Many years as a facilitator with teams in business and a wake-up call (the death of a parent) convinced me getting richer fails to solve our problems as a society (hunger, poverty, education etc), problems that today seem to be getting bigger and harder to grip. So I began a quest that included being a school governor for 5 years (helping to rebuild the school), working with health system leaders, in international cultural relations and with a development charity in the third poorest country in the world. And out of all this came an invitation from the British Council to develop leaders in Africa and brought me into the arms of my MiDDLEGROUND colleagues. From working with many leaders we know the tree story (see previous blog) is just a small example of how you can make a difference when tough problems are costing you dearly. Spotting such patterns brought MiDDLEGROUND last year to partner with LSE Complexity Group where Professor Eve Mitleton-Kelly is unearthing from intensive research over years the “magic ingredients” or “complexity principles” that you can pull on for transformation to occur. Which brings us to a question: what is your “tree trunk”, I mean, your current insurmountable challenge? With Eve you can find out how thinking in a different way can transform your stuck system of many stakeholders into a lively environment where each enables others to make the whole entity perform. In buying this “systemic mentor” approach be warned its application takes time and effort, but please also be assured we are bringing you something special, human-scale, business relevant, widely applicable and very valuable. To book your place go to: Module B Systemic Mentors in London, 23-25 October 2012. Tony, 26th July 2012