Creative Thinking underpins sound business vision, strategy development & effective problem solving!

Career facilitators and established artists, Stephanie MacKendrick & Rodger Harding present their annual fun, four-hour painting workshop series designed to enhance your ability to: 

• Recognize creative strengths 
• Connect analytical & creative thinking 
• Confidently apply creative thinking to solving business problems

We have seen first-hand how this process enables creative explorers of all ages and business backgrounds to better articulate, sell and apply their creative competencies for effective problem solving and leadership! A confidential written brief, summarizing observations and insights provides a future guide to the best use of your identified creative strengths.

Please indicate preferred dates: Workshop participants are matched to ensure a compatible group. Once you have indicated your preferred times, we will confirm your session within 7 days. A limit of 4 people ensures maximum individual attention. A relaxed atmosphere with wine/cheese, good music and good company/conversation is guaranteed!

• Monday, November 4th         4:00pm-8:00pm Sold Out
• Monday, November 11th       4:00pm-8:00pm Sold Out
• Wdenesday, November 27th  4:00pm-8:00pm Sold Out
• I am interested but none of these dates work for me

No artistic experience is required! Register now to reserve your place!

Cost: $350.00, including take-home materials to enable continued creative exploration!

Ask us about our advanced group and individual sessions!

Contact: Rodger Harding (416) 962-6700  rodger@hardingintl.com or Stephanie MacKendrick (416) 466-0569 stephanie@mackendrickassociates.com

www.rodgerhardingart.com            www.mackendrickartshow.com

Increasingly today we read of people whose societal alienation or Anomie leads them to do dreadful things. So much so, that average folk seem to have lost patience with looking at the whys and wherefores, and clamor for retribution/justice with the bloodthirsty fervour of a lynch mob. Oftentimes the loud demand for legislative solutions draws the noose tighter around the consciousness of afflicted individuals. 

Societal templates are reassuring for most. However for those who see the bigger picture and who are sensitive to what others miss, rigidity can be quite catastrophic. I have heard the feeling described as akin to “driving a Porsche on go-kart track”!

Harding Leadership Programs strive to awaken those in leadership, teaching and parental roles to accommodate these special people before they feel disconnected from the society’s norms. Of course time and effort, not to speak of the empathy/awareness, are required to recognize stifled originality. We talk blithely in organizational/corporate circles of playing to individual/team strengths, but sadly I guess we all to easily fall back on the set job-description, curriculum or family norm as a safe/comfortable guideline. More...

To safeguard privacy in the context of the post below would then appear to be an impossible task!

For more than decade Harding Intelligence Programs have heightened awareness of diverse organizations to the importance of managing the people role in the gathering and protecting of information. The Snowden saga serves as a reminder that prompts me to revisit the our basic approach to safeguarding privacy. 

With regard to managing technology our approach is inspired by Marshall McLuhan, a forward thinking Canadian who wrestled with the influence of technology in the modern times… albeit before the advent of  the internet and the digital era: “any technology that ... creates extensions of the human body and senses” (McLuhan 1995, 239). In other words extends rather than replaces human capacity!

McLuhan highlighted the importance of managing new technology:More...

Dear Clients & Friends,

Once again, in preparation for our annual closure (20th December 2012- 2nd January 2013), I extend my heartfelt thanks to clients and friends for making 15 years of fulfilling operation possible!

The main thrust of my work this year, in addition to general corporate and individual training initiatives, was focused on assisting deserving women to achieve their fullest Leadership potential. In this context I was gratified to receive a World of Difference 100 Award from The International Alliance of Women (TIAW), in the Champion of Women's Economic Empowerment category. In addition to positive results, external recognition always provides much needed encouragement and motivation to sustain the passion and growth so vital to navigating the path forward!

Interaction at the award ceremony in Washington again drove home a long standing observation that many high achievers are incredibly unaware of their real professional/personal impact. How the world is a better place because they are in it! Success seems all too often measured by position, salary and public acclaim. Similarly, I find that positive feedback is often viewed with suspicion, while self-congratulation seems to be a cardinal sin!
  
That said … How many of us take the time to show others that we have an understanding of who they are beyond the job description, role or place in the corporate hierarchy … That who they are matters to us?
Conversely, how many of us really want to be seen by others… Do we not hide behind illusory masks in the work place and oftentimes in society?

I do not exaggerate when I say that almost 90% of my clients, including those holding senior positions, to varying degrees feel somewhat invisible and isolated … Fearful of revealing uncertainty, vulnerability or fear.  Does this denial of basic humanity not seem in stark contrast to environments that tout the ideals of leadership, team collaboration and empowerment on a daily basis?

Will not people who consider themselves unseen feel excluded, frustrated, empty and at times angry? This may at very least mean that some will never reach full potential, while others might become negative, resentful and even destructive. Recent world events provide extreme examples of just how catastrophically this phenomenon might play out.   

