Beyond Either Or

We help you redefine what';s possible so you can more effectively express your purpose

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What is your calling or purpose?

What does it ask you to step into and become?

We help you identify the most essential of your current strengths and develop the new capacities that you need to succeed in your mission.

We work at the individual, team and organisational level, to transform your ability to deliver impact.

While we will help you address your shorter-term issues, our intention is always to help you develop your own capabilities so that next time you face a comparable situation you feel comfortable moving forward without the support of a coach or consultant.

 

We believe that

  1. at the individual level, impact is shaped by behaviour, and behaviour is shaped by beliefs.
  2. at the organizational level, behaviour is also shaped by culture, systems and processes.
  3. the behaviours and beliefs that have been central to our success so far can impose limits on our future impact.
  4. under the right circumstances, change can happen quickly and unlock huge impact.
  5. change is resisted when current strengths are not acknowledged or not included in the target vision.
  6. the vast majority of us show up in the best way available to us, given our current sets of beliefs and behaviours.
  7. when we see a better way and are supported and held accountable for our actions, we will gladly step into new, more effective, ways.
  8. people get onboard for change when​ there is psychological safety and all voices in a team are heard.

 

What beliefs do you hold? How might you complete these sentences?

  1. People on my team should…
  2. I’m doing a good job when…
  3. Strong leadership looks like…
  4. In meetings we should…

 

Review your answers: do your beliefs seem to create more openings and possibilities in your leadership and relationships, or do they set limitations? We would love to hear your answers.

Share your answers

Do you agree with or aspire to these statements?

  1. You take responsibility for your actions, developmental path and impact.
  2. You want to support your team, organization or stakeholders to grow.
  3. You are willing to see things in new ways and challenge what you thought you knew.
  4. You are purpose-driven and willing to embrace complexity.

 

If so, we would like to support you. Reach out to us to explore how we can help you to reach your goals.

What would it take to increase the performance of your team or organization?

What would it ask of you?

SERVICES AND IMPACT

We offer

Individual coaching for executives, leaders and change makers
Team coaching for two or more people
Consulting on organisational change
Bespoke trainings to build future capabilities

At the organisational level, we have

  1. Developed transformation framework based on cultural and capabilities assessments
  2. Delivered coaching to more than 100 leaders at various levels in a multinational organisation
  3. Designed and facilitated strategies and processes to adapt to a necessary change in funding, clients, or product
  4. Completed an in-depth culture and capability assessment to create frameworks for organisational culture change
  5. Created collaborative processes for leaders to manage uncertainty and change
  6. Supported organisations to engage in a more agile way of working at all levels

 

At the team level, we have

  1. Facilitated executive teams to revise the organisation’s core values, ground rules, and ways of working
  2. Coached executive teams to develop and role-model organisational values and culture
  3. Supported executive teams to be bold and respectful in creating a learning culture
  4. Facilitated difficult conversations within executive teams and between teams to cultivate trust
  5. Facilitated conversations to help teams manage polarities and harvest the benefits of opposing perspectives

 

At the individual level, we have

  1. Coached executives to lead from trust, holding teams accountable for outcomes rather than activities
  2. Supported leaders to help their team members communicate more directly and concisely in meetings
  3. Supported leaders to own and express power effectively and hold people accountable
  4. Helped leaders set boundaries and follow through on priorities
  5. Supported leaders in burnout to reset and reengage from a healthier place

 

In addition, we offer open courses and workshops covering capabilities from the Beyond Either Or Leadership Development Framework.

Self-Leadership Workshop

Relationship leadership workshop

Process leadership workshop

Radical empathy … means putting in the work to educate oneself and to listen with a humble heart to understand another’s experience from their perspective, not as we imagine we would feel … It is the kindred connection from a place of deep knowing that opens your spirit to the pain of another as they perceive it.

Isabel Wilkerson

The brain is a stubborn organ.  Once its primary set of beliefs has been established, the brain finds it difficult to integrate opposing ideas and beliefs. This has profound consequences for individuals and society and helps to explain why some people cannot abandon destructive beliefs, be they religious, political or psychological.

Andrew B. Newberg​

The inherent preferences of organizations are clarity, certainty and perfection. The inherent nature of human relationships involves ambiguity, uncertainty, and imperfection. How one honors, balances, and integrates the needs of both is the real trick of feedback.

Richard Pascale​

Unity, not uniformity, must be our aim. We attain unity only through variety. Differences must be integrated, not annihilated, not absorbed.

Mary Parker Follett​

Flexibility comes from having multiple choices; wisdom comes from having multiple perspectives.

Robert Dilts

FRAMEWORKS AND PERSPECTIVES

Our work is informed by these approaches:

Integral theory

Ken Wilber’s Integral metatheory claims that to fully observe and understand the context of any given situation, we should look through five different lenses: four quadrants, lines of intelligence, stages of development, states, and types.

As Integral Master Coaches trained by Integral Coaching Canada (ICC), we use each of these lenses to identify the specific acupressure points of highest leverage for your goals and situation. We each have more than ten years of experience applying the ICC methodology, in coaching and other contexts.

Leadership Development Framework

While we look through all five lenses of Integral Theory, we do not expect you to take the time to learn them. We may refer instead to the Leadership Development Framework which is a simpler map that we have designed for people in organisations working on some shared objectives. The four quadrants of Integral are mapped into three domains of leadership: Self Leadership, Relationship Leadership and Process Leadership. Within each domain we have identified three capabilities, equating to intelligences in the Integral model, that we have found to be particularly helpful for clients.

Are you equally skilled in these three domains of leadership? Do you believe one is more or less important than the others? Do you tend to neglect any of them?

Integrating polarities

Another framework central to our way of working is that of integrating polarities – moving from “either or” to “both and” thinking. For us, this is often about recognising and affirming the strengths are already here and important to be included in the future, while also recognising the contexts where these very strengths may hold you back and may need to be transcended. The move of include-and-transcend results in greater awareness and the availability of a wider range of options in any situation. If we attempt to transcend to some new way without including, there will be massive resistance to change.

There are some polarities that are common to many organisations. We can also help you identify those that are uniquely yours at this point in your journey.

Agile, Lean & Scrum

The practices of agile, lean and scrum are aligned with our understanding of how to maximise impact, how to learn and how to develop capabilities. Successful implementation depends on attending to Self and Relationship Leadership as well as Process Leadership. As such these practices also hold the promise of more empowerment and more rewarding, more human, experiences at work.

The Agile Manifesto of 2001 is an expression of the kind of  “both and” (i.e. beyond “either or”) thinking that we like.

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
– Individuals and interactions over processes and tools,
– Working software over comprehensive documentation,
– Customer collaboration over contract negotiation,
– Responding to change over following a plan.
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Our framework of beliefs shaping behaviour and behaviour shaping impact aligns with the Lean Start-up Build-Measure-Learn process.

Other influences and practices

Our work is also informed by:

Circling

Robert Kegan

Barrett Values Model

Otto Scharmer’s Theory U

Deep Democracy

Voice Dialogue

Leadership Agility

We want to work with you if you are committed to making the world a better place …

… and are willing to do what it takes to increase your impact.