Poem for November 2020

November is my mum’s birthday month. I wrote this poem just after she died in September 2017.

Frith Wood Memorial Bench

The air is still

or so it seems until

on the edge of vision,

the rosebay willow herb’s feathered heads

appear to sway.

Is that how dying is

an imperceptible swaying on the edge

a movement toward then away

here then not

as the last breath leaves?

Distant crows caw.

A wood pigeon coos.

The wind picks up, rustles

the uppermost leaves of the sky-ranging beeches

then ceases.

The rosebay stills.

No birdsong or other sound

enters the silence.

Coaching Conversations: Episode 4

In this episode I talk with Tess Cope whose Transformation Agency specializes in transformational leadership and executive coaching for senior management teams and HR leaders across a range of diverse organisations.

I’ve always been interested in looking at the larger system and part of my work is doing organizational cultural diagnostics with the aim of helping clients understand what kind of culture would aid their strategic plans compared to where they are today – what’s the gap? So the hook that got me tuned into the systemic approach is that it’s another way of understanding the whole, a way of getting in tune with some of those invisible dynamics that other diagnostics can’t reach.

Horses can play a key role in the work and as a lifelong lover of horses this was an aspect of Tess’s practice that had to be explored – along with her application of the systemic approach.

I first incorporated the horses in what I would call classic leadership development work, helping leaders look at what’s their trust, what’s their energy, how do they build rapport? The horses are magnificent at simulating those scenarios in a very safe, but magnified way. I still incorporate that in my work with leaders if, indeed, that is the area that they need to work on.

Episode 3 of Coaching Conversation with Jane James explains more about systemic constellations for organisations.

Mentioned in the podcast

The Transformation Agency website: http://www.thetransformationagency.com

The Whole Partnership: https://www.wholepartnership.com/systemic-coaching-constellations/