During the holiday season it would be good to reflect on our conscious ability to see, understand and acknowledge individuality... Our own and that of others! This will perhaps be the greatest manifestation of our personal and professional impact … To make the world a better place! 
   
My best wishes to you all for the Holidays … And a safe, healthy and prosperous 2013!

I look forward to renewed contact in the New Year.

Warm regards,

Rodger

An interesting article doing the rounds of blogs, journals raises the important issue of automated resume screening… and that candidates need to “clear the hurdle” of diverse software management before they are even considered.

Touted as cost-saving, this sort of software encourages employers to hand over the thinking part of the hiring process to technology. While most of us passionately embrace evolving technology, is it not prudent to remember that humans create and decode software? To be saleable such products have to appeal to the middle line… Suffice to say excellence will be discarded along with truly unsuitable candidates!

Being seen for who one is a primary human requirement! What will be the consequences for both effective business, and our society in general, if we are governed by an ever increasing template that ignores individuality, uniqueness, and seeks only those who are able to blindly comply with middle of the road requirements?  

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304821304577436172660988042.html

Rather than shouldering the full burden of managing crisis and chaos, effective leadership admits realities, looks to the unknown… and the greater group… for inspiration…and reflects relevance!

Check out this clip for a magical illustration of effective facilitation...and securing buy in...!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaXE0v0bJoE&feature=related

Convincing clients that understanding and providing answers to complex organizational challenges lies in exactly the same approach to simplistic issues has always been difficult.

Over the years I have relied more on more on mathematical proof (ironic as I am a complete math idiot) as a persuasive tool that chaos, change and evolution are an integral part of life and should be accepted & managed rather than avoided… Quests for certainty are futile!

In particular the work of Benoit Mandelbrot and his Fractal Geometry of Nature (see the Mandelbrot Set) theories that illustrate chaotic enormity contains smaller version of the same phenomenon… “Fractal property of self-similarity applies to the entire set, and not just to its parts.”

The Morphogenesis work of Alan Turing, one of my most inspirational role-models, identifies a simple math equation that illustrates how chaos has its origins in order. Boris Belousov similarly explored and identified the co-existence of chaos in uniformity.
The Belousov-Zhabotinky reaction demonstrates that “under the influence of stimuli, patterns develop in what would otherwise be a perfectly quiescent medium.” Working in the 1950’s, both men’s findings were at the time rejected by conservative scientific mainstream as out to lunch!

Edward Lorenz’s Butterfly Effect, describes how an initial random event, in normal conditions, can result in chaotic results. Chaos in turn will return to initial conditions!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEw8xpb1aRA

Despite the incessant meeting of time, budget and bottom-line parameters, an effective leader would perhaps do well to, at very least, to acknowledge creative individual/team input. So often different or critical thinking is regarded as tangential, time-wasting or even negative.

It is surely a strong service-orientation that would most often prompt suggestion or unsolicited input?
Consistent dismissal or ignoring of ideas will, with time, de-motivate the most committed individual. De-motivated people quit, or worse, stay on as a bitter and negative influence.

Consider the words of maverick/iconoclastic WWII hero Orde Wingate:

“A man who possesses creative ability tends inevitably to form his own original opinions. Unless he is very fortunate the value of his opinions will not be apparent to his superiors unless there is some acid test to which they can be put”  

Wherever possible/appropriate a good leader will provide the occasion for such a test. Innovative/forward thinking forestalls problems, sustains the competitive edge… and in the long term, saves money!  

In the interview/hiring process both the hirer and prospective employee should ascertain the level/percentage that strategy VS execution is desired/required!

Recent involvment with the annual Engineers without Borders (EWB) Africa Leadership Conference was both refreshing and stimulating.

Exchanging ideas with such intelligent and erudite minds gave true meaning to global awareness and the importance of building bridges that facilitate a two way flow of ideas! The underlying philosophy of EWB promotes real understanding between nations and collaborative development rather than imposed, and often unworkable, aid packages. An amazing experience!    

 http://conference2012.ewb.ca/en/conference/african-leadership-program.html

http://www.ewb.ca/

 Delegates hailed from Ghana, Malawi, Bourkino Faso & Zambia 

A recent read of Jonathan Garfinkel’s excellent book Ambivalence, revealed the following passage that, for me, beautifully sums up the underlying ideal of purpose driven leadership. So often today, we confuse leadership with the pursuit of power & influence!

“We are free in so far as we can choose whether or not to act morally...
We're free when we examine our actions, ask hard questions, search for
connection to the ancient...And this freedom is not for the sake of some
ecstatic feeling, nor is it to test how well one follows the laws. Rather,
our choice lies in the attempt to become better people, to do better unto
others.” - Jonathan Garfinkel, AMBIVALENCE