Convos (Blog)
Applied creativity and inventive thinking for regular people in everyday life.
Mind the SCARF
What stops people from entertaining creativity in their workplaces? I found many possible answers to that question, but I quite liked the social threat angle behind David Rock’s SCARF model. It’s hard to be creative when one of the following is under threat: Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, or Fairness.
Boring Beats Brilliant
“Great leadership is boring.” So began Craig Groeschel at the 2025 Global Leadership Summit. His point? Most people celebrate the results of great leadership without noticing the routines. We see the stage performance and ignore the work behind the scenes. But consistency beats charisma.
Warms My Facilitator Heart
Last week, I was at a virtual conference, and I heard two different speakers talk about the importance of facilitation skills. This wasn’t a passing mention either, this was a full-scale endorsement of facilitative practice. As a long-time facilitator, my ears perked up, and my heart warmed through.
Make Moves or Excuses
I have a confession. I help groups collaborate to make good decisions for their organizations, but sometimes I struggle to make decisions myself. People often see a risk I take (that they can’t imagine taking), but they don’t see all the thinking, planning, and mitigating that goes on beforehand.
Three Weekly Wins
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had more than my fair share of rough weeks recently. But even during our worst weeks, we have small accomplishments that make us proud. The trick is to slow down long enough to reflect on those wins and be grateful. I created the Weekly Wins worksheet to start building a habit of reflecting on things that went well.
Over Confident Intern
Stop me if you’ve heard this, but during a recent conference presentation I heard a speaker describe Generative AI (i.e., ChatGPT and all the cousins) as an over-confident intern. It made me chuckle – and then I realized that I quite like that characterization.
Fill In The Blanks
Last month, I decided to ditch the deck on two separate occasions. No PowerPoint. Just me, myself, and my notes. Before we get too far here, this is not an anti-PowerPoint rant. In fact, I quite like the challenge of trying to make complicated information more concise one slide at a time. I also love the visual element of designing slides (and yes, I take too much time trying to make them look just right).
Social Snowflake
As a hetero-normative, middle-class, white guy I too often forget that the systems in which we work and live have been built for people like me. These workshops have forced me to learn – and unlearn – a lot about the experiences of others.
Go To Bed Earlier
Tasha Eurich talks about the three conditions that we need to thrive: 1) confidence, 2) choice, and 3) connection. To help, she created a quick self-assessment activity. I like new tools, so I thought I’d give it a try and evaluate my current mental state.
Strat Plan Woes
Last week, my inbox included the subject line: “Hello, and Strat Plan Woes.” Two thoughts: 1) Yikes! and 2) Been there. Nothing like cutting right to the chase.
Can’t Make Babies
In Liberating Structures parlance, the team was stuck in a classic Rigidity Trap. We like the success we’re enjoying now so we get stuck. We don’t want to give up our current programs – even when we know they aren’t producing the impact they once enjoyed.
Human-First Learning
I run my own facilitation business, but I’m a teacher at heart. I love designing learning experiences that surprise and delight all parties involved – the students and the instructor(s). Delivering those learning experiences is special too.
Mark Your Miles
Goals should be SMART (i.e., Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound), right? Organizations love the SMART framework because it forces people to set goals that are measurable. But what if SMART goals aren’t actually that smart?
Describe It For Me
Recently, I’ve been doing some program mapping with groups. On paper everything looks great. But the teams feel unsettled. They know they have too much on their plates. They have no room left to innovate. Where to cut? Where to refocus? Where to create space? Where to begin?
This Hits Different
Work culture lies to us. We’re told resilience is a muscle that we can keep exercising – but what happens when that muscle gets injured? We’re told what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger - but what happens when added stress leaves us weak and listless?
No More Wasted Talent
To be clear, the morally ambitious path is not easy – and success is certainly not guaranteed. But pursuing morally ambitious causes is better than continuing our mind-numbing, pointless and even harmful jobs.
Wildly Better Place
Spoiler alert: this book (Moral Ambition) pulls no punches. It’s irritatingly wonderful. Bregman sets up his thesis from the first chapter: “Moral ambition is the will to make the world a wildly better place.” In his view, moral ambition is the antidote to our culture’s mind-numbing, pointless and even harmful jobs.
AAA Leaders
I created the AAA Leaders worksheet after reading about a class of architecture students who were struggling to find inspiration for their final design projects. I started thinking about the people who inspired my leadership journey.
Invent Over Innovate
On the one hand I understand the urge to eyeroll every time someone claims an “innovative breakthrough.” On the other, sometimes we do arrive at truly ingenious solutions worth celebrating.
Innovation Means Agency
Innovation is an overused buzzword. Many groups I work with have a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes innovation. In my estimation, innovation is simply about taking personal ownership over a problem you are facing and finding solutions that make things better.