted. They apply to groups of people, not necessarily to any one individual. Click here to read a paper by Peter (Moore); this is focused on differences in national culture. 
 
Why has cross-cultural communication grown in importance? This is because new patterns of organisation and closer links between people are emerging all over our world: benefits of lower cost, greater speed and closer cooperation are partly offset by increased potential for misunderstanding between people from different cultures. A tool that can aid cross-cultural communication is Hofstede’s model of national culture. It consists of six dimensions on which many countries have been assessed through research. This model is introduced in the paper. 
 
We all face challenges involved with cross cultural communication in one form or another. We can do our best, whilst learning more, and then improving our approach, challenging our assumptions along the way. For instance, this week Denise (Mulligan), David (Coates) are with Rosie in The Gambia. We’re continuing a three year programme of engagement there with a national level marketing federation led by women; this is in collaboration with United Purpose. We’re also working with a small NGO, TARUD. The work involved requires continual learning to effectively address cultural communication challenges. 
 
During the previous visit to The Gambia, Gareth (Jones) created three films: these are all between 2-3 mins and can be found on our website here, under 'Films'.

Have a great weekend, 

Lorna, Rosie and Ian

Happy new year, happy new ventures?!

Happy New Year everyone,

Celebrating a new year, a new decade and new beginnings, we are delighted to announce the arrival of our newest addition to the Caplor Community, Asta Vickery Adams. Laura (Vickery), our Deputy Chair gave birth to Asta on 4th January. All are happy and well.

Reflecting on our last year, and progress on our strategy, we’re always mindful to strengthen our model for sustainable income. For the non profit sector, ‘membership’ can often be a critical part of sustainable finance. A strong membership base can have various benefits such as providing a constituency for the organisation and funds that can be used to support key activities. As valued people within our Caplor Community, our existing members are extremely important to us. We currently have just over 60 members which last year provided around £13,000 in unrestricted funding. 

As we continue to grow in influence and impact we are now looking to increase our membership. If you would like to contribute financially to the work we do, and become a member, please click here for a standing order form. Or you can set up directly via your bank. If you are eligible for Gift Aid (re UK tax) then please click here. If you have any queries please contact one of us. Most of our members contribute approx £10 per month, some more, some less. Whatever suits. Your support and engagement in this way would be tremendously appreciated. 

Looking to the future, African Initiatives have started engaging with us, initially on strengthening team-working. Their focus as an international development charity, is working with Maasai, Iraqw and other indigenous communities in the challenging socio-economic landscape of northern Tanzania. Pictured below are some UK team team at their first session with us. 

T.S. Eliot quote: ‘For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning’.     

Have a great day, 

Lorna, Rosie and Ian

Our present to you...

What is our present?! So many of you have asked how you can use the Caplor House Cards with your teams, organisations and friends. We are delighted to now have this available as an online tool on our website, to access click here. Please pass on this news and this 'present' to others. We are keen to share this as widely as possible. A huge thank you to Deven (Thakkar) for creating this. 

What is the Caplor House? For those not familiar with this tool, this is an organisational effectiveness and leadership development model, created by our Advisors, that provides a shared language for learning. For more background, click here.

This is our last update for this year. We’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a peaceful festive time and a very happy New Year! Below is a card, handmade by Rosie, that is based on the four rooms of the Caplor House!  

Debby Boone quote: “Dreams are the seeds of change. Nothing ever grows without a seed, and nothing every changes without a dream.”

Have a great day!

Lorna, Rosie and Ian

What is the new normal?

Creating change is about defining a new normal. And this is something FAIR SHARE are motivated to do. They encourage organisations to commit to a ‘fair share’ of women leaders in their organisations in order to create systemic and cultural change. Caplor Horizons has made this commitment and we encourage other organisations to do so. To become part of this movement, click here.

We are very excited to announce the publication of The Commitment’s first piece of quantitative research: ‘Climate change: UK citizens want the government to do more’. The Commitment is a major initiative within Caplor Horizons and it aims to speed up political action for nature and the climate. One of the key findings from this report included that over one third of citizens would only vote for a party that they believed was genuinely committed to reducing climate change. To read the paper, click here!

We have also been focusing on ‘elf and wellbeing! We've just had our last Community Day of the year which focused on reflection and learning. Of course we couldn’t help having some festive fun along the way! Thank you to the 40 people that came. Particular thanks go to Sharon (Turnbull), Laura (Vickery), Clive (Hyland) and Ann (Alder) for leading fascinating sessions throughout the day. Below is a picture of our core team and some of our Caplor community triumphantly taking part in some (almost impossible) exercises!

Henry Mintzberg quote: “Reflection without action is passive; action without reflection is thoughtless.”

Have a great day!

Lorna, Rosie and Ian