Just back from a three day strategy session with my favourite bank. We looked for some inspiration in the Kröller-Müller Museum at the Hoge Veluwe and were confronted with this guy lying between thombstones. The museum is at the most beautiful location in The Netherlands with Van Gogh, Picasso, Mondriaan and this month a special exhibition of Jan Fabre, the Flemish artist.
Just a little provoking but it opens your mind completely. It’s wonderful what art does with you. The second night wild life guides showed us nature in The Netherlands and we were treated on a wonderful dinner by Baron van Voorst tot Voorst in his hunting lodge. In between we designed the guidelines for the three year strategy plan with the top 31 of the bank. Since it’s now the fourth year that I supported them it’s not necessary anymore to tell about Theory U. Everybody is talking the jargon. Generative listening is the key word and even more special: they do it. Of course there is quite a lot of downloading and cautious debating but the overall flow is respect for each other and a longing to understand each other better. My role starts to change. It becomes more and more building the container and the challenging part -that I always like so much- is less needed. Keeping the container and safe guarding that the conversations have enough depth and help people to get to that other place is something that is being asked for. I act a bit more in the background and there is less ego involved. The learning is huge though. Sensitivity is needed.
I was asked to write a book about the right side of the U. Prototyping is still problematic for many organizations and some new concepts and ideas will be useful. A nice task for this year. Next week I’ll be in Boston for the advanced Theory U course where we will dive into prototyping with IDEO. The key question for me, is the one that Rudolf Mees asked several months ago: “Where does movement start?” Does movement start in the brain when you pick something from the table? No earlier: there is an object in front of you that asks you to be picked up, or? I guess there are some answers and for sure new questions if I follow the upcoming months these lines of thought.