What’s disturbing you?

“Write about what disturbs you, especially if it doesn’t seem to be disturbing anyone else” Skeeter Phelan is told by her publisher in “The Help”. I’m disturbed by Syria, I’m disturbed by water shortage and the growing social divide. I’m disturbed by our decline in mental health. I’m also disturbed by the way grated cheese behaves when you are trying to clean up after a 3 year old and the smell of the house when the local Tom cat has been in. But apart from the grated cheese I don’t think I am disturbed my much that others aren’t.

So I thought I’d dedicate this blog to grated cheese – they way it is irresponsive to a damp dishcloth, the way it curls off the plate onto the floor when you move from table to sink, its general level of unpredictability… Not really. What I wanted to say here is this. I’m disturbed by how more and more desperate many people in large organisations seem to be for space, for time to think, to be listened to, to collaborate, to churn and discuss things over, to take autonomous decisions in the interests of the mission at hand. I’m disturbed by how controlled many senior managers feel. And I include for example CEOs of large national businesses who still feel crushed by the control of Global layers above.

In the Ideas Unlimited shed of ideas, we’ve been searching to find ways that help people in organisations (even in these times of massive change, economic pressure) create containers in which they can be autonomous; ways in which leaders can still have the assurance they need but in which executors/doers have the freedom to be human again. Is this disturbing anyone else?